Oshio Heihachirō and His Revolt of 1837
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Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the pennission of the Author. OSHIO HEIHACHIRO AND HIS REVOLT OF 1837 A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Japanese at Massey University. GEOFFREY DEAN ROBERTS 1986 ii Abstract Although there is an abundance of resource material concerning Oshio Heihachiro in Japanese, there is very little in English. Thus, this thesis seeks to make available and analyse for English readers some of the rich offerings that exist in Japanese. It sets out to describe the life and times of Oshio and to analyse the influences that moulded his thought and that ultimately motivated him to take action against the heartless hierarchy and greedy merchants who refused to show any compassion on the desperately poor during the disastrous days of the Tempo Famine (1830-1837). The later life and death in an abortive uprising in 1837 of Oshio Heihachiro were a clear commentary on his thought and teaching, namely, the necessity of the unity of knowledge and action. He was a living embodiment of the Wang Yang-ming dictum, "To know and not to act is the same as not knowing at all". His first-hand knowledge of the situation impelled him to action. Oshio's morality and integrity were sincerely demonstrated in his final act of sacrificing his reputation, and even life itself, for his principles. He was a reformer, not a revolutionary as some historians call him. His motivation was moral, not political. His was the dilemma of being grateful for the favours and status that his family enjoyed through the Tokugawa Shogunate and of being grieved by the corruption and inefficiency exhibited by the Shogunate's representatives, of supporting the system in principle on the one hand and of being exasperated by the intransigence of the system's officials on the other. With scant planning and preparation, he foolhardily attacked the heartless bureaucrats and wealthy merchants of Osaka. This was tantamount to a challenge against the most repressive powers of the autocratic authority of his day, the Shogunate itself. His revolt was fated to fail but it sent ripples in ever-widening circles throughout Japan in the final decades of the Tokugawa period. iii Acknowledgements I wish to extend my sincere appreciation, first, to Dr. Fumio Kakubayashi, Senior Lecturer in Japanese of the Modern Languages Department, Massey University, for his unfailing patience and help in guiding and advising me during the course of my study and the compilation of this thesis. He has also gone to considerable trouble in ordering books from Japan that were pertinent to the subject as well as making enquiries about more obscure names of people and places during his Summer leave in Japan. For all his help and encouragement I am deeply grateful. Also, I am greatly indebted to Professor Hajime Sakai, Dean of Humanities at Mie University, Japan, for his kindness in making available to me all the editions of Oshio Kenkyu (Oshio Research), the official publication of Oshio Jiken Kenkyukai (The Oshio Heihachiro Research Society) of which he himself is the President. Professor Sakai has also taken the trouble to send me copies of relevant articles from other Japanese publications, both his own and those of other writers. Thanks are also due to Professor Glynnis Cropp, Head of Modern Languages, Massey University, for allowing access to the word processor and to Mrs. Rita Mathews for her co-operation and advice on the use thereof. In this respect, one also acknowledges the helpful technical assistance given by Mr. Bob Lambourne and others of the Massey University Computer Centre. Finally, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to my beloved wife, Joan, who, in spite of extreme busyness and the pressure of her own study, has made the time to word process this thesis. Truly it has been a labour of love for which I am extremely thankful. iv Contents Page Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Contents iv Introduction 1 I. Oshio's Background 6 II. The Influence of Confucianism on Oshio 20 III. Oshio, The Teacher and Friend of Peasants 77 IV. Oshio's Retirement 104 V. The Economic, Social and Political Factors Influencing 117 Oshio's Day VI. Knowledge Leads to Action 155 VII. Oshio's Manifesto 167 VIII. Oshio's Revolt 187 IX. Oshio's Influence on History 227 Conclusion 281 Appendices 285 Bibliography 309 l Introduction Oshio Heihachir6 was an enigma. Even nearly 150 years after his death it is difficult to evaluate him. He was a noted Y6mei1 scholar in a day when Shushigaku was the officially accepted teaching and the philosophical basis of the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a samurai and thus a member of the ruling class. Oshio was an able police official who served faithfully and with integrity. Consequently, he was a tool in the government power structure. Yet he dared to lead a revolt which, though at the time was an ignominious failure, doubtless hastened the collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu by emboldening others either to question the system or openly rebel against it. During his life and immediately after his death, people looked on Oshio with either censure or praise. Hence, it is not surprising that he is still regarded as anything from a villain to a popular hero and that he is interpreted as anything from a benefactor of the people to a political rebel or an incipient Marxist. Some see him as a social iconoclast (Najita, 1970:156), some like Okamoto Ryoichi see him as the product of his age which was an age of unrest and reform and so they believe that he could naturally be called "a son of reform". (1975:40) Still others, the Bakufu included, see him as a traitor. As a samurai and a member of the ruling establishment, he rose in protest and so, naturally, it was regarded as a political revolt by the authorities. There has been an abundance of historical research in Japanese concerning Oshio's revolt. In the pre-war years two classics were produced. Koda Shigetomo's book, Oshio Heihachiro, was written in 1909 in the process of his compiling Osaka Shishi and Ishizaki T6koku, a so-called disciple of Oshio's Senshind6, wrote Oshio Heihachiroden in 1920. Post-war research into social and political history has resulted in some scholarly works being published of which Abe Makoto's2 Nogyo to Tetsugaku no Zenshin - Oshio Chusai ni tsuite in 1951 and Okamoto Ryoichi's Oshio Heihachiro in 1956 are representative. 1see the Glossary (Appendix I) for the meanings of Japanese words used throughout this thesis. 2Abe's work was first printed in Kobe Daigaku Bungakkai (Kenkyu), S6kang6, 1951. Koda Shigetomo's scholarly pre-war book clearly and correctly pointed out that Oshio mobilised peasants from the surrounding villages, not townspeople, to co-operate in his revolt. Though not wanting to minimise the value of Koda's "excellent research", Okamoto (1975:2) is somewhat critical that he does not make clear why Heihachiro, a city police official in Osaka, did not rely on the townspeople but had such a deep relationship with the peasants. Narabayashi (1970:1) feels that, though numerous books have been written about Oshio Heihachiro and his revolt, there is still need once more to re-investigate "the inner relationship between Oshio's thought and the revolt which should have been the result of his thought." This is crucial to our study. Oshio was a very able government officer who sincerely wanted to repay the obligation which his family had received generations ago with whatever sacrifice he paid. He was not negative regarding the Shogunate per se, in fact, he was very supportive of it as a system. So we need to ask why he threw his life away in resisting its representatives? Heihachiro was not a political rebel at heart. He was a faithful police officer who worked assiduously and with great integrity for the administration. He was proud of his samurai status and grateful to the Tokugawa family and so had no desire to overthrow the Establishment. Then, why did he raise his revolt? In the course of this thesis we shall look at the motivation for Oshio's 1837 rebellion. In the process we will need to discern the influences on his life which led to his implication in such a violent uprising. This will involve us, first, in looking at Oshio's background to see any formative influences on his life from the point of view of both his heredity and his environment, his personality and his beliefs. What made him what he was? Particularly, it will be necessary for us to take a longer look at Confucianism than may otherwise have been the case, seeing Heihachiro's acceptance of the Yomei emphasis on the unity of knowledge and action plays such an important role in moulding his thinking. We will need to see how Confucianist and Neo-Confucianist teaching developed, how it influenced the politics and life of the Japanese people, and, more specifically, how the philosophy of Wang Yang-ming came to influence Oshio so radically. In order to see the constituent parts of Heihachiro's support for his uprising, it will also be necessary to look at the network of contacts he 3 established both through his work as an Osaka police officer and as teacher of his private school, the Senshindo. Also pertinent to our study will be the philosophy he taught in his lectures and the views he espoused in his publications.