Fujimoto Tesseki

Japanese: 藤本鉄石 - ふじもと・てっせき

Year of death: Bunkyu 3.9.25 (1863.11.6)
Year of birth: Bunka 13.3.17 (1816.4.14)
A sonno joi (revere the expulsion of the nobility) patriot in the late Edo period. His given name was Magane, his pen name was Chuko, and he was commonly known as Gakuji and Tsunosuke. His pen names included Tetsuseki, Tetsukanshi, and Kibi Chuzanjin. He was the fourth son of Katayama Sakichi from Higashikawahara Village, Ono County, Bizen Province (Okayama City). His mother was Saki. He was a light soldier from the Okayama Domain and was adopted by his uncle, Fujimoto Hikoemon Shigekata, and served as a clerk in the domain's agricultural affairs department (irrigation officer). After the death of his adoptive father, he escaped from the domain in 1840 and went to Kyoto. He then traveled from the Tohoku region to Edo, and the Chugoku and Kyushu regions, interacting with notable people in each region and honing his academic and calligraphy skills. He excelled in waka and Chinese poetry, and was licensed in the Koshu and Naganuma schools of martial arts. In 1854, he was invited by Fushimi Magistrate Naito Masanawa to teach his subordinates, and also taught academics and martial arts at his private school, Genshijuku. He was outraged by the signing of the Ansei Treaty by the Chief Advisor Ii Naosuke, and was a strong advocate of Sonno Joi. In March 1862 (Bunkyu 2), he plotted to raise an army for Sonno Joi when Shimazu Hisamitsu led his troops to Kyoto, but he was captured and placed under house arrest in the Satsuma Domain residence in Osaka. In August of the following year, he became the head of the Tenchu-gumi along with Yoshimura Torataro of Tosa and Matsumoto Keido of Mikawa, and attacked the Gojo Magistrate's Office as a precursor to the Emperor's visit to Yamato. Immediately after this, the political upheaval occurred on August 18, and the shogunate ordered the Wakayama, Tsu, Hikone and other domains to suppress the Tenchu-gumi. As a result, he was forced to fight a hard battle, and after the departure of the Totsukawa samurai, he fled through the mountains of Yoshino, and was killed in battle at Washi-yaguchi (Yoshino Village, Nara Prefecture) by the soldiers of the Wakayama Domain, where he was heading in an attempt to open a bloody route. <Works> "Nikkan", "Shinten Komo", "Kyosho no Koto" <References> "A Study of the Yamato Righteous Movement of the So-called Tenchugumi" by Tatsuhiko Kubota, "Fujimoto Tetsuseki" by Tomomi Watanabe

(Takagi Shunsuke)

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

Japanese:

没年：文久3.9.25(1863.11.6)
生年：文化13.3.17(1816.4.14)
幕末の尊攘派志士。名は真金,字は鋳公,通称学治,津之助。号は鉄石のほかに鉄寒士,吉備中山人など。備前国御野郡東川原村(岡山市)片山佐吉の4子。母は佐幾。岡山藩軽卒で叔父の藤本彦右衛門重賢の養子となり,同藩農事掛(用水番)の手代役を勤める。養父の死後天保11(1840)年に脱藩して京都へ出た。その後東北から江戸,中国・九州地方を遊歴し,各地の名士と交わるとともに学問,書画の力を磨いた。和歌,漢詩に優れ,兵法では甲州流と長沼流の免許を取得している。安政1(1854)年伏見奉行内藤正縄に招かれてその配下を教え,私塾言志塾においても学問や兵法を教えた。大老井伊直弼の安政条約調印を憤り,激しい尊攘論を主張。文久2(1862)年3月,島津久光の率兵上洛を機に尊攘挙兵を画策するが,捕らえられて大坂薩摩藩邸に軟禁された。翌3年8月,土佐の吉村寅太郎,三河の松本奎堂らと天誅組総裁になり,天皇の大和行幸の先駆けとして五条代官所を襲撃。この直後8月18日の政変が起こり,幕府は和歌山,津,彦根などの諸藩に天誅組の討伐を命じた。そのため苦戦を強いられ,十津川郷士が去ったのちは吉野山中を敗走,血路を開こうとして向かった鷲家口(奈良県吉野村)において和歌山藩兵の手にかかり戦死した。<著作>『日鑑』『神典皇謨』『蒭蕘之言』<参考文献>久保田辰彦『いわゆる天誅組の大和義挙の研究』,渡辺知水『藤本鉄石』

(高木俊輔)

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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