Tokugawa Yoshinobu held the position of guardian to the shogun. In the 5th month of Bunkyū 3 (1863), Yoshinobu set out from Kyoto for Edo. This journey eastward followed the emperor’s order to expel the foreigners. Less than a week after arriving, 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 depart 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 over the Namamugi Incident. He understood that payment was unavoidable.
The Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den records that he slowed his journey in order to have the matter settled before he arrived. In Kyoto he had obtained the private approval of the regent and others. The same book also writes that outwardly he insisted the treaty be broken. Tokutomi Sohō writes that once the 3rd day of the 5th month, the payment deadline, had passed, the pressure from the British acting minister grew even stronger. 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, who was about to speak, and warned him to be careful, since everyone around them held the view of expelling the foreigners. He then argued that the policy of paying the indemnity was wrong and urged that negotiations be conducted firmly. Ignoring Asano’s objection, Yoshinobu said he would enter Edo that night and galloped off with 4 or 5 mounted 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 originally favored opening the country, and merely played the part of a supporter of expulsion.
On the 9th, Yoshinobu went to the castle to argue for carrying out the expulsion, and appointed Inoue Shinano no kami and Sugiura Shōichirō as negotiation commissioners. However, the Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den states that the shogunate had no intention of negotiating from the start. On the 14th, Yoshinobu sent his resignation to the regent without consulting the shogunate’s senior officials in Edo. Its content stated that he had no prospect of victory and was prepared to die in battle, yet not a single person shared his thinking. 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 a convenient excuse for his 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 dual stance of saying different things in Kyoto and Edo as lacking fairness.
The course of events from Yoshinobu’s order to expel the foreigners to his resignation can be followed through Sohō’s commentary and the accounts recorded in the Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den.
Tsuchiyama post station in Ōmi.Original
Several assassins attacked the inn where Okabe Suruga no kami was staying.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 pro-imperial expel-the-barbarians faction believed Suruga no kami to be the one carrying on the will 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 journey to Edo was undertaken in obedience to the imperial edict to expel the barbarians, with the tenth day of the fifth month set as the deadline for rejection.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 minister of Britain and the shogunate lay the matter of a one-hundred-thousand-pound indemnity.Original
Yoshinobu knew full well that this payment could not be avoided.Original
But he avoided taking responsibility for it himself, Sohō writes.OriginalOriginal
According to the Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den, Yoshinobu had resolved, while still in Kyoto, that the indemnity would have to be paid, and had spoken to the regent Takatsukasa Sukehiro, the former regent Konoe, and Nakagawa no Miya, obtaining their private approval.Original
Outwardly he declared that he would carry out the breaking of the treaties and the expulsion of the barbarians, and went down to Edo.Original
He therefore deliberately slowed his travel schedule, intending to have the payment completed before his return to Edo.Original
He did not openly declare the secret in his heart, so it is said.OriginalOriginal
Meanwhile, on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month, Yoshinobu sent a lengthy letter from Atsuta station to the senior councillors in Edo concerning the execution of the expulsion of the barbarians.Original
Both were likely mere surface 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 be taken in by such a petty scheme, and his anger grew ever fiercer, Sohō relates.OriginalOriginal
On his way down to Edo, Yoshinobu gave orders to the magistrate of Kanagawa.Original
He would arrive at Odawara on the seventh day of the fifth month, so a seasoned 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, the magistrate of Kanagawa, sent the squad leader Matsumura Chūshirō to Odawara.Original
Yoshinobu then revised his order, saying he would cancel the tour of the settlement, and that both magistrates should come to the inn at Kanagawa on the evening of the eighth.OriginalOriginal
The eighth day, at Kanagawa.Original
As Asano was about to speak, Yoshinobu waved his hand from side to side to stop him.Original
“The four walls are all full of the expel-the-barbarians party, be careful.”Original
He meant that beyond the walls on every side were all members of the expel-the-barbarians party, so one must be careful.Original
Presently he raised his voice and argued that this journey down to Edo was for the sake of rejection and closing the ports, that it was utterly unacceptable for the Kantō to be settling on paying the indemnity, and that they must negotiate firmly.Original
Asano argued vigorously against this.Original
Yoshinobu had no intention of listening, Sohō records.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 rose to go to the privy.Original
Returning to his seat, he suddenly said:Original
“I have my reasons, 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 retainers, whipped his horse and galloped off to Edo.OriginalOriginal
The Audience at the Castle on the Ninth, and the Negotiations on the Tenth
Having returned to Edo, Yoshinobu could not help being astonished that the mood in Edo, in stark contrast to Kamigata, was thickly opposed to expelling the barbarians.Original
He had never had any confidence in the success of expelling the barbarians, and at heart he was an opponent of the policy.Original
Even though it was an imperial edict, he had neither the resolve nor the passion to die before the imperial banner, Sohō judges.Original
Then for what purpose did he return to Edo?Original
Was it not in order to watch for the right moment in Edo and then resign?Original
Was he not trying to escape the ill wind of Kyoto and reach a safe zone?
“In any case, Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu was entirely an actor”―though he was an advocate of opening the country, he wore the disguise of an expel-the-barbarians man. This is Sohō’s judgment.OriginalOriginal
On the ninth, Yoshinobu went to 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, instructing them that the handling of the rejection had been entrusted to them and that they should manage it as they saw fit, and had the negotiations opened from the tenth.Original
The shogunate had had no intention from the start 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 harshly, and then ordered to board a French or American foreign ship.Original
He said his purpose was “exceedingly deep” and though he could not explain the details, they must go by all means.Original
Baitan speculated that under the pretext of sending the commissioner of foreign affairs and the inspector to conduct the rejection negotiations, they were in fact set adrift to buy time while some scheme was afoot, and remarked, “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 Day of the Fifth Month: A Sudden Letter of Resignation
On the fourteenth day of the fifth month, less than a week after his return to Edo.Original
Yoshinobu, without consulting either the shogunate’s senior councillors in Edo or the various officials, submitted a letter of resignation to the regent Takatsukasa Sukehiro.OriginalOriginal
He stated that his return to Edo this time in obedience to the sacred edict to expel the barbarians had not been done with any confidence of success at all.Original
Since an imperial word, like sweat, cannot be taken back, and since he could not go against the will of the shogunate either, his true intention had been simply to die fighting together with the officials of the Kantō.Original
But not one person, from the senior councillors on down, shared his resolve; instead, rumors arose doubting him and claiming he harbored malicious intent in his heart, so that the imperial will could not be carried through.Original
He therefore respectfully awaited judgment for his offense before the throne, and requested to be relieved of his present post.Original
So he wrote.Original
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Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryYoshinobu himself denied this in later years.Original
To submit a resignation as a senior officer merely on hearing the words of the inspector Hori Kunai, only four days after leaving Kyoto, was one-sided and rash, it was said.Original
Tokutomi Sohō writes that while it is not clear whether a recollection separated by so many years is accurate, it makes little difference whether the first resignation letter was on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month or the fourteenth day of the fifth month, declaring, “the question is his state of mind at the time he left for the capital.”Original
He must have expected from the start that, once he returned to Edo, resignation would be the conclusion, Sohō writes.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
At Atsuta he had been greatly astonished to hear from Hori Kunai that the indemnity had already been handed over.Original
At Kanagawa the two magistrates, full of anger, had pressed him with questions as to why he had returned to Edo after having pledged to carry out the expulsion of the barbarians.Original
Whatever became of the shogun’s own person could not be exchanged for the sake of the imperial realm, and if the expulsion of the barbarians were forced through any further, it was said, “someone is certain to appear who will strike me down” — that is, someone would surely arise to kill him.Original
In Edo, rumors arose that the expulsion of the barbarians was in name only, and that in truth he harbored great ambitions, intending to supplant the shogun while the latter remained in the capital, so that “the suspicions of former years” arose once again.OriginalOriginal
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Open the original page at the National Diet LibraryIn Kyoto he was watched as indecisive, and in the Kantō as reckless — each place had its own eye fixed on him, Yoshinobu writes.Original
This was indeed the true state of affairs — a man of cautious temporizing in Kyoto became, in the Kantō, a man of extremism; Yoshinobu had performed a thankless role, Sohō writes in sympathy.Original
At the same time, in a strictly secret postscript, he begged that once relieved of the guardianship post, he might be allowed to return to the Mito house — “please let me return to my original family.”Original
The shogunate officials’ twisted suspicion that he sought to supplant the shogun was, for Yoshinobu, “an unexpected stroke of fortune” — a convenient pretext for resignation, this is Sohō’s assessment.OriginalOriginal
For Yoshinobu, resignation may indeed have been the wisest course.
But having earlier been abandoned by Matsudaira Yoshinaga’s departure from the presidency, and now abandoned again by the departure from the guardianship, how anxious must Iemochi, not yet come of age, have felt — so Sohō writes.Original
Even the excuse that this was not done for his own ease and comfort “probably would not hold up,” it was said.OriginalOriginal
In the letter to the senior councilors remaining in Edo he wrote of himself, “the utmost of shallow wisdom and want of discernment” — shallow wisdom, an utter lack of insight.Original
No one else thought so; he was a man of much wisdom and much knowledge — what he lacked was “the great statesmanlike breadth” needed to set a policy and press it through, Sohō comments.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 in Kyoto, Suzuki Nuidono, conveys how Edo appeared to hardliners.Original
Mizuno Tadanori had been aboard the ship.Original
The two men called him “the famous indemnity man.”Original
What must be paid should be paid, right and wrong should be made clear, and promises should be kept — this was Tadanori’s view, and he was a man of firm bone among the shogunate officials, Sohō adds.OriginalOriginal
Of the deliberations in the castle on the ninth day, the two men wrote that “all in the encampment had been seized by the spirit of cowardice” — everyone within the castle had been possessed by a spirit of fear.Original
Even men fit to handle the negotiations were scarce, and that night the shogunate’s deliberations shifted, and Sugiura asked to be relieved of his post.Original
Then Ogasawara Nagayuki, on his own authority, handed over the indemnity.Original
Popular rumor had it that this was because the foreigners had surrounded him with cannon, but the two men judged this “a great crime against the realm, one that Heaven’s punishment will not spare” — a man who could not escape divine 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
This had been a planned act, not a momentary impulse, Sohō surmises.Original
Ōba and Takeda laid the entire responsibility upon Ogasawara.Original
But Yoshiatsu had at first agreed to pay the indemnity, and Yoshinobu had foreseen this before his departure.Original
Their own consciences could not possibly have permitted them to say so outright, Sohō writes.Original
And in this affair, the only one who emerged with honor was Ogasawara Nagayuki alone.OriginalOriginal
How Far Was It His True Intent?
If one is unwilling to call Yoshinobu a man of double character, then his conduct must be called double conduct, Sohō concludes.Original
In Kyoto he made the regent (kampaku) and Nakagawa no Miya acknowledge the unavoidable necessity of compensation, while in Edo he had a tacit understanding with Ogasawara, yet to the world he declared himself against the indemnity and for the immediate expulsion of the barbarians.Original
And he sought to settle every conclusion by resignation.Original
His state of mind in facing a difficult situation is understandable, but it lacked directness and openness, it is said.OriginalOriginal
The expulsion of the barbarians at that time was not only wrong and improper but impossible.Original
To try to achieve union of court and shogunate centered on something impossible was “a castle in the air,” harder even than building sand dunes against the waves.Original
Emperor Kōmei’s intent lay in a peaceful expulsion of the barbarians and a peaceful restoration of imperial authority; it did not lie in overthrowing the shogunate.Original
It is regrettable that there was no one to instill in the emperor the path of opening the country and advancing forward, it is said.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 stroke of the whip, how much was genuine intent, and how much was mere pretense?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.
