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Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 340, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

This week, I want to take some time to do a biography of a sort of secondary figure of the Meiji era.

And that term might sound dismissive. How much can we really care about someone of secondary importance? But frankly, I do think it is fair. The man we're talking about today is not the kind

of person likely to come up in, say, an overarching history of this period,

or an undergraduate intro to modern Japan course.

He was just never that famous.

However, he's also not a complete unknown.

He's had a few books written about him, and of course, attained that most important

of 21st century distinctions, having your own Wikipedia page, and an English one too, nonetheless.

Despite that fact, he is still a Meiji-era B-lister, but I do think his story is worth sharing regardless for two reasons.

First, as you will hopefully agree in about 30 minutes or so, it is a very interesting

life story. Second, like a lot of historical quote-unquote B-listers, once he go digging about in his

...