AMANO HACHIRO

天野 八郎

Died on the fifth day of the eleventh month, 1868, at the age of thirty-eight

Lightning flickers

only in the north

the moon is overcast.

In 1868 a new political and social order began in Japan with the Meiji Restoration. The armies of several fiefs rebelled against the Tokugawa shogun, forced him to surrender, and took over Edo, the capital. This put an end to the long rule of the Tokugawa, and governmental authority was restored, in appearance at least, to the emperor. The greater part of the army of the shogunate surrendered, but its fleet retreated to the island of Hokkaido and continued in its resistance to the new rule until May 1869.

Hachiro, who supported the old regime, tried to join the shogun's forces in Hokkaido, but he was captured and thrown into prison, where he died.

The reference to lightning in the north is not only a summer image, but an allusion to the last bulwark of the old regime's supporters in the north of Japan.