Ryōma's Master: How Katsu Kaishū Trained Sakamoto Ryōma

In the winter of 1862 (Bunkyū 2), the Tosa-domain rōnin Sakamoto Ryōma, accompanied by Chiba Jūtarō, visited the home of the shogunal retainer Katsu Kaishū. Ryōma, who believed in the expulsion of the foreigners, had come to assassinate Katsu, who was known as an advocate of opening the country. After talking through the night with Katsu, Ryōma sheathed his sword and became Katsu's student. The famous anecdote is told in both Katsu's and Ryōma's records, and its historicity is well-established.

The Background to the Meeting

In 1862 Katsu Kaishū was forty, serving at the core of the shogunate's navy as deputy magistrate of warships. Sakamoto Ryōma was twenty-eight, a rōnin who had left Tosa domain and was under the influence of the expel-the-barbarian movement. The expel-the-barbarian rōnin of Kyoto and Edo were treating advocates of opening the country as 'traitors' and as targets for assassination; Katsu was one of them. Chiba Jūtarō was Ryōma's old friend, and the two had visited Katsu under the pretext of debate, with the underlying plan of approaching and striking him.

A Night of Dialogue

Katsu Kaishū received Ryōma and his companion at home and spoke of the international situation and Japan's course. Japan could not stand against the Western powers through expel-the-barbarian; the only road was to open the country, learn Western technology, and build a navy; for that, the gathering of talent across domain lines was essential. Katsu's account was concrete and persuasive, and Ryōma gradually came around to his view. By the time the night had passed, Ryōma had sheathed his sword and asked to become Katsu's student. The decisive moment of Ryōma's turn from expel-the-barbarian to opening the country.

Training at the Kobe Naval Training Center

Katsu Kaishū took Ryōma into the Kobe Naval Training Center (established 1864) as a student. Ryōma spent about a year and a half learning naval affairs and the international situation under Katsu. The same training center held Mutsu Munemitsu, Kondō Chōjirō, and Sawamura Sōnojō — young men who would go on to carry the later Meiji Restoration and the Meiji government. The human network Katsu raised would become the human foundation of the later Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance and the restoration of imperial rule. After the training center was closed, Ryōma organized the Kameyama Shachū and Kaientai on his own, but the conception rested on the Western shipping and commerce knowledge he had learned under Katsu.

Ryōma's Assassination and Katsu's Mourning

On November 15, 1867 (Keiō 3), Sakamoto Ryōma was assassinated at the Ōmiya in Kyoto. He was thirty-two. Katsu Kaishū spoke of a deep sense of loss, saying in the Hikawa Seiwa that 'of all my students, Ryōma was the man with the largest capacity.' Of the human talent Katsu had cultivated, Ryōma was the only one Katsu himself rated as 'the highest.' The early death of the man who was to have stood at the center of the Meiji Restoration was a great loss to both Katsu and to Japan.

"Of all my students, Ryōma was the man with the largest capacity."