Takasugi Shinsaku

Takasugi Shinsaku (高杉 晋作^?, 27 September 1839 – 17 May 1867) was a samurai from the Chōshū Domain of Japan who contributed significantly to the Meiji Restoration.

He used the alias Tani Umenosuke (谷梅之助^?) to hide his activities from the shogunate.

Takasugi was born in the castle town Hagi, the capital of the feudal domain of Chōshū (present-day Yamaguchi prefecture) as the son of Takasugi Kochuta, a middle-ranked samurai of the domain.

Takasugi joined the Shoka Sonjuku, the famous private school of Yoshida Shōin. Takasugi devoted himself to the modernization of Chōshū's military, and became a favorite student of Yoshida. In 1858, he entered the Shoheiko (a military school under direct control of the Shogun at Edo), but in 1859 returned home by the clan's command. Takasugi - in spite of his young age - was an influential factor within Chōshū as one of the most extreme advocates of a policy of seclusion and expelling the foreigners from Japan. Takasugi was implicated in the 12 December 1862 attack on the British legation in Edo.

In spite of Japan's policy of national isolation in the Edo period, in 1862 Takasugi was ordered by the domain to go secretly to Shanghai in China to investigate the state of affairs and the strength of the Western powers. Takasugi's visit coincided with the Taiping Rebellion, and he was shocked by the effects of European imperialism even on the Chinese Empire. Takasugi returned to Japan convinced that Japan must strengthen itself to avoid being colonized by the western powers, or to suffer a similar fate as China. This coincided with the growing Sonnō Jōi ('expel the barbarians and revere the Emperor') movement, which attracted certain radical sections of Japan's warrior class and court nobility, and Takasugi's ideas found ready support in Chōshū and other parts of Japan.

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