Okubo Toshimichi

Ōkubo Toshimichi (大久保 利通 10 August 1830 - 14 May 1878), Japanese statesman, a samurai of Satsuma, is one of the five great nobles who led the revolution in 1868 against the shogunate.

He was born in Satsuma, now Kagoshima prefecture as the eldest of five children. He studied at the same local school with Saigo Takamori, who was three years older. He became the minister of the interior, and in the Satsuma troubles which followed he was the chief opponent of Saigo Takamori. But the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion brought upon him the personal revenge of Saigo's sympathizers, and in the spring of 1878 he was assassinated by Shimada Ichiro and six of his fellows on the way to Tokyo in 1878. Okubo was one of the leading men of his day, and in 1872 was one of the Japanese mission which was sent round the world to get ideas for organizing the new régime.

In the anime Rurouni Kenshin, Okubo appears to seek Himura Kenshin's assistance in destroying the threat posed by the revolt of Makoto Shishio. Kenshin is uncertain, and Okubo gives him a May 14 deadline to make his decision. On his way to seek Kenshin's answer on that day, he is assassinated by Soujiro Seta, Shishio's right-hand boy, and the Ichiro clan merely stab his corpse. Both the revolt and the assassin are fictional.

See also: Meiji Restoration

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The article contains materials from 1911 encyclopedia.

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