HARVARD HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS XLVII Published under the Direction of the Department of History from the income of The Robert Louis Stroock Fund CHÖSHÜ in the MEIJI RESTORATION ALBERT M. ÇRAIG Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts 1967 © 1961 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Second Printing Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-8839 Printed in the Uiyted States of America TO MY MOTHER Adda Clendenin Craig Acknowledgments My debts to individuals for help received during the writing of this book are manifold, more than can simply be listed here. I should, however, particularly like to thank Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, who guided this work in its initial dissertation phase, for his kind­ ness, his careful page by page corrections of the manuscript, and for his many valuable interpretive suggestions. I am also grateful to Dr. Robert N. Bellah for our many discussions about the nature of modern Japanese society as well as for specific criticisms of my work; to Professors John K. Fairbank, Roger F. Hackett, Marius B. Jansen, and Benjamin I. Schwartz, who have read the entire manuscript and have made suggestions incorporated in the text; and to Mr. Tanaka Akira and Mr. Seki Junya, both for their expert guidance in matters pertaining to Chöshü and for their personal kindness during my stay in Japan in 1955-1956. Lasdy I should like to express thanks to my wife Teruko. Besides proofreading the entire manu­ script and typing it in its earlier stages, she has made a number of substantive suggestions and was at all times a source of encourage­ ment. A. C. CONTENTS PART ONE. BACKGROUND: THE ANATOMY OF A HAN Introduction 3 Chapter I Chöshü and the Tokugawa Polity 9 Chapter II Chöshü’s Finances and the Tokugawa Economy 26 Chapter III Chöshü and the Tempo Reform 51 Chapter IV The Early Stage of Bakumatsu Politics, 1853-1861 85 Chapter V The Background of Ideas in Chöshü 126 PART TWO. THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT Chapter VI The Rise of Chöshü in National Politics, 1861-1863 167 Chapter VII The Decline of the Chöshü Sonnö Jöi Movement, 1863-1864 208 Chapter VIII The Chöshü Civil War 251 Chapter IX The March to Power 302 Conclusion 350 Bibliographical Note 375 Index 381 REFERENCE MATTER Bibliography i Glossary xv TABLES 1. The great han of Tokugawa Japan 11 2. Fiefs within Chöshü 103 3. The geographical distribution of the Hirata School 142 4. An analysis of the Second Kiheitai and the Yöchötai 272 CHART 1. The position of the three dominant cliques in the Chôshû government from 1840 to 1868 94