No.9 Day of Edo Castle Being Bloodlessly Surrendered (1868).
 On May 3,1868 (Keio 4.4.11),
the long-lasting Tokugawa shogunate surrendered the Edo Castle to Kangun, the army of the
new revolutionary regime.That day was clear, but windy, and then rainy into night. The previous week Hashimoto Saneyana, the Toukaido-highway vanguard governor had entered the Edo Castle as an Imperial messenger. He notified Tokugawa Bakufu of the Imperial wishes. The term of their execution was set to May 3, 1868(Keio 4.4.11) therein. |
They went through a series of
three-way negotiations among Kangun,foreign forces, and Bakufu to hammer away a set of
compromises along the Imperial lines. After all they settled on penalties to be imposed on Tokugawa Bakufu,including the following terms: 1) the exemption of Tokugawa Yoshinobu(the last Shougun) from capital punishment, 2) continuance of Tokugawa's family, the control of the Edo Castle by Owari-Han, 3) the expulsion of Tokugawa's retainer out of the Edo Castle and so on. Those items might not be so cruel for Tokugawa's family. |
| The
surrender of Edo Castle was respectfully conducted in a businesslike way between the staff
officers representing each side on the named date: May 3,1868 (Keio4.4.11). Vanguard governor Kaieda Genpatirou(*1), and Kinashi Seiitirou represented Kangun, while Kawakatu Bingo-no-kami(Wakadoshiyori), Hori Jounosuke(Oometuke), Hiraoka Soushiti( Karou, a principal retainer of Tayasu) acted on behalf of Bakufu. (*1: Kaieda nobuyoshi) Early that morning, Tokugawa Yoshinobu left the Ueno Kan-eiji temple for Mito. |
He was unshaven and simply attired
in black cotton haori and Kokura-hakama with hempen sandals on. On that night some military forces on the Bakufu side, discontended with the whole agreement, acted on their own. A Bakufu squadron led by Enomoto Takeaki, vice-governor of Tokugawa Navy,ran away from off Sinagawa to the Bay of Tateyama,and separatedly so did land troops, headed by Ootori Keisuke and Tokugawa. |
| Besides,
Bakufu had some residual force of arms intact, as it stayed silent to watch over the Edo
Castle surrendering process. About a month after, the Shougitai and the Imperial army clashed in Ueno.But there was no intention on the part of the Shougitai to recapture Edo Castle. For delivering up Edo Castle, the resident ladies had to leave their Oooku(Inner Palace ). The day before the surrender, Tenshou-in( the proper wife ofthe 13th Shougun Iesada) and Honju-in(the real mother of Iesada) had left for the house of Hitotsubashi. Two days before, Seikan'in-no-miya (Princess Kazunomiya, the proper wife of the 14th Shougun Iemochi) and Jitsusei-in (the real mother of |
Iemochi) had left for the house of
Shimizu. What remains debatable with Princess Kazunomiya departing for the house of Shimizu, is whether or not she took the memorial tablet of her husband, Iemochi, with her. In my opinion, she must have done so. The proper wife of the 15th Shougun Yoshinobu did not lead her life in Oooku. Probably she resided in the house of Hitotsubashi at Koishikawa. She was the only proper wife of the Shougun, or Midaidokoro, who had never entered the Inner Palace, of all the successive Midaidokoros throughout Tokugawa reigning. Translated by Mr M.Asakawa |