Book/Printed Material Record of the Hirasa Disturbance.
About this Item
Title
- Record of the Hirasa Disturbance.
Summary
- This document records the details of an incident in 1659 in which the commander of a foot soldier (ashigaru) troop, Hirasa Ushinosuke, died after rebelling against Abe Tadaaki (1602-75), ruler of the Oshi Domain (now Gyoda city) in Musashi Province (now Saitama Prefecture). A close confidant to the third shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Iemitsu, Tadaaki was a central political figure in the Tokugawa shogunate. The incident started with a dispute between Ushinosuke and his subordinate, Hagiwara Ichitayu, about staffing matters. Ushinosuke's son, Dazaemon, took his father's side in the argument and, unable to tolerate the verbal abuse from Ichitayu, killed him. When the domain leader Tadaaki was informed about this, he ordered Ushinosuke to explain his son's actions. Believing that he and his son would be sentenced to death, Ushinosuke disobeyed the order and holed up in own house. When foot soldiers stormed Ushinosuke's mansion in order to arrest them, they built a pyre of straw, set fire to it, and committed suicide by jumping into the fierce flames. This incident conveys the instability of the master-subordinate relationship at the beginning of the Edo period, due to the brutality of the lingering warrior culture from the Sengoku period (end of the 15th century to the end of the 16th century). After the incident, in order to teach his subjects the importance of swearing allegiance to the ruler, Tadaaki rewarded the troop commanders of the foot soldiers for their performance and gave jobs to the children of the foot soldiers who had been killed fighting against Ushinosuke. He also strictly regulated the handling of guns by foot soldiers and promoted the establishment of a stable master-subordinate relationship.
Created / Published
- [place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1855.
Headings
- - Japan--Saitama
- - 1659
- - Abe, Tadaki, 1602-1675
- - Feudalism
- - Soldiers
- - Warriors
Notes
- - Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
- - Original resource extent: 9 leaves ; 23 centimeters.
- - Original resource at: National Diet Library.
- - Content in Japanese.
- - Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.
Medium
- 1 online resource.
Digital Id
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2021667498
Online Format
- compressed data
- image