In the 6th month of Kaei 6 (1853), Tokugawa Nariaki was watching Hachirōmaro, dressed in armor, ride a horse on the riding ground of the Komagome residence. There a confidential letter arrived from senior councilor Abe Masahiro. It was a request saying that, instead of coming himself, he would send two men, and asked that Nariaki hear their views and state his thoughts without concealment. This came right after word had reached him that, two days after the American ships left Uraga, they would come again to receive a reply.
The ones who came were Kawaji and Tsutsui. The officials’ opinions were divided. Since neither the shogunate nor the daimyo had adequate defenses, the two proposed splitting in half the goods being given to the Dutch and allowing America to trade instead. Nariaki asked where this would be done, and countered that if trade were permitted, demands would pile up and it would end in war. Sohō declares that the thinking of Kawaji and Tsutsui was in fact Abe’s own thinking.
Here the two revealed the shogunate’s true intentions. Whether it took 5 years or 10, they wanted to stall without saying either yes or no to the request, and use that time to strengthen their defenses. Sohō calls this thinking one of the great errors of the late shogunate, and sees the stance of leaving matters unclear between black and white as the shogunate’s fatal disease. Nariaki did not object to the stalling itself, but only answered that such a state gave him no peace of mind. There was the line of the strict prohibition handed down from the ancestors, and there was the practical matter of stopgap measures for the moment.
When the discussion was over, Nariaki served sweets, thin tea, and soup, and presented the two men with swords he had always worn himself. To Kawaji he gave a long sword, and to Tsutsui a short sword. Sohō writes that handing over one’s own swords seems less the gesture of the one who was persuaded than of the one who had welcomed them.
In a letter Kawaji later sent to Nariaki’s senior retainer Fujita Tōko, the inner circumstances were revealed. If they fought a foreign country, he wrote, even winning every battle they could not hold out for even 1 year. So Abe always told him that they must endure hardship and, after 10 years, recover their national strength, drive out the foreigners, and show that they honored the emperor’s house. Kawaji wrote that handling this occasion calmly could not be helped.
The shogunate kept the death concealed. Matsudaira Yoshinaga submitted an opinion to Abe recommending Nariaki, and Abe at once sent back a reply of agreement. Abe visited the Komagome residence and asked Nariaki to take office; Nariaki declined several times but finally consented, and his joining the shogunate’s government was informally settled. On the 24th day of the 6th month, Abe ordered the officials to discuss in advance how to respond when the ships returned. Sohō concludes that, while this showed a proper grasp of procedure, it also looked like a way of shifting responsibility onto others, and that this expectation was almost entirely betrayed.
The confusion the shogunate fell into just after the ships’ return from Uraga can be traced through Nariaki’s own memoir, the letter Kawaji sent to Fujita Tōko, the opinion Matsudaira Yoshinaga submitted along with Abe Masahiro’s reply, and Sohō’s commentary.
Abe Masahiro’s Secret Letter and Two Visitors
Tokugawa Nariaki was watching Hachirōmaro, dressed in armor, ride a horse at Sugi Baba.Original
It was around the seventh half-hour, roughly five in the afternoon.Original
Word reached him even at the riding ground.OriginalOriginal
At the same time, a document box arrived from senior councilor Abe Masahiro.Original
It was a confidential note saying that in place of coming himself, he was sending two men.Original
“Please hear out the two men’s views thoroughly, and without concealment set forth your own considered thoughts.”Original
This meant: listen well to the two men’s opinions, and reveal your own thinking without hiding anything.OriginalOriginal
それには內密申上として、退出から川路、筒井兩人を差出す旨を告げ、更らに、差懸り差出し御不都合之義も可被爲在哉と存候へ共、何分品々心配之事共有之候間、小生罷出候代りに、兩人差出申候、兩人存意も得と御尋、高慮之程も、無御腹藏被仰示可被成下候
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryThe American ships had left Uraga two days before, on the twelfth day of the sixth month.Original
There was a moment’s respite.Original
But they had declared they would come again to receive a reply.Original
At that time, they said, they would come with an even larger fleet and anchor at a point even closer to Edo than Uraga.Original
They had even gone so far as to survey the inner bay.OriginalOriginal
The first thing Abe moved to secure was Nariaki’s understanding.Original
The day before, on the thirteenth day of the sixth month, Abe had written, “Please disclose without concealment the wise schemes and ingenious plans you have long considered.”Original
This was a request that Nariaki teach, without hiding anything, the plans he had thought over for many years.Original
That same night Nariaki replied, saying that since “even a fool may sometimes hit upon something,” he would set down the points that occurred to him and present them.Original
The very next day, the two men came.OriginalOriginal
Splitting in Half What Is Given to the Dutch
Nariaki called the two men into the Ōoku and heard them out.Original
His notes on this survive.OriginalOriginal
The officials’ arguments were scattered and unsettled.Original
But in the end, both the shogunate and the various daimyo had weak defenses, and after more than two hundred years of peace, military strength had declined.Original
America was a strong nation, superior to all others, one that even the Dutch feared.Original
If they rashly drove the ships off and lost, it would sully the honor of the state.Original
So, “should we not split in half what is given to the Dutch, and settle trade with that?”Original
That is, they proposed dividing in half the goods given to the Dutch and permitting America to trade with the remainder.OriginalOriginal
Nariaki questioned them in return.Original
At what place would this be settled?
The two men said that point had not yet been discussed.OriginalOriginal
Nariaki’s rebuttal was concrete.Original
If trade were permitted, it was certain that more would be brought in on its heels.Original
He had heard that the goods given to the Dutch had already decreased from what they once were, with copper, for instance, reduced by half.Original
If half of that remainder were further given to America, the Dutch too would be troubled.Original
America might agree at first, but having come all this way from a distant land, if it did not find the arrangement worthwhile, it would raise further complaints.
Even if settled at Nagasaki, a channel would form and they would come as far as Edo, and in the end it would lead to war.Original
Once that happened, matters would be more difficult than now.
In any case, “since this is strictly forbidden by our ancestors, permitting trade would not be right.”OriginalOriginal
獨り林式部少輔體は之を不可として曰く、水戶老侯は甞て嫌疑を以て退隱を命ぜられたるほどなるに、今さら之を延いて大議に參與せしむるは、事體其の當を得たるものに非ずと
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryTokutomi Sohō concludes that the views of Kawaji and Tsutsui were in fact the views of Abe.Original
He also suggests that they were now trying to carry out exactly what the Dutch had once advised.Original
In response, Nariaki opposed them, holding firmly to the point that it was strictly forbidden by their ancestors.OriginalOriginal
Stalling for Five Years, for Ten Years
Here the two men revealed the shogunate’s true intentions.OriginalOriginal
If only the defenses were strong, they said, it would be reassuring, but they were indeed weak.Original
So they wished to do what is commonly called “stalling.”Original
“For five years, even for ten years, neither granting the petition nor refusing it, we would let it drag on.”Original
For five or even ten years, they would neither agree to the request nor refuse it, but draw it out.Original
In that time they would strengthen their preparations, and only then refuse.OriginalOriginal
Tokutomi Sohō calls this notion of “stalling for five years, for ten years” a “great blunder” of the late Tokugawa shogunate.Original
It blurred black and white, was vague and evasive, expedient and half-hearted.Original
Tokutomi Sohō views this attempt to deceive the moment with stopgap words as the shogunate’s “fatal disease.”OriginalOriginal
What is surprising is how Nariaki responded.Original
If they could truly stall for five or ten years without fail, with no disturbance at home and no one harmed, and if in that time preparations were completed, then that would be well enough.Original
Only, he said, “being stalled in that way, I cannot feel at ease at all.”Original
Being kept in such a stalled state, he said, left him unable to feel secure.OriginalOriginal
Please consult the original page images for this source.
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryHis conclusion appears in the notes as follows.Original
If there were “a clear and settled resolve” to stall until defenses were strengthened, he had no objection.Original
So long as it did not become a matter of great commotion whenever a foreign ship came and forgetting the defenses once it left, stalling too was a strategy suited to the moment.Original
But permitting trade even in the slightest was strictly forbidden by their ancestors, so even if consulted, he could not say it was acceptable.OriginalOriginal
In short, Tokutomi Sohō reads this as showing that Nariaki himself seems to have had no particular objection to “stalling.”Original
Yet he was absolutely opposed to one particular expedient: sharing a portion of the Dutch trade with America as a way of dealing with the problem.Original
There was a firm line drawn by the ancestors’ strict prohibition, and there was the practical business of getting through the present crisis.Original
Within Nariaki, at this point, the two may have coexisted without contradiction.Original
Maple and Willow Carved on a Sword Guard
When the consultation was over, Nariaki served the two men sweets, thin tea, and a light soup.Original
Then he gave them the long and short swords he habitually wore, fitted with mountings of his own making.Original
To Kawaji he gave the long sword, and to Tsutsui the short one.OriginalOriginal
“The maple leaves that might be mistaken for the brocade of the Tatsuta River — if they did not scatter, how could anyone see them?”Original
On the guard of the short sword was Saigyō’s poem of the willow’s shade, “by the roadside.”Original
This too was in his own hand, and the guard was a square one.OriginalOriginal
Sohō writes that the visit of Kawaji and Tsutsui must have satisfied Nariaki as well.Original
To hand over one’s sword to another person.
Was this not the gesture not of one who had been persuaded, but of one who had welcomed those who came to persuade him?Original
On Holding Out for a Year
In a letter Kawaji later sent to Nariaki’s chief retainer Fujita Tōko, the inner circumstances of this day are revealed.Original
Once Nariaki began attending the castle every other day from the third day of the seventh month, he would come to be informed privately, as the deepest of secrets, of Abe’s account of “the matter of household expenses”—the substance of the shogunate’s finances.Original
If he saw those documents, he would surely be astonished and would at once grasp the whole state of affairs.OriginalOriginal
And then there is the crucial passage.Original
“Even if we went to war with a foreign country and won every battle, we could not hold out for as much as a year.”Original
Even if we fought a foreign country and kept winning, we could not endure for even a single year.Original
Therefore, by enduring hardship and uniting high and low, within ten years the nation’s strength would be restored, its military prestige established, and the office of the shogunate’s charge to “repel the barbarians and honor the imperial house” would be clearly upheld.Original
Kawaji writes that Abe always spoke to him sternly in these terms.OriginalOriginal
Unlike what one sees from outside, once one learns the deep and private truth of the matter, one understands that going to war is not something to be done lightly.Original
The intent this time to deal calmly with America was entirely unavoidable.OriginalOriginal
Sohō writes that this was the shogunate’s true feeling.Original
It was with this meaning that Abe sent Kawaji and Tsutsui to the Komagome residence.OriginalOriginal
The shogunate kept the death a secret.OriginalOriginal
Sohō observes that although it cannot be said Ieyoshi fell ill because of Perry’s arrival, it at least worsened the course of his illness.Original
He was a mediocre, mild-mannered “middling ruler” who had to bear the ill effects of his father Ienari’s extravagance.Original
His death could hardly have added to the shogunate’s strength.Original
Sohō judges that his successor, Iesada, was even more mediocre than his father.OriginalOriginal
Matsudaira Yoshinaga, lord of Fukui domain in Echizen, sent a letter to Abe recommending Nariaki.Original
The shogun’s illness was no ordinary matter, and with talk of foreign incursion running high, should the worst happen, the realm would be thrown into turmoil.Original
“At present the one man whom the realm looks to, wise and seasoned, is none other than the old lord of the Komagome residence.”Original
The one man of wisdom and experience whom the realm now looks to, he wrote, is the old lord of the Komagome residence alone.Original
If this man were made the support of the Western Castle lord, that is, of Iesada, then the feudal lords and the common people alike would surely be set at ease.Original
It was a memorial closing with the words “I bow my head, deserving death,” fully aware that it touched on a forbidden subject.Original
Yoshinaga had succeeded to the Echizen house from the Tayasu family; his adopted daughter was Abe’s wife, and Sohō writes that at the time he was almost entirely devoted to Nariaki.OriginalOriginal
右は今般之御病氣被爲及御大漸間敷も難計、平世とも違ひ、外冠の取沙汰も强く、追々傳承之趣にては、覬覦の夷情も、深重に被察候得者、方今の廷議、乍恐皇國の榮辱盛衰に相拘り可申御儀にて、一大事至極の御時節に當り、右樣の御大變有之候而は、擧世當惑、無此上、何となく洶然可相成哉に致暗察候
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryAbe replied at once.Original
“I too have had thoughts along these lines for some days past, and it is a source of great joy that they coincide so exactly.”Original
He too, he wrote, had been thinking along these lines for some days, and it was a great joy that their thoughts coincided so exactly.OriginalOriginal
It was past the eighth hour.
According to Nariaki’s own memoir, at this juncture of the shogun’s death and the new administration, the matter of the foreign ships was a grave affair bearing on the safety of the realm; Lord Iesada, the Commander of the Right, and the senior councilors were all anxious day and night, yet there was no one else to serve as a partner in consultation.Original
It was a request that he by all means come to serve.Original
Nariaki declined repeatedly, but on being told that Iesada was deeply worried and that it was also the wish of his fellow councilors, he agreed.Original
After various discussions, Nariaki gave Abe “two or three cups of sugar water” before sending him off.Original
Sohō records that with this visit, Nariaki’s participation in shogunal government was informally decided.OriginalOriginal
The Mito domain records that Sohō cites convey the path to this point from another angle.Original
On the fourteenth day of the sixth month, the inspectors Togawa Yasushige, Udono Nagatoshi, and Ōkubo Nobuhiro proposed that Nariaki be appointed.Original
All the officials agreed, but Hayashi Akira, the Shikibu-shōyū, alone objected.Original
To let a man once ordered into retirement on suspicion now take part in great affairs of state, he said, was improper.Original
Hayashi Ken, the Daigaku no kami, held the same opinion.Original
Among the senior councilors too, there were some who, hoping for a makeshift peace, disliked Mito’s long-standing arguments and judged Abe’s measure wrong.Original
Abe hesitated, and for a time even sought to resign his post.Original
His retainers remonstrated with him earnestly against this.Original
If he withdrew now, they said, it would look like avoiding difficulty for the sake of safety, and the court’s deliberations would only sink further into makeshift inaction.Original
He must resolutely put forward the old lord of Mito and set him to the great task of coastal defense.Original
Abe is said to have abandoned his intention to resign and to have resolved once more to put Nariaki forward.OriginalOriginal
Abe’s Inquiries and Sohō’s Criticism
Abe also set about making his inquiries.Original
On the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, orders were given to the magistrate of temples and shrines, the finance magistrate, the coastal defense officers, and the senior and junior inspectors.Original
They were told to deliberate in advance on how to respond when the reply was received, what measures to take if the ships pushed deep into the bay, and how to greet them if they came to another port.Original
Tokutomi Sohō writes that, since this was a consultation with subordinate officials, it followed proper form.OriginalOriginal
They were told to state their innermost thoughts without reserve, even if it touched upon forbidden matters.OriginalOriginal
Sohō’s assessment has two sides.Original
On one hand, it was a manner that well understood the path of a statesman, consulting the national opinion on a matter of great importance to the state.Original
On the other hand, it can also be seen as “an extremely cowardly and extremely cunning method,” lacking the courage and sense of responsibility to decide on his own authority, and shifting a difficult problem onto the shoulders of others.Original
Knowing full well that expelling the foreigners could not be carried out, why did he not say so openly?Original
Why did he fail to perceive that the American ships’ purpose was not war but friendly relations, and that their show of force was merely a performance to draw Japan into negotiation?Original
Not to declare his true opinion openly was cowardice; not to see the true state of affairs was a lack of discernment.Original
Sohō writes that this criticism could not be avoided by the administrators of the time, with Abe at their head.OriginalOriginal
此れは一面から云へば、國家の大事を、國論に諮つたものとして、最も政治家の筋道を能く辨へた仕方の樣でもある。併し他面から見れば、此の難局に對して、當局者が、自家の責任もて國の大事を裁斷するの勇氣と責任心とを缺き、其の難題を他の肩上に打ち掛けたる、極めて臆病に、且つ極めて狡獪なる手段とも見られないこともない
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryAnd Sohō surmises Abe’s underlying intention as follows.Original
If he faced the realm with this approach, no public controversy would arise, and the difficult problem could be resolved with ease.Original
Though he was “a statesman of his generation,” “his skill was too abundant, and his courage too scant.”OriginalOriginal
Sohō closes the chapter by saying that this expectation was almost entirely betrayed.Original
On the sword guards removed from his waist, both large and small, were carved maple leaves that could not be seen by human eyes unless they scattered.OriginalOriginal
| Source text | Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, Perry’s Arrival and Its Time (1929). National Diet Library Digital Collections (PDM). PID 3431222 |
| Checked against | Ishin shiryō kōyō, vol. 1 (1937). PID 1046665 |
| Dates and names | The text has 5 dates, but they have not been checked against the calendar. None of them gives a Japanese era year in the text, so there is no year to check them against. Of the 8 people named in the text, 5 also appear in Ishin shiryō kōyō, vol. 1. |
| English gates | 136 of 136 sentences passed the checks on the English text. |
This article is a reading of Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, Perry’s Arrival and Its Time. Tokutomi Sohō’s views are those of the 1920s and 1930s and may differ from current scholarship. The source text is a century old and may differ from current scholarship.
