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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Much of the recent work done in Japan on the political and social background to the Meiji Restoration has concentrated on analysing the manifestations of unrest in Japanese society, which arose from its failure to adjust quickly enough to economic change. Writers point to the growing wealth of merchants, accompanied by the impoverishment of samurai, to the increasing differentiation between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ farmers in the village; and they relate the consequent discontent to samurai reform movements within the great domains (han) and to the rising incidence of peasant revolt. These factors in turn are fitted into general—and often widely differing—explanations of the overthrow of the Tokugawa Bakufu and the nature of Meiji political institutions.
1 No useful purpose would be served by trying to give here a full bibliography of the subject, but I have in mind the views expressed in works like the following: Shigeki, Tōyama, Meiji ishin, Tokyo, 1951;Google ScholarKenkyūkai, Rekishigaku (ed.), Meiji ishin to jinushi-sei, Tokyo, 1956;Google ScholarYoshio, Sakata, Meiji ishin shi, Tokyo, 1960;Google Scholar and Takeshi, Ishii, Gakusetsu hihan Meiji ishin ron, Tokyo, 1961.Google Scholar
2 For an excellent study of Chōshū politics, see Craig, A., Chōshū in the Meiji Restoration, Cambridge, Mass., 1961.Google Scholar
3 On Ton politics in this period, see Jansen, M. B., Sakamoto Ryōma and the Meiji Restoration, Princeton, 1961;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also the same author's article, ‘Takeehi Zuizan and the Tosa Loyalist Party’, Journal of Asian Studies, XVIII, 2, 1959, 199–212.Google Scholar
4 When I previously discussed this question, in an article on ‘Councillors of samurai origin in the early Meiji government’, BSOAS, XX, 1957, 89–103, I called these men ‘lesser samurai’, because they were the lower of two segments of the samurai class proper, i.e. of those holding full samurai rank. I have since come to the conclusion that use of this label raises more problems than it solves. There was a whole range of lower ranks, which were—and are loosely called ‘samurai’, even though their claim to that title is sometimes tenuous. The holders of these, too, have often been described as ‘lesser samurai’. Hence to apply the term to the hirazamurai alone causes confusion and makes it difficult to find a label for those of lower rank. In the circumstances, it seems better to designate the subdivisions of samurai simply ‘upper’, ‘middle’, and ‘lower’, avoiding the word ‘lesser’ altogether.Google Scholar
5 On the Tosa samurai class in general, see especially Kōchi-ken shiyō, Kochi, 1924, 264–6.Google Scholar
6 Figures for six of the domain's seven districts (kōri) in the early nineteenth century show 749 gōshi families having assessed landholdings (ryōchi-daka) which averaged some 54 koku per household. This would have been a reasonable figure for hirazamurai at the lower end of the scale of rank. The distribution of gōshi holdings by size was as follows:
under 20 koku, 135 holdings
20 to 49 koku, 327 holdings
50 to 99 koku, 198 holdings
100 koku and over, 89 holdings
The figures have been computed from the complete list of gōshi holdings for these six districts which is given in Tosa-han gōshi chōsa-sho (Tosa Shiryō Sōsho, No. 3), Kōchi, 1958.Google Scholar
7 On rural society, see especially Jansen, ‘Takechi Zuizan’, 200–3.
8 Of the Tosa gōshi, those of longest standing were descended from samurai retainers of a former daimyō house, the Chōsogabe, replaced by the Yamauchi at the beginning of the seventeenth century; but later the rank was made available to farmers, whether or not of samurai descent, and finally to merchants, the chief qualification being the ability to bring a given amount of new land under cultivation. For a detailed account see Yoshinaga, Irimajiri, Hōkensei hōkai katei no kenkyū, Tokyo, 1948, 76–141.Google Scholar
9 Many of the loyalists and other samurai referred to in this article have been the subject of published biographies, most of which are listed in Kōshi, Takanashi, Ishin shiseki kaidai: denki hen, Tokyo, 1935.Google Scholar There are two collections of short biographies, in which men from Tosa figure prominently: Kinnō resehi-den, Tokyo, 1906;Google Scholar and Zōi shoken-den, 2 vols., Tokyo, 1927.Google Scholar In addition, there is a collection of short biographies entitled Zoku Tosa ijin-den, Kochi, 1923.Google Scholar A good deal of useful information is also to be found in Ishin Tosa kinnō-shi, Tokyo, 1912;Google Scholarmemoirs, Sasaki Takayuki's, Kinnō hisshi: Sasaki Rō Kō sekijitsu-dan, Tokyo, 1915; and several articles, especially those by Hirao Michio, in the periodical Tosa Shidan. Nevertheless, for precise information on rank and status one cannot do without the manuscript records preserved in the Prefectural Central Library at Kōchi, notably the lists entitled O-samurai-chū senzogaki keizu-cho. I would like here to express my thanks to the Librarian for giving me access to these materials; and to Professor T. Yamamoto of Kōchi University, whose help in obtaining photographs and transcripts of relevant parts of them, when I was not able to be in Kōchi, has been of incalculable assistance.Google Scholar
10 See Jansen, ‘Takechi Zuizan’, 201–3, 206–7; also Sakamoto Ryōma, 108–11, where he makes the point that the predominantly lower samurai composition of the loyalist movement prevented some upper samurai from joining it, despite their sympathy with its political objectives.
11 I have also analysed the status of 30 samurai who opposed Tosa participation in the attack on the Bakufu in 1868 and who are therefore counted as conservatives. Two were upper samurai and 26 were middle samurai. The other two also seem to have been middle samurai, though this cannot be confirmed.
12 Beasley, ‘Samurai councillors’, 96, 102–3. On this subject generally see a recent work by Silberman, B. S., Ministers of modernization: elite mobility in the Meiji Restoration, 1868–1873, Tucson, Arizona, 1964.Google Scholar
13 Even in Chōshū, where the part played by groups from outside the ranks of castle-town samurai was much more important than in most domains, the leadership seems to have remained in the hands of middle samurai, like Kido and Takasugi; see Craig, op. cit., passim. I have also made a study of Satsuma politics, which tends to the same conclusion; see my article, ‘Politics and the samurai class structure in Satsuma, 1858–1868’, Modern Asian Studies, I, 1, 1967, 47–57.Google Scholar