Many of us have had the chance to see black and white films or anime
showing ronin shouting "Sonno Joi" or "Tenchu" before 1) assassinating
some important person 2) fighting bakufu forces 3) killing a foreigner.
The belief in Sonno Joi (revere the emperor and expel the barbarians)
{there are some slight variations on the translation} can be found in
the Imperialist and Shogunate side, however each side had political or
personal obligations which were factors which forced them to choose a
side.
Basically, alot of guys, including some Shinsengumi, believed sonno
joi was the way to go.
Open any book on the history of Japan and the writer goes for the easy
reason and state "Japanese were xenophobic and this is expressed in
sonno joi" or something along those lines. Usually there is a follow
up with how the Japanese are naturally paranoid about outsiders
because of the fact that they live on a series of islands. Not only
is that the most "easy" explanation, it is incomplete.
Ofourse, people regardless of era or race, were capable of rational
thought. So did they all of sudden wake up one day and say "I hate
foreigners---kill them all!" There was a cause for all things.
Sonno joi was deeply influenced by China's (first) Opium War.
The first half of these notes will explain it using the most reliable
texts I've found:
http://www.shinsengumihq.com/unmaskmeijigovopium.htm
The rest of the page will deal with opium in the Meiji Era, and
Japan's use of opium in her imperialist ventures.
-------------------------
[you can stop reading if you want the rest is just extra stuff]
I felt that the right thing to do was omit one paragraph which was the
most intriguing.
The paragraph is basically this: The weapons which funded the Ishin
Shishi (often on credit) were directly linked to the opium trade.
Also we know that the bakufu side had their arms dealer too, Schnell,
and perhaps he had a network of merchants (the truth is you will find
opium trade everywhere---it was the *NORM*). Often merchants will
import in fancy western stuff but really the big money was in opium.
Opium was such a guaranteed high profit commodity that something
merchants "pawned" it to each other for money or weapons. You can say
"hey buddy give me a whole bunch of those guns, and I'll pay you later
cuz I got another buddy coming in with opium" and the person would
likely give the arms because opium was sure to yield the money to
cover the expense. Opium didn't take up too much cargo space, it
pulled in the most profit, and it was one of those commodities which
could cover weapons trade (if the merchant was clever in the smuggling
method).
I first found shreds of this info because not only did merchants who
dealt with the Ishin Shishi but also diplomats ofcourse had another
"base" and that was British INdia. There were financial transactions
between Japan and colony as well as your standard mundane paperwork.
What was the big deal with British India? India was a corner of the
opium triangle. British India's colonial administration was funded by
the opium trade. More importantly the financial institutions which
stored the money for the British bureaucracy and her merchants (they
need not be British) was basically a storage for drug profits.
The reason why I didn't post this was because I did some extensive
reading here and there and it was something which can be extrapolated
from texts---but did I find some smoking gun by an author saying "this
is how the Boshin War was funded by drug money"...not exactly (but
pretty darn close).
Remember, this is a study on a sordid trade (so authors were
cautious), there is a surprisingly amount of data, even ship logs
noting how much opium was entering which port and under which
merchant---but for the most part authors like to present the
information and draw the safest conclusions.
I just wanted to state this...Thomas Glover is mostly associated with
Nagasaki (as were ***many merchants ofcourse). Opium had few entries
into Japan, and Nagasaki was one of those trade hubs for this
contraband. The big trade firms were opium smugglers. Keep in mind
that there was a great deal of denial over the opium problem in Japan
before and after 1868. So if an author bought into the "Japanese
don't smoke opium" then he/she wouldn't look deeper.
So I followed them and did not interpret beyond the very basic
possible conclusion. I didn't want to threaten the integrity of the
rest of the good information with my own "speculation". but I wanted
to share this scenario with you all anyways---just because I like to
blab.
(^__^)