Clans, Shoguns & Dynasties

Daimyō of Kai Province (modern Yamanashi). His cavalry charges were the most feared in Japan. His rivalry with Uesugi Kenshin produced five Battles of Kawanakajima (1553–1564) — the most famous samurai duels in history. His banner read Fūrinkazan ("Swift as wind, silent as forest, fierce as fire, immovable as mountain") — adapted from Sun Tzu. He defeated Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Mikatagahara (1573) so decisively that Ieyasu, fleeing in terror, allegedly soiled himself. Shingen died shortly after, possibly from a sniper's bullet. Had he lived, he — not Nobunaga — might have unified Japan.

Daimyō of Echigo Province (modern Niigata). Considered the greatest tactical commander of the Sengoku period. He believed himself to be the avatar of Bishamonten (Buddhist god of war). His rivalry with Takeda Shingen is legendary — at the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima (1561), Kenshin reportedly charged alone into Shingen's command post and slashed at him with his sword; Shingen parried with his iron war fan. When the Takeda's salt supplies were cut off by other enemies, Kenshin sent salt to Shingen, saying: "I fight with swords, not salt." He may have been a woman — some historians argue that European accounts describe him as female, and he never married or had children. He died suddenly in 1578, possibly from stomach cancer or assassination.

Rose from a minor lord in Aki Province (Hiroshima) to dominate all of western Honshu. Famous for the "lesson of the three arrows" — he called his three sons and asked each to break a single arrow (easy), then three arrows bound together (impossible): "Alone you are weak. Together you cannot be broken." He defeated the powerful Ōuchi and Amago clans through a combination of military cunning and diplomatic marriages. He never lost a major battle. His clan survived through the Tokugawa era and produced two of the four domains (Chōshū) that eventually overthrew the shogunate in 1868.

Daimyō of Satsuma (southern Kyushu). The Shimazu were among the most feared warriors in Japan. At the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Yoshihiro was on the losing side — surrounded by Tokugawa forces, he ordered a suicidal frontal charge directly through the enemy lines (the "Shimazu Retreat"), escaping with a handful of men while hundreds died covering his escape. During the Korean campaigns, his forces defeated a Ming Chinese army of 100,000 at the Battle of Sacheon (1598). The Shimazu domain of Satsuma maintained a degree of independence throughout the Tokugawa period and was one of the key forces behind the Meiji Restoration.

Lost his right eye to smallpox as a child — and reportedly cut out the damaged eye himself (or ordered a retainer to do it). By age 17 he led his first battle. He conquered most of northern Honshu before submitting to Hideyoshi. He sent an embassy to Rome via Mexico in 1613 (the Keichō Embassy under Hasekura Tsunenaga — one of the first Japanese diplomatic missions to Europe). He built the city of Sendai. He was flamboyant, wore a distinctive crescent-moon helmet, and was suspected of secretly harboring Christians and plotting with Europeans. Tokugawa Ieyasu never fully trusted him but respected him too much to move against him.

Called "the greatest warrior in Japan" and "a hero who appears once in a hundred years" (Shimazu Tadatsune). At the Siege of Osaka (1614–1615), Yukimura defended the Toyotomi against the overwhelming Tokugawa forces. In the final Battle of Tennōji (1615), he led a desperate cavalry charge directly at Tokugawa Ieyasu's command post — breaking through three lines of bodyguards and coming close enough that Ieyasu considered seppuku. The charge failed. Yukimura was killed. But his final stand became the most romanticized moment in samurai history. He wore crimson armor so the enemy would know exactly where he was. He fought to die beautifully.

Tokugawa Ieyasu's greatest general. He fought in over 100 battles and was never once wounded — unprecedented in the Sengoku period. He wielded a spear called Tonbokiri ("Dragonfly Cutter"), so named because a dragonfly that landed on its blade was cut in two. Both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi praised him as the greatest warrior in Japan east of Kyoto. He wore a distinctive helmet with deer antlers. Even his enemies respected him — at Sekigahara, opposing forces reportedly avoided engaging his unit directly. He is one of the Tokugawa Four Heavenly Kings (Tokugawa Shitennō).

Leader of Ieyasu's ninja (shinobi) forces from the Iga region. He saved Ieyasu's life during the dangerous Iga Crossing (1582) — after Nobunaga's assassination, Ieyasu was stranded in hostile territory and Hanzō guided him through the mountains of Iga using his network of local ninja. He commanded Ieyasu's personal guard of 200 Iga ninja. The Hanzōmon Gate of Edo Castle (now the Imperial Palace) is named after him. He later became a Buddhist monk. The historical Hanzō was primarily a samurai and spear-fighter, not the supernatural ninja of popular fiction — but his legend grew to encompass both. He is the most famous real ninja in Japanese history.

Founded by Minamoto no Yoritomo. Shoguns: Yoritomo (1192–1199), Yoriie (1202–1203), Sanetomo (1203–1219), then Fujiwara and imperial prince figureheads while the Hōjō clan ruled as regents. Survived the Jōkyū War (1221), promulgated the Goseibai Shikimoku legal code (1232), and repelled two Mongol invasions (1274, 1281). Fell when Emperor Go-Daigo's forces, led by Ashikaga Takauji and Nitta Yoshisada, stormed Kamakura in 1333. The last Hōjō regent and 870 followers committed mass suicide.

Founded by Ashikaga Takauji (1338). Key shoguns: Takauji (founder), Yoshimitsu (3rd — Golden Pavilion, Ming trade), Yoshimasa (8th — Silver Pavilion, caused the Ōnin War), Yoshiaki (15th — exiled by Nobunaga, 1573). The Ashikaga presided over Japan's greatest cultural flowering (Noh, tea ceremony, ink painting, Zen gardens) and its worst political collapse (the Sengoku period). For the last century of its existence, the shogun was a figurehead while daimyō fought each other across Japan. Ended when Oda Nobunaga deposed Yoshiaki.

The 15 Tokugawa Shoguns:

1. Ieyasu (r. 1603–1605) — The founder. Won Sekigahara. Built Edo. Deified as Tōshō Daigongen at Nikkō.
2. Hidetada (r. 1605–1623) — Enacted Buke Shohatto. Began persecution of Christians.
3. Iemitsu (r. 1623–1651) — Completed sakoku (closed country). Crushed Shimabara Rebellion (1637–1638, last Christian revolt). Institutionalized sankin-kōtai.
4. Ietsuna (r. 1651–1680) — First shogun born in Edo. Stabilized the system.
5. Tsunayoshi (r. 1680–1709) — "The Dog Shogun." Issued Laws of Compassion for Living Things (banned killing of dogs). Patron of the arts. Under him, the 47 Rōnin incident occurred (1702).
6. Ienobu (r. 1709–1712) — Brief reformist reign.
7. Ietsugu (r. 1713–1716) — Child shogun, died age 7.
8. Yoshimune (r. 1716–1745) — The "Rice Shogun." Great reformer. Lifted the ban on Western books. Established the machi-bugyō (city magistrates).
9. Ieshige (r. 1745–1760) — Weak, speech impediment.
10. Ieharu (r. 1760–1786) — Corrupt official Tanuma Okitsugu dominated his reign.
11. Ienari (r. 1787–1837) — Longest-reigning Tokugawa. 50 years. Fathered 55 children by 40 concubines.
12. Ieyoshi (r. 1837–1853) — Perry's Black Ships arrived the year he died.
13. Iesada (r. 1853–1858) — Sickly. Signed the Treaty of Kanagawa under American pressure.
14. Iemochi (r. 1858–1866) — Married the emperor's sister (first such marriage in centuries). Died during the collapse.
15. Yoshinobu (r. 1866–1868) — The last shogun. Resigned power to the emperor in the Taisei Hōkan (1867). Fought the Boshin War and lost. Lived quietly until 1913. The 265-year peace ended not with a bang but with a resignation letter.

Buddhist warrior monks who fought for their temples' political and economic interests. They wore white cowls over their heads, carried naginata (glaive-like polearms), and were some of the most skilled fighters in Japan. The term sōhei literally means "monk-soldier." They first appeared in the 10th century during disputes between rival temple factions — Enryaku-ji (Tendai) on Mount Hiei and Mii-dera (also Tendai) fought each other repeatedly, burning each other's temples. By the Genpei War (1180–1185), sōhei were fielding armies of thousands. They fought not for enlightenment but for tax revenues, land rights, and political influence. The great irony: armies of men who had taken vows of non-violence became some of the most feared fighters in Japanese history.

The most powerful temple complex in Japanese history. Founded by Saichō in 788, perched on Mount Hiei overlooking Kyoto, it maintained a standing army of warrior monks for over 500 years. When the monks wanted something from the imperial court, they carried the sacred mikoshi (portable shrine) of their patron deity down the mountain into the streets of Kyoto — and no one dared stop them, because striking a divine object was unthinkable. The court called them the "three great evils that cannot be controlled" alongside floods and dice. At its peak, Enryaku-ji contained 3,000 sub-temples and could field 20,000 armed monks. Emperor Shirakawa (r. 1072–1086) famously lamented: "There are three things I cannot control — the waters of the Kamo River, the fall of the dice, and the monks of Mount Hiei." In 1571, Oda Nobunaga burned the entire mountain. Every building. Every man, woman, and child. An estimated 20,000 killed. He erased 800 years of monastic military power in a single night.

The great temples of Nara — particularly Kōfuku-ji (Fujiwara clan temple) and Tōdai-ji (the Great Buddha temple) — maintained warrior monk forces that rivaled Mount Hiei's. Kōfuku-ji effectively governed the entire Yamato Province (modern Nara Prefecture) as a quasi-independent state, controlling tax collection, police powers, and land rights. Their monks fought pitched battles against Enryaku-ji's monks in the streets of Kyoto on multiple occasions. During the Genpei War, the Nara monks sided with the Minamoto; the Taira retaliated by burning Tōdai-ji and the Great Buddha hall in 1180 — destroying one of the largest wooden structures ever built. The sōhei of Nara were not an anomaly. They were the logical conclusion of a system where temples were the largest landholders in Japan.

Located at the base of Mount Hiei near Lake Biwa, Mii-dera was the headquarters of the Jimon branch of Tendai Buddhism — locked in a centuries-long war with Mount Hiei's Sanmon branch. Enryaku-ji monks burned Mii-dera to the ground multiple times (historians count at least seven major attacks between the 10th and 16th centuries). Each time, Mii-dera rebuilt and rearmed. Their rivalry was theological in origin — a dispute over succession and doctrine that escalated into full-scale warfare. The pattern: a doctrinal disagreement leads to insults, then raids, then burning. The temples fought each other with more sustained fury than most samurai clans. The theological disputes that started the wars were often forgotten. The burning continued anyway.

The most famous sōhei in Japanese history. A giant of a man who trained at Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei. He stationed himself at Gojō Bridge in Kyoto and challenged every swordsman who crossed — defeating 999 warriors and collecting their swords. The thousandth was a slight youth playing a flute: Ushiwakamaru (the young Yoshitsune). Benkei lost for the first and only time and swore eternal loyalty. He followed Yoshitsune through the Genpei War and the flight north. His final stand at Koromogawa (1189) — fighting alone on a bridge to buy Yoshitsune time — ended with his body remaining upright after death (tachijōfu, "standing death"), riddled with arrows. The enemy soldiers were too terrified to approach a dead man standing. He is the archetype: the warrior monk whose loyalty transcends death.

The ikkō-ikki were militant followers of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism who believed that salvation came through faith in Amida Buddha alone — not through meditation, asceticism, or monastic discipline. This theological position had radical political implications: if salvation was available to everyone equally, then the social hierarchy was spiritually meaningless. Peasants, merchants, low-ranking samurai, and monks formed armed confederations that seized control of entire provinces. Their battle cry was "Namu Amida Butsu" ("I take refuge in Amida Buddha"). In 1488, the ikkō-ikki of Kaga Province overthrew the ruling samurai governor and established their own theocratic government that lasted 90 years — a peasant-Buddhist republic in the middle of feudal Japan. They were the closest thing Japan produced to a mass revolution before the modern era.

The headquarters of the Jōdo Shinshū sect and the command center of the ikkō-ikki movement. Built on the site that would later become Osaka Castle, Ishiyama Hongan-ji was a massive fortified temple complex surrounded by moats, walls, and a network of trenches. When Oda Nobunaga attacked in 1570, the temple's defenders — monks, peasants, and ronin — held out for ten years (the Ishiyama Hongan-ji War, 1570–1580). This was the longest siege in Japanese history. The Mōri clan supplied the temple by sea. Nobunaga built the world's first ironclad warships (tekkōsen) to blockade the harbor. The temple only surrendered when its leader, Kennyo, accepted a negotiated peace brokered by the Emperor. Nobunaga burned it to the ground. Toyotomi Hideyoshi later built Osaka Castle on the same site — recognizing that whoever held this position controlled western Japan.

Head priest of Hongan-ji and the man who mobilized the entire ikkō-ikki network against Oda Nobunaga. He issued religious decrees (chōmon) calling all Jōdo Shinshū believers to arms — effectively declaring a holy war. He forged alliances with the Mōri, the Takeda, and other anti-Nobunaga daimyō, creating a multi-front coalition that nearly destroyed Nobunaga's domain. His followers fought with suicidal fervor because they believed death in battle guaranteed immediate rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida. After the fall of Ishiyama Hongan-ji, Kennyo accepted a peace that split the sect: his son Kyōnyo continued to resist, while another son, Junnyo, cooperated with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu later split Hongan-ji into two branches (Nishi and Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto) specifically to prevent the sect from ever reuniting into a military threat.

A Shingon Buddhist temple complex in Kii Province (modern Wakayama) that became one of the earliest adopters of firearms in Japan. The Negoro monks acquired Portuguese arquebuses shortly after their introduction to Japan in 1543 and trained extensively in their use. By the 1570s, Negoro-ji maintained a force of over 3,000 gun-armed monks (Negoro-shū, "Negoro group") who hired themselves out as mercenaries — essentially a monastic firearms company. They fought against Nobunaga, then against Hideyoshi. In 1585, Hideyoshi attacked with 100,000 troops and burned Negoro-ji to the ground. The surviving monks scattered and many became gun-for-hire mercenaries across Japan. Some eventually served the Tokugawa. The temple monks who mastered the gun were destroyed by the warlord who mastered the monk.

Not monks but closely allied with them — the Saika-shū were a league of free communities in Kii Province (centered on the town of Saika/Zaikaji) who specialized in firearms. Led by Suzuki Magoichi (Saika Magoichi), they were the most feared marksmen in Sengoku Japan. They fought alongside the ikkō-ikki at Ishiyama Hongan-ji, where their gunfire inflicted devastating casualties on Nobunaga's forces. At the Battle of Nagashima (1574), ikkō-ikki and Saika gunners held off repeated Nobunaga assaults before being exterminated — Nobunaga surrounded the fortress with wooden walls and set them on fire, killing an estimated 20,000 men, women, and children. The Saika later fought against Hideyoshi but eventually submitted. Magoichi's fate is debated — he may have served Hideyoshi, he may have been executed, he may have disappeared. The gun league that defied the three unifiers.

A Basque Jesuit priest who arrived at Kagoshima on August 15, 1549 — the first Christian missionary to reach Japan. He was astonished by Japanese civilization: he wrote that the Japanese were "the best people yet discovered" and "the delight of my heart." He learned that Japanese culture prized learning and argument, so he adapted — debating with Buddhist monks in their temples, translating Christian concepts into Buddhist terminology. He stayed two years and left behind a community of approximately 1,000 converts. The Jesuits who followed him converted hundreds of thousands, including several daimyō (the Kirishitan daimyō) who made Christianity the official religion of their domains. By 1580, Nagasaki had been given to the Jesuits as a trading port. The speed of conversion alarmed Hideyoshi, who would eventually expel the missionaries.

Several powerful daimyō converted to Christianity: Ōtomo Sōrin (baptized Francisco, lord of Bungo in Kyushu), Ōmura Sumitada (first daimyō to convert, ceded Nagasaki to the Jesuits), Arima Harunobu, and Konishi Yukinaga (one of Hideyoshi's top generals in the Korean invasion — he refused to commit seppuku after Sekigahara because his faith forbade suicide; he was beheaded instead). The most revered was Takayama Ukon (Dom Justo) — a skilled general who chose exile over apostasy. When Hideyoshi issued the expulsion edict in 1587, Ukon surrendered his domain and lived as a wandering Christian samurai. When Ieyasu expelled all Christians in 1614, Ukon sailed to Manila, where he died 40 days later. He was beatified by Pope Francis in 2017.

The largest armed uprising in Tokugawa Japan. In 1637, overtaxed and persecuted Christian peasants in the Shimabara Peninsula and Amakusa Islands revolted under the leadership of a sixteen-year-old boy named Amakusa Shirō (天草四郎), whom his followers believed to be a prophet. An estimated 37,000 rebels — men, women, and children — fortified the abandoned Hara Castle. The Tokugawa sent 125,000 troops. The siege lasted months. When the castle fell in April 1638, virtually every rebel was killed. Amakusa Shirō's head was displayed in Nagasaki. The shogunate's response was total: all Portuguese were expelled, Japan was sealed from the outside world (sakoku), and the persecution of Christians intensified to the point of near-total eradication. The Dutch were allowed to remain only because they had assisted the siege by bombarding the rebel castle from the sea — Protestant pragmatism over Catholic solidarity.

Born Masuda Tokisada, the son of a former retainer of the Christian daimyō Konishi Yukinaga. Local Christians believed he was the prophesied child spoken of by missionaries before they were expelled — a boy who would lead the faithful. He was charismatic, educated, and reported to perform miracles (walking on water, calming storms — likely apocryphal, but his followers believed). At sixteen he became the figurehead leader of the Shimabara Rebellion. He led the defense of Hara Castle for months against overwhelming force. When the castle fell, he was captured and beheaded. His severed head was displayed at Nagasaki as a warning. He is simultaneously a Christian martyr, a folk hero, and a symbol of peasant resistance. He was a child. He believed he was chosen. He led 37,000 people into a castle and watched them all die.

After Shimabara, Christianity was punishable by death. The fumie (踏み絵) — a bronze or wooden image of Christ or Mary — was placed on the ground annually, and every Japanese citizen was required to step on it to prove they were not Christian. Those who refused were tortured and killed. Yet thousands of families preserved their faith in secret for 230 years. They disguised the Virgin Mary as the Buddhist goddess Kannon (Maria Kannon statues still exist). They transmitted Latin prayers orally across generations, the words gradually distorting beyond recognition but the rhythm preserved. When Japan reopened and a French priest built the Ōura Church in Nagasaki in 1865, a group of villagers from the Gotō Islands approached him on March 17 and whispered: "We have the same heart as you. Where is the statue of Santa Maria?" The Discovery of the Hidden Christians (信徒発見, Shinto Hakken) was one of the most remarkable events in the history of religion. They had endured seven generations, two and a half centuries, without a Bible, without sacraments, without a single ordained priest. Their faith had mutated — they no longer recognized the Pope, their prayers were half-Japanese, half-garbled Latin — but the core survived. In 2018, UNESCO inscribed the "Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region" as a World Heritage Site.

On February 5, 1597, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the execution of 26 Christians — 6 Franciscan friars (4 Spanish, 1 Mexican, 1 Indian from Goa), 3 Japanese Jesuits, and 17 Japanese laypeople including three boys aged 12, 13, and 14. They were marched 800 kilometers from Kyoto to Nagasaki in winter, with their left ears cut off, as a public warning. Upon arrival, they were crucified on crosses on Nishizaka Hill overlooking Nagasaki Bay. The youngest, Luis Ibaraki, was twelve years old. According to witnesses, he sang hymns on the cross. They were canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1862. A monument and museum stand on the site today. In 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped 500 meters from the site of their execution. Nagasaki, the most Christian city in Japan, was the city that received the second bomb.

Iga Province (modern Mie Prefecture) was a mountainous, isolated region that developed a unique political structure: no single daimyō controlled it. Instead, dozens of small jizamurai (land-holding samurai) clans governed collectively through councils. This decentralized structure bred a culture of espionage, sabotage, and unconventional warfare — because the Iga clans could not defeat a conventional army, they learned to destroy one from the shadows. Their skills included infiltration, disguise, poison, arson, explosives, and intelligence gathering. In 1579, Oda Nobunaga's son Nobukatsu invaded Iga and was humiliated — the ninja burned his camp, ambushed his columns, and forced a retreat. Nobunaga returned in 1581 with 40,000 troops and crushed Iga by sheer numbers, burning every village. The survivors scattered. Many entered Tokugawa Ieyasu's service — Hattori Hanzō used them to save Ieyasu during the Iga Crossing of 1582. Under the Tokugawa, Iga ninja became the shogun's secret police.

Neighboring Iga across the mountains, Kōga (also spelled Kōka) developed a parallel tradition of ninja arts. The Kōga clans — traditionally numbered as 53 families — specialized in medicines, poisons, and pharmaceutical knowledge alongside conventional ninja skills. They were more willing to serve established powers than the fiercely independent Iga. During the siege of Magari (1487), Kōga ninja demonstrated their skills fighting for the Rokkaku clan against Ashikaga forces. The Bansenshūkai (万川集海, "Sea of Myriad Rivers Merging," 1676) — the most comprehensive ninja manual ever compiled — was written by Fujibayashi Yasutake, a descendant of Iga ninja, and draws extensively on both Iga and Kōga traditions. It covers strategy, espionage, infiltration, weaponry, meteorology, and pharmacology across 22 volumes. It is the closest thing to a "ninja textbook" that exists.

Japanese pirates who raided the coasts of China, Korea, and Southeast Asia for centuries. The early wakō (13th–14th century) were primarily Japanese — ronin, fishermen, and merchants from Kyushu and the Seto Inland Sea. The later wakō (15th–16th century) were multinational: Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and Malay sailors alongside Japanese. At their peak, wakō fleets of hundreds of ships raided deep into the Chinese interior, sailing up rivers and sacking cities. The Ming Dynasty built an elaborate coastal defense system specifically against the wakō, and eventually banned all maritime trade (the haijin policy) to starve them of legitimate commerce — which, paradoxically, made piracy more profitable. Toyotomi Hideyoshi suppressed the wakō as part of his centralization of power, and the Tokugawa sakoku policy effectively ended them by sealing Japan's borders.

The final armed conflict of the samurai era. Saigō Takamori — the most beloved hero of the Meiji Restoration — turned against the government he helped create when it abolished the samurai class and introduced a conscript army. In January 1877, he led 40,000 Satsuma samurai in rebellion. They besieged Kumamoto Castle, fought running battles across Kyushu, and were gradually pushed back by the new Imperial Japanese Army — conscripts armed with modern weapons, many of them former peasants. At the Battle of Shiroyama (September 24, 1877), Saigō's remaining 300–500 warriors made a final charge against 30,000 government troops. Saigō was wounded and committed seppuku (or was assisted in death by a retainer). The samurai era ended not with a whisper but with a charge uphill. The government that killed him later pardoned him and built his statue in Ueno Park, Tokyo.

Ascended the throne at age 15. Under his reign (1868–1912), Japan abolished feudalism, created a modern army and navy, built railways, adopted a constitution (1889), defeated China (1895) and Russia (1905 — the first modern Asian victory over a European power), and became a world power within 40 years. The Meiji Charter Oath (1868) declared: "Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world, so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule." He moved the capital from Kyoto to Edo, renamed it Tokyo ("Eastern Capital"), and transformed the shogun's castle into the Imperial Palace.

The most beloved figure of the Meiji Restoration — and its greatest tragedy. He led Satsuma's forces against the Tokugawa in the Boshin War. He served in the new Meiji government. But when modernization abolished the samurai class, he returned to Satsuma and led the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) — the last stand of the samurai against the modern conscript army they had helped create. Outnumbered and outgunned, his forces were destroyed at the Battle of Shiroyama. He committed seppuku (or was killed in battle). The government that executed him later pardoned him and erected his statue in Ueno Park, Tokyo. He is the man who made the revolution and then died fighting against what it became.

A low-ranking samurai from Tosa who became the key intermediary between the rival Satsuma and Chōshū domains — without their alliance, the Meiji Restoration would not have happened. He drafted the Eight-Point Plan that became the blueprint for the new Japanese government: abolition of the shogunate, establishment of a national legislature, equality among classes. He was assassinated in Kyoto in 1867, at age 31, just weeks before the restoration he made possible. He carried a Smith & Wesson revolver and a copy of international maritime law. He is Japan's most popular historical figure in modern polls — the man who imagined a Japan that didn't yet exist and was killed before he could see it.