Ryohei Noguchi 'Biographies of Bakumatsu Figures: Expelling Barbarians and Opening the Country' Episode 6: Kazan Watanabe (6)

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6

The territory of the Tahara Domain, surrounded by the sea, would be defenseless if attacked from the outside.
Upon becoming a senior councilor, Kazan also took on the role of 'Coastal Defense Commissioner' and began studying Western learning (Rangaku) to achieve effective coastal defense.

The scholarship Kazan mastered was Confucianism, specifically Neo-Confucianism as the state ideology, and this foundation remained with him until the end.
In 1811, at the age of 19, Kazan became a student of the Neo-Confucian scholar Issai Sato (1772-1859), known for his strictness.
The Hayashi family, the restorer of the school, had Jussai Hayashi, Head of the University (1768-1841) as his teacher. Issai was the head of the Shoheizaka Academy established by Jussai, and among his students were Hōkoku Yamada (1805-77), Shōzan Sakuma (1811-64), and Shōnan Yokoi (1809-69).

However, on the other hand, as shown in his depiction of Kamishima Island, Kazan had long held an interest in the West, and his efforts to master Western painting techniques brought a unique realism to the portraits he painted.
One of his masterpieces is the 'Portrait of Issai Sato' (c. 1821), which he completed after much trial and error; it cannot be denied that painting a strict Neo-Confucian scholar using Western techniques carried a sense of challenging the existing authority.

Kazan encouraged the retired lord of Sugamo, Tomonobu Miyake, to study Western learning, and with Tomonobu's understanding, he gathered many Western books covering various fields such as geography, customs, history, gunnery, and military science.

Then, through acquaintances, he met the Western scholar from Mizusawa, Oshu, Chōei Takano (1804-50), the Kishiwada domain doctor Sanei Koseki (1789-1839), and his friend Shunzan Suzuki, whom he recommended to Tomonobu to be hired for the translation of the collected Western books.

Furthermore, Kazan interacted with Western scholars such as the magistrate of Nirayama, Hidetatsu Egawa (1801-55), Kanae Hatazaki (1807-42) from Nagasaki, and the Koga domain senior councilor Senseki Takami (1785-1858), as well as the Dutch trading post chief Niemann (1796-1850) who visited Edo, striving to broaden his horizons.

Among those Western scholars, the one for whom a portrait by Kazan remains is Senseki Takami. Senseki had long been interested in overseas affairs and had even visited
Kōdayū Daikokuya, who had returned from Russia, at his residence in the Edo medicinal garden.

The portrait of Senseki that Kazan painted was from the eighth year of the Tenpo era (1837), when Senseki visited Kazan on his way back from suppressing the rebellion of Heihachiro Oshio while assisting his lord, the Osaka Castle Deputy. Kazan focused on the depth and shadows of the expression, which held both enlightened knowledge and the power to suppress rebels who had raised the banner of saving the people.


While Kazan did not match the Rangaku scholars in linguistics or specialized knowledge such as medicine and geography, he was able to grasp the overall image of Western civilization within humanity as a whole, and even capture and evaluate its shadows. To borrow the expression given to Kazan by Mito domain samurai Toko Fujita (1806-55), he was a 'great patron' of Rangaku.

According to Kazan's insight, the encroaching Western civilization is an ambiguous subject with both positive and negative aspects. The secret to its prosperity lies in the spirit of 'investigating principles', which seeks to understand both nature and society according to principles that everyone can accept.
That spirit was not built in a day, but is the product of education and research systems.
Western society, where career choice is free, status is not a barrier, and discussions are held in public, is superior to our country in that it is rich in the spirit of respecting human life and lacks the narrow-mindedness of a frog in a well.
However, on the other hand, the West is currently invading the non-Western world with a tyrannical and unscrupulous 'politics of power and strategy' to expand its territory.
The moral nature of Confucianism born from the non-Western world may be considered backward by the standards of Western civilization, but it continues to have meaning today in that it can critique the self-contradictions of the West.

—This was Kazan's situational awareness, woven with his bare hands.

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■ About the photos

※Header photo: Kazan Watanabe's copy of 'Shinshaku Yochi Zusetsu' (National Diet Library Digital Collection https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532343)

A portion of 'Shinsen Chishi Daini-ko' translated by Sanei Koseki that Kazan transcribed and edited. The original book is the second edition (1817) of 'Geographische oefeningen' by the Dutchman Pieter Johannes Prinsen (1777-1854).
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532343/1/4

■ References

■ Author Profile

Ryohei Noguchi
Intellectual historian and writer. Author of 'The World Image of Daibosatsu Toge' (Heibonsha, 2009, winner of the 18th Mineo Hashimoto Award), 'Bakumatsu Thinking' (Misuzu Shobo, 2017), and his latest book 'History of Archipelago Philosophy' (Misuzu Shobo, 2025). Translator of Louis Menand's 'The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America' (co-translator, Misuzu Shobo, 2011) and Michael Wert's 'Meiji Restoration Losers: Memory and History Surrounding Oguri Kozukenosuke' (Misuzu Shobo, 2019).

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