Shinsengumi. Romulus Hillsborough

had a harelip. But she was wellborn, well-bred, well-educated, and, perhaps most important, endowed with measures of propriety and pluck more prevalent in the daughter of a samurai than in a woman of the common classes. The sword master’s heir had encountered many other prospective brides, each more physically attractive than Otsuné. When asked why he had chosen Otsuné for his wife, he is said to have replied, “I had interviews with beautiful women. They were conceited about their good looks. But Otsuné was much more humble in her manner and very polite.” Perhaps this is indicative of a certain humanity in the future Shinsengumi commander, and certainly it had something to do with his immovable determination to adhere to the stoic mores of his adopted social class. They were married at the end of March 1860, as the capital reeled from the shock of Regent Ii Naosuké’s assassination. Soon after their marriage, Otsuné embroidered the likeness of a skull on the back of Kondō’s training robe—a token of her appreciation for her warrior-husband’s resolve to die.

In the following year the sword master’s heir was awarded shinan menkyo, the highest rank in the Tennen Rishin style. Kondō Shūsuké now retired, and his adopted son became the fourth master of that style. The Shieikan flourished under the young master. The names on the student roster exceeded three hundred, mostly men of peasant households in Tama. The young master traveled around the region to teach at local training halls. He was a large, muscular man. His feet were so big that the maid employed at the home of a friend was “stunned by the unusually large size of his wooden clogs,” which he removed before entering the house. So large was his mouth that he could fit his entire fist inside—an antic that drew hysterical laughter at drinking bouts during the bloody and tumultuous years he ruled the dangerous streets of the Imperial Capital. It was also around his twenty-seventh year that the peasant-turned-swordmaster changed his name to Kondō Isami‡—an appellation that would arouse feelings of derision, fear, and hate among his enemies; pride and love among the good people of his native Tama; gratitude and hope among the embattled powers that were in Edo; and awed respect among them all.

      Kondō practiced the Tennen Rishin style for more than fourteen years. When the opportunity was presented him at age twenty-nine to put his sword to practical use, it was with his great courage, a burning desire to “vent [his] long-held indignation” toward the foreign intruders, and a determination to make a name for himself as a samurai in the service of the shōgun that he closed the doors of the Shieikan and, with seven of his top swordsmen, enlisted in the Rōshi Corps.

The Shinsengumi originally had three commanders. Ranking beside Kondō and Serizawa was a close ally of the latter named Shinmi Nishiki. But Shinmi was a nominal rather than actual commander. Exceedingly more important to this historical narrative, and to the history of Japan, was Hijikata Toshizō, one of two vice commanders of the Shinsengumi, whose warrior’s nature earned him the epithet “Demon Commander.” Hijikata was Kondō’s closest friend and confidant. Like Kondō, he was also the youngest son of a wealthy Tama peasant. He was a handsome man just over five feet seven inches tall.§ He had a light complexion and almost classical features, which made him stand out among his countrymen. His photograph, taken after the fall of the Bakufu, at the end of 1868, shows Vice Commander of the Army Hijikata Toshizō seated on a wooden chair in Western-style clothing with knee-high military boots and a sword at his left side. The cropped black hair, no longer in a topknot, is combed straight back. Most striking are the eyes, betraying an unyielding yet calm resolve to die—almost a longing for death—which he would bring with him to his last battle.

      Hijikata was one year younger than Kondō. Having lost both parents by the time he was five years old, Hijikata was raised by his elder brother and sister-in-law at his family’s home in Ishida Village, beneath the shadow of the ancient and solemn Takahata Fudō Temple. At eleven he was briefly apprenticed at the giant mercantile enterprise Matsuzaka’ya in Edo. Upon returning to his native countryside, the boy divided his time between his family’s home and the nearby residence of his elder sister and her husband at Hino, a post town along the Kōshū-kaidō. When Hijikata was sixteen, he planted arrow bamboo behind his house and vowed to himself, as preposterously as prophetically, “to become a samurai.” Arrow bamboo consists of short, straight shafts no thicker than a person’s finger—ideal for making arrows. Planting arrow bamboo was considered an act of discretion—preparation for war becoming of a samurai. Similarly samurai-like were the manly arts of calligraphy and poetry (both Chinese and Japanese), which Hijikata pursued with a passion. He was particularly fond of haiku. Under the pen name Hōgyoku, he left behind in Hino a collection of haiku before setting out for Kyōto.

      Hijikata’s brother-in-law, Satō Hikogorō, earned menkyo rank under Kondō Shūsuké, entitling him to teach the Tennen Rishin style. Before that, Satō had inherited from his father an expansive and gated country estate and a lofty position as official leader of Hino Village. Although he belonged to the peasant class, Satō would be more aptly called a country squire than a farmer. Shortly before Hijikata’s prophetic vow, Satō had built a kenjutsu dōjō at his home, where Master Shūsuké and his heir occasionally taught. In addition to Satō, Kondō and Hijikata also maintained close relations with another member of the local squirearchy who shared their passion for kenjutsu. This was Kojima Shikanosuké, the leader of Onoji Village. Satō was six years older than Kondō; Kojima was three years Kondō’s senior. The two older men tutored their fencing master in literature, while Kondō taught kenjutsu at the private dōjō of Satō and in the front garden of the Kojima estate.

      Master Shūsuké and son were beholden to their wealthy students. Kojima and Satō provided an important source of financial support to the humble Kondō household. The two village leaders continued this support after Kondō and Hijikata enlisted in the Rōshi Corps. In their fencing master’s absence, Satō taught the Tennen Rishin style at Hino, while Kojima performed this duty at Onoji. Both men sent provisions, including much-needed armor, to Kondō and Hijikata during the bloody years in Kyōto, and during the New Year holidays Kojima collected money from local kenjutsu students to send to their master in the west.

Satō’s private training hall proved a propitious venue to this history. It was at the Hino Dōjo that the future vice commander of the Shinsengumi honed his genius with an unsheathed sword in hand and where he befriended Kondō Isami. “He [Hijikata] was graceful in appearance and contemplative by nature, which compensated for the straightforwardness of Kondō,” wrote Michio Hirao,¶ to explain why the two men were “as close to one another as brothers.” To support himself while practicing kenjutsu, Hijikata traveled through the local countryside peddling a special herbal medicine produced by his family. This medicine healed a variety of ailments, including contusions such as those left by a hard wooden practice sword. So great was Hijikata’s passion for fencing that, along with his black wicker medicine chest, he always carried his fencing equipment, “stopping along the way,” wrote Kan Shimosawa, “at any dōjō of merit to politely request instruction. But back then he had a gentle face like a woman’s. Although in the future his attitude would become self-important, since he was still cleverly charming, everyone treated him with kindness.”*

      “He had the slight air of a merchant,” recalled a fellow swordsman who occasionally practiced at the Shieikan. “He had drooping shoulders but was tall and slender, and one of the best-looking men of the bunch [at the Shieikan]. He was shrewd in his dealings with people, and what’s more he was a clever man. He tended to be a little disagreeable, and ... there were quite a few people whom he disliked. When sitting opposite someone, he would first of all look that person over slowly, from his knees up to his face. Then he would quietly begin speaking.”

      Hijikata Toshizō did not officially enroll at Kondō’s dōjō until the spring of 1859, a number of years after the two had met. At the Shieikan, Hijikata wore his face guard tied with a pretty red cord, earning the quiet ridicule of certain of his fellow swordsmen—and the coveted menkyo rank. Several years later, people in Hijikata’s native village could hardly believe reports of the bloodletting in Kyōto at the hands of the vice