Today I Learned: Historical Facts
+ Okada Izo 岡田以蔵 was born on 14 February 1838 (by the western calendar) as the oldest son of Okada Yoshihisa and his wife, Rie.
Izo's father has been described as a kind person who enjoyed the good fortune of others and was known in his neighborhood as a bit of a matchmaker.
+ Izo had one younger brother, Keikichi, who was born in March 1844.
+ Izo's personal name (imina) was Yoshifuru.
+ He was born in Iwamura village and when he was 10, the family moved to Enokuchi village, outside of Kochi castle town.
The particular neighborhood where his family lived was called Shichiken-machi 七軒町 ("seven eaves row") because his street had seven houses in a row.
The characters "七以", using the first character of 七軒町 (Shichiken-machi) and the first character of 以蔵 (Izo), were sometimes used as code for him in writings related to the Kinnoto (Tosa Loyalist Party).
+ Izo's father was originally an ashigaru who later bought his way into the rank of goshi with money.
Buying your way to a higher rank, or even buying your way into the samurai class from being a farmer or merchant, was not uncommon. Even Sakamoto Ryoma's family were originally merchants before buying their way to becoming goshi.
However, like ashigaru, goshi belonged to the class of low-ranking samurai (kashi) and in Tosa, which was a particularly conservative domain, a great division existed between kashi and joshi (upper-class samurai), making kashi the subject of discrimination and restrictions.
Those restrictions often dictated even small details of everyday life: kashi were not allowed to carry umbrellas, and they were not allowed to wear tabi socks or geta, even in winter.
+ Izo is often described as having been illiterate, but this idea originates from Shiba Ryotaro's fiction.
In reality, Izo had a normal education but was not a talented student, had little interest in books, and often found it difficult to articulate his thoughts. There were many instances people referred to him as "stupid" and "that idiot" throughout his life.
+ Izo was self-taught in swordsmanship to some extent. It's likely he initially learned from his father and then practiced on his own before formally joining a dojo.
I've been trying to unravel some of the sources and it appears he joined the fencing hall of Asada Kanshichi Naomoto in Kochi when he was 12 or 13 years old.
Asada was a master of the Ono-ha Itto-ryu (Nakanishi-ha Itto-ryu) who had previously studied at Shigakukan, one of the big sword schools in Edo. He was also the sword instructor for Tosa's han school.
It was here Izo first met Takechi Hanpeita, a fellow student 9 years his senior, who would become his mentor, someone he looked up to and followed without question for most of his life.
Izo joined Takechi's school in 1855, at 17 or 18, which was the year Takechi opened his own dojo. A lot of sources put Asada's and Takechi's schools together when talking about Izo's training, so it's confusing.
Izo was quickly recognized as being very talented and none of the other students provided him much of a challenge except Takechi himself. He finally found something he was good at!
+ In 1856, when Izo was 18 or 19, Takechi (and perhaps a recommendation letter from Asada) helped make it possible for him to travel to Edo and train at Shigakukan, Momonoi Shunzo's school, where he earned his Menkyo Chuden (middle license) in the Kyoshin Meichi-ryu style before returning to Tosa in 1858.
However, perhaps because Izo didn't have the same foundations in swordsmanship as the others, Momonoi called his sword "vulgar and without dignity."
+ In 1860, Izo was able to leave Tosa for training a second time, again helped by Takechi, who was using these trips for his own purposes: to gather others to his cause of Sonno Joi and build connections with shishi from other domains.
After spending time in Chugoku and Kyushu, Takechi left Izo behind in Oka domain to study the Jikishi-ryu style, while he (Takechi) went to Edo and worked on establishing his Kinnoto (Tosa Loyalist Party).
+ Izo returned to Edo in May 1861 and joined the Kinnoto out of loyalty to his teacher.
However, because he had no real interest in politics and his comrades excluded him from their political discussions, considering him too stupid to participate, Izo slowly became more distanced from Takechi, and when his teacher returned to Tosa later that year, Izo was once again left behind.
+ In January 1862, Izo set out to return to Tosa himself, but he became ill along the way and had to stay somewhere to recover before he was well enough to continue traveling home to Tosa.
Perhaps Izo should have taken the hint because things did not improve for him from there:
When Izo set out for Kyoto in June 1862 alongside Takechi and other comrades from the Kinnoto, they were hounded by the metsuke Inoue Saichiro, who was investigating the murder of Yoshida Toyo.
That murder had been ordered by Takechi and carried out by three members of the Kinnoto. Concerned that Inoue would arrest them, Takechi ordered Izo and three others to kill him.
This was the first in a number of assassinations Takechi ordered Izo to carry out that year, mostly in Kyoto. More about these here, in a separate post.
+ In January 1863, Izo suddenly left for Edo.
I'm not entirely clear why, nor do sources seem to agree. The most common theories are:
(1) Izo's services as an assassin were no longer needed because things were going poorly for the Kinnoto and Takechi returned to Tosa, leaving Izo behind once again;
(2) Izo had become more estranged from Takechi and his comrades and chose to leave, perhaps at least partly because he didn't want to be an assassin for a cause he didn't care about;
(3) Takechi reprimanded Izo for his behavior and told him to leave.
Whatever the reason, Takechi removed Izo's name from the membership roster of the Kinnoto.
+ After he arrived in Edo, Izo lived for a short while with Takasugi Shinsaku. However, when Takasugi was recalled to Choshu, Izo was once again left in limbo.
+ It was around the time Takasugi left that Izo was introduced to Katsu Kaishu, either by Takasugi Shinsaku or more likely by Sakamoto Ryoma, who had known him since they were young boys in Tosa. Izo became Katsu's bodyguard.
Katsu Kaishu mentioned Izo in his writing:
As I was walking through the city that night, three samurai suddenly appeared in front of me on Teramachi Street and drew their swords. I was so startled, I started to run, but Okada Izo, who was by my side, quickly drew his long sword and cut one of the men in half. The other two were so scared, they ran away. I barely escaped but I was impressed by Okada's quick action. Later I said to Okada, "You should not enjoy killing people." He said, "Sensei, if it weren't for me, your head would have been cut off." There was nothing I could say in response.
+ Izo left Katsu Kaishu and returned to Kyoto later in 1863, for reasons that are again unclear.
This was a terrible decision: not only were Shogunate troops cracking down on ronin in Kyoto, and the city was overall in turmoil with pro-Shogunate and pro-Sonno Joi groups both causing each other trouble, Izo was also considered homeless (無宿, mushuku): someone whose name had been removed from the family register because he was considered a deserter from his domain. (He did not return when other Tosa retainers had been ordered to return.)
With nowhere to go and without any money, Izo, who was using the name Tetsuzo as an alias, started to borrow and extort money, drowned his sorrows in alcohol, and eventually even sold his long sword to make ends meet while trying not to get captured.
+ In May 1864 he was arrested by the Kyoto magistrate for breaking into a merchant's house.
He was subjected to a public beating, tattooed as a criminal, and handed over to the Tosa metsuke who returned him to Koshi in June.
+ In Tosa, Izo faced being brutally tortured and interrogated for information about his former comrades and about Takechi's involvement Yoshida Toyo's murder.
Takechi, resentful Izo had been caught and worried he would easily succumb to torture and give away his comrades, complained "I wish that fool had killed himself!" He reached out to both Izo's father and his younger brother Keikichi, a member of the Kinnoto, with a plan to poison him.
Whether that plan was carried out is unknown: Izo may have become aware of the plan, he may have taken the poison and survived, or he may have given in to more than 10 months of torture. Whatever the reason, in the end he gave up the names of many Kinnoto members, and confessed his own crimes.
Takechi complained: "Izo is truly the greatest crybaby in all of Japan."
+ On 3 July 1865 (western date), Izo was beheaded and his head was put on display by the riverbed for three days.
He was the only member of the Kinnoto whose head was put on public display after death.
