Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa

of Japan, was the second head of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family. He was formerly enshrined in Tainan-Jinja, Taiwan, under the name Kitashirakawa no Miya Yoshihisa-shinnō no Mikoto as the main and only deity. Biography Early life Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa was the ninth son of Prince Fushimi Kuniie (1802–1875) with Horiuchi Nobuko. He entered the Buddhist priesthood under the title Rinnoji-no-miya. He served as abbot of Kan'ei-ji in Edo. Bakumatsu period During the unrest of the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, Prince Yoshihisa fled north with Tokugawa partisans of the following the Satsuma-Chōshū takeover of the city of Edo, and was made the nominal head of the "Northern Alliance" (Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei). This short-lived alliance consisted of almost all of the domains of northern Japan under the leadership of Date Yoshikuni of Sendai. Documents exist which name Prince Yoshihisa as , and delineate the holders of the chief positions of a new, northern court; however, historians are divided as to whether or not Prince Yoshihisa was actually named emperor. Depending on the source, Prince Yoshihisa's planned era name (nengō) is believed to have been either Taisei (大政) or Enju (延寿).