Ninomiya Sontoku

Japanese: 二宮尊徳 - にのみや・そんとく

Year of death: October 20, 1856 (November 17, 1856)
Year of birth: July 23, 1787 (September 4, 1787)
An agricultural politician of the late Edo period and the founder of Houtoku-shugi. Commonly known as Kinjiro, his given name was Sontoku. He was said to have been 5'5.6" (167-170cm) tall and a strong, muscular man. He was the eldest son of Toiemon Yoshino, a farmer from Kayayama Village, Ashigarakami County, Sagami Province (Odawara City). He lost his father at the age of 14, and two years later his mother died, leaving him in the care of his uncle, but through hard work and dedication he restored his family, which had fallen into decline, at the age of 20. In 1812 he became a young retainer in the household of Hattori Jurobei, a chief retainer of the Odawara Domain, and in 1818 he was asked to restore the Hattori family's finances, which he succeeded in doing through frugality and managing borrowed money. In the same year, he was appointed to the Odawara Domain for his achievements, and was ordered to restore a village in Sakuramachi, Chino Province (Ninomiya Town, Moka City, Tochigi Prefecture), which was the territory of the hatamoto Utsu clan, a branch family of the domain's lord. By 1837, he had successfully implemented the Sakuramachi Shiho, which is said to be the model for the Hotoku Shiho. From 1837 onwards, he worked on Shiho in various parts of northern Kanto, including Aoki Village, Hitachi Province, which was the territory of the hatamoto Kawazoe clan, the Yatabe and Mogi domains of the Hosokawa clan, the Karasuyama domain of the Okubo clan, which was a branch family of the Utsu clan, the Shimodate domain of the Ishikawa clan, the bakufu territories controlled by the Moka and Togo magistrate offices, and the Nikko Shrine territory, which is now part of Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures. Tomita Takayoshi, Saito Takayuki, Fukuzumi Masaaki, and Okada Ryoichiro, who later became known as the four great masters of the Ninomiya school, were all disciples who received his instruction during this time. His son Yataro Takayuki also assisted Sontoku, and his daughter Fumiko married Tomita Takayoshi. In his later years, Sontoku was appointed as a shogunate vassal with a stipend of 20 koku for two people, and died of an illness in Imaichi, Shimotsuke Province, during the period of Nikko Domain. These projects for the reconstruction of villages in distress, which were requested by feudal lords and carried out as the feudal lord's official or main act, are called administrative works, but in addition, the Hotoku Association, a voluntary organization of villagers led by landlords and wealthy farmers, spread to various regions, where the teachings of Hotoku were put into practice. One of the factors that made the Hotoku Domain successful was that it made detailed surveys and plans in advance, determined the "shares" that stipulated the consumption of feudal lords, landlords, and farmers according to their share, and "donated" surplus funds for the future of oneself or for others, and created and managed a fund called Hotoku money, which was placed between feudal lords and farmers, and another was that it drew out the "work" energy of farmers who aimed to become independent from the impoverished economy of the community through a reward system, etc. Originally, the Hotoku ideology was a combination of Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism, but it created norms rooted in the everyday life consciousness of the people, such as contrasting the human way of life that provides food, clothing, and shelter with the natural way of heaven, and placing importance on productive labor and discipline in life, and this can be seen as an ideology geared toward a new era. After the Meiji period, works such as Kanzo Uchimura's Representative Japanese (1894) positively evaluated Sontoku, who preached morality as the basis of economic activity. On the other hand, the Meiji government commemorated Sontoku from the perspective of educating the people, and from 1904 (Meiji 37) onwards, Sontoku appeared in ethics textbooks as a man endowed with many virtues, such as filial piety, scholarship, diligence, diligence, and thrift. From the early Showa period onwards, statues of Kinjiro reading on a burning firewood in elementary school playgrounds also became common. These were based on the intention of the ruling class, who wanted to develop the active energy of the poor while keeping them within the system. For a time after the war, Ninomiya Sontoku's image was revived as a symbol of peace and democracy, and was even featured on the one-yen banknote (1946), but even today his image as a model of thrift and saving remains strong. <References> "Ninomiya Sontoku Complete Works" 36 volumes, "Ninomiya Sontoku Den" by Shintaro Sasai, "Ninomiya Sontoku" by Tatsuya Naramoto

(Umino Fukuju)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：安政3.10.20(1856.11.17)
生年：天明7.7.23(1787.9.4)
江戸後期の農政家,報徳主義の創唱者。通称金次郎,諱は尊徳。身長5尺5,6寸(167～170cm),筋骨たくましい偉丈夫と伝えられる。相模国足柄上郡栢山村(小田原市)の百姓利右衛門,よしの長男。14歳で父を失い,その2年後に母が死に,伯父の家に預けられたが,奮励努力して没落した生家を20歳で再興した。文化9(1812)年小田原藩家老服部十郎兵衛家の若党となり,文政1(1818)年服部家の財政立て直しを依頼され,倹約と借入金の運用によりそれを成功させた。同5年その功により小田原藩に登用され,藩主の分家旗本宇津氏の領地下野国桜町領(栃木県真岡市,二宮町)の難村復興を命ぜられ,天保8(1837)年にかけて報徳仕法のモデルといわれる桜町仕法を施して成功。天保4年以降,旗本川副氏の領地常陸国青木村,細川氏の谷田部・茂木藩,宇津氏の一族である大久保氏の烏山藩,石川氏の下館藩,真岡・東郷両代官所支配の幕領,日光神領など,現在の茨城・栃木県下の北関東各地の仕法を手がけた。のちに二宮門四大人と呼ばれる富田高慶,斎藤高行,福住正兄,岡田良一郎はいずれもこの間に教えを受けた門弟である。子の弥太郎尊行も尊徳をたすけ,娘文子は富田高慶に嫁した。尊徳は晩年,御普請役格20俵2人扶持の幕臣に取り立てられ,日光領仕法中,下野国今市で病没。これらの領主層から依頼され領主の趣法あるいは主法として行った難村復興事業を行政式仕法というが,そのほか地主,豪農が中心となり,村民の自主的な組織である報徳結社によって報徳の教えを実践する結社式仕法が各地に普及した。報徳仕法が成功した要因のひとつは,事前に詳細な調査を行ってプランをたて,領主をはじめ地主,農民の分に応じた消費を規定した「分度」を画定し,余財を自己の将来や他人のために「推譲」することとし,報徳金と称する領主と農民との中間に位置する資金を創設運用したこと,もうひとつは,窮乏する共同体の経済から上昇農民の自立を目指す「勤労」エネルギーを褒賞制度などによってひき出したことである。もともと報徳思想は神儒仏3教の折衷より成るが,自然の天道に対し衣食住を生み出す人道を対置し,生産労働と生活規律を重視するなど,民衆の生活意識に根ざす規範を創出した点に新時代へ向けた思想化をみることができる。明治以降,内村鑑三『代表的日本人』(1894)などは,経済行為の基礎としての道徳を説いた尊徳を肯定的に評価した。他方,明治政府は国民教化の観点から尊徳を顕彰し,明治37(1904)年以降,修身教科書に孝行,学問,勤勉,精励,節倹など,多くの徳を備えた人物として登場させた。昭和初年以降,小学校校庭の「負薪読書」の金次郎像も一般化する。これらは貧しい民衆の能動的エネルギーを開発しつつ,これを体制内にとどめおこうとする支配層の意図にもとづく。戦後の一時期,平和と民主主義のシンボルとしての二宮尊徳像が再生し,1円札の肖像案(1946)ともなったが,今日でも勤倹節約の模範人物としてのイメージが強く残っている。<参考文献>『二宮尊徳全集』全36巻,佐々井信太郎『二宮尊徳伝』,奈良本辰也『二宮尊徳』

(海野福寿)

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