* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Tanaka Shinbei
田中新兵衛
One of the "Four Great Assassins" of the Bakumatsu Era, Satsuma Domain Retainer
Description
Life
Born in 1832 in Kagoshima, Satsuma Province. Accounts describe him as the son of a boatman or a dealer in medicinal herbs, not originally of samurai stock; he acquired quasi-samurai status in the Satsuma domain after the pro-loyalist merchant Moriyama Shinzō purchased a samurai rank on his behalf. He is said to have trained in the martial arts from a young age and excelled at swordsmanship.
Swordsmanship
His exact lineage of instruction is not definitively known, but having grown up in the castle town of Kagoshima, he is generally believed to have studied one of the branch schools of Jigen-ryū widely practiced among Satsuma retainers.
Assassinations
In 1862 he left his domain without permission and went to Kyoto, throwing himself into the Sonnō Jōi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) movement. That July, he attacked and beheaded Shimada Sakon, a merchant regarded as a shogunate sympathizer, reportedly displaying the head at Pontochō. He is also said to have taken part in the assassinations of shogunate-aligned and pro-opening figures such as Homma Seiichirō and Watanabe Kinzaburō, and, alongside Okada Izō and others, came to be counted among the "Four Great Assassins" of the Bakumatsu era.
Suspicion in the Anenokōji Kintomo Assassination and Death
On May 20, 1863, the pro-loyalist court noble Anenokōji Kintomo was assassinated outside the Sakuhei Gate of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. A sword and a pair of Satsuma-style geta left at the scene were identified as Shinbei's, and he was arrested. During interrogation, he seized a moment to disembowel himself with a short sword and then slash his own carotid artery, dying before the truth of the incident could be established. He was 32.
Connection to Swords
Shinbei's personal sword is said to have been forged by the Satsuma swordsmith Oku Izumi-no-kami Tadashige, with a blade length of about 70 cm (2 shaku 3 sun) and a hilt of black-lacquered shark skin engraved with the characters "Chinju" and "Ei." Because the sword left at the scene of Anenokōji's assassination was identified as his own, his blade became inseparably linked to the fate that sealed his own death.
Later Reputation
Having taken his own life without fully revealing the truth behind the assassinations attributed to him, he is remembered in Bakumatsu history as "the man who said nothing," a singular figure among the era's swordsmen-assassins.
Notable Swords
- Blade attributed to Oku Izumi-no-kami Tadashige