Tokugawa Japan’s Selective Rejection of New Technology Coming Out from Under the Gun

Japan at the End of the 16 th Century

Tokugawa Japan’s Selective Rejection of New Technology I. Age of the Country at War (1467–1600) II. Out from Under the Gun (1607–1853) III. Anti-Tokugawa, anti-Confucian Intellectual Movements

I. Age of the Country at War (1467–1600) A. Period of “National Unification” (1568–1600) 1. Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) 2. Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) 3. Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) — founder of Tokugawa Shogunate

Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582)

Contemporary Portrait of Oda Nobunaga

Toyotoma Hideyoshi (1536–1598)

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616)

Board on Which Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu Played Go

Tokugawa Ieyasu’s Handprint

3. Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) — founder of Tokugawa Shogunate a. Battle of Sekigahara (1600) b. Took title of shogun (1603) c. Siege of Osaka Castle (1615)

3. Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) — founder of Tokugawa Shogunate d. views of (1) Buke Hyaku Kajo (2) George Sansom, A History of Japan (1958–1963) (3) Edwin O. Reischauer, Japan: The Story of a Nation (1970)

Battle of Sekigahara (1600)

Osaka Castle

Siege of Osaka Castle

I. Age of the Country at War (1467–1600) (continued) B. Japanese Views of Europeans and European Views of Japanese C. Tokugawa Technological Achievements

1. Engineering 2. Mining and Metallurgy 3. Mathematics — wasan 4. Agriculture 5. Postal service 6. Medicine 7. Retail merchandising 8. Paper manufacture

I. Age of the Country at War (1467–1600) (continued) D. Centralization and the Turn Away from Foreign Influence 1. “Laws Governing Military Households” (1615) 2. Sakoku — “closed country policy” (1635) 3. Exclusion of Portuguese (16 39) 4. Village regulations (1649)

Nagasaki Bay with View of Dejima Island

Scale Model of Dutch Outpost on Dejima Island

II. Out from Under the Gun (1607–1853) — based on Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun, 1979 A. Introduction of Matchlocks — August 25, Tanegashima Island (guns called tanegashima [later teppo]) 2. Lord Tokitaka (acted as entrepreneur) 3. “skip the introductions” — Battle of Uedahara (1548) 4. Battle of Nagashino (1575) — 3 ranks of 1000 each

Arquebus from Tanegashima Island (now in Ako Temple Museum)

Arquebuses from the Tokugawa Shogunate

II. Out from Under the Gun (1607–1853) — based on Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun, 1979 (continued) B. Reasons for Turning Away from Guns 1. samurai opposed firearms — Bushido 2. geopolitical — islands are hard to invade 3. swords had great symbolic value 4. general reaction against outside influence 5. aesthetic — swords associated with elegant body movement

Samurai in Full Armor

Samurai with Nanban Cuirass

The Samurai Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga in Rome in 1615

Sketch of Samurai with His Servant

Samurai with Various Weapons

Red Seal Ship

Izumo no Okuni Founder of Kabuki (ca. 1603)

Shudo Same-sex love

III. Anti-Tokugawa, anti-Confucian Intellectual Movements 1. Kokugaku = “national learning” — Kamo Mabuchi (1697–1769) 2. Rangaku = “Dutch studies” — Sugita Gempaku (1733–1817) 3. Honda Toshiaki (1744–1821), A Secret Plan of Government (Keisei Hisaku) (1798) – “four imperative needs”: gunpowder, metallurgy, trade, colonies

Kokugaku Mono no aware: “Sensitivity to things” term coined in the 18th century by the Edo periodJapanese cultural scholar Motoori Norinaga, term coined in the 18th century by the Edo period Japanese cultural scholar Motoori Norinaga, originally a concept used in his literary criticism of, and later applied to other seminal Japanese works including the Man'yōshū originally a concept used in his literary criticism of The Tale of Genji, and later applied to other seminal Japanese works including the Man'yōshū becoming central to his philosophy of literature, and eventually to the Japanese cultural tradition. becoming central to his philosophy of literature, and eventually to the Japanese cultural tradition.

Sakura within a field of Phlox subulata at Yachounomori Garden in Tatebayashi, GunmPhlox subulataTatebayashi, Gunm

Example of Rangaku: Account of Foreign Countries by Nishikawa Joken (1708)

Example of Rangaku: Japan’s First Treatise on Western Anatomy (1774)

Example of Rangaku: Description of a Microscope from Sayings of the Dutch (1787)

Example of Rangaku: Astronomy on Dejima Island

Sayonara