The Bansha no Goku — The Suppression of Watanabe Kazan and Takano Choei by Torii Yozo

Background — The Order to Repel Foreign Ships and the Morrison Incident

Under what is called the seclusion system, the shogunate of the Edo period controlled foreign trade through Nagasaki. In the nineteenth century, however, Russian ships in the north and British and American whalers began to appear near Japan, and in 1825 (Bunsei 8) the shogunate issued the Order to Repel Foreign Ships, directing that approaching vessels be driven off.

In 1837 (Tenpo 8) the American merchant ship Morrison came to Uraga to return shipwrecked Japanese and to seek trade. The Uraga magistrate's office fired on it in accordance with the order, and a similar response is said to have been made at Yamakawa in Satsuma. The Morrison was forced to leave. This is known as the Morrison Incident. That the ship's purpose was to repatriate castaways later became known to part of the shogunate through reports including those from the Dutch trading post.

The Shoshikai and the Western-Learning Scholars

In Edo there were circles of intellectuals who tried to understand world affairs through Dutch and Western learning. A representative one was the Shoshikai. The name originally referred to a gathering to honor the elderly, but in the Tenpo years, with Endo Katsusuke and others as organizers, it became a place of exchange for Confucian scholars, physicians and samurai interested in Dutch learning. Participants named include Watanabe Kazan, a senior retainer and painter of Tahara Domain in Mikawa, Takano Choei, a physician who had studied Dutch learning in Nagasaki, and the shogunal magistrate Egawa Hidetatsu. Kazan served his domain in coastal defense, while Choei conveyed world conditions through translations of medical and military works.

The Boshin Yume Monogatari and the Shinkiron

In 1838 (Tenpo 9, the year of the boshin), the year after the Morrison Incident, Takano Choei wrote the Boshin Yume Monogatari, using a dream dialogue as a vehicle to criticize the shogunate's policy of firing on foreign ships. Choei is said to have argued that the Morrison was a ship of good intentions bringing castaways home, that firing on it violated international good faith, and that it would only isolate Japan. The work circulated in manuscript among samurai and intellectuals in various domains.

Watanabe Kazan also wrote the Shinkiron in response to the same incident. It is said to have criticized the danger of the policy and the situation in which those informed about the West could not give advice on shogunal affairs. However, the Shinkiron was not meant to be published or distributed and remained a draft in his possession, which is said to have become a problem later.

Torii Yozo and the Structure of the Crackdown

The shogunal inspector Torii Yozo was strongly wary of these scholars. Born the son of Hayashi Jussai, the Confucian scholar who headed the shogunate's academy, he is said to have viewed Dutch scholars' activities as dangerous from a Neo-Confucian standpoint. He was also in conflict over coastal defense with Egawa Hidetatsu and others who valued Western learning, and Yozo and Egawa are said to have disagreed during surveys of Edo Bay.

Against this background Yozo is said to have probed the scholars' activities and built a suspicion that they were criticizing the shogunate and planning a voyage to an uninhabited island, the Ogasawara. The island plan appears to have been little more than a topic of talk around the Shoshikai, and it is hard to say that a firm plan existed. Yozo nonetheless pursued it together with the charge of criticizing the government. Within the senior council under Mizuno Tadakuni, too, there is said to have been a mood that criticism of shogunal policy could not be left alone.

The Arrests of the Fifth Month of Tenpo 10

In May 1839 (Tenpo 10), under Yozo's lead, Watanabe Kazan and others were arrested one after another. Kazan's arrest is often given as May 14, but dates differ by source and are not firmly established, so this entry describes the event as occurring in the fifth month of Tenpo 10. Takano Choei is said to have hidden at first and later turned himself in.

A search of Kazan's home turned up the draft of the Shinkiron. The suspicion had centered on the island voyage, but in the course of interrogation the Shinkiron, criticizing the shogunate's foreign policy, was treated as important evidence and Kazan's offense shifted to criticism of the government. Choei was revealed as the author of the Boshin Yume Monogatari, which had circulated anonymously, and became a target of the inquiry.

Sentences and Aftermath

Sentences are said to have been announced in the twelfth month of Tenpo 10. Watanabe Kazan was ordered into house confinement in his home domain of Tahara. Fearing that his presence would bring trouble on his lord, Kazan took his own life in the tenth month of 1841 (Tenpo 12). Those who loved his painting are said to have mourned him.

Takano Choei was sentenced to life imprisonment and held at the Tenmacho jail. In 1844 (Koka 1), during a fire near the jail, he was released under the "kirihanashi" system, which temporarily freed prisoners in a fire, and is said to have not returned but fled. He kept translating and writing while hiding in various places, and in 1850 (Kaei 3) he died in Edo when officials closed in. Some say he took his own life and others that he was killed by the officers.

Torii Yozo himself later became town magistrate during Mizuno's Tenpo Reforms and enforced strict controls, but after Mizuno's fall he was dismissed in 1845 (Koka 2) and later placed in custody in Marugame Domain in Sanuki. The rise of the suppressor did not last long either.

Why "Bansha"?

The name Bansha no Goku is said to derive from opponents calling the circle of Western-learning scholars centered on the Shoshikai the "banga-ku shachu", the company of barbarian learning. In fact the Shoshikai was not a formally organized society but more like a loose study group, and the name itself can be said to reflect the prejudice of those who suppressed it.

Meaning among Warrior Society, Western Learning and Shogunal Politics

The affair shows how the shogunate treated samurai and intellectuals who discussed policy on the basis of information from abroad. Kazan was a senior retainer of Tahara and a samurai charged with governing a domain. Choei was a physician and not of samurai status, yet he discussed shogunal affairs through Dutch learning. From the conservative standpoint centered on Torii Yozo, questioning shogunal policy was seen as disturbing order.

The era did not move as the shogunate intended. In 1840 (Tenpo 11) the Opium War broke out, and when news of China's defeat by Britain reached Japan the shogunate was forced to review coastal defense. In 1842 (Tenpo 13) it abolished the Order to Repel Foreign Ships and issued an order to supply firewood and water, easing its handling of foreign ships. Ironically, a shift close to the direction Kazan and Choei had argued came only a few years after the incident. Egawa Hidetatsu went on, by shogunal order, to build coastal batteries and introduce Western gunnery, and Western learning came to be used in the shogunate's practical defense.

This entry does not claim any direct link to swords. The case concerns samurai-class people offering opinions on shogunal policy through Western learning, and no reliable record ties it to swords themselves. It is best placed as background for the changes in warrior society leading toward the end of the shogunate.

Sources

This entry organizes generally known facts from reference entries such as Kotobank and encyclopedic sources, and from materials published by the National Diet Library. Because sources and theories differ on the date of the arrests, the reality of the island voyage plan and Takano Choei's death, uncertain points are described as "said to be".