Takayoshi Kido

Takayoshi Kido (1833-1877), Japanese rebel against the government of the shogun and statesman, one of the “Three Heroes” of the Meiji Restoration, along with Toshimichi Okubo and Takamori Saigo. Born the samurai son of the head doctor of Choshu fief (now in Yamaguchi Prefecture), Kido was educated both at the fief school and at a radically pro-imperial private academy. In 1852 he went to the capital Edo (now Tokyo) to study swordsmanship and to intrigue with other anti-shogunal samurai, beginning his early career as a freebooting conspirator against the Tokugawa shogunate.

After serving in 1853-1854 with Choshu coastal defence units established to deter American ships, he became concerned at the foreign threat and developed an interest in Western science, studying gunnery and designing Choshu's first Western-style schooner (1856). Mediating between Choshu officialdom and lower-ranking pro-imperial samurai, he was transferred to Kyoto in 1862. Unable to act on September 30, 1863, when Satsuma and Aizu fiefs drove Choshu extremists out of Kyoto, he was implicated in an abortive Choshu attempt to retake the imperial palace on August 20, 1864, and hid with the geisha Ikumatsu (subsequently his wife), later fleeing disguised as a shopkeeper. After the 1865 radical coup in Choshu, Kido took control of the new mixed samurai-peasant forces and was victorious against shogunal troops. In 1866 he negotiated a secret alliance with Takamori Saigo and Toshimichi Okubo of Satsuma, inaugurating the Meiji Restoration, and soon afterwards assumed leadership of Choshu.

With the last Tokugawa shogun overthrown in 1868, Kido became Choshu's representative in central government, serving in 1870-1874 and 1875-1876, and worked on the regime's formative document, the Charter Oath, and on the abolition of feudal fiefs. In 1870 he put down a revolt by disgruntled Choshu fighters, and in 1871-1873 he toured the West with other government officials as part of the Iwakura Mission, submitting Japan's first memorandum on constitutional government on his return. In 1874 he resigned in protest at an expedition against Taiwan, but returned in 1875 after government endorsement of his constitutional ideas. Increasingly marginalized by Okubo's monopolization of power, Kido tried to reduce the new regime's impact on the lower classes.