Hijikata Hisamoto

Who was Hijikata Hisamoto?

Count Hijikata Hisamoto was a politician and cabinet minister in the pre-war Empire of Japan.

Hijikata was a samurai in Tosa Domain. He was sent by the domain to Edo for studies, where he became involved in the sonnō jōi movement, and after returning to Tosa, he joined Takechi Hanpeita’s Tosa Kin-no-to movement. He travelled with Takechi to Kyoto in 1863, where he joined forces with the anti-Tokugawa shogunate forces of Chōshū Domain and made contact with the kuge aristocracy, most notably Sanjō Sanetomi. After the abortive coup against the Shogunate later that year, he was forced into exile with Sanjō to Chōshū. Following the First Chōshū expedition, he fled to Fukuoka Domain together with Sanjō, where he later met with fellow Tosa countrymen Nakaoka Shintarō, and Sakamoto Ryōma whom he assisted in securing Sanjō’s support for the Satchō Alliance.

Following the Meiji restoration, Hijikata joined the Meiji government and was appointed a public prosecutor in Tokyo. He subsequently served in the Imperial Household Ministry and Home Ministry and as Cabinet Secretary to the Daijō-kan cabinet. He was subsequently made a tutor, then an Imperial Councilor to Emperor Meiji, who placed a great deal of confidence in him, and who made him a viscount in the kazoku peerage in 1884.