Background
Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa was born on April 1, 1847 in Kyoto, Japan. Prince was the ninth son of Prince Fushimi Kuniie (1802-1875) with Horiuchi Nobuko.
HIH Princess Kitashirakawa Tomiko, consort
HIH Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa, heir
Equestrian monument to Prince Kitashirakawa in Kitanomaru Park, located north of the Tokyo Imperial Palace
北白川 能久
Lieutenant General Member of Imperial family
Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa was born on April 1, 1847 in Kyoto, Japan. Prince was the ninth son of Prince Fushimi Kuniie (1802-1875) with Horiuchi Nobuko.
The ninthson of Prince Kuniie Fushimi-no-Miya.He was proclaimed a Prince in 1858. He entered the Buddhist priesthood under the title Rinnoji-no-miya. He served as abbot of Kan'ei-ji in Edo.He first succeeded to the house of Shorenin-no Miya and later to that of Kajii-no-Miya. Was sent to Prussia for military studies in 1870 and while there succeeded to the house of Kitashirakawa-no-Miya in 1872.
During the unrest of the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, Prince Yoshihisa fled north with Tokugawa partisans of the following the Satsuma-Chōshū takeover of the city of Edo, and was made the nominal head of the "Northern Alliance" (Ouetsu Reppan Dōmei). This short-lived alliance consisted of almost all of the domains of northern Japan under the leadership of Date Yoshikuni of Sendai.
Following the Meiji Restoration, in 1873 Emperor Meiji recalled all imperial princes. That same year he succeeded his younger brother, Prince Kitashirakawa Kasunari, as the second head of the new princely house of Kitashirakawa-no-miya.
Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa became a professional soldier, and was sent to Germany for military training. On his return to Japan in 1887, he was commissioned as a major general in the Imperial Japanese Army. In 1893, as lieutenant general, he was given command of the 4th Division.
After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, he was transferred to the elite 1st Division and participated in the Japanese invasion of Taiwan. During the invasion, he contracted malaria and died outside of Tainan (although there were rumors that he was killed in action by Taiwanese guerrillas).
Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa is the first member of the Japanese imperial family known to have died outside Japan, and the first (in modern times) to have died in war.
Under State Shinto, he was elevated to a kami, and was enshrined in most of the Shinto shrines erected in Taiwan under the Japanese occupation, as well as in Yasukuni Jinja.
In April 1886, Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa married Shimazu Tomiko (1862–1936), the adopted daughter of Prince Shimazu Hisamitsu of Satsuma Domain. The marriage produced no children: however, Prince Yoshihisa had five sons by various concubines, as was common practice for the time: Prince Takeda Tsunehisa (22 September 1882 – 23 April 1919), Count Futara Yoshiaki (26 October 1886 – 18 April 1909), Count Ueno Masao, Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa (18 April 1887 – 2 April 1923), Marquis Komatsu Teruhisa (2 August 1888 – 5 November 1970).
Prince Fushimi Kuniie ( 24 October 1802 - 5 August 1872) was Japanese royalty. He was the 20th/23rd prince Fushimi-no-miya and the eldest son of Prince Fushimi Sadayuki (1776-1841) and his concubine Seiko, which made him an 11th cousin of Emperor Sakuramachi. Despite being merely a distant cousin to the emperors, he was adopted by Emperor Kokaku as a Yushi in 1817, which was able to make him a Shinnō just like an emperor's son.
Prince Takeda was the founder of the Takeda-no-miya collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family.
Prince Kitashirakawa was the 3rd head of a collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family.
Teruhisa Komatsu was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II.
