Background
Shibusawa Kisaku was born in 1838, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.
Shibusawa Kisaku was born in 1838, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.
In 1863, he and Eiichi Shibusawa, his cousin, plotted with others to burn Takasaki Castle and the foreign residential quarters in Yokohama. The plot became known to the Shogunate and he and Eiichi fled to Kyoto.
Kisaku served in the Hitotsubashi family, a branch of the Tokugawas, and recruited and trained soldiers for the clan. At the war of the Meiji Restoration (1868), he and Hachiro Amano and other Shogunate diehards organized the Shogitai Band which fought against the Satsuma and Nagato (Choshu) clans which spearheaded the Imperial forces.
He fell out with Amano, was arrested by Amano followers and imprisoned. He escaped and organized another anti-Imperialist force at Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, which was routed. He then slipped into Edo and joined the Shogunate naval force of Takeaki Enomoto. When Enomoto's force fled to Hakodate, he became the infantry commander. After Hakodate fell, he was pardoned by the Imperial Government and engaged in raw silk export.
Became a leading raw silk merchant and a director of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and was connected with a number of firms.
