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1833-1838 (Tenpō 4 to Tenpō 9)
Nationwide, especially the Tohoku region
Forces
Starving peasants and townspeople
The Edo shogunate and various daimyo domains
About 12 min read
The Tenpō Famine was one of the largest famines of the early modern period, striking all of Japan from Tenpō 4 (1833) to Tenpō 9 (1838). Continued crop failures caused by cooling weather sent grain production plummeting, with especially heavy damage in the Ōu region. Through a chain of reactions, including an increase in deaths from starvation, a sharp rise in prices, and the spread of social unrest, it shook the governing system of the Edo shogunate itself. This famine was not merely a natural disaster. It symbolized the structural crisis of Japanese society heading toward the late Edo period, and it was a grave incident.
In Tenpō 4 (1833), the Japanese archipelago was struck by abnormal cooling. The main causes of the famine were flooding from heavy rain and a major crop failure due to cold damage. Solar activity was low in the first half of the 19th century, and in Tenpō 2 (1831) a large-scale volcanic eruption had occurred at Simushir Island (Shinshiru-tō) in the Kuril Islands. Furthermore, in January 1835 the Cosigüina volcano (Nicaragua) in distant Central America also erupted. It has been pointed out that the parasol effect of such volcanic eruptions may have lowered temperatures and gradually worsened the cold damage.
Crop failures continued afterward, and the famine reached its greatest scale from Tenpō 6 (1835) to Tenpō 8 (1837). As these consecutive crop failures continued, the stored grain of farmers ran out, and the food they should have eaten began to be exhausted.
The damage from the famine was most severe in the Ōu region. In particular, the Sendai Domain had adopted policies focused on rice cultivation, so its damage was enormous, and combined with the spread of epidemics, its population fell greatly. The effects of the famine also spread widely to other regions.
The famine did not remain limited to farming villages, and it soon had a major impact on urban areas as well. A sharp shortage of food caused grain prices to soar. As a result, the urban lower classes, including day laborers, servants of merchants, women, and children, could not get enough to eat, and many fell into malnutrition.
In Ōsaka, it is said that more than 150 to 200 people were starving to death every day. Hungry people from the Ōu region and elsewhere also flowed into Edo, the shogun's home base. To ease the plight, the shogunate set up oshukui-goya (relief shelters) at 21 locations in the city of Edo, but the shelters could accommodate only about 5,800 people, while more than 700,000 people received relief.
Unemployment and destitution caused by the famine eventually turned into social unrest. Discontent among commoners grew over merchants who speculated by taking advantage of soaring rice prices and over the hoarding by wealthy merchants. At the same time, voices of resentment toward the slowness and inadequacy of the shogunate's response grew, and eventually led to direct rebellions.
In the 2nd month of Tenpō 8 (1837), at the peak of the social chaos caused by the famine, a rebellion led by Ōshio Heihachirō, former yoriki of the Ōsaka town magistrate's office, broke out. Based on Yōmei school thought, Ōshio advocated 'Relief of the People of the Realm,' gathered a mixed army of samurai, masterless samurai, farmers, and townspeople, and attacked the town of Ōsaka. The Ōshio Rebellion dealt a major blow to the prestige of the shogunate. A person who had served the shogunate as a yoriki of the town magistrate's office had turned against the shogunate, and this showed distrust of the shogunate's governing system itself.
Around the time of the Ōshio Rebellion, peasant uprisings and uchikowashi (riots) occurred one after another across the country. In the 8th month of Tenpō 7 (1836), the year before the rebellion, an uprising on a provincewide scale (the Tenpō Disturbance) occurred in Kai Province, a directly controlled territory of the shogunate, and the houses of rice dealers were smashed by rioters.
What these uprisings and riots had in common was that commoners facing a survival crisis caused by the famine directed their anger at wealthy merchants and at the shogunate's system of control. In earlier uprisings, many had demanded tax reductions. During the Tenpō Famine, however, distrust and opposition toward the social system itself came to the surface.
After the famine, from Tenpō 12 (1841), Mizuno Tadakuni, chief senior councillor (rōjū shuza), promoted the Tenpō Reforms. These reforms were a tightening policy that followed the Kansei Reforms of Matsudaira Sadanobu, and their content included the prohibition of extravagance and the strengthening of economic controls. However, the policies adopted by the shogunate could not address the structural crisis caused by the famine.
In fact, the shogunate left famine countermeasures in the provinces to individual domains and lacked a unified response as a central government. Moreover, the shogunate's finances were strained, and it had no capacity to carry out large-scale relief projects. News of the Opium War, which began in Tenpō 11 (1840), was conveyed to Japan through sailors of Dutch and Qing merchant ships that had entered Nagasaki, and the shogunate was also forced to deal with the foreign crisis.
The Tenpō Famine shows that the structural contradictions of Japanese society in the first half of the 19th century came to the surface. The Edo period has been characterized as an age of peace, but meanwhile fundamental problems had been accumulating: economic distress in farming villages, an increase in the urban poor, and deterioration of the shogunate's finances. The Tenpō Famine brought these latent crises to the surface all at once.
Even more important is that, triggered by this famine, the shogunate's social trust collapsed greatly. In Kaei 6 (1853), more than a decade after the famine, the American fleet led by Perry (the Black Ships) arrived and demanded that Japan open its ports. The shogunate became preoccupied with dealing with this confrontation with foreign powers, and responding to domestic social problems became even more difficult.
About 30 years after the Tenpō Famine, in Keiō 3 (1867), the Edo shogunate came to an end with the Taisei Hōkan. In the final process of decline of this long-lasting shogunate system, the Tenpō Famine was a symbolic turning point. The crisis of governing capacity exposed by the famine eventually led to a decisive collapse amid the turmoil of the late Edo period.