With its victory over the Tokugawa forces, the military power of the "Bakufu" was discredited, and traditionally rival domains decided to join forces with Chōshū in the subsequent battles which led to the Meiji Restoration and the end of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Takasugi did not live to see this success. He died of tuberculosis in the residence of the bar manager Hayashi Sankuro at Shimonoseki on 17 May 1867, while under the care of his former mistress O-Uno and his wife Masa. His Kiheitai was taken over by his protégé Yamagata Aritomo. Only a year later, Takasugi's dream of overthrowing the Tokugawa Shogunate, which found obvious manifestation in his alternate name Tōgyō (Go to the East) - was fulfilled with the Meiji Restoration. The "Kiheitai" was disbanded in 1868, the success of the socially mixed unit and its Western armaments and tactics was an important influence on the development of the Imperial Japanese Army, and on the later system of universal military conscription in Japan. Takasugi Shinsaku, a central figure of the early Meiji Restoration, is as well known for his military talents as he is for his skills as a politician. However, dying at the young age of 28, Takasugi was not to become one of Japan's famous leaders in the subsequent Meiji era. In his hometown - the castle town Hagi, Yamaguchi in south-western Japan - he is still remembered as a mystical and energetic hero, who put all his efforts into opening the way to modernization, westernization and reforms, not only in military matters but in political and social matters as well.