Chiba Jūtarō

Chiba Jūtarō (March 31, 1824 – May 7, 1885) was a swordsman of the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods, the eldest son of Chiba Sadakichi, founder of the "Okechō Chiba" Hokushin Ittō-ryū dojo, and is widely believed to have been Sakamoto Ryōma's principal sword instructor. When his father took up domain duties for Tottori in 1853, Jūtarō assumed practical leadership of the family dojo and its students, including Ryōma, who enrolled that same year. In 1862, resenting the shogunate official Katsu Kaishū's advocacy of opening the country, Jūtarō and Ryōma reportedly plotted to assassinate him — only to be won over by Katsu's views and become his students instead. Jūtarō entered service with the Tottori domain around 1860 and, in 1864, sheltered loyalist activists fleeing the failed Ikuno Uprising, escaping shogunate reprisal thanks to the intervention of senior councilor Itakura Katsukiyo. During the Boshin War he helped lead Tottori's volunteer farmer militia, the Yamakuni-tai. After the Meiji Restoration he served as an official in Tottori, Kyoto, and Hokkaido, and in 1907 was posthumously granted the junior fifth court rank in recognition of his service. As the man who trained Ryōma at his father's dojo, he remains a recurring figure in fiction and drama about the Bakumatsu era.