The was a Japanese military-political coalition established and disestablished over the course of several months in early to mid-1868 during the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

. Its flag was either a white interwoven five-pointed star on a black field, or a black interwoven five-pointed star on a white field. It is also known as the .

History

The Alliance centered on the

Sendai is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 designated cities. The city was founded in 1600 by the ''daimyō'' Date M ...

, Yonezawa, and

Nihonmatsu is a city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 54,013 in 20,179 households, and a population density of 160 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . The Adachi neighborhood of Nihonmatsu was the bi ...

domains, and drew together nearly all domains from the provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, several domains of northern

Echigo Province was an old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen, Iwashiro, Kōzuke, Shinano, and Etchū Provinces. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Echigo''" in . It corresponds today to Niig ...

, and even the

Matsumae Domain The was a Japanese clan that was confirmed in the possession of the area around Matsumae, Hokkaidō as a march fief in 1590 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and charged with defending it, and by extension the whole of Japan, from the Ainu "barbarians" ...

Ezo (also spelled Yezo or Yeso) is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the lands to the north of the Japanese island of Honshu. It included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 18 ...

(modern-day

Hokkaidō is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...

). Headquartered at

Shiroishi Castle is a flatland-style Japanese castle in what is now the city of Shiroishi, Miyagi. During the Edo period, it was the castle of the Katakura clan, who were hereditary retainers of the Date clan of Sendai Domain. During the Boshin War, it was also t ...

, the alliance's nominal head was

Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa of Japan, was the second head of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family. He was formerly enshrined in Tainan-Jinja, Taiwan, under the name ''Kitashirakawa no Miya Yoshihisa-shinnō no Mikoto'' as the main and only deity. Biograp ...

, the onetime abbot of Kan'eiji Temple in

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

who fled north following the Satsuma–Chōshū takeover of the city, who declared himself "Emperor Tobu" (東武天皇), with Date Yoshikuni of

and

Uesugi Narinori was the 12th ''daimyō'' of Yonezawa Domain in Dewa Province, Japan (modern-day Yamagata Prefecture), under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. Biography Uesugi Narinori was the eldest son of Uesugi Narisada and received the ''kan ...

of Yonezawa as the head of the Alliance. Although heteroclite in nature, the Alliance formed of a combination of modern and traditional forces, and mobilized a total of about 50,000 soldiers. Though the alliance did its best to support the

Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princi ...

domain (会津藩), Aizu was not formally part of the alliance "Kaishō Alliance" (会庄同盟); neither was Shōnai (庄内藩). In addition, though it technically no longer existed as a domain, the forces of the Hayashi clan of

Jōzai Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Kazusa Province (modern-day Chiba Prefecture), Japan. The domain was centered on Manube jin’ya, in what is now the city of Kisarazu, Chiba. It was ruled for ...

also fought on behalf of the Alliance. While the alliance was a bold, innovative step that combined the military forces of several dozen domains, it was unable to fully act as a single, cohesive unit, and with the fall of Sendai and

, it effectively collapsed.

Members of the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei

Flag of Ouetsu Reppan Domei or the Northern Alliance in Japan

Notes

References

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External links

Background on the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ouetsu Reppan Domei Meiji Restoration Boshin War 1868 establishments in Japan 1868 disestablishments 19th-century military alliances