Ryoma Sakamoto and Shintaro Nagaoka Assassinated Here

Ryoma Sakamoto and Shintaro Nagaoka Assassinated Here. (the site of the Omiya store). This is where the shop of the soy sauce dealer Omiya once stood, the site of the assassination on November 15th, 1867 of Ryoma Sakamoto (1835-1867), among the greatest contributors to the Meiji Restoration, with his sworn friend Shintaro Nagaoka (1838-1867), both from the Tosa domain, present day Kochi Prefecture. Sakamoto was head of the Kaientai organization, while Shintaro was leader of the militaristic Rikuentai. Kaientai, a trading firm with Western dealers founded in Nagasaki by Sakamoto, was a kind of private sea force., On the evening of November 15th, Nagaoka visited his friend Sakamoto at the Omiya soy sauce shop where he was boarding. Absorbed in discussion on the future course of Japanese politics after the Return of Political Power to the Emperor (Taiseihokan), the young patriotic royalists were suddenly assaulted by an armed group who named themselves "Totsugawa Warriors". , Sakamoto, then 33, was killed on the spot, while Nagaoka, 30, died two days later., It was a turbulent era of transition in which the more than 260-year-long feudalistic Tokugawa Shogunate was terminated, putting an end to the days of swordsmen. The new Meiji days (1868-1912) were to begin., Both Sakamoto and Nagaoka are buried at the present Kyoto Ryozen-Gokoku-jinja (shrine)., (Japanese, Korean, and Chinese not transcribed.)