The policy changes of the Edo shogunate known as the Kansei Reforms began in 1787 with the appointment of Matsudaira Sadanobu as chief councilor following the fall of his predecessor Tanuma Okitsugu. In 1790, as part of the reforms, the Kansei Edict prohibiting teachings other than the Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi was issued to the head of the Hayashi family, Rector Hayashi Nobutaka, and announced to his disciples the following day.
　Previously, in the year 1788, Sadanobu had invited the Neo-Confucian Shibano Ritsuzan from Kyoto to serve in Edo as an official scholar of the shogunate. Shibano Ritsuzan and his associates Nishiyama Sessai, Rai Shunsai and other Neo-Confucians from the western regions had been advocating a prohibition of heterodox schools. While this advocacy was indeed one influence leading to the Kansei Edict, for Sadanobu the Kansei Reforms were primarily a first step towards reformation of the education system itself and their true purpose was to correct systemic corruption and install new talent in the struggling Hayashi academy.
　Under pressure to reform the academy in response to the edict, Hayashi Nobutaka seventh generation head of the Hayashi family, fell ill and died without an heir in 1792 at the age of twenty-six. In response, Sadanobu sought to install someone sympathetic to the cause of education reform and capable of managing a transformation of the academy. In 1793, the then 26-year-old Hayashi Jussai, son of Matsudaira Norimori of the Iwamura Domain was chosen as eighth generation successor to the Hayashi family. Jussai, who had studied under the Hayashi trained scholar Shibui Taishitsu, was well known as a kanshi poet and a member of the daimyo elite literary salon Fūgetsusha. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

抄録全体を表示

This paper will examine Russo-Japanese diplomacy in the late 18th and the mid 19th centuries in order to understand the Japanese view of international order before being assimilated into the western international order.
As the Russians were approaching Ezo, now the northern islands of Japan, the Japanese recognised that Russia might capture Ezo and insisted on protecting it, whether the method was by trade with Russia or naval defence. Russia was an object to be examined as a counterpart, not an inferior barbarian under hierarchy in ‘the Chinese World Order.’ Matsudaira Sadanobu, the chancellor in 1787-93, regarded foreign countries as equal to Japan, and maintained that idea in order to understand them as potential enemies against Japan. When Russian envoy Laxman arrived at Ezo in 1792, Sadanobu dealt with his demand for direct communication to Edo and commerce, according to “politeness and rules”, at the same time leading him to Nagasaki, which could avoid a Russian intrigue against Japan, and preparing the defence. Sadanobu paid attention to the potential threat posed by Russia and other states, coping with that threat by satisfying them and rejecting them according to law, as a means both practical and moral. In the Japanese view of international order, hierarchy was not a basis in the sense that Japan ruled the surrounding order. Rather nations were equal and tended to expand without moral constraints. In Sadanobu's case, the common language was politeness and rules, and the Chinese order and Western order were also recognised as separate international systems in the same world. In this sense, the Japanese view of international order was already “modernised” in advance of intense interactions with the West, and also had developed as a unique one of the Japanese origin.
Reflecting the appearance of western ships and the Opium War, the Japanese recognised that the Western threat was strong enough to assimilate China and Japan. This threat intensified the emphasis on competitive aspects of the Japanese view of international order, thus splitting sharply arguments for trade and those for exclusion. Even in views of Jo-i exclusionists, the international order consisted not of hierarchy with Japan on the top, but of warring equal states. Kawaji Toshiakira, negotiating the border with the Russian envoy Putiatin in 1853, also regarded European states as equal enemies to be studied in order to oppose. In his view of international order, though the evil intentions of European states were emphasised in comparison with the views in the 18th century, the “modernised” aspects such as equality among nations and rational thinking without moral restraints were inherited.

抄録全体を表示

光格天皇は、天明六年（一七八六）に隠岐国駅鈴を実見した。駅鈴は古代律令制下で、天皇が日本各地を支配するためのモノであった。駅鈴の存在を知った光格天皇は、日本国の歴史が古代から連綿と続いているのを認識した。天明八年（一七八八）に御所が焼失した。三年後、御所は古代王朝風の姿に再建され、寛政二年（一七九〇）一一月二二日に新御所への遷幸が行われた。朝廷の存在と権威を市中に知らしめるため、遷幸行列は古代王朝風の姿で行われた。この行列に隠岐国駅鈴が加わった。今日、光格天皇は復古的と評され、討幕、明治維新へという流れの出発点となったとされる。光格天皇が幕末史で画期となったのは、歴史の必然、時代の要請というような言葉で説明できるものではない。光格天皇の世界観、歴史観、国家観に決定的な影響を与えたのは、古代と光格天皇の時代を結びつけた隠岐国の駅鈴だったのである。

抄録全体を表示