Background
Taruhito Shinno was born on March 17, 1835 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a son of Prince Arisugawa Takahito by Yūko, the eldest daughter of Saeki Yūjō.
Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum
Statue of Prince Arisugawa Taruhito at the Arisugawa Memorial Park in Tokyo
有栖川 熾仁親王
Taruhito Shinno was born on March 17, 1835 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a son of Prince Arisugawa Takahito by Yūko, the eldest daughter of Saeki Yūjō.
In 1867 Emperor Meiji appointed Prince Arisugawa sōsai (a title equivalent to chief minister), and placed him in command of the Imperial Army sent to combat the last partisans of the Tokugawa bakufu in the Boshin War of 1868–1869. He fought at the Battle of Toba–Fushimi and later travelled up the Tōkaidō, to accept the surrender of Edo Castle on May 3, 1867, from his ex-fiancée Princess Kazu. Prince Arisugawa later led the central government army against the forces of Saigō Takamori in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. He was given the honorary rank of general in 1878.
From 1870 until the adoption of the Cabinet system in 1885, Arisugawa served as Daijō-daijin or lord president of the Council of State. In 1871 he was appointed governor of Fukuoka. From 1876 he was the chairman of the Genrōin. In 1882 he travelled to St. Petersburg, Russia, and met with Tsar Alexander III as the official envoy from Emperor Meiji. From 1889 to 1895 the prince served as chief of staff of the Imperial Japanese Army and a member of the Supreme War Council.
In 1894 Prince Arisugawa was officially commander-in-chief of Japanese forces in the First Sino-Japanese War, and established his command center at the Hiroshima garrison. He contracted typhoid fever (or possibly malaria) and returned to the Arisugawa palace at Maiko near Kobe to recover, but he died there on January 15, 1895.
He was adopted by Emperor Ninkō as a potential heir to the throne, thus making Taruhito the adopted brother of Osahito Shinnō (the future Emperor Kōmei). Arisugawa was a close adviser to both Emperor Kōmei and his nephew by adoption, Emperor Meiji.
Prince Arisugawa became engaged to Princess Kazu-no-Miya Chikako, the eighth daughter of Emperor Ninkō, on August 8, 1861. However, the engagement was cancelled by the Tokugawa bakufu so that the princess could marry the shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi, thus politically sealing the reconciliation between the Shogunate and the Imperial Court.
Arisugawa's first wife Sadako (1850-1872) was the eleventh daughter of Tokugawa Nariaki, daimyō of Mito Domain. His second wife was Tadako (1855-1923), daughter of Count Mizoguchi Naohiro, the former daimyō of Shibata Domain. Neither of these marriages produced any children.