The Dog Shogun

6. A Great and Excellent Lord

69 6 A Great and Excellent Lord “The presently reigning monarch Tsunayoshi . . . is a great and excellent lord. Having inherited the virtues of his father, he is both a strict custodian of the law and very compassionate. From early in life he has been imbued with Confucianism , and governs his land and people how they ought to be. Under his government all citizens live in complete harmony, honor their gods, observe the law, obey their superiors, and treat their equals with politeness and affection.”1 Thus wrote Engelbert Kaempfer in his Amoenitates exoticae, the voluminous Latin account of his travels that brought him fame in Europe. The years of his visit to Edo, 1691–1692, coincided with the high point of Tsunayoshi’s patronage of learning and Confucianism. The bakufu’s Confucian scholars were permitted to shed the garb of Buddhist monks, the grand new Confucian temple and lecture hall were built at Yushima, and the shogun proceeded with his entourage to the new buildings to lecture on the Confucian classics.2 For Kaempfer and scholars in Europe he became the ideal ruler at whose feet, later writers jokingly suggested , even the German popular playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729– 1781), famous for advocating religious tolerance in his works, might sit.3 Perhaps not to distract from this ideal—which Kaempfer might well have wished his own ruler to emulate—what he heard about the more Machiavellian aspects of shogunal politics remained buried in his unpublished notes, in a mix of languages and minute writing, extremely dif¤cult to decipher. Here he wrote: The two councilors [the grand councilor Sakai Tadakiyo Uta no Kami and the senior councilor Inaba Masanori Mino no Kami] were so puffed up with conceit that they respected nobody. Yes, indeed, they did not even respect the shogun’s brothers, the princes. For when the middle brother in the year 1679 [sic] asked repeatedly that a grant of additional revenue be approved by the shogun, he, as the shogun’s brother and successor, was unable to stand up for himself, and was continually sent away. He had to approach his majesty personally, even though this is against the custom, and solely the duty of the councilors, especially at that time when the shogun was under their thumb. Finally, even though it was against the law of the land, he personally put his request to his brother. The shogun got so angry about this (especially 70 A Great and Excellent Lord on account of the reaction of the councilors) that he commanded him to leave his presence, and said that because of this offense he no longer considered him worthy to be his brother. Thereupon the disgruntled prince returned home and cut his stomach, leaving behind a little son of some ten or twelve years. This event embittered the youngest prince [Tsunayoshi] and especially their sister, the wife of the daimyo of Owari. A year later they found occasion to revenge themselves, because the shogun, having been ill for a long time, died. The two above-mentioned councilors, Uta and Mino, feared the revenge of the successor Tsunayoshi . . . and with the workings and help of the grandees of the country attempted to impose a nephew of the emperor on the shogunal line of succession, for whom they had already sent. But since the daimyo of Kii no Kuni and Mito, as well as the son-in-law of Mino called Bichû [Hotta Masatoshi Bichû no Kami] remained on Tsunayoshi’s side, he was, in spite of his enemies, installed as successor at the age of thirty-four.4 Does this cloak and dagger story shedding light on the events of Tsunayoshi’s succession ¤nd support in Japanese sources? Did Tsunashige Commit Suicide? There is no reliable Japanese documentation that Tsunashige, Tsunayoshi’s elder brother and second in line to the shogunate, committed suicide or died in anger. It is suspicious, however, that the of¤cial sources Tokugawa jikki and Edo bakufu nikki have unusually brief entries for the death of a person of Tsunashige ’s rank. Under the date of 15.9.Enpô 6 (1678), they state without further explanation that Tsunashige died on the previous day, adding only that after the event two high of¤cials were sent to Tsunashige’s son and Tsunayoshi respectively to convey the condolences of the shogun.5 The story of Tsunashige’s suicide is, however, contained in Sannô gaiki, the anonymous send-up of the governments of the fourth, ¤fth, and...