The Battō-tai, the Keihōkan and the Keishichō

15 June 2026

Swordsmanship survived the Meiji Restoration by two channels. The first was commercial. As the Restoration stripped the swordsmen of their livelihood — the 1871 edict permitting the topknot to be cut and the sword laid aside, the abolition of hereditary stipends, and the 1876 haitōrei (廃刀令; sword-abolition edict) — the former Kōbusho kenjutsu instructor Sakakibara Kenkichi, taking sumo promotion as his model, staged fencing as a paying spectacle. The Tokyo governor Ōkubo Ichiō (大久保一翁) approved it, and the first gekken-kōgyō (撃剣興行; exhibition matches) ran for ten days from the fourth month of 1873 (Meiji 6) at Asakusa Saemon-gashi (浅草左衛門河岸) to overflowing houses (Nakamura Tamio et al. 1975; Nakabayashi Shinji 1993). Rival companies followed until there were dozens of Tokyo venues and touring troupes in the provinces; proliferation lowered quality, some venues were turned to political speeches, several prefectures banned the shows, and interest faded (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.). The verdict on them has always been double: contemporaries condemned the exhibitions as degrading the sword to a sideshow, while Takano Sasaburō defended Sakakibara as a man who began them so that the art would not die out (Dōmoto Akihiko, n.d.).

The second channel was the state’s, and it is the subject of this article: the Battō-tai of 1877, which made the government reassess swordsmanship, and the police fencing that followed at the Keishichō. The two channels did not stay separate — Sakakibara sat on the Keishichō panel that vetted the police fencing instructors — and both ended in the Dai Nippon Butokukai.

The Battō-tai

The Battō-tai (抜刀隊; drawn-sword corps) was the catalyst that turned kenjutsu from a dying art into a matter of state. In the Seinan Sensō (西南戦争; the Satsuma Rebellion) of 1877, at the Battle of Tabaruzaka (田原坂), the conscript Imperial Army — numerically dominant but manned largely by drafted commoners — struggled against the close combat (hakuhei-sen 白兵戦) of the Satsuma shizoku (士族), who pressed sword charges home (Ogawara Masamichi 2017).

The Keishitai (警視隊; the police brigade, formally the Detached Third Brigade 別働第三旅団, some 9,500 men under Kawaji Toshiyoshi 川路利良), itself heavily former-samurai, supplied the remedy: Satsuma police officers — Kawabata Tanenaga (川畑種長), Ueda Yoshisada (上田良貞), and Sonoda Yasukata (園田安賢) — proposed drawing the best swordsmen from the police ranks, and Yamagata Aritomo (山県有朋) assented, choosing the name Battō-tai to mark the unit as police rather than army; roughly 110 men formed the first corps in the third month of 1877, and their charges broke the deadlock and helped take Tabaruzaka (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The composition is where the received narrative and the record part. Popular memory, fed by later reportage, casts the Battō-tai as a corps of ex-Aizu shizoku avenging the Boshin War (戊辰の復讐; “the Boshin revenge”); the documented mainstay was in fact Satsuma gōshi (郷士 / 外城士; rural, outer-castle samurai), the confusion arising largely from conflating the Battō-tai with the much larger Keishitai (Isamu Tomoyuki 2007; Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The ex-Aizu karō Sagawa Kanbei (佐川官兵衛), routinely placed in the Battō-tai, was in fact in a different police unit and had died before it was formed (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.); the former Shinsen-gumi swordsman Saitō Hajime (斎藤一; by then Fujita Gorō 藤田五郎, of Mugai-ryū 無外流) did serve (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The consequence for kenjutsu was decisive. The Battō-tai’s performance reversed the art’s post-Restoration devaluation and reopened it as a state interest (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.), and Kawaji Toshiyoshi set the argument down in his Gekken saikō-ron (撃剣再興論; On the Revival of Fencing), pressing for swordsmanship within the police.

Two years later the Keishichō established the gekken sewakari (撃剣世話掛) system. The episode also passed into the wider culture: Toyama Masakazu’s poem on the Battō-tai became the basis of the Rikugun bunretsu kōshinkyoku (陸軍分列行進曲; the Army Parade March), still in use (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The Battō-tai song

“Battō-tai no shi” (抜刀隊の詩; “Song of the Drawn-Sword Corps”) was published in Shintaishishō (新体詩抄; “Selection of New-Style Poetry”), the first anthology of new-style poetry in Japan, in August 1882 (Meiji 15), a joint work of three University of Tokyo professors — Toyama Masakazu (外山正一), Yatabe Ryōkichi (矢田部良吉), and Inoue Tetsujirō (井上哲次郎) — the Battō-tai poem being Toyama’s, published under his art-name Chūzan Senshi (丶山仙士). So it sits at the origin of modern Japanese verse, not only in the war-song repertoire.

Its models were explicitly Western. The preface says that in the West, fierce, rousing songs are sung in war to lift morale — the French singing the Marseillaise in the Revolution, the Prussians “Die Wacht am Rhein” in the Franco-Prussian War — and that the Battō-tai poem follows that example. Toyama had studied at Michigan just after the American Civil War and drew on American war songs; the four-line refrain repeated each verse follows that Western song form. The French army bandmaster Charles Leroux (シャルル・ルルー) then set it, and it premiered in 1885 (Meiji 18) at the Rokumeikan (鹿鳴館), becoming Japan’s first popular hit sung to a Western melody; combined with Leroux’s “Fusōka,” it became the 1886 Army Parade March.

Form: shichigochō (七五調; 7-5 meter), six verses, each closing with the same refrain, sung from the government army’s (kangun 官軍) standpoint.

The text is public-domain (Toyama died 1900); here are the opening verse, the thematically central second verse, and the refrain, with the remainder summarized. The full six-verse text is on Wikisource.

Verse 1 (吾は官軍…):

吾は官軍我が敵は／天地容れざる朝敵ぞ／敵の大将たる者は／古今無双の英雄で／これに従うつわものは／共に慓悍決死の士／鬼神に恥じぬ勇あるも／天の許さぬ反逆を／起こせし者は昔より／栄えしためしあらざるぞ

“We are the imperial army; our foe are court-enemies (chōteki 朝敵) whom heaven and earth will not abide. Their commander is a hero without equal in any age, and the men who follow him are, every one, fierce warriors resolved on death — valor that would not shame a demon-god. Yet those who raise the revolt heaven forbids have never, from of old, prospered.”

Note the magnanimity, which is the striking feature: the enemy commander — Saigō Takamori, unnamed — is called 古今無双の英雄 (kokon musō no eiyū; “a hero unmatched in past or present”), and his men 慓悍決死の士 (hyōkan kesshi no shi; “fierce, death-resolved warriors”). A government war song praising the rebels it is marching to destroy.

Verse 2 (皇国の風と…):

皇国の風と武士の／その身を護る魂の／維新このかた廃れたる／日本刀の今更に／また世に出ずる身の誉／敵も身方も諸共に／刃の下に死ぬべきに／大和魂ある者の／死ぬべき時は今なるぞ／人に後れて恥かくな

“The way of the imperial land, and the soul that guards the warrior’s own body — the Japanese sword (日本刀, glossed Yamato-gatana), fallen into disuse since the Restoration (維新このかた廃れたる), now once more comes forth into the world: what honor for us who bear it. Foe and friend alike should fall beneath the blade; for one with the Yamato spirit (大和魂), the time to die is now — do not lag behind and be shamed.”

The refrain (repeated after every verse):

敵の亡ぶるそれ迄は／進めや進め諸共に／玉散る剣抜き連れて／死する覚悟で進むべし

Teki no horoburu sore made wa / susume ya susume morotomo ni / tama-chiru tsurugi nuki-tsurete / shisuru kakugo de susumu-beshi

“Until the enemy is destroyed, advance, advance, all together; drawing our jewel-scattering blades, press on resolved to die.”

Verses 3–6 escalate the battlefield imagery and the loyalty-death exhortation: the “mountain of swords” (tsurugi no yama 剣の山, the Buddhist hell-image) climbed here not to expiate one’s own sin-karma but to punish the rebels (v3); sword-light like lightning and cannon like thunder, corpses piled into mountains and blood run into rivers (v4); amid the rain of bullets, no regret in a loyal death (v5); the loyal name enduring fragrant to later ages, with the warning not to be called a dog without righteousness or slandered a coward (v6).

Toyama’s father, Toyama Chūbei Masayoshi, was a Kōbusho infantry-drill instructor (幕府講武所歩兵指南役) — the poet who monumentalized the drawn-sword corps was himself the son of a Kōbusho man.

The Keihōkan and Keishichō

The commercial and government channels join in 1879, when the Keishichō established the gekken sewakari (撃剣世話掛), hiring Kajikawa Yoshimasa, Ueda Umanosuke, and Henmi Sōsuke first, then Shingai Tadaatsu, Shimoe Hidetarō, and others, who codified the Keishi-ryū kata. Shimoe Hidetarō is the clearest human bridge through it all, from the Genbukan to the Keishichō, and he brought in Naitō and Monna, who were instrumental in the rise of institutional kendō.

1868 Keihōkan

There was an earlier, failed police adoption. In 1868 (Meiji 1) the new government’s Keihōkan (刑法官; penal-law office) took on martial-arts instructors — for kenjutsu, Hokushin Ittō-ryū’s Shimoe Hidetarō (下江秀太郎) and Kyōshin Meichi-ryū’s Momonoi Naoyuki (桃井直行); for jūjutsu, Tenjin Shin’yō-ryū’s Iso Mataemon (磯又右衛門) and Tani Torao (谷虎雄), and a Yōshin-ryū Totsuka, either Totsuka Hidemi (戸塚英美) or the Kōbusho’s Totsuka Hidetoshi (英俊).

The 1871 bureaucratic reorganization into the Shihōshō (司法省; Justice Ministry) dismissed them all, and the Keishichō proper was only created under the Naimushō (内務省) in 1874 (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

Shimoe was already a government kenjutsu instructor in 1868, a decade before the sewakari, which deepens his bridge role.

Iso Masatomo’s documented government jūjutsu post was this 1868 Keihōkan, not the Kōbusho (founded 1856) as told in some accounts. Descriptions of Kanō Jigorō’s instructor Fukuda may conflate the Meiji police predecessor with the bakufu academy.

The 1879 Sewakari

When the sewakari was set up at the Junsa Kyōshūjo (巡査教習所; patrolman training institute) in 1879, the selection judges were Momonoi Shunzō (桃井春蔵) and Sakakibara Kenkichi (榊原鍵吉). Kawaji Toshiyoshi delivered a formal exhortation there (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.; Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

Momonoi’s role as judge had a lasting effect: the so-called “Momonoi four heavenly kings” (Momonoi no shitennō 桃井の四天王) — Ueda Umanosuke, Sakabe Daisaku, Kubota Shinzō, and Kanematsu Naokado — made Kyōshin Meichi-ryū (鏡新明智流) the dominant house at the Keishichō, which is why the force still preserves Kyōshin Meichi-ryū forms today even though the school otherwise died out (Bakumatsu kara uketsugare genson suru kenjutsu ryūha (幕末から受け継がれ現存する剣術流派), n.d.).

There is a datable anchor for the roster, an 1888 official list, “警視庁撃剣世話係たりし者及びその階級” (former Keishichō fencing-instructors and their grades), that places five men at the top (second) grade, each with a police-station posting (Meiji-jidai no denshō to Keishichō-ryū (明治時代の伝承と警視庁流), n.d.):

The first-hired and senior sewakari include (in the 1888 grade-list):

Recruited into the sewakari after the first trio were several Shigakukan men who survive mainly as names in the grade-lists. Sakabe Daisaku (坂部・阪部大作) and Kubota Shinzō (久保田晋蔵) were both of the Kyōshin Meichi-ryū and were reckoned — with Ueda — among Momonoi’s “four heavenly kings”. Kanematsu Naokado (兼松直廉) was placed at the top grade at the Ogawamachi station in 1888, then about fifty (so born c. 1838) and is recorded as the only Keishichō man to fight to a draw at an 1889 tournament. His school is given as Kyōshin Meichi-ryū in the “four kings” grouping but as Tatsumi-ryū in the Dai Nippon Kendō-shi. (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.; Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.)

The development of Keishi-ryū

Because the sewakari came from mixed schools, a unified set — Keishi-ryū (警視流; also 警視庁流) — was compiled and announced at the 1886 (Meiji 19) Yayoi-sai (弥生祭) tournament (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.). Its parts: the kidachi-gata (木太刀形; bokutō forms, also called gekken-gata), ten techniques taken one each from ten kenjutsu ryūha; the tachi-iai (立居合), five iai forms; and a jūjutsu component, Keishi kenpō (警視拳法), of sixteen forms plus seven hayanawa (早捕法; quick-arrest methods) and kappō (活法; resuscitation) (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.). These are the forerunner of the Nihon Kendō Kata (日本剣道形) in being a cross-school composite — the same integration logic the Butokukai would apply in 1912, prototyped here a generation earlier (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

Because the kata was built for police in Western dress with a sword (洋装帯剣), its movements diverge from the source schools’ own kata — a deliberate institutional adaptation, not a loss of transmission (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.). Keishi-ryū is still transmitted by Keishichō kendōka.

Nakayama Hakudō practiced it actively (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.). Note also that a grading system, the gekken kyūi (撃剣級位), was instituted alongside the sewakari in 1879 (Kendō no rekishi (剣道の歴史), n.d.) — the same office-and-grade logic (not ryūha license) that ran through the Kōbusho and points toward the Butokukai’s shōgō.

National Tournaments

The tournament the Keishichō held at Yayoi Jinja (弥生神社) at Mukōgaoka (向ヶ岡), c. 1884–1885, is called the first national-scale kenjutsu tournament. Yayoi became the era’s principal gathering-point (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.; Kendō no rekishi (剣道の歴史), n.d.).1

Under the fifth Superintendent-General Mishima Michitsune (三島通庸, from 1885) came what is called the golden age of Keishichō kenjutsu — matches against other prefectures’ swordsmen (Takayama Minesaburō, Okumura Sakonta) and against the Imperial Household Ministry’s Saineikan (済寧館) dōjō, and the 1887 tenran kabuto-wari (天覧兜割り; helmet-cutting before the emperor), in which Sakakibara took part (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The training culture was notoriously severe — tachikiri-geiko (立ち切り稽古; continuous last-man bouting), with the saying that if you could survive the Keishichō morning practice and get home to breakfast you were a made man (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The young instructors of this milieu — Takano Sasaburō, Takahashi Kotarō, Kawasaki Zenzaburō, Naitō Takaharu, Monna Tadashi — are exactly the cohort that dominated Taishō and early-Shōwa kendō, i.e. the Butokukai/Busen leadership (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

Jūjutsu sewakari

The jūjutsu sewakari followed four years later, in 1883, after the Keishichō invited the Kurume jūjutsuka Shimosaka Saizō and, on his recommendation, Hisatomi Tetsutarō (Shibukawa-ryū), Naka Danzō (Sekiguchi Shinshin-ryū), and the Ryōi Shintō-ryū men Uehara Shōgo and Nakamura Hansuke (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

The Kōdōkan (講道館) entered the Keishichō tournament — the episode fictionalized in Sugata Sanshirō — where its men fought mainly against Totsuka-ha Yōshin-ryū and, winning all but a few, secured jūdō’s adoption by the Keishichō (Japanese Wikipedia, n.d.).

  1. Sources date the first national tournament variously between 1884 and 1885. ↩