Both the Maguan War and the First Choshu Conquest were caused by Choshu's radical attitude of fighting, and the two wars lost a little of the family foundation that the Choshu Clan had saved over the years, so in the later stages of the war, the radicals gradually lost power, and the conservatives (also known as the Popular Party) held the power within the domain.
After coming to power, the secular party naturally wanted to crack down on the radicals and hunt down the heads of the radicals everywhere in the domain, including Takasugi Shinsaku.
Shinsaku Takasugi
Takasugi shin was born into a family of intermediate samurai in the Choshu Domain, where he was sent by his family to study at the Myōrenkan, a samurai school in the domain. During his studies at the Minglun Pavilion, although Takasugi Shinsaku was very addicted to academic research, he was not accustomed to the almost harsh style of the museum. Later, when he heard that Yoshida Shoin had opened the Matsushita Village School, he ran impatiently. However, because Yoshida Shoin was still under house arrest at this time, Takasugi's family was very opposed to him doing so, so he sneaked over to listen to the lectures every night.
Matsushita Village Juku
During his studies at Matsushita Mura-juku, Yoshida Shoin admired Jinsaku very much, commenting on him: "Jinsaku's insight and boldness are difficult for others to look up to.
Yoshida Shoin was killed during Anzheng Prison, and due to his family background, Jinsaku did not do anything to rescue the teacher, but the teacher's death must have made Jinsaku, who was only twenty years old at the time, think deeply and let him put his knowledge into practice.
Later, after many turns, Takasugi Shinsaku was transferred to Edo. After arriving in Edo, Jinsaku was persuaded by Matsushita Muraku's classmate Hisaka Genbata to participate in the assassination of the founding official Nagai Masaraku. Later, the Choshu clan official Katsura Kogoro (Kido Takayoshi) learned of the incident and tried to stop the matter, and asked Jinsaku to accompany the shogunate's ships on an envoy to the Great Qing.
Takayoshi Kido after Meiji
The mission stayed in Nagasaki for more than three months, during which Jinsaku spent a lot of money on the mission fees funded by the clan, and later several friends who were traveling together finally made up for the money.
Nagasaki was Japan's treaty port at that time, so there were many foreigners, and Jinsaku actually learned English here for more than three months. Moreover, he also heard that the United States was fighting the Civil War at that time, and the Great Qing was fighting the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, which could not help but make Jin Zuo think that the internal troubles were far more terrible than the external troubles.
China has always been the object of Japanese learning, and the Dahua reform and the Tang Dynasty envoys in that year can see their pursuit and study of Chinese civilization. Unfortunately, when Takasugi Set foot on Chinese territory, China was at its lowest point in history within a hundred years.
On May 6, 1862, Takasugi arrived in Shanghai with a ship, greeted by the sound of artillery fire from the Qing Civil War. He also saw that there were British and French "foreign gun brigades" invited by the Qing government to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and that just two years earlier, the gang had just plundered the city of Beijing. Although the whole city of Shanghai is prosperous, but the city is the world of foreigners, Chinese here is only the slave of these foreigners, which can't help but remind him that if Japan does not change, it will be the same in the future.
The Yankees helped the Qing government fight against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
During Takasugi's envoy to the Qing Dynasty, the political situation in Japan underwent great changes, Shimazu Hisamitsu Kamitsu, The promulgation of the Bunhisa Reform, the raw wheat incident, the "Shogi" seems to have become the mainstream, Takasugi Shinsaku also became one of them, and he also directly participated in an attack on the British legation.
Soon after, choshu domain was promoted to the position of jin as an official of the Academy of Learning, mainly in Kyoto, responsible for the communication between the Shogi and the imperial court, but he did not want to do it for a long time, he voluntarily resigned and did not do it, but drank and had fun in Kyoto for a while.
On May 10, 1863, this day was the day when the shogunate promised the imperial court to "destroy", but everyone did not move, so the Choshu Domain fired at the American merchant ships, and the key was to use warships to hit people's merchant ships and even beat people to death, because they could not run away.
Then came the Maguan War, which we introduced earlier, and the Choshu Clan finally had to talk with foreigners. During the war. Takasugi Washisaku was recalled to the domain to organize resistance against the foreigners, and during his inspection of the front, Jinsaku found that the traditional samurai troops were of little significance in such battles, so he began to form the Strange Soldiers, which was later legendary in modern Japanese history.
The Wizards
The so-called strange soldiers are the opposite of the traditional samurai soldiers, and the pursuit is a more flexible way of fighting, similar to the guerrilla posture. The Odd Soldiers did not restrict the origins of their members, so in addition to samurai, farmers, merchants, and citizens could participate, which injected fresh blood into the traditional Japanese army.
While this side was busy fighting with foreigners, some radicals in the clan were thinking of going to Kyoto to avenge the "August 18" coup. Both Katsuragoro and Takasugi Shinsaku opposed the march to Kyoto, but they could not be dissuaded. So Jinsaku personally went to Kyoto to investigate the situation and demanded that he not send troops until he returned.
After arriving in Kyoto, Takasugi Shinsaku met Shintaro Nakaoka of the Tosa Domain, and the two immediately agreed to assassinate Shimazu Hisamitsu. It can be seen from this that Takasugi Jinsaku has a whimsical personality. Later, Katsura Kogoro personally lobbied him to return to Choshu, and after arriving in Choshu, Takasugi Jinsaku was imprisoned, and no one could dissuade the Choshu clan from sending troops to Kyoto, which eventually led to the "forbidden change".