Battle of Kōshū-Katsunuma

What Happened

On 29 March 1868, forces loyal to the new imperial government met troops of the former Tokugawa shogunate at Katsunuma, a post town in Kōshū province on the road leading west out of Edo toward the mountains. The imperial side was represented by the Jinshōtai (迅衝隊, jinshōtai), a body of troops raised in Tosa domain. The shogunate side was the Kōyō Chinbutai (高陽鎮撫隊, kōyō chinbutai), a force organised to restore order and resist the imperial advance. The fighting ended in an imperial victory, and the shogunate force broke apart and withdrew.

The engagement was brief and one-sided. The Kōyō Chinbutai had been assembled in haste and was short of modern equipment and trained men, while the Jinshōtai fielded organised infantry with modern firearms. Once the imperial troops pressed the attack, the shogunate line collapsed. Katsunuma itself, a staging point on the Kōshū road, changed hands in the course of the day.

Background

The battle belongs to the Boshin War (戊辰戦争, boshin sensō), the civil conflict that ran from 1868 into 1869 and decided who would govern Japan. In late 1867 the Tokugawa shogunate, the military government that had ruled from Edo since 1603, handed power back to the imperial court. The settlement did not hold. In January 1868 shogunate and pro-imperial forces fought at Toba–Fushimi, near Kyoto, and the shogunate army was defeated. That defeat set the imperial camp moving eastward along the Tōkaidō toward Edo, the shogunate's capital.

The Kōyō Chinbutai was one of the shogunate's attempts to slow that advance. It was built around the Shinsengumi (新選組, shinsengumi), a corps of shogunate loyalists originally formed in Kyoto as a police force, and was placed under the command of Kondo Isami. The unit marched into Kōshū province, the region around present-day Yamanashi, intending to hold the mountain approaches to Edo. The Jinshōtai, advancing from the west, met it at Katsunuma.

Why It Mattered

Kōshū-Katsunuma removed the last organised shogunate force standing between the imperial army and Edo. With the Kōyō Chinbutai destroyed as a fighting unit, the road to the capital lay open, and Edo surrendered without the street-by-street destruction that a siege would have brought. The city that would shortly be renamed Tokyo was spared.

The defeat also ended the Shinsengumi as a coherent organisation. Its commander, Kondo Isami, was captured after the battle and executed. The survivors who had fought at Katsunuma, among them Hijikata Toshizo, continued north and joined the resistance in the Tōhoku and Hokkaido campaigns, but the corps never recovered its former role. For the wider war, the battle confirmed what Toba–Fushimi had already suggested: the shogunate could not match the imperial coalition's modern infantry and artillery in open combat.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 甲州勝沼の戦い, read こうしゅうかつぬまのたたかい (Kōshū-Katsunuma no tatakai). Breaking it down:

• 甲 — read here as こう (kō). It is the first character of 甲斐 (Kai), the old province name, and 甲州 (Kōshū) is an alternative name for that province, roughly "the province of Kai." The character originally referred to a shell or a hard outer covering, and by extension to the first of the ten heavenly stems in the old Chinese-derived calendar.
• 州 — read here as しゅう (shū). It means "province," "state," or "region." Combined with 甲, it forms 甲州, the province in question, corresponding to modern Yamanashi Prefecture.
• 勝 — read here as かつ (katsu). It means "victory" or "to win." In this place name it is part of 勝沼, not a statement about the outcome.
• 沼 — read here as ぬま (numa). It means "swamp" or "marsh." Together, 勝沼 (Katsunuma) is the name of the locality where the fighting took place.
• の — read の (no). The possessive and linking particle, joining the place name to the noun that follows.
• 戦 — read here as たたかい (tatakai). It means "battle" or "war." The same character appears in 戦争 (sensō), "war," and 戦い is the native Japanese reading used for a single engagement.
• い — read い (i). The final kana of 戦い, completing the native Japanese verb form used as a noun.

So the whole name means, plainly, "the battle of Katsunuma in Kōshū." The compound 甲州勝沼 is the place; の links it to 戦い, "battle."

Key Figures

Kondo Isami (近藤勇, kondō isami) commanded the Kōyō Chinbutai, the shogunate force at Katsunuma. He had led the Shinsengumi in Kyoto and was captured after the defeat; he was executed later in 1868.

Hijikata Toshizo (土方歳三, hijikata toshizō) was the Shinsengumi's second-in-command and fought on the shogunate side. He survived the battle and continued the fight in the northern campaigns.

The Jinshōtai (迅衝隊, jinshōtai) was the Tosa-domain force on the imperial side. It advanced from the west and broke the shogunate line at Katsunuma, opening the route toward Edo.