Hotta Masayoshi — The Minister Who Asked the Emperor and Was Refused

There is a moment when the country learned that the shogunate could not decide on its own. It is the day Hotta Masayoshi came back from Kyoto empty-handed.

Contents

Who Was Hotta Masayoshi?

Hotta was lord of Sakura domain in Shimosa and chief senior councillor of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Three things define him.

He built Dutch learning into his domain, until Sakura was described as "Nagasaki in the west, Sakura in the east."

He took over foreign affairs from Abe Masahiro, directing the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Townsend Harris and appointing the men who negotiated it.

He was refused imperial sanction for that treaty — which became the decisive breach in the shogunate's authority.

He was born in 1810 and died in 1864.

Why Hotta Masayoshi Planted Dutch Learning at Sakura

Hotta ruled Sakura, in what is now Chiba Prefecture.

He promoted Dutch learning and Western medicine as domain policy. He invited the physician Sato Taizen and had him open the Juntendo at Sakura — the origin of today's Juntendo University.

Western medicine was regarded with suspicion at the centre of the shogunate at the time. Making it official domain policy, and actually assembling doctors and students, made Sakura exceptional.

"Nagasaki in the west, Sakura in the east" — the phrase that put Sakura alongside Nagasaki dates from this period.

Hotta's case for opening the country was not ideological. It came from having looked at Western medicine and technology and understood the standard.

Hotta Masayoshi Succeeds Abe Masahiro

In 1855 Hotta became chief senior councillor, succeeding Abe Masahiro.

Abe had handled the Black Ships and concluded the Treaty of Kanagawa — which contained no provision for trade.

Settling that fell to Hotta.

In 1856 the American consul general Townsend Harris took up residence at Shimoda. His demand was unambiguous: a commercial treaty.

Hotta Masayoshi's Negotiations With Townsend Harris

It was a hard negotiation.

Harris's argument ran like this. Britain and France had gone to war with China and opened its ports by force. Japan would meet the same fate. Better to sign first with a still-peaceable America.

It was a threat, and it was also true.

Hotta committed to negotiating — though he did not sit across from Harris himself. The plenipotentiaries he appointed, Inoue Kiyonao and Iwase Tadanari, worked through the terms: tariffs, treaty ports, foreign residence, and consular jurisdiction, the clause placing foreigners beyond Japanese courts.

It was an unequal treaty. But Japan had no power at that point to obtain an equal one. Hotta did not believe "refuse" was an available option.

Why Hotta Masayoshi Was Refused in Kyoto

Here Hotta did something with almost no precedent in the shogunate's history.

He sought the imperial court's sanction for the treaty.

The reason was not weakness but changed circumstances. Since Abe Masahiro had canvassed the daimyo, national policy was no longer the shogunate's business alone. To hold down the objecting domains, Hotta judged he needed the throne behind him.

In 1858 he travelled to Kyoto himself — a chief senior councillor going up to request sanction in person.

He was refused.

Emperor Komei took the expulsionist position and would not approve the treaty. The shogunate's highest official had been told no by the emperor and had to go home.

What Hotta Masayoshi's Failure Meant

The trip cost the shogunate twice.

First, the treaty was not approved. The errand failed.

Second, and far worse, he had proved that the shogunate needed the court's permission.

Foreign affairs had been the shogunate's exclusive prerogative. The moment Hotta asked for sanction, the proposition that a shogunal decision was not legitimate without imperial assent became established.

The expulsionist movement drew its power from this. From then on, anyone who wanted to oppose the shogunate could say: the court says otherwise.

Hotta Masayoshi's Dismissal

Immediately after Hotta's return, Ii Naosuke became tairo.

Ii acted fast and crudely: he had the treaty concluded without waiting for sanction, in July 1858. Inoue Kiyonao and Iwase Tadanari signed it with Harris.

Hotta was dismissed. The man who had driven the treaty was cut out of concluding it.

He was not even given a part in the Ansei Purge that followed. He was out of national politics entirely.

How Hotta Masayoshi Died

He retired in 1862 and died in 1864, aged fifty-three.

The country opened exactly as he had argued it should, and the shogunate collapsed through the opening he had made.

Hotta Masayoshi Timeline

For his predecessor see Abe Masahiro; for the man who ordered the signature without him, Ii Naosuke.