THE SHIMABARA REVOLT
At the close of 1637, there occurred a rebellion, historically known as the "Christian Revolt of Shimabara," which put an end to Japan's foreign intercourse for over two hundred years. The Gulf of Nagasaki is bounded on the west by the island of Amakusa and by the promontory of Shimabara. In the early years of Jesuit propagandism in Japan, Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly Christianized regions, and in later days they were naturally the scene of the severest persecutions. Nevertheless, the people might have suffered in silence, as did their fellow believers elsewhere, had they not been taxed beyond endurance to supply funds for an extravagant feudatory. Japanese annalists, however, relegate the taxation grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak attracted all the Christians from the surrounding regions, and was officially regarded as a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over from that island to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January, 1638, the whole body—numbering, according to some authorities, twenty thousand fighting men with thirteen thousand women and children; according to others, little more than one-half of these figures—took possession of the dilapidated castle of Kara, which stood on a plateau with three sides descending one hundred feet perpendicularly to the sea and with a swamp on the fourth side.
The insurgents fought under flags inscribed with red crosses and their battle cries were "Jesus," "Maria," and "St. Iago." They defended the castle successfully against repeated assaults until the 12th of April, when, their provisions and their ammunition alike being exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105 prisoners. During this siege the Dutch gave practical proof of their enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and Portuguese. For, the guns in the possession of the besiegers being too light to accomplish anything effective, application was made to Koeckebacker, the Dutch factor at Hirado, to lend ships carrying heavier metal. He complied by despatching the De Ryp, and her twenty guns threw 426 shots into the castle in fifteen days. There has been handed down a letter carried by an arrow from the castle to the besiegers. It was not an appeal for mercy but a simple enumeration of reasons:—
"For the sake of our people we have now resorted to this castle. You will no doubt think that we have done this with the hope of taking lands and houses. Such is by no means the case. It is simply because Christianity is not tolerated as a distinct sect, which is well known to you. Frequent prohibitions have been published by the shogun, to our great distress. Some among us there are who consider the hope of future life as of the highest importance. For these there is no escape. Because they will not change their religion they incur various kinds of severe punishments, being inhumanly subjected to shame and extensive suffering, till at last for their devotion to the Lord of Heaven, they are tortured to death. Others, even men of resolution, solicitous for the sensitive body and dreading the torture, have, while hiding their grief, obeyed the royal will and recanted. Things continuing in this state, all the people have united in an uprising in an unaccountable and miraculous manner. Should we continue to live as heretofore and the above laws not be repealed, we must incur all sorts of punishments hard to be endured; we must, our bodies being weak and sensitive, sin against the infinite Lord of Heaven and from solicitude for our brief lives incur the loss of what we highly esteem. These things fill us with grief beyond endurance. Hence we are in our present condition. It is not the result of a corrupt doctrine."
It seems probable that of the remaining Japanese Christians the great bulk perished at the massacre of Kara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs, and though Christianity was not entirely extirpated in Japan, it survived only in remote places and by stealth.
ENGRAVING: NANBAN BELL
ENGRAVING: THE "KAIYO KWAN," THE FIRST WARSHIP OF JAPAN (Built in
Holland for the Tokugawa Feudal Government)
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE
THE Tokugawa family traced its descent from Nitta Yoshishige of the Minamoto sept (the Seiwa Genji) who flourished at the beginning of the thirteenth century. His son's place of residence was at the village of Tokugawa in Kotsuke province: hence the name, Tokugawa. After a few generations, Chikauji, the then representative of the family, had to fly to the village of Matsudaira in Mikawa province, taking the name of Matsudaira. Gradually the family acquired possession of about one-half of Mikawa province, and in the seventh generation from Chikauji, the head of the house, Hirotada, crossing swords with Oda Nobuhide, father of Nobunaga, sought succour from the Imagawa family, to which he sent his son, Ieyasu, with fifty other young samurai as hostages. This was in 1547, Ieyasu being then in his fifth year.