Chōshū in the Meiji Restoration

441 Pages·1961·8.765 MB·English

by  Albert M. Craig

HARVARD HISTORICAL
MONOGRAPHS
XLVII
Published under the Direction
of the Department of History
from the income of
The Robert Louis Stroock Fund

CHÖSHÜ
in the
MEIJI RESTORATION
ALBERT M. ÇRAIG
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1967
© 1961 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Second Printing
Distributed in Great Britain by
Oxford University Press, London
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-8839
Printed in the Uiyted States of America
TO MY MOTHER
Adda Clendenin Craig

Acknowledgments
My debts to individuals for help received during the writing of this
book are manifold, more than can simply be listed here. I should,
however, particularly like to thank Professor Edwin O. Reischauer,
who guided this work in its initial dissertation phase, for his kind­
ness, his careful page by page corrections of the manuscript, and for
his many valuable interpretive suggestions. I am also grateful to
Dr. Robert N. Bellah for our many discussions about the nature of
modern Japanese society as well as for specific criticisms of my work;
to Professors John K. Fairbank, Roger F. Hackett, Marius B. Jansen,
and Benjamin I. Schwartz, who have read the entire manuscript
and have made suggestions incorporated in the text; and to Mr.
Tanaka Akira and Mr. Seki Junya, both for their expert guidance
in matters pertaining to Chöshü and for their personal kindness
during my stay in Japan in 1955-1956. Lasdy I should like to express
thanks to my wife Teruko. Besides proofreading the entire manu­
script and typing it in its earlier stages, she has made a number of
substantive suggestions and was at all times a source of encourage­
ment.
A. C.

CONTENTS
PART ONE. BACKGROUND:
THE ANATOMY OF A HAN
Introduction 3
Chapter I Chöshü and the Tokugawa Polity 9
Chapter II Chöshü’s Finances and the Tokugawa Economy 26
Chapter III Chöshü and the Tempo Reform 51
Chapter IV The Early Stage of Bakumatsu Politics,
1853-1861 85
Chapter V The Background of Ideas in Chöshü 126
PART TWO. THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT
Chapter VI The Rise of Chöshü in National Politics,
1861-1863 167
Chapter VII The Decline of the Chöshü Sonnö Jöi
Movement, 1863-1864 208
Chapter VIII The Chöshü Civil War 251
Chapter IX The March to Power 302
Conclusion 350
Bibliographical Note 375
Index 381
REFERENCE MATTER
Bibliography i
Glossary xv
TABLES
1. The great han of Tokugawa Japan 11
2. Fiefs within Chöshü 103
3. The geographical distribution of the Hirata School 142
4. An analysis of the Second Kiheitai and the Yöchötai 272
CHART
1. The position of the three dominant cliques in the Chôshû
government from 1840 to 1868 94