 thumb|right|iwakura tomomi   was a japanese statesman during the bakumatsu and meiji period.nussbaum, louis-frÃ©dÃ©ric. (2005). "iwakura tomomi" in . the former 500 yen banknote issued by the bank of japan carried his portrait. ==early life== iwakura was born in kyoto as the second son of a low-ranking courtier and nobleman . in 1836 he was adopted by another nobleman, , from whom he received his family name. he was trained by the kampaku takatsukasa masamichi and wrote the opinion for the imperial court reformation. in 1854 he became a chamberlain to emperor kÅmei. ==as court noble== as with most other courtiers in kyoto, iwakura opposed the tokugawa shogunate's plans to end japan's national isolation policy and to open japan to foreign countries. when hotta masayoshi, a rÅjÅ« of the tokugawa government came to kyoto to obtain imperial permission to sign the treaty of amity and commerce (united states-japan) in 1858, iwakura gathered courtiers who opposed the treaty and attempted to hinder negotiations between the shÅgun and the court. after tairÅ ii naosuke was assassinated in 1860, iwakura supported the kobugattai movement, an alliance of the court and the shogunate. the central policy of this alliance was the marriage of the shÅgun tokugawa iemochi and princess kazu-no-miya chikako, the younger sister of the emperor kÅmei. samurai and nobles who supported the more radical sonnÅ jÅi policy saw iwakura as a supporter of the shogunate, and put pressure on the court to expel him. as a result iwakura left the court in 1862 and moved to iwakura, north of kyoto. ==in exile== in iwakura he wrote many opinions and sent them to the court or his political companions in satsuma domain. in 1866 when shÅgun iemochi died, iwakura attempted to have the court seize political initiative. he tried to gather daimyÅ under the name of the court but failed. when the emperor kÅmei died the next year, there was a rumor iwakura had plotted to murder the emperor with poison, but he escaped arrest. with Åkubo toshimichi and saigÅ takamori, on january 3, 1868, he engineered the seizure of the kyoto imperial palace by forces loyal to satsuma and chÅshÅ«, thus initiating the meiji restoration. he commissioned imperial banners with the sun and moon on a red field, which helped ensure that the encounters of the meiji restoration were generally bloodless affa
1825_births 1883_deaths Japanese_politicians Kazoku Nobles_of_the_Meiji_Restoration People_from_Kyoto