A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (36 page)

By the middle of the nineteenth century the sh
gunate had realised that westerners were probably not going to leave Japan alone. However, having seen what was happening in China, with its western-induced Opium Wars, it was even more determined to keep them at bay. Aided by staunch nationalists, it even tried to prevent debate about the issue of relations with westerners. Takano Ch
ei (1804–50) was imprisoned and later forced to commit suicide for his ‘audacity’ in urging the opening of the country to foreign contact. Even the compromise view of Sakuma Sh
zan (1811–64), who advocated a blending of Japanese and western strengths and coined the slogan ‘
T
y
no D
toku, Seiy
no Gakugei
’ (‘Eastern Ethics, Western Science’), was enough to bring about his assassination.

The more extreme nationalists popularised the slogan ‘
Sonn
J
i’
(‘Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians’). The anti-foreign sentiment may have found favour with the sh
gunate, but the other half of the slogan was not so welcome, for it suggested an ominous lack of respect for the sh
gunate itself.

From around the 1830s in particular, there was a growing feeling that the sh
gunate was losing control, and with it came a loss of respect. It had failed to respond constructively to a severe famine during 1833–37.
⁴⁸
In 1837 there was even a call for insurrection led by Oshio Heihachir
(1793–1837), a Confucian official in Osaka who had long been upset by the inefficiency and corruption of officialdom. Oshio’s uprising was small-scale in itself, but it caused further loss of respect for the sh
gunate due to the incompetence shown in the attempt to suppress it.
⁴⁹
Oshio himself, though obliged to commit suicide, became a symbol of the fight of the common people against corrupt and inefficient officialdom and the greedy merchants tolerated by the regime. The sh
gunate did pass a number of reforms, but these were ineffective.