In Our Time - The Shimabara Rebellion

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Christian uprising in Japan and its profound and long-term consequences. In the 1630s, Japan was ruled by the Tokagawa Shoguns, a military dynasty who, 30 years earlier, had unified the country, ending around two centuries of civil war. In 1637 a rebellion broke out in the province of Shimabara, in the south of the country. It was a peasants’ revolt, following years of bad harvests in which the local lord had refused to lower taxes. Many of the rebels were Christians, and they fought under a Christian banner. The central government’s response was merciless. They met the rebels with an army of 150 000 men, possibly the largest force assembled anywhere in the world during the Early Modern period. Once the rebellion had been suppressed, the Shogun enforced a ban on Christianity and expelled nearly all foreigners from the country. Japan remained more or less completely sealed off from the rest of the world for the next 250 years. With Satona Suzuki Lecturer in Japanese and Modern Japanese History at SOAS, University of LondonErica Baffelli Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester and Christopher Harding Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of EdinburghProducer Luke Mulhall

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com. uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, in the 1630s, Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa Shoguns, a military dynasty, who 30 years earlier had unified the country ending around 200 years of civil war. However, in 1637, a rebellion broke out in the province of Shumabang.

Barra in the southeast of the country. It was a peasant's revolt, following a few years of bad harvests in which the local lord had refused to lower taxes. Many of the rebels were Christians, and they fought under a Christian banner. The central government response was merciless. They met the rebels with an army of 150,000 men, possibly the largest army assembled anywhere in the world during the early modern period. Once the rebellion had been suppressed, the shogun enforced a ban on Christianity and expelled nearly all foreigners from the country. Japan remained more or less completely sealed off from the rest of the world for the next 250 years. With me to discuss the Shimbabar Rebellion, Asatona Suzuki, lecturer in Japanese and modern Japanese history at Soos University of London,

Erica Baffelli, Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester, and Christopher Harling, senior lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh. Christopher Harle. Christian missionaries first arrived to Japan in 1549. What was the political organisation of Japan at that time? So pretty chaotic, I would say. So by this point, Japan had been home for almost a thousand years to an imperial family, but probably from maybe the late 1100s onwards, they hadn't really wielded much power. So real power in Japan from that point is being wielded by samurai instead. So you have first a Bakufu, a military government in Kamakura. a while, and then after that you have another Bakufu military government in the Muromachi district

of Kyoto. In theory, the Shoguns, the Bakufu, work for the emperor. Shogun means something like barbarian crushing Generalissimo. But in reality, the imperial family by this point have very little political power. And probably by the time that the missionaries get there in 1549, you could safely say that even the shoguns in Kyoto haven't had much real power for a few days. decades. So real power in Japan by 1549 is spread right across the country. Japan is this patchwork quilt of different feudal domains. How many? Probably about 120 or so. In each one, you have a feudal lord who owns the land. He's taxing it, often fighting with his neighbors or doing deals to try and expand his land. We call it actually in Japanese Senoku-Didai, which means

the warring states era. And the aim, ideally, if you can, is to try to try to. and vanquish our enemies, make it to Kyoto, unify the country. But in 1549, that seems like a very distant prospect. What role did religion play in Japanese life at this time? So you've got three traditions in Japan, which are mixing and mingling for centuries by this point. So the oldest would be Shinto, which means way of the gods. What that looks like on the ground, for example, would be people worshipping at local shrines, worshipping particular gods or kami.

You have connection with the seasons. you have religious festivals, Matsuri, at the very top of society, the imperial family would claim to be divinely descended from a sun goddess, Amaterasum. So that would be Shinto. Alongside that Confucianism, been in Japan for a few centuries, by this point, I think that's quite important for us

because it's partly from Confucianism that you get a very hierarchical society in Japan. What that means is the senior partners, as it were, in a relationship, perhaps samurai to peasants, fathers to sons, owe a certain amount of benevolence to those who are below them. And if you go against that benevolence, if you lauded over people to too great a degree, it's considered to be a violation of virtue. And I think this connects up to what we'll be speaking about later.

Last but not least, Buddhism in Japan again for quite a few centuries by this point. You could usefully split it up probably into older Buddhist sects and newer ones like a couple of Zen sects, also a sect called Jodo Shinshu, True Pure Land, Buddhism. What's important about these, I think, is that they are tremendously powerful. They've been involved in politics. They're very wealthy. They have warrior monks some of these sects that are working to defend their interests. So if you want to unify Japan, you have to reckon with the power of Buddhism. Is Buddhism far and away the biggest of these religions? What's interesting about the situation in Japan, I think, is that over these centuries, Buddhism and Shinto, in particular,

have come together. So a lot of people in Japan wouldn't necessarily know whether particular deities or particular forms of worship or festivals are strictly speaking from this or that tradition. That's the core. If we're looking for a mass core religion, that's it. I think so. I mean, there are 300,000 Christians, which seems sort of small time compared with millions and millions of Buddhists, doesn't it? Yeah, so probably 15 or 18 million people, the total population of Japan at this point. Yeah. But I don't think Shinto or Buddhism are really confessional. in the way that European Christianity is. It's more a question of culture, ritual, family, etc. Thank you.

Erica, Erica Baffelli, the Christian missionaries arrived in 1549. Who were they, and how did they go about the business of converting everybody else? Most of the missionary activities in the 60th and 70th century were done by Jesuit, and they were mainly Portuguese, and the delegation arriving in 5049, from Goa through Malacca and arriving in Kagoshima in the southern part of Japan included Francisco Saviare and two other important Jesuits. It was Cosmas de Torres and Juan Fernandez. And an interpreter is an important character in the story

because this interpreter was a Japanese man called Anjiro or Yajiro who fled Japan a few years back because he was accused of murder and escaped on a Portuguese boat to Malacca and then to Goa converted to Christianity and met Francisco Saviur

and converted and was but ties with the name of Paolo the Santa Fe. So Paolo was illiterate and know very little about the religious landscape in Japan Chris was just talking about. So because of his very vague explanation of Buddhism, this

led the Jesuit to start in using Buddhist term to translate Christian terminology at the beginning. So the word God, Deus, was translated with Dainichi, which is the Japanese term for the Buddha Mahavarotana, the cosmic Buddha. And that led to a little bit of confusion because the two traditions are rather different, but Christianity was initially understood as a form of Buddhism. This issue about how to translate the Christian term, stayed for the entire mission. And later on, God was translated with Deuu, was just transliterated into Japanese, but this kind of issue about translating term and similarity in exchange with Buddhists, continuous during the mission. And at the beginning, they weren't particularly successful. Francis Xavier attempted to have a meeting with the emperor

in Kyoto and didn't succeed. But eventually they were able to convert some of the feudal law, the daemio, especially in the southern part of Japan. And one of the important one for our discussions today is Arima, Harinobo. There was the daimyo of Shimabara that co-converted to Christianity in 1580. So those, especially was that area and the area around Kyoto where the first conversion happened. What other Europeans were in Japan at the time? So Japan was a very interesting laboratory of cross-culture encounter at the time that the Portuguese merchants arrived a few years before the Jesuits and they...

They were very much welcome, weren't they? Their trade was lucrative. But especially the Jesuit became very important mediator of commerce with the Portuguese merchant because the Portuguese merger were bringing silk and spices from India, but also gunpowder and firearms for Europe. So that was in 5070, the Jesuit had disagreement with the Heisen province where Nagasaki became the main port of trade, transforming Nagasaki in a very important city of the area. Things just changed a bit later on in 5090 where other European players arrived. The Dutch, but also, well, the,

other Christians, the Franciscan, the Spanish missioners from Philippines, they were competition, but also the Dutch, and those were Protestant merchants, so they were less interest in proselytism. I see, thank you. Satona Suzuki, this was a period of the three great unifiers, a succession of warlords who sought to unify Japan. The first of these was Odano Bunaga, 1534 to 1582. Who was he? and what was his political project? So Oda Nobunaga was born into a warlord's family in O'Ari, so that is situated in central Japan,

somewhere between Tokyo and Osaka today. And he managed to unify that region when he was about 25 or so. And then after defeating his political enemy or rival, Imagawa Yoshimoto, he embarked on this journey of unification of Japan. His ambition was cut short by his assassination, or he actually committed suicide because of the betrayal of his very close one of his men, Akejimitsu-hide. But it is no exaggeration to say that he laid the foundations for the unification of Japan. He was said to have been very charismatic, very bold, decisive,

also pragmatic and sometimes very ruthless or musseless. and he really liked the new things. He had no qualms for adopting new things, such as Christianity and also trading with the Portuguese and the Spaniards. The reason why he protected Christianity was because, you know, it was connected with trade. You know, he wanted firearms and gunpowder, so he used them in the battles and revolutionised the way they fought in the battle.

Another reason why he protected Christianity was he thought that Christianity could be used to counter Buddhism, especially true Pure Land sect or Jodosinshu. Their followers are very faithful and they organized a lot of uprisings against the authorities. Thank you. The second great unifier was Toyotomi Hideoshi 7 to 1598. How did he come to power?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, unlike Oda Nobunaga, he was born into a family of peasant. so he worked his way up because anything was up for grabs at the time because of warring states period he started his life as a foot soldier and a sandal bearer of Nobunaga Sandal bearer of Nobunaga.

Sandal bearer? Yes, for Nobunaga. He was very strategic, very smart and also had very good communication skills. So he came to prominence quite relatively quickly and he earned his Nobunaga's trust and he became Daimyo, even the lord, eventually. And then after Nobunaga's death, he defeated Akech Mitshide, who was responsible for Nobunaga's death and also many other political rivals,

including Tokugawa Iyasu, who was the final unifier. So after he defeated all these political enemies, he carried on with what Nobunaga had started, i.e. the unification of Japan. he carried out several reforms, including sword hunt. So he banned anyone other than samurai from carrying swords and spears, so basically disarming the peasants, because samurai used to rule or govern peasants directly, and they sometimes worked on the land as well.

But by separating these two, Hideoshi made samurai professional soldiers, and then peasants were bound to the land. they were responsible for paying taxes. And also his legitimacy was confirmed by the Imperial House. In 1585, he was appointed as the Kampaku, that means chief advisor of the emperor. And later on, he was also appointed as Dajō Daijing. That means grand minister of state. So his legitimacy was, you know, his position was legitimized by the Imperial House.

So moving towards a unification. Chris Hiding, who was the next one who took over? about this mantle of attempting, seem to be a general attempt, not a general, a particular attempt to unify Japan. We've had two of the great choguns. Who's the third?

Absolutely. So the third is Tokugawa Ieyasu, and there's a lovely little rhyme that school children in Japan sometimes learn, which is Odon Obunaga pounded the rice, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, baked the cake, and Tokugawa Ieasu ate it.

So the time to eat the cake comes in 1600, the Battle of Sekigahara, this great coming together of an Eastern Army and a Western Army, Tokugawa Iiyasu is the victor to all intents and purposes. That's it. That's the end of the Sengoku era and he's triumphed. But it's important, I think, to realize that you've got at least half of the feudal laws of Japan forced to accept that

rather than being particularly happy about that. And so for the next few decades, the Tokugawa family, they try to establish themselves as a new Bakufu. Tokugawa Iyasu becomes a shogun. They're quite unstable. They're quite fragile. They have to be careful about enemies still around and about in Japan. So what he does in those early years politically, having taken the title of Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, then stations troops in Kyoto to make sure that the emperor doesn't become the focal point of a rebellion against him. He launches what we think is probably the largest redistribution of land in Japanese history,

taking land away from some of his old enemies, moving others around to try and keep them as weak as possible. all the feudal lords now have to pledge allegiance to the shogun, have to sign up to a code for the military houses, and then they use a little bit later on something called Sankin Kortai, which means alternate attendance. It's really just a rather decorous term for a hostage system. So in any one year, either the feudal lord himself from each domain will have to be resident in Edo, which is the new capital of Japan,

or his wife and heir will have to be in. Edel, where they're under the watchful eye of the Tokugawa. So it's sort of to ensure good behavior all around the country. In addition to being quite a useful surveillance tool, it's also quite a good way of keeping these rivals poor. It costs an awful lot of money to have two households, one in Edel, one back in your home domain, and to make that journey in a suitably large retinue so often. So if you put that alongside all the other things that the Shogun makes these feudal lords do, like repairing damaged buildings, repairing road. modes, etc. It's a way of, as I say, trying to keep your rivals poor, making it very difficult

for them to launch any potential uprising against you. Erika, why did them want to suppress Christianity? On paper, it seems such a small number. It's an interesting aspect because for Odenobunaga, the issue were not Christianity. He was actually quite supportive at the beginning because his problem were the Buddhist groups. So these two Christians as a potential allies. And initially, he did he, they used. Yoshi had a similar attitude, was welcoming or supportive. But at one point, the attitude changed quite brutally. In 5087, where the first edit of expulsion of the bathroom,

that was the name used to indicate the paderist, the priest. But it's important to remember that at the beginning, it wasn't really enforced that expulsion. And the problem seems to be the priest or the daimio converted more than the people practicing. So initially those added was targeted. But under Hideyoshi, we also have one of the most brutal episodes of a martyrdom. And in 1597, where 26 Christian was crucifixes in Nagasaki.

And some of them were pre-spread. A large number of them were native Japanese converted. Why he changed his mind is still up to a debate between historians, was probably a series of reason including wanting to, you know, the commerce control, the role that or mediator of commerce that the Jesuit was was becoming a bit problematic. His interest in the Buddhist was probably one of the other reason. He also introduced another addict in 6012, but again, it was not particularly enforced. It was at the beginning basically ignored.

The escalation in the suppression of Christianity escalated later on with his successor in 64, added, and then Iemitsu, especially, who is the daimian related to the Shimabara Rebellion. And then we have an escalation on the suppression of Christianity. But the early edit of expulsion was not really particularly enforced. I see. So, Tona, how did the shoguns maintain

the grip of power in the early years? So I think we have to sort of determine what kind of power they had. So economic and military, to be precise, so economic, because the Baku had the largest amount of land, hence the largest amount of income, right? So they are the beneficiary of tax on some 25% of all land, so that's quite massive. And military power, because they are together with the shimpan, that's the at Tokugawa family and relatives, and also Fudai Daimio, that's like the in-group Daimyo, who had been faithful to Tokugawa family.

So allies even before the Battle of Sekigahala in 1600, which determined Tokugawa's hegemony, and also his own retainers and men. So together, he could mobilize something like 200,000 men. So that's a massive military power. So that sort of silenced the dissident daimio. I was just wanting to go back of these different strategies of the Tokugawa to control the country because at the end they rule only over a small part of it. And the role of Buddhism, that Buddhist start in playing into this, which is related with controlling Christianity.

The compulsory registration to Buddhist temple that was introduced towards the Tokugawa initially was only in a certain area and it was used as a way for people to register as non-Christians because they were giving a certificate, but later we'll be extended to the entire country and was a way used by the government to control the population to the temples because they were basically registering birth, marriage, funerals, all the household had to register to the local temple.

But the registration was usually done by conveniences so that the temple you were close to, not necessarily by fate, or particular interest in one sector or the other. So going back to the discussion about how affiliation to Buddhism was discussed at the time. Can we now turn to the rebellion, the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637, Chris? Can you get us a little background on that and then let's discuss it on its repercussions? Yeah, I think the geography of Japan briefly is probably worth establishing here.

So the southernmost island, the southernmost main island of Japan, Kyushu, is where lots of this, Portuguese trade has been happening and most of the missionary activity has been happening there as well. That's where Nagasaki is. Shimabara domain is about 25 miles east of Nagasaki. And it's easily the most Christian part of Japan. That's where most of the Jesuit activity has gone on. They've had seminaries, they've had schools, printing presses, etc. So when these moves are made, as Erica says, ramping up bit by bit to try and suppress Christianity, the really intense part of the really intense part of Japan where that could potentially go quite badly wrong is in Kyushu because you have such a large proportion of the population who are Christian. And in Shimabara domain, by this point,

by the 1630s, it's being controlled by a non-Christian daimyo called Matsukura Katsiyir. He and his father have become infamous locally for really squeezing the local peasantry for tax. We were talking about status a moment ago. There's always been a sense in this era that the samurai are miles ahead, miles over the peasantry in terms of their status, so that in a sense you can squeeze them like seeds, was one of the phrases used at the time. But Matsukura, Katzir, and his father are really dishing out some extraordinary punishments when people can't or won't pay their tax. So to give you an example, what's called the mean old dance they'll make someone do. So the peasant put on his winter coat made of straw, they'll tie his hands behind his back and then

set him on fire. Other punishments. include being thrown into a snake pit, boiled in a sulphurous spring, cut with bamboo sores. And these are amounts of tax that some people simply can't pay, especially 1634 to 1637. You have a series of quite bad harvests. Usually in Japan, that's dealt with quite pragmatically. If it's a bad harvest, then your local feudal lord will not ask for as much tax as you might have done before. The Matsukura family notoriously don't go in for that kind of reasonable negotiation. by the end of 1637 you've got some very dry tinder in Shimabara domain and there's arguments about

what it is that provides the final spark one version of events is that in december 1637 a particular farmer in anima village is forced to watch his daughter being tortured by the local magistrate the local samurai and either the daughter's father or other bystanders get so enraged they kill the samurai who were doing this And then that kind of rebellion spreads through the villages where people are attacking the local sources of authority, fighting the local samurai. And at least on one estimate, you've got about 45,000 people living in this domain

within a few weeks, as many as 23,000 are up in arms. And then that spreads southwards to the Amacusa Islands nearby. So this thing is really starting to build up momentum, December into January of 1638. So it's on its way. rebellion? Yes. And as you say, it's taken up. Who takes it up first and how does, can you tell us a bit more about how it grows? I think one of the things that's quite contentious about the Shimabara rebellion is whether it is primarily even purely economic, because people are being squeezed in this way for their tax

money, and whether there is also a sense of illegitimacy about what's going on, you know, to come back to that point about Confucianism early on, although you owe duty upwards to whoever is the senior person in the relationship, you know, your father or feudal lord, whoever, it might be, benevolence is supposed to pass the other way. So if you have people like the Matsukura family and their samurai minions behaving like that, a sense of grievance builds up quite quickly. And because some of these people are still on the quiet Christians, if you've had your religion banned, you may not necessarily feel religiously motivated at the beginning, but the symbols of your religion become really powerful symbols of resistance. And that seems to be what starts to build

that you get banners, white banners with a black chalice and the communion wafer above it, angels on either side. And I'm sure in a moment we'll be talking about this interesting figure, Amakusa Shiro, who is cleverly portrayed. We don't really know for sure much about him, but certainly portrayed as a quasi-mesianic figure to lead the rebels as this thing starts to build over the winter. Well, let's talk about him now, Arika. Amakusa Shiro.

We know very little about his. historically, but he appeared in so many narratives from the rebels, from the non-Christian prison, from the Tokugawa side. And what we know is that he was probably the son of a samurai from the Arima that was under the Arima clan who converted to Christianity. As his mom, we only know her Martha, her Christian's name, so she was also a Christian. His name was probably Masuda Shiro. Apparently when the uprising started, he was 15. or 16. So they're also concerned about what actually was his role in the Ups Risen, but what is interesting is how central he became to the narrative on both sides.

In a sense that he became this kind of leader figure, and because his detail are so obscure, he became the embodiment of a prophecy for the rebel side of this kind of son of God, a semi-divai figure portrayed of an exceptional beauty. He was an infant prodig, able to read Japanese without being taught, and also able to speak Portuguese and to read Latin. And from the other side, there's the embodiment of evil. A sorcerer that was doing black magic. It seems that he was present on all the main event of the rebellion.

So he was definitely gaining this symbolic. role of the rebellion. It strikes me that we'd be talking about the shoguns having huge armies, if they want, at their disposal. Yet, as it were, a peasant's revolt seems to tumble the whole thing down. Why was that so important? How did they manage to tackle the forces against them? Basically, the Tokugabakshu was made up of many domains, right?

They're allowed to govern their territory autonomously, more or less, but they had to govern it harmoniously because any social unrest was not allowed because that's not good for the government too. So all this in Shimabara, Irelian, was a massive social unrest, so it had to be suppressed. So at the beginning,

the central government sent Itakura Shigemasa, the Daimyo. And then Itakura went there and then gathered the Daimio in Kyushu and trying to support. press the rebellion, but the rebels fought really hard, resisted, and so Itagra just basically could not contain the situation. So the government then sent Roju, Matsudair Nobutzna. He was the elder, very high-ranking official in the government. And also, Matsukla also asked the Dutch to help them,

which they did. They bombarded the castle that the rebels were hiding. Yes. What part did Harrah Castle play in this, Chris? So initially when the rebellion gets going, what some of the rebels want to try to do is to take hold of Shimabara Castle, which is this quite new castle, which has been built off the backs of the poor in some of the ways that we were just talking about. But that castle is quite well defended. They don't manage to take it. And so as you say, they go to a different castle, Harah Castle, which is where this final dramatic siege takes place. It hasn't been used for a while and when the rebels get there

they're having to do what they can with bits and pieces of wood to try and refit it, put it back together again but it's quite easy to defend in the sense that on three sides all you've got is a sheer drop of cliffs down to the ocean. So you don't have to worry about that.

What you have to worry about is slightly more than a kilometre at the front but in front of that is marshy land the outer wall of the castle is about 30 metres high. So if you've got enough food, water, ammunition, etc. You can hold out there for quite a long time and there's a fresh water well inside the castle,

you know, so you're okay for water. But Asatana says, you have two sets of armies, one after the other, sent by the Bakuf to try to take the rebels out. And the first army sent Itakura, as you say, it's really embarrassing that they fail as badly as they do to come back to that point about status in Japan. For a samurai army, thousands of samurai,

to fail to successfully take on basically a peasant rabble in a castle is extraordinarily embarrassing and actually quite dangerous for the Tokugawa, this new regime in Edel for their reputation. There are stories of Itakura sending in ninja into the castle to act as spies. One of them gets caught because he doesn't speak the local dialect. They try and tunnel under Harah Castle, but the rebels hear it and they fill it with smoke and feces and urine. They try and get laborers to build these.

artillery towers, that doesn't work because the rebels stone them. So that's a big failure. Nita Koda has this last, doesn't he? This last hurrah when he hears that this more senior person, Matsudair, has been sent out to essentially do his job for him. And he goes there for a direct attack and he gets shot in the head and killed. So when the more senior guy, Matsudaira, gets there in the middle of February, it's really damaged limitation.

He's told, don't try and attack the castle straight away. Because if we lose any more samurai, we're just going to look even worse. And so there's the decision to lay a siege. And as part of that, just to pick up on what you were saying, Satana, about trying to get the Dutch, who are based nearby in Hidado, to come and essentially help them out. So the Dutch send a ship just off the coast, and they start bombarding Harrah Castle. It doesn't entirely work out. Some of the cannibals go over the top and hit the Toccagawa forces.

Three Dutchmen are killed in the process. One is shot down from a mast. He kills someone else on his way down. a third person die when a cannibal explodes. And then some of the rebels start firing arrows out from Harrah Castle into the Tokugawa forces with little messages attached, essentially saying, what, you need foreigners to fight your battles. How embarrassing.

And so in the end, red face, the Dutch have to be essentially set home and it's a waiting game. And in the end, as you can probably imagine, it comes down to hunger. So by the beginning of April 1638, freshwater, obviously not a problem. Food stocks are very, very low, ammunition is low. And it's got to the point where some of the rebels, hundreds of them, one night under cover of darkness,

try and steal out of the castle, to see what they can forage from Tokugawa forces, ammunition, food, etc. Sadly, many of them are caught. We think that perhaps the fire from the top of their matchlock rifles gives them away in the dark. Hundreds are killed, and then when day breaks, The Tokugawa forces look at their corpses. They can see how malnourished they are.

And they actually cut open some of these guys to look at the stomachs to see what their last meal was. And there's no rice in it. Barley, seaweed, leaves, etc. And so at that point, Matzadair decides, right, we can launch an all-out assault on the castle, which they do on the 11th of April. And you get two or three days of fierce fighting.

You know, some of the rebels have got matchlock firearms, but most of them have got sides or sides. Spears accounts even of cooking pots and cauldrons. They're trying to hit these well-armed samurai over the head with. And after a couple of days of this, anyone who can't escape from the castle, and we're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of people, are executed, men, women and children.

Thank you. Satona, we've heard a little bit, well, a bit of quite shattering about how the central government reacted to the rebels. Do you want to develop that? Yes, like Chris said, everyone, every single level was killed, including Amaksa Shiro, the leader, this young Amakusa Shiro, and he was beheaded, and also his head was on display. It's like a warning to people, like if you rebel against the government or the authority,

these are the consequences. And also the government punished the feudal lords of Shimabara and also Amaksa. So the Shimabara feudal laws are Matsukhara-Katouye, this ruthless ruler, oppressive ruler, his land was confiscated and he was also beheaded as well as a punishment. So basically the rebellion started because of their oppressive rule, so they had to be responsible for that. So that was like a warning for the feudal lords too. If you don't govern your territory harmoniously, this could happen to you. So it was warning for the people and warning for the feudal lords.

then the government realized that, I mean, they had already started to ban Christianity bit by bit, but then they sort of affirmed that, you know, Christianity is dangerous. So we must ban it completely. Erica, can we bring religion into this, or is it too late? What was the role of Christianity is in all of this? So what is a revolt was due with over-taxation and the famine, or it was also the persecution of Christianity in that domain

that also plays a role in this. And this is up to the bait and very difficult to assess. But definitely the rebel appropriated Christian symbols, imaginary. You mentioned the banner. And so it was this banner with sentences in medieval Portuguese, meaning the praises to be the holiest sacrament. But another important element is that a lot of this samurai was what they were called Tachikairi Christian.

They were a returner Christian, born again, if we could use that expression. So again, going back to the very early points about affiliation, a lot of them converted under their previous daimio, that was a Christian one, and then they converted during the beginning of the Tokugawa, and then converted again.

So there is much more complex identity of what meant to be a Christian or being opposed to this at the time, which I think played a role in the identity of those rebel. It's so difficult to work out precisely what the role of Christianity was in this. It's very much in the interest of the Bakufu afterwards to say, yes, this was Christian. It was probably involving a degree of strategy,

perhaps from the Portuguese men and munitions, even alongside these Ronin, these masterless samurai. If you say that it's Christian in character and that these despicable foreign Catholic, powers have been involved. It makes sense because this is Kushu, the most Christian part of the country formerly. And it also then suggests that nowhere else in Japan could this happen. You don't want peasants in other parts of Japan getting the idea that, well, if we band together, take a castle, hold out for a bit, we can really embarrass the Bakufu. So it's in their interest

in their official histories to say that it was a Christian rebellion, which I think rather makes it complicated, isn't it? But the big thing and the dramatic thing was that very soon up to this ended. Japan banned all foreigners from Japan, except a few Dutch traders, and that held for more than 200 years. Now, that's fascinating. Can you tell us how that came about, first of all, and then the rest of you, how it was implemented? So I think it's part of this official Tokugawa narrative, as it were, soon after the rebellion, that it was down to Christians, it was down to foreign influence, etc. So in July 1639, They issue an edict, which blames the Portuguese in large part for the Shimabara rebellion.

The Portuguese are then banned from Japan on pain of death. And rather gamely, the Portuguese test the ban almost immediately. They send a ship back to Japan from Macau. And the Tokugar officials really make their point rather clear. They slaughter 60 of the people on that ship. They burn the ship. They burn the cargo. And they send a few people creeping back to Macau with a message,

which essentially says even if the Buddha or the God of the Christians tries to contravene this prohibition, they will pay with their heads. So they're awfully clear that they're having nothing more to do with the Portuguese. And all that's left, at least for Western traders, are the Dutch, who has to be said don't always come out of this story terribly well. They're willing to fire on fellow Christians in Harrow Castle. And then afterwards they try to put the minds at rest of the Tokugabe. for you to say, look, we're here to trade.

Not interested in religion. We're also not interested in playing politics. So the Japanese will deal just with the Dutch, and they confine them to this small artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, where they can keep a really close eye on them. I think it's important probably to say also that Chinese, Korean, other Asian nations are still trading with Japan. So this idea of Japan shutting itself completely closed

have to be quite careful about, but certainly when it comes to Western power, It's just the Dutch. I think the point is that the Tokugawa didn't necessarily excluded all the international relationship, but they controlled them. There was a very street control of the border and who can enter and have contact with Japan.

But even internally, they controlled traveling inside the country as well. It wasn't easier to travel freely around Japan during the Tokugawa. You needed a permit to do that. But they also didn't eradicate Christianity. as it's always portrayed that the Shemabara Rebellio eradicate Christianity from Japan, but it didn't. A Christian community continues.

As an underground Christian, they are usually called or a hidden Christian, the Kakori Christian, they didn't have a central authority. There was not the Vatican sending letter. They were not Jesuit Padres there anymore. Allow them to develop very interesting and new form of ritual and practice where these guys in Buddhist

statues as Christians one, or using this anti-Buddhist funeral ritual, that they are very innovative, is a kind of a very interesting form of abatation in a different context, that we would have them had without this kind of experience of non-contact with the European missionaries on those 200 years. To take the broader impact of this 200 years, the Japanese fell behind. all sorts of technological advances, and let's call it the West, all sorts of things that were happening, they were isolated.

What did that mean to them? During the Sakoku or national isolation period, because, you know, the West had already experienced industrial revolution and they started to modernize. So technologically, Japan was very behind, for sure. But culturally, I think arts seeing throw, you know, something really unique to Japan, such as Ukiyo, the woodblock prints, ceramics, lacquerware, and also like some literary works. Those things actually throw massively. But Japan paid a price, especially when the world entered the era of imperialism in the 19th century. National isolation was not sustainable because, you know, Japan was technologically very behind.

And, you know, when America knocked on the door against the most, mighty Western powers. Japan had no choice than to open up and agree to trade, which was unequal treaty as well. So it became the object of Western imperialism. Final word, Chris? I think if you look at what's going on in Europe in those centuries, from the middle of the 17th century into the middle of the 19th, Japan avoids an awful lot of bloodshed. I'd want to echo what Satana says about the wonderful flourishing of the arts in places like Edor, Osaka and Kyoto. So there's woodblock prints, Kabuki, theater. Often, Japanese of the modern era will look back on the Tokugawa era as being a kind of

ideal where there was peace, there was security, people were happy, there was a strong sense of national identity. That might have been one with a considerable amount of blood at Harrah Castle, but lots of Japanese today would really celebrate it. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Christopher Harding, Satona Suzuki and Erica Baffelli and our studio engineer, Jackie Majerum. Next week, Virgil's Georgiukes, his poem about rural life and labour. Thanks for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now

with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. What did you not say that you'd like to have said, Erica? I don't know about Damascus Ashiro, I think. Do we need to add a little bit more about his semi-divine characters? Or I think was enough, right? But because we don't know much about him. So it's difficult to, it's going to be speculation anyway. So I think that's okay.

It's a lot of bit his narrative of being model on the life of Jesus in a sense of doing miracles. But, you know, this is what we have about him. In the fact that in the gospel, I thought you're interpreted you. I know. The fact that Luke was supposed to have gone to Farish, wasn't it? I think that's partly why the Jesuits are so optimistic early on. Erica, you were talking about Angelo, this informant who says,

yet in Japan, yeah, we have altars, bells, rosaries, there's this great figure in the past, a teacher who taught this wonderful ethical system. And some of the Jesuits think, yes, this is a kind of distant, imperfect memory of some kind of evangelism that's happened. And so when they find out that's not true, things get so ugly, don't they, between Christians and Buddhists. And when the missionaries move to use the word daos in Latin for God, some of the Buddhists, very offended, start talking about, not Deus but daeuso, which means great lie in Japan, and they're really at each other's throats for a bit. I think also what's interesting from that early period is why some of the tactics that might work elsewhere in the world

for missionary work don't work in Japan. So if you think about the early Jesuits going around in Europe, in sort of sackcloth, making a big thing out of poverty, some of them try to dress like that when they go and see some of these great feudal lords, the daimyo. And in Japan, if you can't dress for a meeting, you know, It's fundamentally insulting. So it's quite a steep learning curve, isn't it, for those missionaries early on?

I think that's a fascinating period. I think there was one of the issue was mistrust, reciprocal. So some of the Jesuit never really felt they could completely trust the Japanese converter. Their approach was really top down. Convered the daimio and then all the subjects will just convert. So it was mass conversion, quantity over quality. but then resulted in these people quickly became apostases

when they needed to. And from the Japanese side, some of the Christian always felt to be second class, Christian, especially doing Cabral. So there was a very different, at the beginning of the mission, Saviard Torres,

they were really optimistic about what's happening. Francisco Cabral, completely different. He had a very negative view of the opportunity in Japan. And then Alessandro Valignano was again much more

brought the printed press and he was really strong in his idea of accommodation. That was the Jesuit, the accommodatio approach, but it was late in a sense. So Cabral in particular was the one that has

a lot of discussion about how to dress and how to present yourself and how much you should adapt to the local custom and he wasn't really strong on that. So he He fledged as soon as he could and went to go out. And it's quite sweet. You can almost imagine some of these encounters

because when you get to Alessandro Valyano era, he gets told by local feudal lords, look, if you lot turn up and you smell, your personal hygiene is bad, you haven't washed your clothes properly, and then you say you're superior to us in all these sorts of ways. You're just not going to be taken seriously.

So the Jesuits get told when they go to Japan, you learn how to use chopsticks. You take small bites. You don't keep livestock in your house. Because all these things, Japanese think it's disgusting. And they're not going to trust anything you say about these big questions if you can't even get the personal basics right. So I just love this idea.

I just not been taking seriously. Just which wrote all those letters, right? So there is a severe letter about Anjira Zai was a homo idiota. He was an ignorant man. So they were... You know, the Portuguese and the Spanias were referred to as Nanbanjing. That means southern barbarians. and the Dutch and the British,

you know, they're called Mogherjian, right? Red-haired men. Because many of the Dutch and British had red hair apparently. Yeah, you get a period where some of the Japanese mothers will threaten their children that if they don't behave, they'll set a Dutchman on them. Because the Dutch war clogs, they thought that their heels didn't naturally touch the ground,

so they must be sort of goblins or demons or something. So, yeah, it didn't take them entirely seriously. a wonderful clash of cultures, isn't it, across this period? It's a, yeah, it's a fascinating few decades. And that was that really? This isolation was imposed

in a draconian manner, was it? Absolutely. It's a dictatorship, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. Maybe. I suppose one thing, I can't remember if we mention this or not, but Japanese who tried to leave the country without permission, if you come back, you'll be executed. This is the producer. Lucas walked in, menacingly.

A bit like a cup of tea. Hi, I'm Ryland, and I'm here to talk about men, because in recent years, we have all seen the man in Britain undergo radical change as the rule book has been well and truly ripped apart. So I'm going to talk to a range of prominent figures and celebs who have each got their own diverse and contrast intakes on what it means to be a man today. I want to prize open the fault lines of modern masculinity and get to grips with the changing landscape and try to get some answers so that we can pass them on. to the next generation. This is Ryland, How to Be a Man, from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds.