In 1863, after Choshu’s samurai forces failed against foreign navies, Yoshida Shoin’s student Takasugi Shinsaku founded the Kiheitai — a militia open to farmers, townsmen, monks, and samurai alike, based on merit rather than birth. In 1864 he raised just 80 men at Kozanji temple, rallying the pro-imperial faction and turning Choshu decisively toward toppling the shogunate. He died of tuberculosis at 27 in 1867, just before the Meiji Restoration.