Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa

Infobox Military Person
name= HIH Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa
lived=1 April 1847 - 5 November 1895
placeofbirth=Kyoto, Japan
placeofdeath=Tainan, Taiwan


caption= Japanese General Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa
nickname=
allegiance=Empire of Japan
branch=
serviceyears=1887-1895
rank=Lieutenant General
commands=IJA 4th Division, IJA 1st Division
unit=
battles=Taiwan Expedition of 1874
awards=
family=
laterwork=

nihongo|Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa |北白川宮能久親王|Kitashirakawa-no-miya Yoshihisa-shinnō| extra= 1 April 1847 - 5 November 1895 of Japan, was the 2nd head of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family.

Biography

Early life

Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa was the ninth son of Prince Fushimi Kuniye (1802-1875). He entered the Buddhist priesthood under the title Rinnoji-no-miya. He served as abbot of Kan'ei-ji in Edo.

Bakumatsu period

During the unrest of the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugaga Shogun, Prince Yoshihisa fled north with Tokugawa partisans of the following the Satsuma-Chōshū takeover of the city of Edo, and was made the nominal head of the "Northern Alliance" "(Ouetsu Reppan Domei)." This short-lived alliance consisted of almost all of the domains of northern Japan under the leadership of Date Yoshikuni of Sendai. Documents exist which name Prince Yoshihisa as nihongo|"'Emperor Tōbu"'|東武天皇 |Tōbu-tennō, (alternately 東武皇帝 Tōbu-kōtei), and delineate the holders of the chief positions of a new, northern court; however, historians are divided as to whether or not Prince Yoshihisa was actually named emperor. Depending on the source, Prince Yoshihisa's planned era name ("nengō") is believed to have been either Taisei (大政) or Enju (延寿).

Following the Meiji Restoration, in 1873 Emperor Meiji recalled all imperial princes currently serving as Buddhist priests back to secular status. That same year he succeeded his younger brother, Prince Kitashirakawa Kasunari, as the second head of the new princely house of Kitashirakawa-no-miya.

Marriage and family

In April 1886, Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa married Shimazu Tomiko (1862-1935), the adopted daughter of Prince Shimazu Hisamitsu of Satsuma domain. The marriage produced no children: however, Prince Yoshihisa had five sons by various concubines, as was common practice for the time:
# Prince Takeda Tsunehisa (22 September 1882 – 23 April 1919)
# Count Futara Yoshiaki (26 October 1886 – 18 April 1909)
# Count Ueno Masao
# Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa (18 April 1887 – 2 April 1923)
# Marquis Komatsu Teruhisa (b. 2 August 1888)

Military career

Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa became a professional soldier, and was sent to Germany for military training. On his return to Japan in 1887, he was commissioned as a major general in the Imperial Japanese Army. In 1893, as lieutenant general, he was given command of the IJA 4th Division. After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, he was transferred to the elite IJA 1st Division and participated in the Taiwan Expedition of 1874. During the invasion, he contracted malaria and died outside of Tainan (although there were rumors that he was killed in action by Taiwanese guerrillas). Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa is thus the first member of the Japanese imperial family known to have died outside of Japan, and the first (in modern times) to have died in war. Under State Shinto, he was elevated to a "kami," and was enshrined in most of the Shinto shrines erected in Taiwan under the Japanese occupation, as well as in Yasukuni Jinja.

Gallery

References

*cite book
last = Dupuy
first = Trevor N.
year = 1992
title = The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography
publisher = HarperCollins Publishers Inc
location = New York
id = ISBN 0-7858-0437-4
*cite book
last = Fujitani
first = T
coauthors = Cox, Alvin D
year = 1998
title = Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan
publisher = University of California Press.
location =
id = ISBN 0520213718
*cite book
last = Jansen
first = Marius B..
year = 200
title = The Making of Modern Japan
publisher = The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
location = Cambridge
id = ISBN 0-7858-0437-4
*cite book
last = Keane
first = Donald
coauthors = Cox, Alvin D
year = 2005
title = Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912
publisher = Columbia University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0231123418
*cite book
last = Lebra
first = Sugiyama Takie
year = 1995
title = Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility'
publisher = University of California Press
location =
id = ISBN 0520076028