31-612: 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
62-579: 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
93-590: 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
124-411: A hotbed of anti-Tokugawa activities. The origins of this were evident in the tradition of the clan's New Year's meeting. Every year during the meeting, the elders and the administrators would ask the daimyo whether the time to overthrow the shogunate had come, to which the daimyo would reply: "Not yet, the shogunate is still too powerful." This dream would eventually be realized some 260 years later, when
155-550: 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
186-519: A strategy of alliance with Toyotomi Hideyoshi . This would later prove to be a great mistake. After Hideyoshi's death, the daimyō Tokugawa Ieyasu challenged the Toyotomi power and battled with Hideyoshi's trusted advisor Ishida Mitsunari at the Battle of Sekigahara . Mōri Terumoto was the most powerful ally of the Toyotomi and was elected by a council of Toyotomi loyalists to be the titulary head of
217-525: A strict policy with regard to trade. Laws were also passed through which the profitable trade of the "four whites" was controlled by the domain: paper, rice, salt, and wax. Some of the profits, and a large amount of the tax revenue from this trade, went into the domain coffers. These policies greatly strengthened the domain's finances and allowed the daimyo more effective control over his territory. However, these policies angered peasants and displaced samurai alike, resulting in frequent revolts. The capital of
248-457: 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
279-401: 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
310-528: 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
341-686: 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
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#1732772105110372-706: The Ezo Republic , during the Boshin War . The domains' military forces of 1867 through 1869 also formed the foundation for the Imperial Japanese Army . Thanks to this alliance, Chōshū and Satsuma natives enjoyed political and societal prominence well into the Meiji and even Taishō eras. The initial reduction of 1.2 million to 369,000 koku resulted in a large shortfall in terms of military upkeep and infrastructure maintenance, despite which
403-757: The Hagi Domain ( 萩藩 , Hagi-han ) , was a domain ( han ) of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Chōshū Domain was based at Hagi Castle in Nagato Province , in the modern city of Hagi , located in the Chūgoku region of the island of Honshu . The Chōshū Domain was ruled for its existence by the tozama daimyō of the Mōri , whose branches also ruled
434-884: 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
465-498: The Toyotomi force. However, the Toyotomi forces lost the battle due to several factors tied to Mōri Terumoto: Despite its inactivity, the Mōri clan was removed from its ancestral home in Aki to Nagato Province (also known as Chōshū), and its holdings were drastically reduced from 1,200,000 to 369,000 koku . This was seen as a great act of betrayal to the Mōri clan, and Chōshū later became
496-698: 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
527-425: 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
558-576: The domain joined forces with the Satsuma Domain and sympathetic court nobles to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1865, the domain bought a warship Union ( ja ) from Glover and Co. , an agency of Jardine Matheson established in Nagasaki , in the name of Satsuma Domain . They led the fight against the armies of the former shōgun, which included the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei , Aizu , and
589-497: The domain remained the seventh largest in Japan outside the shogunate-controlled domains. In order to bring the domain's finances out of debt, strict policies were enforced on the retainers: Previously, as a result of high taxation, farmers secretly developed farms far inside the mountains as a private food source. A new land survey was conducted within the domain in which many hidden farms were discovered and taxed. The domain also began
620-449: The domain was the castle town of Hagi , which was the source of Chōshū's alternate name of Hagi han (萩藩). The domain remained under the rule of the Mōri family for the duration of the Edo period . Because the shogunate frequently confiscated domains whose daimyo were unable to produce heirs, the Mōri daimyo created four subordinate han ruled by branches of the family: During the Edo period,
651-680: 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
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#1732772105110682-565: The main branch died out in 1707, after which heirs were adopted from the Chōfu branch, which also became extinct in 1751. The family then continued through the Kiyosue branch. The Mōri daimyo, as with many of his counterparts throughout Japan, was assisted in the government of his domain by a group of karō , or domain elders. There were two kinds of karō in Chōshū: hereditary karō (whose families retained
713-564: The neighboring Chōfu and Kiyosue domains and was assessed under the Kokudaka system with peak value of 369,000 koku . The Chōshū Domain was the most prominent anti-Tokugawa domain and formed the Satchō Alliance with the rival Satsuma Domain during the Meiji Restoration , becoming instrumental in the establishment of the Empire of Japan and the Meiji oligarchy . The Chōshū Domain
744-602: 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 The Chōshū Domain ( 長州藩 , Chōshū-han ) , also known as
775-808: The rank in perpetuity ) and the "lifetime karō ", whose rank was granted to an individual but could not be inherited by his son. The hereditary karō were either members of minor branches of the Mōri family, or members of related families such as the Shishido and the Fukuhara, or descendants of Mōri Motonari's most trusted generals and advisors such as the Mazuda, the Kuchiba and the Kunishi. The lifetime karō were middle or lower samurai who displayed great talent in economics or politics and were promoted to karō by
806-515: 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
837-470: 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
868-475: 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
899-517: 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
930-633: 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 ",
961-450: Was dissolved in the abolition of the han system in 1871 by the Meiji government and its territory was absorbed into Yamaguchi Prefecture . The rulers of Chōshū were the descendants of the great Sengoku warlord Mōri Motonari . Motonari was able to extend his power over all of the Chūgoku region of Japan and occupied a territory worth 1,200,000 koku. After he died, his grandson and heir Mōri Terumoto became daimyō and implemented