After Emperor Meiji succeeded to the throne in 1867, he appointed Prince Arisugawa
Sōsai (a position equivalent to chief minister), and placed him in command of the Imperial Army sent to combat the last partisans of the
Tokugawa bakufu in the
Boshin War of 1868–1869. He fought at the
Battle of Toba–Fushimi and later travelled up the
Tōkaidō, to accept the surrender of
Edo Castle on 3 May 1867, from his former fiancée Princess Kazu. In 1871 he was appointed governor of
Fukuoka. Prince Arisugawa later led the Imperial Army against the forces of
Saigō Takamori in the
Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. He was given the rank of general in 1878. From 1876 to 1880 he was the president of the
Genrōin. From 1880 until the adoption of the Cabinet system in 1885, Arisugawa served as
Minister of the Left (左大臣,
Sadaijin). In 1882 he travelled to
St. Petersburg, Russia, and met with
Tsar Alexander III as the official envoy from Emperor Meiji. From 1889 to 1895 the prince served as chief of staff of the
Imperial Japanese Army and a member of the
Supreme War Council. In that capacity, he was chief of staff to the Emperor in the
Imperial General Headquarters after the outbreak of the
First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. In September of that year, he was in charge of establishing the headquarters at
Hiroshima Castle. He contracted
typhoid fever (or possibly
malaria) and returned to the Arisugawa palace at Maiko near
Kobe to recover, but he died there on 15 January 1895. On his death, Emperor Meiji awarded him the first ever Collar of the Supreme
Order of the Chrysanthemum. He was accorded a
state funeral in Tokyo on 29 January 1895. His half-brother,
Prince Arisugawa Takehito, succeeded as the tenth head of the house of
Arisugawa-no-miya. ==Legacy==