Chapter 7

One of the few objects to have survived the holocaust at Shimabara in 1638 is the flag of the young insurgent leader, Amakusa Shirō. On a three-foot square of white silk two rather stolid, Western-looking angels are worshipping a huge, black chalice that rises between them. Above the chalice hangs a circular white host adorned with a black cross, and across the top are inscribed the Portuguese words, LOVVAD° SEIA O SACTISSIM° SACRAMENTO (“Praised be the Most Holy Sacrament!”). A strange device for the banner of a Japanese hero. But then almost everything that is told about Amakusa Shirō, the obscure lad from Kyushu who at the age of sixteen is said to have commanded some forty thousand country people in a campaign against the feudal authorities of Tokugawa Japan, is bizarre and incongruous. [7.1]

There is a wealth of material about the explosive Christian rebellion, but its youthful hero is still shrouded in factual obscurity. Owing to the annihilation of his headquarters in Hara Castle, the slaughter of his supporters and family, and the destruction of all the rebel archives, there are hardly any contemporary records about him except some brief, imprecise references in official reports. In consequence, while Amakusa Shirō belongs to a well-documented period, and while there is no question about his historical existence, he remains a mysterious figure, poised, like Yoshitsune and Masashige, on the borderline between fact and legend. [7.2]

The fabulous aspect of the hero’s career is epitomized by a famous poem, the-so-called “Divine Revelation,” which was secretly circulated among Japanese Christian communities in Kyushu during the months before the revolt. These prophetic verses were supposedly written by a foreign Jesuit priest who had been expelled from Japan some twenty-five years earlier; but they may well have been a later concoction produced by organizers of the revolt who wished to ensure that, despite his youth and obvious inexperience, Amakusa Shirō would be accepted as leader of the insurgents. The poem, which is composed in Chinese and in a deliberately cryptic style, goes as follows:

Hereafter, when five years have passed five times,

A God will come into this world [in the guise of] a boy aged twice times eight.

This youth, endowed by birth with every gift,

Will effortlessly show forth his wondrous power.

Then Heaven will cause the clouds to flame in East and West,

And Earth will make the flowers bloom before their time.

The counties and the provinces will rumble then and roar,

And the dwellers of this realm will see their trees and plants

consumed by fire.

All people shall wear the nine-jewelled Cross about their necks,

And suddenly white banners will be fluttering in the fields and hills.

All other faiths will be engulfed by the True Creed,

And Our Heavenly Lord will save the people of this world... [7.3]

When the rebellion broke out, five years had indeed passed five times and, by a more remarkable coincidence, Amakusa Shirō had precisely reached the age of “twice times eight.” In that year Kyushu had also experienced a number of natural disturbances that seemed to validate the prophecy. A strange red glow, a sort of heavenly flame, had been seen on the horizon at early dawn and again just before dusk; and, far more significant in a country so obsessed with the seasons as Japan, untimely cherry blossoms were said to have been observed in the autumn. It cannot have been hard to convince the gullible and desperate peasants, who had long been the victims of fierce religious persecution, that the other parts of the prophecy would now also be fulfilled: under the leadership of Amakusa Shirō, the lad of “wondrous power,” they would soon be freed from their oppression and white Christian banners would flutter in the fields and hills.

The young man’s heroic credentials were buttressed by reports of miraculous powers. It was said that, like St. Francis, Amakusa was able to call down flying birds and make them alight on his hand; in fact, he went even further and persuaded them to lay eggs in his palm. He could also run over the waves, and on one memorable occasion he was seen walking on the sea off Shimabara Peninsula near a great burning cross that rose from the waters. From this it was only a short step to proclaiming that Amakusa Shirō was an incarnation of deusu (Deus), the Lord himself, who had been sent down to establish the rule of Christianity and thus save Japan. [7.4]

Introduced in the middle of the sixteenth century, Christianity enjoyed a great initial success in certain parts of Japan, especially Kyushu; but once the new Tokugawa rulers began to suspect it as a threat to social stability and a possible precursor of foreign invasion, they stamped it out with merciless efficiency. [7.5] By about 1640 the foreign religion had been virtually extirpated, Shimabara being in a sense its dying convulsion. When the prohibitions were removed some two centuries later, Christian missionaries again became active in Japan; but today, after more than a hundred years of proselytism and good works, it would appear that their efforts have on the whole been nugatory. Less than one percent of the population is even nominally Christian, and the spiritual influence of Christianity in Japan is minimal. Yet, despite general indifference to the foreign creed, the story of the great rebellion, in which Christianity played a central part, has a strong appeal for many present-day Japanese, and its young Christian leader, Amakusa Shirō, ranks as a national hero. He was especially admired during the antimilitarist period after the Pacific war when he became a symbol of youthful resistance to “feudal” oppression and injustice. Several popular films have been made about him and his disastrous uprising. [7.6] In one version the rebel leader is depicted as an attractive youth with the smooth, delicate features of the romantic Yoshitsune. Two young Christian girls whose families have joined the rebellion pine after the handsome young chief; the hero, of course, is far too ethereal and idealistic for any carnal dalliance, but this reserve only adds to his fascination. [7.7] Amakusa Shirō is also the hero of a play (Ranun = “Scattered Clouds”) by a left-wing theatrical group who used his story as a paradigm of unsuccessful revolution. A famous female impersonator, Maruyama Akihiro (“the most beautiful man in Japan”) focused popular attention on Amakusa Shirō by claiming to be his reincarnation (umarekawari). In 1972 a popular historical magazine started publishing a serialized version of an “autobiography” in which the hero describes his brief, dramatic career from the time when he was obliged to witness the public torture of Japanese Christians in Nagasaki and Unzen Hot Springs and first came to realize the horrors that were being perpetrated by the feudal authorities. [7.8] Interest in the hero has also been fostered by the recent “Song of Amakusa Shirō” (Amakusa Shirō no Uta), which has had particular appeal for student protesters resisting the conservative government:

Now they have risen—the Christian farmers who did groan

Under the tyranny of Shimabara’s lord.

Strike down [Lord] Matsukura and, in the echoes of Mount Unzen,

Ah, [proclaim] Amakusa Shirō and the resistance of Shimabara!

Now by the thousands and tens of thousands they are besieged in Hara Castle,

Overwhelmed by the government’s encircling troops

Yet] firmly joined beneath their Christian Cross.

Ah, Amakusa Shirō and the resistance of Shimabara! [7.9]

Amakusa Shirō qualifies as a Japanese hero because, armed with the courage of sincerity, he and his followers struck out against the overwhelming might of the feudal levies and, after an initial period of brilliant success and months of brave but hopeless resistance, went down in tragic defeat. The totality of their collapse emphasized the purity of their motives, and earned them the hōganbiiki sympathy that is traditionally accorded to the loser. In one of the great massacres of premodern history the insurgents were all slaughtered; the ancient castle by the sea where they had entrenched themselves and fought with such zeal was razed to the ground, and soon nothing was left but the wind blowing through the ruins to remind passersby of the transience, poignancy, and aware of human effort. [7.10]

The setting of the great rebellion was the peninsula of Shimabara and the nearby islands of Amakusa some forty miles across the bay from the city of Nagasaki. It is one of the most dramatic parts of Kyushu’s wild, craggy coast. The beauty of the riant seascape, with its hundreds of rugged islets and its bright white sand bordering the clear waters of Shimabara Bay and Amakusa Sea, all set against a background of gentle, pine-green hills, contrasts strangely with the hideous events that were enacted there during the early decades of the seventeenth century, and it is hard for the modern visitor to imagine that, like Conrad’s Congo, this had indeed been “one of the dark places of the earth.”

Western Kyushu was always a painfully poor part of the country, and even at the best of times the farmers in the little villages in the hills of Shimabara and by the shores of the Amakusa Islands lived close to subsistence level. A prolonged drought or an unexpected increase in tax levies meant disaster for them and their families. It was also a very remote area. When a commanding general was despatched from the shogunal headquarters in Edo (present-day Tokyo), it took him over a fortnight to reach Shimabara—six days for the land journey to Osaka and a further ten days by sea to Nagasaki. One reason for the difficulty in suppressing the rebellion was the initial delay in receiving orders from the Shogun, who alone had the power to issue the necessary instructions.

Though the uprising in Shimabara was far from being purely Christian in its origins, most of the insurgent peasants and their leaders, including Amakusa Shirō, were in fact believers, and the religious inspiration was vital. Since the arrival of Francis Xavier and his fellow Jesuits about a century earlier, Christianity had taken deep roots in this wild and distant corner of Japan. Kyushu was the centre of proselytism, and the unremitting work of the Catholic missionaries produced remarkable results in poor, backward regions like Shimabara. In 1577 the Lord of Amakusa, having been converted to Christianity, ordered all his subjects to accept the true faith or leave the islands at once; and there were few families that did not comply. Thirty-five years later, despite the Shogun’s repeated edicts against the foreign religion, almost all Shimabara Peninsula was Christian, from the daimyo himself, Lord Arima, down to the poorest peasant; the Amakusa islands, which until the turn of the century had belonged to the domains of another converted daimyo (the famous General Konishi), were also overwhelmingly Christian.

The Tokugawa government, alarmed by the political and military implications of the spread of Christianity, finally decided in 1612 to enforce their long-standing edicts: Christianity was definitively prohibited and all missionaries were ordered to leave. Christians, foreign and Japanese alike, continued to flout the regulations; but now the authorities, as if to make up for lost time, launched a reign of terror to eradicate the alien creed for once and all. [7.11] During the following two decades almost all the foreign missionaries who remained in the country were tracked down and killed; and some ninety percent of the 300,000 Christians in the country were arrested and either forced to apostatize or painfully put to death. Inspired by faith and desire for martyrdom, the Christian community endured its ordeal with incredible patience and made no attempt to resist by force. [7.12] Kyushu, being the centre of Japanese Christianity, witnessed the most savage persecution of all. Nearly every form of torture that human ingenuity and savagery could devise was used to ferret out information from Christian prisoners or to obtain recantations. A list of standard methods employed by the Chief Commissioner of Nagasaki includes: the water torture, the ordeal of the snake pit, branding on the face, slicing with a bamboo saw, the torture of the wooden horse (in which heavy weights were attached to the feet of the straddling victim), roasting alive, and (one of the few imports from the West that the authorities accepted with undiluted enthusiasm) crucifixion.

In a further effort to prevent foreign intrusion the Tokugawa Bakufu issued a series of edicts banning most foreigners from Japan and forbidding all Japanese from leaving the country on the pain of death or, if they had already left, from returning. The first of these orders was a seventeen-article edict issued in 1633; still stricter regulations were promulgated in 1635 and 1636; and, as one aftermath of the Shimabara Rebellion, a final exclusion edict in 1639 prohibited Portuguese ships from entering Japanese ports. [7.13] These rules put an end to foreign trade and tourism for over two centuries and effectively severed the remaining Christians in Japan from outside contact and support.

Lord Matsukura, who succeeded to the domain of Shimabara Peninsula after the final Tokugawa victory in 1615, was at first deceptively mild in controlling his subjects; but soon he resorted to tougher methods, and after a decade of rule he had acquired the dubious reputation of being one of the two most successful persecutors in all Japan. He was noted for the fiendish ingenuity of the torments inflicted on his Christian prisoners. A favourite place of torture was Unzen Hot Springs (mentioned in the “Song of Amakusa Shirō”) in the central mountainous pad of Shimabara. At Unzen, which has now become a popular tourist resort, victims who refused to apostatize were slowly boiled to death in the scalding, sulphurous waters under the horrified gaze of their families and fellow villagers.

In the Amakusa Islands a few miles to the south the Tokugawa Bakufu had transferred rule from the former Christian daimyo to the Terazawa family. A large number of refugees, including many rōnin, had tried to escape persecution in Nagasaki and other parts of Kyushu by fleeing to the islands, where they became part of the Christian farming and, fishing communities. It proved to be an unfortunate move. Though Lord Terazawa may at one time have been a secret adherent, he exposed his Christian subjects to the harshest treatment, notably ordeal by burning; his son, who succeeded as overlord in 1633, enthusiastically kept up the tradition. By 1637 the policy of official terror and repression had outwardly succeeded: the majority of believers in the region had publicly recanted by treading on holy images (fumie) or signing oaths of apostasy. As events were to show, however, persecution had only made the local adherents more determined. Most of them, including Amakusa Shirō and his family, remained Christians at heart and still practised their faith in secret.

A number of incidents in 1636 and 1637 suggest the desperate situation of the local Christians. Late in 1637 a devout farmer in the village of South Arima at the tip of the peninsula examined an old picture of Deus that he had kept hidden in a chest for fear that it might be discovered and reported to the authorities. To his amazement and joy he saw that the picture had been provided with a border while still lying in the chest. A miracle! He promptly announced it to his co-religionists, including his elder brother who was the village headman, and a few days later they all congregated secretly in his house to worship the picture and give praise to God. News of the meeting had, however, leaked out and a posse of constables hurried in a small boat from the fief headquarters at Shimabara. They broke in while the subversive ceremony was underway and arrested sixteen of the celebrants, including the two brothers. The prisoners were roped up and sent to Shimabara, where they were promptly executed as a warning to others. On the day after this grim news reached the villagers they celebrated the feast of the Ascension and defiantly hung up their white Christian flags. [7.14] When the bailiff tried to interfere, the indignant participants put him to death. The believers of South Arima realized that they would now be subject to fearful reprisals, and rather than wait for the sword to strike they rapidly joined forces with co-religionists in nearby villages and made plans to seize the local government offices. A few days later the momentous rebellion broke out. [7.15]

Most contemporary Japanese accounts ascribe exclusively religious origins to the revolt. Modern scholars, however, give overwhelming importance to economic factors and insist that Shimabara was not essentially a Christian uprising but a furious protest by peasants in a poor, backward region of Japan against extortionate taxation by their feudal overlords. Rather surprisingly, the economic motive was also stressed by European observers, including Duarte Correa, a Portuguese Familiar of the Holy Inquisition, who at the time of the rebellion was languishing in a Kyushu prison waiting to be burnt at the stake. [7.16] Correa was hardly an economic determinist, but in his account of the uprising he stressed the miserable conditions that drove the local population to despair and quotes a Japanese gentleman who remarked that “the rebellion could not be due to the rebels being Christians, since in times when there were many such, including famous captains, they never had rebelled.” [7.17]

Naturally the shogunal authorities had good reason to emphasize the religious nature of the revolt, since this provided concrete justification for their anti-Christian policy; and for the local officials it was obviously preferable to represent Shimabara as a result of religious fanaticism rather than as a desperate revolt of starving people against their oppressors. “L’on attribuait la révolte à la raison réligieuse,” writes Pagés in his famous history of Japanese Christianity; “mais telles n’étaient pas les véritables causes.” The Japanese government, he points out, stressed the religious motive “pour couvrir ses méfaits et sauver son honneur.” [7.18]

The economic hardships of the Kyushu peasantry cannot be blamed entirely on the iniquity of local officials. There is no evidence that overlords like Matsukura or Terazawa were venal or inefficient in governing their territories. They were, however, subject to increasingly onerous and unrealistic levies that the central Bakufu government was imposing on “outside daimyos” and naturally they transferred impositions to the ultimate source of agricultural wealth, the hard-working peasants in the rice fields. [7.19] To aggravate the situation the harvests had been poor in western Kyushu since 1634, and there was a major crop failure in 1637. [7.20] Normally local taxes would have been abated in such hard times, but this was impossible because of the obligation to remit rice payments to the Bakufu treasury. On the peninsula there was the additional expense of constructing the new Shimabara Castle. Far from reducing the burden on his peasants, Lord Matsukura now imposed fresh levies. In addition to the basic produce tax they were subject to impositions such as a door tax, a hearth tax, a shelf tax, a tax on cattle, and even special taxes when there were births or deaths in the family. Since the levies were normally payable in rice and other grains, the result was widespread undernourishment and starvation. This reached its height in 1637 when, according to contemporary accounts, peasants were reduced to eating mud and straw.

In these grim conditions the regular collection of revenue obviously presented difficulties. Sometimes the peasants concealed food in order to save themselves and their families from starvation; more often they had little or nothing to hide and were simply unable to meet the collectors’ demands. The authorities in both Shimabara and Amakusa decided that harsh methods were necessary; for peasants were like sesame seeds—“the harder you squeeze them, the more they give.” Lord Matsukura, already known for his rough handling of Christians, now used his expertise to harass tax-defaulters. The following account of his Mino Dance torture is contained in a letter from Nicolaus Couckebacker, the chief of the Dutch factory off Nagasaki, to the Governor-General in Formosa:

Those who could not pay the fixed taxes were dressed, by [Matsukura’s] order, in a rough straw coat made of a kind of grass with long and broad leaves and called mino by the Japanese, such as is used by boatmen and other peasantry as a rain-coat. These mantles were tied round the neck and body, the hands being tightly bound behind their backs with ropes, after which the straw-coats were set on fire. They not only received burns, but some were burnt to death; others killed themselves by bumping their bodies violently against the ground or by drowning themselves. This tragedy is called the Mino dance (Mino-odori). [7.21]

In order to make the victims burn more brightly and further to terrify their fellow villagers, who were forced to watch the ghastly spectacle, the officials in charge ordered that the straw coats be rubbed with lamp-oil; and often the punishment was carried out after sunset like some macabre display of fireworks.

When direct methods of this kind did not produce the desired payments, the authorities arrested the wives or daughters of tax-defaulters as hostages and subjected them to painful and humiliating ordeals such as being suspended upside-down and naked. [7.22] We are told that in many cases husbands, especially those who had formerly belonged to the warrior class but had now become farmers, would actually kill their wives and children with their own hands rather than let them undergo such shame. Frequently women were seized and kept immersed in icy water until they died or, as the authorities hoped, until their families disgorged the tax payments. In December 1637 the pregnant wife of a village headman in Amakusa was held in a “water prison” for six days and nights and died while giving birth to her child. Correa recounts another outrage that took place in Shimabara in the same month:

The daughter of a village headman was seized; and, young and beautiful as she was (moca donzella, e fermosa), they exposed her nude and branded her all over the body with red-hot irons. The father, supposing that his girl would simply be kept as a hostage until his debt was paid, had accepted the separation; but, when he heard about the barbarous treatment to which she had been subjected, he became mad with grief and, summoning his friends, attacked the local bailiff and killed him. [7.23]

According to Pagés, this was the incident that led to the general revolt. It would be a mistake, however, to identify any particular event as decisive. The Shimabara Rebellion resulted from a combination of economic and religious motives. In its origins the economic causes were probably more compelling; but once the movement got underway and the oppressed peasants had rallied under predominantly Christian leaders and slogans, the rebellion assumed an increasingly religious character. Though the economic suffering of the peasantry was a crucial motive, Amakusa Shirō and the others insisted that their aims were exclusively religious. The leaders of the Shimabara Rebellion sought to inspire their supporters by concentrating on ideological beliefs rather than material issues. In a statement addressed to the authorities some months after the outbreak they declared:

It is simply because the Christian sect is not tolerated as a distinct sect....Frequent prohibitions have been published by the Shogun, which have greatly distressed us. 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 extreme suffering, till at last, for their devotion to the Lord of Heaven, they are tortured to death. Others, men of resolution even, solicitous for the sensitive body, and dreading the torture, have, while hiding their grief, obeyed the [Shogun’s] 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 hitherto, 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 our capacity. Hence we are in our present condition. [7.24]

During the first months of the movement, the non-Christians among the insurgents were increasingly swayed by the religious professions of their leaders, which must have seemed nobler and more inspiring than economic grievances, and by the end of the rebellion most of them had probably been converted to the faith that prevailed in the rebel camp and that was so proudly announced on their banners.

The rebellion broke out in Shimabara on the 17th December (1637) and, like a flame among dry kindling, rapidly fanned out to the rest of the peninsula and then across the straits to the Amakusa Islands. The rank and file among the insurgents were poor, weaponless peasants and fishermen, the Lumpenproletariat of agricultural Japan. Being mainly Catholic converts or the children of converts, they had been harassed for decades, and now they were prepared for action. Entire villages in Shimabara were abandoned as their inhabitants—men, women, and children—went over in mass to join the rebels.

The very first to revolt, however, were not the small peasants but the relatively secure village headmen (shōya). Many of these men were of warrior stock, having formerly been in the service of Catholic daimyo like Lord Arima and General Konishi, and having fought under them in the civil wars or in Korea. In the new regime they had become squires or gentleman farmers; yet their style of life was hardly different from that of the ordinary farmers, and now many of them were goaded to fury by the daily exactions and humiliations they were forced to endure.

The effective organization and leadership of the rebellion appears to have been in the hands of half a dozen such former samurai who, having been cut off from their overlords, were now classed as rōnin. [7.25] Typical among them was a sixty-year-old ex-warrior called Ashizuka Chūemon whose father had been Governor of Udo Castle, the feudal headquarters of Higo Province at the time of the former Christian daimyo, General Konishi. After the death of his father and the appointment of the new anti-Christian overlord, Ashizuka moved to Shimabara Peninsula and became a farmer. [7.26] Appalled by the cruelties and injustice of the Matsukura regime he collaborated in December 1637 with other rōnin to lead a revolt by his villagers, and soon he became famous for his prodigies of courage in fighting government troops. According to one version, it was Ashizuka who first recommended that the youthful Amakusa Shirō be made Commander-in-Chief of all the rebels.

Contemporary official documents scornfully describe Amakusa Shirō as “having no pedigree” (yuisho mo naki), but in fact we know that his father, Masuda Yoshitsugu, was a respectable Christian samurai-turned-farmer who had been born in the little island of Ōyano in Amakusa and who was originally a retainer of General Konishi. Masuda, who later became famous as a rebel leader under the name of “Amakusa Jimbei,” remained on his island until 1600; after the change of regime he and his younger brother, a physician called Gensatsu, moved to the hamlet of Ebe on the mainland of Higo Province. There he was appointed headman and there, about 1621, his son, Amakusa Shirō, was born. [7.27] Jimbei appears to have been a fearless proselytizer; on several occasions he preached Christianity in Nagasaki and Amakusa, a risky venture in seventeenth-century Kyushu; and sometimes he took along his precocious son, who from an early age was thus exposed to the joys and perils of Christianity.

There are various accounts about Amakusa Shirō’s boyhood and youth, and often they contradict each other. One set of stories is patently designed to emphasize his fabulous attributes. We are told that without any formal study he acquired preternatural knowledge (he could read and write at the age of four) and also that he was endowed with the convenient gift of performing miracles. When Amakusa Shirō was twelve years old, he worked as a servant for some Chinese merchants in Nagasaki; an eminent physiognomist from China was surprised to see the lad in this menial capacity, for he recognized in him the lineaments of future greatness. [7.28] The story, which remains uncorroborated, is typical of those told about heroic figures in the Far East. [7.29] Somewhat more plausible is the account that Amakusa Shirō was employed as a pageboy by one of Lord Hosokawa’s vassals but that, owing to his precocious love of learning, he asked to be excused from service so that he might pursue his studies; he then joined his father in Higo.

A somewhat different version was given by his mother when she was being interrogated by the authorities. According to Martha (as she was called after her baptism), Amakusa Shirō spent most of his childhood in Ebe. At the age of eleven he embarked on serious studies, having refused to take service with his feudal overlord until completing his education. From the age of about twelve he made frequent study trips to Nagasaki. Shortly before the outbreak of the rebellion, according to Martha’s confession, he had gone with his father to stay at the house of his brother-in-law in Ōyano (Amakusa). He had never travelled to Osaka or to any other part of Japan beyond western Kyushu. Martha’s statement may not be entirely reliable, since she obviously had to be careful not to inculpate her son. The story about his visits to Nagasaki, however, seems authentic, and it was probably on one of these occasions that he was secretly baptized and given the Christian name of Hieronimo (Jerome). [7.30]

The great mystery, of course, is why a lad of Amakusa Shirō’s age, with no special knowledge of military affairs or organization, should have been chosen as Commander-in-Chief of the insurgents. Admittedly no one can have suspected that the rebellion would grow as it did and that the young man would eventually be in command of almost forty thousand people. Yet why should experienced ex-samurai like Ashizuka have regarded him, of all possible candidates, as an appropriate military leader? The circumstances of the choice are unclear. One possibility is that Amakusa Shirō was intended as a figurehead and that real leadership of the rebellion was to remain in the hands of a small number of rōnin, including his father, who would act in his name, just as powerful political and military leaders in Japanese history have so frequently exercised power that was “delegated” to them by a child Emperor or some other nominal ruler. It is also possible that the rōnin leaders were divided into numerous factions, each supporting different strategies and objectives, and that Amakusa Shirō was chosen as a compromise candidate precisely because he was so inexperienced and did not belong to any particular group. [7.31] Besides, he no doubt possessed unusual personal qualities. Making full allowance for legendary accretions, we have reason to believe that he was a gifted young man (this is confirmed by the Hosokawa Family Records, which are unlikely to have been prejudiced in favour of a rebel leader); and, whether or not he was quite as impressive a figure as is popularly believed, he may well have been endowed with some of Yoshitsune’s youthful glamour and also possessed that mysterious attraction which Weber defines as charisma. [7.32] [7.33]

Perhaps there were also religious reasons behind the choice. The rōnin organizers may have thought—and, if so they were correct—that the religious peasants of Shimabara and Amakusa would be more likely to rally to the cause of a pure, innocent youth, who could be represented as a Heavenly Child (Tendō) or a Son of God than to some grizzled ex-samurai. General plans for the rebellion had probably been mooted for at least six months before the outbreak, and during this time the rōnin leaders did their best to spread Amakusa Shirō’s reputation as a Messianic figure whom God had sent to redeem his suffering people. [7.34] By December the ground was prepared and it was possible to put him forward as the natural leader under whose divine inspiration the peasants of Shimabara and Amakusa—later of all Kyushu and even of all Japan—would throw off their shackles. The extent to which this young Japanese Messiah actually made the day-to-day military decisions and handed out the orders will never be known. It is quite probable that the practical direction of the revolt was mainly in the hands of elder rōnin leaders like Jimbei and Ashizuka. In the legend, however, Amakusa Shirō has always been the leader and the hero of Shimabara, while the other commanders are mostly unknown.

Shortly after the outbreak of the revolt an alert fourteen-year-old village youth provided the local constables with information that led to the arrest of Amakusa Shirō’s mother and sisters and also of his elder sister’s family. The authorities were impatient to get information about Amakusa Shirō and to find out whether he was in fact the central figure in a coordinated plan of revolt. The prisoners were accordingly put to the question. Under interrogation they stated that Amakusa Shirō had lived entirely in his native village of Ebe, that recently he had suffered from a bad case of scabies (a homely touch which certainly has the ring of authenticity), and that, though he had visited the islands, he had not, as suggested by the investigators, preached the Christian gospel in either Amakusa or Nagasaki. Though probably subjected to fierce torture, Kozaemon and the others stalwartly tried to cover up for Amakusa Shirō and his father. [7.35]

After their interrogation was completed, the hostages were forced to write letters begging the two men to leave the rebel camp in Amakusa and to join them on the mainland. It is not known whether Amakusa Shirō and Jimbei ever received these letters, but if so they clearly recognized this as a trap (one can imagine the kind of treatment they would have received at the hands of Lord Terazawa’s henchmen) and there was no reply. The authorities then got wind of a rumour that the father and son had gone to Nagasaki, and a careful but unsuccessful search was made in the Christian quarter of the city. Subsequently the hostages, who were obviously under heavy pressure, sent message after message imploring Amakusa Shirō and his father to return home and renounce Christianity, thus saving countless innocent farmers from further agony. None of these appeals was ever answered. By this time the revolt was well underway and the two men were no doubt busily engaged at the rebel headquarters.

Once news of the rebellion spread in the peninsula and the nearby islands, revolts broke out more or less spontaneously in various towns and villages. These usually took the form of attacks on the headquarters of the local feudal authorities (ryōshu) and led to the seizure of weapons and ammunition, which would make it possible to confront government troops. In Shimabara 23,000 out of a total population of 45,000 are said to have joined the rebellion, and in the Amakusa Islands the proportion was even higher (14,000 out of 21,000); there were other areas where virtually all the inhabitants participated. In their initial skirmishes with official forces, Amakusa Shirō and his fellow leaders were almost invariably successful. [7.36] With growing self-confidence the newly armed peasants under their command were able to repel trained samurai troops, and plans were made to capture Shimabara Castle and other local strongholds that would afford them a secure military base. Before long the southern part of the peninsula and all the Amakusa Islands were under rebel control.

One reason for this initial success was the sluggish reaction of the feudal authorities. In view of the Bakufu’s vast military power and its ability to use troops from the western fiefs, a quicker response could surely have stopped the rebellion from spreading. As it was, the forces of law and order wasted invaluable time. News of the outbreak reached Edo, appropriately enough, on Christmas Day. It was well over a month before any effective counteraction was taken in Shimabara, and by then the rebels were entrenched.

The immense distance (in terms of travel time) between Edo and western Kyushu only partly explains the delay. More damaging was the Bakufu’s own rule that the fiefs must not cooperate in any military venture without specific instructions from Edo. Two years earlier the shogunal government, in its fear of collusion between the “outside daimyos,” had included a clause among the Regulations for the Military Class (Buke Shohatto). This ill-advised measure now served to impede precisely the type of joint action by nearby fiefs, like those of Lord Hosokawa and Lord Nabeshima, that might have nipped the rebellion at the outset. When faced with an emergency, each fief had to look to its own defences until the Shogun issued his orders. Consequently in December 1637 the feudal armies in neighbouring provinces stood by idly and refused to join the fight against the rebels until a decision came from Edo. As Lord Hosokawa remarked in a letter to a fellow daimyo in the east, “Even if [Shimabara] Castle were about to fall tomorrow, we should simply have to stay here and watch unless we received instructions from the Bakufu.” [7.37]

Furthermore, not only the shogunal government but even the local daimyos in Kyushu tended at first to underestimate the seriousness of the rebellion, regarding the insurgents as a peasant rabble who would scatter in terror at the first sight of a samurai army. Here the attitude of the Japanese rulers was much like that of the Roman authorities at the outbreak of the Servile Revolt under Spartacus. [7.38] Evidently they did not realize that many of the rebel leaders were themselves professional warriors; nor did they suspect what courage and fanaticism had been aroused in the persecuted peasants by their religious faith or what enthusiasm they felt for the “boy of divine power” who led them. When the Shogun’s chief adviser was asked whether it was not dangerous to delay action when the number of insurgents was growing day by day, he replied that the more people who joined the revolt the better, since they were all bound to be killed. Lord Matsukura of Shimabara happened to be in Edo when news came that a rebellion had erupted in his territory; though hardly blameless for the events, he was filled with righteous indignation and declared that he himself would lead a punitive attack against the outlaws. [7.39]

Itakura Shigemasa was appointed to coordinate the forces of the various Kyushu daimyos and to suppress the rebellion. The selection of this elderly general, who was in ill health and temperamentally unsuited for such a job, is further evidence that at this stage the government underestimated its difficulty. He set out from Edo with no particular sense of urgency and took three full weeks for the journey to Shimabara, arriving there in mid January with a force of cavalry and foot-soldiers at the same time as Lord Matsukura.

The shogunal authorities were much disturbed by the news that the uprising had spread to the islands of Amakusa, and as the fighting continued they were increasingly alarmed by its possible repercussions. Since the despatches from the west all stressed the religious nature of the revolt, the government realized not only that they had failed to get rid of the “evil faith” in Kyushu but that the rot might infect other backward parts of the country like the northeast (Tōhoku) where Christianity still had many supporters. All daimyo residents in Edo were accordingly ordered to return to their provinces in order to forestall further trouble. The Bakufu also feared that the rebels in Kyushu must be receiving help from the “southern barbarians,” that is, the Portuguese. How else could peasant riffraff have dared confront the might of armed samurai? The suspicion was totally unfounded; in fact, the only recipient of European assistance in the rebellion was the government itself. [7.40]

The revolt continued to spread week after week, and the rebels defeated the troops of both Lord Matsukura and Lord Terazawa. To Amakusa Shirō and the others it must have seemed too good to be true—and of course it was. The first setbacks came in January when repeated mass attacks by the rebels failed to capture Shimabara and Tomioka castles. [7.41] We are told that at this point Amakusa Shirō was preparing to lead a force of twelve thousand men to Nagasaki; there he would send in messengers to demand arms and ammunition, whose scarcity was always the Achilles’ heel of the rebels, and in case of refusal he would attack the city. [7.42] He was diverted, however, by news of an attack on one of his villages in Amakusa and was obliged to go to its defence. Thereafter Amakusa Shirō and his advisers decided that, in view of the rapidly growing strength of the government divisions and the recent arrival of the shogunal commissioner, General Itakura, it was essential to change their strategy. They would withdraw entirely from the Amakusa Islands while there was still time and join forces with their fellow rebels on the peninsula where they could immure themselves in the abandoned castle of Hara. This new defensive plan was immediately put into effect: Amakusa Shirō and all his thousands of followers in the islands crossed the straits to Shimabara and started to fortify themselves in their new headquarters. A report from one of Lord Hosokawa’s envoys describes the scores of boats traversing the narrow straits, each with a crucifix erected in its prow.

With the rebels safely in their castle, all the boats but one were broken up and the wrecks used to reinforce the ramparts. Now there could be no return. Much of Amakusa had become a wasteland, with the rebel villages virtually abandoned. On General Itakura’s instructions these villages were burnt to the ground. The inhabitants who could not escape were destroyed in the flames or put to death; among those captured were a number of children whom Itakura ordered to be burnt alive at the stake —a move as foolish as it was cruel, for it merely stimulated the ire and resistance of the defenders in Shimabara.

Old Hara Castle (Hara Kojō), where Amakusa Shirō, his lieutenants, and all the insurgents now gathered for a determined stand against their oppressors, had been abandoned some twenty years earlier after the completion of Shimabara Castle in the northern part of the peninsula. Though rapidly falling into ruins, it remained a natural fortress, ideal to defend. The castle stood on a windy plateau, on three sides surrounded by the open sea and protected by steep cliffs about one hundred feet high. On the landward side the attackers were impeded by a large marsh, and the level ground made them easy targets as they approached the outer moat. As in most Japanese castles of the time, there were three large defence circuits: the outer circuit, which was about one and a half miles in perimeter (1,200 × 200 yards), a middle circuit, and an inner circuit or main citadel (honmaru) where Amakusa Shirō was ensconced with his principal advisers. Vast, cellarlike trenches were dug inside each of the circuits, and this is where most of the defenders lived after the bombardments started. Under the direction of Amakusa Shirō the essential repairs were made so rapidly that about ten days later the dilapidated fortress was ready for occupation. On 27th January a flag with a great crucifix was raised above the ramparts, and the thousands of defenders and their families streamed into the place that in a few months would become their execution grounds.

It will never be known how many insurgents actually inhabited Hara Castle. Estimates vary between twenty thousand and fifty thousand men, women, and children. The number given in most Japanese sources is thirty-seven thousand, of whom about twelve thousand were men of fighting age; but this may well be an exaggeration designed to explain the Bakufu’s difficulty in subjugating the peasant revolt. Among the occupants of the castle were some two hundred former samurai who provided military expertise and leadership of the peasants. [7.43] Several of these men had probably been on the losing side in earlier battles against the Tokugawas at Sekigahara (1600) and Osaka (1615) and were now looking for another chance to resist the hated Bakufu. Overall strategy for the defence of the castle was in the hands of Amakusa Shirō and a group of five or six elderly Christian rōnin. [7.44]

The military hierarchy within Hara Castle was based, rather pathetically, on that of the huge feudal force outside. It comprised the Commanding General (Amakusa Shirō), a Chief of Staff (jitaishō), a Commander of Artillery, a Commander of Engineers, Battle Commanders, Captains (hatagashira), and numerous aides-de-camp (tsukaiban). Despite these impressive titles the defenders were poorly accoutred and armed mainly with sickles, scythes, and homemade spears together with such weapons as they had managed to capture during the weeks before they entered Hara Castle. [7.45] There were also several hundred matchlock men, whose skill accounted for much of the rebels’ success during the early months. [7.46] Though both arms and bullets were forged inside the castle, there was a serious shortage of ammunition from the beginning, and as time passed it became desperate. Since they could not afford to waste a single bullet, the insurgent artillerymen developed remarkable accuracy in firing their matchlock guns, and so long as the ammunition held out they wreaked havoc among the attacking samurai, who were trained principally in sword fighting. To save on guns and bullets the insurgents collected stores of large stones which could be shot at the enemy with special catapults. We are told that on one occasion a party of over a hundred men clambered down the steep rocks to the beach to collect stones; government ships fired at them, but the men managed to climb back unscathed.

Notwithstanding the shortage of food and ammunition and the ultimate hopelessness of their situation, morale among the defenders appears to have been high. One reason was the popularity of their Messianic leader, Amakusa Shirō. Even the deserters who left the castle and crossed over to the enemy lines during the final month impressed government interrogators by their continued personal devotion to this unconventional young Shogun. [7.47] Amakusa Shirō was an embodiment of the faith that was proudly emblazoned on their flags and banners. “All round the parapet,” reported the Dutch factor, Mr. Couckebacker, “one could see countless banners with red crosses; there were also many [wooden] crucifixes, both large and small.” [7.48] The rebel banners were dedicated to Sanchiyago (St. James), and in their battle cries the insurgents called on the. Spanish patron saint as well as on Iesu (Jesus) and Maria. Throughout the siege, religious services were regularly held within the castle precincts, and twice a week the occupants gathered to hear sermons preached by Amakusa Shirō himself.

The high spirits of the defenders resound in the numerous battle songs and pasquinades that mocked the Bakufu troops for their ineffectuality, and also in their stirring declarations of purpose. [7.49] These statements were fired into the enemy camp in the form of “arrow letters” (yabumi), written messages attached to the shafts of flying arrows, and are recorded in the official accounts of the campaign. Again and again the defendants insisted in their “arrow letters” that they had no material demands whatsoever and that the only reason they had walled themselves in Hara Castle was to escape persecution and practise Christianity freely. Their aims, they explained, were not of this world. If they had been merely concerned with the present life, they would never have dreamt of rebelling; their regard was for the future life (goshō) and they were sacrificing themselves in the knowledge that their sufferings in this world would be rewarded by joy in Heaven. Being Christians, they were assured of Paradise if they died in defence of their faith. In “normal” times, said one of the letters, they would not have hesitated to come to the help of government troops who were putting down enemies of the Shogun; but now they were fighting under the orders of “Heaven’s messenger” (ame no tsukai), Amakusa Shirō, who superseded any worldly authority.

Gathered on the landward side of the castle were the official forces who had been mobilized by the Kyushu daimyos on orders from Edo. In terms of material strength they vastly outweighed the defendants. By the end of February more than one hundred thousand government troops were besieging Hara Castle, and they were greatly reinforced in March. This was a huge army for the time—considerably greater, in fact, than the number engaged at the Battle of Sekigahara, which had secured victory for the Tokugawas in 1600. [7.50] The government forces were well equipped, and during the early stages of the siege General Itakura concentrated on building up supplies. In addition—an interesting sidelight on warfare during this period—enterprising merchants from Kyoto and Osaka were free to circulate among the besieging units selling extra food and provisions to the troops. No such supplements were available to the defenders, whose supplies were almost entirely limited to what they had brought into the castle when they first entered. [7.51]

Yet the attackers suffered from many weaknesses that prevented them from achieving an easy victory. In the beginning they were incompetently led and their morale was poor, so that they displayed far less skill and courage than the insurgents. Most of their guns were too small to fire effectively across the distance of five hundred yards that separated their lines from the castle; and, since the commanding general insisted on completing all the equipment of his forces before advancing or launching an attack, they failed to take advantage of the defenders’ initial vulnerability. Above all, the attackers were not a united force but comprised seven main units from different fiefs. As the impatience and tension mounted, there was growing antagonism, notably between the Hosokawa and the Kuroda forces, which erupted in internecine quarrels and even killings. The Shogun himself was obliged to issue a reprimand insisting that they concentrate on fighting the common enemy.

To increase their fire power the attackers built movable siege engines and huge towers (yagura) with emplacements for their heavy artillery. A contemporary diary relates a lively exchange between the insurgents and a group of labourers who were working on a siege engine near the castle walls. When the defenders began hurling down stones from the parapets, the workmen shouted to them that this was unjust, since they were mere labourers whose masters had forced them to work on the siege engines against their will. The argument had the desired effect and the men were able to continue their work without further interruption. After they had finished, one of them shouted, “You poor fellows there in the castle! You’re living in holes in the ground with nothing to eat but soy beans and dried cod. Why don’t you have done with it and surrender?” Thereupon one of the insurgents leaned through an embrasure in the wall and shouted, “You’re right about our living in holes, but look at the delicious fish we get to eat every day!” And he proudly held up a fresh mullet for the workmen to see. [7.52]

Rather than risk the casualties of a frontal attack across the open marsh, the besiegers decided to excavate a tunnel that would lead directly from their lines into the castle itself. The work was carried out as surreptitiously as possible, but soon the defenders heard the sound of the digging and counteracted by filling the tunnel with smoke and also by pouring in large quantities of faeces and urine. This incommoded the workers, and the plan had to be abandoned. [7.53] The next stratagem was to destroy the castle walls with huge cannon balls. The balls were brought to the front lines, each being lifted by twenty-five men, but for some reason (perhaps no adequate cannon was available) they were never fired. [7.54] A further scheme was to engage specialists known as “invisible men” (ninjutsuzukai) who would sneak into Hara Castle and return with information. These spies appear to have been quite effective, and several dozen were used. Late in March two “invisible men” made their way into the castle with cords attached to their bodies so that they could be hauled out if they were killed or wounded. [7.55] It might be expected that their cords would have given them away, but they both returned safely with detailed reports about the castle’s defences and new construction work. On one occasion an “invisible man” from the province of Ōmi near Kyoto got into the outer citadel but was nonplussed by the Kyushu dialect of the occupants and by their use of Christian terms. He did not dare speak to anyone for fear that his Ōmi dialect might give him away. Finally the silent stranger began to arouse suspicion; but he managed to escape in time, and as he ran away from the castle amid a hail of stones he was even able to take along one of the rebel banners as a souvenir.

The shogunal government in Edo, increasingly alarmed by the possible repercussions of the revolt, decided to send a second general with reinforcements to Shimabara. The commander chosen for the job was Lord Matsudaira Nobu­tsuna, a leading member of the Great Council in whom the Shogun had particular confidence. [7.56] With five thousand men, three hundred horses, and a force of heavy artillery he promptly set out for the west, first marching to Osaka and sailing from there to Kyushu in a fleet of sixty ships. As soon as the shogunal commissioner, General Itakura, heard of the new appointment, he resolved to storm the castle in the hope of taking it before Matsudaira arrived. One reason appears to have been a letter that he had just received from a cousin in Osaka. His correspondent referred to the rebels as “mere peasants,” and warned that Hara Castle would be attacked and captured on the very day after Matsudaira appeared with his new forces. [7.57] Determined to forestall such a disgrace, Itakura ordered a preliminary assault on 3rd February. The attack was poorly prepared and, despite heavy losses, the samurai troops failed to force an entry into the outer precinct. When the defenders saw that the enemy had been beaten back, they jeered loudly from the castle walls, accusing the local samurai of being cowards who were more adept at torturing poor farmers than at storming a fortified position. [7.58]

Appalled by this debacle and determined to vindicate his honour, Itakura decided to launch a general attack at dawn on New Year’s Day (14th February in the Western calendar). This was an even greater disaster. Some four thousand government troops were killed or wounded as they advanced on the castle. General Itakura, who in a sudden access of derring-do led the charge himself, was shot dead. He had evidently sensed that he would be killed, for on the eve of the engagement he is said to have written a gloomy farewell poem asking that “When only the name remains of the flower that bloomed on New Year’s Day, remember it as the leader of our force [sakigake to shire] !” [7.59]

The news that their commanding general had been killed by the peasant rabble shocked the government leaders in Edo. It was an appalling humiliation and could badly damage their prestige both in Japan and abroad: if mere farmers could successfully flout the Bakufu, what might not happen if some of the stronger daimyos rose against them? Itakura himself was posthumously criticized for the daredevil tactics that had caused the disaster. At the same time several daimyos from Kyushu were ordered to join forces with Lord Matsudaira in the next part of the campaign against the insurgents.

Matsudaira profited from his predecessor’s fiasco by putting off all plans for general attack and concentrating on a blockade of the castle. Rather than risk further heavy losses by trying to rout the defendants, he would starve them out of their fortress and meanwhile get time to rest and reequip his own forces. For a samurai army engaged in subjugating a peasant rebellion this was not a particularly noble strategy, but the Bakufu gave its full approval. Matsudaira, much concerned by the possibility that the defendants might attempt a sortie, took numerous precautions such as constructing palisades and ditches and keeping flares lit at night. He also ordered that the official passwords be changed, since the rebels had found out the previous ones: in future anyone challenged with the question “A mountain?” must establish his credentials by replying “A river.”

The new commanding general also resorted to psychological warfare by promising a free pardon to all rebels who came out of the castle and surrendered; furthermore they would be excused from their tax obligations and even given special grants of rice land. By these temptations he hoped to sow dissension among the defenders, but his offers were promptly rejected. Replying by means of an “arrow letter,” the insurgents ridiculed Matsudaira’s suggestions, pointing out that they were “devoted Christians” (omoikiritaru Kirishitan) whose religion was so powerful that the attackers’ bullets were incapable of wounding them. [7.60] They could never consider accepting a free pardon if it implied any compromise of their beliefs; for their only concern was the right to practise Christianity freely. This, however, was precisely the concession that Matsudaira could not make, and the exchange ended in an impasse.

In the middle of February the Chief Commissioner of Nagasaki, acting on instructions from Lord Matsudaira, demanded that the Dutch and Chinese should aid in suppressing the Shimabara rebels. Chinese help was never actually used, but the Dutch manager, Nicolaus Couckebacker, became involved in the campaign. In his final report to Holland he stressed that the Japanese authorities had compelled him to participate against his will. No doubt he and the other Dutch officials were reluctant to join overtly in the extermination of their fellow Christians (albeit Roman Catholics); on the other hand, the rebellion had seriously damaged their trade in Nagasaki and they must have been anxious to see it crushed. [7.61] In any event Couckebacker complied with the Japanese instructions: on 24th February he arrived off Shimabara in de Ryp, a Dutch ship of twenty guns, and started bombarding the insurgents. [7.62] During the fortnight it rode at anchor before Hara, the ship fired several hundred ‘shells at the castle. For obvious reasons Couckebacker reported that the barrage had been of little use; in fact, it appears to have inflicted considerable damage to the walls and outer defences and may have hastened the final catastrophe. In the course of this unheroic engagement, two Dutch sailors lost their lives, one having been shot down from the topmast onto the deck of de Ryp, where he crushed a shipmate to death. [7.63]

On 12th March Lord Matsudaira suddenly informed the Dutch that they might withdraw and thanked them for their help. Now that the attacking forces were so near the castle walls, he explained rather unconvincingly, their ship might be damaged by cross-fire and their men injured. [7.64]

The reason for Lord Matudaira’s decision to call on the Dutch for help is one of the minor mysteries of the Shimabara Rebellion. Possibly he overestimated the fire power of the Dutch ships, and underestimated the embarrassing effect of foreign participation (which suggested that the Bakufu needed outside help to quell local disorders). According to Matsudaira’s own account, his aim was to test the Hollanders by finding out whether they would accept the authority of Japanese officials to the point of attacking fellow Christians. If such was indeed his purpose, the Dutch passed the test brilliantly. Their inglorious role in firing on the hard-pressed Japanese Christians (whom, if anything, they should have been trying to help) was quickly noted in Europe and compared with their recent action in attacking Huguenot co-religionists at La Rochelle. Nor was the significance of the foreign participation lost on the defenders, who now shot a hail of “arrow letters” out of the castle with pasquinades mocking the enemy as incompetent cowards who preferred manipulating account books and dunning poor people for taxes to risking their lives on the field of battle, and who therefore had to rely on foreigners when it came to a real fight. [7.65] According to Correa (the Portuguese Familiar), pasquinades in which the samurai were ridiculed for having abandoned the profession of arms to commoners were found scattered all over the surrounding countryside. [7.66]

Later in the same month Matsudaira, still hoping to avoid the immense losses that were bound to result from an all-out attack, made a few final attempts to persuade the rebels (or at least certain groups among them) to leave the castle peacefully. In an effort to induce Amakusa Shirō and his father to surrender, he ordered that Martha, Regina, and the other hostages be removed from their prison and brought to Shimabara by ship under heavy armed escort. [7.67] Since no prison was available near Hara Castle, the hostages were kept bound on the ship and taken from there to Lord Matsudaira’s camp for interrogation. In the middle of March, Amakusa Shirō’s little nephew was sent into the castle with a letter informing the insurgents that the Bakufu’s policy was to exterminate them all, down to the last babe in arms. Matsudaira was, however, prepared to make an offer: if the rebels would liberate those people in the castle who had been forcibly converted to Christianity or who now wished to abjure their faith, then, in exchange, Amakusa Shirō’s mother, sister, and other captive relatives would be released and allowed to enter the castle where they could share the fate of the defenders and satisfy their frequently expressed wish to die for the Christian faith. The letter also stated that, since Amakusa Shirō was still only fifteen years old, he himself could hardly be the leader of such a huge rebel force; the commander who represented himself as Amakusa Shirō must therefore be an impostor acting in his name; if the “real” Amakusa Shirō would now leave the castle, Lord Matsudaira would immediately give him a free pardon.

Further letters were addressed to the rebel leader by his mother and elder sister. They implored him to accept the exchange plan, since their great wish was to die together, and they also begged to be allowed to talk to him, if only through a crenel in the parapet. These and subsequent letters from the outside were skilfully concocted by the government officials to weaken the morale of the defenders; yet, if anything, they had the opposite effect and merely steeled their determination. Kohyōe was sent back with a letter containing a staunch reaffirmation of faith, a polite refusal of the offer, and a statement that there were no forced converts in the castle. He was also given a large parcel of food (honey, oranges, bean-jam buns, and yams) to take to Amakusa Shirō’s family. This was partly to console the unfortunate prisoners, but it also served to persuade the attackers that there were still plenty of provisions in the castle.

On his next visit Kohyōe was accompanied by Amakusa Shirō’s little sister, Man. He carried letters in which Martha and Regina, obviously writing on the dictates of their captors, refuted the contention that there were no forced converts; recent deserters, they said, had confirmed that there were in fact many people who had been obliged to become Christians and who now wanted to surrender; they at least should be allowed to leave the castle safely, if only for humanitarian reasons. The mother’s letter contained a somewhat unconvincing reference to the traditional magnanimity of the Bakufu and again begged for a meeting with her son.

Amakusa Shirō, mindful perhaps of Jesus’ reply, “Who is my mother and my brethren?” was unswayed by his family’s appeals. The two little messengers were sent back with a letter stating that the defendants were acting in accordance with God’s will (Deusu-sama no on-hakarai shidai ni sōrō), and were protected by Santa Maria-sama, Sanchiyago-sama, Sanfuranshisuko-sama (St. Francis), and all the Blessed Saints. They were seen off at the castle gates by a company of more than two thousand rebels; his little sister carried in her hand a ring and two soap-berries that Amakusa Shirō had given her as a parting gift.

Realizing that the emotional appeal of family hostages had proved ineffective, Lord Matsudaira next ordered that an “arrow letter” be fired into the castle proposing a cease-fire and negotiations. The letter, which was addressed to “the Honourable Masuda Shirō” (Masuda Shirō Tayū-dono), suggested that a negotiating party representing the government should be admitted into the castle or that, alternatively, the talks could take place at the castle walls. After some difficulty a cease-fire was arranged and negotiations were held on Ōe Beach below the castle in full view of the attacking armies and of the defenders. Their positions were irreconcilable, however, and the talks broke down almost immediately. [7.68]

Negotiations, blandishments, threats, and maternal pleadings had all failed to weaken Amakusa Shirō and his fellow rebels, who knew that compromise would eventually lead to surrender and to abandonment of all the beliefs for which they had suffered and fought. Though their position was patently hopeless, they would stay in the castle and go down in a blaze of glory that would proclaim the sincerity of their faith to the entire world.

By the beginning of April the rebels’ provisions were almost exhausted. There had always been far too many people in the castle to feed adequately, and now the situation was critical. Deserters reported that most of the defenders were so weak that they could not stand up even while doing sentry duty, and the labour of repairing the damaged fortifications would soon be too exhausting to continue. In their desperate hunger (which must often have reminded them of pre-rebellion days) several people from the castle were slipping into the besiegers’ camps in the hope of finding food and then returning; others were climbing down the cliffs to the beach and searching for edible seaweed. Finally Lord Matsudaira’s strategy was producing the desired results.

At this stage an inauspicious incident cast further gloom over the defenders. A cannon ball fired by the besiegers tore into the main citadel, where Ama­kusa Shirō was calmly playing a game of go. Several onlookers were killed outright; the rebel commander himself survived, but the right sleeve of his robe was ripped. The story, which spread quickly through the castle, made many people wonder whether their young leader was not beginning to lose the protection of Deus. [7.69]

On the night of 4th April the defenders decided on a sortie. One of the castle gates was suddenly thrown open and a body of defenders, led by Amakusa Shirō himself, charged the besiegers’ camp, inflicting heavy casualties on the government troops. Warriors of the Kuroda division continued firing on each other pell-mell in the dark even after the raid was over. Yet despite initial success the sortie miscarried; Amakusa Shirō and his men were forced to retire to the castle, leaving behind over three hundred of their own killed and wounded.

When the corpses of some of the slain rebels were examined, it was found that their stomachs contained seaweed and barley, and that most of them were in an advanced stage of malnutrition. This confirmed the reports of recent prisoners and deserters that food supplies in Hara Castle had run out. Even to the cautious Lord Matsudaira it was clear that the rebels’ situation was critical and that at last the time had come for a general assault. Now the password for the attack was fixed: Question: “A province?” Answer: “A province.” Yet there were further delays, partly owing to heavy rain and partly because it was necessary to coordinate plans among the numerous daimyo forces.

When the attack finally came, it was by mistake. On 12th April one of the fire-signals was accidentally lit, and men of the Nabeshima division rushed forward to the assault in disregard of Matsudaira’s careful plans. They were rapidly joined by the other divisions in a confused but successful attack on the outer defences, each of the daimyo forces trying to gain as much glory as possible for itself by being first into the castle. An illustration in the Shimabara Camp Screen shows the attackers in their heavy samurai armour clambering up the steep castle walls like so many black armadillos. [7.70] Despite fierce resistance and appalling confusion, which often led the attackers to fight among themselves, they forced their way into the outer circuit, cutting down everyone in sight, and then steadily advanced over great mounds of corpses to invest the middle and inner circuits. The starving defenders, having run out of ammunition, fought with stones, beams, cooking-pots, and anything else that came to hand. During two days and nights of frenzied fighting they held out against thousands of well-armed, well-fed samurai.

On 14th April the defences began to crumble. The attackers systematically set fire to the huts and trenches, and occupants were burnt to death by the hundreds. Others, including large numbers of women with their children, hurled themselves into the flames rather than be taken alive. This, of course, was highly unorthodox behaviour for Christian believers; but many of the rebels were Japanese above all, and in this last moment of crisis they were impelled by national traditions rather than the strictures of a foreign religion. “Large numbers [of rebels] ,” writes a contemporary daimyo observer, “would cover their hands with their clothes and force up the burning [beams] so that they could enter the buildings. They also pushed in their children and then lay down on top of them and all were [burnt to] death.” And he adds a revealing comment about these brave peasant fighters who preferred suicide to surrender, “For people of their low station (shimojimo) this was indeed a praiseworthy way of dying. Words cannot express [my admiration] .” [7.71]

The massacre began on 15th April. By this time the huge ditches in the castle were filled with rebel corpses; often, according to Correa’s account, the wounded were thrown into the ditches while still alive and struggled helplessly to get out. There were still thousands of survivors, however, and the government forces now set about exterminating them. In order to prove their assiduity and to obtain rewards, they lopped off the heads of men and the noses of women and brought these grisly trophies to the collection centres set up by the respective fiefs, where the numbers were tallied by special “head count” officials. One greedy samurai from the Nabeshima division was so eager to impress his superiors that he actually bought a severed nose from a soldier and presented it as his own trophy. [7.72] The offence was discovered however, and he was ordered to disembowel himself, thus bringing his career to an abrupt end.

By far the most important prize, of course, was the head of Amakusa Shirō, and special glory was bound to accrue to the clan that captured it. Since the young rebel leader was not known by sight, and since it was rumoured that he had somehow managed to escape, it was no easy task to bring in his head. After the campaign there was an unseemly squabble (between the Hosokawa and the Kuroda divisions) about who was actually responsible. Among the numerous conflicting accounts the most detailed (though not necessarily the most reliable) is that of the Hosokawa clan. [7.73] A Hosokawa retainer by the name of Sasaemon was wandering about the burning ruins of the inner citadel. He already had two severed heads, and was hoping to add a third to his collection. Looking inside one of the burning huts, he caught sight of a handsome youth who had evidently been wounded and who was now lying on the floor arrayed in silk robes. On hearing footsteps the youth began to rise, but Sasaemon promptly cut him down and sliced off his head. [7.74] As he ran out of the hut with his new trophy, the beams collapsed in flames. On his way to the great ditch where heads taken by the Hosokawa forces were being collected, he happened to pass Lord Hosokawa himself, who was seated on a campstool surveying the carnage. Noticing one of Sasaemon’s heads, Lord Hosokawa remarked with characteristic acumen that it probably belonged to “the rebel general, Shirō” and should “not be handled negligently” (soryaku subekarazu). The head was therefore carefully washed and combed before being brought to the place of inspection, where it was placed among several others that had been tentatively identified as belonging to the rebel general. Amakusa Shirō’s mother was now summoned and told to point out her son’s head. [7.75] She proudly replied that he could not possibly have been killed; he had been sent from Heaven and had now either returned there, or changed form and escaped to some place like Luzon in the Philippines. Head after youthful head was presented to her, but she rejected them all until they held up the one recently taken by Sasaemon. Then finally she broke down and said, “Can he really have become so thin?” And she clung to the head and wept. At this point the inspectors knew, without even asking her, that they had found their quarry. Head-inspection scenes (kubi-jikken), with their mixture of horror and poignancy, were of absorbing interest for Japanese writers during the feudal period, and are included in the stories of many famous failed heroes, among them Yoshitsune and Masashige. [7.76] The present account of Amakusa Shirō adds a Christian overtone to this traditional theme by picturing the hero’s mother as a Japanese mater dolorosa in a macabre version of the pietà.

Though Hara Castle fell more rapidly than anyone had expected, the attackers’ losses were considerable. The final assault cost them some fifteen thousand casualties, of whom more than three thousand were killed. Estimates of the total number lost in the campaign vary considerably. According to Pagés, some seventy thousand government troops succumbed to illness during the siege, or were killed or wounded in the fighting. Since there were only two general attacks in the course of the entire campaign, this figure is probably exaggerated, but even the more modest estimates of government casualties confirm the fierceness of the resistance. From his prison, Correa saw innumerable wounded samurai being carried on litters; he also observed the doleful sight of hundreds of horses whose masters had been killed at Shimabara being led through Omura by servants with heads shaved in sign of mourning. [7.77]

The rebels themselves were wiped out. The few who managed to escape from Hara Castle were hunted down and decapitated. The slaughter on 15th April was one of the greatest in all Japan’s sanguinary history. The nearby rivers and inlets were clogged with decapitated bodies; vast ditches were filled to overflowing with severed heads, and heads were strewn thickly over the fields. A total of 3,632 rebel heads was counted in the Hosokawa ditch; we are told that the actual number taken was far greater, since many had been removed (presumably as souvenirs) or destroyed by fire. Another official source states that 10,869 heads were severed and stuck on wooden spikes which were erected in the fields in front of the castle and all the way down to the beach. [7.78] Another 3,300 heads were loaded onto three ships and taken for burial in a mass grave in Nagasaki. These numbers are suspiciously exact, but there is no evidence that they are exaggerated.

The only known survivor of the holocaust was Yamada Emonsaku, the painter and Christian renegade, who from the outset had served as one of Ama­kusa Shirō’s chief captains and also as the “war artist” of Hara Castle. [7.79] His role in the story is that of the Judas Iscariot who betrays his young master to the enemy and receives his thirty pieces of silver. Soon after the siege began, Yama­da was realist enough to see that the situation was hopeless. Having decided to communicate secretly with the attackers, he shot the following letter into the enemy camp:

Yamada Emonsaku addresses you with true reverence and respect. I desire to obtain your forgiveness, and restore tranquillity to the empire, by delivering up [Amakusa Shirō and his followers to be punished. We find that, in ancient times, famous rulers ruled beneficently, proportioning their rewards to the merit of the receiver, and the punishments to the demerit of the offender. When they departed from this course, for any purpose soever, they were unable to keep the control of their countries. This has been the case with hereditary lords; how much more will it be the case with villagers who rebel against the Government. How will they escape the judgement of Heaven? I have revolved these truths in my mind, and imparted them to the eight hundred men under my command.

These men, from the first, were not sincere Christians; but when the conspiracy first broke out they were beset by a great multitude and compelled to support the cause. These eight hundred men all have a sincere respect for the [samurai] class. Therefore speedily attack the castle, and we having received your answer, without fail, as to time, will make a show of resisting you, but will set fire to the houses in the castle, and escape to your camp. Only I will run to the house of [Amakusa Shirō] and make as if all were lost; and having induced him to embark with me in a small boat, will take him alive, bring him to you, and thus manifest to you the sincerity of my intentions. For this purpose I have prepared several boats already, having revolved the matter in my mind from the time I entered the castle. Please give me your approval immediately, and I will overthrow the evil [rebels] , give tranquillity to the empire, and, I trust, escape with my own life. I am extremely anxious to receive your orders. Yamada Emonsaku thus addresses you with true regard. 20th of 1st Month [5th March] . To the commanders of the [shogunal] army. [7.80]

This was a risky plan and, not surprisingly, it misfired. One of the “arrow letters” sent to Yamada from outside the castle was intercepted, and the rebels were thus alerted to his treachery. Yamada was bound up and sentenced to death. While he awaited execution, however, the castle was stormed and he was promptly rescued. Later Yamada was taken to Edo by Lord Matsudaira and safely installed in his mansion, where he served as Matsudaira’s assistant. Though he had failed to deliver Amakusa Shirō to the enemy, he justified his rescue by providing Bakufu officials with the only detailed account of the uprising from the rebels’ side. [7.81]

Before returning to Edo, the commanding general made certain final dispositions. Amakusa Shirō’s head was sent to Nagasaki, where it was publicly gibbeted together with those of his elder sister and Kozaemon. His mother and little sister were executed, and his remaining relatives sent to a village in Shima­bara where they were all subsequently put to death. Finally Old Hara Castle, the scene of so much courage and pain, was razed to the ground in order that it might never become a rallying point or a place of pilgrimage for future troublemakers. [7.82]

The rebellion ended in unmitigated failure. Not only were the tens of thousands of participants all slaughtered (with the exception of the treacherous Yamada), but the uprising made conditions far worse than before. Just as Yoshitsune’s futile resistance had played directly into the hands of his brother, so the Great Christian Rebellion of 1637-38 proved immensely useful to the government in several different ways. This indeed was its main historical result. For one thing, almost all the ex-samurai Christians in Japan and all the main dissident elements in western Kyushu had been conveniently massed in Hara Castle, and all were exterminated in a clean sweep that is the dream of any repressive regime. Moreover, potential rebels in the rest of Japan had been offered a grim warning. For the shogunal government in Edo and for the local authorities in the west, the uprising was the last major challenge for well over two centuries, and its suppression led to an era of law and order under a remarkably effective form of central feudalism. Only occasionally was the long Tokuguwa peace troubled by plots and riots, and these were promptly quashed by the overwhelming forces of the military authorities.

New local overlords and officials were appointed to govern Shimabara and Amakusa, and some of the worst horrors of the previous administrations were abated. Yet the rebellion brought little real improvement to the lot of the peasants, who continued to toil hard and lose much of their produce in taxes. [7.83] It did, however, have a definite effect in increasing the severity of religious persecution, especially in western Kyushu. All suspected believers were done to death, and apostates were forced to confirm their renunciation of Christianity by repeating the ritual of stepping on holy images. On Bakufu orders the decimated regions of Shimabara and Amakusa were resettled by compulsory migration from different parts of the country where Christianity had not gained a foothold. [7.84] Special measures were taken to foster Buddhism. The Bakufu, which now assumed direct control of the Amakusa Islands, encouraged the building of new temples and Shinto shrines, and promoted indoctrination against the subversive faith that had caused them so much trouble and expense. [7.85]

The collapse of Amakusa Shirō’s rebellion marked the end of overt Christian worship in Japan. The Bakufu, having become thoroughly alarmed by the uprising, now enforced the anti-Christian edicts more rigidly than ever before, and the results were overwhelming. [7.86] The largest wave of arrests took place about twenty years after the rebellion in a rural district near Nagasaki. A visiting farmer mentioned an extraordinary Christian boy of thirteen who had even greater supernatural powers than Amakusa Shirō. The authorities lost no time in rounding up some six hundred villagers, of whom 411 were executed, seventy-seven died in prison, and ninety-nine were freed after taking the oath of apostasy. [7.87] The time for Christian resistance had long since passed.

Another unintended, and still more important, effect of the rebellion was to reinforce the shogunate’s antiforeign policy. The Christian uprising had made the government more nervous than ever about foreigners and had stimulated xenophobic feelings among many members of the ruling samurai class. Conservative elements in the government found it an ideal pretext to strengthen sakoku, the policy of foreign exclusion, which now assumed its most extreme form. In 1639 a new Bakufu edict dealt a death-blow to the century-old trade with Portugal. For the next two hundred years the only Western traders allowed in Japan were the Dutch, who by their ignominious role at Shimabara had proved that they were unlikely to abet local Christians. The edict was enforced with draconian severity. In 1640 a Portuguese ship from Macão reached Nagasaki with envoys who had come to plead with the government to modify its ban. They were promptly arrested, bound, and imprisoned, and their ship was burnt. On 1st August the chief shogunal commissioner addressed them with some acerbity:

You villains! You have been forbidden ever to return to Japan on pain of death, and you have disobeyed the command. The former year you were guilty of death but were mercifully granted your lives. Hence you have earned this time nothing but the most painful death; but since you have come without merchandise and only to beg for something, this will be commuted to an easy death. [7.88]

An executioner was assigned to each of the sixty-one envoys and they were all beheaded on Martyr’s Hill in Nagasaki. Thirteen crewmen were allowed to return to Macão to report on the fate of their masters and to carry an official message with the warning: “... [even if] King Felipe himself, or even the very God of the Christians, or the great Buddha contravene this prohibition, they shall pay for it with their heads!”

Japan’s exclusion policy was perhaps bound to reach this final stage in any case; but the catastrophic rebellion at Shimabara was certainly the immediate cause of measures that not only removed any hope of outside support for Christianity but in one way or another affected almost every aspect of Japanese life. It was hardly the outcome that Amakusa Shirō and his fellow insurgents had anticipated.

Amakusa Shirō’s career, bizarre and nebulous though it was, fits at almost every point into the pattern of Japanese failed heroism. He fought bravely for a doomed cause and after the usual period of early success led his followers to unconditional disaster. The fantastic élan and courage of the Shimabara rebels, which contrast with the cautious, lacklustre calculation of the enemy, could never prevail in the world of sober reality. Amakusa Shirō appears in the legend as a pure, idealistic youth, endowed with the preternatural gifts and romantic charm of a Yoshitsune, who led the downtrodden peasants of Kyushu in an absurd act of defiance against the forces of authority. His heroic sincerity is reflected in a failure to lay careful, realistic plans and in a refusal to vitiate the ideals of his crusade by negotiation and compromise. [7.89] The conquering general, Lord Matsudaira, survived to enjoy the rewards of his success, but never came to be adulated as a hero and has been almost totally forgotten except by students of Tokugawa history; for the great man of Shimabara was, inevitably, the loser. [7.90]

Unlike most of Japan’s failed heroes, Amakusa Shirō refrained from taking his own life; this, however, was not due to any lack of resolve but because of his adherence to a faith that forbade self-slaughter. Here, of course, we come to the greatest incongruity of all: this most Japanese of heroes was fighting for a faith that was completely alien to his country’s traditions. Despite the underlying economic motives of the rebellion, Amakusa Shirō and the other leaders invariably expressed their objectives in religious terms. And the religion they professed was a foreign creed supported by only a small minority of the population and rigidly interdicted by the government. [7.91] To this forlorn cause they gave their lives as martyrs. They differed entirely from Christian martyrs in the West, however, in that their suffering and violent death did not lead to any posthumous success; indeed, the uprising produced exactly the reverse of the effect they had intended, since it led to the final suppression of Christianity in Japan. In this sense the Shimabara insurgents correspond less to our Christian martyrs than to heretic groups like the Albigensians or to the peasants who rebelled under Wat Tyler in fourteenth-century England; for their failure was total and irremediable.

Despite its violent history, Japan had had no tradition of religious persecution or martyrdom. Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism had managed to coexist with remarkably little friction; and, though there were conflicts between the various Buddhist sects, they were based mainly on material, rather than doctrinal, differences, and rarely took the form of the intolerant odium theologicum that caused so much horror and misery in the West. [7.92] Not until the late sixteenth century, when the spread of Christianity made the government decide that this subversive, foreign creed had to be suppressed, did large-scale persecution and martyrdom make their grim appearance in Japan. It is typical that Amakusa Shirō and the majority of his countrymen who suffered and were killed because of their faith should have been martyrs for a failed religion.