The Riverbed of the Karasu River, Two Swords ―― How Ninagawa Arata Indicted the Death of Oguri Tadamasa

The First Day of the Fourth Month of Keiō 4, Tōzenji

The first day of the fourth month of Keiō 4 (1868).Original
Tōzenji, at the foot of Mount Haruna, in Gonda, Jōshū.Original
Roughly eight hundred troops from the three domains of Takasaki, Annaka, and Obata closed in on the temple on the mountainside.Original
What they sought was a meeting with one former shogunal retainer living at the temple.Original
Oguri Kōzuke no Suke Tadamasa.Original
The former finance magistrate.Original
Forty-two years old.OriginalOriginal

Their greeting was that they were themselves merely retainers of retainers.Original
Ninagawa regards this as “proper courtesy for a warrior.”Original
Oguri, for his part, was also quiet.Original
He argued that he harbored no intent to rebel, and handed over to the men of the three domains one cannon and twenty rifles he had brought from Edo.OriginalOriginal

When the area around the temple was inspected, no encampment was found.Original
No gun battery had been built either.Original
The men of the three domains withdrew, judging that “the matter was clear.”Original
The next day, the second, Oguri had his adopted heir Matakazu, accompanied by three attendant retainers, report to the imperial army’s field office at Takasaki.Original
Matakazu was twenty-one.Original
This surrender was meant to demonstrate an absence of selfish motive.Original
Ninagawa calls this “a kind of hostage policy,” adding, “how sorrowful the circumstances were.”OriginalOriginal

“The Treasonous Plot Is Clear”

The proclamation carried by the three domains had been issued by the Tōsandō Governor-General’s headquarters.Original
It stated that Oguri, in Gonda, “had rigorously set up an encampment, and moreover built a gun battery, undertaking an enterprise not to be treated lightly,” and that “the treasonous plot is clear.”Original
The text stated that he had set up an encampment in the village, built a battery besides, and was engaged in an undertaking not to be taken lightly—that rebellion was obvious.Original
At the end it read, “should the matter prove beyond control,” “let a single strike put him to death.”Original
This was an instruction that if the matter proved beyond control, it should be reported to headquarters, and the vanguard units should strike him down at once.OriginalOriginal

Ninagawa fastens on two phrases in this text.Original
“Thorough investigation” and “the treasonous plot is clear.”Original
Yet no investigation worthy of the name had been carried out; Ninagawa holds that only “a handful of petty men” had gone to look around.Original
Ninagawa’s judgment is that the basis for the proclamation was nothing but a rumor of unrest deliberately incited beforehand, used as a pretext.Original
This is precisely why he does not mince words, calling it “a falsehood that utterly disregards the facts.”OriginalOriginal

Here one is brought back to recall the conditions set out in the proclamation.Original
On the first day of the fourth month, Oguri had handed over his weapons and surrendered his adopted son.Original
Far from being beyond control, he was a man who had obeyed the order.Original
That he was later bound and beheaded, Ninagawa calls “an unlawful act exceeding proper authority.”Original
It can also be read as meaning that the very side that had written the proclamation’s text had itself broken it.Original

At the Farmhouse in Kamezawa

After the Takasaki domain retainers withdrew, the atmosphere changed.Original
Ninagawa reports that the supervising officers, including Toyonaga, were dissatisfied with the handling by the three domains and threatened that “the imperial army shall punish the three domains.”Original
They were rebuking the domains for not having killed Oguri.Original
Public sentiment was not calm.OriginalOriginal

On the third day of the fourth month, Oguri left the temple at the urging of his attendants.Original
He stopped at the house of the farmer Ōi Akijirō in Kamezawa, in the same village, about one ri away, and rested there for a while.Original
There, the village headman of Gonda, Satō Tōshichi, caught up with him.Original
He said it was by order of the imperial army.Original
“If you return and inform the imperial army that you harbor no ill intent, nothing could be better for the sake of the village and also for the sake of Lord Matakazu.”Original
The purport was this: if he returned and conveyed to the imperial army that he had no ulterior motive, nothing would serve better for the village and for Matakazu.Original
The headman said that if he fled, all the villagers would suffer hardship, and it would also endanger the life of Matakazu, who was in Takasaki.OriginalOriginal

Ninagawa sees this as “a clever stratagem released by the imperial army side.”Original
Threaten the three domains, threaten the village farmers, and call back Oguri, who had left the temple.Original
Ninagawa’s reading is that this was the procedure for carrying out the killing that had been the objective from the very start.OriginalOriginal

Oguri’s answer was brief.Original
“I have never harbored any ulterior motive; I will return to the temple and state to the imperial army that I have none.”Original
He said: I have no ulterior motive to begin with; let me go back to the temple and state this to the imperial army.Original
Here Ninagawa sees “a final resolve.”Original
It was a resolve to sacrifice himself in order to save the villagers.Original
Ninagawa declares flatly that the bold Oguri could never have done anything so “cowardly” as continuing to hide in a farmhouse of the same village.OriginalOriginal

That night, Oguri counseled his mother Kuniko and his wife Michiko, and had them leave the village.Original
Michiko was, for the first time, with child.Original
Sixteen attendants accompanied them.Original
Ninagawa records, as hearsay, that Michiko hid herself inside a grass-cutting basket, had straw placed over her head, and was carried on the back of a village farmer to escape.Original
Passing through Echigo, she reached Aizu, and on the fourteenth day of the sixth month gave birth to a daughter.Original
It was just over two months and ten-odd days from the parting on the third day of the fourth month.OriginalOriginal

Early Morning of the Sixth Day of the Fourth Month, the Riverbed of the Karasu River

On the fifth, roughly a thousand troops from the three domains of Takasaki, Annaka, and Yoshii surrounded Tōzenji and stormed in.Original
Ninagawa records that they captured Oguri “without so much as a single word.”Original
Oguri offered no resistance.Original
He also writes that it is said in the world that Oguri remained perfectly composed.OriginalOriginal

Early morning of the sixth.Original
A riverbed by the Karasu River.Original
A desolate spot several chō from the temple, within the bounds of the neighboring village.Original
Oguri and three retainers were brought out here.Original
No sentence of any kind was pronounced.
The supervising officer asked only one thing.Original
“Is there anything you wish to leave as your final words?”OriginalOriginal

Oguri answered, “There is nothing,” adding only one thing.Original
He said his mother and wife had already been sent away, and he asked for lenient treatment for the women and children.Original
First, the three retainers were cut down before Oguri’s eyes.Original
When one of them blurted out, “How regrettable,” Oguri rebuked him, telling him not to show attachment or regret.OriginalOriginal

Then Oguri’s head was cut off.Original
It did not fall with a single stroke.Original
Ninagawa writes that two strokes were needed.Original
He writes that the executioner’s “heart quailed and his arm grew dull.”Original
It is said that the villagers, terrified, and fearing a curse, appealed to the imperial army.OriginalOriginal

The head was impaled on the tip of a green bamboo pole and set up by the roadside.Original
The placard beside it read, “As this man is clearly shown to have plotted great treason against the Imperial Court…”Original
This was a proclamation stating that it was clear this man had plotted great treason against the Imperial Court, and that heavenly punishment had accordingly been inflicted.Original
The head was further sent to Governor-General Iwakura Tomosada at Tatebayashi, where it was submitted for identification.OriginalOriginal

The next day, the seventh, at Takasaki.Original
Matakazu, who had been held in prison, was beheaded along with three attendant retainers.Original
Ninagawa records that the one who did the beheading was a foot soldier of the Takasaki domain.Original
Father and son, two men, and six retainers.Original
Ninagawa writes that this old-style atrocity, of the kind where “guilt extends to three generations of kin,” had appeared in the fourth month of Meiji 1.OriginalOriginal

Twenty-Five Ryō

Afterward, a document was submitted to the Governor-General’s headquarters.Original
It was the “Report of the Sentence Delivered,” written by Ōne Ryūtarō, an Ōmi rōnin known as a schemer.Original
It claimed that Oguri had conspired with Aizu and Ogasawara to block the Usui pass, had taken advantage of a farmers’ uprising to burn houses and kill people, and had hidden dozens of rifles underground.Original
And it stated, “Kōzuke, father and son, and six retainers, were forthwith cut down.”Original
It said that the father and son and six retainers had been struck down at once.Original
Ninagawa dismisses this document as “a fabricated document,” “a stock piece of work.”Original
He holds that such writings are produced in order to cover up the traces of the crime.OriginalOriginal

But what Ninagawa points to more forcefully is the action that followed.Original
On the fifteenth day of the fourth month, the same Ōne appeared in Gonda.Original
Bringing twenty-five ryō in “condolence money,” he handed it to the village headman claiming it was “an order from the Governor-General’s headquarters,” asked that a memorial service be held for Oguri, and departed.Original
Yesterday he had proclaimed heavenly punishment against a rebel; today he consoles the spirit and has a grave erected.Original
Ninagawa calls this reversal “far too expedient, far too lacking in dignity a measure,” and interprets it as a confession to the world, made in regret for the atrocity.Original
Such a reading is indeed possible.Original

One month before the beheading, in the third month of Meiji 1, the Charter Oath in Five Articles had been issued.Original
Its third article stated, “all classes, high and low, shall be allowed to fulfill their just desires.”Original
Its fourth article stated, “it must be based on the just laws of nature.”Original
He asks whether killing six people without any investigation was not a “trampling underfoot” of these two articles.Original
It was, he adds, not an age in which “the will of the commanding general is law itself.”OriginalOriginal

And then he sets forth a comparison.Original
Tokugawa Yoshinobu fought four days at Toba-Fushimi and did not die.Original
Matsudaira Katamori, with over a hundred and ten guns and three thousand troops, fought thirty days and did not die.Original
Oguri alone, who had withdrawn to a single remote village, was cut down as a “rebel” and had his head exposed.Original
Ninagawa writes, “for sixty years this has gone unwiped away.”OriginalOriginal

The Young Cedars

Gonda lies in the mountains roughly eight ri northwest of Takasaki, up along the Karasu River.Original
In the rear left of the Tōzenji temple grounds, the graves of Oguri and his son stand side by side.Original
The gravestones were made using the twenty-five ryō from Ōne, produced in rivalry by two skilled local craftsmen.Original
One step below stand the graves of the six retainers.Original
Ōi Isojūrō, Arakawa Yūzō, Watanabe Tazaburō, Tsukamoto Sanehiko, Kutsukake Tōjūrō, and Tada Kinnosuke.Original
However, it is said that only the torsos are buried there.Original
Ninagawa records that as for the whereabouts of the heads, aside from a rumor that a loyal farmer dug them up from a temple in Tatebayashi and buried them at Kannon-yama, only several strands of hearsay remain, pointing to Hōrinji and Mōrinji in Tatebayashi.Original
There were also movements to restore his honor.Original
Fukuchi Gen’ichirō and Shimada Saburō approached Inoue Kaoru, and Ōkuma Shigenobu’s wife also privately sent someone to intervene.Original
None of these efforts succeeded.Original
Ninagawa’s view is that the forces of Satsuma and Chōshū still stood in the way.Original
The adopted heir Oguri Sadao disliked such campaigns, and upon receiving two hundred yen in privy purse funds from the Empress, took it to mean that “the charge against Oguri Kōzuke no Suke has already been redeemed.”Original
The tenth day of the tenth month of Shōwa 2 (1927).Original
Ninagawa, together with local people, planted two young cedar trees before the grave.Original
“Young cedars, may you flourish forever together with the honored name of Kōzuke no Suke.”Original
Ōne’s report had needed to be written only once.Original
Was it not, in fact, that very pen against which the man who planted the cedars sixty years later had been contending?Original
How tall have the cedars grown by now, one wonders.OriginalOriginal

This article is a reading of Ishin zengo no seisō to Oguri Kōzuke no shi. Ninagawa Arata’s books (1928-31) are written from the standpoint of the shogunate’s retainers. The source text is a century old and may differ from current scholarship.

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