Sakuma Shozan

Sakuma Shozan

Sakuma Shōzan , also Zōzan ( Japanese 佐 久 間 象山 ; * May 22, 1811 in the fief of Matsushiro , Shinano Province near today's Nagano ; † August 12, 1864 in Kyoto ) was a Japanese politician, inventor and scholar (physicist) of the Edo period .

Life

Replica of an Elekiter

Sakuma Shōzan was actually called Kunitada ( 国忠 ) and later Hiraki ( 啓 ). He was the son of a samurai and scholar in the Matsushiro fiefdom and went to Edo in 1833 to study Confucian Chinese science and philosophy for three years at the private school of Satō Issai . In 1836 he returned to his homeland Matsushiro and opened his own private school in Edo in 1839. In particular, he became a supporter of the teachings of Zhu Xi and of the neo-Confucian learning from empirical studies propagated by him. Around this time, the defeat of the Chinese against the British in the First Opium War (1839–1842) made a great impression on Sakuma Shozan. After the daimyō of Matsushiro Sanada Yukitsura became the rōjū of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1841 , he ordered Sakuma Shōzan to study Western science, which at that time came to Japan mainly via the Dutch ( called Rangaku ).

He studied on the basis of Huishoudelyk Woordboek , a Dutch translation of a lexicon by the French Nöel Chomel , and also learned Dutch. In the lexicon he found information on how to make various mechanical and optical devices and how to carry out physical experiments (making glass, magnets, telescopes, thermometers). He learned experiments on electricity from a book by the Dutchman van den Bergh, based on which he built a so-called elekiter in Japan , a source of static electricity housed in a box (consisting of an electric machine as a voltage generator and a Leyden bottle as a battery). They had been in use in Japan since the 18th century based on the Dutch model.

He built the first telegraph in Japan in 1849 , five years before such a device was used as a present from US Admiral Matthew Calbraith Perry in 1854 when Japan was forcibly opened by visiting the " Black Ships ", as they were called in Japan came. He experimented with making weapons (by 1848 he was able to cast small cannons), made glass and improved agriculture on his estate in Matsushiro, which attracted his attention.

From the analysis of the scientific progress of the West and from the analysis of the defeat of the Chinese in the First Opium War, Sakuma Shōzan advocated the modernization of defense, the navy and society with his superiors in the shogunate, about which he wrote a book in 1842 ( 海防 八策 , Kaibō Hassaku , “Eight Strategies for Defense at Sea”). The eight suggestions he made in his book were:

1. Reinforcement of fortifications in strategic places and ports and equipping with artillery.
2. Abolition of copper exports via the Dutch and use of the metal for cannons (bronze).
3. Construction of larger merchant ships (their size was previously restricted by decree).
4. Supervision of the merchant marine and trade by skilled officials.
5. Construction of warships based on the model of western foreign countries, training of a corps of naval officers.
6. Building schools across the country and educating the entire population according to (Confucian) ethical principles.
7. A clear system of reward and punishment and a government that is benevolent but based on firm principles, with the aim of gaining such broad popular support.
8. Establish a system of promotion of officials according to their ability.

In doing so, he worked to educate other personalities who campaigned for the opening and modernization of Japan. Among them was Yoshida Shōin (1830-1859), who in 1854 - encouraged by Shōzan and with the intention of visiting the West - tried in vain to get on one of Perry's "Black Ships", for which he and other followers were in prison or house arrest landed. His followers were later influential in the Meiji Restoration at the end of the 19th century, which finally saw the opening and modernization of Japan. Another of his students was Katsu Kaishū , later first Minister of the Navy in the Meiji government, who studied shipbuilding in the United States.

In connection with the sentencing of Yoshida Shōin, Sakuma Shōzan was sentenced to house arrest in 1854 (and placed under the supervision of his fiefdom for this), which he served the following nine years until his release in 1862. The initially threatened death penalty could be averted through the intervention of influential personalities. During this time he continued to work on physics and inventions. For example, he invented and built electrical devices (such as a Daniell element ), a first seismograph in Japan, and improved cannons. The last years of Sakuma Shōzan's life also marked the beginning of the opening of the country in the Bakumatsu period. This was enshrined in a trade agreement in 1858.

The fact that he continued to campaign politically in a prominent position for the opening of the country ( kaikoku-ron ) to trade with foreigners and the modernization of the military made him the target of conservative opponents of any reform ( Sonnō-jōi movement). Shōzan went to Kyōto in 1864 to get the support of the Tennō for this policy and to bring the Shōgunate government closer to the Tennō (unity of civil and military government, kobu gattai ). He was killed by samurai on the street and in broad daylight in Kyoto. There are different representations of the details. According to one account, two low-ranking samurai from the Higo and Oki clan attacked and killed him on foot when he was riding a horse alone in Kyoto on a warm July day (the European saddle on a samurai served as a provocation). A justification for the act was posted on the main gate of the Gion Shrine in Kyōto - in addition to his political activities, clan disputes were also cited (opposition to the Tokugawa). According to other sources, he was killed by the samurai Kawakami Gensai (1834–1872), known as a skilled swordsman and one of the four notorious hitokiri (murderers) of the Bakumatsu period.

The Japanese phrase "Eastern ethics - Western science" ( tōyō dōtoku, seiyō gakugei ) comes from Sakuma Shōzan and is cited in Japan to this day as a summary of the special Japanese approach to modernity. However, it is often expressed in shorter terms, "Japanese spirit - western technology" ( wakon yōsai ), based on the saying of a 9th-century Japanese scholar Sugawara Michizane , who at that time referred to Chinese technology ("Japanese spirit - Chinese technology", wakon kansai ).

His son Miura Keinosuke was a member of the Shinsengumi .

literature

• Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann (Eds.): Sources of Japanese Tradition. Volume 2: 1600 to 2000. 2nd edition. Columbia University Press, New York NY 2005, ISBN 0-231-12984-X , pp. 628 ff.

Web links

• biography
• Biography Universalium 2010

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Later there was also a Japanese translation by Utagawa Genshin
2. ↑ Shozan Sakuma, pdf
3. ↑ Jason Ananda Josephson The Empowered World. Buddhist Medicine and the Potency of Prayer in Japan. In: Jeremy Stolow (Ed.): Deus in Machina. Religion, Technology and the Things in Between. Fordham University Press, New York, NY 2013, ISBN 978-0-8232-4980-0 , pp. 117–141, here p. 128. On the interpretation of the phrase by Sakuma Shōzan.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Sakuma is the family name, Shōzan the first name.