Aizu and Matsudaira Katamori in the 1850s

Aizu, particularly through its daimyō, played an important role during the Bakumatsu years and remained consistently present, yet often discreet, in the unfolding of events. In 1852, Matsudaira Katamori, having been adopted by his uncle Matsudaira Katataka, became the new daimyō of Aizu at only sixteen. His fate would become intrinsically linked to the Tokugawa clan due to the closeness of their family ties: the Matsudaira of Aizu were a branch family of the Tokugawa, but more importantly, Katamori was the illegitimate son of the daimyō of Takasu Domain, himself a member of the Gosanke house of Owari.

The Gosanke (Three Noble Houses) were the most powerful branch families of the Tokugawa clan (Owari, Kii, and Mito) which all descended from Tokugawa Ieyasu’s younger sons.

Matsudaira Katamori was educated at the Nisshinkan in Aizu, where he studied reading, calligraphy, ethics, etiquette, religion, astronomy, physiology, horseback riding, archery, swordsmanship, and even swimming, alongside roughly 1,000 other students. 

Portrait of Matsudaira Katamori

Owing to their excellent reputation, it came as no surprise that Aizu men were requested to safeguard the coasts of Awa and Kazusa Provinces (present-day Chiba) near Edo, where Commodore Perry’s expedition arrived. According to the journal of Samuel Wells Williams, Perry’s interpreter, after their arrival in 1853, 'Some of the flags seen ashore, and the red jackets, too, to-day had 會 on them.'

Katamori remained in Edo and was appointed guardian of the second garrison of Shinagawa (the first post town of the Tōkaidō Route that led to Kyōtō), before being tasked to guard Ezo in 1859. I could not find evidence that he went there himself, but he did dispatch Aizu men as part of the Shogunate’s wider Ezo policy. This involved dividing most of Ezo among several northern domains, which were essentially responsible for frontier defense and cultivation of what was then considered a borderland - once increasingly coveted by Russia. If you read my previous stories, this is why the Goryōkaku fortress was built.

Following the Sakuradamon Incident (see August 10, 2022 post!), which exposed the growing  national discontent caused by the complexity of foreign policies and treaty demands, the Tokugawa order was seriously threatened. This would soon lead to Katamori's appointment to a rather unexpected role...

Source: Samuel Wells Williams, A Journal of the Perry Expedition to Japan (1853–1854) (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1973).