For Oguri, 1868 was a year of a hundred days and a little more. He was relieved of office on the fifteenth day of the first month, left Edo at the end of the second month, entered the village of Gonda on the first day of the third month, and was beheaded on the sixth day of the intercalary fourth month.
In that time he built a house, brought in water, and planned a school for the young men of the village. He was not holding out under arms. It is on record too that the envoys of the three domains inspected the place and satisfied themselves that there was “nothing of the kind the order alleges”.
He was beheaded all the same. Neither at the temple nor at the barracks was any examination held. Of the men who had held high office under the shogunate, Oguri is the only one cut down without fighting.
1868 — from dismissal to the riverbed at Mizunuma
-
Fifteenth day, first month
Relieved of office
Summoned to Edo Castle and relieved of both his posts, acting commissioner of the army and commissioner of finance. Behind it, it is said, lay the split between Oguri, who argued for fighting to the end, and councillors inclining to submission.
-
Twenty-eighth day, first month
He petitions to settle at the village of Gonda
He asks leave to move to the village of Gonda in Gunma district, Kōzuke province (375 koku), where his fief lay. The Oguri holdings were scattered over four provinces: Kōzuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa and Shimōsa.
-
Twenty-eighth day, second month
He leaves Edo
He leaves Edo with his family and his retainers — his mother Kuniko, his wife Michiko, his adopted daughter Masako and the rest. Michiko had conceived before they left.
-
First day, third month
He enters Tōzenji in the village of Gonda
Leaving Takasaki, he reaches Tōzenji in the village of Gonda that evening. From then on the temple is his dwelling.
-
Fourth day, third month
He drives off an attack by a wrecking mob
A crowd said to number two thousand surrounds the temple, but his adopted heir Matakichi and the infantry, trained in the French manner, drive it off in a short time. The next day the village officers of the four neighbouring villages come to apologize. Oguri accepts the apology, tells them to “send their second and third sons to the temple to study”, and is said to have added that one day he would see a chief minister of state come out of this valley.
-
Third month to intercalary fourth month
He plans a house and a school on Kannonyama
He begins building a house on Kannonyama, about a kilometre downstream from the temple. On a waterless terrace he lays out a channel by French instrument survey, opens paddy, plants tea and makes a riding ground. The channel he surveyed for the neighbouring hamlet of Odaka was finished after his death and is in use today. The raising of the ridgepole was set for the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month.
-
Twenty-second day, fourth month
The “order to hunt Oguri down”
The headquarters of the Tōsandō pacification force issues an order to the three domains of Takasaki, Annaka and Yoshii to arrest Oguri, on a report that he had “raised a fortified encampment and built a gun battery”. On the first day of the intercalary fourth month the domains' envoys come to Tōzenji and put the charges to him; they inspect the place, satisfy themselves that there is “nothing of the kind the order alleges”, and Oguri hands over an ornamental bronze cannon and rifles as proof of his submission. His adopted heir Matakichi set out for the headquarters to answer for him.
-
Fifth day, intercalary fourth month
The arrest
Despite the report of the three domains, the inspecting officers of the Tōsandō force, Hara Yasutarō of Chōshū and Toyonaga Kan'ichirō of Tosa, order the attack. Early in the morning the troops of the three domains surround Tōzenji and seize Oguri and his retainers, who were sitting upright in the main hall. Neither at the temple nor at the barracks was any examination held.
-
Sixth day, intercalary fourth month
(27 May 1868)Beheaded at the riverbed at Mizunuma on the Karasu River
About the half of the fourth hour of the morning — eleven o'clock — he was beheaded at the riverbed at Mizunuma on the Karasu River, now Mizunuma in Kurabuchi, Takasaki, together with his retainers Ōi Isojūrō, Watanabe Tasaburō and Arakawa Yūzō. He was forty-two by Japanese count. He is recorded as saying at the last that his mother and his wife had already been sent away, and asking for leniency toward the women and children.
Of the men who had held high office under the shogunate, Oguri is the only one cut down without fighting.
-
Seventh day, intercalary fourth month
Matakichi and three others beheaded at Takasaki
The four who had gone to answer for him and been seized — his adopted heir Matakichi Tadamichi, Tsukamoto Masahiko, Tada Kinnosuke and Kutsukake Tōgorō — were beheaded as well, with no examination, before the jail inside Takasaki castle. Father, son and retainers came to eight in all. After the executions the household goods were confiscated and sold by auction at Takasaki for military funds.
-
From the end of the
intercalary fourth monthTo Aizu — the family's escape
His mother, his wife and his adopted daughter, escorted by more than twenty villagers, got away from the village of Gonda to Aizu by way of Naganohara, Akiyama-gō, Tōkamachi, Nagaoka, Niigata and Tsugawa. The pregnant Michiko bore a daughter, Kuniko, at Aizu, and lived through the war there. Kuniko later took a husband, and the house of Oguri was raised again.
“Traitor” is a name attached after the killing. Oguri was not killed for being a traitor. Those killed by the forces of the Meiji government were alike called traitors once they were dead.
Getting the name off took more than sixty years. → Commemoration in later years
For the place of the execution and the stone that stands there, see the places.
In more detail
The hundred days and more of 1868 are set out at greater length in the articles below: his response to the return of power to the emperor the year before, the house, the water channel and the school planned at the village of Gonda, the defence against the gamblers' attack, the course of the arrest order, the execution, and what became of the family after.
-
The return of power to the emperor, and Oguri's case against it
Oguri is said to have had in view not a league of domains but a system of prefectures with a president. After the return of power he went on arguing for resistance at the head of the shogunate's army.
-
The great council at Edo Castle — the one voice for fighting on
At the great council at Edo Castle on the twelfth day of the first month, Oguri is said to have argued to the last for fighting on. There is the story, too, of his taking hold of Yoshinobu's trousers.
-
The Hakone plan that never was
Draw the new government's army on to Hakone and cut its line of retreat with naval guns from Suruga Bay — a plan of operations that was not adopted.
-
The petition to settle at the village of Gonda
From the handing over of the family treasures on the nineteenth day of the first month, through the petition to settle, to the departure from Edo and the arrival at Tōzenji.
-
The water channel and the house on Kannonyama, and the school he hoped to build
The channel laid out by French survey, and the school planned for the young men of the village: the two undertakings Oguri set his hand to at the village of Gonda.
-
His last command: driving off the gamblers' attack at Sannokura
Early in the third month a band of gamblers came down on the village of Gonda and was driven off by a hundred and more peasant militia and village hunters. It was the last fight commanded by a man who had held high office under the shogunate.
-
The flight of his wife Michiko — the road to Aizu
The long road by which his pregnant wife Michiko, escorted by more than twenty villagers, got away from the village of Gonda to Aizu.
-
Presenting himself, and the arrest — answering the order
The first to the fifth day of the intercalary fourth month: the attack was ordered although the report said there was “nothing of the kind the order alleges”.
-
The sixth day of the intercalary fourth month: the end at the riverbed at Mizunuma
How the beheading was carried out, with no examination, and what to keep in mind about the last words handed down since.
-
The end of his adopted heir Matakichi
Matakichi, who had gone to the headquarters to answer for his father, was beheaded at Takasaki the day after him, with no examination.
-
A loyal young man, and the story of how he guarded his lord's head
The story handed down of Mukasa Ginsuke, eighteen years old, who carried his lord's head away in secret at his own risk.
-
Tatebayashi: the night the heads were taken back
How Nakajima Sanzaemon, Tsukakoshi Fusagorō and others brought the heads held at Tatebayashi back to Gonda, about 1869.
-
Kuniko, “the only blood of the house of Oguri”, born at Aizu
Kuniko, the daughter born in the castle town of Aizu on the fourteenth day of the sixth month of 1868. It was through her that the Oguri line was carried on.
-
The retainers who died on the Karasu River
Ōi Isojūrō, Watanabe Tasaburō and Arakawa Yūzō, beheaded with Oguri at the riverbed at Mizunuma: the retainers who attended him to the last.
-
The seventeen who went with them to Aizu
The young men of the village of Gonda who escorted his mother and his wife to Aizu: seventeen of whom nothing but the names remains, Nakajima Sanzaemon at their head.