Background
HEIHACHIRO Osmo was born in 1793. He was the son of a police officer named Oshio Yukitaka of the Temma section of Osaka and in time succeeded to his father’s post.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
HEIHACHIRO Osmo
Edit ProfileEducation
He studied the Chu Hsi school of Neo-Confucianism under the Confucian scholar Hayashi (Matsudaira) Jussai in Edo, but later became an advocate of the doctrines of the Ming Neo-Confucian scholar Wang Yang-ming, who emphasized the importance of translating one’s moral convictions into positive action.
Career
At the age of twenty-six he was promoted to the post of police examiner and gained considerable reputation for the diligence with which he pursued his duties, but ten years later he turned over his post to his son Kakunosuke and devoted all his time to teaching the doctrines of Wang Yang-ming, or as he is known in Japanese pronunciation, O Yomei.
Achievements
-
In 1836 the Osaka area was afflicted by severe famine, and the following year Heihachiro, unable to bear the sight of the suffering it caused, submitted a letter to the local authorites requesting that they take steps to relieve the distress of the people. When his pleas went unheeded, he sold the books from his own library and used the proceeds to bring what relief he could to the victims of the famine. He also circulated an appeal throughout the Osaka and Kyoto region calling upon men of like mind to join him in action. On the nineteenth day of the second month he led an armed insurrection, going about the city setting fires and attacking the establishments of the rich merchants, but the rioters were quickly suppressed and Heihachiro and his son Kakunosuke fled into hiding. Near the end of the third month they were discovered and surrounded by the government forces, whereupon they committed suicide.
Heihachiro’s uprising was the first armed action led by members of the upper class to challenge shogunate authority since the time of the Shimabara Rebellion in the early seventeenth century and served as an omen of the increasing unrest and opposition that the shogunate was to face in the near future.
