H381 Late Tokugawa Sense of Crisis: Cognitive Dissonance?

How did all the economic and cultural transformations of the Tokugawa Period influence the way Japanese looked at their world?

How did the Neo-Confucian model posit that society worked? How did Tokugawa society differ from that model?

--The Chinese model

--Dynastic Cycles and the twin signs of decline or decay

--What was the typical Confucian response to this kind of late Dynasty crisis?

Who noticed or paid attention to these things in Tokugawa Japan and why/how?

Writers, critics, scholars of the various schools and academies.

The Daimyo, samurai, merchants, even farmers--all were aware that Tokugawa society had changed markedly, had become URBANIZED, and that the samurai rulers, "the managerial class," was not doing a very good job.

Reform Efforts/programs from mid-Tokugawa Period

1. the Eighth Shogun (1715-1745, the Kyoyo Reforms) Yoshimune, former daimyo of collateral Kii line, last surviving grandson of Iemitsu, was maturre and experienced when he came to office,

--sponsored both Chinese and Dutch Learning

--ordered diffusion of Confucian precepts out to all the temple schools, stressed filial and familial relations

--was very pragmatic, practical, interested in natural science and textual analysis, lifted ban on Western books

--helped establish an academy for merchants in Osaka

--so he realized that Japan needed to change and adapt to its changing conditions

--but too late? Japan's problems beyond capacity of adminstrative reforms.

 

2. The Kansei Reforms (1789-1801) under Matsudaira Sadanobu, grandson of Yoshimune, served Shogun Ienari who ruled from 1787-1835, 50 year incumbency

--married daughter of an outside daimyo who was first adopted into Court family

--tried to strengthen bakufu-court ties

--but, in the end, fell back on standard Confucian solutions:

-be frugal, root out corruption of officials, be diligent, be fillially pious

-issue sumptuary laws

-price fixing

-reform currency

-cancel debts to merchants

-ban heterodox doctrines

-continued to sponsor western learning but

-meanwhile Kokugaku or Nativist Studies grew in popualrity

-regime became more rigid, less adventuresome and less resilient.

 

There were a few scholars and critics who were able to think "outside the box":

a. Dazai Shundai--commerce essential to the economy so why not develop the economy? Daimyo should take advantage of this resource, commerce

b. Kaiho Seiryo--don't disparage pursuit of profit; whole world rests on the principle of exchange and profit; Han should pursue profit by exporting local products

c. Yamagato Banto-scholar of Osaka Merchant Academy--urged reformers not to fix prices but let scarce goods go where they are needed

d. Honda Toshiaki urged trade and even overseas colonizastion!

e. Sato Nobuhiro argues for a strong, centralized state with a Ministry to to direct all economic activities

 

3. Tempo Reforms 1841-43

A. Bakufu Reforms

--a failed endeavor

--marked by waves of popular protest and uprisings (445)

--even 101 urban riots

--clearly managerial class is NOT doing its job

--Mizuno Tadakuni, a Senior Councilor tired a major land reclation project north of Edo...never completed

--tried to get fudai and hatamoto vassals to swap out their valuable land around Osaka and Edo for the Shogun's less commercially developed lands

--very unpopular with these most trusted vassals; Mizuno soon out of office in disgrace

 

B. Satsuma

--used Okinawa connection and sugar monopoly to augment Han budget

--other new commercial crops introduced

--Loan repayments to merchants extended out to 250 years

 

C. Choshu

--invested in profitable enterpriseses like land reclamation, harbor works

--effective planning, reducing official expenditutes, and improving record keeping yielded budget surpluses

--sold monoply rights to new merchant association sto sell salt, sake and cotton

 

So, while Bakufu was weakened by Tempo Reforms, Satsuma and Choshu emerged financially stronger so had some resources to put into Westernization projects later on.

1. The Mito Critique

A. Fujita Yukoku (1773-1826)

i. Became head of Mito school, first to apply naiyu-gaikan phrase to Japan's situtation

-naiyu= crisis in managerial/samurai class

= popular unrest 400 incidents between 1813-1868

= financial problems

-gaikan=foreign penetration

ii. saw failures of his day as moral failures

-failure to provide jinsei or "benevolent government"

-failure of leaders to maintain taigi-meibun or correct

hierarchical relationships

iii. brought in sonno--reverence for emperor-- into vocabulary

B. Aizawa Seishisai (1781-1863) focuses on GAIKAN

i. Japan seen as weak and vulnerable: must unite & be strong; introduced idea of kokutai or "national essence"

ii. must inculcate will to resist "put the entire nation in the face of inevitable death"

iii. responsibility of Tokugawa must be for all Japan, not just domain

iv. In Shinron, (New Theses, pub. 1825) coined jo-i phrase: "Expel the Barbarian"

C. Fujita Toko (1806-1855)

i. brought sonno and jo-i together as critique of baku-han system

ii. calls for moral rearmament: restore vigor to samurai class

iii. the emperor grants power to the shogunate to confront domestic and foreign threats; bakufu, then, should lead the reform effort and daimyo should follow

iv. but for this need new education, new leadership, "Men of Talent"

2. Limitations of Mito Critique

A. Thought in traditional terms, responded with classical formulae:

-promote the worthy

-reestablish hierarchies

B. Saw problems as moral, not social, political, economic or technological

But no one disagreed tht there were problems, that there was a crisis at hand, even without foregin penetration.

3. Oshio Heihachiro's Urban Rebellion 1837--shocking! a lower bakufu official leads peasants in attack on government offices, burns parts of Osaka.

4. Opium Wars in China 1839-42--also shocking. Samll Britain humbles China with modern gunboats

5. The notion of KAIKOKU or "Opening Japan"

 

A. Dutch scholars like Takano Choei etc & Sakuma Shozan (1811-64)

i. pragmatic: denied morals could help

 

ii. "Foreign learning is rational; Chinese learning is not."

 

iii. Japan needs technology! Coastal defenses lack method

 

iv. Japan must learn about technology from west

 

v. coined the "Eastern Morals, Western Science" phrase

 

vi. alternative version of jo-i

 

6. Tempo Reforms 1841-43

7. The Coming of Perry 1853-54