板垣退助
After the Battle of Toba–Fushimi where he suffered a gunshot wound in January 1868, he returned to Edo, where he met with the military commander Katsu Kaishū and was promoted to the rank of wakadoshiyori ("wakadoshiyori-kaku" 若年寄格) in the rapidly disintegrating Tokugawa administration. Kondō created a unit (basically the renamed Shinsengumi) based on the surviving remnants of the Shinsengumi and led the unit under the alias of Okubo Tsuyoshi, and they departed from Edo for Kōfu Castle on March 24 on orders to suppress uprisings there. But upon receiving news on March 28 that the Kōfu Castle was taken by Imperial Court forces led by Itagaki Taisuke, they settled at a town of Katsunuma five miles east of Kōfu.