著者

北野 雄士 キタノ ユウジ Yuji KITANO

雑誌

大阪産業大学人間環境論集

巻号頁・発行日

vol.7, pp.43-65, 2008-06

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The Mito Ideology became the theoretical ground of "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian Movement" in the late Tokugawa Period. The samurai class at that time was influenced by the political reforms of the Mito domain carried out by Tokugawa Nariaki, the ninth Mito Lord (daimyo), and by the late Mito Ideology of Aizawa Seishisai and Fujita Toko. Minamoto Ryoen classified the acceptance of the Mito Ideology by the samurai class of those days into three types. He cited Yokoi Shonan, a samurai of the Higo domain, as the model of its third type : the type, which accepted its royal statesmanship of economizing and the principle of basing a country's economy on agriculture, but after recognizing its limitations changed into the view of mercantilism and the opening of Japan to the world. According to Minamoto, Yokoi was in his younger age influenced by the late Mito Ideology, especially its policy of economizing and regarding agriculture as important, and later by its view of the elimination of foreigners. However since 1855 he began to vigorously criticize the political activities of Tokugawa Nariaki and the late Mito Ideology. However we still cannot clearly explain the influence of the Mito Ideology on Yokoi, because we do not fully understand its influence especially in his younger age. Therefore, in this paper I have tried to analyze its influence throughout his life. As a result, it proved that Yokoi's radical standpoint of royal statesmanship of benevolence in his younger age had been even in those days different from that of the late Mito Ideology, which had a cautious sentiment toward the people, though it formally adopted the royal statesmanship, and that on the other hand, the samurai in the Mito Domain had been important to Yokoi as his political allies untill 1855.