Register record
Identity & authority
- Disambiguation
- Hōzōin-ryū spear instructor at the Kōbusho, pupil of Inō Ichiunsai, shihan-yaku from Bunkyū 3 (1863); distinct from the gunnery shihan-yaku Yoshida Naojirō (吉田直次郎) and from Yoshida Tōhachi (吉田東八) of the 1866 Kanagawa cohort.
- Reliability
- School, teacher and guard unit come from the Fujiokaya nikki list; the dated appointments from the Rikugun rekishi register, whose reading of his unit differs from the other sources (see the body). No dates of birth or death are established.
- Attestation
- corroboration: external
Names
| type | kanji | romaji | reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| myoji | 吉田 | Yoshida | よしだ |
| tsusho | 勝之助 | Katsunosuke | 〔かつのすけ〕 |
Dates
- Floruit
- Ansei–Keiō (Kōbusho service from the Ansei roster to at least Bunkyū 3)
Origin & status
- Status
- 新番 松平信濃守組
- Offices
- 講武所槍術教授方出役 (sōjutsu kyōjuhō shutsuyaku)
- 講武所師範役並 — from Bunkyū 2 (1862)/12/14
- 講武所師範役, 二丸御留守居格 — from Bunkyū 3 (1863)/10/3
Lineage & parentage
- Teacher
- Inō Ichiunsai (伊能一雲斎)
- Attestation
- external
Summary
Yoshida Katsunosuke (吉田勝之助) was a Hōzōin-ryū spear instructor at the Kōbusho who rose from kyōju-kata shutsuyaku to shihan-yaku over the course of Bunkyū 2–3 (1862–63). He is one of the few Kōbusho teachers whose own teacher is named in a source, and he is the instructor at the center of the academy’s most awkward recorded bout.
School and teacher
The Fujiokaya nikki, quoted in the institutional history of the Kōbusho, enters him among the kyōju-kata as a Hōzōin-ryū man of the shinban company of Matsudaira Shinano-no-kami and a pupil of Inō Ichiunsai (伊能一雲斎).1 Inō does not appear on the academy’s staff, so this is one of the two pupillages in that list reaching outside the institution — the other being Katsu Kenzaburō’s under Nagao Kohei, both of them serving instructors.
Career
He was appointed shihan-yaku-nami on Bunkyū 2 (1862)/12/14, coming from the post of Kōbusho kyōju-kata shutsuyaku, and shihan-yaku with the standing of nimaru rusui-kaku on Bunkyū 3 (1863)/10/3.2 He also appears in the spear lists of the Kōbusho roster and among the kyōju-kata of the Ansei period.3
One discrepancy stands unresolved: his guard unit is given as the shinban company of Matsudaira Shinano-no-kami in the Fujiokaya nikki list and in the roster chapter, but as that of Murakami Shinano-no-kami in the shihan-yaku register. The Matsudaira reading has two witnesses to the register’s one.
The bout with Ido Kinpei
Ido Kinpei — a sewa-kokoroe in the same department and a pupil of Komai Hangorō — had been beating the teaching staff at will with the foot-entanglement described in his own record. He challenged Yoshida to a match.
The institutional history is blunt about the prospects: Yoshida had, of course, no chance of winning. What followed was not a bout but a rescue. The superintendent Kugai Inaba-no-kami intervened, talked the affair down, and the thing was only barely got through without an incident.4
The episode is usually cited for what it says about Ido. It says as much about the institution: when a supervisory assistant could beat a shihan-yaku in front of the hall, the academy’s senior officer protected the rank rather than let the floor decide. Yoshida is the man that protection was for, and it is the only personal detail about him the sources preserve.
Notes
