Background
Sanai Hashimoto was born on 19 April 1834 in Japan. His father, Hashimoto Choko, was a physician in the fief of Fukui in Echizen; Sanai is also known by the name Keigaku.
Sanai Hashimoto was born on 19 April 1834 in Japan. His father, Hashimoto Choko, was a physician in the fief of Fukui in Echizen; Sanai is also known by the name Keigaku.
At the age of six he began the study of Chinese characters and calligraphy and later studied medicine and learned to conduct clinical examinations. In 1848 he studied under Yoshida Toko and the following year went to Osaka and became a student in the Tekitekisaijuku, a school for the study of Dutch or Western learning headed by Ogata Koan, where he became acquainted with Umeda Umpin and Yokoi Shonan. . In 1854 he went to Edo and studied Western medicine and science under Sugita Seikei and Chinese under Shionoya Toin, at the same time becoming acquainted with Fujita Toko.
In 1857 he was appointed head of the Meidokan, a school operated by the domain of Fukui, and devoted himself to carrying out reforms in the domain administration.
Having learned something of the world situation from the various teachers and acquaintances mentioned above, many of whom were thinkers and political activists themselves, he developed his own theories as to what course Japan should follow in meeting the demands of the foreign powers for the opening of trade and argued that Japan should ally itself with Russia. Later, in 1858, when the shogunate signed trade agreements with five of the foreign powers and a dispute over the succession to the shogunate arose, he went to Kyoto as a representative of the lord of Fukui, Matsudaira Yoshinaga, arguing in favor of the opening of the ports and supporting Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu as the successor to the shogunate. The powerful shogunate official Ii Naosuke, however, succeeded in arranging for the shogunate to pass to a candidate of his own selection and, in order to stifle opposition, took vigorous measures against his critics. Sanai was ordered to be placed under surveillance, and in the tenth month of the following year he was put to death.