Background
Takachika Fukuoka was born on 5 February 1834 in the domain of losa in Shikoku, his common name was Toji.
福岡 孝弟
Takachika Fukuoka was born on 5 February 1834 in the domain of losa in Shikoku, his common name was Toji.
He served as a kori-bugyo (district magistrate), and in 1867 became a member of the central administration ot the domain. In 1867 he was ordered by the lord of Tosa to go to Kyoto in company with Goto Shojiro, another samurai of Tosa, where they persuaded Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu to return the power of government to the imperial court. In contrast to the men of the domains of Satsuma and Choshu, who were working to overthrow the shogunate by force, Fukuoka and the others of his group from Tosa supported the kobu-gattai policy of harmonious relations hetween the shogunate and the court and aimed at a government made up of a coalition of the powerful clans.
Fukuoka served as a councilor in the newly formed Mciji government. In 1870 he became junior councilor in Kochi (I'osa), and thereafter, as acting senior councilor, he joined with the senior councilor Itagaki Taisuke in carrying out the reforms in the domain of Kochi. In 1872 he became chief assistant to the minister of education and to the minister of justice; in 1875 he became a member of the Genroin, and in 1881a councilor of state and minister of education.
In 1882, at the instigation of Ito Hirobumi, he persuaded Itagaki, the head of the Jiyuto (Liberal Party), to withdraw from the popular rights movement and arranged for him to make a trip abroad. In 1883 Fukuoka became head of the Sanjiin, a legal organ of the government, and in 1891 an advisor to the Privy Council.