 After studying at the domanial school, Fukuba Bisei later became a disciple of Takamasa and Hirata Kanetane. From 1863 Bisei became active politically in support of the imperial court against the Tokugawa shogunate. In the late-Tokugawa years, Bisei took his orders from the daimyo Kamei Koremi, working in support of political reforms. In 1867, Bisei directed the Separation of Kami and Buddhas movement in Tsuwano, then worked with Takamasa to draft the Separation edicts issued across Japan in 1868. Those edicts forcibly removed Buddhist elements from shrines to re-establish them as exclusively Shinto institutions. That same year, the Council of Divinity (Jingikan) was established as the highest office of government, even above the Council of State (Dajōkan), to carry out religious rituals of the imperial court and state. Bisei served as a magistrate in this Council as well as a tutor to the imperial court. Working with Takamasa, Bisei formulated a Shinto theology which asserted that all shrines would be used to perform rites of the state.