Yoshida Shōin
In 1859, Chōshū was ordered to send its most dangerous insurgents to Edo's prisons. Once there, Yoshida Shōin confessed the assassination plot, and, from jail, continued to plot the rebellion. He did not expect to be executed until the Tokugawa executed three of his friends. In October 15, he asked for a piece of tissue paper to clear his nasal passage, then recited his final death poem: 'Parental love exceeds one's love for his parents. How will they take the tidings of today?'. Two days later in October 17, he was informed of his death sentence. When it was Yoshida's turn in November 21, he was brought to an open courtyard adjacent to the prison, and led to the scaffold. With perfect composure he kneeled atop a straw mat, beyond which was a rectangular hole dug in the rich, dark earth to absorb the blood. Upon his death by decapitation, his executioner Yamada Asaemon said that he died a noble death. He was 29 years old.