Early life Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa was the ninth son of
Prince Fushimi Kuniie (1802–1875) 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"
(Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei). 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" ( or ), 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 (
nengō) is believed to have been either
Taisei (大政) or
Enju (延寿). 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 (1 October 1862 – 20 March 1936), the adopted daughter of Prince
Shimazu Hisamitsu of
Satsuma Domain. The marriage produced one child: •
Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa (18 April 1887 – 2 April 1923) Also, Prince Yoshihisa had five sons and five daughters by various
concubines, as was common practice for the time: •
Prince Tsunehisa Takeda (22 September 1882 – 23 April 1919) • Prince Nobuhisa (28 August 1885 – 28 June 1886) • Countess Kanroji Mitsuko (19 October 1885 – 16 July 1975) • Count Futara Yoshiaki (26 October 1886 – 18 April 1909) • Countess Arima Sadako (6 August 1887 – 16 August 1964) • Marquis
Komatsu Teruhisa (2 August 1888 – 5 November 1970) • Viscountess Hoshina Takeko (28 March 1890 – 18 March 1977) • Count Ueno Masao (16 July 1890 – 16 February 1965) • Princess Kotoko (20 December 1891 – 22 January 1892) • Countess Futara Hiroko (28 May 1895 – 7 March 1990)
Military career , located north of the
Tokyo Imperial Palace 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 (although there were rumors that he was killed in action by Taiwanese guerrillas). Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa is thus the first member of the Japanese imperial family known to have died outside Japan, and the first (in modern times) 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 ==