Background
Akizuki Teijiro was born in Aizuwakamatsu on July 27, 1824.
Akizuki Teijiro was born in Aizuwakamatsu on July 27, 1824.
He studied at Shoheiko in Yedo, which was a Confucian College maintained by the Shogunate.
When his lord, Katamori Matsudaira, went to Kyoto in 1865 to engage in politics, he followed his master to assist him. He kept contact with important men of various clans, especially that of Satsuma (Kagoshima Prefecture), and endeavored to bring about a compromise between the Imperial Court and the Shogunate. Diehard Imperialists who advocated anti-foreign ideas hated him and a number of assassination attempts were engineered by those people against him. After the Toba and Fushimi battles in 1868 between the Imperial and Shogunate forces, he followed his lord back to Aizu and fought Imperialist forces in Echigo (Niigata Prefecture) till at last he surrendered. Although he was put in confinement in Takasu, he was pardoned 1872 and served in the Emperor's government, to be appointed professor at Tokyo University and the First Higher School.