Follow
The Shinsengumi (新選組, "New Select Brigade") was a special police force organized by the Bakufu (military government) during Japan's Bakumatsu period (late Tokugawa shogunate) in 1863. It was active until 1869.[1] It was founded to protect the shogunate representatives in Kyoto at a time when a controversial imperial edict to exclude foreign trade from Japan had been made and the Chōshū clan had been forced from the imperial court. The men were drawn from the sword schools of Edo.