Hayashi Shihei

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Hayashi Shihei
Born(1738-08-06)August 6, 1738
Edo, Japan
DiedJuly 28, 1793(1793-07-28) (aged 54)
Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
OccupationScholar
NationalityJapanese
SubjectMilitary strategy, geography
In this Japanese name, the surname is Hayashi.
Hayashi Shihei grave, National Historic Site

Hayashi Shihei (林 子平, August 6, 1738 - July 28, 1793) was a Japanese military scholar and a retainer of the Sendai Domain. His name is sometimes transliterated (according to the

Sino-Japanese reading
) as Rin Shihei.

Biography

Hayashi was born in

ronin
. Hayashi and his brother were brought up by his uncle Hayashi Jyūgo, a physician.

However, Hayashi had an elder sister, Kiyo, in the service of

daimyō of Sendai Domain, Date Munemura
. Through her influence, Hayashi Jyūgo received an appointment as official doctor to Sendai Domain with a stipend of 150 koku, and Hayashi's brother Hayashi Kazen was adopted as his heir. On Date Yoshimura's death, they moved to Sendai; however, Hayashi himself had no official post or stipend, and remained unemployed within the household.

He wrote a poem called "Six No's", which reads: "I have no parents, no wife, no son, no block for printing, no money, and I wish for 'no death'."

However, Hayashi was not idle. He maintained an active correspondence with many of the leading

Nagasaki in 1777 where he was especially impressed with the size and strength of the Dutch ships, and learned of Russian intentions to advance south from Siberia into Asia from the Dutch Opperhoofd. The caused him to make a journey to Matsumae
in the north, and he increasing became aware of the weaknesses of the country's coastal defences, and ignorance of the outside world.

In 1786, he published

China may one day attempt to invade Japan, as had been attempted in the Kamakura period,[1] and also emphasized the need for Japan to populate and develop its northern frontier in Hokkaido
.

In 1787, he published Kaikoku Heidan (i.e. Military Defense of a Maritime Nation), a 16-volume work in which he stressed Japan's vulnerability from the sea and need for Japan to adopt Western military science and the re-education of the samurai. He complained of the lack of organized drill exercises, and stressed the importance of chōren, or teamwork drill, rather than mere individual martial training. He gave technical descriptions about shipbuilding, cannons and other military designs. He especially was critical of the Shogunate's sakoku national isolation policy. The work generated great interest, but was banned in May 1792, on the grounds that national security matters were being discussed without official consent. Hayashi was placed under house arrest. He died the following year.[2]

Together with Takayama Hikokurō and Gamō Kunpei, Hayashi is known as one of the "Three Excelling Men of the Kansei Period" (Kansei no san-kijin 寛政の三奇人).

Grave

Hayashi's grave is at the Buddhist temple of Ryuun-in in

Sendai Castle
.

References

  1. ISBN 9780674184763
    .
  2. ISBN 9780674009912
    .
  3. ^ Agency for Cultural Affairs - Cultural Heritage Online (in Japanese)
  • Dore, Ronald P. (1965). Education in Tokugawa Japan. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p. 171.

Further reading

  • Boxer, C.R. (1932). Rin Shihei and his picture of a Dutch East-India ship, 1782. Tokyo: Asiatic Society of Japan.
  • Lederer, Friedrich (Transl./Ed.) Diskurs über die Wehrhaftigkeit einer Seenation München, Iudicium, 2002 (Diss. LMU Munich) First Translation of Kaikoku Heidan in a foreign language, i.e. German.
  • Keene, Donald (1952). The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720 - 1830. London: Stanford University Press.
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