The Tengutou 天狗党
In episodes 5 and 6, you might have noticed a bunch of people in masks who get angry at Parkes' presence and create a ruckus within the Sekkakurou.
Within the anime they're called the Tengutou (天狗党). On the surface this obviously refers to their tengu masks. Tengu are a type of Japanese mythical creature easily recognized by their long nose and round eyes.
---
The Real Tengutou
There also was a real, historical group called the Tengutou which was from Mito-han - famous for being a hotbed of anti-foreigner and pro-Emperor (sonno-joi) sentiments and philosophy; and the domain of Tokugawa Nariaki, who had pushed for his son Yoshinobu to become shogun and failed, hence becoming disillusioned with the Shogunate.*
The Tengutou were similarly very anti-foreigner - in 1861, they did attack the British Legation (although Parkes was not the consul at the time). This is also known as the Touzen'ji Incident, I think (東禅寺事件).
They are also sometimes attributed to the asassination of Ii Naosuke in 1860, in the Sakurada Gate Incident. Most accounts seem to describe the assassins as "ronin from Mito-han" so perhaps it really was them. I don't know. The Mito-han really hated Ii Naosuke because he signed treaties with foreigners (apparently without Imperial consent) and blocked their own Yoshinobu from becoming shogun in the early 1860s.
A notable early member was Serizawa Kamo, who later went to become a member of the Roshigumi and then captain of the Shinsengumi (briefly).
1864 Uprising In The West
In 1864, they formed a large force (~1000 strong?) led by Takeda Kouunsai (武田耕雲斎) to travel southwest to Kyoto and make their stance known as well as get the foreigners expelled more quickly. On the way they met resistance, for example at Shimonita in present Gunma province with the Takasaki-han troops, and at Wada Pass against the Suwa and Matsumoto-han forces; but they didn't lose many men and marched onwards.
They started getting pursued though, and sometimes got held up by the snow, and had to detour further west, ending up in a small village in Echizen province called Shinbo where they gave up going to Kyoto.
Most of them - 352 people, including Takeda - were executed just a little south, in the Western province of Wakasa , while 137 were placed into exile and the remaining 130 were sent back to Mito. Apparently this disgusted Ookubo Toshimichi from the Satsuma domain when he heard about it.
It's possible that some remnants of the Tengutou lived on in small cells throughout the country afterwards, who knows - but they became largely defunct/irrelevant after 1864. Perhaps those that we saw in the anime were exiled from Mito and chose Yokohama so that they had more chances to create trouble, seeing that it had a large population of foreigners.
Origin of their name
Their name is apparently a somewhat self-ridiculing one. They were made up of young upstarts who rose through the ranks after Tokugawa Nariaki carried out some reforms that reduced the influence of pedigree, and tended to become a little full of themselves, which led to those who were anti-reform describing these people as "tengu ni naru" (天狗になる - an euphemism for getting cocky). Hence, the Tengu-tou (Tengu Faction).
I'm pretty sure they didn't go around wearing masks, though...
---
If you can read Japanese, why not go visit this site to learn a bit more about them? There's a map showing their journey in 1864. Shimonita and Wada Pass are somewhere on the middle right, Mito (in Hitachi province) on the extreme right, and Wakasa province on the extreme left.
Return to History
---
(If you are confused as to why Nariaki is surnamed Tokugawa and yet was against the Shogunate, think that the Shogunate was split up into two parties that opposed one another, and one party ended up giving up on the Shogunate altogether and calling for its downfall - as an excuse for them to get back into power, if you ask me... Coincidentially, the real Nakaiya Juubee had sympathies with this domain. And the area Mito-han occupied is currently called Ibaraki Prefecture...)
In episodes 5 and 6, you might have noticed a bunch of people in masks who get angry at Parkes' presence and create a ruckus within the Sekkakurou.
Within the anime they're called the Tengutou (天狗党). On the surface this obviously refers to their tengu masks. Tengu are a type of Japanese mythical creature easily recognized by their long nose and round eyes.
---
The Real Tengutou
There also was a real, historical group called the Tengutou which was from Mito-han - famous for being a hotbed of anti-foreigner and pro-Emperor (sonno-joi) sentiments and philosophy; and the domain of Tokugawa Nariaki, who had pushed for his son Yoshinobu to become shogun and failed, hence becoming disillusioned with the Shogunate.*
The Tengutou were similarly very anti-foreigner - in 1861, they did attack the British Legation (although Parkes was not the consul at the time). This is also known as the Touzen'ji Incident, I think (東禅寺事件).
They are also sometimes attributed to the asassination of Ii Naosuke in 1860, in the Sakurada Gate Incident. Most accounts seem to describe the assassins as "ronin from Mito-han" so perhaps it really was them. I don't know. The Mito-han really hated Ii Naosuke because he signed treaties with foreigners (apparently without Imperial consent) and blocked their own Yoshinobu from becoming shogun in the early 1860s.
A notable early member was Serizawa Kamo, who later went to become a member of the Roshigumi and then captain of the Shinsengumi (briefly).
1864 Uprising In The West
In 1864, they formed a large force (~1000 strong?) led by Takeda Kouunsai (武田耕雲斎) to travel southwest to Kyoto and make their stance known as well as get the foreigners expelled more quickly. On the way they met resistance, for example at Shimonita in present Gunma province with the Takasaki-han troops, and at Wada Pass against the Suwa and Matsumoto-han forces; but they didn't lose many men and marched onwards.
They started getting pursued though, and sometimes got held up by the snow, and had to detour further west, ending up in a small village in Echizen province called Shinbo where they gave up going to Kyoto.
Most of them - 352 people, including Takeda - were executed just a little south, in the Western province of Wakasa , while 137 were placed into exile and the remaining 130 were sent back to Mito. Apparently this disgusted Ookubo Toshimichi from the Satsuma domain when he heard about it.
It's possible that some remnants of the Tengutou lived on in small cells throughout the country afterwards, who knows - but they became largely defunct/irrelevant after 1864. Perhaps those that we saw in the anime were exiled from Mito and chose Yokohama so that they had more chances to create trouble, seeing that it had a large population of foreigners.
Origin of their name
Their name is apparently a somewhat self-ridiculing one. They were made up of young upstarts who rose through the ranks after Tokugawa Nariaki carried out some reforms that reduced the influence of pedigree, and tended to become a little full of themselves, which led to those who were anti-reform describing these people as "tengu ni naru" (天狗になる - an euphemism for getting cocky). Hence, the Tengu-tou (Tengu Faction).
I'm pretty sure they didn't go around wearing masks, though...
---
If you can read Japanese, why not go visit this site to learn a bit more about them? There's a map showing their journey in 1864. Shimonita and Wada Pass are somewhere on the middle right, Mito (in Hitachi province) on the extreme right, and Wakasa province on the extreme left.
Return to History
---
(If you are confused as to why Nariaki is surnamed Tokugawa and yet was against the Shogunate, think that the Shogunate was split up into two parties that opposed one another, and one party ended up giving up on the Shogunate altogether and calling for its downfall - as an excuse for them to get back into power, if you ask me... Coincidentially, the real Nakaiya Juubee had sympathies with this domain. And the area Mito-han occupied is currently called Ibaraki Prefecture...)
