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02 — Flight
In the spring of 1862, leaving one's domain without permission was a capital offense that could bring ruin on one's whole family. Ryoma took that risk anyway — and the route he took across the mountains is still walkable today.
Ryoma is generally believed to have left Kochi castle town, passed through Yusuhara (itself a town of goshi and hunters, and deeply tied to the Loyalist movement), and crossed into Iyo Province (today's Ehime) at Niragatoge Pass on the Shikoku mountain ridge — a route re-enacted every year in a local walking event. A stone marker and a statue now stand at the pass itself.
As a mid-ranking goshi, Ryoma had no realistic path to influence domain policy from within — and Tosa itself was cautious, unwilling to commit fully to the Loyalist cause the way Choshu or Satsuma eventually did. Multiple theories exist for the immediate trigger (financial trouble, involvement with the Loyalist Party's radical wing, simple restlessness); no single one is universally accepted, and the honest answer is that his own writings do not spell it out.
Within the year, Ryoma had met Katsu Kaishu in Edo and, remarkably, become his student rather than his assassin (an episode covered on the Late-Edo Patriots page). The flight that could have ended his life instead opened the path to Nagasaki, the Kameyama Company, and the brokering work he's remembered for.
CONNECTED REGIONS
This story connects with the history of other regions.