Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa


Yoshihisa, Prince Kitashirakawa of Japan, was the second head of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family. He was formerly enshrined in Tainan-Jinja, Taiwan, under the name Kitashirakawa no Miya Yoshihisa-shinnō no Mikoto as the main and only deity.

Biography

Early life

Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa was the ninth son of Prince Fushimi Kuniie with Horiuchi Nobuko. He entered the Buddhist priesthood under the title Rinnoji-no-miya. He served as abbot of Kan'ei-ji in Edo.

Bakumatsu period

During the unrest of the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, Prince Yoshihisa fled north with Tokugawa partisans of the following the Satsuma-Chōshū takeover of the city of Edo, and was made the nominal head of the "Northern Alliance" . This short-lived alliance consisted of almost all of the domains of northern Japan under the leadership of Date Yoshikuni of Sendai. Documents exist which name Prince Yoshihisa as "Emperor Tōbu", and delineate the holders of the chief positions of a new, northern court; however, historians are divided as to whether or not Prince Yoshihisa was actually named emperor. Depending on the source, Prince Yoshihisa's planned era name is believed to have been either Taisei or Enju.
Following the Meiji Restoration, in 1873 Emperor Meiji recalled all imperial princes currently serving as Buddhist priests back to secular status. That same year he succeeded his younger brother, Prince Kitashirakawa Kasunari, as the second head of the new princely house of Kitashirakawa-no-miya.

Marriage and family

On 10 July 1886, Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa married Shimazu Tomiko, the adopted daughter of Prince Shimazu Hisamitsu of Satsuma Domain. The marriage produced one child:
Also, Prince Yoshihisa had five sons and five daughters by various concubines, as was common practice for the time:
  • Prince Tsunehisa Takeda
  • Prince Nobuhisa
  • Countess Kanroji Mitsuko
  • Count Futara Yoshiaki
  • Countess Arima Sadako
  • Marquis Komatsu Teruhisa
  • Viscountess Hoshina Takeko
  • Count Ueno Masao
  • Princess Kotoko
  • Countess Futara Hiroko

    Military career

Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa became a professional soldier, and was sent to Germany for military training. On his return to Japan in 1887, he was commissioned as a major general in the Imperial Japanese Army. In 1893, as lieutenant general, he was given command of the 4th Division. After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, he was transferred to the elite 1st Division and participated in the Japanese invasion of Taiwan. During the invasion, he contracted malaria and died outside of Tainan. Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa is thus the first member of the Japanese imperial family known to have died outside Japan, and the first to have died in war. Under State Shinto, he was elevated to a kami, and was enshrined in most of the Shinto shrines erected in Taiwan under Japanese rule, as well as in Yasukuni Jinja.

Honours

National