2. The Essay's Perspective

As can be seen from the Battle of Hakodate, Enomoto seems to have gone against the trend of the time, when the new government is established and starts modernizing.

However, at the same time, he has modern aspects; for example, what he attempts to do through the battle of Hakodate is to establish ”the Ezo Republic* ”,to provide a presidential election system similar to the American system, to conduct diplomatic negotiations with France and Britain for neutrality between the Ezo Republic and the new Meiji government to fight under International Law, while also using guerrilla war methods.
Throughout his life, he has mindset of an engineer but at the same time he is a tough negotiator who skillfully uses five languages*. For example, the Russian Czar of that time, Alexander the Second respected him greatly. Then, despite having better negotiation skills than Hirobumi Ito*,Enomoto does not do well in politics. Perhaps because he feels indebted to the Choshu or Satsuma clan leaders and the Meiji government after he decided to team up with the Bakufu side.

I would like to focus on the view from the side of Enomoto and of Tokugawa Bakufu, because modern Japanese history in school’s textbooks has been written unfairly, only from the point view of the Satsuma-Choshu side. I would like to introduce him as a character that could be living among us in the 21st century, as someone who isn’t a common Japanese.
Also, I would like to use this as reference to think about how we should educate schoolchildren today.
At the same time, I will compare him with Kaishu Katsu, who studied in the Nagasaki naval training center and is one year senior to Enomoto, and try to find out why the two differ sonmuch in their activities at the end of the Bakufu.
Although a biography is normally written chronologically, here, in order to focus on the comparison with Katsu, I would like to start with Enomot’s days at the naval training center.

Enomoto’s activities after the Meiji Restoration will be described later in detail.
In addition, considering his works during Meiji era, I would like to think about the topic
“If he had been sentenced to death, what would have become of the Meiji Restoration and of Japan?”

( p.3 )