The was a corps of elite troops of the Tokugawa Bakufu during the Bakumatsu period in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The corps was founded by Ōtori Keisuke

Otori Keisuke

was a Japanese military commander during the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji Era.-Early life and education:Ōtori Keisuke was born in Akamatsu Village, in the Akō domain of Harima Province , the son of physician Kobayashi Naosuke...

 with the help of the 1867–68 French Military Mission to Japan.

The corps was composed of 800 men. They were equipped with advanced Minié

Minié rifle

The Minié rifle was an important rifle in the 19th century, developed in 1849 following the invention of the Minié ball in 1847 by the French Army captains Claude-Étienne Minié of the Chasseurs d'Orléans and Henri-Gustave Delvigne. The rifle was designed to allow rapid muzzle loading of rifles, an...

-type Enfield

Pattern 1853 Enfield

The Enfield Pattern 1853 Rifle-Musket was a .577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading rifle-musket, used by the British Empire from 1853 to 1867, after which many Enfield 1853 Rifle-Muskets were converted to the cartridge-loaded Snider-Enfield rifle.-History &...

 guns, vastly superior to the Gewehr

Gewehr

Gewehr is the German word for a military rifle. Previous to the 1840s, rifled guns were not widespread, usually muzzle-loading and termed Büchse, as they are still in German hunting jargon today...

 smootbore guns possessed by the other Shogunal troops.

The troops were trained by French officers such as Charles Chanoine

Charles Chanoine

Charles Sulpice Jules Chanoine was a French military officer who played an important role in the Far East, and later became Minister of War....

 and Jules Brunet

Jules Brunet

Jules Brunet was a French officer who played an active role in Mexico and Japan, and later became a General and Chief of Staff of the French Minister of War in 1898...

, and fought during the 1868-1869 Boshin war

Boshin War

The was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the imperial court....

.