In July of Kōka 2 (1845), Tokugawa Nariaki asked Abe Masahiro to lend him a telescope he owned. The previous year, in the fifth month, Nariaki had been censured by the shogunate and ordered into retirement and confinement. His confinement was lifted in the eleventh month of the same year, but he was not permitted to take part in the domain’s politics. Tokutomi Sohō writes that the borrowing of the telescope was the first small window that the confined man opened to the outside world.
This became the occasion for an exchange of letters to begin. Long letters discussing the rebuilding of domain government and national defense arrived at Abe’s without ceasing. Tokutomi Sohō holds that the original home of the idea of expelling foreigners was Mito. Fujita Tōko, said to be one of Nariaki’s close aides, also wrote to Takahashi Taichirō that he wished to return even a single day sooner to the expulsion order of Bunsei 8.
But though there were ideas, there were no preparations. Tokutomi Sohō records that only a slight amount of coastal defense had been built at Uraga and Bōsō. From around the Tenpō era, Nariaki had repeatedly submitted opinions on coastal defense, but the shogunate did not adopt them at all. The shogunate instead took a policy of withholding information, and Fujita Tōko lamented that it was like covering one’s ears only after the thunder had struck.
The other thread was his child, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. In the ninth month of Kōka 4 (1847), Yoshinobu succeeded to the Hitotsubashi house. Tokutomi Sohō views this as a measure by which shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi took Nariaki’s feelings into account. Ieyoshi visited the Hitotsubashi residence many times, and when he sang, Yoshinobu would dance, as though they were father and son. On the second day of the fifth month of Kaei 1, Yoshinobu visited his father at the Komagome residence for the first time.
On the thirteenth day of the third month of Kaei 2, the shogunate dismissed the three guardians, and the head of the house, Yoshiatsu, came to conduct politics himself. At the same time, the prohibition on Nariaki’s involvement in domain politics was also lifted. However, he was told to consult with the head of the house or the chief retainers on matters of reward, punishment, and personnel. He was firmly warned that the reappointment of Toda Ginjirō and Fujita Toranosuke must never happen. On the twenty-first day of the ninth month, Ieyoshi visited the Mito residence at Koishikawa, and rowed a boat himself at Kōrakuen.
Yet the domain’s politics still remained in the hands of those who opposed him. Yoshiatsu, who had grown up amid this since the age of 13, was inclined not to accept what his father said. Nariaki stopped visiting the Koishikawa residence, and even by Kaei 2, father and son had not reconciled. From this account, one can trace the path from the borrowing of the telescope to the recovery of standing as a relative of the shogun. One can also see that this recovery did not extend to politics.
A summary made from the body of this article. Names and dates are checked against the body. The text below follows the source text; every sentence can be traced to its source.
A Telescope, in the Seventh Month of Kōka 2
The seventh month of Kōka 2 (1845).Original
The matter concerned a wish to borrow a telescope owned by Abe Masahiro.OriginalOriginal
In the fifth month of the previous year, Nariaki had been reprimanded by the shogunate and ordered into retirement and confinement.Original
He was forty-five at the time.Original
In the eleventh month of that same year his confinement was lifted, but he was not permitted to take any part in domain affairs.Original
Tokutomi Sohō writes that borrowing the telescope was the first small window that this shut-away man opened toward the outside world.OriginalOriginal
而して彼の雄心は固より已む能はず、弘化二年七月、彼は閣老阿部正弘所藏の望遠鏡借用を申込、機緣として、彼と信書を往復するに至つた
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryFrom this occasion, an exchange of letters began between Nariaki and Abe.Original
On the reform of domain government.Original
On national defense.Original
Tokutomi Sohō reports that long letters were sent to Abe “almost without interruption.”OriginalOriginal
Mito’s Pure Doctrine of Expelling the Barbarians
Mito was the true home of the doctrine of expelling the barbarians.Original
So Sohō maintains, calling Aizawa Seishisai’s Shinron its “gospel” and its “scripture.”OriginalOriginal
That Shinron was read in Kaei 2 (1849) by Kawaji Toshiakira, magistrate of Nara.Original
He was a capable official of the shogunate.Original
His verdict was harsh.Original
He judged it a theory that would put men in mortal danger and force them into a fight to the death, apparently meaning to follow the precedent of Hōjō Tokimune, who beheaded the envoys of the Yuan; but he said the present age, which relies on daimyo, could not proceed as in the past.Original
Yet seven days later he wrote in his diary, “he must be quite a person,” and wanted to know who the author was.Original
Sohō reads this as a sign that he had been stimulated by it.OriginalOriginal
新論の意、先づ人を死地に置て、必死の場より、戰をなす積りに御座候。故に北條時宗が、元の使を斬たりし例による積りにて候。これ孫子より出たる論にて、おもしろきことには候得共、其時の大將は、誰にすべしと云、人選論は、素より前以出來申間敷義に有之。又當時大名を御遣ひなさるゝ世になりては、少もいにしへの風にはまいり不申候
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryFujita Tōko, known as Nariaki’s trusted right hand, was likewise an uncompromising advocate of expelling the barbarians.Original
In a letter dated the seventeenth day of the fourth month of Kaei 1, sent from his retreat at Takekuma to Takahashi Taichirō, he wrote as follows.Original
The meaning was that he earnestly wished to return, even a day sooner, to the expulsion edict of Bunsei 8.OriginalOriginal
Sohō says there could have been no calculated pretense in a letter to a close comrade.Original
Before Perry’s arrival, the lord and retainers of Mito were all purely for expelling the barbarians, and their arguments came down to the single word “war.”Original
And with this view, Nariaki continued to stimulate the shogunate’s officials.OriginalOriginal
Expulsion with Empty Hands, a Secretive Shogunate
But though there was ideology, there was no preparation.Original
Sohō writes that only a little coastal defense had been built at Uraga and Bōsō.OriginalOriginal
併しながら攘夷論の思想、精神が、最初に出來上りたるだけにて、其の攘夷の準備なるものは、第一征夷大將軍府である幕府に於てさへも、一も是れなかつた
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryIn the third month of Kaei 1, Asano Nagayoshi, magistrate of Uraga, went to Uraga on the shogun’s direct order.Original
What he carried was Nariaki’s Meikun Ippanshō.Original
Andō Masayoshi, a junior inspector of the shogunate, had copied out one volume of it and added a preface as a farewell gift.Original
Even Mito, the true home of the expulsion doctrine, had no preparations.Original
If so, both the shogunate and the domains had simply chanted “expel the barbarians” with folded arms, letting precious years pass in vain.OriginalOriginal
Sohō declares flatly that the responsibility for this did not lie with Mito.Original
From the Tenpō era onward, Nariaki had repeatedly submitted memorials on coastal defense, but the shogunate adopted not a single one.OriginalOriginal
What the shogunate adopted instead was a policy of secrecy.Original
Sohō cites the example of Matsudaira Sadanobu banning Hayashi Shihei’s Sangoku Tsūran and Kaikoku Heidan.Original
Even as Britain invaded China nearby, they tried to keep even that fact from the general public.Original
Fujita Tōko lamented this in a letter of the twenty-seventh day of the third month of Kaei 1.Original
“It is as if one stops one’s ears at the sudden thunder—the times are truly lamentable, lamentable indeed.”Original
It was like plugging one’s ears only after the thunder had sounded, he meant, and the times were deplorable.OriginalOriginal
Here Sohō quotes at length the words of Katsu Kaishū.Original
Having forbidden the study of Western books and the making of instruments, and having stopped up the eyes and ears of the people, they suspected malicious intent merely when foreign ships asked for firewood and water, and grew indignant that the national dignity had been shamed whenever a survey was made.Original
They knew neither the enemy nor themselves.
“It is the harm of concealment that forms the source of this.”Original
Sohō judged this “truly the soundest of arguments.”OriginalOriginal
The Boy Who Came to Komagome
There was another thread in the path of Nariaki’s revival.Original
It was his child Shichirōmaro, later Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu.OriginalOriginal
In the ninth month of Kōka 4 (1847), Shichirōmaro succeeded to the Hitotsubashi house.Original
Sohō holds it beyond doubt that this measure by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi took Nariaki’s feelings into account.Original
Ieyoshi said that Shichirōmaro closely resembled the late Yoshimasa, and his reputation was good even in the inner chambers.OriginalOriginal
On the sixteenth day of the third month of Kaei 1, Ieyoshi visited the Hitotsubashi residence.Original
Thereafter he visited often; when the shogun sang, Yoshinobu danced, and when Yoshinobu sang, the shogun danced.Original
Sohō writes that it was “just as if they were father and son.”OriginalOriginal
On the second day of the fifth month of that same year, Yoshinobu visited his father at the Komagome residence for the first time.Original
Nariaki came out to greet him as far as the second chamber.Original
In the inner hall there was chanting and dance, and Yoshinobu danced wearing a dance robe of Yamato brocade given him by the shogun.Original
On the eleventh day of the twelfth month, he shot five rounds of arrows at a straw target together with his elder brother Gorōmaro, astonishing everyone.Original
It is said that Nariaki’s joy “overflowed across his brow.”OriginalOriginal
On the fourth day of the same month, senior councilor Matsudaira Noriyasu, acting as shogunal envoy, informed Yoshinobu of his betrothal to Chiyohime, daughter of Ichijō Tadaka.Original
This had been arranged through the good offices of Anekōji, a senior lady-in-waiting of the inner chambers.Original
On the third day of the preceding month, it had already been informally conveyed to Mito’s attendant chief retainer that Princess Itohime, daughter of Prince Arisugawa, would be adopted as the shogun’s daughter and married to the Mito domain lord Tokugawa Yoshiatsu.Original
A single boy had thus fulfilled the role of a “messenger of peace” linking his true father with the shogun.OriginalOriginal
嘉永元年十一月三日、水戶の附家老中山備後守を、阿部伊勢守宅へ招致し、左の旨を傳へた。有栖川宮御息女線宮御事公方樣御養女被遊、水戶殿へ御緣組可被仰出思召に候
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryThe Thirteenth Day of the Third Month of Kaei 2
Thus that day came.Original
On the thirteenth day of the third month of Kaei 2, the shogunate relieved the three related-house guardians—Matsudaira Yoritane, Matsudaira Yorinobu, and Matsudaira Yorinawa—of their duties, so that the incumbent lord Yoshiatsu was to govern in his own right.Original
At the same time, the order barring Nariaki from any involvement in domain government was also lifted.Original
Yoshiatsu had become domain lord at the age of thirteen.Original
His government had been in the hands of the three related-house guardians and the senior officials whom Nariaki called the “treacherous faction.”Original
For nearly six years, a man of fierce fighting spirit had been forced to look on from the sidelines.Original
Two days later, on the fifteenth day of the third month, Nariaki wrote a letter to Yoshiatsu.Original
He said that though he was “much like a defeated general,” there was also a saying that one becomes a good physician only after breaking one’s arm three times, and so, disregarding his own shamelessness, he was sending this word.Original
He urged that discord within the domain be ended, and that all but those who violated the way of the warrior be treated with leniency.Original
But the lifting of restrictions came with fetters attached.Original
Rewards, punishments, and personnel matters for the whole domain were to be discussed with the lord and chief retainers, and unilateral, decisive action was to be refrained from.Original
And he pointedly warned, naming them, that the reappointment of Toda Ginjirō and Fujita Toranosuke “shall not be permitted”—that is, it must never happen.Original
Sohō says this shows how great a reputation the two men bore, and how much they were regarded as dangerous figures.OriginalOriginal
其政は三連枝-松平讃岐守賴胤、松平大學頭賴誠、松平播磨守賴繩-の後見によりて、專ら齊昭を排斥したる所謂る藤田黨の天狗派に對する姦黨の手に歸し
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryDust Clouds at Kogane Plain
On the eighteenth day of that same third month, Shogun Ieyoshi held a deer hunt at Kogane Plain.Original
This was a house tradition dating from Ieyasu that Yoshimune had revived, and which Ieyoshi now revived again.OriginalOriginal
狩獵は、家康以來の家法とも、家傳とも云ふ可く家光の如きも、屢ば之を試み、中興の主、吉宗に至りて、大いに之を恢復した。而して將軍家慶亦た嘉永二年二月に於て、之を擧行した
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryNariaki was well versed in ancient precedent.Original
In a report dated the fourteenth day of the second month, he sent his findings to Abe and repeatedly urged that sake be given to the farmers around the hunting ground, and that the game be cooked and given to the attendants of the party.OriginalOriginal
Abe Masahiro went on ahead the previous night to the post town of Matsudo.Original
The shogun arrived at midnight at the hour of the rat, rested briefly at Shōryūji at the hour just before dawn, then went on foot and horseback to the hunting ground.Original
With the signal cannon, muskets fired all at once, and dust rose so thick that boars and deer could not even be told apart.Original
“It was truly like the scene of a battlefield,” Abe wrote to Nariaki.Original
The shogun himself speared two hares, and gave the campaign coat he had been wearing to Abe.Original
Abe took one boar and two hares with a bamboo spear.Original
Game was also bestowed upon Nariaki by the shogun.OriginalOriginal
Nariaki presented a poem of praise on this hunt.Original
Its final line read, “I pray, relying on your awesome authority, to drive out the barbarians of the four quarters.”Original
He prayed that, by that awesome authority, the barbarians of the four quarters would be driven out.Original
Sohō writes that Nariaki’s intent was “to drive out the barbarians of the four quarters, no matter what.”Original
Perhaps, in the dust of the hunt, he was seeing a battlefield after all.Original
Autumn Leaves at Kōrakuen
On the twenty-first day of the ninth month of Kaei 2, Ieyoshi visited the Mito residence at Koishikawa.Original
The stated purpose was to call on Hōjuin, the widow of the late lord Nariyuki.Original
Sohō surmises that in truth it was to meet Nariaki.OriginalOriginal
Nariaki had written to Abe on the eleventh day of the seventh month.Original
Since this would be his wife’s first audience, he wrote, “in part I look forward to it, and in part I am anxious; day by day I count the days as I await it.”Original
It was, he said, both a joy and a worry, and he was counting the days as he waited.OriginalOriginal
Ieyoshi left the castle early in the morning and arrived at around eight in the morning.Original
He granted audience to Nariaki and the others in the first chamber, and just past noon strolled through Kōrakuen.Original
More than a hundred attendant women accompanied him, and the garden’s autumn leaves were reflected brightly against the vermilion-lacquered boat on the pond.Original
The shogun himself took up the pole and moved the boat.Original
At night, candles were lit at Kantokutei and a banquet was held.Original
Nariaki presented a screen of chrysanthemums he had painted himself, and Ieyoshi accepted it with delight.Original
Sohō writes that the gloom pent up since Kōka 1 “seemed to open all at once.”OriginalOriginal
But in that same residence, domain government still remained in the hands of the opposing faction.Original
The incumbent lord Yoshiatsu had grown up among those men since the age of thirteen, and had come to hold a tendency not to approve of his father’s words and conduct.Original
He believed that Mito’s misfortunes were the result of his father’s willfulness offending the shogunate’s sensibilities, and that submission alone would bring good fortune to the domain and be true filial devotion to his father.Original
Nariaki stopped setting foot in the Koishikawa residence, and Tōko had written a letter of remonstrance in the winter of Kōka 4, but even by Kaei 2 father and son had not reconciled.OriginalOriginal
而して豫て利かぬ氣の齊昭は、之を苦々敷事に思ひ、愈よ父子疎隔を來たし、小石川邸へも往來せず、その爲めに藤田東湖の六三-六七〕如きは、憂慮の餘、齊昭の反省を希うてゐる。〔參照藤田の諫書は、弘化四年の冬であつたが、嘉永二年に至りても、父子の關係、今以て融和せず
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryWhat, over four years, had Nariaki actually won back?Original
Beginning with a telescope, and passing through a boy’s dance, the game of a hunt, and a shogun rowing a boat, he had been restored as a relative of Ieyoshi.Original
Yet the expulsion policy remained empty-handed, Toda and Fujita remained forbidden, and the lord of the very residence where the screen had been presented kept his own father at a distance.Original
One might read it that what had returned was the man Nariaki, not Nariaki’s governance.
The shogun gripping the pole beneath the autumn leaves, and the retired lord who watched him.Original
Does not the brightness of that single day, rather, seem to foretell the darkness that would follow?Original
| Source text | Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, The Situation before Perry’s Arrival (1929). National Diet Library Digital Collections (PDM). PID 3431221 |
| Checked against | Ishin shiryō kōyō, vol. 1 (1940). PID 1046665 |
| Dates and names | 23 dates and 16 names in the text were compared with 782 entries in the Ishin shiryō kōyō. |
| English gates | 120 of 120 sentences passed the checks on the English text. |
| Summary | 27 sentences checked against the body. |
This article is a reading of Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, The Situation before Perry’s Arrival. 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.
