영어속독--Togo Heihachiro(東鄕平八郞; 27 January 1848 – 30 May 1934)<1>

Early life

 

Tōgō was born on 27 January 1848 in the Kajiya-chō (加治屋町）district of the city of Kagoshima in Satsuma domain (modern-day Kagoshima prefecture), in feudal Japan, the third of four sons of Togo Kichizaemon,^[1] a samurai serving the Shimazu daimyo, and Hori Masuko (1812-1901).

 

Kajiya-chō was one of Kagoshima's samurai housing-districts, in which many other influential figures of the Meiji period were born, such as Saigō Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi. They rose to prominent positions under the Meiji Emperor partly because the Shimazu clan had been a decisive military and political factor in the Boshin war against the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Meiji Restoration.

Tokugawa conflicts (1863–1869)[edit]

Officers of Kasuga, in August 1869. Third-class officer Tōgō is dressed in white, top right.

 

Tōgō's first experience at war was at the age of 15 during the Bombardment of Kagoshima (August 1863), in which Kagoshima was shelled by the Royal Navy to punish the Satsuma daimyo for the death of Charles Lennox Richardson on the Tōkaidō highway the previous year (the Namamugi Incident), and the Japanese refusal to pay an indemnity in compensation.

 

The following year, Satsuma established a navy, in which Tōgō and two of his brothers enrolled. In January 1868, during the Boshin War, Tōgō was assigned to the paddle-wheel steam warship Kasuga, which participated in the Battle of Awa, near Osaka, against the navy of the Tokugawa Bakufu, the first Japanese naval battle between two modern fleets.

 

As the conflict spread to northern Japan, Tōgō participated as a third-class officer aboard the Kasuga in the last battles against the remnants of the Bakufu forces, the Battle of Miyako Bay and the Battle of Hakodate (1869).(257 words)

 

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