18-612: Sonnō jōi ( 尊 王 攘 夷 , "revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians") was a yojijukugo (four-character compound) phrase used as the rallying cry and slogan of a political movement in Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Bakumatsu period. Based on Neo-Confucianism and Japanese nativism , the movement sought to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate and restore the power of
36-579: A campaign against Shimonoseki, overrunning the meager defences and briefly occupying the region. While this incident showed that Japan was no match for Western military powers, it also served to further weaken the Shogunate, permitting the rebel provinces to ally and overthrow it, bringing about the Meiji Restoration . The slogan itself was never actually a government or rebel policy; for all its rhetoric, Satsuma in particular had close ties with
54-590: A government more able to show its loyalty to the Emperor by enforcing the Emperor’s will. The philosophy was thus adopted as a battle cry of the rebellious regions of Chōshū Domain and Satsuma Province . The Imperial court in Kyoto sympathized with the movement. Emperor Kōmei personally agreed with such sentiments, and – breaking with centuries of imperial tradition – personally began to take an active role in matters of state: as opportunities arose, he fulminated against
72-550: A snake lives in the ocean for a thousand years and in the mountains for another thousand years before it turns into a dragon . Hence a sly, worldly-wise person is referred to as one who has spent "a thousand years in the ocean and another thousand in the mountains". Many idiomatic yojijukugo were adopted from classical Chinese literature. Other four-character idioms are derived from Buddhist literature and scriptures, old Japanese customs and proverbs, and historical and contemporary Japanese life and social experience. The entries in
90-457: Is equivalent to the Chinese chengyu . Yojijukugo in the broad sense refers to Japanese compound words consisting of four kanji characters, which may contain an idiomatic meaning or simply be a compound noun. However, in the narrow or strict sense, the term refers only to four- kanji compounds that have a particular (idiomatic) meaning, which cannot be inferred from the meanings of
108-401: Is made up of four characters: oku ( 屋 , building) , nai ( 内 , inside) , kin ( 禁 , prohibited) , and en ( 煙 , smoking) . Alternatively, it can be regarded as consisting of two common two-character compounds: okunai ( 屋内 , indoors) , and kin'en ( 禁煙 , prohibition of smoking) . Either way, the meaning of the compound is clear; there are no idiomatic meanings beyond
126-528: The Emperor of Japan ( 尊皇論 sonnōron ), that implied that less loyalty should be given to the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. Mitogaku scholar Aizawa Seishisai introduced the term sonnō jōi into modern Japanese in his work Shinron in 1825, where sonnō was regarded as the reverence expressed by the Tokugawa Shogunate to the emperor and jōi was the proscription of Christianity . Sonnō jōi
144-686: The Emperor of Japan . Sonnō jōi is the Japanese reading of the Chinese idiom Zunwang Rangyi ( 尊王攘夷 ; lit. "Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians"). During the Spring and Autumn period of China, Chancellor Guan Zhong of Qi initiated a policy known as Zunwang Rangyi , in reference to the Zhou kings . Adopting and adhering to it, Duke Huan of Qi assembled the Chinese feudal lords to strike down
162-884: The Confucian classic the Gongyang Commentary of the Chunqiu . The Tokugawa shogunate promulgated the Zhu Xi school of Neo-Confucianism ( Shushi-gaku ), which interpreted the Chunqiu using this concept. 17th-century Confucian scholars Yamazaki Ansai and Yamaga Sokō wrote on the sanctity of the Imperial House of Japan and its superiority to the ruling houses of other nations. These ideas were expanded by Kokugaku scholar Motoori Norinaga , and seen in Takenouchi Shikibu's theory of absolute loyalty to
180-749: The West, purchasing guns, artillery, ships and other technology. After the symbolic restoration of Emperor Meiji , the sonnō jōi slogan was replaced with fukoku kyōhei ( 富国強兵 ), or "enrich the nation, strengthen the armies", the rallying call of the Meiji period and the seed of its actions during World War II . Yojijukugo A yojijukugo ( Japanese : 四字熟語 ) is a Japanese lexeme consisting of four kanji ( Chinese characters ). English translations of yojijukugo include "four-character compound", "four-character idiom", "four-character idiomatic phrase", and "four-character idiomatic compound". It
198-425: The components that make them up. There are a very large number—perhaps tens of thousands—of four-character compounds. A great majority of them are those whose meanings can be easily deduced from the literal definitions of their parts. These compounds may be called non-idiomatic yojijukugo . For example, the compound word okunaikin'en ( 屋内禁煙 , "no smoking indoors") is a non-idiomatic yojijukugo . It
SECTION 10
#1732780398380216-680: The literal meanings of its components. Below are a few more examples of non-idiomatic yojijukugo : Yojijukugo 四字熟語 is itself a non-idiomatic four-character phrase. By contrast, several thousands of these four-character compounds are true idioms in the sense that they have a particular meaning that may not be deduced from the literal meanings of the component words. An example of the highly idiomatic compound is: "Ocean-thousand, mountain-thousand" means "a sly old fox" or someone who has had all sorts of experience in life so that they can handle, or wiggle out of, any difficult situations through cunning alone. This meaning derives from an old saying that
234-599: The published dictionaries of yojijukugo are typically limited to these idiomatic compounds of various origins. The Japanese yojijukugo are closely related to the Chinese chengyu , in that a great many of the former are adopted from the latter and have the same or similar meaning as in Chinese. Many other yojijukugo , however, are Japanese in origin. Some examples of these indigenous Japanese four-character idioms are: Ch%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB Domain Too Many Requests If you report this error to
252-515: The shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki . Rōnins (masterless samurai) also rallied to the cause, assassinating Shogunate officials and Westerners. This turned out to be the zenith of the sonnō jōi movement, since the Western powers responded by demanding reparations for the assassinations and other acts by samurai against Western interests. In 1864, four Western nations launched
270-522: The threat of barbarians from China. For it, Confucius himself praised Guan Zhong for the preservation of Chinese civilization through the example of the contrast in the hairstyles and clothing styles between them and barbaric peoples. Through the Analects of Confucius, the Chinese expression came to be transmitted to Japan as sonnō jōi . The origin of the philosophy as used in Japan can be traced to
288-475: The treaties and attempted to interfere in the shogunal succession. His efforts culminated in March 1863 with his " Order to Expel Barbarians " ( 攘夷勅命 ). Although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan, the most notable incident being the killing of the trader Charles Lennox Richardson . Other attacks included
306-517: The treaty was signed under duress and was vehemently opposed in samurai quarters. The fact that the Tokugawa Shogunate was powerless against the foreigners despite the will expressed by the Imperial court was taken as evidence by Yoshida Shōin and other anti-Tokugawa leaders that the sonnō (revere the Emperor) portion of the philosophy was not working, and that the Shogunate must be replaced by
324-633: Was an anti-imperialist expression of Western imperialism before Japan transitioned to imperialism. With the increasing number of incursions of foreign ships into Japanese waters in the late 18th and early 19th century, the sakoku ("national seclusion") policy came increasingly into question. The jōi "expel the barbarians" portion of sonnō jōi , changed into a reaction against the Convention of Kanagawa of 1854, which opened Japan to foreign trade. Under military threat from United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry 's so-called " black ships ",
#379620