Isoji Kusakabe - Isoji Kusakabe

Japanese: 日下部伊三次 - くさかべ・いそうじ

Year of death: December 17, 5th year of Ansei (January 20, 1859)
Year of birth: Bunka 11 (1814)
A sonno joi (sonnō jōi) samurai of the Satsuma (Kagoshima) clan in the late Edo period. His given names were Nobumasa and Tsubasa. He was known as Isajiro and also had the pen names Kugo and Saneyoshi. He also took on the pseudonyms Fukaya Sakichi and Miyazaki Fukutaro. His father was a former Satsuma samurai and director of the Mito Ota Academy, Kaieda (Kusakabe) Nutsusairen. He succeeded his father as director of the Ota Academy. In 1844 (Kōka 1), when Tokugawa Nariaki, lord of the Mito clan, retired and was placed under house arrest, he participated in a movement to lift the punishment, and in 1855 (Ansei 2), with Nariaki's mediation, he was returned to the Satsuma clan. In the 5th year of the 16th century, when the Ii Naosuke government signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Japan without permission, he contacted the Sonno Joi faction of the Mito domain and attempted to get the secret imperial decree criticizing the Ii government to be handed down. He went to Tokyo and persuaded the Mito domain's Kyoto residence officer Ukai Kichizaemon and Sanjo Sanetaka, and succeeded in persuading them. He delivered a copy of the secret imperial decree (the Bogo no Himitsu Imperial decree) to the Mito domain's Edo residence via the Kiso road. He died in prison during the Ansei Purge. It is said that he had fasted to resist the torture.

(Masahiko Yoshida)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：安政5.12.17(1859.1.20)
生年：文化11(1814)
幕末尊攘派薩摩(鹿児島)藩士。諱は信政,翼。伊三次と称し九皐,実稼と号す。深谷佐吉,宮崎復太郎と変名。父は,元薩摩藩士で水戸太田学館幹事海江田(日下部)訥斎連。父の跡を襲って太田学館幹事。弘化1(1844)年,水戸藩主徳川斉昭の隠居謹慎に際して処罰解除運動に参加,安政2(1855)年,斉昭のとりなしで薩摩藩に復帰。5年,井伊直弼政権が日米修好通商条約を無断違勅調印するや水戸藩尊攘派と連絡,井伊政権批判の密勅降下を企図,上京して水戸藩京都留守居役鵜飼吉左衛門らと三条実万らに入説し成功,木曾路経由で密勅(戊午の密勅)の写しを水戸藩江戸屋敷に伝えた。安政の大獄で獄死。拷問に抗し絶食したためという。

(吉田昌彦)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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