Tokugawa Yoshinobu held the position of guardian to the shogun. In the 5th month of Bunkyū 3 (1863), Yoshinobu departed Kyoto for Edo. This journey east came in response to the emperor’s command to expel the foreigners. Then, less than a week after his arrival, he submitted his resignation.
At Tsuchiyama post station in Ōmi, the inn where Okabe Suruga no kami was staying was attacked by assassins. Yoshinobu left an empty palanquin in the procession and had Suruga no kami set out ahead. The 120 ri between Kyoto and Edo took 16 or 17 days. The reason for the delay lay in the 100,000-pound indemnity connected to the Namamugi Incident. He understood that the payment could not be avoided.
The Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den records that he slowed his journey in order to have the matter settled before his arrival. In Kyoto he had obtained informal approval from the regent and others. The same work also writes that, outwardly, he had been insisting that the treaty should be broken. Sohō relates that after the payment deadline of the 3rd day of the 5th month passed, the British acting minister pressed all the more forcefully. On the evening of the 8th, Yoshinobu met with Asano Ujisuke, the Kanagawa magistrate, and others at an inn in Kanagawa.
He raised his hand to stop Asano as he was about to speak, and warned him to be careful, since everyone around them held views in favor of expelling the foreigners. He then argued that the policy of paying the indemnity was wrong, and urged them to negotiate firmly. Without heeding Asano’s objections, Yoshinobu declared that he would enter Edo that very night, and rode off with 4 or 5 attendants. The mood in Edo was the opposite of that in Kyoto, with strong voices opposing the expulsion of foreigners. In Sohō’s view, Yoshinobu had from the start favored opening the country, and was merely playing the role of one who supported expulsion.
On the 9th, Yoshinobu went to the castle to press for action, and appointed Inoue Shinano no kami and Sugiura Shōichirō as negotiation commissioners. Even so, the Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den states that the shogunate had no intention of negotiating from the outset. On the 14th, without consulting the shogunal officials in Edo, Yoshinobu sent his resignation to the regent. Its contents said that although he had no chance of success and was resolved to die in the attempt, not a single person shared his view. On the 17th, he submitted a long statement of reasons to the senior councilors Mizuno Tadakiyo and Itakura Katsukiyo.
He complained that in Kyoto he was called too lenient, while in the Kantō he was seen as reckless. Sohō sees the rumor that Yoshinobu intended to replace the shogun as having given him a convenient pretext for resignation. In Edo, Ogasawara Nagayuki handed over the indemnity on his own authority. Takeda Kōunsai and Ōba Isshinsai wrote that this was a grave crime that could not escape heaven’s punishment. Sohō criticized this double-dealing, in which Yoshinobu said one thing in Kyoto and another in Edo, as lacking in integrity.
Tsuchiyama post station in Ōmi.Original
Several assassins attacked the inn of Okabe Suruga no kami.Original
Suruga no kami escaped the danger.Original
But Tokugawa Yoshinobu, worried about what lay ahead, left an empty palanquin in the procession and had Suruga no kami depart first.Original
This was because the revere-the-emperor, expel-the-barbarians faction believed Suruga no kami to be a successor to the wills of Ii and Andō, Tokutomi Sohō writes, citing the Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den.OriginalOriginal
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Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryThis was a journey east undertaken in obedience to the imperial edict to expel the barbarians, with the deadline for rejection set for the tenth day of the fifth month close at hand.Original
Yet the journey of one hundred twenty ri between Kyoto and Edo took sixteen or seventeen days.Original
Why, while carrying the most urgent business, did he deliberately delay?OriginalOriginal
A Letter from Atsuta and a Personal Letter from Hamamatsu
The answer lay in the indemnity for the Namamugi Incident.Original
Between the acting British minister and the shogunate lay the matter of an indemnity of one hundred thousand pounds.Original
Yoshinobu knew well that this payment could not be avoided.Original
But he avoided bearing that responsibility himself, Sohō writes.OriginalOriginal
According to the Yoshinobu-kō den, Yoshinobu had resolved, from the time he was in Kyoto, that the indemnity must be paid, and had spoken to the regent Takatsukasa Sukehiro, the former regent Konoe, and Nakagawa no Miya, obtaining their confidential approval.Original
Outwardly, he traveled east proclaiming that he would carry out the breaking of the treaties and the expulsion of the barbarians.Original
So he deliberately slowed his travel schedule, intending to finish the payment before returning to Edo.Original
He did not reveal the secret in his heart, it is said.OriginalOriginal
Meanwhile, on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month, Yoshinobu sent a long letter from Atsuta post station to the senior councilors in Edo, urging the execution of the expulsion of the barbarians.Original
Both were surely mere outward declarations, the Yoshinobu-kō den says.OriginalOriginal
The deadline for delivering the indemnity was the third day of the fifth month.Original
The acting minister was hardly likely to fall for such a petty scheme, and his manner grew ever more forceful, Sohō reports.OriginalOriginal
On his way east, Yoshinobu gave orders to the magistrate of Kanagawa.Original
He would arrive at Odawara on the seventh day of the fifth month, so an experienced squad leader should be sent to the inn; and when he stayed at Kanagawa, he would also tour the Yokohama foreign settlement.Original
Asano Ujisuke, magistrate of Kanagawa, sent the squad leader Matsumura Chūshirō to Odawara.Original
Then Yoshinobu changed his orders: he would cancel the tour of the settlement, and both magistrates should come to the inn at Kanagawa on the evening of the eighth.OriginalOriginal
The eighth, at Kanagawa.Original
As Asano was about to speak, Yoshinobu waved his hand from side to side to stop him.Original
“All four walls are full of the expel-the-barbarians faction—be careful.”Original
He meant that beyond the walls on every side were all members of the expel-the-barbarians faction, so be on guard.Original
Then, raising his voice, he explained that this journey east was for the sake of rejection and the closing of the ports, that it was most improper for the Kantō to be resolving on the indemnity, and that they should negotiate firmly.Original
Asano argued vehemently against this.Original
Yoshinobu was never going to listen, Sohō writes.OriginalOriginal
斯くて奉行淺野氏祐は、侃々諤々として、兩ながら其の不可なるを陳じたが
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryYoshinobu got up to use the privy.Original
Returning to his seat, he said abruptly:Original
“I have reasons of my own, so I will enter Edo tonight. Are there no horses at this station?”Original
Asano had several swift horses kept at the magistrate’s office brought out, and Yoshinobu, attended by four or five mounted attendants, whipped his horse and galloped to Edo.OriginalOriginal
The Ninth: Entering the Castle; the Tenth: Negotiations
Having returned to Edo, Yoshinobu could not help being surprised that the mood there, in direct contrast to Kamigata, was strongly opposed to expelling the barbarians.Original
From the start he had no confidence in the success of expulsion, and at heart he was an opponent of it.Original
Even though it was an imperial edict, he had neither the resolve nor the fervor to die in battle before the imperial banner, Sohō judges.Original
Then why did he return to Edo?Original
Was it not to watch for the right moment in Edo and then resign?Original
Was he not trying to escape the bad atmosphere of Kyoto and reach a safe zone?
“In any case, Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu was an utter performer”—though a proponent of opening the country, he wore the costume of an advocate of expelling the barbarians—this is Sohō’s judgment.OriginalOriginal
On the ninth, Yoshinobu entered the castle and instructed the various officials to carry out the expulsion of the barbarians.Original
He appointed the city magistrate Inoue Shinano no kami and the inspector Sugiura Shōichirō as commissioners for the port-closing negotiations, instructed them that since the handling of the rejection had been entrusted to them, they should manage it as they saw fit, and had the negotiations opened from the tenth.Original
From the start the shogunate had no intention of beginning negotiations, the Yoshinobu-kō den says.OriginalOriginal
An account by Sugiura Baitan supports Sohō’s suspicion.Original
In the fourth month, Inoue and Sugiura were summoned before Yoshinobu, told not to handle matters too extremely, and then ordered to board either a French or an American foreign ship.Original
“It is for a most profound purpose”—the details could not be told, but they were to go without fail, he said.Original
Baitan speculated that, under the pretext of sending a commissioner of foreign affairs and an inspector to the rejection negotiations, they were made to drift about at sea in order to buy time for some scheme, remarking, “Lord Hitotsubashi’s wisdom runs so deep that it is in every way difficult to fathom.”OriginalOriginal
此程一橋公御下著に相成候間、奧右筆組頭樋口喜左衞門達し有之候故、兩人一橋殿御前へ罷出、種々御申聞もありたれど、要」にに、餘り過激の取扱は致す間敷とのこと、殊に兩人、佛蘭西船にや、兩人參り乘組候樣との御沙汰なり
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryThe Fourteenth of the Fifth Month: A Sudden Resignation
On the fourteenth day of the fifth month, less than a week after his return to Edo.Original
Yoshinobu, without consulting the shogunate’s councilors in Edo or the various officials, submitted his resignation to the regent Takatsukasa Sukehiro.OriginalOriginal
He stated that his return east in obedience to the sacred edict to expel the barbarians had not been undertaken with any real hope of success.Original
Since an imperial word, once spoken, cannot be recalled, like sweat, and since he could not go against the shogunate’s will either, his true intention had simply been to die in battle together with the officials of the Kantō.Original
But not one person, from the senior councilors on down, shared his resolve; instead, rumors arose suspecting him and claiming he harbored malicious intent in his heart, so that the imperial edict could not be carried through.Original
He therefore respectfully awaited judgment for his fault before the throne, and asked to be relieved of his present office.Original
So it is recorded.Original
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Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryYoshinobu himself denied this in later years.Original
Only four days after leaving Kyoto, to submit a resignation from a heavy office merely on hearing the words of the inspector Hori Kunai was one-sided and rash.Original
Tokutomi Sohō writes that while it is unclear whether recollections set down after so many years are accurate, it makes little difference whether the first resignation was on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month or the fourteenth day of the fifth month, and declares, “The question is what was in his mind at the time he left the capital.”Original
He must have expected all along that, once he returned to Edo, resignation would be the conclusion.OriginalOriginal
Between Indecision and Recklessness
On the seventeenth day of the fifth month, Yoshinobu sent a long statement of reasons to the senior councilors in Kamigata, Mizuno Tadakiyo and Itakura Katsukiyo.Original
He wrote that at Atsuta he had been greatly astonished to hear from Hori Kunai that the indemnity had been paid.Original
At Kanagawa, the two magistrates, filled with anger, had demanded to know why he had accepted the order to expel the barbarians and then returned to Edo.Original
He wrote that no matter what became of the shogun’s own person, it could not be exchanged for the sake of the imperial realm, and that if expulsion of the barbarians were forced through any further, “someone would surely come forth to kill me.”Original
In Edo, rumors arose that expulsion of the barbarians was a mere pretext and that in truth he harbored great ambitions, an intention to take the shogun’s place while the shogun remained in Kyoto, so that “the suspicions of former years” arose once again.OriginalOriginal
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Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryYoshinobu wrote that in Kyoto he was watched as indecisive, while in the Kantō he was watched as reckless.Original
Tokutomi Sohō sympathizes, saying this was indeed the true state of affairs: a man who was seen as temporizing in Kyoto became an extremist in the Kantō, and Yoshinobu had performed a thankless role.Original
At the same time, in a most secret postscript, he requested that once relieved of the guardianship office, he be permitted to “return to his original house,” that is, to be sent back to the Mito house.Original
Tokutomi Sohō’s view is that the shogunate officials’ malicious suspicion that Yoshinobu intended to replace the shogun was, for Yoshinobu, an “unexpected stroke of luck,” a convenient pretext for resignation.OriginalOriginal
For Yoshinobu, resignation may have been the wisest course.
But Tokutomi Sohō writes: having earlier been left by Matsudaira Yoshinaga from the office of president, and now to be left again by the holder of the guardianship office, how great must have been the anxiety of Iemochi, who had not yet reached his majority.Original
Even the excuse that it was not for his own personal ease “would probably not hold up as a justification,” he writes.OriginalOriginal
In his letter to the senior councilors in Edo, he wrote of himself as being “of the utmost shallow wisdom and lacking insight.”Original
Tokutomi Sohō comments that no one thought so; Yoshinobu was a man of much wisdom and much knowledge, and what he lacked was the “great statesmanlike resolve” to set a policy and push it through.OriginalOriginal
Ogasawara Nagayuki’s Unilateral Payment of the Indemnity
A letter dated the fourteenth day of the fifth month, sent by the senior Mito retainers Takeda Kōunsai and Ōba Isshinsai to the Mito chief retainer Suzuki Nuidono, who was in Kyoto, conveys how the hardliners saw Edo.Original
Mizuno Tadanori was aboard the ship.Original
The two men called him “the well-known man of indemnities.”Original
Tokutomi Sohō adds that Tadanori’s view was that what must be paid should be paid, right and wrong should be made clear, and promises should be kept, and that he was a man of firm character among the shogunate officials.OriginalOriginal
The two wrote of the deliberations held in the castle on the ninth day, saying that, “since everyone in the encampment was possessed by the spirit of cowardice,” all the men in the castle were possessed by that spirit.Original
There were scarcely any men capable of handling the negotiations, and that night the shogunate’s deliberations shifted, and Sugiura asked to be relieved of his duties.Original
Then Ogasawara Nagayuki, on his own authority, handed over the indemnity.Original
Popular rumor said it was because the barbarians had surrounded them with cannon, but the two men judged this to be “a great crime against the realm, one who cannot escape heaven’s punishment,” a man who would not be spared heavenly retribution.OriginalOriginal
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Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryOgasawara himself wrote to Inoue Kawachi no kami on the ninth day of the fifth month.Original
Tokutomi Sohō surmises that this was a premeditated act, not a momentary impulse.Original
Ōba and Takeda placed the entire responsibility on Ogasawara.Original
But Yoshiatsu had originally been in favor of paying the indemnity, and Yoshinobu had foreseen it before his departure.Original
Tokutomi Sohō writes that the consciences of the two men could not possibly have permitted them to state it so flatly.Original
And in this affair, he says, the only one whose reputation was enhanced was Ogasawara Nagayuki alone.OriginalOriginal
How Far Was It His True Intention?
Tokutomi Sohō concludes that if one is not to call Yoshinobu a man of double personality, then his conduct must be called double conduct.Original
In Kyoto he had the regent and Nakagawa no Miya acknowledge that payment of reparations was unavoidable, while in Edo he had a tacit understanding with Ogasawara, yet publicly he declared opposition to the indemnity and demanded immediate expulsion of the barbarians.Original
And he sought to bring every conclusion to an end with his letter of resignation.Original
His state of mind in dealing with a difficult situation may be understood, but it lacked forthrightness and openness, he says.OriginalOriginal
The expulsion of the barbarians at that time was not only wrong and improper but impossible.Original
To attempt to achieve the union of court and shogunate around something impossible was “a castle in the air,” harder than building a sand dune against the waves.Original
Emperor Kōmei’s wishes lay in a peaceful expulsion of the barbarians and a peaceful restoration of imperial authority, and there was no wish to overthrow the shogunate.Original
It is regrettable that there was no one to instruct the emperor in the path of opening the country and advancing forward, he says.OriginalOriginal
要するに攘夷を中心としての公武合體は、正しく空中の城であつた
Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryIn that single crack of the whip, how much was true intention, and how much was mere posturing?OriginalOriginal
| Source text | Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, vol. 49: Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians (1940). National Diet Library Digital Collections (PDM). PID 1228673 |
| Checked against | Ishin shiryō kōyō, vol. 4. PID 1046672 |
| Dates and names | The text has 11 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, 8 also appear in Ishin shiryō kōyō, vol. 4. |
| English gates | 103 of 103 sentences passed the checks on the English text. |
This article is a reading of Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, vol. 49: Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians. 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.
