Perry arrived in 1853, and after the treaty between Japan and the United States was signed, he proceeded to open the country at once. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan became a member of the modern nation, but the driving force behind the Meiji Restoration was not only the alertness and opposition to foreign countries, but also the dissatisfaction with the Shogunate.
Of course, it is certain that the Shogunate was indignant at the weak diplomacy of foreign countries, but the result of the accumulation of distortions from before that was the Meiji Restoration.
This time, I would like to explore the background of the growing dissatisfaction with the Shogunate.
Let's take a look at the society before the bakuhan system shook.
When stable politics is carried out in the Edo period, it will be possible to put taxes and people into the parts that are directly related to life other than the military aspect. In this way, during the 16th and 17th centuries, hydraulic engineering work and new rice field development were actively carried out, and the area of the fields increased dramatically.
As is common in other times, it is possible to increase the production of other commercial crops if you can afford to live. During the Muromachi period, the monetary economy of the common people was infiltrated in urban areas, and there was already a scale for making commercial crops, so it is natural that the movement to make commercial crops accelerated after the Edo period. It may be natural.
For example, mulberry. Morus alba leaves are used as feed for silk moths. Silk moth produces raw silk, and from that silk, woven fabrics such as Nishijin-ori, Kiryu silk, and Tango crepe are made.
Of course, not only silk, but also oil vegetables that can squeeze oil from seeds, safflower and indigo used as dyes, cotton and grass, and other commercial crops that match the local climate are being cultivated. Another developed product will be made and distributed as a special product.
Besides agriculture, fishing has also developed.
Kujukuri Beach (Kazusa, Chiba Prefecture) is famous for sardine fishing and Matsumae (Hokkaido) herring fishing. These fish are processed and sold as fertilizer. By the way, squeezed lees have come to be used as fertilizer for oilseed rape, which was mentioned in the example of commercial crops earlier. The buying and selling of fertilizers like this contributes to the widespread exchange of money even in rural areas.
In this way, agriculture has entered a virtuous cycle. As the number of foods on the market increases, the number of people who can eat with a single job will increase, and technological development is expected.
Furthermore, "Tatara Steelmaking", which can be made by collecting iron sand, became popular in the Tohoku region of China, and the ball steel made by that manufacturing method became widespread throughout the country and was processed into various agricultural tools and tools. Is also leading to technological progress.
The development of tools will have a positive impact on forestry. In addition to buying and selling as timber, it will be possible to mass-produce firewood and charcoal, and if charcoal and firewood become easily available, ceramics will develop and products that can be exchanged with money will be made.
Also, "paper" is a product that cannot be forgotten as a product made from wood. Japanese paper is now made from the bark fibers of a tree called kozo. With the ability to make a large amount of Japanese paper, the foundation of learning and culture will take root.
It can be said that the mass production of Japanese paper has expanded the scholarship from the upper class to many layers, and the environment in which the scholarship can be widely learned has nurtured the lower samurai who supported the Meiji Restoration. In addition, education also helps to improve public order, so paper production also contributed to the stable reign of the Edo period.
In this way, production activities centered on agriculture have greatly developed, and society has also progressed, but of course, products cannot be sold just by making them. If you make a product in a place where there is no one to buy it, it will not make money. The transportation network has developed along with production activities and the development of society.
In the Edo period, many people gathered in the three cities. Edo, Osaka and Kyoto. Furthermore, many people lived in the castle town, so it was necessary to connect the urban and rural areas such as the three cities.
With the transportation technology of that time, it is land route
In this way, in addition to the three cities where goods are often bought and sold, wealthy merchants are born in castle towns and port cities. Some of them lend to daimyo, and the monetary economy has penetrated to the extent that even millionaires who are responsible for the clan economy appear at once.
Contrary to the enrichment of the private sector, large organizations such as the shogunate and the clan do not easily reform in line with the times. The finances will gradually become tighter.
After all, the tax in the Edo period is basically rice. It is an annual tribute. Even after the beginning of the Edo Shogunate, the tax rate for annual tribute was generally determined by the harvest of the year.
However, in the case of the kemi system, the motivation does not increase. Even if you can harvest a lot, you will feel lost because the tax rate will increase accordingly. In that case, you can save tax and get money by making a commercial crop that you do not have to pay as an annual tribute. The shogunate also had the disadvantage that their income was not stable.
Under such circumstances, the 7th Shogun Tokugawa family died in 1716 at the age of eight. The Tokugawa family disappeared, and of the three families of Owari, Kii, and Mito, the lord of the Kii domain, Tokugawa Yoshimune, was to be pulled as a shogun. Originally a feudal lord, he was actively involved in politics. Yoshimune will carry out various reforms.
The kemi system, which had been common until then, was revised, and a fixed exemption method was adopted to raise the annual tribute rate for a certain period of time. We will work on financial reforms such as implementing (temporarily donating stones).
Farmers who have some spare capacity due to the change to the fixed exemption law can save rice during a good harvest. On the other hand, farmers who do not have good land and cannot buy fertilizer do not store much rice even in a good harvest year. In this way, the gap between rich and poor has widened.
In the villages, the peasant who became influential due to the widening gap between rich and poor will serve as the village official. Some people lend their money to a small farmer who cannot buy fertilizer or convenient farm tools while doing landowner's handicrafts (agricultural land management that uses small farmers as servants).
The copyhold is deprived of land by a wealthy farmer without returning the money, and becomes a peasant who rents the fields rented by the farmer and pays the tenant fee, or devotes himself to indentured servitude including agriculture, or goes out to the city and renews. You will be forced to choose whether to get a good job. Of course, even if you go out to the city, you can see your feet, so it's easy to imagine that you can make only a small amount of money.
Furthermore, in the reform of Yoshimune, we made a rule called "Relative Reimbursement Ordinance" that "Please do not sue the Shogunate for the dispute over gold and silver lending and settle it yourself." This rule will transform the economic activities of merchants and craftsmen into something more autonomous and robust.
"Make a product, take it to a place where it can be sold, and sell it." What is needed to increase profits in this series of processes? ?? Basically
I think this basic is the same in the Edo period and in modern times.
Therefore, the wholesaler in the urban area went to collaborate with the wealthy farmer who dominated the village. Even from the standpoint of a wealthy farmer, cooperating with a wholesaler in an urban area had the advantage of earning a stable income.
Don't forget to supply funds and raw materials to the peasants in the production area to secure a certain number of items for sale. On the contrary, it is a problem if you make too many products and cause price collapse. A wholesaler in an urban area should have understood such a situation, and it seems that cooperation with a wealthy farmer helped to make fine adjustments to the number of products. Of course, we also take the lead in distribution.
In this way, "a side-business production activity in which each household made products in the middle of agriculture in rural areas", so-called rural domestic industry From the form of "manufacturing products through wholesalers" cottage industry It changed to the form of.
When the conditions for distribution of products are met, workers will be needed in urban areas. In that case, the small peasants in the rural areas go out to the urban areas, saying, "If you go to the city, you can do something."
Rural peasants were originally self-sufficient people, but they will work in urban areas under the monetary economy. What happens if prices rise, famine, or disasters occur in a situation where not only the reform of Yoshimune but also these lifestyle changes are large ...
Naturally, the self-sufficient life that appeared in urban areas collapsed, and the lives of those who lived on a small amount of money income collapsed at once.
It is said that the Edo period was the Little Ice Age, and it was also a period of active volcanic activity worldwide (including Japan). Famine and disasters occur frequently.
Of the four great famines in Edo, the one that occurred in the middle to the latter half of the Edo period was Kyoho's Great Famine . (1732), Tenmei Famine (1282-1287), Tenpo's Great Famine (1833-1839).
The greatest damage was caused by the Great Tenmei famine, but the number of peasants is extremely high during the Great Tenmei famine. As the times go down, we can see that the riots increase and society becomes confused. The shogunate was forced to respond to this turmoil and made multiple reforms.
After Yoshimune, Tanuma Okitsugu, who made the first reforms, tried to find financial resources in commerce instead of agriculture, which had reached a plateau. It was good to see him, but an increasing number of people objected to it as "a hotbed of injustice" when he advocated mercantilism and adopted a merchant preferential policy.
As if to chase after him, he became a great famine in Tenmei and lost his position. Due to political instability these days, no lodging There are many people whose names have been removed from the family register called.
The Kansei Reforms by Matsudaira Sadanobu, who reformed on behalf of Tanuma Okitsugu, will implement a policy to protect the vulnerable.
Finally, Tadakuni Mizuno will reform, but he failed due to an unreasonable policy due to the worsening of the shogunate's finances. It seems that there was also a story that the Matsudaira Sadanobu line was centered on frugality and received a great repulsion from Ooku.
* If you defend Tadakuni Mizuno ...
In the era of Tadakuni Mizuno (1841-1843), from the cottage industry in terms of economy, "multiple servants work in a workshop created by a landowner / wholesaler and commercialize it in collaboration" manufacturer Changed to (factory production). There was a background of the times when reforms became difficult due to the emergence of cases where the power relationship was "daimyo
In addition, it seems that the fact that foreign ships are visiting frequently and that the difficult problem of having to reorganize the territory while securing annual tribute in connection with strengthening the defense of the coastline was also a factor in the reform failure. increase.
Originally, the shogunate banned the riot, so the famine of Kyoho did not cause such a big riot, but after experiencing these famines and reforms, I gradually became dissatisfied with the shogunate. As it accumulated, the rebellion increased.
In the Ikki that occurred during the Tenmei and Tenpo years, it seems that there were many Ikki that deviated from the Ikki Ikki led by "villains" such as the no-shuku that occurred frequently in the Tanuma period, and of course, security will also deteriorate. In particular, it was obvious that the number of riots during the Tenpo era was higher than the riots that occurred during the Tenmei era, when the number of victims was supposed to be the highest, and the influence of the shogunate was declining.
Each clan also entered a situation where reforms had to be carried out in such a state of fire. There were many clan that failed in reform and extended their lives as they were, but there are also several clan that succeeded in reform. The representative clan is Satsunaga Dohi It is a clan called Satsuma (Kagoshima), Choshu (Yamaguchi), Tosa (Kochi), Hizen (Saga).
The reforms of each clan had in common that even middle- and lower-class samurai would collect them if they were capable. There is a school for clan scholars (han school), and there is also a place to train excellent human resources. Of course, clan schools also exist in other clan, but in the case of Satsunaga Dohi, the educational institution seems to have been quite excellent.
In the case of Tosa, the power struggle within the administration is fierce, and Yoshida Toyo, who became unscrupulous during the power struggle, opened a private school and the people are growing up, so it is a little different from the other three clan. There was also a clan school in the Tosa clan, but the person who was the driving force behind the Meiji Restoration was not from the clan school but from a private school in Yoshida Toyo.
One of the key players in the Meiji Restoration, the Meirinkan of the clan school is located in the Choshu clan. He put so much effort into education that he was called one of the three major universities in Japan.
Seifu Murata, who played a central role in rebuilding the finances of the Choshu clan, is a person who has achieved excellent results so that he is exempted from tuition fees at this Meirinkan. He not only rebuilds his economy, but also focuses on education. As a result, the people who are indispensable for the Meiji Restoration, such as Shoin Yoshida, Takayoshi Kido, and Shinsaku Takasugi, were born. Among them, Shoin Yoshida teaches at Shokasonjuku, a private school where you can learn even if you are not a feudal lord, and has produced many instructors during the Meiji era. He is influential in later history.
The schools of the Hizen and Satsuma domains are not limited to national studies and Chinese studies, but can also study medicine, chemistry, physics, Western military studies, etc., creating a school that looks like an integrated university.
In Choshu and Tosa, the opinions of the clan were divided into two. Since every clan is developing human resources who can promote reforms, it is probably because they have developed the ability to convey and execute their own opinions and ideas. It seems that Tosa did not make the attitude clear by the feudal lord Yamauchi Toyoshige, "If you get drunk, you are the emperor, if you get cold, you are the samurai."
The feudal lord of Hizen had an exchange with Naosuke Ii, who was a senior vassal of the shogunate, and felt a difference in national power from overseas at an early stage, so he had some understanding of the conclusion of a treaty called an unequal treaty. It seems that he did not use scholarship in the direction of the defeat, but used it in terms of technology.
In the case of Satsuma, the clan that played a central role in other restorations had already laid the groundwork for the adoption of her adopted daughter, Atsuhime, to be brought into the shogunate and exert influence on national affairs during the time of Nariakira. I'm on a different route. However, it seems that "Yoshinobu Ichihashi" on the Shogunate side crushed the reform line of national affairs and leaned toward the defeat.
As above
It is thought that this was the background that shook the bakuhan system and moved the times to the flow of the defeat. After all, the times are "people move". What is the reform carried out by the Shogunate? ??
Cooperation between urban and rural areas
Famine and reform, outbreak of riot
Birth of the Yuhan
What are the paths chosen by the Yuhan? ??