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Okashira
9th September 2004, 20:07
Hello everybody,

I read in another forum how the Yagyu Shinkage ryu split in 2 lines (one in Edo and on in Owari),and how the 2 lines chose different sides near the end of the Tokugawa era.

I was wondering if anyone knows how the rest of the Koryu reacted to the Meiji "revolution" to end the shogunate.
I mean did they support it, opposed it or remained neutral.
I guess it's not the "ryu" that interferes with politics, but the soke. But if I am the soke of X ryu and I say support the shogun, doesn't that imply that all my shihan etc will do the same (especially at 1800) ?

Finaly, I was wondering if the above choice (pro Maiji or Pro Tokugawa) led some ryus to extinction.

Mekugi
9th September 2004, 21:10
Originally posted by Okashira

I was wondering if anyone knows how the rest of the Koryu reacted to the Meiji "revolution" to end the shogunate.
I mean did they support it, opposed it or remained neutral.
I guess it's not the "ryu" that interferes with politics, but the soke. But if I am the soke of X ryu and I say support the shogun, doesn't that imply that all my shihan etc will do the same (especially at 1800) ?

Hey!
I don't know how the others took action, but I know how one did and it almost led to extinction:

12th Daishihan of Sosuishiryu, Shitama Shingo Munetsugu
(Jujutsu Shunkichinakasu, 12 koku)
Was born as the 3rd son of Ushihara Masanori in the district of Fukuoka, in Tempo 14 (1843). He trained under Shitama Munetsuna and eventually was adopted into his family via marriage. He became the Shihan of Sosuishitsuryu and opened his own dojo named "Seirensha". He was a good friends with the members of Saigo Takamori's group, who wanted to restore the Shogun to power and had planned to rise up against the Emperor and overthrow them. Munetsugu was devoted to his friends and his beliefs, so he fought with Saigo Takamori's men in the Seinan War during the year Meiji 10, (1877) and died along side them on April 2nd, at age 34 . In contrast to Kirino Toshiaki from Satsuma (The same area where Saigo Takamori was from),Shitama was regarded as a brave warrior from Fukuoka that fought and died with honor and with respect.

The 11th headmaster had to come out of retirement.

nicojo
9th September 2004, 22:09
Hi Okashira,

I think it's a good question. You may know a bit of E. Amdur and K. Friday's thoughts (and research) concerning ryu as political entities. So I would not be surprised to hear that certain "factions" were allied with certain ryu. Unfortunately I don't know enough yet about the particular time of history of the ryu I train with, the bit I do know I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing yet. (I'm not yudansha now) But hopefully others will post, as Russ did.


Good post Russ! I'm always interested in this sort of thing.

J. L. Badgley
11th September 2004, 23:04
Originally posted by Okashira
I was wondering if anyone knows how the rest of the Koryu reacted to the Meiji "revolution" to end the shogunate.
I mean did they support it, opposed it or remained neutral.
I guess it's not the "ryu" that interferes with politics, but the soke. But if I am the soke of X ryu and I say support the shogun, doesn't that imply that all my shihan etc will do the same (especially at 1800)?

I think you are over-simplifying the complex web of loyalties and responsibilities of the bushi during the revolution, as well as their individual adherence to 'bushido'. After all, if they all simply obeyed their superiors, there wouldn't have been much of a revolution at all, would there?

The reason, I suspect, that the two Yagyu schools tended to support separate factions has a lot to do with their location. Out in the provinces, they were probably more sympathetic with the revolutionaries (or just anti-Tokugawa). In Edo, however, the school probably had many people with interests in the continuation of the government (I don't know if the Yagyu school was still instructing the shogun at this point, but that would be a fairly strong incentive to be supportive of him, I'd imagine).

Individual instructors would have chosen sides (or just tried to get out of it), and I imagine this would have influenced their students. However, I expect there were also students who were going to support their clan, or the Emperor, or the shogun, depending on which tie they felt more commanding.

This is all conjecture based on what I know of Japanese history, but the Japanese are not as constrained by their intricate web of loyalties nearly as much as it is later Romanticized. I just doubt that the Ryuha would have been quite the political entities your statement would make them out to be. I'd be less surprised to see that certain ryuha (e.g. family lines) were all aligned on one side or the other because their members were part of a given political organization, rather than because the ryuha was an organization in and of itself. Does that make sense?