内容抜粋 志士の言葉
【上杉鷹山――封建君主】
[朗読試聴]
「わが領民の悲惨な状況を目にし、絶望的な気持ちになっているとき、ふと見ると、目の前の火鉢の炭火が消えかかっている。
そっと取り上げて優しく辛抱強く息を吹きかけていたら、首尾よく炭火がまた燃え出し、実にうれしく思った。
『同じようにして、私に託された領地と領民をよみがえらせることができないだろうか』そう自分に言い聞かせたら、再び希望が湧いてきたのだ」
「赤子は自分の知識を持っていない。しかし母たる者は、その子が必要としているものを悟って世話をする。
それは母親に真心があるからだ。真心は愛を生み、愛は知恵を生む。真心があればできないことはない。
母が子に対するように、役人も民に接しなければならない。民を愛する心さえあれば、自分に知恵がないことを嘆く必要はない」
UESUGI YOZAN - A FEUDAL LORD
【BOOK】
I-THE FEUDAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT 第1章 封建制度
IS the "Kingdom of Heaven" an impossibility
in this poor earth of ours? Mankind
has yearned after it as a thing not wholly
unattainable, and History from its very
beginning seems to be a succession of some
undefinable attempts for the
realization of such a kingdom upon this earth.
Christians have taken up the echo
of the Hebrew prophets, and for the nineteen
Christian centuries they ceased not
to pray for the coming of such a kingdom
among men. Indeed some impatient souls
among us imagined that such was possible,
and History knows of no higher
examples of holy courage and noble self-sacrifice
than a few bold attempts of
making such a kingdom a practicability among
the fallen sons of Adam.
Savonarola's Florentine Republic, Cromwell's
English Commonwealth, and Penn's
"Holy Experiment" upon the banks
of the Delaware, were a few such attempts,
-
the noblest pieces of human valor ever enacted
upon the face of the globe. Yet the
ideal was only approximately realized. With
all our improved machineries of
governments, we ourselves seem to be as far
removed from the haven as our
ancestors were ten centuries ago. Indeed,
so stationary appears our real situation
that a wise man among us startles us by stating
that the human species has
progressed in only one direction, and that
is downward.
Of course, tyrannies of all kinds we hate
and detest. Despotic tyranny is now
known only under the Tropics, and even there
it will be soon done away with. But
it is a foolishness to imagine that tyranny
of any sort can make no entrance into
ballot-boxes. Tyranny is among us so long
as we are in league with devils, and it
will not cease to exist among us till the
last-named gentlemen are driven out
entirely from our midst. Hence we say, of
the two kinds of tyranny mankind has
suffered from, namely the despotic kind and
the ballot-box kind, the latter is only
the lesser of two evils, and no more. The
better or the best is yet to come, though
when and how we are cautioned not to utter.
But let us all believe, and that unflinchingly,
that no system can take the place of
virtue. Yea more, when virtue does exist,
systems are hindrance rather than helps.
"The improved machineries" are
intended more for binding robbers than for
helping saints. We consider the representative
system of government to be a sort of
improved police system. Rogues and rascals
are well kept down thereby, but no
hosts of policemen can take the place of
a saint or a hero. ''Neither very bad nor
very good," must be said of this system.
Feudalism has had its defects, and for those
defects' sake, we had it exchanged for
constitutionalism. But we fear the fire that
was intended to burn rats burned the
barn also, and together with feudalism has
gone away from us loyalty, chivalry,
and much of manliness and humaneness connected
with it. Loyalty in its genuine
sense is possible only when the master and
the subject are in direct contact with
each other. You bring a "system"
between the two, and loyalty is not, as the
master
is now no more a master but a governor, and
the subject no more a subject but a
people. Then come wranglings for constitutional
rights, and men go to parchments
for settling their disputes and not to hearts,
as they used to in days of old.
Self-sacrifice and all its beauty come when
I have my master to serve, or my
subject to care for. The strength of feudalism
lies in this personal nature of the
relation between the governor and the governed.
In its essence it is really the
family system applied to a nation. In its
perfected form, therefore, it can be no
other than the ideal form of government,
as no law or constitution is better or
higher than the Law of Love. Do we not read
in the best of books that in the
promised kingdom of the future, we shall
be called "My people," that "Thy
rod and
Thy staff" shall comfort us? So we sincerely
hope that feudalism is gone from us
not for ever. After a few more hundred or
thousand years of constitutional wranglings,
when men shall have learnt that they are
all children of one Father, and hence are
brothers, we do sincerely hope that feudalism
will return to us once more, this time
in its perfect and glorified shape, and the
true samurai shall be installed once more
in power "to spare the vanquished, and
to crush the proud," and "the law
of peace to found."
But while we are waiting for the coming of
such a kingdom, let us refresh
ourselves by an account of something very
much like it, once enacted upon this
terraqueous globe, and that in heathen Japan.
Yes, before wisdom came from the
West, the land did know the ways of peace,
and in its own secluded manner, "the
ways of man" were walked in, and "death
was encountered with a hero's resolve."
II-THE MAN AND HIS WORK 第2章 人物とその業績
Yozan was a mere lad of seventeen when he
came to the inheritance of the
territory of Yonezawa in the now province
of Uzen. Born of the Akizuki family, a
rather inconsiderable daimio of Kiushu, he
was adopted by the Uesugi, higher in
rank and larger in territorial possession.
But as we shall presently see, the
adoption was a thankless privilege on his
part, as he was thus involved in
responsibilities, the like of which were
not to be found in the whole land. The boy
was recommended by his aunt to the elder
lord of Yonezawa as "rather reticent
and
meditative, filial piety very characteristic
of him." Unlike the common sons of the
noble, he was singularly submissive to his
tutor, Hosoi by name, who as a scholar
and man of high principle, was raised to
this responsible position from a state of
total obscurity. The favorite story of a
dutiful pupil often repeated to him by his
worthy tutor was on this wise: "Tokugawa
Yorinobu, the powerful lord of Kii,
always looked with tender care upon a scar
that was left upon his thigh, caused by
a sharp pinch given by his teachers for some
disobedience to the latter's will. 'This,'
the great lord is reported to have often
declared, 'is the warning my revered
teacher has left on me, that on looking at
it always, I may always examine myself,
and be true to myself and to my people. But
alas, the scar is fading with my age,
and with it my vigilance too." The young
Yozan always wept when this story was
repeated to him, - a sensitiveness of the
rarest occurence at the time when princes
were reared in the closest seclusion, and
were, as a rule, no more conscious of their
duty toward their inferiors, than of the
reason that kept them in power and
opulence. That saying of a Chinese sage "Be
ye as tender to your people as to a
wound in your body" seemed to have impressed
him to the very bottom of his heart,
and the text became to him his own, and guided
him in all his future dealings with
his people.
The man so sensitive cannot but be religiously
so as well. On the day of his
installment in his office, he sent in the
following oath to the temple of Kasuga, his
guardian god through his life:
"I. The exercises, literary and military,
which I have prescribed to myself shall I
pursue without negligence.
"II. To be a father and a mother to
my people shall be my first and chief endeavour.
"III. The words that follow shall I
not forget day and night :
No extravagance, no danger.
Give in charity, but waste not.
"IV. Inconsistencies of words with actions,
injustice in reward and punishment,
unfaithfulness and indecency, - from these
shall I diligently guard myself.
"The above shall I strictly observe
in future, and in case of my negligence of
the
same, let divine punishment overtake me at
once, and the family fortune be for
ever consumed.
These,
Uesugi, of the Office of Danjo,*[ His official
title.]
Fujiwara Harunori.
The First day of the Eighth Month
of the Fourth Year of Meiwa (1767)."
The work this man was to face was one, which
no soul less than his, would dare
to undertake. His adopted clan of Uesugi
was in time before Taiko one of the most
powerful in the whole country, holding, as
it did, the large and wealthy province of
Echigo, together with parts of several other
provinces on the western coast of
Japan. The clan was removed by Taiko to the
Aidzu district, and its power was
greatly reduced thereby. Yet it was still
a powerful clan, with a revenue of over
1,000,000 koku of rice and its lord was counted
among the five great daimios of the
country. Through its siding with the anti-Tokugawa
party in the battle of
Sekigahara (1600), the seat of the clan was
again removed, this time to an
out-of-the-way district of Yonezawa, with
the reduced revenue of 300,000 koku.
Then to make bad worse, the revenue was once
more cut off one half, and when
Yozan came to be the chief, the Uesugi was
a daimio of 150,000 koku, with subjects
once supported by 1,000,000 koku, and all
the habits and practices established
upon the latter basis. We need not wonder,
therefore, when we hear that the new
territory scarcely supported the clan, that
its debts amounted to millions, that
taxes and exactions scared off the population,
that penury and destitution
prevailed everywhere in the district. Yonezawa
is in the southern part of the
province of Uzen, has no sea-coast, and its
fertility and natural resources ranked
very low in the country. The whole made the
case a most hopeless one, and the
dissolution of the clan, and the bankruptcy
of the people under its protection,
seemed to be inevitable at no distant future.
We can well understand the extremity
to which the whole clan was reduced, when
we hear that often-times they were
unable to raise five pieces of gold by their
united effort, - a state of poverty hard
to
believe about a daimio, who owned 750 square
miles of land, with a population of
over l00,000. The boy Yozan's business was
first to put a stop to this state of things,
then to restore it to something of tolerability,
and if his guardian god of Kasuga
would bless him more, to make of his territory
an ideal state as laid out by
philosophic sages of old.
Two years after his installment in the office,
he made his first entrance to his own
territory of Yonezawa. It was in late autumn
when Nature lent sadness to the state
of things already sad enough in themselves.
As the procession passed by villages
after villages, deserted, neglected, and
depopulated, the sensitive heart of the
young chief was deeply touched by the sights
before him. It was then that his
attendants observed him in his norimono diligently
engaged in blowing at a
charcoal fire in a little hibachi before
him. "We can serve your Lordship with
good
fire," said one of them. "Not now,"
Yozan replied; "I am now learning a
great lesson.
What it is I will tell you afterward."
In a hotel where the procession stopped for
the
night, the chief called his attendants together,
and explained to them a new and
valuable lesson he had learnt that afternoon.
He said: "As despair took hold of me,
as I witnessed with my own eyes my people's
miseries, my attention was called to a
little charcoal fire before me, that was
on the point of going out. I slowly took
it up,
and by blowing at it gently and patiently,
I succeeded in resuscitating it - to my very
satisfaction. 'May I not be able in the same
way to resuscitate the land and the
people that are under my care?' This I said
to myself, and hope revived within me."
III-THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM 第3章 行政改革
Men are natural enemies of changes, in Japan
as elsewhere. Young Yozan must
effect changes, else salvation was impossible.
But changes in others must begin
with changes in one's own self. Naturally,
finance was the first question to be
settled. Only by the utmost frugality could
it be restored to anything like order and
credit. The chief himself would curtail his
family expense of 1,050 pieces of gold to
209 pieces. He would keep only nine maids
in his household instead of fifty as
before; would wear nothing but cotton stuff,
and would eat no more than soup and
one dish at a meal. His subjects were to
be likewise economical, but not in the
proportion he himself would be. The annual
allowances were reduced one-half; and
the savings thus realized were to be used
to liquidate the accumulated debt of the
clan. This state of things must continue
for sixteen years before the clan could be
free from its pressing obligations! This
is, however, only the negative aspect of
the
finance reform.
"The people's happiness is the ruler's
wealth." "As well expect an egg-plant
fruit
from a cucumber-vine as to look for wealth
from misgoverned people." And no good
government is possible without right men
in right places. And men he would have
by all means, though the hereditary nature
of the feudal government was against
this democratic idea of "a man according
to his abilities." Out of his impoverished
treasury he paid very liberally to men of
ability, and these he placed over his
people in three distinct capacities. First,
there were the governor and his
sub-officers who were general supervisors,
"fathers and mothers of the people,"
taking upon themselves all the duties of
the general administrative affairs of the
little state. To these one of Yozan's injunctions
read as follows:
"The child has no knowledge of its own;
but she who mothers it understands its
needs and ministers thereto, because she
does this from her sincere heart.
Sincerity begets love, and love begets knowledge.
Only be sincere, and nothing is
unattainable. As is the mother to her child,
so must the officer be to his people. If
but the heart that loves the people lies
in you, you need not lament that lack of
wisdom in you."
The second class of his officers were a kind
of itinerant preachers who were to
teach the people in morals and ceremonies,
"of filial piety, of pity toward widows
and orphans, of matters of marriage, of decency
in clothing, of food and ways of
eating, of funeral services, of house-repairs,
etc." The whole territory was divided
into twelve districts (dioceses) for this
purpose, each with a presiding teacher
(lay-bishop) over it. These bishops were
to meet twice a year for mutual conference,
and to make occasional reports to the chief
of the progress of their work among the
people.
The third class were policemen of the strictest
kind. They were to detect the people's
vices and crimes, and to punish them severely
for their just dues. Mercy they were
to show none, and every nook and corner of
villages and towns was to be carefully
investigated. It was a diocese's shame to
produce offenders, and every preacher took
upon himself responsibilities for the troubles
his district gave to the police. Yozan's
injunction to the two classes of officers
was as follows :
"Go with Zizo's*[God of mercy.] mercy,
ye preachers, but forget not to carry
Fudo's*[ God of justice.] justice within
you.
"Show Emma's*[God of justice.] justice
and righteous wrath, ye police; but fail
not to store Zizo's mercy in your bosom."
The three functions together worked admirably.
His general administrative
policies went out through the governor and
his subsidiaries. But Yozan says, "To
rule a people that is not taught is costly
and ineffectual." And such teaching
was
furnished by his lay-bishops, to give "life
and warm circulation to the whole."
But
teaching without discipline is also ineffectual.
Hence the strictest police system to
make the teaching more effectual, and the
mercy shown, more conspicuous. The
young lord must have had no little insight
into human nature to have enable him
to frame such a system for governing mankind.
The new machinery was put in operation for
five years without meeting any
molestation from any quarter. Order began
to show itself, and hopes revived of the
possible resuscitation of the despaired-of
society. Then came the trial, the severest
of all, under which souls weaker than Yozan's
would have surely succumbed.
Conservatives showed themselves, - those
who love the old for its own sake, if not
for their bellies' sake. Renovations of any
kind are objectionable to such men. One
day, seven of the highest dignitaries of
the district approached the young chief with
their grievances, and tried to wrest from
him words for the immediate abrogation
of the new system of government. The chief
was silent. He would have his people
judge him; and if they objected to the new
administration, he would willingly give
its place and his own to the better and the
abler. So he called the general
conference of all his subjects at once. Armored
and weaponed, they in thousands
gather in the castle, and wait for the business.
Meanwhile our lord resorts to the
temple of the god Kasuga to pray for the
peaceful issue of the trouble. Then he
meets his beloved subjects, and asks them
if in their opinions his administration is
against Heaven's will. The governor and his
associates say, No. The police, one and
all, say, No. Captains and sergeants say,
No. "Different mouths with one voice,"
say,
No. Our lord is satisfied. Vox populi est
vox dei. His mind is made up. He calls the
seven before him, and passes sentences upon
them. Five of them had halves of
their fiefs forfeited, and "shut up
within their gates for ever." Two of
them, the
head conspirators, were dealt with according
to the manners of samurai, - were
"given harakiri," bowel-cutting,
a dignified method of self-destruction !
Conservatives and grumblers thus disposed
of, good began to flow in in
abundance. No reform is complete till this
is done. The young chief is a veritable
hero notwithstanding his religiosity and
sensitiveness of heart. We may now
expect a prosperous reign from him.
IV-THE INDUSTRIAL REFORMS 第4章 産業改革
Yozan's industrial policies were two: (1)
to leave no waste places in his territory,
(2) and no idlers among his people. Though
not naturally fertile, he thought he
could make his land give 300,000 koku instead
of 150,000, by sheer industry on his
and his people's part. Agriculture he encouraged
therefore with his whole heart.
So, a few years after he assumed the government,
he went through the ceremony of
"Earth-Worship" on a grand scale.
The lord, the governor, country-officers,
village-officers, lay-bishops, the heads
of the police, all dressed in sacerdotal
robes,
proceed first to the temple of Kasuga, to
inform the god of their aim and purpose.
The procession then marches to a piece of
ground recently opened, and there with
all solemnity the chief first takes up a
hand-plough, and strikes three times into
the ground. The governor comes next, and
strikes nine times. Then county-officers
twenty-seven times, village-officers eighty-one
times, and so on to the very "tiller
of the soil." The whole was a public
announcement of the most august kind, that
from that time on the earth was to be sacredly
handled, and all blessings of life
were to be expected from it. No bad worship
after all!
His samurai he turned into farmers in time
of peace, and recovered thousands of
acres from desolation and wilderness in that
way. He ordered lacquer-trees to be
extensively planted. Every samurai family
was required to plant 15 nurslings in its
yard; every family other than samurai, 5;
and every temple, 20 within its
enclosure. For every one tree that was planted
above the required number, the
reward of twenty cents was given; and for
every one that died and was not replaced
by another, a fine of the same sum was required.
Over one million nurslings of this
valuable plant were thus planted in his territory
within a very short period, - a
matter of very great consequence to the posterity.
A million more of kozo*[ Paper-plants,
Broussonetia papyrifera.] were planted in
those places which allowed of no cultivation.
But Yozan's chief aim was to make his territory
one of the greatest silk-producing
districts in the land. For this a fund was
required which his impoverished treasury
was not able to supply. He therefore cut
fifty more out of the two hundred and
nine pieces of gold which he had reserved
for his family-expenses, and did with it
as much as he could to forward this industry
among his people. The young chief says,
"Slender means is a large sum if long
continued." So he continued for fifty
long years,
till the few thousands of mulberry stocks
he had commenced with propagated themselves,
and his whole territory had no more space
left for them. The Yonezawa district of to-day
and its splendid silk-produce testify to
the patience and benevolence of its ancient
chief.
The Yonezawa brand now ranks highest in the
market.
Still waste lands remained in his territory.
In a rice-producing country like Japan,
fertility means abundance of water-supply,
and insufficient irrigation leaves large
portions of land in comparative sterility.
Conveyance of water through long
distances seemed an impossibility with Yozan's
exhausted treasury. But frugality
with him meant no parsimony. "Give in
charity, and waste not," was his motto.
When public welfare was assured, he could
think of no impossibility, for he had
patience to make up the lack in his means.
So it was that the poorest of daimios
projected and completed two of the most stupendous
engineering works ever
undertaken in Old Japan. One was the conduction
of water for a distance of
twenty-eight miles through viaducts and long
and high embankments, all of
which are master-pieces of hydraulic engineering.
The other was the turning of the
water-course of a large stream through a
tunnel, 1,200 feet of which was through
solid rocks. This latter work took twenty
years of Yozan's administration, and is
by far the most important of his services
to his territory. Among his subjects he had
one Kuroi, a slow speechless man, passing
for a good-for-nothing till the chief
found out his usefulness. The man was a mathematician
of the rarest ability. With
his rude instruments he made careful surveys
of the territory, and planned out the
works, which to his contemporaries, appeared
like real madness. He completed the
first, and died while engaged in the second.
The work was continued nevertheless
following the plan laid out by him; and twenty
years after its commencement, the
tunnel was bored through from both ends,
the lower section meeting the upper four
feet below the latter, - a wonder of accuracy
in calculation when the transit or the
theodolite was an unknown instrument in the
land. Deserts began to blossom, and
fertility flowed in abundance into Yozan's
territory. Yonezawa alone of all northern
provinces knows of no draught to this day.
That nothing might escape the solicitous
attention of the chief for his people's
welfare, he imported improved breeds of horses,
stocked ponds and streams with
carps and eels, invited miners and weavers
from other provinces, removed all the
commercial obstructions, and endeavored to
develop in every way all the resources
of which his territory was capable. These
with his extermination of idlers from
among his people, and their conversion into
useful laborers, brought about changes
such that the once poorest district in the
land became a type of productivity near
the close of his life, and has continued
so ever since.
V-THE SOCIAL AND MORAL REFORMS 第5章 社会とモラルの改革
One beautiful feature of Oriental knowledge
is that it has never treated economy
apart from morality. Wealth with their philosophers
is always the effect of virtue,
and the two bear the same relation to each
other that the fruit bears to the tree.
You manure the tree, and the result will
surely be fruit without your effort.
You "fertilise love to the people,"
and wealth will be a necessary outcome.
"Therefore the great man thinketh of
the tree, and he hath the fruit.
The small man thinketh of the fruit, and
he hath it not." Such was
the Confucianism indoctrinated into Yozan's
mind by his worthy teacher Hosoi.
In this lies the grandeur of all of Yozan's
industrial reforms that his chief aim was
to make virtuous people out of his subjects.
The hedonistic view of happiness was
repugnant to his idea. Wealth was to be had
that all might be made "decorous
people" thereby, for, said the ancient
sage, "Decorum is known only when life's
necessities are had." Remarkably free
from the conventionalities of the time, he
aimed to lead his heaven-entrusted people
into "the ways of man," alike binding
on
the daimio and the tiller of the soil.
Some years after he came to his office, when
his other reforms were fairly set
a-going, he revived the clan-school long
in suspense, and named it Kojokwan, or
the "Institute for the Promotion of
Humility," very expressive of the dominant
virtue he had in view. The magnitude and
equipment of the school were out of all
proportions to the then financial state of
the clan, for besides having one of the
greatest scholars of the day for its provost,
- Hosoi Heishu, Yozan's own tutor,
- it provided many free scholarships to enable
the worthy poor of his dominion
to get the advantage of a high-class education.
For nearly a century after
its establishment, the Yonezawa school continued
to be a type and example
to the whole country. The institute still
remains, retaining its old name,
and is perhaps the oldest of the kind in
the land.
But no administration of love is complete
till it provides means for the healing of
the sick, and in this, as might be expected,
our good chief was not wanting. A
medical school was started, for which two
of the then most notable physicians of
the country were invited to be instructors.
A botanical garden was also opened for
the cultivation of medicinal plants, and
pharmacy was taught and practiced on the
spot with the products thus obtained. At
the time when the European medical art
was looked upon with fear and suspicion,
Yozan caused several of his subjects to be
trained in the new system by Dr. Sugita Genhaku,
of great celebrity as the first
Japanese physician after the Dutch method.
Once convinced of its superiority over
the Japanese and Chinese medicine, he spared
no expense to get all the medical
apparatuses he possibly could, and deposited
them in his school to be freely used in
instruction and practice, Thus fifty years
before Perry's squadron appeared in the
Bay of Yedo, one of the mountain-districts
of north Japan had the Western
medicine adopted by the general public. Yozan's
Chinese education had not made
a Chinaman out of him.
Of his purely social reforms, we have space
for but two of them.
His abolition of public prostitution was
in entire accordance with his views of
"administration of love." To the
usual objection that thus might be cut off
a channel
for the vile passion to spend itself, and
endanger social purity in other and more
heinous ways, his plain answer was, that
"if the passion is to be thus allayed,
no
amount of prostitution is enough for the
purpose." He had it abolished, and could
keep it abolished without any social inconvenience
whatever.
His instruction to the farming class, - by
far the most important in his dominion,
- on "the Institution of the Associations
of Five and Ten" (Go-Ju-kumiai) is so
characteristic of his ideal of the perfect
state that we give it here entire, keeping
ourselves as close to the original as possible.
"The farmer's mission is in soil (tillage)
and mulberries (silk-raising).
Diligent in these, he feeds his father and
mother, wife and children, and gives his
dues to the government to have its protection.
But all this is possible by the mutual
dependence of one upon another, for which
purpose associations of some kind are
necessary. Not that you had them not already,
but as we hear of none that can
be thoroughly depended upon, we herein institute
anew the Associations of Five
and Ten and the Associations of Five Villages
as follows:
"I. - The members of the Association
of Five*[Only heads of families were counted.
The rest, the same.] should be in constant
intercourse one with another, share
the joys and sorrows of each, as do the members
of one and the same family.
"II. - The members of the Association
of Ten should have frequent intercourse one
with another, and bear to the family affairs
of each, a tie equal to their blood
relationship.
"III. - They of one village should be
like friends in helping and serving one another.
"IV. - The villages that constitute
the Association of Five Villages should help
one another in time of troubles, as befit
true neighbors in all such cases.
"V. - Be ye thus kindly disposed one
toward another, and fail not. If there is
one among you who is old and has no child,
or is young and has no parents, or is
poor and cannot adopt sons, or is widowed,
or is a cripple and support himself, or
is sick and has no means of help, or is dead
and is left without burial, or has met
fire and exposed to rain and dew, or if by
other calamities his family is in
distress, - let any such who has no one else
to depend upon be taken up by his
Association of Five, and be cared for as
its own. In case it lies not in the said
Association's power to succor him, let his
Association of Ten lend him its help. If
his
case is more than the latter can do for him,
let his village see to the removal of his
distress and make possible his existence.
Should some calamity overtake one village
so that its existence is endangered thereby,
how can its neighboring villages stand
aloof without extending help to it? The four
of the Association of Five Villages
should give it willing salvation.
"VI. - To encourage the good, to teach
the bad, to promote temperance, to check
luxury, and so to enable each to abide in
his mission, - these are the aims for which
these associations are formed. If there is
one who neglects his farm, or follows not
his trade and runs to other employments,
or indulges in dances, theatres, banquets
and other laxities, such and such like should
have peremptory admonition, first of
his Association of Five, and then of Ten;
and in case he is still refractory, he must
be privily reported to the village authority
and receive due treatment.
February, 2nd year of Kyowa (1802)."
Not much of officialism in all these; yet
we declare we never have seen the like of
them promulgated and put into practice in
any other portion of the globe except in
Yozan's dominion of Yonezawa. What is called
the farmers' guild in America and
elsewhere is nothing more than an industrial
cooperation, with selfishness as
its main motive. We should go to the Apostolic
Church itself to find anything
like our chief's Associations of farmers.
With his polices and lay-bishops, schools
and various "instructions," and
above all,
with his own example, he moulded his clan
of 150,000 souls to his ideals slowly
but effectively. How far he succeeded in
so doing can be seen by the following
few extracts from an account of his dominion
given by a well-known scholar,
Kuranari Ryucho, who went there for the special
purpose of observing
"how the saint rules his people."
"In Yonezawa there is what they call
the Label-Market. Away from
the habitations of men, by the side of public
roads, sandals, shoes, fruits and other
articles are exposed for sale with their
prices labeled upon them, and their owners
all absent. Men go there, leave the prices
as marked, fetch the goods, and pass on,
and nobody imagines that any stealing will
be done in these markets.
"In Lord Yozan's government, the men
highest in office are usually the poorest.
R- is his prime minister, and no body can
be compared with him in the chief's
favor and confidence. Yet, as I observed
his ways of living, his food and raiment
reminded me of those of a poor student.
"The dominion has no custom-houses and
all such obstructions to free commerce
on its borders, and yet no smuggling is ever
attempted."
Let not our readers imagine that we are writing
here an idyl about some mythic
land of unknown ages. The things of which
we write were practical realities; not
yet one hundred years have passed since they
were enacted in a well-known
portion of this globe; and if they are no
more realities such as they were in the days
of their great enactor, their after-influences
are distinctively readable in the place
where they were tried, and among the people
who practiced them.
VI-THE MAN HIMSELF 第6章 その人となり
It is not fashionable in these days to make
any mortals more than common sons of
Adam, especially so if such happen to be
heathens, "outside of the pale of grace
and
revelation;" and we are often criticized
for making gods out of our heroes. But
perhaps of all men, Yozan has the least need
of having his faults and weaknesses
counted up; as he himself was more conscious
of such than any of his biographers
could possibly be. He was a man in the full
sense of the term. Only a weak man
sends in oaths to a temple on his entrance
to a responsible office. It was his
weakness (if we may so term it) that drove
him to his guardian god when a crisis
overtook him and his clan. One day, while
in his residence at Yedo, a roll containing
the names of those subjects of his who were
to be rewarded for their filial piety was
sent to him for examination and approval.
He looked it over, and ordered it to be kept
in a drawer till his tutor's lecture was
over. It was over, but the important business
slipped from his mind. One of his attendants
severely reprimanded him for
the negligence that was unforgivable in a
"lord of thousand." The chief's
shame
knew no bound. There he sat, for the whole
night in repentance, weeping,
and "could not touch his breakfast because
of his shame." The next morning
the tutor was called in, absolution was passed
over him by a quotation from
the book of Confucius, and then "his
food passed through his throat." Let
not
Historical Criticism be too harsh to a soul
so sensitive as this.
But nowhere do we find the transparency and
integrity of his character more than
in his home and domestic relations. His frugality
we have already touched upon.
He kept up his cotton stuff and meagre table
till the very end of his life, when the
credit of his treasury was fully restored,
and he had abundance at his command.
His old tatami he would not replace till
further remedy became impossible; and he
was often seen patching up torn mats by pasting
papers over them.
His idea of home was a most exalted one.
Herein he followed literally the words of
the sage who said, "He alone ruleth
his family who ruleth himself; and he alone
can rule a nation whose family is in right
order." At the time when nobody
doubted the right of concubinage, especially
in men of his social standing, and
when a few daimios had less than four or
five concubines, Yozan had only one who
was his senior by ten years, and under the
following exceptional circumstance. The
lady to whom he was wedding in his minority
by their parents, according to the
then custom of the land, proved to be a born
imbecile, and her intellect was never
above that of a child of ten years of age.
Her however he treated with genuine love
and respect, made for her toys and dolls,
and comforted her in all ways, and for
twenty years of their wedded lives he never
showed any dissatisfaction with his
fate. His other consorts was left in Yonezawa
while they lived mostly in Yedo, and
was never allowed the dignity he attached
to his imbecile wife. The latter of course
left him no children.
Naturally he was benignant father, and he
made strenuous efforts for the
education of his children. He clearly saw
the importance involved in this part of his
duty, as in the hereditary system of the
Feudal Government, his people's future
happiness depended wholly upon the kind of
rulers he would leave after him. His
boys he trained in "the knowledge of
the poor," that ''they might not forfeit
their
great mission and sacrifice it to their selfish
purpose." That we may have a look
into his ways of training his children, we
give here one of many beautiful letters he
wrote to his granddaughters. It was addressed
to the eldest of them when she was
leaving her paternal mansion to join her
consort in the metropolis.
"Three influences make a man; his parents,
his teacher, and his master. Each is
unfathomable in beneficence, but the parents
excel all others......Our being in this
universe we owe to our parents. That this
body is a part of theirs should never be
forgotten. In thy service to them, therefore,
comport thyself with a heart that
dissembles not; for if sincerity reside there
(in heart), even though thou miss the
mark, thou art not far from it. Think not
a thing is out of thy power because of thy
lack in wisdom. Sincerity makes up the lack
thereof........The ruling of a dominion
may appear a stupendous task to thee. But
know that the 'root' of a dominion is in
its well-ordered families. And there can
be no ordered families without the right
relation of the wife to her husband. The
source in disorder, how canst thou
expect a well-ordered stream?.........In
thy youthful womanhood, it is very natural
that thy mind should often be taken up with
the matter of dress. But forsake not
the frugal habits thou hast been taught.
Devote thyself to silk-worm raising and
other womanly industries; and at the same
time feed thy mind with poems
and books of poetry. Seek not culture and
enlightenment for their own sake.
The aim of all knowledge is to lead us into
ways of virtue. Select such knowledge
therefore as shall teach thee to do good
and avoid evil. Poetry softens the heart.
With it the moon and flowers abase us not,
but our sentiments are lifted up thereby
............Thy husband is to teach the people
as their father, and thou art to love them
as their mother. Then they honour you both
as their parents; and what joys can
excel this?............
"To repeat the same things to thee,
serve thy parents-in-law with all fidelity,
and
comfort them. With obedience to thy lord
and husband in all quietness, may your
prosperity know no end, and may my daughter
be honoured as a virtuous woman
worthy of the land that gave her birth.
"On My Beloved Daughter's Leaving for
the Metropolis:
When Spring overtaketh thee,
And raiment of flowers thou puttest on,
Forget not Winter thou hast had,
In thy father's mountain-home.
Harunori."
The hard-working abstemious man enjoyed continuous
health of three-score years
and ten. He had his early hopes mostly realized;
- saw his clan firmly established,
his people well supplied, and his whole dominion
abundantly replenished. The clan
that had not been able to raise five pieces
of gold by their united effort, could now
raise ten thousands at a moment's notice.
The end of such a man could not be
anything but peace. On the 19th of March,
the 5th year of Bunsei (1822), he
breathed his last. "The people wept
as if they had lost their good grandparents.
The lamentations of all classes no pen could
describe. On the day of his funeral,
tens of thousands of mourners filled the
way-side. Hands clasped, and heads all
bowed, deep wailings went up from them all,
and even mountains, rivers,
and plants, joined in the universal sorrow."
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