Kawai Tsuginosuke in history (1827-1868)
Link to Kawai in the anime.
This page itself is really just a direct English translation of most of the wonderful Japanese wikipedia article on Kawai Tsuginosuke. I didn't even bother rearranging the sections. There is a ton of detail to be found there so if you can read Japanese, please go - the linked articles are chock full of info as well. Do check out the links at the bottom, too.
As with all history articles, sections most relevant to the anime are in red. (last update: up to ep 12)
Early Life
In 1827, he was born into the Kawai family, in Nagamachi near the Nagaoka castle. The Kawai family were originally retainers (samurai) of the Honda family from Zeze-han in Oumi Province, but one of the Honda females married into the Makino family that was the daimyo family of Nagaoka. A pair of Kawai brothers were made to accompany her to Nagaoka and ended up becoming retainers of the Makino family.
Tsuginosuke was apparently quite the bad-tempered and playful kid when young, and never liked losing. His determined and nonconformist nature would show through in many occasions throughout his life, as you will see later. (Even as a young man he would occasionally disobey orders from the domain administration, get scolded for it, and act like nothing happened.)
When he was around 12-13 years of age he was instructed in the various skills as befitted a samurai such as swordsmanship and horse riding. However he never liked the idea of sticking to one particular style or fashion and caused his teachers much grief by refusing to do things the way they instructed him to, insisting on doing them his own way instead.
Later, he went to the domain school where he became attracted to Neo-Confucianism.
In 1842 he had his genpuku ceremony where he was given the name Akiyoshi. Traditionally he would have had to become known as "____uemon" but he stuck to the name he was given in his youth, Tsuginosuke. (His formal name or gou was Souryuu-kutsu 蒼龍窟, meaning Cavern of the Blue Dragon.)
The next year at the age of 17 he formally became a Nagaoka-han retainer, and in 1850 at the age of 23 married a lady called Sugato.
Kawai's Learning
For quite some time, Kawai had been copying out scripts and texts left behind by Japanese and Chinese (Song and Ming period) Confucianist scholars. Rather than reading as extensively as possible, he preferred to read fewer books but with a more intensive and in-depth reading of them. It is said that if he liked a book, he would meticulously copy it out word by word, which was surprising considering his general dislike for formal things like that. At the same time, if he wanted to, he could easily extract the essence of a text if he wanted to; and he apparently foresaw the collapse of the traditional Japanese hierarchy as well as the Satsuma-Choshu alliance that was brokered in 1867 by Sakamoto Ryoma.
He would frequently get together with four certain fellow retainers of the same age group and have intellectual discussions over all sorts of things. They were such a united group that others called them the Oke-dou (桶党, Bucket Union - because they were so tight that even water couldn't get through). Two others joined in later. This group would go on to be supporters of Kawai's reforms in Nagaoka down the road..
First trip to Edo
In the autumn of 1852 (25 years old), he made his first trip to Edo for higher education, where two of his friends were already studying. He was introduced to a school called Saitou Setsudou (斎藤拙堂, but left as there was nothing there that satisfied or appealed to him, and instead joined another school called Kyuukeisha (久敬舎).
He also went to Sakuma Shozan's school. Sakuma Shozan was a pro-modernisation scholar, and mentor of Katsu Kaishuu and Sakamoto Ryoma. There he learned, among other things, about the science of firearms. Kawai respected Sakuma, but something about his personality did not sit well with him. He insisted that he went to Sakuma's school only so that he could learn about Western technology. And Kyuukeisha? He ended up hardly attending any of its lessons, but instead spent most of his time reading and copying out the Chinese book "李忠定公集" (Richuutei koushuu), earning a reputation as a loner among his peers. When that was done he returned to Nagaoka.
Brief stint as an official
1853 marked the arrival of Commodore Perry's fleet of black ships from the U.S., demanding Japan end its isolationist policies. This was a hotly discussed issue all over Japan, including of course Nagaoka-han. The daimyo was impressed by a proposal written by Kawai regarding how to react to the situation and promoted him, giving him a position in the administration. But Kawai, who was hoping to reform the way things were run in Nagaoka, met with strong resistance from elders who didn't approve of his independant way of doing things.
As such he quit after two months, being unable to do anything substantial at all. His deep dislike for such an attitude of clinging onto old things led him to write another proposal, this time about the removing the emphasis on pedigree in deciding the structure and composition of the government body. He was discontented with the inefficiency of the administration and formed his ambition to become a karou, even though by the current system that would have been difficult since he didn't come from one of the set families that karou were always chosen from. (He did succeed in doing this later.)
Further Education in Edo, Matsuyama, etc.
In January 1859, Kawai returned to Edo and Kyuukeisha, where this time he studied in earnest. At the invitation of Yamada Houkoku, a prominent Confucian scholar from Bicchuu Matsuyama-han, he went to Western Japan for further education in economics and governance. There, the arrogant Kawai - who addressed Yamada in letters by his common name Angorou, because Kawai was a samurai and Yamada was of peasant background - was so struck by how Yamada kept to his words and successfully brought about reforms in his own domain, that he himself began to mellow and became more serious about his plans.
While he was studying under Yamada he also visited Saga and Nagasaki to broaden his worldview. In March the next year, he ended his studies in Matsuyama and returned to Edo. Shortly after that he spent a bit of time at Yokohama, where he got to know Edward Schnell (whom he later bought the two famous Gatling guns from) and then went back to Nagaoka again.
Kawai's travels in West Japan can be found in the one and only work he has authored - a travel journal called 塵壷 (Chiritsubo - "Pot of Rubbish"). It covers his travels from 7th June to 22nd December 1859 (lunar calendar), and valuable insights into his future plans and his mindset can be found by reading it.
Getting his way with the daimyo
In 1862, the Nagaoka daimyo Makino Tadayuki (牧野 忠恭) received the position of "Kyoto shoshidai" - which was the shogunal representative stationed in Kyoto, for purposes of liaising with the Imperial court and other nobles. Kawai was taken along as well, and arrived in Kyoto in 1863, where he had recommended Tadayuki to resign. Tadayuki didn't acknowledge this at first, but in the end he quit anyway in April, going instead to Edo.
And then in September, Tadayuki was appointed the prestigious post of rouju, but when Kawai came along with him as an official, he once again suggested for Tadayuki to resign...
The daimyo of Hitachi Sasama-han, Sadaaki Makino (a distant relative of Tadayuki), visited them to persuade Kawai to stop. But Kawai ended up insulting him, and as a way of taking responsibility for it he quit his own post and returned back to Nagaoka.
The road to reforms
Since Nagaoka-han was ruled by a fudai daimyo (briefly explained, a family that is aligned with the Shogunate) Kawai was re-given the task of helping to monitor tozama daimyo (who were seen as outsiders by the Shogunate) in 1865 at the age of 40. In 1857 he had actually been given this job once before. Three months later he became the county magistrate
(郡奉行 gun-bugyou), and finally got to carry out the reforms that he had wanted to carry out so dearly.
He concurrently took on the post of town magistrate (町奉行 machi-bugyou) and brought about regulation of public morals, changes in the managing of agriculture, additional irrigation of crops, as well as military reforms, etc.
Within Nagaoka-han he also tried to equalise the size of individual fiefs (hence combating the problem of pedigree wielding more power than it should) by increasing the size of those below 100 seki, and decreasing the size of those over that limit. This would of course earn him both supporters and enemies. One of the senior officials from one of those pedigree families, Inamura Heisuke (稲垣平助), suffered greatly as his family went from a total of 2000 seki down to 500, and ended up harbouring a severe grudge against Kawai. Of course, Kawai applied these reforms to himself and his own family as well, going from reportedly 1000 seki to a mere 120 by the end of his life.
With the trust of the daimyo, he also centralised military command and power by making the daimyo the ultimate military commander. This again dealt a blow to some complex families that had craftily extended their influence by setting up branches of the family all over the land. Kawai's reforms were most detrimental to the heads of these branch families as they now had less power than before.
Breakout of the Boshin War
Things were heading towards a climax, however, as in late 1867 the last Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned and returned his power to the Emperor, thus ending Shogunate rule in Japan. At the same time, Makino Tadayuki passed on the role of Nagaoka daimyo to Makino Tadakuni.
Tadakuni and Kawai received the official statement of Imperial restoration, and had to make a trip to the relevant offices in Kyoto. There, Kawai made a proposal on behalf of Nagaoka to take in the Tokugawa family and help protect them. However, he received no response to it. (I am figuring that this is connected to the fact that later during the Boshin war, most others wanted to ally with the Imperial court, and yet in the end Kawai led Nagaoka to fight alongside Tokugawa loyalists, which made him a hated man in certain circles...)
The next year in the 3rd of January, the Boshin War began with the Battle of Toba and Fushimi between the Imperial troops and the old Shogunate strongholds of Aizu and Kuwana domains. When Kawai, who was in Osaka, heard about the ex-Shogunate troops' heavy loss as well as Yoshinobu's undercover move to Edo, he himself hurried back to Edo.
There he got the Nagaoka officials to quickly return home. He had their residence in Edo dismantled, and sold all the family jewellery and other assets. With the money from that, he bought rice cheaply and then resold it for a profit all the way in Hakodate up north. That, and profits made by exchanging currencies, went to a rapidly increasing military budget, part of which Kawai spent on his way back.
He famously purchased two Gatling guns (out of three in the whole of Japan) from the Schnell brothers at the hefty cost of 10,000 ryou. Further more he also bought 2000 of the latest model of French-made rifles, as well as other modern armaments. Then, he finally returned back to Nagaoka by sea.
Military independence and the Ojiya Negotiations
The continuing conflict between the old Shogunate troops and the Imperial Army was coming close to home as the new government's troops pressed onto the nearby Ojiya (now Ojiya city in Niigata prefecture), in a move to eventually conquest Aizu-han, a Tokugawa stronghold.
Just about all the important retainers and elders in Nagaoka supported alliance with the Imperial Court and avoidance of battle. There was still, however, debate about which side to ally with, and in order to solve both sides of the problem, they decided to settle for military independance instead. Meanwhile, Kawai had finally fulfilled his dream of becoming karou in April 1868.
But when on the 2nd of May 1868 (lunar calendar) Kawai went to negotiate this with Iwamura Seiichirou (later Iwamura Takatoshi) from the Imperial Army at Jigan Temple in Ojiya, suggesting arbitration between the new government and the Tokugawa loyalists, Iwamura didn't understand him - and instead demanded that they form the frontier in the battle against Aizu-han. Talks broke down within a mere 30 minutes. Kawai had been hoping to talk to Yamagata Aritomo or Kuroda Ryousuke, but didn't expect to be greeted by the lower-ranking Iwamura.
Both sides deemed the effort as a failure, and with the Imperial Army giving up on them, Nagaoka ended up joining the opposing side, the Northern Alliance (also known as the Ouuetsu reppan-doumei, made up of various northern domains), and took part in the Battle of Hokuetsu 2 days later.
Battle of Hokuetsu
Although Nagaoka never was a domain with an unified outlook, this time the conflict proved too much and one of the important karou, Inamura Heisuke deserted the domain just before the battle began. But the other clans supported Kawai and followed him even though some of them still thought it was a better idea to ally with the Imperial Army. By now, the decision to officially take part in the battle laid entirely in Kawai's hands both in name (as he had now become the overall military commander of Nagaoka), and in fact.
Of course, some things didn't change: three major clans who were only reluctantly following Kawai, namely the Maki (槙), Nose (能勢) and Hikita (疋田), cheated a bit by volunteering to protect and serve the daimyo's headquarters, tended to be far from the frontline and are said to have not lost a single person in the battlefield. Their internal organisation and structure also was unaffected by Kawai's numerous reforms.
Nagaoka was on par with the Imperial Forces for a while, part thanks to their impressive Gatling guns, but the tables turned when on the 19th of May (lunar calendar), Nagaoka Castle was captured. The Nagaoka forces managed to recapture it in 25 days through a well-recorded military maneuver at Hacchou-oki on the 24th of July (lunar calendar), but just then Kawai's left knee got severely wounded by a stray bullet. (This fact is referred to in passing in episodes 11 and 12 of the anime.) The fact that a commander like him got wounded ended up lowering the troops' morale, and furthermore, reinforcement troops from Yonezawa-han got delayed.
As a result, the Imperial Army, who was actually preparing to leave, regained their strength and made a comeback. Nagaoka could not withstand this and four days later, the castle they had worked so hard to recapture, fell to the Imperial forces once again. The Kawai clan escaped to the pro-Tokugawa Aizu-han, and the Hokuetsu battle hence ended with the Imperial Army emerging victorious. After that, the war moved onto Aizu-han instead, where we come to the last part of Kawai Tsuginosuke's life.
Kawai's last days
Late July 1868 - Kawai Tsuginosuke was on his way to Aizu-han, crossing the Hachijuurigoe (八十里越) Pass, and was said to have uttered a poem in self-derision - "八十里 腰抜け武士の 越す峠" (Hachijuuri - the pass that a cowardly warrior crosses).
When he reached Aizu-han, he took a breather at Tadami village. Here, he got examined by the famous physician Matsumoto Ryoujun (松本良順 - who used to be Tokugawa Yoshinobu's very own physician) who came at the request of Nagaoka's ex-daimyo Makino Tadayuki. However, it had become too late to treat Kawai's wound.
Kawai himself was aware that his end was fast approaching, and left behind advice for Nagaoka to ally with Shounai-han and not Yonezawa-han; as well as for the daimyo's successor to emigrate to France (which did not happen). He also recommended one of his sort-of disciples, Toyama Shuuzou (外山修造) to become a businessman, even though he originally intended for him to be a warrior, as he knew that the era of such class distinctions was over. (Toyama went on to become a notable figure in the economic development of Japan.)
At Matsumoto's advice, Kawai left Tadami village for Shiozawa village, where his unstable condition continued. On the 15th of August (lunar calendar), Kawai called his faithful male servant, Matsuzou (松蔵) to his bedside, where Kawai thanked him and asked him to make preparations for his cremation. The next day, on the 16th afternoon, Kawai Tsuginosuke went to sleep after having a short friendly chat with someone, and never woke up again. He died at around 8 p.m. from tetanus at the age of 42.
Posthumous details
Kawai's body was supposed to have been buried at Aizu castle, but Matsuzou was afraid that the Imperial Army would desecrate his grave when they eventually invade the castle, and had Kawai's body buried under a pine tree, leaving a fake grave at the castle instead. Indeed, when the troops came they tried to carry out Kawai's body, but upon realising that it was just sand inside, they apparently became suspicious for a while as to whether Kawai had really died.
After the war, Matsuzou dug out Kawai's remains from under the pine tree and sent them home to Nagaoka, where they were buried at the Eiryou temple (栄涼寺). However, his tombstone would keep getting knocked down by people who hated Kawai and held him responsible for bringing Nagaoka to ruin.
As for the Kawai family, since their main leader Tsuginosuke had passed away, the government pardoned them from the death sentence and, instead, punished them by disallowing them to continue their family name, although in Meiji 16 (1883), this was repealed.
Short appraisals of Kawai
I picked four, roughly translated from this page (there might be errors):
Tokutomi Soho (historian, journalist)
-"Admittedly, he couldn't beat the greatness of Saigou [Takamori], Ookubo [Toshimichi] and Kido [Takayoshi] put together, but Tsuginosuke was a figure greater than each one of them on their own."
Shiba Ryoutarou (famous historical novelist not from Bakumatsu era)
-"Japan's Final Warrior"
-"Looking at Bakumatsu-era figures, Kawai Tsuginosuke is three times better than Kido Takayoshi"
-"He's the sort of person whom, if only he was fighting for the western troops, would have had his face on yen bills by now."
Katsu Kaishuu (If you bothered to read until here, surely you should know who he is!)
-"He was really quite the person, but he made a regrettable choice in the end. There are very few people like Kawai."
Saigou Takamori (And if you don't know him you're hopeless :\)
-I must admit that even in the Northeastern regions there are outstanding people, and Kawai Tsuginosuke from Nagaoka is one of those hard-to-come by figures. Because we had conflicting ideas of right and wrong, I had no choice but to label him as a "rebel", but if he were still around now, he would deserve to be in the Cabinet. Certainly he was a great man of the generation.
Key websites and books to refer to
I referred only to websites while writing this article.
Of course, the Japanese wikipedia article I mentioned.
And if it's Kawai Tsuginosuke, you cannot go without mentionnig the amazing Souryuu ga Yuku page with a literal wealth of information on Kawai. Of special note are: an excellent timeline (at the bottom; the page compares what he was doing during various events depicted in the popular NHK taiga drama "Shinsengumi!".) and a list of quotes by him.
There's a ton of other things such as how to make his favourite food, thoughts and reflections on the Kawai and the various people in his life, a complete list of shows that he's appeared in, etc.
There's also the Official Kawai Tsuginosuke Memorial museum. The actual musuem is situated in Tadami, the place where Kawai died.
The most important book that has served as a basis for most research on Kawai is "Kawai Tsuginosuke-den" (河井継之助伝); a biography written by Imaizumi Takujirou (今泉鐸次郎) originally published in 1910 and most recently a revised and enlarged version was released by Shouzan-sha (象山社) in 1996.
I obviously haven't read it (and probably won't, I'm afraid), but if you're interested in studying Kawai then it seems like this is the obvious resource to refer to.
Other than that there is Chiritsubo (塵壺), a travel diary written by Kawai himself (and mentioned in the article). The original is kept in the Nagaoka City Chuo Library, and there is a typeset, annotated version by Andou Hideo (安藤英男) called "Chiritsubo: Kawai Tsuginosuke Nikki" (塵壷：河井継之助日記), released by Heibon-sha in 1974.
For a lot more, do refer to the wikipedia article, or this list.
Kawai Tsuginosuke in other media
There are a number of books that refer to him, to which I again direct you to the websites listed above.
But the most famous is undoubtedly Shiba Ryoutarou's "Touge" (峠 - mountain pass). It ran in instalments on the Mainichi newspaper from 1966 to 1968, and as soon as it was finished it was compiled and published by Shincho-sha in two volumes. There have been endless reprints of it since then.
Of course, being fiction, it had certain things going on that were not recorded in history, which ended up being stuck in the minds of readers anyway (to the point of being quoted as truth). For example, any references to Kawai saying that he wanted to make Nagaoka-han a neutral independent state just like Switzerland comes from this book; there are no records of him actually having said that. (Did they know about Switzerland back then? o_O)
And believe it or not, Kawai Tsuginosuke has also appeared in his own TV dorama.
Return to History page
Kawai Tsuginosuke in the anime
...Trivia/Omake
I don't know where to stick this, but I find it vaguely amusing so here goes: When there was a prohibition on visiting pleasure quarters, the entertainers there used to light-heartedly refer to Kawai by punning on his name like this - かわいかわいと今朝まで思い 今は愛想もつきのすけ. Because Kawai used to be a very frequent visitor until the ban.
Pardon my lousy Japanese, but I believe it's just a neat little song that really says "I've been thinking it was so cute until this morning, and now I think it's disgusting". The song reads 'Kawai kawai to kesa made omoi, ima wa aisou mo tsukinosuke.' (Kawai -> Kawaii -> cute, Tsuginosuke -> tsukinosuke is punning on "aisou wo tsuku" which means getting disillusioned with something). So basically it also sounds like they're saying "I've been thinking Kawai, Kawai all the way until this morning, and now I'm really sickofitsuke." Ho ho.
Also, if you find the name 小林虎三郎 (Kobayashi Torasaburou) linked to this guy, apparently they were relatives. Kobayashi was originally against Nagaoka joining in the battle, but after seeing the violence of the Satsuma and Choshu domains, he supported Kawai's decision to go to war. This guy is famous from the Kome Hyappyo story that got popularized after Junichiro Kobayashi mentioned it in a speech.
It also seems like his favourite food was sakurameshi (桜飯), rice boiled with salt, soya sauce, and sake. Some places put in bits of octopus as well.
Link to Kawai in the anime.
This page itself is really just a direct English translation of most of the wonderful Japanese wikipedia article on Kawai Tsuginosuke. I didn't even bother rearranging the sections. There is a ton of detail to be found there so if you can read Japanese, please go - the linked articles are chock full of info as well. Do check out the links at the bottom, too.
As with all history articles, sections most relevant to the anime are in red. (last update: up to ep 12)
- Early Life
- Kawai's Learning
- First trip to Edo
- Brief stint as an official
- Further Education (1859)
- Getting his way with the daimyo
- The road to reforms
- Breakout of the Boshin War
- Military independence and the Ojiya Negotiations
- Battle of Hokuetsu
- Kawai's last days
- Posthumous details
- Short appraisals of Kawai
- Key websites and books to refer to
- Kawai Tsuginosuke in other media
- Omake
1865-1868
Early Life
In 1827, he was born into the Kawai family, in Nagamachi near the Nagaoka castle. The Kawai family were originally retainers (samurai) of the Honda family from Zeze-han in Oumi Province, but one of the Honda females married into the Makino family that was the daimyo family of Nagaoka. A pair of Kawai brothers were made to accompany her to Nagaoka and ended up becoming retainers of the Makino family.
Tsuginosuke was apparently quite the bad-tempered and playful kid when young, and never liked losing. His determined and nonconformist nature would show through in many occasions throughout his life, as you will see later. (Even as a young man he would occasionally disobey orders from the domain administration, get scolded for it, and act like nothing happened.)
When he was around 12-13 years of age he was instructed in the various skills as befitted a samurai such as swordsmanship and horse riding. However he never liked the idea of sticking to one particular style or fashion and caused his teachers much grief by refusing to do things the way they instructed him to, insisting on doing them his own way instead.
Later, he went to the domain school where he became attracted to Neo-Confucianism.
In 1842 he had his genpuku ceremony where he was given the name Akiyoshi. Traditionally he would have had to become known as "____uemon" but he stuck to the name he was given in his youth, Tsuginosuke. (His formal name or gou was Souryuu-kutsu 蒼龍窟, meaning Cavern of the Blue Dragon.)
The next year at the age of 17 he formally became a Nagaoka-han retainer, and in 1850 at the age of 23 married a lady called Sugato.
Kawai's Learning
For quite some time, Kawai had been copying out scripts and texts left behind by Japanese and Chinese (Song and Ming period) Confucianist scholars. Rather than reading as extensively as possible, he preferred to read fewer books but with a more intensive and in-depth reading of them. It is said that if he liked a book, he would meticulously copy it out word by word, which was surprising considering his general dislike for formal things like that. At the same time, if he wanted to, he could easily extract the essence of a text if he wanted to; and he apparently foresaw the collapse of the traditional Japanese hierarchy as well as the Satsuma-Choshu alliance that was brokered in 1867 by Sakamoto Ryoma.
He would frequently get together with four certain fellow retainers of the same age group and have intellectual discussions over all sorts of things. They were such a united group that others called them the Oke-dou (桶党, Bucket Union - because they were so tight that even water couldn't get through). Two others joined in later. This group would go on to be supporters of Kawai's reforms in Nagaoka down the road..
First trip to Edo
In the autumn of 1852 (25 years old), he made his first trip to Edo for higher education, where two of his friends were already studying. He was introduced to a school called Saitou Setsudou (斎藤拙堂, but left as there was nothing there that satisfied or appealed to him, and instead joined another school called Kyuukeisha (久敬舎).
He also went to Sakuma Shozan's school. Sakuma Shozan was a pro-modernisation scholar, and mentor of Katsu Kaishuu and Sakamoto Ryoma. There he learned, among other things, about the science of firearms. Kawai respected Sakuma, but something about his personality did not sit well with him. He insisted that he went to Sakuma's school only so that he could learn about Western technology. And Kyuukeisha? He ended up hardly attending any of its lessons, but instead spent most of his time reading and copying out the Chinese book "李忠定公集" (Richuutei koushuu), earning a reputation as a loner among his peers. When that was done he returned to Nagaoka.
Brief stint as an official
1853 marked the arrival of Commodore Perry's fleet of black ships from the U.S., demanding Japan end its isolationist policies. This was a hotly discussed issue all over Japan, including of course Nagaoka-han. The daimyo was impressed by a proposal written by Kawai regarding how to react to the situation and promoted him, giving him a position in the administration. But Kawai, who was hoping to reform the way things were run in Nagaoka, met with strong resistance from elders who didn't approve of his independant way of doing things.
As such he quit after two months, being unable to do anything substantial at all. His deep dislike for such an attitude of clinging onto old things led him to write another proposal, this time about the removing the emphasis on pedigree in deciding the structure and composition of the government body. He was discontented with the inefficiency of the administration and formed his ambition to become a karou, even though by the current system that would have been difficult since he didn't come from one of the set families that karou were always chosen from. (He did succeed in doing this later.)
Further Education in Edo, Matsuyama, etc.
In January 1859, Kawai returned to Edo and Kyuukeisha, where this time he studied in earnest. At the invitation of Yamada Houkoku, a prominent Confucian scholar from Bicchuu Matsuyama-han, he went to Western Japan for further education in economics and governance. There, the arrogant Kawai - who addressed Yamada in letters by his common name Angorou, because Kawai was a samurai and Yamada was of peasant background - was so struck by how Yamada kept to his words and successfully brought about reforms in his own domain, that he himself began to mellow and became more serious about his plans.
While he was studying under Yamada he also visited Saga and Nagasaki to broaden his worldview. In March the next year, he ended his studies in Matsuyama and returned to Edo. Shortly after that he spent a bit of time at Yokohama, where he got to know Edward Schnell (whom he later bought the two famous Gatling guns from) and then went back to Nagaoka again.
Kawai's travels in West Japan can be found in the one and only work he has authored - a travel journal called 塵壷 (Chiritsubo - "Pot of Rubbish"). It covers his travels from 7th June to 22nd December 1859 (lunar calendar), and valuable insights into his future plans and his mindset can be found by reading it.
Getting his way with the daimyo
In 1862, the Nagaoka daimyo Makino Tadayuki (牧野 忠恭) received the position of "Kyoto shoshidai" - which was the shogunal representative stationed in Kyoto, for purposes of liaising with the Imperial court and other nobles. Kawai was taken along as well, and arrived in Kyoto in 1863, where he had recommended Tadayuki to resign. Tadayuki didn't acknowledge this at first, but in the end he quit anyway in April, going instead to Edo.
And then in September, Tadayuki was appointed the prestigious post of rouju, but when Kawai came along with him as an official, he once again suggested for Tadayuki to resign...
The daimyo of Hitachi Sasama-han, Sadaaki Makino (a distant relative of Tadayuki), visited them to persuade Kawai to stop. But Kawai ended up insulting him, and as a way of taking responsibility for it he quit his own post and returned back to Nagaoka.
The road to reforms
Since Nagaoka-han was ruled by a fudai daimyo (briefly explained, a family that is aligned with the Shogunate) Kawai was re-given the task of helping to monitor tozama daimyo (who were seen as outsiders by the Shogunate) in 1865 at the age of 40. In 1857 he had actually been given this job once before. Three months later he became the county magistrate
(郡奉行 gun-bugyou), and finally got to carry out the reforms that he had wanted to carry out so dearly.
He concurrently took on the post of town magistrate (町奉行 machi-bugyou) and brought about regulation of public morals, changes in the managing of agriculture, additional irrigation of crops, as well as military reforms, etc.
Within Nagaoka-han he also tried to equalise the size of individual fiefs (hence combating the problem of pedigree wielding more power than it should) by increasing the size of those below 100 seki, and decreasing the size of those over that limit. This would of course earn him both supporters and enemies. One of the senior officials from one of those pedigree families, Inamura Heisuke (稲垣平助), suffered greatly as his family went from a total of 2000 seki down to 500, and ended up harbouring a severe grudge against Kawai. Of course, Kawai applied these reforms to himself and his own family as well, going from reportedly 1000 seki to a mere 120 by the end of his life.
With the trust of the daimyo, he also centralised military command and power by making the daimyo the ultimate military commander. This again dealt a blow to some complex families that had craftily extended their influence by setting up branches of the family all over the land. Kawai's reforms were most detrimental to the heads of these branch families as they now had less power than before.
Breakout of the Boshin War
Things were heading towards a climax, however, as in late 1867 the last Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned and returned his power to the Emperor, thus ending Shogunate rule in Japan. At the same time, Makino Tadayuki passed on the role of Nagaoka daimyo to Makino Tadakuni.
Tadakuni and Kawai received the official statement of Imperial restoration, and had to make a trip to the relevant offices in Kyoto. There, Kawai made a proposal on behalf of Nagaoka to take in the Tokugawa family and help protect them. However, he received no response to it. (I am figuring that this is connected to the fact that later during the Boshin war, most others wanted to ally with the Imperial court, and yet in the end Kawai led Nagaoka to fight alongside Tokugawa loyalists, which made him a hated man in certain circles...)
The next year in the 3rd of January, the Boshin War began with the Battle of Toba and Fushimi between the Imperial troops and the old Shogunate strongholds of Aizu and Kuwana domains. When Kawai, who was in Osaka, heard about the ex-Shogunate troops' heavy loss as well as Yoshinobu's undercover move to Edo, he himself hurried back to Edo.
There he got the Nagaoka officials to quickly return home. He had their residence in Edo dismantled, and sold all the family jewellery and other assets. With the money from that, he bought rice cheaply and then resold it for a profit all the way in Hakodate up north. That, and profits made by exchanging currencies, went to a rapidly increasing military budget, part of which Kawai spent on his way back.
He famously purchased two Gatling guns (out of three in the whole of Japan) from the Schnell brothers at the hefty cost of 10,000 ryou. Further more he also bought 2000 of the latest model of French-made rifles, as well as other modern armaments. Then, he finally returned back to Nagaoka by sea.
Military independence and the Ojiya Negotiations
The continuing conflict between the old Shogunate troops and the Imperial Army was coming close to home as the new government's troops pressed onto the nearby Ojiya (now Ojiya city in Niigata prefecture), in a move to eventually conquest Aizu-han, a Tokugawa stronghold.
Just about all the important retainers and elders in Nagaoka supported alliance with the Imperial Court and avoidance of battle. There was still, however, debate about which side to ally with, and in order to solve both sides of the problem, they decided to settle for military independance instead. Meanwhile, Kawai had finally fulfilled his dream of becoming karou in April 1868.
But when on the 2nd of May 1868 (lunar calendar) Kawai went to negotiate this with Iwamura Seiichirou (later Iwamura Takatoshi) from the Imperial Army at Jigan Temple in Ojiya, suggesting arbitration between the new government and the Tokugawa loyalists, Iwamura didn't understand him - and instead demanded that they form the frontier in the battle against Aizu-han. Talks broke down within a mere 30 minutes. Kawai had been hoping to talk to Yamagata Aritomo or Kuroda Ryousuke, but didn't expect to be greeted by the lower-ranking Iwamura.
Both sides deemed the effort as a failure, and with the Imperial Army giving up on them, Nagaoka ended up joining the opposing side, the Northern Alliance (also known as the Ouuetsu reppan-doumei, made up of various northern domains), and took part in the Battle of Hokuetsu 2 days later.
Battle of Hokuetsu
Although Nagaoka never was a domain with an unified outlook, this time the conflict proved too much and one of the important karou, Inamura Heisuke deserted the domain just before the battle began. But the other clans supported Kawai and followed him even though some of them still thought it was a better idea to ally with the Imperial Army. By now, the decision to officially take part in the battle laid entirely in Kawai's hands both in name (as he had now become the overall military commander of Nagaoka), and in fact.
Of course, some things didn't change: three major clans who were only reluctantly following Kawai, namely the Maki (槙), Nose (能勢) and Hikita (疋田), cheated a bit by volunteering to protect and serve the daimyo's headquarters, tended to be far from the frontline and are said to have not lost a single person in the battlefield. Their internal organisation and structure also was unaffected by Kawai's numerous reforms.
Nagaoka was on par with the Imperial Forces for a while, part thanks to their impressive Gatling guns, but the tables turned when on the 19th of May (lunar calendar), Nagaoka Castle was captured. The Nagaoka forces managed to recapture it in 25 days through a well-recorded military maneuver at Hacchou-oki on the 24th of July (lunar calendar), but just then Kawai's left knee got severely wounded by a stray bullet. (This fact is referred to in passing in episodes 11 and 12 of the anime.) The fact that a commander like him got wounded ended up lowering the troops' morale, and furthermore, reinforcement troops from Yonezawa-han got delayed.
As a result, the Imperial Army, who was actually preparing to leave, regained their strength and made a comeback. Nagaoka could not withstand this and four days later, the castle they had worked so hard to recapture, fell to the Imperial forces once again. The Kawai clan escaped to the pro-Tokugawa Aizu-han, and the Hokuetsu battle hence ended with the Imperial Army emerging victorious. After that, the war moved onto Aizu-han instead, where we come to the last part of Kawai Tsuginosuke's life.
Kawai's last days
Late July 1868 - Kawai Tsuginosuke was on his way to Aizu-han, crossing the Hachijuurigoe (八十里越) Pass, and was said to have uttered a poem in self-derision - "八十里 腰抜け武士の 越す峠" (Hachijuuri - the pass that a cowardly warrior crosses).
When he reached Aizu-han, he took a breather at Tadami village. Here, he got examined by the famous physician Matsumoto Ryoujun (松本良順 - who used to be Tokugawa Yoshinobu's very own physician) who came at the request of Nagaoka's ex-daimyo Makino Tadayuki. However, it had become too late to treat Kawai's wound.
Kawai himself was aware that his end was fast approaching, and left behind advice for Nagaoka to ally with Shounai-han and not Yonezawa-han; as well as for the daimyo's successor to emigrate to France (which did not happen). He also recommended one of his sort-of disciples, Toyama Shuuzou (外山修造) to become a businessman, even though he originally intended for him to be a warrior, as he knew that the era of such class distinctions was over. (Toyama went on to become a notable figure in the economic development of Japan.)
At Matsumoto's advice, Kawai left Tadami village for Shiozawa village, where his unstable condition continued. On the 15th of August (lunar calendar), Kawai called his faithful male servant, Matsuzou (松蔵) to his bedside, where Kawai thanked him and asked him to make preparations for his cremation. The next day, on the 16th afternoon, Kawai Tsuginosuke went to sleep after having a short friendly chat with someone, and never woke up again. He died at around 8 p.m. from tetanus at the age of 42.
Posthumous details
Kawai's body was supposed to have been buried at Aizu castle, but Matsuzou was afraid that the Imperial Army would desecrate his grave when they eventually invade the castle, and had Kawai's body buried under a pine tree, leaving a fake grave at the castle instead. Indeed, when the troops came they tried to carry out Kawai's body, but upon realising that it was just sand inside, they apparently became suspicious for a while as to whether Kawai had really died.
After the war, Matsuzou dug out Kawai's remains from under the pine tree and sent them home to Nagaoka, where they were buried at the Eiryou temple (栄涼寺). However, his tombstone would keep getting knocked down by people who hated Kawai and held him responsible for bringing Nagaoka to ruin.
As for the Kawai family, since their main leader Tsuginosuke had passed away, the government pardoned them from the death sentence and, instead, punished them by disallowing them to continue their family name, although in Meiji 16 (1883), this was repealed.
Short appraisals of Kawai
I picked four, roughly translated from this page (there might be errors):
Tokutomi Soho (historian, journalist)
-"Admittedly, he couldn't beat the greatness of Saigou [Takamori], Ookubo [Toshimichi] and Kido [Takayoshi] put together, but Tsuginosuke was a figure greater than each one of them on their own."
Shiba Ryoutarou (famous historical novelist not from Bakumatsu era)
-"Japan's Final Warrior"
-"Looking at Bakumatsu-era figures, Kawai Tsuginosuke is three times better than Kido Takayoshi"
-"He's the sort of person whom, if only he was fighting for the western troops, would have had his face on yen bills by now."
Katsu Kaishuu (If you bothered to read until here, surely you should know who he is!)
-"He was really quite the person, but he made a regrettable choice in the end. There are very few people like Kawai."
Saigou Takamori (And if you don't know him you're hopeless :\)
-I must admit that even in the Northeastern regions there are outstanding people, and Kawai Tsuginosuke from Nagaoka is one of those hard-to-come by figures. Because we had conflicting ideas of right and wrong, I had no choice but to label him as a "rebel", but if he were still around now, he would deserve to be in the Cabinet. Certainly he was a great man of the generation.
Key websites and books to refer to
I referred only to websites while writing this article.
Of course, the Japanese wikipedia article I mentioned.
And if it's Kawai Tsuginosuke, you cannot go without mentionnig the amazing Souryuu ga Yuku page with a literal wealth of information on Kawai. Of special note are: an excellent timeline (at the bottom; the page compares what he was doing during various events depicted in the popular NHK taiga drama "Shinsengumi!".) and a list of quotes by him.
There's a ton of other things such as how to make his favourite food, thoughts and reflections on the Kawai and the various people in his life, a complete list of shows that he's appeared in, etc.
There's also the Official Kawai Tsuginosuke Memorial museum. The actual musuem is situated in Tadami, the place where Kawai died.
The most important book that has served as a basis for most research on Kawai is "Kawai Tsuginosuke-den" (河井継之助伝); a biography written by Imaizumi Takujirou (今泉鐸次郎) originally published in 1910 and most recently a revised and enlarged version was released by Shouzan-sha (象山社) in 1996.
I obviously haven't read it (and probably won't, I'm afraid), but if you're interested in studying Kawai then it seems like this is the obvious resource to refer to.
Other than that there is Chiritsubo (塵壺), a travel diary written by Kawai himself (and mentioned in the article). The original is kept in the Nagaoka City Chuo Library, and there is a typeset, annotated version by Andou Hideo (安藤英男) called "Chiritsubo: Kawai Tsuginosuke Nikki" (塵壷：河井継之助日記), released by Heibon-sha in 1974.
For a lot more, do refer to the wikipedia article, or this list.
Kawai Tsuginosuke in other media
There are a number of books that refer to him, to which I again direct you to the websites listed above.
But the most famous is undoubtedly Shiba Ryoutarou's "Touge" (峠 - mountain pass). It ran in instalments on the Mainichi newspaper from 1966 to 1968, and as soon as it was finished it was compiled and published by Shincho-sha in two volumes. There have been endless reprints of it since then.
Of course, being fiction, it had certain things going on that were not recorded in history, which ended up being stuck in the minds of readers anyway (to the point of being quoted as truth). For example, any references to Kawai saying that he wanted to make Nagaoka-han a neutral independent state just like Switzerland comes from this book; there are no records of him actually having said that. (Did they know about Switzerland back then? o_O)
And believe it or not, Kawai Tsuginosuke has also appeared in his own TV dorama.
Return to History page
Kawai Tsuginosuke in the anime
...Trivia/Omake
I don't know where to stick this, but I find it vaguely amusing so here goes: When there was a prohibition on visiting pleasure quarters, the entertainers there used to light-heartedly refer to Kawai by punning on his name like this - かわいかわいと今朝まで思い 今は愛想もつきのすけ. Because Kawai used to be a very frequent visitor until the ban.
Pardon my lousy Japanese, but I believe it's just a neat little song that really says "I've been thinking it was so cute until this morning, and now I think it's disgusting". The song reads 'Kawai kawai to kesa made omoi, ima wa aisou mo tsukinosuke.' (Kawai -> Kawaii -> cute, Tsuginosuke -> tsukinosuke is punning on "aisou wo tsuku" which means getting disillusioned with something). So basically it also sounds like they're saying "I've been thinking Kawai, Kawai all the way until this morning, and now I'm really sickofitsuke." Ho ho.
Also, if you find the name 小林虎三郎 (Kobayashi Torasaburou) linked to this guy, apparently they were relatives. Kobayashi was originally against Nagaoka joining in the battle, but after seeing the violence of the Satsuma and Choshu domains, he supported Kawai's decision to go to war. This guy is famous from the Kome Hyappyo story that got popularized after Junichiro Kobayashi mentioned it in a speech.
It also seems like his favourite food was sakurameshi (桜飯), rice boiled with salt, soya sauce, and sake. Some places put in bits of octopus as well.
