RYŌMA!: The Life of Sakamoto Ryōma: Japanese Swordsman and Visionary, Volume II by Shiba Ryōtarō

Author:Shiba Ryōtarō [Ryōtarō, Shiba]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Takahashi Akira
Published: 2018-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

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PUBLIC UNREST

In truth, Yamauchi Yōdō was the instigator of the suppression of the loyalists. Ryōma did not see this previous lord of Tosa in a positive light at all. His view was that “for a lord, he has too many fixed opinions.” While on the one hand, Ryōma did not admire someone who, like the lord of Chōshū, was easily swayed by whomever held political power in his domain, he was also very disapproving of stubborn leaders who stuck to their own fixed opinions like a scab over a wound.

In turbulent times, one couldn’t tell what would happen even in the immediate future. The leader of a domain in such a period had only two roads open to him: to become a man like Oda Nobunaga, who, not caring if his body became covered with wounds, would brandish his sword and, never looking back, take the lead in creating a new state of affairs; or, contrariwise, to become a man who allows himself to drift with the current. However, if one were the leader of a domain and not simply an ordinary gentleman living in retirement, then to look askance at the current and go against it, and to cling desperately to one’s own useless “fixed opinions” would be to ensure defeat.

“Milord’s problem is that he has absolute confidence in his own ability and bravery” was Ryōma’s considered opinion. And that was why Yōdō was so very proud of his scabbed-over “fixed views.” Not only his own retainers but the other daimyo as well seemed immeasurably foolish to him.

“In an age like this, what good is knowledge and wisdom that is only a little superior to those of others? The very fact that he has such confidence in these elusive qualities shows clearly that he will be defeated,” thought Ryōma. He knew, moreover, that a man obsessed is just a fool even if his abilities are superlative enough to stun the world.

Yōdō the Wise had the appearance of a hero. Alas, he was obsessed with his own wisdom. He was obsessed with his family’s genealogy. He was prey to a sentimentalism that held that his ancestor Yamauchi Kazutoyo’s having been elevated suddenly from the 60,000 koku fief of Kakegawa to the 240,000 koku fief of Tosa—having been made a great daimyo in this way—was entirely due to the grace and favor of the Tokugawa family, in response to Kazutoyo’s services at the crucial battle of Sekigahara.

“That attitude would be virtuous in an ordinary individual,” reasoned Ryōma. “But what good is it when the lord of a great domain is considering the fate of the whole nation, the consequences for Japan itself?”

Yōdō was obsessed with such “virtue.” He was filled with admiration for himself as the possessor of such virtue and tried to view everything in the present-day world through the lens of that virtue. The result was that all the images of the age reflected in Yōdō’s eyes were misshapen and untrue.

Yōdō preached devotion to the emperor but that made

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