#shibusawa eiichi

[yajifun]

渋沢篤太夫写真 - 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション

階層 (seriesTitle) 赤松則良関係文書＞宮崎泰道関係文書

インターネット公開開始日 (available:internet) 2021-03-16

File:Eiichi Shibusawa samurai.jpg - Wikipedia 

Shibusawa Eiichi - Wikipedia

Seiten wo Tsuke - Wikipedia

[chouhatsumimi]

Japan may be pivoting to a cashless society, but cash is still king - and the figures chosen for its new currency express both the nation's

[seymourmusicclub]

[dreamgarden]

Chuyện của các cụ thì hiếm khi nhàm chán, không vô bổ mà ngược lại có thêm tri thức. Chỉ tiếc là các cụ không bao giờ hỏi những câu kiểu: Hùng ăn tối chưa? Cuối tuần Hùng rảnh không, cà phê nhé? Tối nay mình cùng nhau đi bộ nhé? Nhé nhé nhé!!!

[shinsengumi-archives]

Shibusawa Eiichi

[japanthis]

What does Asukayama mean?

What does Asukayama mean?

飛鳥山 Asukayama (Mt. Asuka) The 花見 hanami cherry blossom viewing season is right around the corner, so I thought it was the perfect time to look into one Edo’s most important hanami spots. It’s not as famous these days, but 飛鳥山 Asukayama Mt. Asuka is still a major hanami spot – it just tends to be more for locals these days. However, in the Edo Period, well to do Edoites and inhabitants of 大江戸 Ōedo…

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[hakuouki-history]

How to tell off a Shogun - with Shibusawa Eiichi

I’ve been saving this excerpt from Shibusawa Eiichi’s autobiography to go alongside @sparrowdreams‘s “This Day in 1868″ posts. We’ve seen now how after losing at Toba-Fushimi, Yoshinobu returned to Edo, and quietly shuffled off leadership.

Yoshinobu’s low-ranking but opinionated retainer Shibusawa Eiichi (see previous posts about him) was in Paris at the time, accompanying Yoshinobu’s teenage brother Akitake in his studies. When the news from home reached France, Shibusawa really wanted to give Yoshinobu a piece of his mind. But if you’re a former peasant, how do you tell off the shogun? Well, if you have the shogun’s fourteen year old brother on hand, and that brother looks up to you as a chaperone . . . 

Since I couldn’t very well write to Yoshinobu accusing him of cowardice, I had Akitake send some letters. I drew up the drafts and told him to write this and that.

What did Shibusawa get him to write?

Akitake had written to express his profound disappointment at hearing of his brother’s precipitate withdrawal from Osaka to Edo Castle. But now that he was based in Edo, he wrote, why hadn’t he mounted a swift counterattack against the imperial government, namely, the two domains of Choshu and Satsuma? Would it be so difficult to crush them? If, on the other hand, he had intended from the first to submit to the court, why had sent his troops to fight at Toba-Fushimi? Then, having been drawn into battle, why hadn’t he fought to the finish? Surely, with determination, one could win, for as the French saying went, “He who prevails has the last say.” (p. 104)

Eventually, after they got home, Shibusawa forgave Yoshinobu, and became one of the few old retainers Yoshinobu allowed to visit. But on this occasion, I felt his righteous anger. 

[hakuouki-history]

Choosing Sides in the Bakumatsu

Shibusawa Eiichi, who appeared previously in this post: Eyewitness of a Shinsengumi Arrest , was a social-climber in the Bakumatsu/Meiji era. He started as a peasant, became a Sonno Joui ronin, then a retainer to the last shogun, then a civil servant in the Meiji govt, and then a major player in Japan’s industrialization. 

He wrote an autobiography of his early years, in which it’s plain that he thought very highly of himself. No doubt his narration is self-serving, but his stories have been mostly verified by other sources. 

His description of his switch from would-be Sonno Joui rebel to Hitotsubashi retainer struck me as a very good (and very funny) illustration of how the side an ordinary person (including Shinsengumi members)  took in the Bakumatsu might be determined by chance and necessity, not strict principle.

In the following excerpt, Shibusawa Eiichi and his cousin Kisaku have just been offered jobs as low-level retainers of Hitotsubashi Keiki, the future Shogun Yoshinobu. The offers come at a low point in their careers as ronin. Another cousin has just been arrested in Edo for his part in a Sonnou Joui conspiracy that they’re involved in themselves. They’re running out of money in Kyoto. They have no contacts with officials in sympathetic domains.They’re wanted men back home.  It’s either take this job or go to jail or starve. 

But how to get over the shame of setting out to destroy the Bakufu, then working to uphold it? (Excerpt after Read More, followed by my analysis of how this applies to the Shinsengumi.)

Translation by Teruko Craig.

We excused ourselves and returned to our lodgings. Kisaku spoke first. “Listen, all along we’ve been running around looking for a chance to overthrow the Bakufu. Then we suddenly start working for the Hitotsubashi - a branch family of the Tokugawa, no less. You know what people are going to say, don’t you - that we must really be down on our luck. And apart from that, how could we live with our shame?”

“I know what you mean,” I said, “but try to to think one step ahead. It isn’t as if we had an alternative. And there’s nothing to be gained by tying a rope around our necks. I personally have no particular admiration for men like Takayama Hikokuro and Gamo Kunpei who were all principle but produced no results* [Translator’s note: The two men were pro-imperialists of the late eighteenth century who were known for their eccentric behavior.]

It’s all very well to be praised for our moral purity, but what’s the use if we have nothing to show for our troubles? If we don’t watch out, we’ll land in jail, too. The first and immediate problem is how we’re going to eat. Since there’s a saying that ‘those who would accomplish great deeds do not scruple over minor faults,’ I suppose if worse comes to worst, we could sponge off our friends or even become bandits. Of course, if we could find a way, the best thing would be to go to Choshu or Satsuma, but we really don’t know anyone who’d be willing to take us in. I don’t think this is the time to be worrying about what people think. Let them say we’re cowards, that we surrendered our principles just to eat. We’ll prove the purity of our motives by our future deeds. For now, it’s a question of eating or starving, so why don’t we work for the Hitotsubashi - just give it a try?” (p. 42)

In the Boshin war, the reluctant Kisaku ends up fighting on the Bakufu side to the very end, accompanying Enomoto Takeaki to Hakodate. After the war, he spends two-and-half years in prison. 

Eiichi himself is in Europe as an attendant to the Shogun’s younger brother when the war breaks out, and returns to serve as a retainer in Yoshinobu’s place of exile. It takes some more good luck to get him from there to Meiji civil servant, and he eventually gets his cousin Kisaku a job in the new government as well. 

This remarkable career isn’t untypical of the era. People switch sides rapidly, often ending up diametrically opposed to where they began. It’s something to think about in regards to the Shinsengumi too. The first recruiting meeting for the Roshigumi in Edo talked up the prospect of foreigners invading Japan. Men should go to Kyoto to prepare for defending the Emperor and the sacred Imperial city from attack. 

This tension in motivations isn’t entirely missing from fictional portrayals of the Shinsengumi. But it’s maybe not entirely clear, especially to non-Japanese audiences. For example, there’s a bit in Hakuouki where Toudou Heisuke says unhappily that he didn’t come to Kyoto just so he could guard the shogun. Another time, in the game, Hijikata says  laughingly, “Kondou’s a bit Sonnou Joui himself”: a historic truth. Kondou went to Kyoto excited to fight the barbarians.