Meow
(Human, English translation
Meow
(Human language, English translation)
There is a man named Yoshida Shoin.
At the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, he argued that it would be better for the people to overthrow the Shogunate and establish a system that respected the Emperor.
Many of his disciples became his students.
Genzui Kusaka
Takasugi Shinsaku
Irie Kyuichi
Yoshida Toshimaro
Hirobumi Ito
Aritomo Yamagata
These were all students of Yoshida Shoin’s “Shoukasonjuku” in Choshu.
This is not all.
Many other young men and women came to Shoukasonjuku to learn and to help the world not to invade Japan,
Many other young people came to the gates of Shoukasonjuku to learn.
However, he was condemned to be beheaded as a felon for teaching such a plan to overthrow the Shogunate (the current regime).
He passed away at the age of 30, a great man who had raised such a great man.
Before his death. Before he died, he wrote this in a memo called “Rukonroku.
I am at peace with the fact that I am about to die at the age of 30 because I have been thinking about the four seasons.
It is true that I should regret that the flowers I have nurtured did not bloom or grow.
There is no set limit to human life.
Therefore, those who die at the age of 10 have their own time of death.
And those who die at the age of 100 have their own time of death.
To say that 10 years old is short and 100 years old is long is to change a cicada into a camphor tree, or to turn a bough with a spirit dwelling in it into a mere cicada, which does not mean that one has fulfilled the life span determined by the heavens.
I am thirty years old. I have gone through four seasons in my own way. It should have flowered and clothed itself. I do not know if what will soon wither and die will be enough to change Japan in a big, big way.
However, if someone receives a body from me, if someone grasps my sincerity and is willing to carry it on, it will be an unashamed year of harvest after harvest.
Fellow brothers and sisters, please consider this matter carefully.
Matsushita-murajuku student
Genzui Kusaka
Shoin considered Genzui to be the most gifted and talented person in Choshu, and he had him compete with Shinsaku in order to develop his talent. On December 5, 1857, Shoin married his younger sister Fumi to Genzui. He and Shoin were imprisoned in Ansei no Daigaku (Great Prison of Ansei), but he submitted a petition named “Kairan Jogyo” to the lord of the domain. This was accepted by the feudal lord and became the domain theory of the Choshu clan (Sonno Joi).
The following is a list of words left to him by Yoshida Shoin.
Kusaka Genzui is the youngest and the best in Hochō, and of course the most gifted man in Japan.
Kusaka Genzui may be young, but his ambition is strong and his spirit is sharp. He is also a man who manages his ambition with his talent. I have always recommended you as a first-rate person among the younger members of the Choshu clan.
I used to rank Kusaka Genzui’s talent first among the youngest of his comrades. After that, I got Takasugi Shinsaku as a comrade. Shinsaku was a learned man, but his studies were not yet advanced enough. However, he was able to think and act freely and unrestrainedly. Therefore, I recommended Genzui’s talents and learning to keep Shinsaku in check. At that time, Shinsaku seemed to be very dissatisfied, but soon his studies were progressing very well and his arguments were getting better and better, and everyone began to recognize this. From that time on, Genzui, too, began to endorse Shinsaku, saying that Shinsaku’s insight could never be equaled. Shinsaku also began to frankly say that Genzui’s talent could not be compared to anything in the world today, and the two men began to learn from each other. I saw in their relationship that Genzui’s talent was based on his qi, and Shinsaku’s knowledge was derived from his qi. If the two of them could learn from each other, I felt that there was nothing more to worry about. There are many talented people in the world, Shinsaku. However, we must not lose Genzui’s talent under any circumstances.
Hirobumi Ito
…the first Prime Minister of Japan
Irie 91
…Although his direction was different, his love for his country was genuine. He was counted as one of the four heavenly kings of Matsumon, or the four heavenly kings among the students of Matsushita Village School. Because he wanted to change this country so radically,
Yoshida Toshimaro
…along with Kusaka Genzui and Takasugi Shinsaku, are considered to be the three great Shoin students. Shoin highly valued Toshimaro’s brilliance and acumen, and described him as “stubborn on the inside” in contrast to Takasugi Shinsaku, who he described as “stubborn on the outside. Even after Yoshida Shoin was executed in the “Great Ansei Incarceration,” he attempted to assassinate Mabe no Yukatsu, a close aide to Ii Naosuke, the chief retainer who was the target of the “Great Ansei Incarceration. This attempt failed, and he was put in jail. In the midst of the battle between the Shogunate and the avenging forces at the Imperial Palace, Kusaka Attenu, the leader of the Matsushita-murajuku and a close ally of the shogunate, committed suicide. He managed to escape from the prison and tried to join the side of the shogunate, but when he crossed the moat, he was hit in the face by a guard’s spear and died.
Although some of Irie’s actions may have been a little out of character, after the Meiji Restoration, the samurai who overthrew the shogunate enshrined Yoshida as a heroic spirit who protected the country.
Hirobumi Ito
…First Prime Minister of Japan
Aritomo Yamagata…
Lord of the Privy Council (9th), Minister of the Interior (1st), Prime Minister (3rd and 9th), Minister of Justice (7th), President of the Privy Council (5th, 9th, and 11th), Commander of the First Army, member of the House of Peers, Chief of Army Staff (5th)
Shinsaku Takasugi
…was a realism that felt the invasion of Britain and other foreign countries in a very real way. He said that the current “regular soldiers” of the clans were not enough, so he “increased the number of men from the militia to reinforce the defense force.
The Japanese were on the verge of a military invasion, having been bombarded by the British, French, Americans, and Dutch. He was able to negotiate with them because he was not overwhelmed by the defeat, and he avoided a crisis in Choshu by behaving well in the diplomatic arena.
He is a great man of Japan because he was able to deal with both domestic problems within his own people – the defeat of the shogunate and the invasion of a foreign country, as in his new work – and finally bring value to the country.
I have heard that the character for “Shin” in the name of the late Shintaro Abe and his father, Shintaro Abe, came from the name “Takasugi Shinsaku”.
I feel that Shintaro Abe is a reincarnation of Takasugi Shinsaku, who gave him the character for “Shin” in his attitude toward dealing with domestic problems and also dealing with the external world today
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Sampo Diary
June 30, 2024 12 minutes 7 seconds
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