The Merchant's Tale

by Simon Partner

  In the eighth hour of last night, a fire broke out in the public bathhouse of Tadachō Itchōme. There was a strong south wind, and by the morning [Honchō] Sanchōme and Nichōme [where Chūemon lived] were completely burned. Itchōme was unharmed. Our personal possessions were all saved, and the storehouse was also unharmed. None of us were hurt at all. At present we are sheltering in the rear quarters of a ginger merchant in Itchōme. You certainly don’t need to worry. If you are worrying about whether or not you should come, you should not. I have fourteen or fifteen ryō in cash, so again you should set your mind at ease.119

  No doubt Chūemon was doing his best in this letter to quell any alarm on the part of his son or their investors. To lose one’s house and shop was a major disaster by any standards. Chūemon seems, however, to have recovered from the disaster quite quickly. He recognized his luck in losing only his building and not his possessions, nor the goods in his warehouse. He must have felt deeply grateful that he had had the prescience to build his fireproof storehouse the previous year. The community operated at times like this an informal insurance system. When disaster struck, residents of all the unaffected neighborhoods were expected to make substantial contributions to a fund to help the victims rebuild. In addition, Chūemon received gifts of money from friends, business partners, and relatives. On June 4 he was able to move into rebuilt premises, and on June 29, he asked Shōjirō to thank his business partners for their financial assistance.120

  The political situation, meanwhile, continued to deteriorate. The Sonnō Jōi movement had by this time spread throughout Japan, stirring particular passions in the peripheral (but powerful) domains of Chōshū, Satsuma, and Tosa (Chōshū and Satsuma were both in the far west of Japan; Tosa was on Shikoku Island). In early 1862, samurai began flooding into Kyoto, determined to persuade the emperor himself to issue an edict of expulsion against the foreigners. On June 29, Chūemon commented on “a rumor that an order has been given to expel the foreigners. However, even if it is implemented, it will not be possible in less than three to five years. Moreover, the rumor that the rōnin followers of the daimyo have been gathering in Kyoto and that the emperor has issued an edict are also unfounded.” Chūemon had to report, however, that “on the evening of the twenty-ninth of last month, at 8:00 P.M., at Tōzenji in Shinagawa, two foreigners were murdered. The murderers have not been apprehended.”121

  The same rumors were echoed by Francis Hall: “For several days past our ears have been full of rumors of disturbances in Japan, even so serious as their threatening revolution. The source of these rumors is wholly in the common people and it is difficult to ascertain what, if any, foundation they have.” Among the rumors was one of a virtual coup d’état in Kyoto:

  We have rumors from Miako [Kyoto] that many ronins have concentrated there or in that vicinity, and demand so-called reforms to be instituted in the empire by the Mikado [emperor] … Great consternation is said to have been produced, multitudes fled into the country, the wealthy took away, or hid, their treasures, trade was suspended, crops were unsold, particularly tea just then coming to market, while the Mikado confers with his princes as to the state of affairs … The Governor of Osaca committed hara kiri, just why does not appear unless from the menaces of the ronins.122

  There was a good deal of truth in these rumors. On May 21, 1862, some sixty proimperial loyalists met at the Teradaya Inn in Fushimi, near Kyoto, to plot a revolt aimed at seizing control of the Imperial Palace and bringing the emperor under their control. Most of the conspirators were samurai from Satsuma. At one point the group virtually kidnapped their own clan leader, Shimazu Hisamitsu, and forced him to Kyoto to lead their effort. Hisamitsu received a direct order from the emperor to disband the samurai group and make them disperse peacefully, and he attempted to carry it out. However, many resisted, and in the end several men were killed.

  Meanwhile, closer to home, the rumor of an attack on foreigners was also true. Tōzenji was the site of the British legation in Edo, and after an attack the previous year, it was heavily guarded by several hundred Japanese guards as well as a detachment of British marines. But on the night of June 26, an assassin killed two British guards in a failed attempt to kill the British envoy, Colonel Neale. The assassin escaped, but he was identified and found wounded at his house, at which point he committed suicide. The assassin turned out to be one of the guard unit assigned to protect the British, a revelation that further deepened the foreigners’ distrust of their hosts. As Francis Hall commented, “it certainly is an unpleasant reflection for any Minister resident at Yedo [Edo] that the guards sent to defend him may prove his most dangerous enemy.”123

  By this time, Japanese from the samurai and even the educated commoner classes were flocking to the Sonnō Jōi call for action. In later years, one Chōshū samurai reminisced, “At that time I should have thought it an act of the highest virtue, whatever were the consequences, to cut down a foreigner; and if more than one—so much the better.”124 Shibusawa Eiichi, who went on to become one of Meiji Japan’s great business leaders (and a pioneer of Japan’s Westernization), narrated in his autobiography how as a young man from a farmer-merchant family, he was determined to launch an attack on the foreigners. “Even supposing that the country had no choice but to accept the terms of the treaties, it would be better to fight first, meeting force with force, for only then could there be true amity between nations. What did it matter that the foreigners possessed huge gunboats and cannons? We had our samurai swords, we had honed our skills in the spirit of our ancestors, and we would cut them down, one by one, mercilessly.”125

  Fukuchi Gen’ichirō, a samurai official who was posted to Yokohama as an English interpreter, recalled that even the shogunal officials were provoked at times into hatred of the foreigners. He recalled his shock at seeing the Westerners walking onto the tatami floors of the official buildings, still in their boots and accompanied by their dogs.

  We officials grew indignant, some of us angrily declaring the barbarians’ haughtiness and rudeness toward officials to be simply monstrous … But the foreign merchants also frothed in indignation. Prevented by the difficulties of language from fully understanding commercial operations and suffering from indiscretions on the part of customs officials, they often reacted in anger. They protested vigorously against the constant procrastinations in negotiations. And they were not always unjustified in those protests. We did many things to invite their scorn. The only thing that kept matters from getting out of hand was the samurai spirit of the Japanese, the tendency of even lesser officials to bear the situation quietly and with dignity.126

  Similarly, John Black recounts a conversation he had with a government official, recalling the mutual misunderstanding of the early days: “You know we didn’t understand foreigners then so well we as do now. When we met them we knew that they had an uneasy feeling lest we should draw our swords; but we in like manner used to look out of the side of our eye as we passed, lest the foreigner should draw his revolver and shoot us.” He goes on, “I assure you that I have seen foreigners take out their revolvers, perhaps only to shew that they had them, in a very menacing manner, and in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable at the time.”127

  In spite of all its precautions, the government could not prevent a series of attacks on foreigners, although almost none of them took place in Yokohama itself. The foreign legations in Edo came under sustained attack: in addition to two attacks on the British legation, the American minister’s interpreter was cut down in the street, and the new British legation buildings were burned to the ground shortly before completion. There were also several attacks on the roads and highways around Yokohama, targeting foreigners traveling alone or in small groups. Chūemon reported on several of the murders in his letters to his son.

  The most dramatic of these incidents, and the one with the most far-reaching consequences, took place on September 14, 1862. A party of four English friends rode out to the Tōkaidō highway in Kanagawa on their way to
visit Kawasaki Taishi, a well-known temple. When they reached the highway, they found that a huge daimyo’s procession was passing by—it was the train of Shimazu Hisamitsu (also known as Saburō), the regent of the Satsuma domain. The foreigners—three men and a woman—reined in their horses beside the road to watch the train pass. But the Satsuma samurai—who were virulently antiforeign—demanded that they dismount, and then threatened them. When one of the horses startled and moved toward the samurai, they drew their swords and attacked. One of the party, a Shanghai merchant called Charles Richardson who was visiting Yokohama, was killed. The others fled for their lives, with varying levels of injury.

  The incident threw the entire community into a state of high alarm. On September 15, Chūemon sent a message by expedited delivery to inform his family: “At around six o’clock last night, all the foreigners living in Yokohama, together with their warships, proceeded to Kanagawa and prepared spears and guns to protest against the rough treatment by the Satsuma men.” Chūemon reported that the Kanagawa commissioner had summoned the town’s officials, and they had visited the Satsuma party at their lodgings in Hodogaya. “They have held discussions, but nothing has been settled. This affair will not end quickly and is causing great upset. As things stand I can’t see any easy way to manage this problem.”128

  Indeed, many members of the foreign community wanted to launch an expedition to attack the Satsuma men—who were known to be staying in inns only a few miles from Yokohama—and exact retribution on the spot. They were overruled by their diplomatic representatives, who feared escalation into a broader conflict that might result in the wholesale massacre of the foreigners. But the British envoy subsequently submitted a series of demands for the arrest of the perpetrators, as well as compensation for the murdered man’s family. The demands, and the threat of violence if they were not met, put intense pressure on the shogunate. In the eyes of many Japanese, the Satsuma samurai were heroic patriots who had undertaken an unpleasant job that the shogunate itself was unwilling to take on. If the shogunal government were now to cave in and pay the huge financial indemnity the British were demanding for Richardson’s murder, then its prestige would only decline further.

  Meanwhile, in Kyoto, an alliance of radical samurai and several restive members of the court aristocracy was gaining influence over the imperial court. In April 1863, they persuaded the emperor to demand that the shogun set a date for the expulsion of the foreigners and the final closing of the treaty ports. The emperor further demanded that the shogun present himself personally in Kyoto to inform the emperor of the date on which the expulsion would take place. The shogunal administrators, anxious to unite the country and worried about the growing power of dissenting daimyo, reluctantly consented. The shogun, Iemochi, set off on April 22, 1863, with an enormous train of retainers. It was the first time a shogun had made such a journey in more than two hundred years, and his submission was seen by many as a humiliating reversal (the long journey with twenty thousand retainers was also hugely costly for the shogunal government). On arriving in Kyoto, the shogun was pressed by the emperor and his courtiers to commit to a deadline for the expulsion of the foreigners. Reluctantly, the shogun vowed that he would expel the foreigners and enforce the closing of the ports by June 25, 1863.

  By this point, many observers both within and outside Japan had come to the conclusion that the shogunate itself might (and perhaps should) collapse. Robert Fortune wrote in 1862,

  It is becoming clearer every day that the Government of the Tycoon [shogun], with whom we have made our treaties, is powerless to enforce those treaty rights. The feudal princes, with that curious personage the Mikado, or “Spiritual Emperor,” are stronger than the Government at Yedo; and until a change takes place, resulting in the formation of a powerful Government either at Miaco [Kyoto] or Yedo, and the destruction of the feudal system, there will, I fear, be little security for the lives of our countrymen in this part of the world. How this is to be accomplished, whether by civil war or by the interference of foreign powers, is at present uncertain.129

  The person of the “Mikado” (emperor) was indeed mysterious, to many Japanese as well as to foreigners. For centuries he had been a secluded figure removed from politics, living for the most part in genteel poverty in his austere compound in the ancient capital of Kyoto. But Fortune correctly prophesied the revolution and civil war that would, six years later, install the emperor in Edo as sole ruler of a unified Japan, leading shortly thereafter to the wholesale dismantling of the “feudal” system of class division and domainal power.

  In spite of the tension, life in Yokohama went on. Given the proven prosperity of the Yokohama trade, and the relatively peaceful state of affairs in the port itself, it was hard for residents to believe that the community would actually be closed down. On December 5, 1862, Chūemon wrote, “I am certainly worried about how things will turn out in Yokohama. However, buildings keep going up here, and now they are completing construction of many new official buildings. The foreigners are also building many new houses. And you should see the liveliness of this place. Even the government officials are marveling at it. So there is really no cause at all for worry.”130 And a month later he added,

  Although the reputation of Yokohama is bad at the moment, you should not worry. Mitsui Hachirōemon is undertaking all sorts of new construction, and he is expanding his storehouses. If things here were really as bad as they say, then surely all this construction would not be taking place. I occasionally talk to Senjirō, the manager of the Mitsui branch, and he assures me that everything is as normal. Nothing is changed, and there is really no cause for concern. I am making money a little at a time, and I am stouthearted.131

  And indeed, Chūemon ended the second year of the Bunkyū era (1862) on a surprisingly optimistic note: “In the eighth month of this year, I leased an eighty-eight tsubo lot in the expanded Shibaichō district. I am now receiving two ryō per month rent on this property … On top of that I have the profits from my trading … So you should be extremely reassured … If we can prosper through trading here, our farming business at home will be on too small a scale … This winter, I will send you a roll of gold-embroidered cloth. It should be enough for eight and a half kimonos.”132

  The government in Edo was trying to deal with the foreign crisis amid intense confusion. The court in Kyoto was insisting that all the foreigners should be expelled from Japan, refusing to accept any compromise. Meanwhile, the foreigners threatened an attack in retaliation for the Richardson murder. In September 1862, the government abandoned its two-hundred-year-old policy of forcing daimyo to reside in Edo every other year while keeping their families as permanent hostages, asking the daimyo instead to concentrate on building up coastal defenses in their domains. Consequently, hundreds of daimyo with their families and tens of thousands of retainers left the capital, leaving Edo hollowed out and even further weakened.

  The emptying of Edo was in stark contrast to the rapid growth and prosperity of Yokohama. Indeed, the two were directly related. The weakness of the shogunate stemmed from its inability to perform its historical function as military defender of Japan. Its failure to close the ports and the growing danger of foreign aggression fed agitation against the shogunate, which in turn forced it to make more concessions to its domestic critics. Among them was the shogunate’s commitment—futile though it was—to close the ports and expel the “barbarians.” If the shogunate had embraced foreign trade and participated more actively in the growing commercial prosperity of Yokohama, things might have worked out very differently. Instead, its hostility to foreigners and the trade that they brought hastened the decline of Edo and ultimately helped bring about the demise of the shogunate itself.

  On March 9, 1863, anticipating the outbreak of war, the government developed a plan to evacuate the shogun’s harem to Kōfu and to remove the Tokugawa family shrines at Ueno and Shiba into the mountains. Vassal samurai were ordered to move their families out of Edo, either to their allotted
estates or to any safe place they could find. In April the government ordered all the remaining daimyo’s wives and children to leave Edo and return home. The general populace began to panic at the possibility of a war, and people began hoarding goods, causing prices to shoot up. The government mobilized loyal daimyo, ordering them to prepare for the defense of Edo, and it ordered commoners to create firefighting units in anticipation of an attack.

  On April 6, 1863, British envoy Colonel Neale announced a firm deadline—May 7—for huge indemnities to be paid by both the shogunate and Satsuma domain for the murder of Richardson. From the shogunate, Neale demanded £100,000 ($440,000), and from Satsuma, he demanded a further £25,000 ($112,000). During the month of April, powerful naval forces from England, France, and the Netherlands arrived in Yokohama. By the middle of April, to most residents of Edo and Yokohama, war between Japan and an alliance of foreign powers seemed all but inevitable.

  In late April, as the crisis approached, Chūemon explained the situation:

  As I mentioned in my previous letter, there is talk of a war with the foreigners … Last year, when Shimazu Saburō was passing through Higashi Namamugi near Kanagawa, a foreigner was murdered. The foreigners demanded that if Shimazu Saburō does not hand over eight hundred thousand dollars, war will break out. Of course, he has not handed over even one mon. Indeed, there is not even any discussion of Saburō paying the money. He doesn’t care what they do … England has told Japan that it must reply, and the Japanese officials are at a loss what to do.

  It is striking that, rather than the foreign powers, Chūemon seems to hold the Satsuma clan and its leader, Shimazu Saburō, responsible for the unfolding disaster. His use of Saburō’s given name without any of the honorifics normally used when referring to a great lord is remarkable, even in a private letter. Chūemon’s dislike of Satsuma is palpable.