was born in Mito

Mito, Ibaraki

is the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan and has a central location, moderately offset towards the coast in that prefecture. As of 2005, the city has an estimated population of 263,748 and a total area is 217.45 km², giving a population density of 1,212.91 persons per km²...

-han (now Ibaraki Prefecture

Ibaraki Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan, located in the Kantō region on the main island of Honshu. The capital is Mito.-History:Ibaraki Prefecture was previously known as Hitachi Province...

). He was a master of the Shintomunen-ryu swordsmanship style. He was one of the original thirteen members of the Shinsengumi

Shinsengumi

The were a special police force of the late shogunate period.-Historical background:After Japan opened up to the West following U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's visits in 1853, its political situation gradually became more and more chaotic...

, together with Serizawa Kamo

Serizawa Kamo

Serizawa Kamo was a samurai known for being the original lead commander of the Shinsengumi. He trained in and received a licence in the Shindō Munen-ryū. "Kamo" means goose or duck in Japanese which was an odd name to call oneself at the time...

 and Kondō Isami

Kondo Isami

was a Japanese swordsman and official of the late Edo Period, famed for his role as commander of the Shinsengumi.-Background:Isami, who was first known as Katsugorō, was born to Miyagawa Hisajirō, a farmer residing in Kami-Ishihara village in Musashi Province, now in the city of Chōfu in Western...

. He was originally one of the three commanders with Kondo and Serizawa but later he had his rank lowered to vice-commander.

Being an important member of the Serizawa faction, he was later forced by Yamanami Keisuke

Yamanami Keisuke

was a Japanese samurai. He was the General Secretary of the Shinsengumi, a special police force in Kyoto during the late Edo period.-Background:...

 and Hijikata Toshizō

Hijikata Toshizo

was the vice-commander of Shinsengumi, a great swordsman and a talented Japanese military leader who resisted the Meiji Restoration.-Background:...

 to commit seppuku

Seppuku

is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...

(suicide) around October 19 (by the lunar calendar

Lunar calendar

A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. A common purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar. A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to...

, the 10th day of the ninth month), 1863. Serizawa and the other members of his group were assassinated about a week later by order of Matsudaira Katamori

Matsudaira Katamori

was a samurai who lived in the last days of the Edo period and the early to mid Meiji period. He was the 9th daimyo of the Aizu han and the Military Commissioner of Kyoto during the Bakumatsu period. During the Boshin War, Katamori and the Aizu han fought against the Meiji Government armies, but...

, the daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

 of the Aizu

Aizu

is an area comprising the westernmost third of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. The principal city of the area is Aizuwakamatsu.During the Edo period, Aizu was a feudal domain known as and part of Mutsu Province.-History:...

 clan.

Although he took the name Niimi Nishiki, his real name remains obscure. He is assumed to be well educated because the name Niimi Nishiki shows a play of pronunciation.

There are speculations that he could have been a spy for the Chōshū Domain and that he also had close connections with Sonnō jōi

Sonno joi

is a Japanese political philosophy and a social movement derived from Neo-Confucianism; it became a political slogan in the 1850s and 1860s in the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, during the Bakumatsu period.-Origin:...

 groups in Mito and Tosa Province

Tosa Province

is the name of a former province of Japan in the area that is today Kōchi Prefecture on Shikoku. Tosa was bordered by Iyo and Awa Provinces. It was sometimes called .-History:The ancient capital was near modern Nankoku...

.