Background
Kaishū Katsu was born on 12 March 1823 in Edo. He was a son of a poor samurai in the service of the shogunate.
胜海舟
Kaishū Katsu was born on 12 March 1823 in Edo. He was a son of a poor samurai in the service of the shogunate.
He applied himself diligently to reading and swordsmanship and also took up Dutch studies and the study of Western military science and gunnery under Nagai Seigai. During this period he became acquainted with Sakuma Shozan, a scholar and pioneer in the study of Western gunnery.
Later he was transferred to the naval training institute that had been set up in Nagasaki by the shogunate.
While studying navigation and gaining what knowledge he could of the West, he also had an opportunity to sail to various parts of Japan. At this time he became acquainted with Shimazu Nariakira, the lord of Satsuma, and others like him who were endeavoring to introduce Western technology to Japan.
In 1850 he opened a private school of his own where he taught Dutch studies. In 1854 he became acquainted with a shogunate official named Okubo Tadahiro and, at the urging of the latter, submitted a letter stating his views on coastal defense to Abe Masahiro, the senior counselor to the shogun. The letter brought him recognition from the shogunate, and in 1855 he was assigned to the task of translating Western books.
In 1860, when an embassy from the shogunate headed by Shimmi Buzen-no-kami Masaoki was sent to America, Katsu commanded the ship Kanrin Maru, which carried the group across the Pacific.
In 1865 he was assigned to Osaka Castle as official in charge of warships and was given the title of Awa-no-kami. But he was suspected of sheltering samurai who were connected with the naval training center and who had escaped from the jurisdiction of their domains at the time of the attempted seizure of Kyoto by the samurai of Choshu in 1864 and he was relieved of his duties and put under house arrest.
In 1866 he was once more assigned as official in charge of warships to Osaka, where the second punitive expedition against Choshu had been stalled by the death of the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi. In the end, however, he found himself unable to agree with the leaders of the shogunate. Meanwhile, dramatic changes were taking place on the political scene. Tokugawa Yoshinobu became shogun, Emperor Meiji ascended the throne, and the coup d’etat that signaled the Meiji Restoration was carried out in Kyoto. Tokugawa Yoshinobu voluntarily resigned his position, returning the power of government to the emperor, and Katsu, convinced of the former shogun’s desire to comply with the wishes of the new government, worked with Yamaoka Tesshu to insure a peaceful conclusion to the process of transfer of power. To this end, he carried out negotiations with Saigo Takamori, a leader of the imperial forces that were advancing on Edo, and as a result Edo Castle was handed over without resistance or bloodshed.
In 1869 Katsu became chief assistant to the minister of foreign affairs in the newly formed Meiji government and later became chief assistant in the Ministry of Military Affairs. For a time he held a post in Sumpu (Shizuoka), but returned to Tokyo in 1872 to become vice-minister of the navy and the following year councilor of state and minister of the navy. In 1888 he became an advisor to the Privy Council.
In sum, it may be said that he was one of the ablest men in the service of the shogunate during its last days in power.