* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Saitō Yakurō
斎藤弥九郎
Founder of the Renpeikan, one of the Three Great Dojos of late Edo, who trained Kido Takayoshi, Takasugi Shinsaku and other architects of the Meiji Restoration
Description
Origins and Swordsmanship Training
Saitō Yakurō (1798-1871) was born in 1798 to a farming family in Bushōji village, Imizu district, Etchū Province (present-day Himi, Toyama Prefecture). While still young he ran away to Edo, where he worked in the household of the bannerman Nose Yūnojō while pursuing scholarship and swordsmanship. He trained under Okada Yoshitoshi of the Shintō Munen-ryū school and rose quickly through the ranks to become an assistant instructor.
Founding the Renpeikan and the Three Great Dojos of Edo
In 1826, at the age of twenty-nine, Yakurō opened his own swordsmanship dojo, the Renpeikan, near Manaita-bashi below Kudanzaka in Edo. Later relocated to the top of Kudanzaka (within the present-day precincts of Yasukuni Shrine), the dojo came to be ranked alongside Chiba Shūsaku's Genbukan (Hokushin Ittō-ryū) and Momoi Shunzō's Shigakukan (Kyōshin Meichi-ryū) as one of the "Three Great Dojos of Late Edo." Shintō Munen-ryū was known for its emphasis on forceful, decisive strikes — earning Yakurō the nickname "Saitō of Strength" — and training at the Renpeikan was famed for its severity.
Students and Influence on the Restoration
Many retainers of Chōshū domain enrolled at the Renpeikan, and among Yakurō's students were a number of men who would go on to lead the Meiji Restoration: Katsura Kogorō (Kido Takayoshi), Takasugi Shinsaku, Itō Hirobumi, Inoue Kaoru and Shinagawa Yajirō. Katsura in particular served as head student (jukutō) and is said to have earned Yakurō's deep trust. Though nominally a fencing school, the Renpeikan in practice also functioned as a hub where the Chōshū sonnō jōi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) network took shape.
Political and Military Activity in the Bakumatsu Era
Yakurō's role extended well beyond swordsmanship instruction. Trusted by Egawa Hidetatsu (Egawa Tarōzaemon), he took part in the construction of the Odaiba coastal gun batteries off Shinagawa and in inspections of coastal defenses around the country. He was also close to the Mito scholar Fujita Tōko; when Tōko was crushed to death in the Ansei Edo earthquake of 1855, Yakurō is said to have personally dug out his body, placed it in his own household chest, and had it sent back to Mito. During the dispute over the shogunal succession, he supported the candidacy of Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu (the later Tokugawa Yoshinobu).
Legacy
Yakurō died in 1871 at the age of seventy-four. He is remembered as a figure who supported the upheavals of the late Edo period on two fronts: as a master of the sword and as a builder of political networks. Because so many Renpeikan alumni went on to hold key posts in the new Meiji government, his dojo is often discussed in modern historical scholarship as more than a fencing school — as an incubator of the human talent that carried out the Restoration.