Serizawa Kamo

Serizawa Kamo(芹沢鴨; 1826?-October 30, 1863) was a famous samurai, known for being the first lead captain of the Shinsengumi. "Kamo" means goose in Japanese which was an odd name to call oneself at the time. His former namer is "Taira no Mitsumoto". He trained in and received a licence in the Shinto Munen-ryu style.

Contents

1 Childhood and family background 2 Tenguto period 3 Mibu Roushigumi/Shinsengumi period 4 Serizawa sect assassination 5 Serizawa's Personality 6 Sources

Childhood and family background

The Serizawa family were an upper-class Goshi rank samurai in Serizawa village in Mito, Japan. He was born as the youngest son and his childhood name was Genta. He had two older brothers and and an older sister. He was educated with the Sonno joi ideals (meaning revere the Tenno and expel the foreigners) and swordsmanship since childhood. Mito is considered the motherland of strong Sonno Joi ideals and was a center of support for the Tenno and the Imperial court, which helped fuel the Meiji Revolution.

Tenguto period

In 1860, Kamo took part in an extremist anti-foreigner group "Tengu-to" which assassinated Tairo Ii Naosuke. Kamo later becomes a main member. In early 1861, he found out that three of the younger members in the group had broken the rules, causing him to lose his temper; he made them sit in a line and beheaded them all at once. When political power shifted to the pro-Tokugawa government, those in the Tengu-to were jailed for their involvement on the assassination of Ii. There, he wrote this famous poem in his own blood, drawn by biting off his own fingers:

「 雪ゆき 霜しも に 　 色いろ よ く 花はな の 　 魁さきが け て 　 散ち り て も 後あと に 　 匂にほ う 梅うめ が 香か 」

Yukishimo ni

Iroyoku hana no

Sakigakete

Chiritemo nochi ni

Niyou ume ga ka

This roughly translates as:

In the snow and mist,

The color remains,

And still giving off its scent after the scattering of the petals;

Such plum is the perfume.

Many were surprised at Kamo's never-before-demonstrated poetic talent. Serizawa was released in late 1862 when the government started to weaken and political power shifted back to the anti-foreigners. He later joined Kiyokawa Hachirou's Roushigumi.

Mibu Roushigumi/Shinsengumi period

Kiyokawa Hachirou formed Roushigumi with funding from the Tokugawa regime. Originally, he claimed it was formed for protecting the Tokugawa shogun in Kyoto and preparing for military action against Western countries. But he lied to the regime; his goal was to gather people to work under the Imperial court and not the government. The members of the group, around 250 people, met on February 8, 1863 in Edo and they all left for Kyoto. Serizawa joined as a member along with Niimi Nishiki, Hirayama Gorou, Hirama Juusuke and Noguchi Kengi. Also joining the group were Kondo Isami along with Hijikata Toshizo, Okita Souji, Inoue Gensaburou, Todou Heisuke, Harada Sanosuke, and Nagakura Shinpachi. Two days later, while the Roushigroup left for Kyoto on February 10, Kondo was responsible for assigning lodges for the members. However, he accidentally forgot about Serizawa's group, leading to a famous incident where Serizawa lost his temper and, with the help of his group, created a huge bonfire outside the lodges as an insult to Kondo. On February 23rd, the Roushigumi arrived at Kyoto and Kondou and Serizawa's group stayed in Yagitei, a Mibu village outside Kyoto. Surprisingly, Kiyokawa suddenly commanded the group to return to Edo when they had just arrived in Kyoto. By then, he had secretly submitted a letter to the Imperial court stating that his Roushigumi were to serve under the court. Kondo and Serizawa decided to separate from the group and stay in Kyoto. In response, a government official made spies out of Roushigumi members Tomouchi Yoshio and Iesato Jiro, forcing them to stay in Kyoto and join Serizawa and Kondo's group and keep an eye on them.

Serizawa and Kondou's group separated from the Roushigumi, becoming nothing more than an isolated group of samurais who had no ties to the Tokugawa regime or the Imperial court. On March 10th, Serizawa and Kondou decided to submit a letter to the Aizu clan asking to join them in policing Kyoto, claiming the Tokugawa regime wasn't able to handle the job. The Aizu clan were assigned by the Tokugawa regime to police the streets in Kyoto by samurais (most of them lower-class samurais from Choshu, Tosa, and other states) who rampantly started fights and committed assassinations. The idea of working under the Aizu may have originated with Serizawa's older brother, who had connections with the Aizu clan. On March 12th, the Aizu clan accepted the letter's request, making the 22 samaurai into a group under the Aizu clan.

It was then that the group began calling themselves the Mibu Roushigumi and Serizawa becomes the lead captain. Originally, the group was made out of three major sects, Serizawa's group, Kondo's group, and Tomouchi's group (members below). But Tomouchi and Iesato were assaniated shortly afterwards, leaving two sects led by Serizawa and Kondo.

Serizawa's sect: Serizawa Kamo Niimi Nishiki Hirayama Gorou Hirama Juusuke Noguchi Kenji Araya Shingorou Saeki Matasaburou

Kondo's sect: Kondo Isami Hijikata Toshizo Inoue Gensaburo Okita Souji Nagakura Shinpachi Saito Hajime Harada Sanosuke Todou Heisuke Yamanami Keisuke

Tomouchi's sect: Tomouchi Yoshio Iesato Jirou Abiru Aisaburo Negishi Yuuzan

Again, Serizawa started numerous incidents. On June 3rd, Aizu commanded Mibu Roushigumi members to police Osaka. Serizawa and his group were out drinking and later Serizawa killed a sumo who got in his way while he was walking. This created a conflict with the 25-30 sumos who were in the murdered sumo's dojo. Serizawa's group had only ten or so members but managed to overcome their attackers. At the end ten sumos were dead and the rest had sustained serious injuries, yet Serizawa's group barely had any injuries at all. News of this incident spread quickly, enhancing the Mibu Roushigumi's reputation. Later in June, Serizawa had a drinking gathering with his members in a restaurant in Shimahara. He lost his temper while drinking and wrecked the whole restaurant; the restaurant had to be closed for business because of it. On August 12th, Serizawa and his group destroyed Yamatoya, a silk cloth store, in daylight with a cannon given to the group by the Aizu clan.

On August 18th, the Choshu clan were forced out of the Imperial court by the Tokugawa regime by the Aizu clan and Satsuma clan. All 52 members of Mibu Roushigumi were sent to support Aizu and help keep Choshu out of the imperial court. This caused a political shift from the extreme anti-Tokugawa Choshu forces to the pro-Tokugawa Aizu forces.

Serizawa sect assassination

On September 10th, Niimi Nishiki, who was sub-captain of Mibu Roushigumi, was forced to commit seppuku by Hijikata and Yamanami. Most likely, this was the beginning of the plan by the Kondo sect to get rid of Serizawa and his group. When Serizawa, Hirayama, and Hirama found out about the involuntary seppuku, they were unable to retaliate because in August they had started recruiting many of their members to side with Kondo. Noguchi was not in Mibu village at this time. On September 18th (or possibly September 16th), all of the Mibu Roushigumi had a drinking party at which Hijikata, Okita, Yamanami and Harada made a plan to assassinate Serizawa. Serizawa was then assassinated along with Oume, a woman who was sleeping with him, and also Hirayama. Hirama, the sole survivor in Serizawa's group, managed to flee back to Mito where he reported Serizawa Kamo's death. Kondo's group reported to Aizu that Serizawa and Hirayama died from disease. Later that year, on December 27th, Noguchi was forced to commit seppuku.

There have been a number of theories about the motive for the assassination:

1. Serizawa was too out of hand, so Aizu secretly planned to assassinate Serizawa Kamo with Kondo and Hijikata.

   This is the most mainstream and widely believed theory. It's quite possible that both Aizu and Kondo felt Serizawa was too reckless to be the lead captain of a group was intended to regulate peace in Kyoto, and one who would react violently to dismissal.

2. The Mito clan was thinking of taking Serizawa's Mibu Roushigumi to the fore-runner of sonno joi. Aizu clan felt this was a threat because they are more pro-Tokugawa than pro-Imperial court like Mito, so they commanded Kondo to assassinate Serizawa's group.<p> This is a lesser-known theory. The Aizu clan could have said they were commanded to assassinate Serizawa because he was reckless in order to hide the true motive: an underlying conflict with Mito. Aizu was having trouble in Kyoto already from samurais from Choshu and Tosa causing violence openly in the streets, so they could have wanted to prevent Mito from siding with the extreme anti-foreigner groups.
3. Kondo and Hijikata used Serizawa to have connections with Aizu and now that was accomplished they eliminated Serizawa's group to take a hold of the group.<p> It's likely that Kondo and Hijikata hated Serizawa because of the incident where Serizawa created a huge insulting bon fire in February just because Kondo forgot to assign a lodge for him. On the other hand, they probably wouldn't have been able to form Mibu Roushigumi, which later became the Shinsengumi, if it wasn't for Serizawa's brother's close relations with the Aizu clan; they had to allow him to be lead captain even though they hated him. They could have secretly met with the Aizu clan and asked them for permission to slay Serizawa.
4. Serizawa's group was from Mito; therefore they had pro-Imperial beliefs. Kondo was very close to Serizawa and he respected him, so Hijikata feared he would be taken in by Serizawa's beliefs. He planned Serizawa's assassination to prevent this.<p> This is another less-believed and unlikely theory. Kondo and Hijikata were very pro-Tokugawa, since they were born as farmers, so they had a strong admiration for and desire to become samurais. The Tokugawa regime and the Shogun was a symbol of power to samurai society to them, so they wanted to work under the Tokugawa regime to be accepted as true samurais. Serizawa and his group probably didn't understand that strong desire and drive that Kondo and Hijikata had, since they were already born within the samurai class. Therefore, Serizawa's group did not work as hard as some other members of Mibu Roushigumi. Nevertheless, Serizawa Kamo still had strong Sonno Joi ideals. </ol>

   Serizawa's Personality

   Serizawa was quite bold and courageous but on the other hand extremely selfish and had a short temper. If he was in a bad mood he got violent, especially when he was drinking, and he was a heavy drinker. There is a theory that he had syphillis and he started drinking constantly to forget the fear from having the disease; some believed the disease was beginning to infect his brain. It is hard to tell if this theory is reliable or not. He held very pro-Imperial court beliefs and took the Sonno-joi beliefs very seriously while at the same time siding with the Tokugawa regime. A small fact that is less well-known is that Serizawa was good at drawing and showed his drawings to children. He is often portrayed as being a symbol of evil in Japanese popular culture, but this image is exaggerated.

   Sources

   • Shiba Ryotaro's non-fiction books Moero Ken (Burn O Sword) and Shinsengumi Keppuroku (Shinsengumi Bloody Record).
   • The Man who created the Shinsengumi "Serizawa Kamo" (http://www.tamatsukuri.or.jp/shinsen-hp/). In Japanese.ja:芹沢鴨