Saitō Hajime
Japanese swordsman (1844–1915)
Hajime Saitō (斎藤 一) (born Hajime Yamaguchi (山口 一); February 18, 1844 – September 28, 1915) was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period, who most famously served as the captain of the third unit of the Shinsengumi. He was one of the few core members who survived the numerous wars of the Bakumatsu period. He was later known as Fujita Gorō (藤田 五郎) and worked as a police officer in Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration where he worked mostly undercover for them and for the Japanese government.
Early years
He was born in Edo, Musashi Province (now Tokyo). Very little is known about his early life. He was born Yamaguchi Hajime (山口 一) to Yamaguchi Yūsuke (山口 祐助), an ashigaru of the Akashi Domain, who had bought the rank of gokenin (a low-ranking retainer directly serving the Tokugawa shōgun), and his wife Masu (ます). He had an older brother named Hiroaki and an older sister named Katsu. According to the published records of his family, Saitō left Edo in 1862, after accidentally killing a hatamoto. He went to Kyoto and taught in the dōjō of a man named Yoshida, who had relied on Saitō's father Yūsuke in the past. His style of swordsmanship is not clear.
The public source identifies “Saitō Hajime” as japanese swordsman (1844–1915). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Saitō, Hajime and Japanese.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saitō Hajime” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.