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cybermaai
24th June 2003, 14:48
While watching NHK's Musashi these past months, it occured to me that the number of ronin would have decreased as the Edo period wore on. The number would have spiked after Sekigahara or Osaka in 1615, but wouldn't the ronin have eventually gotten employment, died, or simply given up to become farmers or merchants? Any ideas/verified info out there?

kenkyusha
24th June 2003, 19:22
Hello,

As a guess, it seems likely that there would have been MORE rather than fewer Ronin as the Edo-jidai wore on. Any bushi that had multiple (male, of course) children would most likely appoint the older(est) one to be inheritor of not just the family name, but post in the Bakufu as well.

While one would presumably attempt to marry-off younger sons to families of similar standing (not much choice there, as the law was strict about attempting to marry 'up' too much in rank), there were only so many posts available. For a kinda neat look at one example from late Edo, check out a book called... er... Musui's Story (??hope that's correct).

Be well,
Jigme

Jock Armstrong
25th June 2003, 01:54
Thre was also a subtle control factor from government- ronin = bandits, bandits= unsafe travel, unsafe travel means peasants stay at home. Social destabilisation [just enough to keep things under control] Also gave the shogunate the excuse to post roadblocks to check on unauthorised travel under the guise of preventing crime.

Michael Wert
25th June 2003, 09:04
Definately more ronin as the Edo period progressed. In addition to the fact that many second and third sons had to find another form of employment (the eldest followed his father's post), many were unemployed. Even among those samurai who had posts, most were only seasonally employed in order to give other samurai a chance to work.

And let's not forget that in addition to ronin, there were sons of wealthy families and merchants who wandered around unemployed (although in one such case, Okawa Heibei, a village headmen's son was eventually hired by the Kawagoe Domain to be a kenjutsu instructor and was promoted to samurai rank -- see Fuse Kenji's article "Bakumatsu Kawagoehan ni okeru kenjutsu ryuha kaikaku" in the Sept 2001 number 640 of Nihon Rekishi ). This mixture of ronin, sons of wealthy merchants and wealthy peasants (gono) supplied much of the action during the bakumatsu period (shinsengumi, auxillary units in Choshu Domain, etc).

As for travel, the post stations were mainly to keep guns out of Edo and to check on samurai women traveling away from Edo, both signs of possible revolt against the shogun. For those interested in travel during the Edo period check out Vaporis Breaking Barriers-Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan .

Musui Story is an excellent example of down and out samurai who could move about freely yet had a hard time finding employment.

Michael Wert
History Ph.D student
UC Irvine