The International Situation in East Asia and the Establishment of a Modern Army and Modern Warfare in Japan: The Memorandum of Takashima Shūhan
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Sergey Tolstoguzov
Abstract
During the Tokugawa bakufu, Japan’s foreign policy was under set conditions, generally known as sakoku, meaning ‘closed country’. However, the existing regime was not fully closed to the outside world. Contact with foreigners in Nagasaki, Tsushima, and Ryūkyū Islands meant that the country was not completely isolated, but rather experienced a situation in which government policy was aimed at achieving strict control over all contact with the outside world, as part of a larger strategy to monopolize all foreign relations. This paper examines the ideas of Takashima Shirōtayu Shūhan (1798–1866), one of the early Japanese reformers, who argued for the modernization of Japan. Beginning in the 1830s, a Nagasaki bakufu official, Takashima Shūhan, began importing flintlock pistols, known as gewehr rifles, from the Netherlands. Additionally, through the Dutch at Dejima, Takashima managed to obtain cannons, field guns, and mortars, in doing so highlighting the importance of the modernization of the artillery forces of the bakufu army. In September 1840, Takashima Shūhan completed his memorandum, which was sent to the bakufu top administers. On 27 June 1841, Takashima was permitted to undertake the first modern Western military demonstration in Tokumarugahara (an area north of the capital city, Edo). He was heavily criticized by many, including bugyō Torii Tadateru, [1] and was placed under investigation and house arrest on charges of subversion and conspiracy. Takashima’s memorandum requires careful study in order to discover the reasons for the bakufu’s response, which must also include a discussion of the Japanese financial situation at that time.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
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- Übersetzungen – Translations – Traductions
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- The International Situation in East Asia and the Establishment of a Modern Army and Modern Warfare in Japan: The Memorandum of Takashima Shūhan
- Über die Idee und das Wirkliche (Teil III)
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Auf der Suche nach Erkenntnis zwischen Asien und Europa: al-Ġazālī, Descartes und die moderne Forschungswissenschaft
- Unfertige Studien 3: Die Nihāyat al-marām des Ḍiyāʾaddīn ar-Rāzī
- Trois regards sur la notion de « culture chinoise »
- L’analyse sur la Négation Explétive en Chinois-Mandarin à Travers sa Comparaison avec le Français
- Sondersektion „Religionsbegriff“
- Concepts of Religion between Asia and Europe – Some Retrospective Preliminaries
- Religion and the Public Sphere in Premodern India
- ‘Religion’ and the Concept of the Buddha Way: Semantics of the Religious in Dōgen
- Übersetzungen – Translations – Traductions
- The Chronicle of Jōe – A Translation of the Second Part of the History of the Fujiwara House
- Bedeutungswandel der Zivilgesellschaft oder das Elend der Ideengeschichte: Eine kommentierte Übersetzung von Kiyoaki Hiratas Aufsatz zum Begriff shimin shakai bei Antonio Gramsci (Teil 2)
- The International Situation in East Asia and the Establishment of a Modern Army and Modern Warfare in Japan: The Memorandum of Takashima Shūhan
- Über die Idee und das Wirkliche (Teil III)
- Forschungsnotiz – Note de recherche – Research Note
- Protest und Demokratisierung in Myanmar: Erste Erkenntnisse aus dem „Myanmar Protest Event Dataset“
- Rezension – Compte rendu – Review
- Milburn, Olivia: The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan
