by Tom Anderson
The most dramatic of the early conflicts was what is often called the Edo Massacre among Yaponologists. As part of their many methods for exerting unitary control over the Daimyo, the Tokugawa Shoguns had instituted a practice called Sankin Kotai, by which most Daimyo were required to spend alternating years in Edo with the Shogun and in their usual seats. As well as encouraging the improvement and maintenance of roads and other services across the old empire, this was a means by which the Shogun would essentially hold half the country’s potential independence-minded leaders hostage at any one time (fortunately for the Company’s earlier deception, the Matsumae Han Daimyo was exempted from the practice as one of that clan’s many privileges). However, due to the lack of a national standing army, the Shogun could not directly threaten to destroy any Daimyo. Each was accompanied by a strong force of their own samurai as bodyguards (the number based on the ranking of the Han, which depended on such factors as its rice paddy output and how closely its clan was related to the Tokugawa), meaning that the streets of Edo witnessed almost daily parades as the Daimyo showed off their strength to each other with the implicit meaning obvious. Therefore, no matter how powerful a Shogun might be, the post demanded skill in playing the Daimyo off against one another and having the ability to build a coalition against any one expressing thoughts of rebellion.
Tokugawa Iemochi was no more or less competent than the average Shogun, it appears, but the crisis that hit upon the death of Emperor Tenmei caught him somewhat flat-footed. Some of the Daimyo in Edo heard the news before others, and their actions were diverse: some fled back to their Han seats, either due to supporting Yasuhito as Emperor or just out of (entirely justified) fear of what might happen next; some went south to directly give homage to Yasuhito; and some picked this moment to achieve political goals that had eluded them for years. This meant that by the time Tokugawa was in control again, several Daimyo had used their samurai to engineer the deaths of others. Of course, they explained to the Shogun, this was naturally because said Daimyo had publicly supported Yasuhito…
This destruction of several Han armies and the deaths of many Daimyo had numerous results. Firstly it meant that several Hans were now leaderless, defenceless, or both. Neither Tokugawa nor Yasuhito were shy about rallying as much personal power to themselves as they could. Both began enacting the practice known as Toritsubushi (“scrappage”) which was a proclamation that they had cancelled the succession of a new Daimyo to a Han and that Han reverted to the Emperor or Shogun either as Tenryo land (directly controlled by the Shogun) or for new division between his own loyal Daimyo. However this process rapidly spiralled out of hand. Initially both leaders only used it for Hans which genuinely lacked any natural heirs due to their clan leadership being wiped out in the initial battles. Soon, though (it is speculated though not confirmed that this began with Yasuhito issuing a proclamation about Aizu Han after the death of Matsudaira Kotaro in the Edo Massacre), they began proclaiming that any Han with a now-deceased Daimyo whose heir went to the other leader for homage was officially ‘empty’ and ready for division between their own cronies. This escalated out of control until both sides began claiming that even those Hans whose Daimyo had been in power for years were officially ‘vacant’ if they were supporting the other side; in other words, as far as southern Japan was concerned, the entire internal structure and leadership of northern Japan had been legally abolished, and vice versa. It would seem that even if the conflict had been resolved relatively quickly, such a move would inevitably have led to such internal discontent and strain that some sort of revolution would have resulted, though its nature cannot be speculated upon.
In any case, the conflict was not resolved so quickly. After toying with declaring the abolition of the Bakufu altogether, Yasuhito was persuaded by his advisors that this was too radical a step and would alienate the few remaining Daimyo still sitting on the fence. These were mainly those Daimyo that had been at their own seats when the crisis had broken out and were doing their best to avoid publicly supporting one side or the other until one seemed to be coming out on top, at which point they would of course claim they had been on their side all along. There were enough of these, including powerful Daimyo like Matsudaire Sadanori of the strategically vital Kuwana Domain, to convince Yasuhito to pay at least lip service to the existing institutions before he tried to enact any of his grand designs. To that end, Yasuhito appointed Shimazu Shinsuke as his Shogun, with considerably reduced powers (making it a position more akin to Prime Minister) but thus playing to Daimyo Shimazu’s own ambitions of power. However, it did somewhat alienate Yasuhito’s other powerful supporters such as Mori Nakito of Choshu Han and Asano Akirashita of Hiroshima Han, and probably accounted for a stumbling in the organisation of Yasuhito’s forces as these cracks were papered over. Yasuhito managed to mend the damage by assigning positions in the Eight Ministries to those Daimyo, but had to emphasise the idea that he was returning more power to them – under the Tokugawa, every government post preceding the Shogunate still existed, but had been progressively stripped of powers until it was no more than a sinecure under the system as it stood.
Both the Russo-Lithuanian Pacific Company and the Dutch East India Company played important roles in the conflict, but both were cautious with their support for a variety of reasons. The Dutch were very hesitant about taking sides, aware that their monopoly might be endangered if the ‘wrong’ side won. Instinctively the VOC preferred Tokugawa’s side as supporting the status quo, but Nagasaki (a tenryo domain administered by Tokugawa officials) was swiftly conquered by the southern coalition supporting Yasuhito. The Dutch did send Pieter Roggeveen to Edo to negotiate with Tokugawa, the idea being that they would temporarily withdraw from Deshima and lend the Shogun their support if he would open more new treaty trade ports. But this ended in near-catastrophe; Tokugawa was incensed by the very sight of Roggeveen, blaming him for the disaster in the Tsugaru Strait and the Emperor’s death that had precipitated this crisis, and particularly by the fact that Roggeveen must surely have reached Edo by taking ship and landing in a northern harbour, against all treaties. Roggeveen barely escaped arrest and execution, and brought back to Governor-General Hendrik de Klerk in Batavia the chilling postscript that Tokugawa had openly threatened to revoke the Dutch’s own trading privileges in Deshima. Much like the Guangzhong and Chongqian Emperors over in China, Tokugawa seemed to espouse the extremist paleo-Confucian view that if an isolationist policy failed, the reason for its failure must be because it was not isolationist enough.
Therefore, the VOC chose to re-engage with Yasuhito through Nagasaki, a position decided by the Governor-General and the Council of the Indies unilaterally as, by this point, Admiral Villeneuve had begun his abortive attack on the Netherlands as part of the northern claw of Le Grand Crabe. The Heeren XVII had fled Amsterdam in anticipation of the descent which never arrived, the southern claw instead being redirected by Lisieux to Britain. Although Yasuhito made no secret of his plans to open Japan in defiance of Sakoku and therefore end the Dutch monopoly, the VOC were able to negotiate for various continuing privileges. Besides, they would then be able to trade openly rather than just through Deshima, and their local expertise would give them a leg-up on their competitors from the East India Companies of Britain, France and Portugal when they arrived.
To that end, the Dutch funnelled European firearms, artillery and training to Yasuhito’s forces, though cautiously and not with the reckless abandon that many had thrown about, being aware that they did not want to arm Yasuhito to the point he could easily throw them out if he changed his mind. The Russians did the same in the north; although Moritz Benyovsky’s instinct was to agree to anything that would give them a short-term advantage in further infiltrating northern Japan, reasoning that this would ultimately put them in a better position later on, he was dissuaded by his advisors. Chief among these was Captain Daikokuya Kodayu, a Japanese sailor who had been shipwrecked in the Aleutian islands in the 1780s and had managed to reach t
he Russian mainland with the other members of his crew. After briefly residing in Yakutsk and Irkutsk, the rise of the Russo-Lithuanian Pacific venture meant that they had been in high demand, along with other Japanese exiles living in Russia (the first recorded such individual was a man named Dembei almost a century earlier) as translators and advisors. Daikokuya and his fellow crewmen had become bitter in their exile as the Tokugawa had refused to let them return to Japan thanks to Sakoku, and he like many of them had been baptised into Christianity. He therefore held a grudge against the Tokugawas and explained to Benyovsky that while Tokugawa Iemochi might agree to open northern treaty ports now, for short-term advantage, he would unquestionably close them again when he felt strong enough. His paleo-Confucian ideology was strongly held enough to make any negotiation impossible. Also, he contended that the Tokugawas would be less receptive to Russian offers of European weapons thanks to the clan’s reputation being tied up in policies such as the ban on firearms and building ships. By contrast Yasuhito’s supporters such as the Satsuma and Choshu had still been quietly operating small fleets and cannon (though now obsolete by European standards thanks to the enforced stasis) and would be much more receptive to Russian offers. Besides, an opened Japan would appeal more to the RLPC’s commercial ventures.
Benyovsky, typically, decided to have it both ways and began selling to both sides, though he did take Daikokuya’s counsel into account and sold to Tokugawa’s supporters secretly rather than trying to approach the Shogun directly. Benyovsky broadly agreed that a Japan under Yasuhito would be a good thing, but knew a weakened, exhausted Japan under Yasuhito would be even better; such had proved to be the case with the old Moguls and the Marathas in India with other European East India Companies. For that matter, while he might root for the southern court, Benyovsky saw no reason not to prolong the war and fill the Company’s coffers with Tokugawa’s gold as well.
However, perhaps the most significant of the RLPC’s interventions was masterminded by Ulrich von Münchhausen. Ever since the idea of the samurai code (busydo[229]) had become the norm in Japan, it had faced a problem. Samurai were supposed to be sworn to the death to a master, so what should they do if that master died? The code stated bluntly that they were meant to commit ritual suicide (Kharakyry[230]) but many balked from this, and the result was a great number of wandering warriors without masters, viewed as shamed by the majority of the populace. These were the original ronin, the old meaning of the word referring to such a shamed warrior without a master.[231] With the rise of the Tokugawa the number of these ronin had proliferated thanks to the Shoguns confiscating various Hans during their ascendancy, with the result that ronin had been involved in some of the uprisings of the 1650s. This had forced even the intransigent Tokugawa to rethink their policies, and the official position of ronin had been somewhat relaxed, allowing samurai to transfer their allegiance to a new daimyo.
However, this state of affairs altered once more in 1782 as part of far-reaching reforms enacted by the Emperor Tenmei on his accession to the Chrysanthemum Throne. Tenmei was acutely aware that the 1770s had seen a series of disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes that had both wrecked the Japanese economy and threatened public faith in the political system.[232] Therefore he, or rather the Shogun in his name, had implemented a series of ‘back to basics’ policy moves designed more to instil the idea that they were returning to a fabled golden age rather than to actually solve the underlying economic issues. Among these were several attempts to appeal to a popular fundamentalist interpretation of busydo, including a more literalist treatment of ronin. Once more their position was downgraded, and while a samurai might still transfer his loyalty to his daimyo’s successor, that was the only such move allowed and ultimately made them hostage to the whims of the Shogun. Tokugawa could easily simply refuse to accept homage from the new daimyo and then invoke toritsubushi on the Han, which would render all the loyal samurai as shamed ronin. This move was naturally unpopular with many, though few would come out and say it lest they be accused of failing to live up to the busydo code.
Still, the new stance might still have been workable if circumstances were normal – but they were anything but. With the mass issues of toritsubushi on both sides concerning practically every Han, it now became a matter of opinion whether a samurai had a master or not, and therefore whether he was shamed. Busydo was based on the idea that honour given to the Emperor and Shogun, and therefore certainly their identities, was absolute, which had certainly seemed a reasonable assumption at the time, but… The result was a vast army of angry ronin who weren’t even certain if they were ronin, but few were willing to take them on as samurai lest the wrong side win. Many resorted to the old ronin practice of forming bands that raided the countryside, and proved quite successful as most of the Han armies were rallying to their respective leader and left the Han domains themselves mostly unguarded.
But soon the term ‘army’ was not metaphorical. Münchhausen, advised by Daikokuya and Sugimura Goro, realised such a body of leaderless men would be a fine resource and the Company began reaching out to them under the slogan ‘a new way of the warrior, a new honour’. Although the Old Japanese, being reared in a xenophobic environment, were not very open by nature to such foreign ideals, the ronin were desperate and recruitment was aided by the fact that many Japanese from Matsumae Han had been working with the Russians for some years already. Not always without rancour, but nonetheless demonstrating that simply working with ‘barbarians’ would not cause one to spontaneously catch fire as half the Tokugawa propaganda would have them believe. Besides, many of the ronin had had enough of the Tenmei stark interpretation of busydo, which being young men was the only one they knew. Into this vacuum, aided by his Japanese assistants, Münchhausen introduced new ideas which he had printed and distributed as a pamphlet; they focused on the idea that a warrior’s honour was personal, not reflected in how others viewed the warrior. He used many examples taken from his father’s own (questionable) tales of warfare, and many claim that it was the old Baron Karl’s entertaining adventures that first popularised the pamphlets and made audiences more receptive to the ideas surrounding them. Münchhausen argued that a warrior might perform actions that a casual observer might consider to be dishonourable but were in fact in accordance with his code, using the example of cutting down an unarmed old man in cold blood, before then telling the story again from the old man’s point of view and revealing that he was a sadistic murderer who had poisoned the well of the warrior’s village years before and was on the way to do it again to another village. This was only one of the many such parables he used, proving to be a match for his father in storytelling, and though the idea of ‘internal honour’ was so alien to the traditional Japanese mentality, it nonetheless spread widely. Besides, many of the ronin could care less for Münchhausen’s ideas but he offered a place in a professional fighting force that removed them from their wretched existence, and that was enough.
Thus the word ‘ronin’ took on its modern term as the Yapontsi equivalent of ‘sepoy’ in India or ‘jagun’ in Guinea, a native soldier working for a European trading company. Münchhausen and other Russian and Lithuanian officers worked hard to overcome the tactical mindset that had been hammered into the ronin, the samurai ideal that favoured single combat and the sword and scorned fighting in the line and ranged weapons as dishonourable; but these were men still young and mentally flexible, and many of them were survivors in armies that had been defeated early in the conflict. They knew all too well that this was real war, not the artificial state of Sakoku in which men had the leisure to fight one-on-one with weapons chosen for their poetic aesthetics. This was a war of survival, and though they still fought with their honour, it would be honour of a different kind, honour which did not shy away from the musket and the column. Not all the transfer of knowledge was one-way. Münchhausen was impressed with the Japanese’s swordplay and cavalry skills, and in European warfare of the early 19th century swords were a weapo
n that might be secondary but were certainly not obsolete. Japanese swords, properly called katana but often known in Europe as yaponski sablya, soon became popular conversation pieces for the intelligentsia of Moscow and St Petersburg.[233]
Other companies were also formed from Japanese commoners displaced by the fighting, generally more willing to serve under barbarian white officers. These included the Burakumin or untouchables, associated with tainted occupations such as slaughtering animals and digging graves, as well as peasants whose usual role was to work the rice paddies, and others across the social spectrum. This created problems for the RLPC, as none of these groups would serve with each other; the samurai-derived ronin certainly would not be considered on the same level as the lower classes (indeed, formerly it had been perfectly legal for any samurai to execute on a whim any peasant he happened to feel offended by) and none would serve with the Aynyu. The result was a careful system of segregated companies possibly inspired by French practices in India. Ironically, history has grouped all of them vaguely under the name ronin, reflecting the mixing that came later on.
The ronin companies (in the modern sense of the word) answered directly to Benyovsky and Münchhausen, and hired out their services to Daimyo rather than pledging allegiance to them. This new and (to many) unpleasant means of warfare rocked the social structure of Old Japan even taking into account the existing shudders of the civil war, but nonetheless the ronin found it easy to find employment. Many Daimyo employed them to wipe out the wild ronin bands still infesting their own Hans; while sometimes indeed this occurred, often the ronin were able to convince their wild comrades to join them. The result was that by 1809 the RLPC had access to a rather large army of ronin, though they were hampered by the fact that large parts of said army refused to be seen on the same battlefield as other parts. As a natural consequence of this (and Tokugawa’s fury over the existence of the bands and refusal to negotiate with the Russians) the ronin ended up in effective control of several of the northern leaderless Hans, particularly those just across the Tsugaru Strait from Edzo, such as Hirosaki and Kuroishi.
