Prince Arisugawa Takehito

was the 10th head of a cadet branch of the Japanese imperial family and a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Early life Prince Takehito was born in Kyoto as a scion of the house, one of the shinnōke branches of the Imperial Family of Japan, which were eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out. Prince Takehito is born to Prince Arisugawa Takahito and Noriko Mori; a concubine. As he was born when the country was still under rule by the Tokugawa Bakufu, he was sent as a youth into the Buddhist priesthood, and assigned to serve at the monzeki temple of Myōhō-in in Kyoto. After the Meiji Restoration, he was recalled to secular life, and relocated to Tokyo in 1871. Naval and diplomatic career In 1874, on orders from Emperor Meiji, Arisugawa enrolled in the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. In 1877, despite his youth, he was sent as an observer to the Satsuma Rebellion, to observe the devastation first hand, and landed in Kagoshima shortly after it was secured by Imperial forces. In 1879, Arisugawa was sent as a military attaché to Great Britain and embarked upon , the flagship of Britain's Royal Navy in the Far East, for further training. He served in the Channel Squadron for a year before returning to Japan as an ensign.