Background
Shōsetsu Yui was born in 1605. He was said to have been the son of a dyer who went by the shop name of Konya in Yui in the district of Ihara in the province of Suruga, though the facts are uncertain.
由井正雪
Shōsetsu Yui was born in 1605. He was said to have been the son of a dyer who went by the shop name of Konya in Yui in the district of Ihara in the province of Suruga, though the facts are uncertain.
In 1616, at the age of eleven, he studied under Takamatsu Hambei and first became acquainted with the life stories of such famous military leaders of the past as Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Kusunoki Masashige, and Takeda Shingen. At the age of sixteen he went to Edo and for a time was employed in a shop called the Tsuruya there, but later took up the study of military science under Kusunoki Fuden. In 1630 he set off on a journey to the province of Kii and other areas of the country.
In 1633, at the age of twenty-eight, he succeeded his teacher Kusunoki Fuden as a lecturer on military science. His fame gradually spread, and he was invited to lecture on his speciality to Tokugawa Yorinobu, the lord of the fief of Kishu in Kii, and Ikeda Mitsumasa, the lord of the fief of Bizen. Meanwhile he gathered around him a large number of men of military bent and ronin (masterless samurai). Shortly after the death of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, in 1651, he and one of his followers named Marubashi Chflya began laying plans to seize control of the country.
According to the plot, Marubashi was to attack and occupy Edo Castle, while Yui himself assaulted Kunozan, a hill near Sumpu Castle in Suruga, gaining possession of the military funds of the Tokugawa family, and then was to proceed to an attack on Sumpu Castle itself. Before any action had been taken, the plot was discovered and the inn where he was staying in Suruga was surrounded. He and his fellow conspirator committed suicide.
In the early years of the Edo period, the shogunate, after establishing control over the country, had deprived a number of daimyo of their domains, thus creating a large class of ronin, or masterless samurai. The attempted revolt by Yui Shosetsu and his associates may be taken as a typical manifestation of the discontent that prevailed among this group in Japanese society at the time. The incident is often referred to as the Keian disturbance from the name of the era when it occurred.