Aizu Fights from Fushimi to the Siege of Its Castle

Aizu forces fought alongside former shogunate troops at Fushimi in January 1868. After the defeat, Matsudaira Katamori accompanied Yoshinobu and Kuwana’s Matsudaira Sadaaki from Osaka toward Edo. Resistance then shifted to the domains’ own territories.

Back in Aizu, Katamori organized units named for the four directional creatures—Suzaku, Seiryū, Genbu and Byakko—and purchased firearms. Aizu joined the northeastern alliance against the restoration government. Government forces broke through Bonari Pass and approached the castle, where soldiers and members of domain households took refuge.

The siege lasted about a month. Bombardment and fighting damaged the castle and surrounding town, and Aizu surrendered on November 6, 1868. The defeat ended the domain’s military resistance; the subsequent disposition of the house and its followers took longer.

In 1869 the Matsudaira house was revived in Tonami, in northern Honshu, and former Aizu families settled there. Abolition of domains in 1871 then dispersed members of that community further. Aizu’s loss therefore involved both the battlefield surrender and later changes in where its former ruling house and retainers could live and work.