{{nihongo|Takasugi Shinsaku|高杉 晋作|extra= 27 September 1839 – 17 May 1867}} was a samurai from the Chōshū Domain of Japan who contributed significantly to the Meiji Restoration. He used several aliases to hide his activities from the Tokugawa shogunate. Early life Takasugi Shinsaku was born in the castle town Hagi, the capital of the Chōshū Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) as the first son of Takasugi Kochūta, a middle-ranked samurai of the domain and his mother . He would have three younger sisters by the name of , and . He had smallpox at the age of ten, but fortunately he had recovered from it. Takasugi joined the Shōka Sonjuku, the famous private school of Yoshida Shōin. Takasugi devoted himself to the modernization of Chōshū's military, and became a favorite student of Yoshida. In 1858, he entered the Shōheikō (a military school under direct control of the shōgun at Edo). When his teacher was arrested during the Ansei Purge in 1859, Takasugi visited him in jail. Shōin was later executed on 21 November 1859. In December 1859 he returned home by the clan's command. In January 1860, Takasugi married Inoue Masa (1845–1922), the second daughter of Yamaguchi retainer and magistrate Inoue Heiemon who was also the friend of his father. Masa was said to be the most beautiful lady in Suō and Nagato provinces. Their marriage was arranged by his parents, with hope that he would take his mind off of his teacher's death in 1859 and to settle down with his new bride. However, in April 1861, Takasugi would leave his home and undertake naval training on the clan's warship Heishinmaru, and travelled to Edo. Later in September he went to study at the Tōhoku region, and there he was associated with Sakuma Shōzan and Yokoi Shōnan. Foreign experience Takasugi, in spite of his young age, was an influential factor within Chōshū as one of the most extreme advocates of a policy of seclusion and expelling the foreigners from Japan. In spite of Japan's policy of national isolation in the Edo period, in 1862 Takasugi was ordered by the domain to go secretly to Shanghai in Great Qing Empire to investigate the state of affairs and the strength of the Western powers. Takasugi's visit coincided with the Taiping Rebellion, and he was shocked by the effects of European imperialism even on the Chinese Empire. Takasugi returned to Japan convinced that Japan