Chōshū Is Defeated at Kyoto’s Palace Gates

The 1863 palace coup excluded Chōshū and seven allied courtiers from Kyoto. Chōshū then sought restoration of the Mōri lords’ standing and the courtiers’ pardon. After unsuccessful appeals and the killing of some of its supporters in the Ikedaya incident, troops led by the domain’s senior retainers moved toward Kyoto. Failure to gain these concessions helped turn petitions into an armed return the following year.

Fukuhara Echigo led an early contingent into Kyoto and was wounded in the fighting. On the nineteenth day of the seventh month of the Japanese calendar in 1864, fighting broke out near the Hamaguri and Sakaimachi gates. Aizu, Satsuma and shogunal forces defeated Chōshū. Fires spreading from the fighting and domain premises swept through central Kyoto; homes, shops and temples burned. Residents escaped through a city suddenly turned into a battlefield.

The court’s authorization of punishment allowed the shogunate to summon domains for the first Chōshū expedition later that year. Its settlement demanded responsibility from Kunishi Shinano, Masuda Uemon-no-suke and Fukuhara Echigo, who were ordered to commit seppuku. Chōshū avoided a general invasion but could not avoid those deaths.

The event joined a failed armed bid for court access to destruction borne by the city’s inhabitants. It did not settle Chōshū’s internal argument about submission or resistance, which continued after the expedition withdrew. Political exclusion, urban destruction and the negotiated settlement affected different groups.