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Samurai Movies (26)

March 31, 2022

[Choshu 5 ~No.3] At that time London was the most developed city in the world. The five samurai were overwhelmed by the latest technologies, like railroads, gas torches, modern buildings, etc. Back in their country, there were no brick buildings, not even glass windows. They were also impressed by the society's systems, like monetary systems. In their country, using money was kind of troublesome. They used gold and silver for expensive purchases and copper coins for less expensive purchases. But they were heavy to carry. In England, bills were printed and used. In their own country, paper currency was only used in some hans, so it was inconvenient, and sometimes caused inflation. Although it wasn't shown in the movie, they must have been deeply impressed by England's systems. In their country, occupations were divided into samurai and non-samurai. Non-samurai normally couldn't become samurai. In samurai society, ranks were fixed. If you are born of a high ranking samurai family, you (only the males) can take over your father's high ranking. But, if you are born in a low ranking family, you stay at that ranking. In their world, there was no democracy, no election system. In their world, there were punishment systems as well as settlement systems, but they were left up to each han. And Capitalism. The Tokugawa Shogunate and a lot of hans were poor because they didn't know how to get tax from merchants. Merchants' class was low, but some of them were wealthy. Samurai and farmers were typically poor. Maybe those five samurai were kind of poor. They might have felt something positive about capitalism in this country. In the movie 'Choshu 5', one of the five samurai, Yozo Yamao, the protagonist, played the role to show how impressive some things were through his eyes. One time Yozo Yamao happened to meet several young samurai from Satsuma in London. Maybe they were the only other people from their country in England. Mr. Yamao and the Satsuma guys started to yell at each other. Back in their country, the Choshu and Satsuma hans were rivals, and their relationship was bad at that time. But, when the Satsuma guys learned that Yamao hoped to study in a different city but couldn't because of financial reasons, they gave him the money which they had with them without hesitation. It was a moving scene to know their spirit. Yozo, as he got used to living in London, started to also see some negative aspects about this country. There were slums in London and there were many poor people who had a hard time to live. One time, Yozo happened to meet a young deaf woman and they became friends. He was invited into a deaf people's society. He started to study sign language. With sign language and writing, she taught him various things. One time, she was about to be assaulted by three bad men in downtown. He happened to hear her voice and went over to them. A fight started. He was knocked down. But, he found a stick on the ground, and stood up with it and took a posture of a sword fight. They grinned, pulled their knives, and attacked him. He hit them in a split second. They couldn't understand what had happened, and escaped. She couldn't understand what had happened either. They had never seen this type of sword play. Thanks to the Satsuma guys' financial assistance, Yamao moved and studied as an apprentice in the Napier Shipyard in Glasgow. Some of the five members returned to their country earlier than the five years, as their country's situation was changing drastically toward the Meiji Revolution. Yamao completed his five years in England, and he returned to his country in 1868, it was the year of the Meiji Revolution. He played an important role to institute schools and organizations for engineering. His contribution wasn't limited to engineering. He became the first secretary of the Legislation Bureau. He contributed to the creation of institutional schools for the deaf, the mute, and the blind. He, himself, founded a school for the deaf.   (To be continued ...)

No. 472




*monetary :金融の
*settlement :調停、和解
*assault :襲う
*split second :一瞬にして
*Legislation Bureau :法制局