Pathway to Japanese Literature

Japanese Movable Type

I

When did I first come to care about the invention of movable type? From childhood until adulthood, I had worked for many years as a compositor and typesetter. Even after leaving that behind to write novels and such, my life still remained connected to movable type. But who had invented this very type? Even during those mornings and evenings when I handled type pieces, I had hardly ever given it thought. Strictly speaking, this too was a somewhat distantly related "imported product"—that’s about as far as I’d ever considered it. From far across the sea, they had flowed in like the tide alongside guns, steam engines, electricity, and automobiles—there was no denying their significance—yet somehow they still felt like borrowed things. What made it even worse was that, though I knew full well of air’s great utility, I had spent my days with the vague indifference of one so accustomed to its blessings that I felt no particular gratitude.

Therefore, it was only within the past few years that I came to know the names of the German Gutenberg and the Japanese Motoki Sanzō. Nor could I myself clearly say what motive had first led me to take an interest in Gutenberg and Sanzō. If I were to put a somewhat forced interpretation on it, this awareness might have arisen because—since becoming someone who writes—I had gradually come to feel in my bones, however faintly, how profoundly significant it was that humanity developed language; that characters emerged to express those words; and that through recording these characters, we became able to communicate our thoughts with multitudes of others and transmit our opinions even unto posterity.

One day, I went to Ueno Art Museum to see the "Japanese Cultural History Exhibition". It was May 1940, and the exhibition was sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun Company. It was a rare opportunity to see national treasure-class artworks gathered from across the country, and according to the newspaper advertisements, the display of a Daruma-style printing press—gifted by the Dutch to a certain daimyo during the shogunate era—also piqued my interest. However, when I went to the venue, I—being anemic—immediately became exhausted. It was crowded, but more than that—the sheer volume of exhibits created such a dizzying array for someone without any prior knowledge that I was utterly unable to comprehend what I'd even seen.

There were middle school students led by teachers, female students, and groups that had come up from the provinces in such great numbers that it was utterly impossible to pause before any single exhibit. Jostled through room after room, by the time I finally made it downstairs to the rest area between the special exhibition rooms, I was already completely spent. Yet later, when I gathered the lingering impressions from that day, two sensations remained: a certain dazed feeling that came over me when standing before Asai Chū’s *Harvest* or Takahashi Yūichi’s *Salmon*—works displayed several rooms past the chambers filled with famous Japanese paintings like the *Ban Dainagon Picture Scroll*, Toba Sōjō’s works, and Kano school pieces—and another distinct emotion stirred by viewing Takizawa Bakin’s *Hakkenden Manuscript*. Of course, I lack the ability to compare the artistic merits of *Harvest* and *Salmon* with other works, so could there have been something beyond mere technique within the paintings themselves that left me so dazed? The *Hakkenden Manuscript* was arranged as a two-page spread, placed alongside its corresponding printed pages and displayed within a low-profile glass case. I strained to brace against the crowd pressing from behind with my back, but even so, the actual duration was likely no more than ten or twenty minutes. The manuscript featured vermilion double-lined borders framing each page. On the lower portion of one leaf was illustrated a young samurai in pageboy attire, while the upper portion of the opposing leaf depicted a princess hiding her face behind long sleeves, her hair adorned with hairpins—the entire scene balanced in harmonious composition. The text fills the spaces between these illustrations, meaning Bakin not only wrote the text and drew the illustrations together but also handled the print specifications simultaneously. When compared with the finished book, it hardly differs at all. Novelists of old would draw their own illustrations, compose their texts, even add double-lined borders—thus joyfully rendering their imagery in such concrete form.

I looked for the woodblocks but could not find them. When the manuscript was completed, draftspersons would draw the master copies, woodblock carvers would carve the blocks, and then—as seen in chapbooks—topknotted old printers with sleeves tied back by tenugui cloths would painstakingly rub each sheet with a baren. I was astonished to find that the arrangement of the princess and young samurai illustrations shared compositional principles with today’s relief printing and photogravure techniques. Though fleeting, this impression made me realize that even in works like the Hakkenden Manuscript—if we take pieces such as the Ban Dainagon Picture Scroll as marking narrative romance’s genesis—text and illustrations still lacked definitive separation. The characters were not independent; when carved into woodblocks, they must have shared this unity with the images. Contemplating Japanese narrative romance’s formal tradition across a millennium—from Ban Dainagon to Hakkenden—held particular interest for me as a former printing artisan. Moreover, works like Ban Dainagon and other picture scrolls in the first room existed entirely on single sheets. They were author, printer, and publisher combined. In Hakkenden’s case, adding one woodblock already altered romance’s very nature—yet extending this view to modern printing technology’s complexity made me feel an immeasurable gulf. It seemed vaster than the thousand years separating Hakkenden from Dainagon. Above all else today stands this truth: characters have divorced themselves from illustrations to exist independently.

At the entrance to the special exhibition room was a sign reading "History of Printing Culture," indicating the room's theme. The initial section displayed physical artifacts like antique Mino-sized hand presses with provenance documents stating their use during the Asahi Shimbun's founding era, alongside hanshi-sized hand-foot presses. Next came photographs showing chronological developments: chrysanthemum octavo treadle-operated rollers followed by motor-driven full-size 4x6 rollers. Then all at once came displays of Marinon-style rotary presses and high-speed Asahi-style rotary presses—the dazzlingly rapid evolution of printing machinery that left the audience awestruck. Especially around the experimental photo-telegraph machine, a dense crowd had gathered, drawing all the room's attention.

However, although it was called the "History of Printing Culture," this room ultimately displayed printing technologies from the post-Meiji era onward. While vaguely looking around the room, my mind traced a broken path from the baren-rubbing printing technique of the Hakkenden Manuscript to this present moment—the connection severed somewhere along the way. The addition of electric motors to hand presses and foot-operated rollers was indeed a revolutionary development, but the shift from baren rubbing to hand presses—that is, to mechanical power—was undoubtedly an even greater transformation; yet the path of that transition remained beyond my comprehension.

Before long, I suddenly found something nostalgic at my feet and was startled. There in a quiet corner of the sparsely attended room lay an antique hand press—one even more antiquated than those used by the Asahi Shimbun at its founding—left lying with no one to look upon it. The two clumsily large curved pillars, the handle’s grip, and the single rail attached to the support—all were rusted red. I found myself drawing near before I knew it, resting my hand on the curved pillar as I inwardly murmured, "Oh, how did you end up in a place like this again?"

How many decades has it been? I had worked with this machine. I was twelve years old at the time, so it's been over thirty years now. I placed my hands on the handle's grip only to notice the "Do Not Touch" sign and withdraw. The base of the handle—that is, the shape of the drum lowering the platen—wasn't the modern bellows-style gear but a drum-shaped mechanism where rotation advanced like a waterwheel, secured with nails. Planting my foot on this single rail and gripping the handle with both hands, I must have stomped down hundreds, thousands of times daily. This rust-red handle had covered my young palms in calluses, while that ill-tempered platen—no matter how I adjusted it—kept dropping harder on the right side, making every print uneven. How many ink spatulas had my senior apprentices slammed at me for that? Of course there were good moods too—during hectic year-end all-night shifts, I'd hang half-asleep from this handle.

It was an old childhood friend. However, while stroking the round pillar, when I suddenly read the notice on the opposite wall, I was startled once more. According to the notice, this was the Daruma-style hand press that had been advertised—the very one presented by the Netherlands to a certain daimyo during the shogunate era. I counted on my fingers. I was twelve years old in Meiji 43. The time gap felt a bit too wide, but of course this Dutch-imported hand press itself could not possibly be the very machine I had used thirty years ago in a remote corner of Kyushu. However, since electric motors didn’t spread throughout the Kyushu region until after the Taisho era began, this Dutch import likely served as the prototype—produced domestically in Japan—with models of the same type being used for several decades in rural Kyushu.

In addition to the joy of unexpectedly encountering an old friend, I stood for a while beside that antiquated Daruma-style press, keenly aware that I had traced back forty or fifty years in the history of printing machinery. And in my mind, while one path proceeded straight from the *Ban Dainagon Picture Scroll* to the *Hakkenden Manuscript*, another traced back through high-speed rotary presses, motor-driven rollers, and Daruma-style presses toward the Meiji era—only to suddenly veer off toward that unexpected place called the Netherlands.

When I shifted my gaze, on one wall was pasted a large photograph of a typesetting factory—life-sized compositors each holding composing boxes or manuscripts, working while facing type cases. The compositors in the photograph wore speckled Ogora serge uniforms, lace-up boots, and work caps bearing the Asahi emblem. Compared to when we worked wearing striped karazane unlined kimonos with stiff flat obi and hand towels bearing small tie-dyed patterns wrapped around our necks, it was quite different. However, both the arrangement of the type cases and the workflow—in essence, everything remained just as it had been in the past. Strictly speaking, this would amount to little more than the point system for movable type having become more precise and the hardness of the type metal being strengthened due to the increased production of paper matrices.

And here too, the gap between woodblock printing and lead movable type became starkly apparent. Moreover, while I could readily accept that Daruma-style hand presses had come from the Netherlands, simply stating "movable type must have come from abroad too" felt insufficient to me. For example, trains, automobiles, and steamships all came from foreign countries. They remained imported as they were, running on Japanese roads and sailing Japanese seas—but movable type does not follow this same path. The typefaces differ. The number of characters differs. Even when comparing foreign books and Japanese books, it becomes clear that their plate-making formats differ. In other words, even trains manufactured abroad can run on Japanese rails, but movable type presents a slightly different case.

Who could have created Japan's movable type? How was it created? As I left the venue and walked down the slope from Kanei-ji toward Hirokoji, I pondered such things. Presses and rollers could come directly even from the Netherlands. However, even if movable type came from abroad, there must have been a uniquely Japanese path it followed. Who created Japan's movable type, and in what manner was it done? If we could understand that, then from the Ban Dainagon Picture Scroll to the Hakkenden Manuscript to modern novels—in other words, the tradition of Japanese printing technology would connect straight through.

II

I would occasionally visit Ueno’s Imperial Library and the Ōhashi Library in Kudanshita, poring over literature related to printing. When it came to books on printing, compared to Ōhashi Library, Ueno Library was indeed far more abundant. There I read books such as World Printing Chronology, Fifty-Year History of the Printing Bureau, Southern Barbarian Chronicles, History of Printing Civilization, Comprehensive World History of Printing, Modern Printing Techniques, and Study of Ancient Movable Type Editions. In addition, from the late Meiji era into Taisho, as printing culture became more widespread, I encountered quite ordinary books like guidebooks for those wanting to start printing businesses—though those whose titles I remember were generally impressive works. Among them, works like Study of Ancient Movable Type Editions, History of Printing Civilization, and Comprehensive World History of Printing were not only massive in volume but carried such formidable rigor—as if dedicating one’s entire lifetime to this singular, socially overlooked field of study would still prove inadequate—that I felt thoroughly overwhelmed.

However, being a novice who couldn't find his way in or out, I neither read those volumes faithfully nor studied them methodically. I would even engage in such capricious reading methods that felt inexcusable toward their authors. I would flip through tables of contents to skim promising sections, then suddenly switch to diligently copying excerpts. One book described how Babylonians from four millennia ago wrote characters on clay. There was a school whose gate stood as a clay mountain; each day students would arrive, dismantle portions of this earthen portal, spend hours writing and erasing upon it, then rebuild the mound before departing—a story I vividly retained alongside what seemed to be the author's imagined illustration. Another text mentioned how some Babylonian queen or other had inscribed what amounted to her autobiography on clay tablets later fired into bricks, discovered four thousand years hence—what truly intrigued me was understanding what surfaces bore printing before paper existed. Indeed, even Western history's "Ostracism" involved writing on shells, followed by texts on ox and sheep skins—single volumes bundled like bolts of silk in modern fabric shops, price tags dangling from them. Though Bi Sheng of China had created clay movable type five centuries before Gutenberg, while Japan's Dharani sutras and eighth-year Tenpyō era prints from Hōryūji Temple predated even that by two hundred eighty years—as I absently contemplated illustrations while debating with authors whether those sutras used wooden or copper plates—the history of printing seemed so vast and elusive that I couldn't imagine when I might ever grasp Japan's transitional tradition from woodblocks to movable type.

Of course, the first name I learned was that of the German Johann Gutenberg. There was a beautiful illustration depicting a moving scene where Gutenberg, together with his two collaborators, gazes at the first proof sheet of the type he had created. Beside it was a photograph of the so-called turtle-shell type used in the 32-line Bible, dated 1447 CE. Western printing technology first began in Germany, then spread from France to England, from England to America, and on another front to the Netherlands, Italy, and Russia—I traced its path as it expanded across the Western world from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century. And in those same early 1600s—the Tenshō, Bunroku, and Keichō eras—Portuguese missionaries crossed the vast Pacific to bring Western printing technology to Hizen Nagasaki. This concerns the so-called Kirishitan-ban editions—a subject that *Namban Kōki* (Southern Barbarian Chronicles), *Inshoku Bunmeishi* (History of Printing Civilization), and *Kokatsujiban no Kenkyū* (Study of Ancient Movable Type Editions) all discuss with strenuous emphasis.

The *Namban Kōki* (Southern Barbarian Chronicles) states that not only printing presses but even Western movable type and “casting machines” had been imported. *Kokatsujiban no Kenkyū* (Study of Ancient Movable Type Editions) introduced numerous Kirishitan-ban editions through photographs. Particularly, the printing of the Romanized Taiheiki was astonishingly splendid, even from the perspective of an experienced person like myself. However, Japan’s political circumstances from Nobunaga to Hideyoshi and Ieyasu drove Western printing technology from Kazusa on the Shimabara Peninsula to Amakusa, then from Amakusa to Nagasaki, until finally banishing it from Nagasaki abroad—after which, throughout the three hundred years of Tokugawa rule, it ceased to exist thereafter. The author of *History of Printing Civilization* wrote with encouraging words as follows: “Had Japan not issued the National Seclusion Edicts, our nation’s Western-style printing technology would have already reached its zenith from the final years of the Toyotomi regime through the early Tokugawa period.”

However, to me as a reader, even with three books and three authors emphasizing the Kirishitan-ban editions so strenuously, I still did not feel strongly about them. After the printing technology that had arrived in Hizen Kazusa perished, for three hundred years neither the people surrounding *Rangaku Kotohajime* nor the many other Japanese scholars knew of such hardships as creating Dutch dictionaries with one column in Albert’s movable type printing and another in brush-written ink; nor could I connect and contemplate the necessity of Hayashi Shihei carrying the woodblocks of *Kaikoku Heidan* more preciously than his own life. That Keisuke Ōtori carved characters onto lead bullets; that Sanzō Motoki, above all, poured lead into sword hilt rivet inlays and gained revelations for today’s movable type matrices; that these numerous excellent people shouldered—groaning under its weight—the lame-legged fate of three hundred feudal years of Japanese culture as if hauling it on their backs: such hardships could never truly permeate the being of one like me, born into the Meiji era of civilization and enlightenment.

The Imperial Library’s special reading room remained tolerable in summer, but turned cold in winter when the steam heating proved insufficient. When visiting the library, I made efforts to leave home early and secure a seat by the sunny windowside in the reading room, yet invariably found myself beaten to it by the regular patrons. By noon, when the sunlight had shifted and quiet settled in, there were moments I’d suddenly look up to gaze outside the window and slip into an odd mood. Beyond bare treetops trembling in the wind, the dull roar of airplane engines rained down incessantly from leaden gray clouds. At times, a sort of delusion born from the era and atmosphere of the books I read would make me forget we stood amidst both the China Incident and World War. Returning my gaze to the room, I found something suspect in how these people hunched over desks showed unchanged postures day after day without so much as a cough.

Moreover, as far as I knew, this library’s cafeteria ranked as the most meager among all Tokyo library cafeterias. Its poverty wasn’t the issue—what troubled me was how its roughness resembled that of a cheap diner in the outskirts, combined with an oddly bureaucratic demeanor. Given wartime circumstances, days without coffee or udon noodles, or occasions when only side dishes were available without rice, seemed unavoidable... “Just side dishes today. That acceptable?” The female clerk at the counter struck the cash register’s button with the base of her fist as she announced this in an irritated voice. Yet what drew my attention more was how those entering the cafeteria carried themselves so differently from patrons at ordinary town eateries. Whether students or gentlemen, all maintained a hushed silence under the clerk’s curt pronouncements, as if being scolded.

Beside a stove burning with chopstick scraps, we waited for a meal that was supposed to be ready in thirty minutes, but even after thirty minutes had passed, the rice still wasn't ready. I was growing increasingly irritated, but soon realized I alone wore a stern expression. Students sat before soiled tables while a gentleman in the cold corner tapped frozen shoe tips against floorboards—all immersed in silent contemplation. The man in a double-layered coat at my table, a regular from the special reading room, wiped soy sauce stains with tissue paper before opening a thin Japanese-bound book. His beard streaked with white and unkempt hair had grown noticeably long. He occasionally raised his eyes toward the kitchen window where waitresses chattered, then slowly returned to his worm-eaten woodblock text. When I noticed, his trousers—stretched toward the stove over bamboo sandals—bore holes, his tabi socks crudely mended with white thread in what seemed homemade fashion.

I felt slightly ashamed. Scholars, too, were fully immersed in the war. They were thought to possess the resolve to keep their eyes on their books and continue their research calmly even if bombs fell overhead.

Though my visits to the library were occasional, as I gradually acclimated to its atmosphere, I began dimly discerning the contours of Japanese printing technology. From the Dharani Sutra preserved in London's British Museum as the world's oldest printed material onward, Japan's printing plates had consisted of single sheets of wood or copper. This technique—brought by monks from Tang China and Tenjiku—revealed its astonishing scarcity when examining the distribution map of late Muromachi period prints included in *Study of Ancient Movable Type Editions*, entries reading "Such-and-such province, such-and-such district, such-and-such temple collection of such-and-such sutra in X volumes." The revival of Japanese printing originated with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean campaigns and their copper type souvenirs, yet paradoxically it was Tokugawa Ieyasu—the very shogun who expelled Christians from Nagasaki—who replicated those types through casting and engraving. While *Kobun Kōkyō* [Classic of Filial Piety in Ancient Script] is cited as the first work printed through this method, that particular passage held special fascination for me.

According to Nishidōin’s diary, under imperial decree, the two court nobles Rokujō Arihiro and Nishidōin Tokiyoshi served for three months, daily picking up movable type and printing with a rubbing pad in the wooden-floored room near the Oyudono at the Imperial Palace. When viewed in photographs, those type cases differed entirely from today’s—merely an assemblage of characters with similar strokes—so one could almost see how the two court nobles, their long sleeves tied up behind their backs, must have toiled to search out and pick up each piece one by one. Thinking they were the originators of Japanese typesetting filled me with a nostalgic reverence.

I came to understand that what the world calls the "single-character plate" also originated from this movable type. The author of that same book writes how copper movable type eventually transitioned to wooden type, gradually popularizing Japanese printing technology—only for wooden movable type to be overshadowed by woodblock printing's resurgence as the mid-Tokugawa period approached. Though I couldn't fully comprehend the detailed causes, even from my childhood experience working with them, wooden types—whether boxwood or cherry—warp readily and lose their uniform height. Had they been printed with rubbing pads rather than presses, the results would surely have been even messier. That this revival of printing culture—unmatched since before Muromachi times—sprang not from technical progress but social circumstances of the age.

My objective was gradually drawing near. As overseas interactions grew frequent in the late Tokugawa period—with fields like medicine, firearms, and electricity being researched and practiced by samurai and townspeople alike—woodblock printing and wooden movable type had inevitably required improvement. Those who possessed no means to recall the "type casting machine" expelled from Hizen Nagasaki three centuries prior must have endured hardships akin to Gutenberg’s from the very beginning, even if Dutch books offered fragmentary glimpses. Eventually Keisuke Ōtori developed lead-carved movable type, leading to shogunate publications like Shishi Chikujō Tenkei under the so-called "Kaiseijo edition." Viewed in photographs, they stood beyond comparison with traditional wooden movable type.

However, from the perspective of a printer like myself, the importance of modern movable type lay precisely in not requiring engraving. It lay in the ability to produce identical pieces limitlessly through matrices. And Sanzō Motoki created that. Though it could not be called an outright invention, he had perfected it in a Japanese manner. All historians of Japanese printing technology uniformly acknowledged this. They called Motoki the "pioneering founder" of modern Japanese printing technology and wrote of him as its "original progenitor."

I gazed endlessly at Motoki's photograph. A thin man wearing a haori adorned with five family crests, his white hair swept back into a topknot, with a high nose and clear eyes. Whether he wore a sword remained unclear from the upper-body portrait, yet every publication used this same photograph. What left me somewhat dissatisfied was how every book's description of this pioneer of modern movable-type printing—this man who could be called Japan's Gutenberg—spanned merely two or three pages, with all texts seemingly drawing from identical sources; no matter how many volumes I read, I could never add anything new.

I wanted to know more about Sanzō Motoki. I wanted to understand him as thoroughly as one might know Saigō Takamori or Yoshida Shōin. I felt unsatisfied when reaching the crucial points. Of course I could appreciate how monumental an undertaking it was to add even one new fact through research. Yet most authors had treated Motoki's completion of movable type as merely another episode in printing history. It might be a novice's presumption, but I couldn't help feeling dissatisfied alone—wasn't Motoki's achievement truly that monumental peak without which one couldn't properly discuss Japan's past printing techniques?

III

In the summer of Showa 16, a young man named H-kun came to visit one day. This was our first meeting, but through an essay I had once written on printing literature, he had sent me a book titled *The Struggles of Japan’s Movable-Type Pioneers*, and we had corresponded two or three times. H-kun was from the Kansai region but had recently come to Tokyo and was working as a typesetter at a printing factory in the Shitaya area while searching for materials to write *Motoki Sanzō Den* in novelistic form. He wore a crisp white linen high-collared jacket with his profession’s characteristic stoop—a thin man bearing a sallow complexion.

“Are you writing a Sanzō Den too?” Impatient by nature, he sat down and immediately began speaking while unbuttoning his high collar. “Nah, it’s not like that.”

“I answered with a laugh.” In truth, I still had no particular purpose. First of all, I knew almost nothing about Sanzō Motoki.

“No, all Motoki Den biographies are much the same—it seems there aren’t any detailed ones.” “So you see—I’ve been searching through other documents from that era peripherally...in that manner.” While fiddling with his high collar button again, H-kun listed titles like Goncharov’s *A Voyage to Japan*, *History of Japanese Warships*, and *Kawaji Diary*. “In *A Voyage to Japan*—regarding Russian envoy Putyatin’s arrival in Nagasaki during those so-called Nagasaki negotiations—the name ‘Sanzō’ appears twice as an interpreter there. And since Sanzō played an even bigger role during Putyatin’s Shimoda negotiations later on...well! If we could read Kawaji Toshiakira’s diary—he being Japan’s lead negotiator—we might find more about his actual deeds...but I haven’t gotten my hands on that document yet! As for *History of Japanese Warships*, it helps historically since Motoki was originally an ironworking and shipbuilding pioneer too...even if you aren’t planning to write a Motoki biography yourself...my findings might still interest you.”

“Do you know a man named Yukichi Tamiya?”

After pausing his own account, H-kun said. “Ah, he’s the person cited in the encyclopedia’s Motoki biography, right?” Since that was all I knew, I answered thus. Then H-kun nodded with some dissatisfaction and said, “Yeah,” before continuing.

“In Motoki research, this person seems to be representative—though I haven’t had a chance to meet him myself—look here! Apparently Mr. Tamiya’s actually this book’s real author too.” What H-kun pressed down with his folding fan was *The Struggles of Japan’s Movable-Type Pioneers*—the book I had placed on my lap intending to return to him now.

“Huh? But isn’t the signature different?” The small shirokuban-format book was authored by someone named Tsuda. “That’s right—Mr. Tsuda was what you might call a dedicated patron. The person who actually compiled the text wasn’t Mr. Tamiya either.” “Mr. Tamiya is said to be the one who tracked down on foot all those pioneer sites featured here.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed from the heart. Though I didn’t know what sort of man Tamiya was, I had been deeply impressed since first reading this book by its monumental undertaking. It contained brief biographies of Motoki and his collaborator Tomiji Hirano, along with documented achievements—varying in depth—of dozens who had struggled for modern printing technology. Katō Fukujūrō, Japan’s first lead plate artisan who recreated typefaces using paper matrices, revealed through his trials how even seemingly simple discoveries—like layering ganpi paper to sharpen impressions or adjusting height differentials with torn cardboard—were paths interwoven with drama. These accounts of ingenuity made one’s chest tighten with visceral intensity, even for those outside the trade. The book chronicled countless struggles behind modern Japan’s complex printing technology: Takeguchi Yoshigorō designing today’s typefaces after being discovered writing Ginza nameplates; Sakai Kenji pioneering ruler studies; Yamamoto Rikichi’s tribulations creating type cases. Yet what I most admired was how the author had tracked down these figures—mostly deceased—particularly his visits to impoverished families of inventors who never prospered, work demanding extraordinary dedication.

“How about we visit Mr. Tamiya once, don’t you think?”

H-kun was enthusiastic.

“I know the address. Even without an introduction, if we send a letter first, he’d probably agree to meet us. Why don’t the two of us go see him?” “Sounds good, let’s go.”

I also answered gladly. Several days later, a letter arrived from H-kun. According to it, Mr. Tamiya was hospitalized—though we didn't know what illness—and since visitors were prohibited, we decided to postpone our visit for the time being. We were somewhat disappointed, but after a few more days passed, this time a special delivery letter came. It said Mr. Tamiya's condition had worsened following major surgery for stomach cancer; since waiting offered no hope, even if we couldn't speak with him, shouldn't we at least go pay our respects? When I promptly sent an acceptance reply, he immediately wrote back suggesting we meet tomorrow at 1:00 PM on the Shōsen Shibuya Station platform, as it was near Saiseikai Hospital.

It was mid-August, an unbearably hot day. We met up in Shibuya, got off at Gotanda Station, and then took the city tram to Akabanebashi. Near the tram stop, when I thought to buy a get-well gift and entered a flower shop, H-kun and I exchanged glances.

“How old do you think he is?” “Well, he must be elderly by any measure.” We bought five or six stems of pure white flowers—more delicate than mountain lilies, their fragrance even fainter. When we asked the florist’s wife, she told us they were called sanshashi. “It’d be such a boon if he allows our questions... Though I wonder if it’s imposing?” H-kun said this while flipping through his notebook to show me along the way. The notebook appeared prepared long in advance, listing bullet-pointed queries like “What truly caused Sanzō’s imprisonment?” I too found myself at a loss for reply.

When we asked at reception, they immediately identified the hospital room. After passing through the waiting room’s expansive hall, we turned left down the first corridor. All windows stood open; from the crowded ward where beds jostled wall-to-wall came the rasping breaths of patients. The windless day revealed attendants slumped in corridors—grandmothers with aprons hitched up to their thighs squatting listlessly, old men clutching buckets while chatting bare-shinned beneath loose underpants—their plebeian appearances alone betraying the hospital’s character. The nameplate “Yukichi Tamiya” lined up with others at the corridor’s far entrance, but as H-kun—leading us—hesitated uncertainly before the beds, a woman in her forties who’d been squatting nearby rose like a housewife might, undoing her work sash as she approached.

“Who might you be?” Petite, her face worn from nursing bore the apprehensive look of someone unaccustomed to receiving visitors dressed in Western clothing. When H-kun presented his business card and explained that he was the one who had sent the letter earlier, she responded with deferential “Oh, oh,” as if overwhelmed, “I am Tamiya’s wife.” She bowed. I too bowed and presented my business card, whereupon the housewife-like woman took it and retreated inside. Just beyond a screen near our noses, on a bed at the partition’s edge, lay a thinning, white-streaked head where the scalp showed through noticeably—we now discerned this to be none other than Mr. Tamiya himself.

“Tell them to come in here.” The thin wrist supporting two business cards while he lay there trembled, yet his voice was unexpectedly loud. “Is it really all right?”

H-kun asked the wife, who had come out into the hallway.

“Well, I don’t know what’s come over him today—he’s so full of energy.”

Fumbling with her work sash,

“And anyway, whichever way you choose, it’s all the same now—even the doctors say—”

While she was speaking, a booming voice came through from the bed.

“What are you dawdling for? Hurry up and tell them to come in already!” “Yes, yes,” the wife answered toward him, her voice flustered as if relying on strangers. “So we’ve already taken matters into our own hands.” “Well, even he himself seemed resigned by now, but…” When we neared the bedside, a stench assaulted our noses. His swollen abdomen lay covered with gauze—all waste apparently exiting through that incision. Though emaciated and shriveled, Mr. Tamiya’s large frame made his legs protrude far beyond the bed. His hand clutching the business card trembled incessantly as he strained his neck toward us, attempting to raise even just his face.

“You idiot, take the pillow!” His curses grew even more vehement. Waving his hands as if swimming through air, he fixed his gaze straight at my face over H-kun’s shoulder. “You really came.” His words trailed off hoarsely, tears trickling down the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“You really came.” Realizing his earlier swimming-like hand gestures had been seeking a handshake, I hurriedly obliged though somewhat taken aback. I wondered if critically ill patients became this excitable even around people they were meeting for the first time.

However, Mr. Tamiya did not readily release my hand and stared intently at my face. Mr. Tamiya had a thick nasal bridge and distinctive broad lips, his countenance nervous and stubborn. “It’s been a while.” He spoke nostalgically between breaths. “You’ve aged too, haven’t you? Quite a lot of white hair—” Even my dazed self was growing suspicious—where could I have met this Mr. Tamiya? The moment I tried in confusion to make sense of it, he suddenly released my hand.

“What? You came here without knowing?” On his face, still streaked with tears, an unapologetically displeased expression appeared.

“Look, back there, at Kyodo Printing—”

I inadvertently let out an "Ah!" What in the world was this? I had only ever considered Mr. Tamiya in his capacity as a Motoki researcher. I exclaimed once more. “Ah, so it was you, Tamiya—”

IV

Mr. Tamiya and I exchanged looks for a while. The patient was having his tears wiped by his wife; though his breathing was labored, he looked satisfied.

Since this was around the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake, it must have been nearly twenty years now. At the First Plate-Making Factory of Kyodo Printing Company, both Mr. Tamiya and I were typesetters. At that time, after the factory of the Point Section to which I had belonged closed down and I was transferred along with other typesetters to the First Factory, I did not know whether Mr. Tamiya was already a veteran there. Moreover, Mr. Tamiya left for another company after about six months of us working together, so we weren’t particularly close, but our workstations happened to face each other. Normally, even the backs of the case racks would block our view, but Mr. Tamiya, being a large man, only had his head sticking up over them. I recall how it always went: someone would call out “Hey” to me, and when I casually looked around, his long face would be peering down from above—startling me every time.

I did not know whether Mr. Tamiya had already been researching Sanzō Motoki’s achievements since that time. Though he was a worker from an earlier generation than us, he lacked artisan-like qualities—always carrying himself with an air of superiority, compelled to posit some dissenting view on every matter, that stubbornness of his—and I recall even the foreman addressed him alone as “Mr. Tamiya.” But our reunion after twenty years was a hurried affair. Even though his wife kept saying he was a patient beyond saving, I couldn’t stop worrying about the watch on my wrist. H-kun stood there beside us, dazed by the sudden turn of events, but Mr. Tamiya addressed him with utmost cheerfulness: “You—”

“Thank you for the letter.” “Since my time is short anyway, ask me anything while I’m still here.” As H-kun stiffened with a “Ha,” Mr. Tamiya began laughing dryly. “No need for formalities—things like history and research, you see, they’re all like this. Ah, finally tracking someone down only to find them at death’s door—I’ve had that happen countless times myself. Now it’s my turn, that’s all. Nothing worth making a fuss over.”

Mr. Tamiya was moving the fingers of his right palm held aloft over his chest as usual. The index finger—nervously searching for something, long and slender like fire tongs, its tip distinctly flattened like a pit viper’s head—was that of a typesetter who had spent years handling the ends of movable type. Even H-kun, who had initially been reserved, now urged on by the patient, pulled a chair up beside the bed and began posing his questions with visible tension.

“Motoki’s imprisonment…?” “There are various theories, but in short, the most plausible one is that he was implicated in a crime related to purchasing Western books for someone else’s sake.” “Is the ‘someone else’ you mentioned referring to Shinagawa Umejirō?” “Right, right—but we need to look deeper into this ‘imprisonment’ business. Even when you line up the dates, historical records clearly show Motoki was engaged in various projects throughout his supposed incarceration.” “That’s something you’ll understand if you read my Motoki biography—”

Whether from excitement, Mr. Tamiya had seemed energetic at first, but gradually his breathlessness grew more severe. While standing rigidly between the narrow bed and the screen partition, I couldn't properly catch their conversation either. With no other visitors to disturb us—though what I'd intended as thirty minutes had long since passed—I urged H-kun to leave. Then Mr. Tamiya, still seeming reluctant to part, waved those slender elongated fingers of his. "Now come again tomorrow—you two. There's something I want to give you, so I'll have it prepared by tomorrow—"

His wife also came out to the hallway and repeated her request for us to come tomorrow, just like the patient had. Fidgeting with her tasuki sash in a timid tone, she revealed her single-minded resolve to honor her husband’s final wish unconditionally—no matter what it might be—for this man beyond hope. And toward the end, she spoke in a voice choked with tears.

“Lately, this is the first time I’ve seen my husband look so delighted. Though I don’t fully understand it myself—ever since he was young, he’s done nothing but research Mr. Motoki. He must have been overjoyed.”

Of course, both H-kun and I made a promise to visit again tomorrow and left the hospital, but H-kun hardly spoke a word until we parted ways once more at Shibuya Station. Part of it was that my imaginings of Mr. Tamiya had been so far off the mark, but having now witnessed with my own eyes just how unremarkable a researcher's life truly was, I found myself sharing the same feeling.

However, when the two of us went to the hospital at the same time the next day, Mr. Tamiya’s condition had utterly transformed from the day before. The unusual sight of doctors and nurses hunched over the bed came into view, and though his wife’s eyes fell upon us several times, she seemed as if her vision wasn’t truly taking anything in.

Even as we stood motionless in the hallway for some time, nurses and others hurried in and out. While we were discussing whether perhaps it would be better to go home today, his wife’s face suddenly appeared peeking through the doorway and beckoned us. She wore a somewhat agitated expression, and when I approached, she thrust the newspaper-wrapped bundle she was holding into my hands, then said in a clipped voice: “Just let him see your faces for a moment—just for a moment—”

With that, she shouted—then sharply turned away and buried her face in her sleeve. The doctor was still there.

When I approached the screen partition, the back of a woman who appeared to be a relative shifted slightly, revealing Mr. Tamiya beneath white gauze covering him from the chest down; only his face was turned toward us like a ginkgo leaf. His countenance had completely transformed overnight, yet around his distinctive lips lingered a relatively vigorous smile. "Oh, thank you—"

The familiar right palm moved from between the gauze. His lips were still moving, but I couldn't make out the words. When I nodded without understanding, he managed a faint smile and turned away as if utterly spent.—

In the evening, we left the hospital carrying the newspaper-wrapped bundle, but even after reaching Gotanda Station, we felt unable to board the train right away. Entering a café in front of the station, we opened the bundle. They all had crude bindings—one volume titled *Sanzō Motoki and Tomiji Hirano: A Detailed Biography*, the other two *A Study of Type Height* and *Methods for Improving Typesetting Efficiency*. The Motoki-Hirano volume bore the brush-written label "Revised Edition Manuscript" on its cover, containing various notations and pasted materials. Mr. Tamiya must have intended to publish a revised and expanded edition after further research following the first edition.

“What a coincidence! It’s almost like we went to hear his last will.”

The young H-kun kept repeating himself in growing excitement, never once touching his coffee. I flipped through the pages reading prefaces and such, but the Motoki biography primarily used Gen'ichirō Fukuchi’s original text, with Mr. Tamiya’s writings arranged alongside it in sections labeled “Editor’s Note,” “Supplement,” or “Annotation.” Fukuchi’s original text was substantially the same as other Motoki biographies I had read in his works, but the "Editor’s Note," "Supplement," and "Annotation" sections were fresh additions. These were precious materials Mr. Tamiya had gathered by traveling as far as Nagasaki and Fukuoka to interview Motoki’s surviving family and Hirano’s widow, or unearthed from documents preserved locally in temples and shrines dating back to the former shogunate era.

“What a coincidence! A total coincidence.” H-kun kept repeating. It was indeed coincidental that I had encountered Mr. Tamiya by chance, but equally fortuitous that all three of us drawn to Motoki’s biography happened to be printers. “You should write something about Sanzō Motoki too. I’ll write as well. Even just spreading awareness would serve some purpose.” “That’s true.” I answered absently while gazing at the ceiling. To write about Sanzō Motoki meant writing about Japanese printing technology itself—about Japanese movable type. And when I considered Mr. Tamiya now facing imminent death, this task of ours gradually ceased feeling like mere coincidence.

Satsuma Dictionary

I

When Mr. Yukichi Tamiya passed away, the revised manuscript of *Sanzō Motoki and Tomiji Hirano: A Detailed Biography* that he had entrusted to me during his lifetime took on the form of a final testament for me. In other words, taking up Mr. Tamiya’s aspiration, I too must write something to honor the achievements of the man who could be called the founder of modern Japanese printing technology.

I repeatedly read that book. The main text was written by Gen'ichirō Fukuchi and was published in *Printing Magazine* issued in Meiji 24 (1891). Gen'ichirō took the pseudonym Ōchi, was born in Nagasaki in Tenpō 12 (1841), and likewise hailed from Dutch interpreter stock. Though seventeen years junior to Shōzō [Motoki], he served aboard the Kanrin Maru at age eighteen in Ansei 5 (1858) under warship captain Kagekura Yadahori, and at twenty in Man'en 1 (1860), was dispatched to Europe accompanying Shimotsuke no Kami Takeuchi. Having been active from a remarkably young age, he undoubtedly shared what might be called a contemporaneous period with Shōzō; moreover, it is thought that he privately looked up to Shōzō—who was not only among the Nagasaki interpreters like himself but also a pioneer in navigation and shipbuilding. Biographical articles about Motoki found in today’s printing histories and other works are said to derive primarily from this source, which—if set on 500-character manuscript paper—would amount to less than twenty sheets.

The reason Mr. Tamiya titled this work *Detailed Biography* likely stemmed from his having appended nearly equal-length materials—field research, investigated accounts, and oral histories he himself gathered through travels—to Fukuchi’s main text in forms like “supplements” and “annotations.” To the best of my knowledge within what I had read, I knew of nothing more detailed than this concerning Sanzō; yet conversely speaking, this also meant that regarding Motoki, only this much had been written.

I endeavored to learn about the traditions of Western studies, the circumstances of the Bakumatsu period, and the connections with Nagasaki interpreters, with the help of friends and acquaintances. I also strove to gain detailed knowledge about late Edo-period printing, but no matter which direction I turned, everything remained vast and indistinct to my novice eyes. Before any clear image of Sanzō could take shape in my mind, Shōwa 16 (1941) had already slipped away, and spring of Shōwa 17 (1942) had arrived.

One day, I visited the Printing Magazine office located in a room of the S Building in Nihonbashi. There, in accordance with Mr. Tamiya’s longstanding wish, the materials he had collected about Sanzō had been retrieved to be housed in the "Printing Museum." I wanted to see the third part of Sanzō’s work *Shinjuku Yodan* among those collected materials. According to *A Detailed Biography*, Sanzō’s works include *Ranwa Tsūben* (Dutch-Japanese Lexicon), *Kaigun Jōki Kikan Gaku Kōhon* (Manuscript on Naval Steam Engines), *Dēsukurufu deru Yutōmushikēben Shōyaku Kōhon* (Abridged Translation of [Dutch Title]), *Eiwa Taiyaku Shōyō Benran* (English-Japanese Commercial Handbook), *Butsurigaku* (Physics), *Hiji Shinsho* (Secret Affairs New Book), *Hoken Taiki* (Chronicle of Health Preservation), *Sūgaku Hinda* (Mathematical Problems), *Shinjuku Yodan* (New Academy Miscellany), and *Seiyō Koshi Ryaku* (Outline of Western Ancient History), among others. However, these works have since been scattered; even those with known whereabouts are now in private collections whose owners’ names and addresses remain unidentified. Only the portion collected by Mr. Tamiya offered me any possible leads, but I hoped to glimpse even a fragment of Sanzō’s opinions or ways of thinking from his writings.

Mr. M.T. of Printing Magazine, upon seeing the letter of introduction from Mrs. Tamiya that I had brought, readily agreed and instructed an attendant to bring out a large willow trunk from the corner of the room. Mr. Tamiya’s collection could not be freely examined because the Printing Museum had not yet been completed, and the transfer to a philanthropic benefactor who would store it had not been finalized. *Shinjuku Yodan* (New Academy Miscellany) Part III was bound in two volumes—upper and lower—a thin Japanese-style book with birch-colored covers. Published in Meiji 4 (1871), it had been printed with No. 4 lead type, but as I flipped through it, I grew disappointed. It was a voyage logbook, and that it was not Sanzō Motoki’s own work had been made clear in Motoki’s own preface. It appeared to be a diary of someone from the Japanese diplomatic mission to America in Man’en 1 (1860)—likely one of Kimura Settsu-no-kami or Katsu Rintarō’s party—describing events such as their port call in Manila and being cordially received by the President. Particularly meticulous entries had been made regarding matters such as purchasing thousands of gallons of water at each port, wind speeds, and temperatures. Motoki’s preface was also exceedingly simple, stating that it was published using self-made lead type, but this was a voyage log sent by his friend Mr. Meisō. Believing that the customs of foreign lands held interest and the actual details of the voyage offered no small benefit to readers, I earnestly request your perusal.

“Who might this Meisō-kun be?”

I asked Mr. M.T. It was thought that Kimura and Katsu’s party likely consisted mostly of naval cadets of the time, but if we considered Sanzō’s friend, it might have been someone from the Nagasaki interpreters who had accompanied them. Mr. M.T. tilted his head slightly and said, “Hmm.” “Perhaps asking Mr. K.H. would shed some light.” I did not know Mr. K.H. “I can introduce you—he might have collected other works. Since Mr. Tamiya has passed away, this person would be foremost in Motoki research now.”

Mr. M.T. placed a business card on the desk and began writing the introduction, but suddenly looked up and said with a laugh: “Admittedly, Mr. K.H. is a scholarly opponent of Mr. Tamiya’s—that is to say, Mr. Tamiya advocates the Motoki theory, while Mr. K.H. champions the Ōtori theory.” Mr. M.T. laughed in a manner that didn’t take sides with either, but seeing how much he was assuming, he seemed to view me as part of the Tamiya faction. However, I had neither the knowledge nor the qualifications to involve myself in the disputes between experts, so after receiving an introduction card from Mr. M.T., I left the place—though in my heart, I believed this “dispute over the originator of movable type” was all too clear. While there is no doubt that Keisuke Ōtori’s use of lead type—commissioned from metal craftsmen for the Bakufu’s Kaiseijo Institute publications—constitutes a noteworthy achievement in printing history, the actual copy of Ōtori’s *Shishi Chikujō Tenkei* I once saw at a certain place appeared to me as undoubted engraving work, with each character varying distinctly in form. The importance of modern movable type lay in the completion of type matrices through electrotyping, so I had thought that only Motoki had accomplished this. Moreover, there was another reason: certain phrases I had read in a book—secondhand quotations from the *Biography of Keisuke Ōtori*—did not sit well with me. “Based on Dutch books, [he] conducted various studies on their casting methods and ultimately used handmade type in publishing two works.” “When speaking of the founder of movable type in our nation, people may advocate for Nagasaki’s Tomiji Hirano—this being one who first imported Western machinery for production—but to equate this with my own method—ordering traditional metal craftsmen to create [type] as one would lead bullets—is to compare incomparable difficulties. Moreover, since my production predates Hirano’s by several years, I have declared that the true originator of Japanese movable type should rightfully be this Ōtori who now addresses you——”

Hirano was Motoki’s disciple and collaborator, and when he shipped Sanzō’s movable type to Tokyo for sale in the summer of Meiji 4 (1871), accepting Ōtori’s statement as presented by the biographer makes it evident these words must have been spoken after Meiji 4—meaning he had remained unaware of Motoki’s over two decades of trials and existence since Kaei 1 (1848). Even allowing for period transportation limitations and Ōtori’s perpetually occupied life, there persisted beneath this statesmanlike candor a discernible shortfall of the scholarly depth or inventive dedication one might expect.

A few days later, I visited Mr. K.H. in Ushigome. Mr. K.H.—a director at XXX Printing Company—was a tall man with nearly white hair who had amassed an extraordinary collection of rare printing documents. With great kindness, he brought out armfuls of materials from his inner room one bundle at a time to show me. Among these treasures lay a massive leather-bound lithographed volume titled *Birds Illustrated*, its dimensions comparable to half a tatami mat—a gift from the Netherlands commemorating Lord Murakage Awaji-no-kami’s (?) European travels. I lost nearly an entire day marveling at the exquisite woodblock prints in the first edition *Compendium of Materia Medica Illustrated*. Yet Mr. K.H.’s collection also included Sanzō Motoki’s *Shinjuku Yodan* Part I (Volumes 1-2) and a copy of *Hiji Shinsho* (Secret Affairs New Book). Though conscious of imposing on my host’s hospitality, I persuaded him to let me read through these works completely. Once more, disappointment awaited me.

*Shinjuku Yodan* (New Academy Miscellany) In Part I (Volumes 1 and 2), for instance under the title "A Method for Testing the Intensity of Light," it explained in such terms as: "This method serves to determine how many candles' worth of light would equal that produced by coal oil." The rest were all entries like "Method for Refining Soy Sauce," "Lightning Protection Method," "Method for Plating Zinc," "Method for Producing Varnish Oil," and "Galvanic Plating Method"—there was nothing else. In the "Upper" volume, under a section titled "Preface," he had written: "I previously authored a small booklet titled *Hiji Shinsho* (Secret Affairs New Book), which concerned itself entirely with household matters—though it may seem rather childish, I believe it holds some modest utility. Requests for a sequel grew insistent, yet I refrained due to the volume of tasks. Recently, however, the movable type I have produced has proven somewhat successful, and thus I now hastily take up my brush to continue this endeavor. I have titled it *Shinjuku Yodan* (New Academy Miscellany), printing it once or twice monthly with movable type to occupy my students during idle hours—hence its designation as 'miscellany.' Let it be known this is no treatise wrought through literary refinement; may readers refrain from mocking its vulgarity." Here, he appended his pseudonym: —Shōsanshiki—.

*Hiji Shinsho* was written in Bunkyū 2 (1862), but its contents consisted entirely of entries like "method for making tracing paper," "method for producing glass mirrors," "way to test water quality," "soap-making technique," and "curing pink eye"—nowhere within it could I find any written opinions or assertions that might offer a glimpse into his character I was seeking. “Don’t you suppose there exists any work that articulates Sanzō’s own views?”

I asked Mr. K.H. Motoki's writings were not particularly numerous. Moreover, aside from the five volumes I had seen, most of the others—as one could tell from their titles—were things like mathematics, physics, and dictionaries of English or Dutch. "Well, there probably aren't any, I suppose."

Mr. K.H. also tilted his head as he spoke. I felt somewhat at a loss. Could a man who had undertaken such varied work truly have held neither opinions nor ideals? I found myself recalling the words Mr. Tamiya had once spoken at the hospital. “Motoki was, in essence, a craftsman—skilled, passionate…” At that time I had been dissatisfied, but was he truly just a skilled craftsman after all? “Well, another thing—the production of type matrices via electrotyping existed even before Sanzō’s time.”

As I sat there dazedly, Mr. K.H. spoke near my ear.

“During the Ansei era, a man named Kihē Kimura from Edo’s Kanda was commissioned by Shimazu Nariakira to undertake that work.” “Moreover, Kōmin Kawamoto lectured on electrotyping during the Kaei era, and he likely conducted experiments as well.” As if declaring “This is the proof,” Mr. K.H. placed several books into my hands. One was a worn manuscript with a dark brown cover titled *Ensei Kikijutsu*; the other, which documented Kihē Kimura, was an enormous book too large to hold in one hand, titled *Printing Compendium*.

I felt as though my protagonist was gradually losing his luster. I kept flipping through the moth-eaten manuscripts before my host one by one, yet not a single character came into focus. “Well, if we’re to speak of Sanzō Motoki’s achievements, I suppose they lie in industrializing modern movable type.” While sensing something within me stubbornly resisting, I listened to Mr. K.H.’s measured conclusions—but with each explanation about Kōmin Kawamoto and Kihē Kimura, my defiant feelings became further cornered.

“Well, if you need them, go ahead and take them. I’m not using them now.”

I borrowed the manuscript of *Ensei Kikijutsu* and two or three other books, wrapping them in a furoshiki—an act that felt tinged with something like stubborn pride. I was seen off by the kind Mr. K.H. and left the entranceway, but was utterly dejected.

II

The faint image of Sanzō Motoki that had begun to take shape was being mercilessly shattered within my mind. At first, I had no inclination to look at manuscripts like *Ensei Kikijutsu*. In my mind there had once been a sharply defined profile of Sanzō—his white hair swept back in traditional style, gaunt narrow face lifted by burning ideals and self-sacrifice—but now it had blurred into something utterly ordinary: a somewhat dexterous-handed eccentric with flighty enthusiasms, resembling nothing so much as a country quack.

In other words, my protagonist had ceased to be a great man. Even if Ōtori had been first to practically implement lead as type bodies, or Kimura created the first type matrices through electrotyping—this did not negate the fact that Sanzō had persevered through hardships for over twenty years since early Kaei. Yet his ideals remained absent from his writings, and without some dramatic hook, I felt such matters of craftsmanship offered little material for a novel.

I had lost sight of my protagonist and, while toying with the idea of abandoning the project altogether, spent my days idly researching the traditions of Western studies. However, as time passed, I came to understand how Western studies during the Bakumatsu period—particularly since the Ansei era—had been forced by political circumstances into extreme pragmatism. From Tenpō 12 when Watanabe Kazan committed suicide to Kaei 3 when Takano Chōei took his own life onward—this tendency of Western scholars to survive through sheer practicality was something I realized must have influenced even Motoki and his contemporaries. For instance, when viewed through this lens, even the passage in Sanzō’s preface to *Shinjuku Yodan*—“This is no treatise wrought through literary refinement; may readers refrain from mocking its vulgarity”—gained new significance.

Moreover, are not things like craftsmanship and science—in themselves, as it were—manifestations of ideals? Unlike the realm of ideas, it was certain there existed by no means few instances where inventions, discoveries, and improvements arose purely from talent alone, or through environment and circumstance—or even merely through ambition and self-interest. Yet even so, what fundamentally endured—despite their individual differences—would broadly speaking not differ from ideals. Even if all of Sanzō’s writings had been filled with nothing but things like "Lightning Protection Method" or "Curing Pink Eye Method" (though I couldn’t say for certain, having not read them all), would that not still constitute a fragment of his ideals? Given the societal conditions of the time, methods for making soap or testing water quality were themselves new knowledge—and as he noted in his Preface, likely precisely what his readers sought. What sustained him through those twenty years of hardship in creating modern movable type was undoubtedly more than mere ambition.

In my mind, Sanzō's image had begun taking shape in a form quite different from before. My protagonist wasn't unremarkable by any means—yet ultimately, he was no great man. Here stood a thin old man with clear eyes: no particular eccentricities or distinguishing features, but skillful, earnest, studious; never given to boasting or grand ambitions, working solely with the ideal of being useful to society and others.

For such an old man, disputes over being "the originator of movable type" must have been utterly pointless. The one disputing it was none other than myself. Let us praise Keisuke Ōtori's achievement in practically implementing lead for type bodies, and let us express gratitude for Kōmin Kawamoto's contributions in pioneering the electrotyping method. Let us also commend the toil of Kihē Kimura, who was commissioned by Lord Shimazu to create type matrices through electrotyping. Inventions and improvements—they're all like that. It isn't something some unknown person suddenly discovers on a day of clear weather. Gutenberg's invention too existed precisely because there were numerous dedicated researchers before and after him. Motoki was simply the representative who happened to press that final button. With this understanding, I resolved to write this old man's biography. I spontaneously found myself amused—my depression over origin disputes had actually stemmed from a protagonist I'd arbitrarily concocted in my mind, one bearing no resemblance to reality.

One day, I read the manuscript of *Ensei Kikijutsu* in a relaxed mood. This was something Kōmin had dictated, transcribed by his disciples Tanaka Tsunaki and Misaoka Hiroatsu. In one of the prefaces, disciple Tanaka wrote: "This volume compiles incidental discussions from morning and evening lectures, hence often lacking coherence. Most theories derive from Dutchman Mr. Van den Berg’s *Principles of Physics*—which we excerpted in 1852, our Kaei 5. As for the direct-projection camera: my teacher already experimented with this years prior. Though our domain had replicated steamships, other devices remain untested—yet their underlying principles warrant no doubt."

I did not know which domain Tanaka belonged to. The manuscript bore no date, but according to the Newly Compiled Chronology of Western Studies—which noted under its entry for Kaei 1 that 'Kōmin Kawamoto first proposed photographic techniques and explained phosphorus matches' utility,' while its Kaei 4 entry listed 'works including *Ensei Kikijutsu*' among Kawamoto’s publications—the preface’s reference to 'the fifth year of Kaei' struck me as dubious enough to suspect it might actually have dated from somewhat earlier. In any case, among his discourses on photographic methods and steamships—the section he dictated under the title 'Electric Image Replication Machine' must indeed correspond to that very technique.

“This technique causes one metal to deposit upon another without discriminating between metals such as gold, silver, copper, iron, stone, or wood, nor concerning oneself with their age. By depositing copper onto an engraved surface, then peeling it away to capture its form, one may multiply its count. The following diagram illustrates this manufacturing method,” it stated, followed by numerous detailed explanations with diagrams. From today’s perspective, this described an extremely elementary principle of electrolysis. In a single container holding a liquid composed of dilute sulfuric acid and copper powder for the intended purpose, two metal plates were erected as electrodes, to which the electrical terminals were connected. Through the action of electricity flowing from one electrode to the other, the decomposed copper powder adhered to one of the electrode plates. The method for creating type matrices—known as electrotyping—produced master molds by repeating its process twice. For example, one first applied this method to a convex plate (male type) engraved with the character “大” to create a concave mold (female type) of “大.” The process was then repeated once more to produce a male type “大” from this female mold.

He explained: "Woodblocks lose their sharp edges through repeated printing and eventually become unusable—this method should also be employed to spare the labor of recarving them." Yet reading this passage, one sensed that Kawamoto had not yet conceived of cast type incorporating lead bodies. However, his statement that "one may multiply their count as desired while preserving the plate's sharpness entirely unchanged from the original" suggested he might have conducted at least some experiments. One could almost visualize him marveling at how exquisitely delicate the decomposing action of electrical particles proved to be.

Kōmin Kawamoto was a doctor. According to Kure Shūzō’s *Mitsukuri Genpo*, "Kōmin took the name Yūken and was from Mita, Senshū. He studied at his domain's Zōshikan school in his youth, went to Edo at twenty to enter Adachi Chōshun's tutelage, later received training in Dutch medicine under Tsuboi Shinmichi, and came to stand shoulder to shoulder with names like Ogata Kōan and Aoki Shūsuke. In Tenpō 3 [1832], he was appointed his domain’s physician; in April of Ansei 3 [1856], assigned as Professor Assistant at the Institute for the Study of Barbarian Books; promoted to Associate Professor in December of Ansei 4 [1857]; and finally attained Full Professorship in July of Ansei 6 [1859]. In Bunkyū 2 [1862], he was recruited and became a shogunate retainer. *Kikai Kanran Kōgi* It states that he “had writings such as *Ensei Kikijutsu* [Western Marvelous Machines Described], *Rasen Kikisetsu* [Spiral Steam Engine Theory], and *Bōfūsetsu* [Storm Theory]; personally prepared medicines and created glass plate photographs; and around the same period as Mitsukuri Genpo, frequented the Satsuma residence to translate works on physicochemical matters for Lord Shimazu Nariakira or personally conduct experiments—all of which were by no means few.” Furthermore, according to the Ansei 1 [1854] entry in *Yōgaku Nenpyō* [Chronology of Western Studies], “Shimazu Nariakira once read Kōmin Kawamoto’s *Ensei Kikijutsu* [Western Marvelous Machines Described], thereby learning Western shipbuilding methods, and petitioned his lord Kuki to employ him.” Additionally, Katsu Kaishū’s notes from around Ansei 2 [1855] state that among Edo’s resident Dutch scholars—luminaries like Sugita Seikei, Mitsukuri Genpo, Sugita Gentan, Udagawa Kōsai, Kimura Guntarō, Ōtori Keisuke, and Matsumoto Kōan—Kawamoto particularly excelled in physical chemistry. Moreover, the scholars of this time were not merely translating Western books. For instance, there is an anecdote from the early Kaei era: when Kōmin told a man about phosphorus matches, the man declared he’d pay a hundred ryō if such a feat were possible. Kōmin immediately ignited a match before his eyes. Though the man tried to backtrack, Kōmin sternly pressed him and took the hundred ryō. Even this episode shows that scholars of that era were undoubtedly more practical than those of today.

As I gazed at the stiffened edges of the moth-eaten manuscript's ink-written characters, my entire body seemed to thrum with the surging intellectual hunger—or perhaps thirst for progress—of a century past. While imagining that bygone world, what Mr. K.H. had told me about Kihē Kimura came flooding back with sudden intensity—a man who, commissioned by Lord Shimazu, endured eleven years of hardship to create Dutch movable type; a man who, fearing the shogunate's watchful eyes, worked in dimly lit rooms even during daylight hours with hand lanterns, patiently carving wood and metal with chisel and graver...

I had even forgotten that it was evening.

When I went to the nearby public telephone and called XXX Printing Company, Mr. K.H. had already left for the day. When I called his home, Mr. K.H. readily agreed.

That day, the air raid warning had sounded in the morning, and rain fell from afternoon onward. The alert remained in effect; darkness shrouded the town and train interior alike. As I walked, I contemplated how multitudes must have labored over each invention and refinement. I considered how many intellectuals might have taken interest in movable type particularly—this technology that gives form to language. Sugita Seikei had written about "Western Movable Type Alloy" in his *Manpō Tamatebako* (A Jeweled Box of Ten Thousand Treasures). Published in Ansei 5 (1858), *Manpō Tamatebako* states: "The casting alloy differs by type size." "For small characters: antimony twenty-five parts, lead seventy-five parts." "For large characters—" it continues thus. My thoughts drifted further through time and space—Leonardo da Vinci too had apparently struggled with typography's perfection; I recalled a magazine illustration showing his hand press-like printing machine design. Reaching Tsunohazu tram stop beneath the darkened overpass, I collided with someone's back. Immobilized where I stood, people soon packed tight behind me. The Manseibashi-bound tram—terminus here—swayed in like a burdened beast bearing shielded dim lights, then lurched away shovel-prodded, shaking humans from its steps and flanks. Still the black human tide swelled; umbrellas snapped open only to be rudely batted down. No lamps glimmered anywhere; low-hanging sky pressed close. Some oppressive force silenced the crowd. With every shift came jabbing elbows; beneath my chin pressed the topknotted head of a diminutive old woman. Then from behind came a graveled bass voice: "Spring rain—let's get drenched—" in theatrical tones. Someone snickered. I laughed too. Laughter rippled through the mass then, scattering that suffocating air—

I felt something warm piercing through the darkness within me. The street in Ushigome-Kitamachi was pitch black. The faintly glowing outline of the Shinchōsha building I dimly recognized finally allowed me to make out roughly where Mr. K.H.'s residence stood.

“You must be drenched. Remarkable you ventured out in this.” Mr. K.H. had considerately illuminated the reception room while awaiting me. As he produced the oft-mentioned *Printing Taikan*, he remarked: “I myself have yet to examine what’s purported to be the Satsuma Dictionary’s first edition, so I cannot assert this conclusively.” Perusing the text, I comprehended that Mr. K.H. was referencing a particular assertion within those pages—the claim that Kihē Kimura’s movable type had been employed in printing the Satsuma Dictionary.

“However, I do believe the type in this book is indeed that—” Mr. K.H. brought another book from the inner room and placed it on my lap. “This is the vocabulary section of a Dutch grammar book, you know. It’s quite clear that it was printed in Edo.” It was a book with an old blue cover resembling a traditional ledger—thick yet slender, printed on pouch-bound Japanese paper with fine Italic-style Western type that was unmistakably lead type at first glance.

“You see, don’t you think the irregularities in these typefaces differ from imported type?”

I agreed. According to Mr. K.H.'s explanation, this Dutch grammar book had apparently been widely read by Edo students at the time. A little earlier, from Ansei 3 to Ansei 4 [1856–1857], the Nagasaki Magistrate's Office had also published "Phrasebook" and "Vocabulary" sections of Dutch grammar books, but these used imported type that differed in form. I wanted to learn more about the whereabouts of Kimura's type. Mr. K.H. agreed with my thoughts and, while lending me several reference books,

“Do you know Mr. I.K.?”

he asked. Some time ago, regarding the Nagasaki interpreters, through a friend’s introduction, I had once visited Mr. I.K. He was a researcher of Western studies traditions during the Edo period and was regarded as an authority particularly on the history of English.

“That’s right—if we have Mr. I.K. instruct us, we’ll figure out the movable type used in the Satsuma Dictionary.” I replied, my spirits rising with resolve.

III

Kihē Kimura was born in the sixth year of Bunsei (1823), one year earlier than Sanzō Motoki, and resided in Kanda Koenji-chō, Edo. The Kimura family had been engravers for generations, and he succeeded to the profession at eighteen, becoming particularly renowned for engraving that captured the nuanced brushwork of calligraphers. He had access to the Imperial Household Ministry, and it is said many original plates for domain notes of various daimyō during that time were created by Kihē’s engraving tools. The section titled *Brief History of Japanese and European Movable Type Production in Early Modern Japan* from *Printing Taikan* reads as follows: "The aforementioned movable type, commissioned during the Ansei era by Lord Nariakira Shimazu to Kihē Kimura—a hereditary engraver residing in Kanda Koenji-chō, Edo—was completed from the first year of Kaei (1848) through the first year of Genji (1864), leaving behind artifacts that include: hundreds of characters deeply engraved in convex relief on steel plates, ranging in size from 0.4 mm to 1.5 mm; hundreds of copper intaglio matrices; a three-part metal casting machine; various typeface designs; thousands of wooden molds; mining chisels for engraving and tools for electrotyping copper; a combined printing and typesetting machine bearing thousands of Japanese master characters carved on soapstone surfaces; and referenced Dutch texts—all items used at the time and preserved to this day."

This passage was somewhat unclear; even for me, a former typesetter, the descriptions of the numerous instrument relics proved slightly difficult to grasp. The same text continued: “At twenty-five, Kihē found himself summoned by Lord Satsuma—His Lordship Nariakira, through noble consideration to have Western documents studied widely across his domain as printed materials, had secretly conferred with Kihē—”

I could well comprehend Lord Shimazu Nariakira’s bold decision to have his entire retinue study secretly imported Dutch books to assimilate foreign knowledge—but given the abundance of translation-capable scholars at the time, what could have driven him to go so far as creating Western movable type for publishing untranslated Dutch texts? Was it meant to enhance his retainers’ language skills? Or during that Bakumatsu period when rival domains vied fiercely in building steamships and cannons, did they adopt Western script to safeguard secrets? Yet I reconsidered. No—that couldn’t be it entirely. At least not solely. The paramount reason must have been efficiency: with Western script requiring only twenty-six alphabetical characters to fulfill all needs. Wouldn’t both Shimazu Nariakira and Kihē Kimura have first chosen this expedient path⁈

"However, at that time, all European goods were prohibited by the shogunate—Kihē built a secret chamber in part of his residence, equipped with lamps burning day and night." “Using cherry wood to create molds, preparing numerous files and chisels, then employing copper or brass to produce master type characters of various sizes and rectangular shapes,” and so on. While no photographs of Kihē seem to have survived to this day, imagining this master craftsman of his generation laboring for eleven years in a secret chamber hidden from the world—spilling his lifeblood to create these extraordinary type characters—brought a burning sensation behind my eyes, especially for someone like me with deep ties to movable type a full century later. “Furthermore, using steel made from copper to create three rectangular metal components, they assembled them to form a casting machine. This machine featured holes for embedding type matrices, into which molten lead was poured using a circular vessel. The holes were carved vertically from top to bottom and equipped with air vents, thus…” "It might be somewhat difficult for laypeople to grasp, but this is essentially an explanation of the 'hand-casting device.'" In the same fourth year of Kaei [1851], Sanzō Motoki had already created this as well, but separated by Nagasaki and Edo, they would not have been aware of each other’s work. And an even more distant emotion arose from the fact that fifteen or sixteen years prior to this—in 1834 by the Western calendar—America’s David Bruce had invented what was called “Bruce-style casting,” bringing innovation to the world of printing technology. We were trained from childhood on this rotary 'Bruce-style' method, but now, through reading accounts of Kihē and Shōzō’s struggles, we could trace the history back from Bruce-style to the hand-casting devices.

And Kihē's hardships still continued. The movable type production method that had finally been completed in the tenth year saw its master type characters—hand-carved in wood and copper—end up damaged before they could withstand practical use. "However, even with these improved methods, the master type remained prone to damage, years wasted in vain—Kihē was unable to fulfill Lord Nariakira’s grand vision." "—Having by chance learned that monthly lectures on natural sciences were being held at Lord Shimazu’s residence—one day, also by chance, he encountered a Dutchman at the same residence and was able to study aspects of electrical studies, thereafter engraving master type characters in convex relief on soapstone surfaces and immersing them in highly dissolved liquid—" and so on. This was the electrotyping method described in Kōmin Kawamoto’s *Accounts of Marvelous Machines from the Distant West*.

Thus, it is said that Kihē's type characters were completed.

So I found myself thinking—given that the Shimazu were such a major domain, perhaps even Dutch people had been permitted access to their Edo residence. Shimazu Shigehide—two generations before Nariakira or perhaps earlier—had reportedly treated Dutch scholars hospitably to acquire new knowledge, and as seen in his own *Japan Recollections*, even someone like Captain Doeff of the Netherlands would alight from his palanquin to pay respects in the Japanese manner when passing before the Shimazu Edo residence on his return from Edo attendance—so perhaps this could be trusted. Yet what pressed more urgently upon our minds—quite naturally—was Kōmin Kawamoto, who had been compelled into Lord Shimazu's service, and his potential connection to Kihē. Particularly when considering those "monthly lectures on natural sciences and such," even absent direct evidence, was it truly unreasonable to imagine this scholar and master craftsman bound through scientific ties in some form?

Now I had to pursue the whereabouts of Kihē's movable type. There were two clues: one was the statement at the end of the aforementioned *Brief History of Japanese and European Movable Type Production in Early Modern Japan* that Kihē's type had been used to print the Satsuma Dictionary; the other was a ledger-style Dutch vocabulary book Mr. K.H. had shown me, along with another Dutch medical text he called the "Hachiōji type"—*Saisei Sanpō Fui Ikai*. I had already seen the italic-style movable type of the vocabulary book. Though Mr. K.H. apparently hadn't seen *Saisei Sanpō Fui Ikai* either, he did lend me a document that formed the basis for his designation of it as the "Hachiōji type." This consisted of issue number 1,150 of *Chūgai Iji Shinpō* and a flimsy old offprint labeled number 1,286. Both contained writings by a man named Army Surgeon General Renzō Akiyama, with the offprint bearing the title *"Concerning the Dutch Book Saisei Sanpō Fui Ikai Transcribed by My Father in the Fifth Year of Ansei (1858)."*

According to Renzō’s writings, the Akiyama family had resided in Hachiōji for generations, and the previous generation’s Hōsai—who published *Saisei Sanpō Fui Ikai*—was called Sazō in his childhood; after his grandfather’s death, he inherited the family name and came to be known as Yoshikata—a physician and a samurai. The publication from the fifth year of Ansei (1858) states that it was printed with lead type using a manuscript of the Dutch book *Hoefeland* as the original text. According to Mr. Renzō’s childhood memories, “There were also many type pieces stored in the examination room cupboard.” “All of those were lost when our house completely burned down—only two type molds remain as mementos.” In another section [it states], “At least five varieties of movable type used in printing can be observed.” “Namely, two sizes of large type (standard and medium), another large type slightly tilted to the right, along with small type and italic-style small type.”

The binding of the book as seen in photographs was crude and unrefined, but it was Western-style—like something you might see in a stylish English reader. Though molds remained, a passage stating that “when comparing this with the original Dutch text in Dr. Ogata’s collection—while the text itself matched—the differing type sizes first caused inconsistencies in line alignment across all pages; other trivial discrepancies I shall not detail here made five or six variations in typesetting format unsurprising, especially considering it was likely typeset from a manuscript as previously described” suggested it might not be imported type after all. But given that Ansei 5 [1858] was, if we trusted the *Brief History of Japanese and European Movable Type Production in Early Modern Japan*, a time when Kihē’s movable type had just begun taking shape—even supposing it had been completed, would Lord Shimazu have readily permitted its dissemination to others? It might have been presumptuous for a non-expert like myself to make such judgments, but if the type differed from that in the Dutch vocabulary book and wasn’t imported, then it would mean there had existed others besides Kihē who created movable type.

I couldn't help desperately wanting to see Mr. Akiyama's *Saisei Sanpō*, seeking any possible lead. For now I had no choice but to leave these questions unresolved, but the revelation that "Edo's movable type" had begun with Western script struck me as astonishing—even for someone like myself who'd spent years in the printing trade.

One afternoon, I visited Mr. I.K. in the depths of Sugamo. After waiting about an hour in the second-floor room, the host finally returned—Mr. I.K. was an English teacher and still young. With his close-cropped hair and nearsighted gaze, even as I laid out my questions, he kept his eyes cast downward, fixed on one spot.

“Well, I haven’t paid much attention to movable type…” With few words, he went downstairs, then returned carrying five or six weighty old Western books. He placed one before me and said simply.

“This is it, but—” I had never imagined the physical object might exist. Could what now lay before my eyes be the renowned "Satsuma Dictionary"—that katakana-printed legend of Western studies annals?! I abruptly cracked open the massive volume at its exact midpoint. An instinctive conviction surged through me—"This isn't right!" This wasn't Japanese printing! Though larger than kiku-sized paper yet smaller than shiroku-bai dimensions, the Western text on the left used pica type—distinct from the italic font in that vocabulary book. Even assuming Kihē had created pica characters, these forms were too polished. The true enigma lay in the Japanese movable type on the right—particularly the katakana rendered smaller than the kanji. This layout mirrored other Dutch-Japanese dictionaries produced domestically—Western lead type occupying one flank, vertical Japanese text butting against it in that distinctive compressed format.

“It might be from Shanghai’s American Presbyterian Mission Press—they do say that Hepburn’s dictionary was indeed printed there.”

Having said this, Mr. I.K.—before I could respond—raised another question himself. "But even if there were katakana type characters, could Chinese workers set them?"

“They can set them,” I answered. “Typesetters have a special sense about these things—even Japanese compositors setting European type could hardly read English or German, yet they managed just fine.” My doubt lay with the katakana type: had Kimura’s characters been transported all the way to Shanghai, or had someone drafted the katakana master characters there?

It had no colophon but was bound in full Western style, its sturdy leather spine foil-stamped with "English-Japanese Translation Dictionary." Given that the paper was Western-style resembling rough paper, from the perspective of Japanese printing technology at the time, there could be no doubt it was domestically produced.

“Ah, there’s something valuable here.” Mr. I.K., who had gone downstairs again, returned with a thin old magazine. It was the February 1927 issue of *Shinkyō Jidai* ("Old and New Eras") published by the Meiji Culture Research Society. Where it had been opened was an article titled *“English-Japanese Dictionaries Published in the Early Meiji Period”* by Kenkō Ishii, one section of which concerned the “Satsuma Dictionary.” “Shinkichi Takahashi, a teacher of Western studies for the Satsuma Domain, was in Nagasaki. He had long desired to travel abroad and master the world’s new knowledge—having by chance formed a friendship with Nagasaki resident Shingo Sai, one day Sai advised him: ‘How about revising Kaiseijo’s *English-Japanese Pocket Dictionary* to secure funds for your overseas journey?’” In other words, this was the motivation behind publishing the “Satsuma Dictionary.” Since Kaiseijo edition dictionaries (ledger-style) at the time cost twelve or thirteen ryō, they reasoned that producing an expanded version in quantity might yield profit. To summarize: “The movable-type printing industry had not yet arisen in our nation.” Through Shingo Sai’s introduction, they met Nagasaki missionary Ferubetsuki, who then connected them to Shanghai’s missionary printing company Gamble & Co., resulting in a contract for completed work. The “Satsuma Dictionary” was essentially a revised edition of the Kaiseijo version, but I could not determine how much scholarly depth Takahashi had contributed to this dictionary. In any case, Takahashi had crossed to Shanghai in Keiō 3 (1867), but soon after encountering the upheaval of the Great Restoration of Imperial Rule, he temporarily returned to Japan before crossing back again; three hundred copies were said to have been completed in January of Meiji 3 (1870).

And Kenkō Ishii’s text continued: “One time, Elder Masana Maeda spoke to the author, saying—” Kenkichi Maeda and Masana Maeda were both involved in this dictionary project and had crossed over to Shanghai. “The printing office was located at a certain temple in Shanghai and employed Chinese workers.” The text only touched upon the printing itself here, leaving completely unclear how the katakana master characters had come to exist or whether they bore any lineage to Kihē’s type. But as I read on, I found myself exclaiming aloud.

“Oh, Brothers Masana! You know Masana Maeda, don’t you? The man who tried to go abroad and got arrested along with his brother.” Whether Mr. I.K. knew or not, I wanted to share my excitement at having serendipitously discovered that Masana had been the planner behind the *Satsuma Dictionary*. I had read Masana’s biography before, but this detail was absent from it. Masana studied in France during the early Meiji period, volunteered in the Franco-Prussian War, and upon returning to Japan became an official who served as a prefectural governor and Vice Minister of Agriculture and Forestry—though his greatest contribution is said to lie in modernizing Japanese agriculture. Born the fourth son of Satsuma retainer Maeda Yoshiyasu, he was a prodigy who had read Western books by age nine. At fourteen, he and his brother attempted to travel abroad, but their plan was discovered. Arrested by shogunate officials, his brother committed seppuku while Masana—spared execution due to his youth and his brother’s plea for mercy—had his death sentence commuted. This incident presumably predated the *Satsuma Dictionary* project. Though it remains unclear whether this brother was older or younger than Kenkichi, his ambition to “master the world’s new knowledge” burned undiminished. At that time, he must have wandered through Nagasaki, his gaze fixed on the distant Pacific.

I once again leafed through the timeworn *Satsuma Dictionary* and looked at its preface. Written in wooden movable type-style characters, it began: “The reason Western studies are practiced in our Imperial Nation is none other than to adopt their strengths and remedy our weaknesses. To adopt their strengths and remedy our weaknesses is so that our imperial culture may shine throughout all nations,” concluding with: “January of Meiji 2 (1869), Year of Kanoeto-Ushi—Japan Satsuma Students.” The back contained an English preface that similarly ended with “(1869, student of Satsuma).” Ah, what a grand resonance it carried! Student of Satsuma!

The proud silhouettes of those who called themselves merely Satsuma students, omitting any personal names, seemed to rise vividly before me. In Shanghai when they encountered the upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, even after returning to their homeland as domain retainers to settle affairs, they soon crossed overseas once more—for in their hearts, domains no longer existed; what remained was the imperial nation, Japan as it stood in the world. I left Mr. I.K.’s house with some excitement.

By now it was dusk. As I walked from the front of the Cancer Research Institute toward Ōtsuka Station, the trail of Kihē's type grew increasingly tangled and unclear, yet I felt not the slightest disappointment. What remained was to seek leads by visiting Lord Shimazu's Shūseikan and examine its surviving type specimens there—this would likely be the sole remaining clue.

But setting that aside, I had to consider. Edo's movable type might not have been solely Kihē Kimura's doing. The type matrices through electrotyping had already been perfected. And yet—why was it that movable type came to be born not in Edo, but in Nagasaki?! Whether Kihē was the originator or Sanzō—such things mattered little in the grand scheme. The social circumstances that necessitated its birth in Nagasaki rather than Edo—ah, those very circumstances—were precisely one of the elements that absolutely must be written about in *The Biography of Sanzō Motoki*. It was only after I had passed Ōtsuka Station and found myself before Shirokiya that this realization struck me, and turning back, I found myself pondering this very thought.

Nagasaki and the Interpreters

I “At the very least, I beseech you to complete the woodblock carving within half a year—for as this humble scholar’s life hangs by a thread, this urgent endeavor blazes within my breast as though kindled by flames.”

The author of *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation*, Hayashi Shihei, issued an urgent manifesto from a remote corner of Tohoku to Edo's sympathizers when preparing the book's printing. "As this humble scholar resides in a distant province while attending to all matters of woodblock carving preparation, I cannot personally visit to inform you directly. Therefore, I entrust the handling of said contributions to five trusted comrades in the Eastern Capital: Tezuka Ichirōzaemon, Kakinuma Kanjirō, Morishima Jirō, Kudō Heisuke, and Fujita Yūho. Should any contributors among you place your silver with these five men, it shall be promptly delivered to the carvers' workshop."

This was what we now call a “pre-publication subscription” solicitation letter. Though from the mid-Edo period onward, as Japan’s coastal frontiers grew turbulent, Hayashi Shihei—who had staked his very life on writing *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation*—lamented the cumbersome inefficiency and exorbitant cost of printing technology at the time. A burning passion permeated the entire text. As someone involved in the printing industry in today’s civilized age, I resolved to here present with profound emotion the itemized printing costs of *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* that follow.

Item one: The aforementioned *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* spans sixteen volumes from the first volume’s “Water Warfare” chapter to the abridged final volume，comprising three hundred and fifty sheets of paper，which are bound into eight books. Item: Producing one thousand copies of the aforementioned *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* and distributing them to the world is this humble scholar’s lifelong aspiration，which I hereby humbly submit. Item: Producing one thousand copies as described above is no small matter. Therefore，having summoned booksellers to produce one thousand copies，[we] have planned their approximate costs，the total of which is as listed below. Item: The carving fee per sheet of paper is four monme five bu. The carving fee for three hundred and fifty sheets amounts to one kan five hundred monme，which converts to twenty-six ryō one bu in gold.

Item: For each complete set of eight volumes, eight chō of paper were used. For one thousand copies, this amounted to eight thousand chō. At a cost of eight bu five rin per chō, eight thousand chō totaled six kan eight hundred monme, equivalent to one hundred thirteen ryō one bu in gold and five monme in silver. Item: For covers - eight thousand sheets were required (each set being eight volumes across one thousand sets totaling eight thousand volumes). At two bu five rin per sheet, eight thousand sheets amounted to two kanme, equivalent to ten ryō two bu in gold and five monme in silver. Item: Sewing thread - two jō were used per set. For one thousand sets: two thousand jō. Cost per set: six bu five rin. For one thousand sets: six hundred fifty monme, equivalent to ten ryō three bu in gold and five monme in silver.

Item: Printing fee per copy: four mon each; for one thousand copies: four hundred monme, equivalent to six ryō two bu in gold and ten monme in silver. Item: Binding fee per copy: one monme each; for one thousand copies: one kanme, equivalent to sixteen ryō two bu in gold and ten monme in silver. Item: Title fee - one monme each for all eight volumes; for one thousand copies: one hundred monme, equivalent to one ryō two bu in gold and ten monme in silver. Total: In silver, twelve kan five hundred twenty monme. Total: In gold, 208 ryō three bu. “The above constitutes the approximate total cost for producing one thousand copies of *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation*. However, as this humble scholar has been without means and of meager circumstances from the outset, I find it exceedingly difficult to achieve this through my own efforts alone. Therefore, as evidence of this engraving endeavor, I have prepared several volumes of the ‘Naval Warfare’ section carved to date and humbly present them for your esteemed perusal, beseeching your gracious assistance with the expenses required to complete this modest undertaking—”

...and so forth.

In the appeal, "suri-chin" referred to printing costs, while "shitate-chin" denoted binding expenses. The printing fee for a thousand copies—presumably calculated per copy—proved cheaper than the binding costs. Though woodblock printing had developed considerably by mid-Edo times, assuming four hundred *monme* for a thousand copies' printing fee meant the hand-rubbing technique of that era must have been remarkably efficient. And what they called the title fee—would that cover both printing the book title on the cover and the paper cost?

But how exorbitant it must have been! *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* The entire eight volumes comprising three hundred fifty sheets would amount to less than three hundred pages in today’s 9-point type set in the 4x6 format, one might suppose. Moreover, what tormented Hayashi Shihei extended far beyond mere financial burden. The agony expressed in his plea—“At the very least, grant that the woodblock carving alone be completed within six months, for this humble scholar’s life hangs by an uncertain thread”—multiplied manyfold, ultimately lay in the woodblock carving process itself, or what we would now call typesetting and plate-making.

“—The carving of a single sheet by one worker generally requires a day and a half. As *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* comprises three hundred and fifty sheets in total, should one worker alone carve them without rest from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve, it would take nine hundred days. With two workers: four hundred fifty days; with four workers: two hundred twenty-five days; with eight workers: one hundred thirteen days to complete the carving—. Yet as this humble scholar lacks means and lives in penury, I am unable to employ many artisans—” Ultimately, Hayashi Shihei could secure only one carver, and the woodblock carving for *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* consumed one thousand and sixty days.

I thought: This was a crucial document from before modern movable type emerged. This hardship must have been shared by all scholars of that age. Yet in Shihei’s case—beneath his meticulous petition—I sensed unmistakable frustration with printing technology’s inefficiencies simmering through every word. As commonly known, *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation* had been published in Kansei 3 (1791). In Japan, Sanzō Motoki first acquired lead type from overseas and began researching modern movable type in Kaei 1 (1848), while Kōmin Kawamoto’s lectures and experiments on electrotyping for type matrix production came in Kaei 5 (also cited as Kaei 2) (1852). Over fifty years separated these milestones. While scholars of that era likely nursed vague discontent toward printing’s sluggishness, such feelings never coalesced into conscious critique—a natural outcome given their circumstances. Still, I felt something deeper drove Hayashi Shihei to detail printing costs so meticulously in his *Military Discourse* subscription appeal. Consider his well-documented visits to Nagasaki—how he frequented Dejima’s Dutch compound! Paintings from his own brush survive showing him being entertained by Opperhoofden there. Surely he encountered Western books during those visits; he must have witnessed lead type and printing presses already routine for Dutch residents by then. Was I making an unwarranted leap here?

It might be dismissed as a forced interpretation. However, even with my limited knowledge, it could be said that those who took an interest in modern movable type were primarily Western scholars. The aforementioned Kōmin Kawamoto was one such example. Sugita Seikei, who wrote *Movable Type Materials*, was one such example. Though engraved, the lead-bodied type used in the Kaiseijo editions by Keisuke Ōtori also exerted a groundbreaking influence on the history of printing technology. Furthermore, it was said that the first type created by Kihē Kimura under Shimazu Nariakira’s orders had been for European script. When I considered this alongside other examples—such as the “Hachiōji Type” by an unknown creator and the *Dutch Vocabulary Book* produced in Edo—it became clear that Western studies and modern movable type had been inextricably linked.

Sanzō Motoki was a Dutch interpreter and Western studies scholar. His burgeoning interest in movable type and printing technology followed the same trajectory as that of the Western scholars mentioned earlier. Here my reasoning takes another leap: If Edo had more researchers and scholars of movable type than Nagasaki, why was it perfected sooner in Nagasaki rather than Edo? According to historical records, movable type ultimately emerged in Nagasaki before gradually spreading eastward from Osaka to Edo.

To put it simply, I believe there were two reasons. The first was that Nagasaki at that time served as Japan's sole gateway for foreign culture. Thus when American engineer Gamble stopped in Nagasaki en route home from Shanghai in Meiji 2 (1869), there happened to be an opportunity for him to teach Sanzō Motoki the method of creating type matrices through electrotyping. In other words, "geographical advantage" constituted one factor. The second was that Sanzō had been a man who had devoted twenty years to developing type manufacturing techniques—a man who, even before Gamble's port call, had repeatedly dispatched disciples to learn the methods from Shanghai's Missionary Printing Company, only to fail each time. In other words, while individuals like Motoki shared Edo-period Western scholars' deep interest in modern type production techniques, his position as an interpreter provided uniquely favorable conditions for importing and studying foreign innovations compared to others engaged in Western studies.

In other words, it could be said that Sanzō occupied the most suitable position in Japan at that time for creating modern movable type. Of course, given that Dutch interpreters in late Edo Nagasaki reportedly numbered over a hundred, Motoki's presence among them must have reflected some unique quality inherent to Sanzō himself. However, I concluded that to comprehend Japan's modern typographic genesis—including Sanzō's personal role—we must first examine two elements: Nagasaki's 'geographical advantage' through its domestic and foreign relations of the period. Second, I determined we must understand both the tradition of Western studies and the lives of interpreters—particularly Sanzō's own career as one.

Therefore, I decided to start with the latter. Sanzō was born in the seventh year of Bunsei (1824) in Shintakumachi, Nagasaki. His father was the town's otona (district head) Mr. Kitajima Sanyata, and his mother was Mrs. Motoki Shige. He was their fourth son, and it is said his childhood name was Sakenosuke. In Tenpō 5 (1834), at age eleven, he became the adopted son of Sanzaemon Motoki; Sanzaemon was the older brother of his mother Shige and thus his uncle.

I knew of no documents that had been passed down regarding Sanzō's childhood. Most Motoki biographies included phrases like "He loved learning from childhood" or "He was quick-witted and skilled in craftsmanship from a young age," but these were likely embellishments added by the biographers themselves. Not that I believed those accounts to be false. The seventh year of Bunsei, when he was born, corresponded to 1824 in the Western calendar. To historically reconstruct Nagasaki of that era: in Bunsei 6 (1821), the year before his birth, Philipp Franz von Siebold—a vigorous twenty-six-year-old—had arrived as resident physician at the Dutch trading post on Dejima, mere steps from Motoki's neighborhood of Shintakumachi. In the year of Sanzō's birth, Takano Chōei—then a mere twenty-one years old—journeyed all the way from Mizusawa in northeastern Japan to Nagasaki, becoming Siebold's disciple. By Bunsei 8 (1825), a schoolhouse had been erected in Narutaki on Nagasaki's outskirts, attracting aspiring physicians, natural scientists, and linguists—the brightest youths from across Japan—who gathered to absorb this German-born fount of new knowledge. The entry for Bunsei 8 (1825) in the *Chronology of Western Studies* records: "A schoolhouse was built in Narutaki, eastern Nagasaki, to serve as Siebold's lecture hall," where he "taught medicine and natural history." Ryōdai Hidaka's contemporary letter describes the scene: "Of late, even Western-trained physicians—rare visitors indeed—have arrived, administering treatments throughout the town. Esteemed scholars from all quarters gather here in unprecedented numbers—Mima Junsaburō of Awa Province, Minato Chōan of Edo, Totsuka Seikai of Enshū, Kōra-sai of Awa, and others like Kenkai [illegible], all capable men finding this infinitely delightful." With such accounts, by the time Sanzō reached consciousness, Nagasaki already brimmed with scholarly fervor. Short of being a complete dullard, none could have remained untouched by its influence.

Moreover, since he was born into a family of interpreters by profession, the intensity of that influence must have been all the more severe. Furthermore, Nagasaki being under direct shogunal control and interpreters falling under the jurisdiction of the Nagasaki Magistrate meant they likely grew up steeped in diverse political influences. The political slogans “Expel the Barbarians” and “Open the Country,” which had become nearly ubiquitous by late Edo times, would have resonated more directly in Nagasaki—Japan’s gateway for foreign goods and culture—than anywhere else in the land. Given their vocation as interpreters, they must have been more tangibly affected by these policies than anyone else in Nagasaki.

In Bunsei 8 (1825), when Sanzō was two years old, the shogunate issued the "Edict to Repel Foreign Ships," and in Tenpō 13 (1842), when Sanzō was nineteen, they issued the "Revised Edict to Repel Foreign Ships." The Bunsei 8 (1825) edict, as is widely known, was an unyielding decree stating, “Foreign ships arriving [in Japanese waters] shall be repelled without hesitation,” while the Tenpō 13 (1842) revision stipulated, “If their circumstances cannot be discerned, to repel them indiscriminately would not align with how one ought to engage with all nations.” Furthermore: “If foreign ships are spotted, [they] shall investigate their circumstances; if [the ships] are lacking in provisions such as food and water and face difficulty returning home, [they] shall provide them with requested items as appropriate.” ...and so on—this revised edict still did not permit foreigners to land, but it had been considerably relaxed. The Bunsei 8 (1825) edict was issued under Shogun Ienari, but the revised edict came immediately after Ienari’s retirement, during which time there must have been various subtle maneuvers within the shogunal council.

From the Bunka and Bunsei eras onward, the arrival of British and Russian ships had gradually become more frequent. Though young Sanzō Motoki could not yet perceive the subtle political shifts these represented, might not events such as those that followed have influenced him? In other words, during the Bansha Persecution Incident of Tenpō 10 (1840), when Takano Chōei and Watanabe Kazan were arrested, Sanzō Motoki would have been fifteen years old. The shogunate came to detest Chōei’s *Dream Stories* and Kazan’s *Treatise on Prudence*, leading Kazan to commit suicide in Tenpō 12 (1841) when Sanzō was seventeen; as for Chōei, he remained a fugitive after breaking out of prison until he took his own life by the sword in Kaei 3 (1850) when Sanzō was twenty-seven. Though we cannot know whether Sanzō ever directly read works like *Dream Stories* or *Treatise on Prudence* by Chōei—Siebold’s disciple—these writings nevertheless represented the first political commentary by Western scholars regarding the shogunate’s "Edict to Repel Foreign Ships." Regardless of agreement, one imagines that in news-savvy Nagasaki, such matters must have stirred something within Sanzō, who shared their pursuit of Western studies. Moreover, when the Tenpō 13 (1842) "Revised Edict" was issued, it would have resonated practically with Sanzō and his colleagues due to their profession.

Since I knew of no documents passed down regarding Sanzō’s childhood, I attempted to infer one aspect by considering these broader historical currents. But being in Nagasaki—that singular place—and belonging to a family of interpreters by profession, the influences shaping him could not have been purely domestic in nature. Year after year, alongside the Dutch ships arriving for trade under the authority of Ieyasu’s vermilion-sealed permits for overseas voyages, there were foreigners with differing hair and eye colors who—by the regulations of the time—were inevitably sent to Nagasaki wherever they washed ashore in Japan. Interacting with such people, they would have inevitably gleaned fragments of rare overseas happenings.

In 1828, when Sanzō was five years old, the first train ran on the American continent; in 1834, when he was eleven, Jacobi’s electric motor was invented. The following year, when he was twelve (1835), Morse’s telegraph was completed, and in that same year, the Colt revolver was invented. In 1838, when Sanzō was fifteen—the year Takano Chōei and Watanabe Kazan were arrested in Japan—a steamship billowing black smoke plowed through the Atlantic waves for the first time; that very vessel would shock Japan fifteen years later as the Black Ships of Kaei 6 (1853).

II The Motoki family was an old established family among the Dutch interpreters, alongside the Nammura, Shitsuki, Ishibashi, Yoshio, and Narabayashi lineages. According to the genealogy compiled by Mr. Tamiya, the Motoki family is said to trace its origins back to Hayashi Mataemon—grandson of Akechi Mitsuhide—with Shōdayū of the third generation from Mataemon adopting the Motoki surname, entering the service of Lord Matsuura, and residing in Hirado, Hizen Province. From Shōdayū came Yūsai, followed by the second Shōdayū of the same name, who migrated from Hirado to Nagasaki for the first time, becoming the founding ancestor of the Motoki family line of interpreters.

The family genealogy does not clearly indicate the year of migration, but the *Chronology of Western Studies* states: "Shōdayū Motoki of Hirado—migrated to Nagasaki this year, later becoming a junior interpreter in Kambun Kōshin [1664], and after five years was promoted to senior interpreter in Kambun Boshin [1668]." Here, "this year" refers to Manji 2 [1659]. Since Shōdayū died at age seventy in Genroku 10 (1697), the year of his migration was when he was thirty-six—in the prime of life.

How did the Japanese of this era go about acquiring foreign languages? The precise details elude me, but the aforementioned book states: “Shōdayū, whose original family name was Hayashi, served the Matsuura lords for generations. From a young age, he frequented the Dutch trading post and became proficient in their language.” In other words, while interacting with foreigners, he likely memorized the pronunciation through rote repetition. Consequently, advancing in this field required a particular talent for memorization, and Shōdayū seems to have possessed exceptional aptitude. The point that doesn’t sit well here is this: the Dutch trading post had been transferred from Hirado to Dejima in Nagasaki in the eighteenth year of Kan’ei (1641), a full seventeen years prior to Shōdayū’s migration in Manji 2 (1659). Therefore, the statement “frequented the Dutch trading post from childhood” would pertain to Shōdayū’s period before he turned nineteen. Even within Hizen Province, Hirado and Dejima were separated by a considerable distance given the transportation of the time, making frequent visits to the relocated trading post seem improbable. Moreover, Shōdayū’s appointment as an interpreter in Kanbun 4 (1664) is recorded in Mr. Takeo Itazawa’s *Development of Dutch Studies*, placing it five years after his migration in Manji 2 (1659). If so, while Shōdayū served Lord Matsuura—his domain lord—might he have simultaneously held some position related to the Dutch trading post even after relocating to Nagasaki?

At any rate, when it came to the Dutch language—even if one’s understanding amounted to mere mimicry of pronunciation—those with talent must have been highly valued in those days. As is well known, Shogun Iemitsu strengthened his administration’s Christian prohibition edicts by constructing an island off Nagasaki Harbor to relocate the Portuguese, Chinese, and Dutch trading posts formerly in Hirado—confining them all there. Yet on the other hand, trade operations flourished day by day. According to Philipp Franz von Siebold’s *History of Japanese Trade and Communications*, “This period (1671, the eleventh year of Kanbun) was what Governor Imhoff—the Dutch East India Company’s Governor-General—called ‘the golden age of Dutch trade in Japan,’” when Japan’s annual exports to Holland alone reached four- to five-hundred-thousand ryō. Moreover, what Japan exported followed this order: first gold, then silver, and subsequently copper—exploited by cunning European merchants, the nation was losing precious metals at a terrifying rate. Thus, even the naive shogunate grew alarmed, and it is reasoned that one of their countermeasures against this peril was to seek out more Dutch interpreters; further, we may infer that the shogunate ordered Lord Matsuura to employ Shōdayū.

Shōdayū’s formal name was Eikyū; later, having taken the tonsure, he came to be called Ryōi. At forty-one he became a junior interpreter, and at forty-six was promoted to senior interpreter. When he turned sixty-eight, the shogunate established a system of overseers for Dutch interpreters, and Shōdayū was chosen as the first overseer of interpreters. He appears to have been an extraordinary figure—records show that in Enpō 4 (1676), alongside fellow interpreters Nammura, Nakajima, and Narabayashi, he compiled and presented the *Oranda Fūsetsusho* (“Dutch Rumors Report”) to the shogunate. His expertise extended even to medical matters, evidenced by works like *Oranda Zenku Naigai Bungōzu* (“Complete Dutch Anatomical Diagrams”), proving his command of Dutch surpassed mere mimicry. It is said he accompanied Dutch captains on their “Edo visits” nine times as an interpreter. These annual audiences between the shogunate and Dutch captains—as we shall later see—intersected with the era’s political and cultural currents. Serving as interpreter for such occasions was no minor duty; thus Shōdayū must have been esteemed not merely for his linguistic skill but for his character as well.

According to the Genroku 10 (1697) entry in the *Chronology of Western Studies*, “In October, Dutch interpreter overseer Motoki Ryōi died; his son Ichirōsuke was but seven years old.” However, Mr. Tamiya’s family genealogy lists the second-generation Motoki as “Buheiji.” Motoki Nindayū III was born in Genroku 4 (1691), making him exactly seven years old at this time. Therefore, the “Ichirōsuke” mentioned in the *Chronology of Western Studies* is likely Nindayū, with “Ichirōsuke” presumed to be Nindayū’s childhood name—but then would this Buheiji person have been an informally adopted son or some such? In any case, whether we consult the *Chronology of Western Studies* or *The Development of Dutch Studies*, the figure known as Buheiji does not appear; most biographies have established that the second generation after Shōdayū was the first Nindayū. However, according to Mr. Tamiya’s family genealogy, the epitaph on Shōdayū’s tombstone—written by first-generation Nindayū, that is, “Ichirōsuke”—is said to state: “Erected by Motoki Buheiji on the 19th day of the 10th month, Genroku 10 (1697).” Thus, whether or not they were blood relatives remains unknown, but there can be no doubt that a person named Buheiji existed. Whether Buheiji was an interpreter or not remains beyond my means to ascertain; for now, I shall follow the *Chronology of Western Studies*, which records that after Shōdayū’s death, the lineage lay dormant for over a dozen years before Ichirōsuke—who was seven at the time of his father’s passing—makes his first appearance at age twenty-two.

Motoki Nidaishō (second generation; third generation in Mr. Tamiya’s genealogy) died at age fifty-six in Kan’en 2 (1749). Like Shōdayū, he later shaved his head and took the name Ryōkō; despite his efforts, he never rose beyond the rank of trainee interpreter in his lifetime. Yet it was intriguing that this very Ryōkō came to be recognized as a Dutch scholar. The Kyōhō 1 (1716) entry in the *Chronology of Western Studies* states: “The lower column is meant to record scholars’ dates of passing; however, for this first year, extant figures are listed as follows.” Proceeding in order of age, it writes: “Nishikawa Joken, sixty-nine; Arai Hakuseki, sixty; Hirozawa Hosoi, fifty-nine; Noro Genjō, twenty-four,” and concludes with “Nindayū Motoki of Nagasaki, twenty-two.”

The most notable event in Ryōkō’s life was likely that in Enkyō 2 (1745), together with interpreters Nishizen Saburō and Yoshio Kōemon, he obtained a permit allowing them to read Dutch documents. According to various accounts, at that time, reading Western books was generally prohibited; around this period in Edo, Aoki Bunzō (Kōyō) and others campaigned and had Shogun Yoshimune issue an “edict lifting the ban on Western books”—an event that became famous alongside what Sugita Genpaku and others describe in *Beginnings of Dutch Studies*. However, regarding this, Mr. Takeo Itazawa refutes as follows in *The Development of Dutch Studies*: "—It was during the reign of the eighth shogun Yoshimune that interpreters Nishizen Saburō, Yoshio Kōemon, and Motoki Nindayū presented a petition to the shogunate requesting permission to study Western script and read Dutch books—and it is said that this was granted." This theory had been accepted as fact for many years, but Enkyō 2 (1745) marked over 140 years since Japanese and Dutch people had first made contact. Over this period—it defies common sense to imagine that interpreters managing the day-to-day operations of trade could have fulfilled their duties without being able to read a single line of Western script. The dubious nature of *Beginnings of Dutch Studies*’ account had long ago been pointed out by Mr. Jūniro Koga in *Nagasaki and Foreign Culture*. ...

As a layperson, I lacked the ability to determine which of these theories—Itazawa’s or that of the *Chronology of Western Studies*—was correct. However, even Shōdayū I—the first generation—had authored *Complete Dutch Anatomical Diagrams* (which was published by his grandson Nindayū II). Given this evidence, I found myself inclined to support Itazawa’s theory. Moreover, even I—as a layperson—could not bring myself to believe the account found in Mr. Tamiya’s Motoki biography: that Aoki Kōyō had visited Nagasaki and plotted with Ryōkō and others to lift the ban on Western books. Yet as Mr. Itazawa himself acknowledged in his own work, the Dutch interpreters of that time had been woefully unversed in Dutch literature—so much so that they could not even identify smuggled Christian books during inspections. Captain Doeff’s observations in *Japan Recollections* regarding these interpreters’ grasp of the Dutch language similarly attested to this deficiency.

In other words, what I want to believe is this: The accounts regarding Nishizen, Yoshio, and Motoki’s permits for reading and translating Dutch books may not have been as described in the *Chronology of Western Studies*. However, the Dutch interpreters’ lack of literary knowledge—as we shall later see—likely stemmed both from the subservient disposition bred by the interpreter system itself and their general dearth of scholarly ambition. Even if Western books were not formally banned, their satisfaction with mere oral interpretation—this style of translation where they scribbled pronunciations in katakana on scraps of paper—surely reflected not only the interpreters’ servility but also a tacit approval from the shogunate that sanctioned such practices, would it not? Of course, this seems contradictory to the interpreter system as an institution at first glance. Just as there was a contradiction between Shogun Iemitsu’s national seclusion policy and foreign trade—even if no explicit prohibitive edict existed—might there not have been something intertwined with the interpreters’ lack of scholarly ambition?

Ryōkō was not adept at eloquence. Because of this, he remained a trainee interpreter for his entire life and never advanced in rank; at the time of the so-called "permit for reading and translating Dutch books," Nishizen was thirty, Yoshio twenty-two, and only Nindayū was fifty-one. “Therefore, it is truly commendable that he—with graying hair and having long been devoted to scholarship—shared the same aspirations as those younger men.” “My grandfather Genzaku studied in Nagasaki and received tutelage from both the Motoki and Yoshio families; Motoki too is remembered as one of the founding figures of Dutch studies,” wrote Ōtsuki Nyoden, Genzaku’s grandson.

Genzaku was friends with Shōzaemon, Ryōkō’s grandson, and since it is believed that the tutelage he “received” came from Nindayū II—Ryōkō’s son—the accounts of the “permit” were likely oral traditions passed down by his children or grandchildren. However, chronologically speaking, since scholars and technicians began emerging in greater numbers from the interpreter class only after Ryōkō’s time, I believe these three men’s actions must have provided some form of scholarly stimulus to their fellow interpreters. Ryōkō served as a trainee interpreter for twenty years yet never rose to junior interpreter. On his deathbed, he adopted a daughter—just twelve years old—from the Nishi family and left this final instruction: “You must conduct yourself with care and uphold our hereditary office.” With these words, he passed away.

Nidaidayū II, Motoki III, entered from the Nishi family and was called Einosuke and Yoshinaga. Born in Kyōhō 20 (1735), he died at age sixty in Kansei 6 (1794). In Mr. Keiji Hayami’s *Chronology of Philosophy*, under the scientists’ column for the same year, it also states: “Yoshinaga Motoki, 60—deceased.” Yoshinaga succeeded to his predecessor’s final wishes, becoming a junior interpreter in An’ei 6 (1777) and later advancing to senior interpreter. The *Chronology of Western Studies* states: “—The Motoki family’s revival; Dutch astronomy arose through this man.”

Yoshinaga was not only an excellent interpreter but also an outstanding scholar. He had numerous works and translations; if we pick out the main ones from the *Chronology of Philosophy*, they include *Heiten-gi Yōhō* (Usage of the Flat Celestial Globe) from An’ei 3 (1774), *Usage of the Two Celestial and Terrestrial Spheres*, *Oranda Kaikyōsho* ("Dutch Sea Mirror Treatise") from Tenmei 1 (1781), and *Oranda Eizokureki* ("Dutch Perpetual Calendar") from Tenmei 8 (1788). In Kansei 4 (1792), he produced works such as *Taiyō Kyūri Ryōkai* (Understanding Solar Principles), with this final theory in particular being known as the first introduction of heliocentrism to Japan and likely paving the way for subsequent developments in astronomy. It served as the pioneering work for *Rekishō Shinsho* (New Treatise on Calendrical Phenomena), which became a major lever in Japan’s eventual adoption of the solar calendar. That Shizuki Tadao—the renowned author of *Rekishō Shinsho*, a former interpreter who later adopted the name Ryōho and took the surname Nakano—was Yoshinaga’s disciple makes this connection readily comprehensible.

Yoshinaga, taking after his father-in-law Ryōkō, seems to have been rather a diligent and upright scholar by nature. He was ordered by the shogunate to compile a translation of the theory *Understanding Solar Principles*—said to be based on his having translated and presented *Usage of the Two Celestial and Terrestrial Spheres* in An'ei 3 (1774)—at the age of fifty-eight. The entire work comprised seven volumes and 325 chapters, with an additional appendix volume—truly an immense undertaking. The work began in November of Kansei 3 (1791) and concluded in September of the 5th year (1793), but given that he died mere months after completing this translation, it was likely a life-threatening endeavor. The epitaph of Shōzaemon IV reportedly states: “Commissioned to translate texts during a bitter winter, he doused himself with cold water and visited Suwa Shrine barefoot and unclothed to pray for the work’s completion. Some admonished him: ‘You are already aged—why torment yourself so?’ To which he replied: ‘Since ancestral times, we translators have received public stipends; to die thus is my duty alone.’” This inscription likely conveys Yoshinaga’s true character.

Shōzaemon IV was Yoshinaga’s legitimate son and was posthumously named Masanori. In Mr. Tamiya’s family genealogy, he was born in An’ei 7 (1778) and died at age thirty-six in Bunka 10 (1813); however, the *Chronology of Western Studies* lists Shōzaemon’s name under deceased Dutch scholars for Bunsei 5 (1822) (Daikō-ji Temple, Nagasaki; age at death: fifty-six). From this comparison, not only was there a discrepancy in the year of death, but the birth year also shifted from An’ei 7 (1778) to Meiwa 5 (1768). Thus, according to Tamiya’s theory, Shōzaemon would have been seventeen years old at Yoshinaga’s death, but the latter account made him twenty-seven. Moreover, as if corroborating this, the entry for Kansei 6 (1794) stated: “Senior Interpreter Nindayū Motoki died, succeeded by his son Motoyoshi—a junior interpreter who changed his name to Shōzaemon and took the personal name Masanori.” Therefore, if he were a junior interpreter, he would hardly have been seventeen. As previously mentioned, Genzaku—grandfather of Nyoden, author of the *New Chronology of Western Studies*—was friends with Shōzaemon, as could be seen in the text; I found myself inclined to believe the latter account. Moreover, as one piece of evidence, Doeuff’s *Japan Recollections* recorded that Shōzaemon remained alive until 1817, the tenth year of Bunka. The year 1817 marked Captain Doeff’s nineteenth year of residence in Japan and his withdrawal to Batavia. Furthermore, as we would later see, this record showed that Shōzaemon’s presence served not only as an unforgettable adversary to Dutch Trading Post Chief Doeff but also became a motivating factor that compelled him to withdraw from Japan in haste.

Shōzaemon IV of the Motoki family later advanced to Senior Interpreter and in Bunsei 2 (1819) was appointed Chief Interpreter Instructor alongside Nameura Hachiemon. Though records omit his specific teaching subjects, he had acquired French alongside Dutch and stood as a pioneer in English studies—likely instructing in these languages. Among Shōzaemon’s works, those most worthy of remembrance include *An’ei-ria Kōgaku Shōsen* (“A Small Basket for Promoting English Studies”—effectively an English-Japanese dictionary) from February 1811 and *Eikiri Gengo Shūsei* (“Compendium of the English Language”), created that September with Narabayashi and Yoshio—works I believe merit special mention in Japan’s linguistic history. In his preface to *Eikiri Gengo Shūsei*, Shōzaemon wrote: “In former times, Anglia’s study lay prohibited here; none knew its tongue until Bunka 6 (1809), when Dutchman Jan Cock Blomhoff—versed in that speech—arrived, granting us interpreters our first means to learn it. Come spring 1811, we rendered *An’ei-ria Kōgaku Shūsen* to aid juniors against foreign threats; by September’s fortune came orders for this *Compendium*. Gathering their words through Dutch and French references, we at last aligned them with our imperial vernacular via Chinese characters.”

Within this short preface, I felt I could discern both the path through which English entered Japan and the social circumstances surrounding it. “To aid our junior colleagues in preparing against foreign threats.” This “and so forth” likely referred to how Shōzaemon—at the center of it all—along with like-minded interpreters had secretly been acquiring English in preparation for future events. *Bunka Kōshi* corresponded to the sixth year [1809], which came two years later; but when we recalled the “Phaeton Incident” of Bunka 5 [1808], the year preceding even that—did not Shōzaemon’s intent become all the clearer? The “Phaeton Incident” referred to the infamous event involving the British warship *HMS Phaeton*, which had unlawfully entered Nagasaki Harbor flying the Dutch national flag. Even if the *Phaeton*’s true intent—as a vessel of the ascendant British Empire that had subjugated the Netherlands—had been to occupy its Dutch trading outpost, since said post was under our protection, the incident became entangled in complexities that resulted in Nagasaki Magistrate Matsudaira Zusho and five senior officials of Saga Domain taking responsibility by committing seppuku. At that time, Shōzaemon had been in Edo on official business; when the “Phaeton Incident” occurred, he was ordered to remain and assigned to English interpretation—thus suggesting he had done some self-study even before receiving instruction from Blomhoff.

In any case, even when viewed through the Motoki family genealogy, by Shōzaemon Motoki’s time, the coastal regions had rapidly become fraught with incident. Consequently, among his translated works were titles such as *Coastal Artillery Manual* and *Compendium of Nautical Measurement Instruments*, which contributed greatly to diplomacy and coastal defense; later, he was posthumously awarded the Senior Fifth Rank alongside his father Yoshinaga. After Shōzaemon’s death, the *Chronology of Western Studies* abruptly lists “Shōzō, personal name Nagahisa—grandson of Shōzaemon” under the entry for Kaei 1 (1848), while Shōzō’s adoptive father Shōnosuke is entirely omitted. However, I want to believe—as in Mr. Tamiya’s family genealogy—that Shōnosuke was Shōzaemon Motoki’s biological son and the fifth-generation head of the Motoki family. For if Shōzaemon had had no sons, they would not have married Shigeru—Shōzō’s mother—off to Kitajima and would instead have taken an adopted son. Why Shōnosuke does not appear in the chronology—whether it was because he had no notable achievements to speak of—I cannot say, but given that it states “Shōzō—grandson of Shōzaemon,” Nyoden is not thereby denying Shōnosuke’s existence.

At long last, my protagonist—Motoki VI, or the seventh generation in Mr. Tamiya’s genealogy—Shōzō has made his entrance; but O reader, I would have you understand why I have expounded upon the Motoki lineage at such exhaustive length. Unlike inventions such as the Kamenokotahashi or magic stoves, I believe that any fundamental invention or improvement that leaves its mark on the history of civilization is necessarily underpinned by a correspondingly lofty spirit. In other words, I indeed wanted to see whether this centuries-spanning lineage had exerted some influence upon the spirit of Shōzō—he who created or transplanted the movable type that became one of the cornerstones of modern Japanese culture.

III

The boy known in childhood as Sakunosuke, who became the adopted son of his uncle Shōnosuke and later changed his name to Motoyoshi and then Shōzō, must have devoted himself from age eleven onward to studying to become an interpreter. Under his foster father’s tutelage, he would have attended the interpreter training school and, through his foster father’s connections, learned directly from foreigners at the Dutch trading post. By Shōzō’s time, Dutch interpreters were no longer thought to be limited to Dutch alone. As seen in the family lineage, since Shōzaemon’s era there had been traditions of French and English; moreover, as the Tenpō, Kōka, and Kaei periods approached, foreign ships arrived with such frequency that revised orders for repelling foreign vessels were issued—making these linguistic skills ever more essential.

Thus Shōzō learned Western script and cultivated his qualifications to become an interpreter—but did that simultaneously make him a “Western scholar”? I had until now conflated interpreters and Western scholars as one and the same. Indeed there existed an inseparable relationship between Nagasaki’s Dutch interpreters and the development of Dutch studies—this much was undeniable. They contributed decisively to Western learning in Japan: producing medical schools like Narabayashi-ryū and Yoshio-ryū; establishing astronomical lineages such as Motoki and Shizuki; fostering experts like Takashima in artillery and Yoshio in herbalism; while within linguistics—their professional domain—they birthed numerous pioneering scholars through generations of practice. Yet could these interpreters truly share essential qualities with so-called “Dutch scholars”—be they bakufu retainers, domain vassals or townsmen by origin?

Interpreters were a truly unique profession. Even with my meager knowledge, I understood that while they were occasionally honored with titles like "shogunate interpreter-official," they were more commonly disparaged through belittling terms such as "some Nagasaki interpreter So-and-so Hyōe," to the extent that even low-ranking samurai would hurl insults at them. For instance, as we would later see, Terada Shisai—a retainer of the same domain—recorded in his diary with considerable scornful language the circumstances of Shōzō’s involvement in Yōdō, Lord of Tosa’s shipbuilding project at that time. Yet though not shogunate retainers themselves, interpreters remained under the shogunate’s control and frequently handled critical political intricacies for the council, even participating in its consultations. Moreover, they occupied neither samurai status nor purely commoner standing.

When was the interpreter system established? “Dutch interpreters or translator-officials served both as interpreter-officials and commercial officers; the Dutch called them ‘Turks.’” Dutch interpreters had existed since the Hirado period. “However, it appears that this orderly hierarchy was established during the Nagasaki period,” states Mr. Itazawa in *The Development of Dutch Studies*. In other words, this must trace back to Keichō 5 (1600), when Dutch ships drifted offshore in Kyushu’s Bungo Channel—yet until Hideyoshi’s final years, political policies differed so markedly that we could reasonably infer the interpreters’ defined role only solidified after Iemitsu’s reign.

There was indeed a distinction between “interpreter-official” and “commercial officer,” but one might doubt whether their roles had sufficient substance to warrant being called “officials” by today’s standards. For instance, in Bunka 11 (1814), when Hendrick Doeff—the Dutch trading post chief whose homeland had surrendered to Britain—faced another British attempt at legal occupation by propping up Cassa, a Dutchman and former chief, under the pretext that Doeff’s term had expired (as previously noted, six years prior they had provoked the “Phaeton Incident”), the Japanese interpreters were exploited to stage an elaborate ruse. “That night, I secretly summoned to my presence the five interpreters involved and their overseers, along with all the senior and junior interpreters,” writes Doeff in *Japan Recollections*. And they compelled Cassa to issue a false declaration that Doeff should remain in his current position until peace was restored to the Netherlands. Cassa was himself a British agent; to reject this role, he had no choice but to lay bare the facts before the interpreters. Moreover, Doeff had already positioned the five interpreters as "those privy to the secret."

As history demonstrates, Doeff’s intimidation succeeded. When all Dutch territories were lost, Doeff became a meritorious figure in Dutch history who alone managed to fly the national flag in Nagasaki, Japan. However, from our Japanese perspective, we must call it utterly brazen. Though not siding with Britain, the stance taken by Motoki Shōzaemon and Nameura Takichirō in opposing Doeff likely stemmed from more than just resistance to his malicious accusations. Moreover, Doeff—who had arbitrarily “summoned” the interpreters—wrote of Nameura and Motoki, then senior interpreters: “Through this opportunity, I have experienced the necessity of cultivating friendly relations even with lower-ranking officials in Japan.”

Doeff was a scheming individual. To drive a wedge between Nameura and Motoki and defeat them individually, he summoned them separately, giving them silver pocket watches and such, thereby succeeding in his scheme. And this may simultaneously indicate the general character of the interpreters. As previously observed, a man of Shōzaemon’s stature would not have been dazzled merely by a single silver pocket watch. Was it not that circumstances allowed Doeff to employ such schemes, and that there existed a unique climate on the interpreters’ side that readily accommodated them?

Mr. Iwashiro Katsuomi wrote in *Maeno Ranka*. "It was the duty of Dutch interpreters to monitor the actions of Dutch individuals beyond mere interpretation and translation—down to almost every lift and lower of their chopsticks—as seen in *The Edo Journey of Kaempfer*." "Consequently, even when sick Dutch individuals received medical treatment or underwent surgery—whether from Japanese or foreign practitioners—they could not escape the surveillance of the interpreters." In other words, this too must have been yet another role that the policies since Iemitsu’s time bestowed upon the interpreters—those who served as both 'interpreter-officials' and 'commercial officers.'

The interpreters’ stipends were by no means meager. Around Genroku 8 (1695), *The Development of Dutch Studies* records that senior interpreters received 11 *kan* of silver and a stipend for five retainers, junior interpreters 7 *kan* and 300 *me* of silver with a stipend for three retainers, and lower-ranking junior interpreters 3 *kan* of silver. By the late Edo period, however, Siebold writes in *The History of Japanese Communication and Trade* that senior interpreters were allotted 1,100 *ryō* of silver and 1,960 *shō* of rice; first-class junior interpreters 530 *ryō* of silver and 1,230 *shō* of rice; while second- and third-class junior interpreters each received 300 *ryō* of silver. According to established custom, each Dutch ship’s arrival brought them various forms of “additional stipends,” so economically they are thought to have far surpassed local samurai. Yet at the same time, punishments for the interpreters’ errors or crimes were exceedingly harsh—for instance, in Tenpō 8 (1837), junior interpreter Nameura Motojirō was sentenced to death over some mishandling of twenty-five saffron bulbs. Furthermore, the aforementioned Captain Doeff, having divided and conquered Motoki and Nameura, boastfully recounts in *Japan Recollections* how he achieved his aims by secretly reporting minor past incidents involving the two men to the Nagasaki magistrate, thereby seizing absolute authority over their fates.

Interpreters were truly beings of subtle nuance. I find myself thinking—wouldn’t Siebold’s following observation on interpreters in *The History of Japanese Communication and Trade* be the most apt? “Interpreters”—a deceptively simple title for a role of such importance. Their role was the most difficult, requiring them to humble themselves before all parties. They were government officials and language instructors, brokers and merchants—. And he adds another point: “Most were people without principles or character—”.

This was likely the general character of what we call Dutch interpreters. Had influential Western scholars not emerged in Edo and other regions since the time of Hakuseki and Kōyō—and had events such as *The Beginnings of Dutch Studies* not occurred—linguistics might have remained little more than a specialized skill among interpreters, necessary only for trade. Moreover, even among the interpreters themselves, with few exceptions, most were likely content if they could manage by merely "writing pronunciations in katakana on scraps of paper." Yet how strange are history's workings! These individuals were simultaneously tasked with overseeing every aspect of foreigners' households—down to "the raising and lowering of chopsticks"—which meant that through sheer observation alone, they became capable of mimicking physicians like "temple boys reciting sutras without formal training." At first, reluctantly complying with families' desperate pleas while intending it as temporary relief, they would timidly attempt surgeries or administer medicines. Yet "these unlicensed practitioners unexpectedly achieved good results" (*Maeno Ranka*). Through such circumstances, a few exceptional interpreters transcended their role—gradually delving deeper not only into medicine but other fields of study as well.

When we examine the Motoki family, we could recall Shōdayū Ryōi’s *Complete Dutch Anatomical Atlas* from earlier times, reflect on Nidayū Yoshinaga’s introduction of heliocentrism, and revisit Shōzaemon Masayoshi’s *Compendium of the English Language*. As an even more typical example, we might cite Yoshinaga’s disciple Shizuki Tadao—later known as Nakano Ryūho—and his *New Treatise on Calendrical Phenomena*. Yoshinaga’s *Understanding Solar Principles* had pioneered Japanese astronomy but ultimately remained largely introductory in scope. Yet Shizuki Tadao’s *New Treatise on Calendrical Phenomena* was no longer mere introduction—his astronomy constituted an original theory that laid Japan’s first foundational framework in the field. What then did Ryūho need to do to transform these “introductions” into “his own theories”? To pursue twenty years of dedicated research, he had to leave his adoptive Shizuki household, relinquish his role as an interpreter, and reinvent himself as the scholar Nakano Tadao.

Here we may discern the distinction between "Dutch studies by scholars" and "Dutch studies by interpreters." Western scholars from Edo and the Kyoto-Osaka region initially frequently visited Nagasaki to seek instruction at the interpreters' doors. Yet from the very beginning, they had been pursuing scholarship itself. It is said that Hayashi Shihei sought tutelage under Motoki Yoshinaga, while Hiraga Gennai, Maeno Ryōtaku, Ōtsuki Gentaku and others too journeyed to Nagasaki. But they all made it wholly their own.

And what of my protagonist, Sanzō Motoki? He was born into a family of tradition and raised amidst the general character of interpreters previously described. His life spanned from the tumultuous Bakumatsu period through the post-Meiji Restoration era of civilization and enlightenment, marked by extraordinary twists and turns. At times he served as interpreter for Russo-Japanese negotiations; at others, as chief engineer of a Shogunate warship battling Chōshū forces; then as captain of a steamship carrying Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, successfully fulfilling imperial loyalist duties; while elsewhere suffering shipwreck on Hachijōjima or enduring long imprisonments. Yet only movable type would be completed over twenty years later—within this zigzagging trajectory of his life, to what extent and in what manner did he transcend the general character of interpreters?

Surging waves 1.

1

I was able to view three old Nagasaki maps in total. The first one was a work I viewed at the Teikoku Library, created in the seventh year of An'ei (1778). The remaining two were part of the collection of my friend K; according to K’s assessment, one was presumed to be from the Tenpō era (1830–1844), and the other was judged to date from around Keiō 2 (1866).

The An'ei-era *Nagasaki no Zu* map, rendered entirely in black ink, was created by a man named Bunjiemon Ōbata and was quite detailed. Slightly left of the town's center flowed the Futamata River, its upstream dividing into two tributaries. The left tributary originated from Narutaki—where Siebold later established a center for disseminating new knowledge under the Nagasaki magistrate's patronage—and nearby lay Shin-daiku-machi, Sanzō Motoki's birthplace. The Futamata River merged downstream with a tributary from the right before flowing straight into the sea, with the "Chinese Quarter" at the estuary's left tip and a larger fan-shaped island to its right. This was the so-called Dejima, where the Dutch Trading Post stood. In this map's depiction, Dejima resembled a jeweled hat ornament; at what would be the hat's crown—the slightly rounded tip connected to Dejima by a single bridge—the Nagasaki Magistrate's Office kept watch, while Nagasaki's towns spread their skirts in a figure-eight pattern around the thriving harbor. Facing seaward along an arcing coastline to the magistrate's right lay the estates of various lords—Higo, Chikuzen, Saga, Hirado, Isahaya, Yanagawa—the guardian daimyos who took turns protecting Japan's gateway.

I examined with interest the depiction of ships anchored offshore in the harbor. There were ships of various sizes. Dutch ships, Siamese ships, Nanjing ships—. I had no knowledge of ships and thus could make no informed judgment, but these foreign vessels all uniformly had three or four masts, fan-shaped in form—stout and deep-hulled—painted in what might have been red or blue. At the very tops of their masts, several flags fluttered while the masts themselves were crisscrossed with rope ladders like spiderwebs. Of course, they would have relied solely on sails to cross the tempestuous waves of the East China Sea and Indian Ocean, but both the "Dutch ship" being towed into port by sixteen small boats and the "Siamese kakari ship" still offshore had their sails lowered. Even among sailing ships, compared to the single-sailed vessel bearing Lord Hosokawa of Higo’s nine-star crest—likely that year’s guardian lord—which appeared right beside the kakari ship, catching the wind and dashing along, those here seemed so enormous that unfurling their sails would have been perilous. The Magistrate’s denma-style “inspection ships” and “guard ships” scattered from Akunoura on the opposite shore to the offshore islets—near stone cannon platforms numbered No. 1, No. 3, No. 5 (lookout posts for foreign ships emerging from the horizon, doubling as defensive batteries)—appeared, even amid the tense solemnity of sealed-off maritime Japan’s gateway, teeming with an irrepressible vitality.

Beside the colophon of *Nagasaki no Zu* were recorded what might be called the nautical distances of domestic sea routes at the time: 470 ri to Edo, 248 ri to Kyoto, 235 ri to Osaka, 97 ri to Satsuma, and 99.5 ri to Tsushima, among others. In other words, while extending south to Satsuma and north to Edo, areas beyond Edo were not recorded. According to historical records—since the Edo shogunate began directly involving itself in Ezo’s (Hokkaido) administration only after the Kansei era under Matsudaira Rakuō—it followed that until this map’s creation period, regular shipping routes had not existed to Matsumae (Hakodate) or Etomo (Muroran) except for special purposes; likewise, routes linking Satsuma to the southern Ryukyu Islands likely operated solely between Satsuma and its directly governed Shimazu domain.

The Nagasaki map presumed to be from the Tenpō era, when compared to that of An’ei, resembled a famous-place *nishiki-e* print—vividly colored yet crude in execution. Town names were few, while coastlines and mountain locations blurred into obscurity, rendering geographical speculation impossible. Though reasonably detailed in its depictions of ships moored in the harbor, these consisted solely of Dutch and Nanjing vessels—no Siamese ships appeared. Everything faded beneath washes of red and blue pigments, leaving a desolate impression. Given its creation near Tenpō 13 (1842)—the year issuing the “Revised Order to Repel Foreign Ships” (異國船打拂改正令)—and its proximity to Takahashi Sakuzaemon and Siebold’s map-smuggling incident mere years prior, even these famous-place illustrations may have borne traces of such historical currents.

However, my interest lay not in the three Nagasaki maps themselves but in how the forms of foreign ships offshore had transformed across them. The last map, which my friend K judged to date from around Keiō 3, showed foreign ships offshore with completely altered forms. Nanjing ships were pushed into obscurity, and even the Dutch vessels—Nagasaki Port’s stars for over two centuries—were reduced to small figures in the corners. English ships, American ships, Russian ships, and others now crowded the harbor, dominating its waters. Moreover, these newly arrived vessels were not only massive in hull but terrifyingly long compared to those from An’ei. What’s more, they bore enormous paddle wheels amidships. In other words, these were steamships. Though they had not entirely abandoned sail power, it was this strange waterwheel that plowed through the Indian and Pacific Oceans’ tempestuous waves.

The transformation in the appearance of foreign vessels arriving offshore Nagasaki Port over approximately sixty years from An'ei to Tenpō, another thirty years from Tenpō to Keiō, and altogether spanning about a century would surely awaken in anyone a desire to know Japan's maritime history. Japan’s movable type was transplanted or perhaps created by Motoki and his peers, yet from another perspective, it had arrived aboard ships. Gutenberg invented movable type in the year 1445 by Western reckoning, while Sanzō and his peers transplanted this technology in 1870—the two events separated by over four hundred years. In the interim, around Kōki 2200—during the Genki and Tenshō eras, approximately 150 years after Gutenberg’s invention—modern movable type had only just spread throughout Europe when it arrived alongside Christianity. However, as previously mentioned, under Shogun Iemitsu’s national seclusion policy, it was expelled along with Christianity, and for three hundred years thereafter, its presence ceased. However, to imagine what Japan’s modern culture might have been like had movable type and hand-cast type casting machines not been expelled at that time—while fascinating in its own way—would be absurd. Upon reflection, the fact that no cultural artifact is born or grows in isolation becomes self-evident when one considers the intricate circumstances surrounding the arrivals of ships—like waves that ebb and flow—over the three centuries until its return.

Japan’s modern movable type was inextricably tied to the Opening of Japan. Had there been no Meiji Restoration or national opening, the fate of our modern typography would have been self-evident. Thus it was only natural that the painstaking efforts of Sanzō Motoki, Kihē Kimura, Kōmin Kawamoto, and Tomiji Hirano in forging Japanese type should bear transitional features—as though struck by an avalanche of national opening. Gutenberg, a nobleman from Mainz in Germany, had clashed with commoners over religious views and fled to Strasbourg. This strong-jawed German aristocrat spent eleven exiled years in that ancient Franco-German border city, quietly immersing himself in type creation—and would dedicate his remaining life solely to this pursuit. Yet “Japan’s Gutenberg” had to pass nearly his entire existence amidst political upheavals. He was compelled to manage shipbuilding alongside typography—even serving as captain himself. He oversaw ironworks while conducting educational initiatives. And he had to campaign tirelessly for everything from “treating epidemic eye diseases” and “soap-making methods” to “comparing candlelight against petroleum lamps.”

And it was precisely this difference that constituted why Japan’s movable type could not be explained without understanding the circumstances of its Opening. I had been instructed by senior colleagues and read various histories of Edo-period foreign relations. Through this, I came to perceive both our distant ancestors’ position and our own within that maritime Japan. Even at the frozen edges of maps beyond Ezo—Etorofu, Alaska, Kamchatka—astonishing histories had existed. What my mind had perceived as a blank Pacific before steamships now revealed sailing ships that had cut straight from Alaska to China’s Macau. Across from the Sea of Japan lay a battleground stretching from the Maritime Province—where only sea and land stood distinct—into Siberia’s boundless expanse: there raged an epic struggle between Genghis Khan’s Mongolian descendants and Russia’s incomparably fierce Cossacks, a conflict worthy of legend. The Slavs who conquered these Mongolians with firearms then pressed eastward to Earth’s northern tip before turning south along the Kuril Islands. Meanwhile south of Satsuma and Ryukyu, Dutch fleets rooted in Java and Sumatra clashed with British squadrons anchored in India and Malaya—as they vied for Pacific dominance while advancing eastward: if Dutch ships seized Taiwan, British vessels would land on Ryukyu—

During the three centuries of the Edo period’s national seclusion, waves of "war" and "culture" lapped ever closer against Japan’s maritime borders. And movable type had drifted along Nagasaki’s shores for four centuries until Motoki and his peers gathered it up.

II

It is said that in Kaei 6 (1852), four American Black Ships came to Uraga and startled Japan, but the groundbreaking significance of that shock likely did not lie in the ships’ form. It likely lay in Perry’s approach of disregarding Nagasaki Port to invade the prohibited Edo Bay and presumptuously using military force to demand the opening of the country. "A ship that appeared as black as lacquer, as sturdy as forged iron, with large stone-throwing cannons mounted on both sides had appeared off the coast of Japan," the Date domain authorities urgently reported to Edo via express messenger—an event that had already begun in Genbun 5 (1739). Of course, this was not an American ship but a Russian one, and while the shogunate officials issued a nonchalant order ("If they come ashore, detain them and report immediately"), over the following century, various black ships appeared all around Japan.

The Russian black ship that startled the Sendai Domain Office was Commander Spangberg’s Japanese exploration vessel. This ship departed Kronstadt in the 19th year of Kyōhō (1733), rounded the distant Cape of Good Hope while sailing northward through the Pacific, arrived in Okhotsk two years later, and five years thereafter—in the 4th year of Genbun (1738)—using three newly constructed ships from Okhotsk, attempted once more to sail south along the Kuril Islands. However, encountering a maritime storm, it failed to achieve its objective. Six years later in June of Genbun 5 (1740), it finally reached waters off Nagasaka Village on the Oshika Peninsula while glimpsing Japan’s mainland, where it is said the crew exchanged tobacco and fresh fish with local residents through gestures—.

I am amazed by the perseverance of the Slavs. Lieutenant Commander Spangberg was the leader of the third expedition team within Captain Bering’s Far Eastern expeditionary force and formed part of Peter the Great’s second Far Eastern expedition. Tracing back from this, the first expedition led by Colonel Bering that discovered the "Bering Strait" had departed from Petrograd in 1725, and from then until the second expedition—when he closed his eyes for the last time due to scurvy on Bering Island, one of the Commander Islands in 1742—he spent a total of seventeen years. And if we trace back even further through Russia’s conquest of the Far East—the administration of Alaska, the governance of Kamchatka, the overthrow of the Mongolian race in the Maritime Province—there were over two hundred years stretching back to 1530, when Ivan IV first crossed the Volga River and began his eastward expansion.

This was the first time Russians visited Japan. When Spangberg’s ships proceeded further south and anchored temporarily off Mitsuishi Point on Tashiro Island in Sendai Domain, three men—domain official Kanzaemon Chiba, village headman Zenbei, and Dainenji Temple’s head priest Ryūmon—visited the vessels and documented their observations as follows. “Their character resembles that of the Dutch.” “They applied what they called ‘butter’—a substance eaten by the Dutch—ate what they called ‘bread’ eaten by the Dutch, were treated to a fiery liquor described as ‘having the taste of shōchū,’ then produced maps made of paper and showed a round object depicting a map of all the world’s nations.” “『...they had come from countries near Japan and conducted themselves accordingly...』” it states, with an annotation noting that among the three men, this judgment had likely been made based on Monk Ryūmon’s knowledge of Nagasaki. Spangberg departed after merely glimpsing Japan’s mainland from offshore, but the Sendai Domain rushed over thirty hatamoto and numerous warriors—including artillery officers in charge of large cannons—to the Oshika Peninsula, while Ishinomaki Port halted all ship traffic, resulting in “—preparations at the castle during this time, and indeed a commotion unparalleled in recent times—.”

Japan-Russia relations had begun in this manner, but Russia had at this time reached the northern extremity of the globe and from there proceeded southward with the sole aim of reaching China and India. The Russo-American Company, which had established bases in Kamchatka and Alaska and maintained shareholders in Europe, had to sell Arctic sea otter pelts and Maritime Province sable furs at Chinese ports where they fetched the highest prices at the time; moreover, to most conveniently navigate from the North Pacific to the East China Sea, using mainland Japan as a relay point would have been optimal. Moreover, given that there existed a global legend at the time claiming "the entire island [of Japan] was buried in gold," they must have wanted to make this closed country their customer as well.

In any case, the origins of Japan-Russia relations were not ancient, but since their inception, they had been persistently recurring over two centuries. Whether Russia's policy toward Japan at that time should be deemed a malicious invasion or an economic overture befitting an advanced nation, I cannot definitively judge; however, according to what historical records of the time convey, it did not seem that using weapons to threaten others had been their underlying intent. For example, since the time of Peter the Great, there had been many instances of Japanese ships being wrecked and drifting to places like the Maritime Province, with records famously showing these crew members being sheltered to become teachers at a Japanese language school in Petrograd or granted audiences with Peter the Great and Empress Catherine. Of course, even if Russia’s true intentions had been to use those as bait to win Japan’s favor. The Russian Senate, having inherited the will of Peter the Great, is said to have issued the following instructions prior to the departure of Lieutenant Commander Spangberg, leader of the Japanese expedition team: “If there are any Japanese castaways in Kamchatka, they should be repatriated to their homeland as a gesture of friendship toward Japan. Escorting shipwrecked sailors back to their homeland would provide an excellent pretext for visiting Japan; however, should the Japanese government refuse to accept said sailors, they are to be landed at any point along Japan’s coast and allowed to return home. They should make it their principle to utilize every opportunity to demonstrate goodwill and must not be concerned with the obstinate Eastern-style brusqueness. They must exercise utmost caution to avoid any actions that might harm the feelings of the Japanese people—and so forth.”

“It has the taste of shōchū.” When I compared Monk Ryūmon’s report—in which he drank fire liquor, saw a world map, and marveled at a globe—with the Russian Senate’s records written six years prior, it made me realize what a formidable enemy Russia already was in every sense. There lay the phrase “symbol of friendship” and the preconceived notion of “Oriental brusqueness.” Since then, Russia’s policy toward Japan appeared to have aligned with that of Peter the Great, but each nation’s politics underwent its own complex transformations, and misunderstandings frequently arose between these unknown countries that shared neither language nor script. The “Hampengorō Incident” and “Fostov Incident” appear to have sown seeds of ineradicable resentment on the Japanese side over the century leading up to the conclusion of the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity by Kawaji Putyatin in Ansei 2 (1855), despite Russia’s persistent visits to Japan.

In the summer of Meiwa 8 (1771), a black ship that had departed from Kamchatka proceeded south along the Kuril Islands, passed through the Tsugaru Strait like a comet, soon appeared in Osaka Bay where it exchanged furs for rice and fuel while posing as a Dutch vessel; before long, it emerged off Nagasaki, slipped through Amami Ōshima, landed on the Taiwan coast to battle indigenous people, then sailed south again to reach Macau, China—this was the Kamchatka prison escape ship of the "Baron Moritz Alart Hampengorō" incident.

As for why Count Benyowsky—a Hungarian who was a Polish noble—came to be mispronounced as "Hampengorō" in Japan, I do not know the reason. This Hungarian—taken prisoner by the Russian army during the Polish uprising, sentenced to Siberian exile in 1769, and transported to Kamchatka under the Russo-American Company’s policy—gathered accomplices in his third year there, slaughtered the Kamchatka governor and his subordinates, and succeeded in escaping from the Arctic to China: a world-renowned adventurer? And this was likely the world’s first ship to come from the north, pass along Japan’s coast, and make its way into the East China Sea.

History is ironic at times. The painstaking efforts behind Russia’s policy toward Japan since Peter the Great’s time had its initial chapter unfortunately opened by such a fugitive. Moreover, while anchored at Amami Ōshima, this escaped convict—perhaps to repay the favor of having received provisions and water—leaked intelligence about the northern regions in German and Latin. None of the Nagasaki interpreters were proficient in those two languages, so the head of the Dutch trading post translated it into Dutch and submitted it to the Nagasaki magistrate. The record bearing the signature “Baron Moritz Alart Hampengorō at Ushima,” written in Japanese, is a brief text spanning roughly half a sheet of *hanshi* paper. It states: “—[We] shall patrol and survey Japan’s territories, gathering at each location as planned. It is certain that by next year, moves will also be made against Matsumae and other nearby islands—,” and so forth. I do not know how much of this is true, but it is said that Hayashi Shihei, who came to Nagasaki several years later, learned of this matter from the head of the Dutch trading post and used his *Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu* to advocate for the urgency of coastal defense.

In any case, this was still an era when the dream of national seclusion lingered hazily—but with Spangberg’s earlier visit and now Hampengorō’s comet-like passage, the sight of Black Ships must have delivered a profound shock to the people of that time. Moreover, the ships coming from the north were not solely Russian. By the end of the eighteenth century, it was still an era when blank spaces remained on world maps. From Europe’s perspective, it was a time when “unclaimed treasures” still lay untouched around the Pacific. Over two hundred years had passed since part of the American continent was discovered, and less than half a century since Colonel Bering had navigated the Bering Strait and discovered Alaska’s eastern tip. To Europeans, Japan’s presence spanning between the North Pacific and Chinese mainland must have seemed an object that stirred adventurous spirits akin to Columbus’s. The British Naval Minister had instructed Naval Captain James Cook during that same An’ei era of the 1770s to explore Japan’s coastal regions. Captain Cook crossed the Pacific again and reached Alaska but died in Hawaii in 1779 without achieving his goal. Then in Britain’s stead, Louis XVI of France ordered Naval Captain de La Pérouse to continue Cook’s work. Pérouse reached Alaska four years after Cook’s death and went on to survey the Maritime Province coast, extending as far as Mamiya Strait according to accounts.

The shogunate officials of the time arrested Hayashi Shihei on the pretext of his spreading eccentric statements, even confiscating the woodblocks for *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation*—yet Shihei’s advocacy for coastal defense, like that of his Sendai Domain contemporary Hirasawa Gosuke, may have in fact come too late. When Pérouse departed, British Navy Captain Vancouver arrived in the Alaskan archipelago with two warships instead. This was precisely the third year of Kansei. After Captain Vancouver completed his arduous survey of the archipelago and withdrew, his subordinate Lieutenant Broughton at last carried out the long-cherished ambition since Cook’s time—the coastal survey of Japan. In the ninth month of Kansei 5 (1793), battling through a violent storm, he reached the Tsugaru Strait, then sailed northward to enter and anchor at Etomo (Muroran) in Ezo.

At this time, the Matsumae Domain’s defenses were thin. Upon learning of the British ship’s arrival at Oshiyamambē, Chief Retainer Sazen Matsumae promptly dispatched several domain samurai—including Takahashi and Kudō—along with physician Kengo Katō, who had some knowledge of Russian, from the domain office to rush to Etomo. Perhaps because the Matsumae Domain was understaffed at this time, or because the situation was urgent and no policy had been established, they did not immediately adopt an attitude of repelling the foreign ship. Instead, using Kengo Katō’s Russian to gradually communicate with the Russian-born sailors on the opposing side, they reportedly visited the vessel’s deck. Captain Broughton gladly welcomed the party and hosted them cordially. After dining together, Takahashi, Kudō, Katō, and the others presented a Russian-made map of northern Japan they had brought with them and had it copied. In return, Captain Broughton reportedly presented them with a world nautical chart created by his country’s Captain Cook.

As for how this Russian-made map of northern Japan came to be in Takahashi's possession, I could find no records explaining the reason. Yet strangely, this did not strike me as odd. For just as many records show that the first Japanese to understand Russian were neither scholars nor warriors nor doctors, but sailors shipwrecked off Kamchatka or Okhotsk, one might imagine fishermen and farmers in Ezo living undocumented lives intermingled with Kamchatka natives and Russian castaways. Reality always exceeds records—yet even those records tell of Japanese ships drifting between Nagasaki and Satsuma to wash ashore near Manila or Hawaii; salt-laden vessels from Shikoku's waters wrecked on the distant opposite shore of Oregon's Columbia River; even accounts suggesting survivors intermarried with indigenous people after landing on Canada's northern coast. Given this, Russian-made maps naturally finding their way into Matsumae samurai's hands fifty years after Spangberg's visit would hardly be surprising.

Lieutenant Broughton peacefully anchored at Etomo for two weeks. After completing tasks such as resupplying provisions, repairing the vessel, and creating nautical charts, they sailed far south along Japan’s Pacific coast and arrived in Macao. After two years of recuperation, in Kansei 9 (1797), Lieutenant Broughton departed Macao once more and sailed east through the East China Sea. Passing through the Taiwan Strait and reaching Okinawa Island, they emerged once more onto the Pacific coast, this time drawing near to Japan’s mainland while entering details on nautical charts and verifying locations such as Edo Bay before entering port at Etomo by summer’s end. However when Dr. Katō and two others visited Lieutenant Broughton aboard his ship this time, they were no longer the acquaintances they had been three years prior. It is said that when Lieutenant Broughton hurriedly set sail from Etomo, three hundred soldiers of the Matsumae Domain were closing in near the port. The report of “foreign ships arriving again” reached even Edo, prompting Senior Councillor Matsudaira Izu-no-kami to deem the situation critical—he halted Matsumae Wakasa’s alternate attendance and ordered the Tsugaru Domain to dispatch troops to Hakodate—yet the swift-sailing foreign ships ultimately evaded capture.

The northern regions were gradually becoming busier. Moreover, prior to this—while Britain’s Colonel Vancouver was surveying the archipelago—in the fourth year of Kansei [1792], among the ships arriving from the north came the chief protagonist: Russia’s warship *Ekaterina*, bearing Empress Catherine’s imperial missive as part of her first official envoy to Japan. Proceeding south through the Kuril Islands, it anchored in Nemuro Bay and reached the Matsumae Domain, where it formally declared the purpose of its visit. This likely marked the first instance of a European monarch directly proposing diplomatic amity.

III

From the end of the eighteenth century into the nineteenth, not only did the number of Black Ships visiting Japan gradually increase in frequency, but each new wave that came surging in appeared to grow markedly larger than the ones that receded before. Moreover, those threatening the locked nation were not limited to Britain, France, and Russia; by this time, American fur-trading ships were already crossing the Pacific with single sails, bound from Alaska to Macao. The new nations that had emerged since Columbus’s discovery, having learned through Britain’s Cook’s expedition reports of the abundant sea otters inhabiting Alaska’s coasts and their exclusive exploitation by Russians alone, saw reckless Yankees rushing in with their small ships. At the time, Americans were said to have exchanged one iron collar for three pelts with Alaskan natives who hunted sea otters, each pelt trading for seventy-five dollars in Macao. In the fourth year of Kansei (1792), when Empress Ekaterina’s envoy to Japan arrived at Matsumae in Ezo, American sailing ships crossing the Pacific along Japan’s eastern coast reportedly numbered twenty-five. In other words, the forces threatening the locked nation were not limited to the north and south—they were now emerging from the east as well. Moreover, around this time, it was not just fur-trading vessels; American whaling ships that had been based on the Atlantic coast were shifting their bases to the Pacific. The world’s largest undeveloped sea was abundant. Records state that Americans pursued sperm whales southward across the equator into the Indian Ocean, reaching from Madagascar to the Red Sea, and northward beyond the Bering Strait from Okhotsk to the Maritime Province; ships passing through Hawaii eventually crossed Torishima, and by the third year of Bunsei (1820), whaling vessels seeking provisions and water had grown frequent along our coasts, landing in the Bōsō region.

It became clear that these circumstances were not romanticized episodes like the Portuguese ships that had chanced to drift into the Bungo Channel of Kyushu two hundred years prior, or the lone missionary who had nonchalantly landed on the Satsuma coast to bring Catholicism and movable type—but then, what comprehension and policies did the shogunate officials of the time hold toward this clamor encircling their seas? Senior Councillor Matsudaira Rakuō of the time dispatched two inspectors—Ishikawa Shōgen and Murakami Daigaku—as "Envoys of Proclamation" to meet Laxman, Russia’s envoy to Japan. The envoys read aloud the "Legal Edict to Foreigners," declaring: "By our nation’s law, ships from countries with which we have no prior communication arriving in our realm shall be seized or repelled. Should castaways exist, they must be escorted to Nagasaki. Even if bearing state letters, we cannot receive them." The Ekaterina anchored in Nemuro Bay and waited eight months for the arrival of the Envoys of Proclamation. During this time, many of the castaways repatriated aboard the same ship, the Russian crew members, and even the Japanese guards perished from scurvy. Historians, drawing on contemporary records—such as the prolonged Edo deliberations at this time and the granting of a "Nagasaki Port Entry Permit" to Laxman—suggested that Matsudaira Echizen may have harbored an intention to "open at least one port like Matsumae." But in any case, it was likely around this period that the shogunate’s tribulations had finally begun.

Eleven years after Laxman’s return—was it perhaps his misunderstanding that “If [we] go to Nagasaki, the state letter will be accepted”? Based on this assumption, Nikolai Rezanov, State Councilor and Chamberlain of the Second Russian Embassy to Japan, arrived in Nagasaki in July 1804 (Bunka 1). With the two warships *Nadezhda* and *Neva* bearing state letters, it had been two years since their departure from Kronstadt. While the repatriation of castaways was accepted, trade remained rejected. All gifts from the Russian side were returned by the Nagasaki magistrate in accordance with regulations, and the records state that this merely served to clarify that Laxman’s belief of “if [we] go to Nagasaki” had been a misunderstanding.

At this time, Inspector Kinzaburō Tōyama came down from Edo to convey the message to Rezanov, but the Japanese side’s intentions were relayed to the Russians in a colder and more exaggerated manner through the scheming of Doeff, the Dutch trading post chief on Dejima. In other words, with “Dutch interference” also at play, Nagasaki resident Ota Naijirō Shokusanjin documented this episode in *Keihō Zassui* as follows: “The Dutch Captain held a grand feast two days after Russia’s departure—summoning the Dutch interpreters, with the Dutch partaking in Dutch cuisine and the Japanese in Japanese.” They ate, drank sake, sang songs, stripped naked, and made a commotion until eight o’clock. “This appeared to be a celebratory spirit rejoicing that permission for Russian trade had not been granted—”

Moreover, Nagasaki was different from Matsumae. Here was one of Japan’s gateways, with a cultural tradition. As Shokusanjin had documented Dutch interference, Shiba Kōkan—the founder of Japanese printmaking—also recorded similar observations in his *Shunparō Notes*: “—They detained the Russian envoy in Nagasaki for half a year without permitting landing— Though Russia may be a lesser nation of barren northern borderlands, it is also a great power with many vassal states. Is it not discourteous to treat all barbarians uniformly in such manner?” “Rezanov was his country’s envoy.” “—Ritual propriety hath its beginnings in the instruction of human morality. To illustrate this—it is akin to standing naked before properly ranked officials—” ...and so on.

However, as the shogunate’s “closed-country” obsession—which obscured His Sacred Majesty’s wisdom—remained quite entrenched, things like “Dutch interference” likely held little significance. And Nikolai Rezanov, who had departed Nagasaki in disappointment half a year later, harbored a resolution beyond what the shogunate officials, Shokusanjin, or Shiba Kōkan could have imagined. He first withdrew to Petropavlovsk, disbanded the mission, then swiftly transitioned from envoy to become a director of the Russian-American Company and departed alone for Alaska. There, mobilizing the full capacity of the Russian-American Company, they began constructing warships and training troops. In July of Bunka 2 (1805), they submitted a formal petition to their home government and unveiled the "Japan Expedition" plan. The plan was first to attack Karafuto Island and expel the Japanese, then destroy Ezo Main Island, and finally deploy to the coasts of the Japanese mainland to seize Japanese sailing vessels. This strategy had already been informed by the actions of their naval captain von Kruzenstern, who, on their return voyage from Nagasaki, had secretly surveyed key coastal points and investigated the vulnerabilities of Japan’s coastal defenses. And if the Russian home government had granted approval to Rezanov’s plan and it had proceeded smoothly—and if we Japanese had been as weak as Rezanov and von Kruzenstern had observed—a situation akin to Britain’s opening of Hong Kong through the Opium War against China might have occurred in Japan a generation earlier than it did in China.

Of course, that was Rezanov’s mistake. Japan and China are different. Japan’s national character differed from China’s, and as Siebold would later observe, they diverged both racially and economically. “Under two centuries of peaceful shelter,” he wrote, “the Japanese people’s civilization had reached its zenith—now second only to our Europe among all ancient nations, a fact none could dispute.” “The measures Britain had recently imposed upon China could never succeed here. The gulf between Japan and China—in their peoples, their states, their trade goods, their commercial ties—proved far vaster than Europe might conceive.” “Thus Japan possesses no national debt,” he continued, “but rather immense national treasures and inexhaustible state credit.” A certain nobleman once told me: “‘Just as stone may be minted into coinage, stone holds monetary value.’ Therefore,” this foreigner concluded in his *History of Japanese Transportation and Trade*, “so long as Japan’s people remain unmixed with others, foreign commerce here shall never thrive as in lands beyond Europe—where settlers either blend with natives to form new nations or conquer them to impose customs and necessities that render trade with their European motherlands both essential and lucrative.”

“What Britain has recently carried out toward China” refers, of course, to the Treaty of Nanking and the Opium War, while “the ancient world and so forth” denotes nations outside Europe that remain unmodernized by Christian culture or mechanical civilization. However, let us remain calm for a moment and hear out this foreigner who views all lands beyond Europe as colonies. Siebold’s observation was separated by over thirty years from Rezanov’s single-minded attempt at a military expedition against Japan in 1805–1807 after departing Nagasaki. Yet even as Siebold—an agent of the Netherlands, Japan’s privileged trading partner—harbored a partial devotion to “shogunate politics,” he described Japan as “the most developed nation in the pre-modern world,” a unified country possessing infinite national credit likened to stone, and one that Europeans could never conquer “so long as its inhabitants remain unmixed.” These are “world travelers” Is this not the accumulation of observations built up over Philipp Franz von Siebold’s more than ten-year stay in Japan?

Rezanov’s observations had not reached that far. However, Rezanov held views that were distinctly his own. He was well aware—without needing Shokusanjin’s account—that one major obstacle to his mission as peaceful second envoy lay with the Dutch trading post. According to one theory, during his Nagasaki anchorage he allegedly sought commercial advantage by supporting imperial loyalists opposed to the shogunate faction, using intelligence gathered through Nagasaki interpreters. Though undeniably superficial, this approach seemed a natural progression given his resentment toward the Netherlands—a privileged nation since Ieyasu’s vermilion-sealed edicts—that ceaselessly extolled “shogunate politics.” Rezanov obsessively built warships and recruited troops. Had the Russian government fully endorsed his plan—setting aside domestic affairs—we Japanese would have faced grave sacrifices to defend our homeland.

However, Rezanov’s plan ended anticlimactically when Alexander I—who had succeeded Empress Ekaterina—declined to grant approval. Yet Rezanov himself could not abandon the scheme, leading to the Khvostov Incident of Bunka 4 (1807), which became the darkest chapter in Japan-Russia diplomatic history. The Khvostov Incident gave rise to the Golovnin Incident, and the Golovnin Incident in turn led to the Takadaya Kahei Incident.

Historians to this day remain unable to render definitive judgment regarding both the circumstances of the Russian government’s failure to approve Rezanov’s plan and Rezanov’s ambiguous actions—pursuing the plan despite knowing it lacked approval, then vanishing into thin air on the very eve of the expedition’s departure. Here, I ponder in my own way—at the very least, Rezanov’s ambiguous actions seem to speak to the relationship between the Russian government and the Russian-American Company. In other words, was there not a characteristic of the Russian-American Company—an outpost of the Russian government that was undergoing capitalist transformation later than Britain, the Netherlands, and others—at play here? Could it be that the Japan policy established since Peter the Great still persisted, preventing their relationship from functioning as efficiently as that between the British government and the British East India Company? Moreover, from Rezanov’s perspective, the Arctic fur trade—monopolized by the Russian-American Company since the early 19th century—was being rapidly eroded by unscrupulous Yankees, while their colonization policy advancing southward through the Kuril Islands found itself overwhelmed by migrants from densely populated Japan. However, as the second director of the Russian-American Company, he had to break through the impasse for the sake of the shareholders in Europe as well. He had to open the shortest route from Okhotsk to Macau and forcibly pry open the door of the "locked country."

The Russian-American Company was founded in 1783 by Rezanov’s father-in-law Shelikhov, but its reach from Okhotsk through Kamchatka and across the Bering Strait to the northern tip of Alaska—in other words, across lands near the Arctic Circle—is said to have been an event unparalleled since the dawn of human habitation in those regions. The natives were conquered by force and subjected to a fur tax; conversely, they began to learn writing, became acquainted with modern weapons and manufactured goods—in short, were immersed in European Christian culture. The Russian-American Company flourished to its zenith in its early years. In 1798, Kansei 9—at a time when northern affairs were gradually beginning to attract attention among the Japanese through the efforts of Kohei, Heisuke, and others—the company’s stock certificates had reportedly risen by thirty-five percent in Europe. Rezanov was both director of the Russian-American Company and chamberlain to Empress Ekaterina, while the Company itself held authority over colonization and development across Primorskaya Oblast to Alaska—not merely in fur trading—and possessed powers nearly akin to those of a sovereign government, including establishing military facilities, constructing warships, training troops, and appointing or dismissing officers.

When I reflect upon it, during our Edo period, what shook and threatened the dream of national isolation from both south and north were several companies. Particularly three companies: the Dutch East India Company, the British East India Company, and the Russian-American Company. The Dutch East India Company established its bases in Java and Batavia. The British East India Company established bases in India and Singapore. The Russian-American Company established bases in Okhotsk. The former two had already begun their eastward expansion in the early seventeenth century, during the era of Hideyoshi. And each company, permitted by their home governments and wielding comparable powers spanning trade, colonization, industrial development, and military affairs, competed fiercely against one another. When we consider those of Portugal, Spain, and France, history teaches us that it was an uninterrupted succession of invasions and wars.

However, it was simultaneously the dissemination of modern culture and European civilization. Raffles, who took Singapore from the Johor King and built it, was Britain’s foremost Orientalist and scholar. Captain Doeff, who single-handedly protected the Dutch flag in Nagasaki, Japan, without disgracing his homeland’s history, was the foremost figure to deepen Europe’s understanding of Japan; Siebold, who similarly improved Dutch-Japanese trade relations and strengthened the Netherlands’ position in the East, was also the man who brought the light of modern medicine to Japan; and Grigory Shelikhov, who expanded Russia’s territory to the Arctic Circle, built schools, taught writing and arithmetic, introduced modern governance, and bestowed an enduring light upon the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka and Alaska. I know no words to simply explain this great contradiction in history.

IV

The Russian-American Company warship Yuno, equipped with several cannons, along with the Auos—these two vessels under the command of Lieutenant Nikolai Khvostov and Ensign Gavriil Davydov of the same company—repeatedly assaulted our northern borders. In October of Bunka 3 (1806), they landed at Ōtomari in Karafuto with thirty soldiers, raided the Matsumae tax office, and took four Japanese prisoners. The following May, they advanced south through the Kuril Islands, came ashore on Etorofu Island, attacked the Matsumae trading post, and seized five more Japanese captives. The Matsumae Domain hastily mobilized over two hundred troops from the Nanbu and Tsugaru domains to counterattack, but overwhelmed by the generational gap in weaponry, suffered defeat. Historical records state that Matsumae official Toda Matadayu assumed responsibility and committed seppuku.

The northern defenses had to be increasingly strengthened. However, Rezanov—who had given Lieutenant Khvostov a single command before vanishing into thin air—had already died in the frigid lands of Alaska during Khvostov’s first expedition. Moreover, no sooner had Khvostov and his men triumphantly returned to Okhotsk Harbor than they were arrested and imprisoned by the Okhotsk governor for acting without orders from their homeland—delicate circumstances that the Matsumae Domain could not possibly have known.

The Golovnin Incident was thus born. In Bunka 8 (1811), the year after Khvostov and his men were imprisoned, Naval Major Golovnin—acting under orders from his homeland—requested provisions at Etorofu Island in June while surveying the coasts of the Kuril Islands and Primorskaya Oblast. However, through the guidance of Ishizaka Buhe, a subordinate of Matsumae, he and five others were captured. They were escorted to Matsumae and remained imprisoned until September of Bunka 10 (1813). The Nihon Yūshūki (Japanese Captivity Chronicles), known to us today, was Golovnin’s account from this period. To frame this from one perspective, it stemmed from a disconnect between written and spoken language acting as mediator. Yet this tragedy also became the catalyst for Russian to reach Japan through Golovnin, Baba Sajūrō of the shogunate’s Astronomy Bureau, and Adachi Sanai. Moreover, it provided the first opportunity for knowledge of smallpox vaccination to enter Japanese awareness—preceding foreign arrivals of the Kaei era (1848–1854).

And for Golovnin to be released—that is, to clarify that Major Golovnin had no connection to the Khvostov Incident—yet another "Takadaya Kahei Incident" had to arise.

In August of Bunka 9 (1812), the Kanshi Maru—Takadaya Kahei’s ship that had been pioneering northern Kuril routes—was detained by Major Ricord’s Diana, a vessel belonging to Golovnin’s colleague, and taken to Kamchatka. However, Kahei was a man capable of discerning the other party’s true intentions as history records; thus, in April of the following year, breaking through the still-frozen sea ice, he returned to Kunashiri Island accompanied by Major Ricord—newly appointed acting governor of Okhotsk—who carried an explanatory document stating that Golovnin and Khvostov were unrelated. Thereupon, the acting governor of Okhotsk submitted a formal apology for the Khvostov Incident in response to Japan’s demands, Golovnin and his men were released, and thus the disturbances since Rezanov’s time were resolved.

Takadaya Kahei’s efforts saved the crisis in Japan-Russia diplomatic relations and enhanced Japan’s honor abroad; however, even after Rezanov’s death, the Russian side’s fervor to knock on Japan’s door remained undiminished. Ricord’s appointment as acting governor of Okhotsk served dual purposes—it was necessary both to secure Golovnin’s release and to establish Russia’s formal standing to initiate negotiations for “trade” and a “border agreement.” Through meetings between Ricord and Matsumae Magistrate Hattori Bingo-no-kami, the Russian side’s requests were conveyed to Edo, and it was agreed that a response would be provided in Etorofu the following year, Bunka 11 (1814). The shogunate’s response was identical to what had previously been presented to Rezanov in Nagasaki; however, the following year, when Takahashi Sanpei of the Matsumae Domain carried a document ratified in Japanese, Russian, and Dutch and proceeded to Etorofu and Shana, the Russian ships did not arrive at the meeting place. Then, four years later in Bunsei 1 (1818), a certain Iida Gorosaku of the same domain happened to find a basket on Etorofu’s coast containing an official Russian document. It stated that they had arrived in the northern part of the island in Bunka 11 (1814) as agreed, but being unable to find any Japanese officials, they had no choice but to return to Okhotsk.

History sometimes looms vast and indistinct. Transcending time and space, it draws near at times, only to grow distant again.

After the Golovnin Incident and Takadaya Kahei Incident concluded, approximately half a century passed before Admiral Putyatin appeared off Nagasaki with four warships. Moreover, the Japan-Russia border issue remained unresolved, and Russia had failed to gain access to the northern gateway; yet this connection did not end—half a century later, Sanzō Motoki’s destiny to serve as interpreter in the "Nagasaki Negotiations" and "Shimoda Negotiations" was inextricably linked to these very circumstances.

The wave that struck the northern borders receded for a time, but in its wake remained the "Russian language" and the "method of smallpox vaccination." The Russian language secured a place within the shogunate’s Astronomy Bureau from this time onward, and though limited in scope, the method of smallpox vaccination was added to Japanese knowledge. This knowledge had been orally transmitted from Golovnin to Baba Sajūrō forty years before the smallpox vaccine’s arrival in Kaei 2 (1849). Yet why did this vaccination method remain unimplemented, requiring half a century’s wait until Ansei 5 (1858) when the Vaccination Institute was finally established? The circumstances could be seen in Baba Sajūrō’s response when presented with a complete vaccination kit by Captain Gordon of the British merchant ship Brothers—which had suddenly appeared in Edo Bay in Bunsei 1 (1818), eight years after Golovnin’s departure. Summarizing his reply: “While I am deeply grateful for these splendid items, I regret being unable to accept them. This is prohibited by national law. Though I received oral instruction on vaccination from the Russian Golovnin and some awareness exists domestically, we remain unable to experimentally verify its efficacy without official permission.” The implementation of smallpox vaccination in Ansei 5 was not achieved solely through the Western Medical Institute’s efforts. In other words, here too existed the same fate as that of movable type.

While the shogunate’s fears regarding the north had not yet subsided, the Phaeton Incident had already occurred in the south. It was the following year after Khvostov’s attack on the northern regions in Bunka 5 (1808). “Pirate” Britain was already establishing its dominant position in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific at this time. In 1763, during our Meiwa era, they defeated France in colonial competition and seized India; in 1811, during our Bunka 8 (1811), they vanquished the Dutch fleet and captured Java, the base of the Dutch East India Company. In 1819, during our Bunsei 2 (1819), the Straits Settlement of Singapore was established, and in 1843, during our Tenpō 13 (1843), a fortress was constructed on Hong Kong Island through the Opium War. The Phaeton Incident occurred when they—having overthrown the Dutch fleet and seized control of the Dutch government in Java and Batavia—proactively appeared off Nagasaki in an attempt to occupy its branch trading post there. Of course, their true aim lay not so much in occupying the trading post as in surreptitiously inheriting trade rights with Japan. Why an armed vessel carrying nineteen-year-old Captain Periu had entered port flying a false Dutch flag should be self-evident. The schemes of Doeff in this incident, including the responsibility-driven suicides of Magistrate Matsudaira Toshokan and several Saga domain samurai, as well as the activities of Shōzaemon—Motoki’s grandfather—have all been recounted previously. This incident had a far greater impact than its northern counterpart, prompting the shogunate to order Shōzaemon and others to study English in preparation for future events—marking what is said to be the origin of English language history in Japan.

Moreover, the waves surging from the south proved swifter and more violent than those from the north. To what extent had the shogunate councilors of that era cultivated understanding regarding the regions south of Satsuma and Ryukyu? One could not claim that the tradition of attentiveness to foreign policies and cultural artifacts established since Arai Hakuseki's time had been entirely lost; yet superficially at least, matters were entrusted to the Nagasaki Magistrate, relying primarily on overseas reports submitted by successive generations of Dutch captains—who effectively served as inspectors for the Magistrate. This reality manifested itself in circumstances such as those since the Bunka era, when European international relations grew increasingly complex: though vessels entering port under Dutch flags included American, Danish, Russian, and Bremen ships, in truth only the Nagasaki interpreters discerned their true nationalities.

These were Dutch-chartered vessels. However, though they were chartered vessels, these foreign ships consistently abandoned the Dutch flag and harbored rebellious intentions to establish independent trade with Japan. Particularly pronounced among the newly emergent American vessels, ships like the American brig Eliza attempted to enter port without flying the Dutch flag on their second attempt only to be driven back, schemed to do so a third time and were expelled once more, ultimately meeting their end in a shipwreck off the Philippines, never to rise again. Though this was not a Dutch-chartered ship, in May of Bunsei 1 (1818), a foreign vessel suddenly appeared in Edo Bay, startling Edo officials. It was the British merchant ship Brothers—a mere sixty-five-ton sailing vessel. Likely the first ship to penetrate Edo Bay proper, it stood as a truly unprecedented vessel. This private ship, devoid of any political mandate from its homeland and having brazenly bypassed Nagasaki to reach Edo, boldly declared its desire to trade with Japan's permission—a moment I consider pivotal in the history of foreign ships' arrivals.

Of course, the Brothers was driven back. Records remain of the senior councilors’ movements regarding the disposition of this sixty-five-ton sailing vessel, but Captain Gordon, taken aback, withdrew in haste. However, records state that during the mere day and night that the Brothers lay anchored at Uraga, local farmers and townspeople “eager to trade sundries” so crowded the ship’s deck that, when combined with those surrounding the vessel, their numbers exceeded two thousand.

Outlandish ships gradually increased in number. From the Bunsei era through Tenpō era, even counting only the American and British whaling ships that washed ashore along Japan’s coast, they were “countless.” As previously noted, from late Bunka into Bunsei had been a period when American fishermen shifted their operational bases from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Moreover, those pursuing whales across the undeveloped Pacific were not limited to American fishermen. By Kōka 3 (1846), when the French warship *Cléopâtre* appeared off Nagasaki Harbor seeking friendly relations with Japan, its formal request included the clause: “Should any French whaling vessels drift ashore, we ask for lenient treatment”—from which one might reasonably infer that French whalers too must have existed. At any rate, the Pacific remained virgin territory. In Bunsei 8 (1825), though naturally prompted directly by these “outlandish ships”’ arrivals—and surely causing immense difficulties—the shogunate issued its “Edict to Repel Foreign Ships.” In Bunsei 5 (1822)—though by what channels Japan’s protests reached them remains unclear—the U.S. government went so far as to pass a congressional resolution admonishing its own whaling companies.

Unfortunately, as I had not thoroughly examined the records of American whaling ships’ driftings—limiting it to British whaling ships alone—the instances were as follows: Bunsei 5 (1822): one ship in Edo Bay; Bunsei 6 (1823): six or seven ships off Hitachi Province; Bunsei 7 (1824): two ships again off Hitachi Province; the same year: one ship off Satsuma’s coast; Bunsei 8 (1825): three ships along Nambu Domain’s shores; Bunsei 9 (1826): one ship off Kazusa Province’s Mōta; and Tenpō 2 (1831): one ship off Ezo’s Etomo. If we were to add America—the primary actor—along with France and others, the number of ships drifting ashore along Japan’s coast would likely have amounted to several dozen cases annually.

Moreover, by their very nature, these ships disregarded both Nagasaki in the south and Matsumae in the north. Nagasaki’s inspectors? They were ones that even the Dutch trading post could not foresee in advance. To illustrate how they arrived, consider the whaling ships that appeared off Hitachi Province in Bunsei 6 and 7. Six or seven foreign vessels, utterly lacking provisions and water, communicated through gestures while exchanging European sundries for rice and tobacco with Mito fishermen working nearby offshore. The fishermen were cordially invited aboard the foreign ships and marveled at the exotic foreign customs and goods, but rumors swiftly spread from the fishing villages to the towns, prompting merchants seeking to trade through the fishermen to emerge one after another. The Mito domain office, alarmed, arrested over three hundred merchants and fishermen; however, perhaps having obtained their provisions and water, the foreign ships soon vanished from offshore. However, when two whaling ships drifted ashore the following year and could no longer obtain water and supplies through trade with Japanese fishermen, they landed at Ōtsuhama with four boats; though the sixteen men were armed, they were apprehended by Mito domain officials. Later, through investigation, it was determined that their only intent was to resupply provisions, so they were released; however, there was reportedly a commotion when the main ship waiting offshore began firing cannons at one point. In the same year, in Takarajima of Satsuma Domain as well, British fishermen who had come ashore showed firewater, bread, coins, and the like, demanding cows in the fields; when refused, this time twenty men in three boats made an armed landing and attempted to seize the cows under covering cannon fire from their main ship. However, due to the counterattack by the Satsuma Domain officials, they failed to achieve their objective and retreated, leaving behind an abandoned corpse.—

In other words, the purpose of these drifting ships was inherently simple. They would have been satisfied as long as they could resupply with provisions and water; beyond that, at best, they would have given their own country’s sundries in exchange for some exotic Japanese goods to take home as souvenirs. Even if their hair and eye colors differed, even if they shared no common language, people without political intentions always found it easy to befriend one another. Moreover, given that it is not difficult to imagine there must have been numerous such incidents—unrecorded—along Japan’s coast from Ezo in the north to Ryukyu in the south, the influence these ships exerted upon the people of the closed nation during this era must have been by no means insignificant.

In that sense as well, the "Morrison Incident" of Tenpō 8 (1837), which subsequently occurred, was significant. This famous incident involved a group headed by Charles King, an executive of the American Oriental Company, along with linguist and missionary Gützlaff, naturalist Wells Williams, and physician-astronomer Peter Parker. As for what the true purpose of the Morrison was—historians state that while its direct aim lay in repatriating several Japanese castaways (Iwakichi, Kyūkichi, and Otojirō from Owari; Shōzō and Jūsaburō from Higo) to gain Japan’s goodwill, its indirect intent was to harbor an ulterior motive for opening trade. If merely repatriating castaways would have sufficed in Nagasaki, their avoidance of doing so and heading instead for Edo Bay—this too is considered one of the reasons, such as their apprehension over interference from the Dutch trading post.

But in any case, this ship was exceptional.

To demonstrate their peaceful mission, the Morrison had all its armaments removed; Parker carried various medical instruments, pharmaceuticals, as well as astronomical apparatuses and diagrams, while Williams prepared materials pertaining to natural history. In other words, while the Morrison had been prepared out of the commercial ambitions of the Oriental Company—which had only recently solidified its foundation in China at that time—on the surface it could be said to have been for the repatriation of castaways and, simultaneously, the introduction and dissemination of European academic knowledge. As for the details of the Morrison’s mission, the shogunate council remained entirely unaware until a report from the head of the Dutch trading post reached the Nagasaki Magistrate the following year. The Morrison, which had headed toward Edo Bay, came under fire from the Odawara and Kawagoe domains as soon as it approached Shirahama off Miura District and was forced to retreat. After dropping anchor again near Korumizu Village in Satsuma Province, they came under fire here as well—one shot struck home, bringing them to the brink of danger—and thus they ultimately returned to Macau empty-handed. A certain historian states that had the Morrison entered Nagasaki Harbor without commercial ambitions, there would have been no issue. Of course, there is no disputing that point, but I believe the imprudence of entering Edo Bay’s prohibited waters stemmed not merely from avoiding interference by the Dutch trading post—there was an air of naive boldness akin to how the sixty-five-ton Brothers had nonchalantly arrived, born from confidence in their own culture. By the mid-nineteenth century, European civilization had reached the coasts of India and China through invasion and colonization. Not only was the ship outfitted by a single company with its crew strictly limited to scholars and technicians, but even superficially speaking, a vessel arriving from the West with such objectives stood without precedent.

It is said that Mizuno Echizen-no-kami, the chief senior councilor, learned of the Morrison’s purpose through a report from the head of the Dutch trading post via the Nagasaki Magistrate in the following year and consulted the judicial council, asking, “Should foreign vessels approach Edo Bay under similar circumstances in the future, how should we handle them?” Since ships repatriating castaways had been commonplace since Spangberg’s time, might not Mizuno’s inquiry have been inherently troubled by the focus on “Edo Bay” and the Morrison’s ostensibly “peaceful” purpose? This secretly deliberated matter then leaked from within the judicial council to Toh Watanabe, the Tahara Domain elder. Subsequently, Watanabe Kazan composed *Shinkiron* (“On Prudent Opportunity”) and Takano Chōei wrote *Yume Monogatari* (“Dream Tale”), culminating in what became known as the Bansha Persecution—as all are well aware. In short, the public reaction to the Morrison Incident stirred unexpected repercussions; though the “Revised Edict for Repulsion” was issued the year after Watanabe Kazan’s suicide, even this measure failed to alleviate the shogunate council’s agonized deliberations.

To open the country or not? The powers of various nations led by Britain were advancing eastward, reaching the Chinese mainland, their momentum poised to strike Japan's coast at any moment. Moreover, domestic preparations remained insufficient for autonomous opening, while above all, the tradition of national isolation established since Iemitsu's reign stood unshakable. And a mere six years after repelling the Morrison, in June of Kōka 1 (1844), the Dutch warship Palembang—Japan's first glimpse of a steam-powered warship—appeared in Nagasaki.

The *Palembang* carried the Dutch King’s “opening recommendation” missive. In Holland’s true intent behind urging Japan to open its country likely lay this: they had lost their capacity within Europe’s international power structure to maintain Japan as an exclusive client by confronting other nations, and instead sought to encourage openness aligned with the tides of the time—through such amicable relations aiming to secure a favorable position if not privileged status as before. However, after anchoring in Nagasaki for five months, the steam warship *Palembang* ultimately had no choice but to withdraw empty-handed.

The "edict" that arrived from Edo essentially stated: "We deem your opening recommendation unnecessary. Our longstanding policy has been to conduct trade exclusively with your nation; furthermore, we wish to clarify that even this trade with your country does not constitute diplomatic relations, and we earnestly hope there will be no misunderstanding on this matter." It was truly a response that left no opening for discussion. The Palembang had no choice but to leave behind the gifts from the King of Holland at Dejima in Nagasaki and withdraw; however, the process by which the shogunate council arrived at this response does not appear to have been so straightforward itself. Mr. Tokutomi Sohō describes the circumstances of this time in his work *Yoshida Shōin* as follows: "Rather than being compelled by others to open the country, we should proactively return to the framework of the Keichō and Genna eras—bolstering our already crumbling domestic morale while adopting a long-term, proactive strategy externally," Senior Councilor Mizuno declared. Thus Mizuno opened a council meeting before Shogun Ieyoshi and advocated his proposal, but when Ieyoshi ultimately rejected it, Mizuno shouted vehemently: "Since we have resolved upon national isolation thus, let the very notion of ‘opening’ be sealed away in the official chambers for all eternity! Never speak of it again! Do all present here truly possess such resolve?" At this, Abe Ise-no-kami—the second senior councilor and Ieyoshi’s most trusted advisor—responded with tears welling in both eyes, hands pressed against his knees: "I understand every particular." ——

That was truly a profoundly meaningful dramatic scene. In this sparse exchange between Mizuno Echizen-no-kami and Abe Ise-no-kami—two chief councilors who represented the final years of the Edo period from Tenpō to Ansei—the tribulations of a complex and tumultuous age seemed to find symbolic expression. I believe that the arrival of the Palembang marked, so to speak, the culmination of the first phase in the history of foreign ship visits since Spangberg’s arrival. Moreover, the second phase began immediately, with the incoming waves growing ever larger and fiercer; by this time—October of Kōka 1 (1844), when the steam warship arrived—Sanzō was already twenty-one years old and serving as a "junior interpreter trainee." Given both his official duties and being honed by the Dutch books in his family’s collection since childhood—this young Sanzō, who had already "opened his eyes to the world in his boyhood"—what thoughts must he have harbored⁈

Movable Type and Ships

I

Now, amidst such strained foreign relations, Sanzō’s achievement of creating modern movable type began when he was twenty-five years old. Five years after the Dutch warship *Palembang*—bearing an envoy to recommend opening the country to the shogunate—had been repelled, the *Western Studies Chronicle* records: "Nagasaki interpreter Sanzō Motoki, along with Kinosuke Kitamura, Tōbei Shinagawa, and Sadakichirō Narabayashi, deliberated and purchased lead movable type from Holland." “There is also an annotation stating: ‘—According to the Narabayashi Family Records: 6 kan and 400 me of silver; a set of Dutch book typesetting molds; borrowed under the names of the aforementioned four individuals—submitted to the government office on the 29th day of the 12th month of Kaei 1 (1848).’”

Even though we know the silver amounted to 6 kan and 400 me, there was no way to determine the price of imported type at that time since details like quantity remained unclear. From extant materials such as *Dutch Grammar Syntax*, we could discern there were two sizes of type—likely italic and pica fonts—but the exact contents of what was termed “a full set of typesetting molds” remained unclear. In modern terms, “a full set of typesetting molds” would mean it excluded printing presses and their accessories—referring solely to type-manufacturing tools—but examining this achievement through *Printing Civilization History* revealed lingering ambiguity. Though not explicitly stated, this was because Sanzō and his colleagues’ purchase at that time consisted solely of a “full set of typesetting molds”—just as seven years later, under shogunate orders, the Nagasaki Magistrate’s Office would establish a printing bureau.

However, whether the "full set of typesetting molds" included a printing press was not particularly significant. Within seven years, the shogunate could likely have placed additional orders for printing presses alone with the Dutch ships that arrived annually, and since there might have been at least one printing press at the Dejima trading post, they could have borrowed it. In any case, these were the facts: that modern lead type had been purchased through a Japanese individual's ingenuity; that three to four years before the shogunate established a printing bureau, this acquired type had inspired the creation of Japanese "cast type"; and that through this Japanese type, one volume of *Rangwa Tsūben* had been printed.

In Japan’s printing history—from the *Dharani Sutra* of Yamato Hōryūji Temple onward, through woodblock, copperplate (though the original plates of the *Dharani Sutra* are said to have been copper), and carved copper or wood type—the “cast lead type” of Kaei 4 (1851) was a pioneering achievement that truly marked a new epoch. At this time, it remained unclear who among the four had been the primary advocate for the purchase. However, Ōtsuki Joden wrote: “Sanzō—having read Dutch books and been impressed by both the clarity of their letterforms and the ingenuity of their printing techniques—resolved to establish a movable-type printing enterprise. He gathered like-minded individuals and formally acquired Dutch movable type through official procedures.” And there remained, of course, no room for doubt that it had been not the four men but Sanzō alone who, over the several years following the purchase, created the “cast type” and printed *Rangwa Tsūben*.

Moreover, in his work *Motoki and Hirano: A Detailed Biography*, Mr. Yukichi Tamiya records that Sanzō Motoki’s motivation for purchasing Dutch movable type stemmed from an incident where he received and read a biography of Flauwrens Yanko Koster—the Dutch inventor of movable type—from a Dutchman. Whether Mr. Tamiya’s account was mere hearsay or grounded in verifiable sources—I lacked the capacity to judge. However, even if it were simply a Nagasaki legend, it remained eminently credible. The Dutch prided themselves on Flauwrens Yanko Koster as the world’s first creator of lead type around 1440 CE—some fifteen years before Germany’s Gutenberg—making it entirely natural that Koster’s name would reach someone like Sanzō, an interpreter innately fascinated by science, through Holland—then Japan’s sole European trading partner.

Moreover, the following two anecdotes—one each from Koster and Sanzō—prove intriguing in how they appear to illuminate this connection. One day, Koster picked up a wood chip that had fallen in his garden and idly carved his initials in relief; finding it too wasteful to discard, he wrapped it in paper and tossed it into a corner of the room. Then much later, when he casually handled that paper bundle and unwrapped it, he discovered—to his utter astonishment—that the characters from the wood chip had transferred clearly onto the paper. Or so the story goes—

The second anecdote, still famous among Sanzō’s achievements today, recounts how he once melted a small portion of purchased Dutch movable type in a pot, removed the sword at his waist, and poured the molten metal into the inlaid decoration of its menuki. After waiting for the lead to cool, he flipped it over to find the menuki’s inlaid decoration had formed a concave mold, its pattern now clearly transferred onto the lead. At this, Sanzō let out a loud cry and summoned his family—so the story goes. These two anecdotes, separated by East and West, not only share something in common but also reveal that the latter was far more deliberate compared to the former. In Koster’s case, it was a serendipitous beginning toward wooden movable type; in Sanzō’s case, there was a deliberate anticipation toward cast type. Moreover, one senses that the latter anecdote may have been influenced by the former.

However, anecdotes of this kind become legends with an artistic universality and value when a certain purity of scientific spirit coalesces with life’s contingencies to shape fortuitous events—but they do not necessarily explain the actual inventions of Koster or Sanzō. In Holland too, there had been wooden movable type before Koster. Moreover, not a single definitive lead type created by Koster remains today. Since no printed books exist that can definitively be attributed to Koster, the world’s printing historians are said to have ultimately bestowed that laurel upon Gutenberg. Yet facts remain: early fifteenth-century Dutch antiquarian books containing typographic sections; legends of a worker who stole type from Koster’s factory and settled in Mainz, Gutenberg’s German birthplace; and Holland’s divergent trajectory in the spread of modern printing technology across Europe following Gutenberg’s invention. Thus Yanko Koster—though perhaps a fictional figure—remains, five centuries later, a man who cannot be erased from history. Today’s printing historians are aware that the figure known as Yanko Koster is undoubtedly a Dutch creation. Moreover, it is likely that several facts remaining in the Dutch printing world, along with various unrecorded elements, support and sustain this [legend]. Moreover, this Koster biography not only influenced Sanzō—who was no fictional creation—but also marked the very beginning of modern movable type’s arrival in a corner of Japan.

We must keep in mind that this was Kaei 1—1848 in the Western calendar. With this awareness as our foundation, we should recognize that when tracing back four centuries through Western printing history—to Gutenberg’s invention in 1455—the preceding era of wooden movable type lasted only twenty or thirty years. The creator of that wooden movable type was Italy’s Castaldi. Castaldi served as a scribe in a Turkish government when he discovered an Oriental woodblock-printed book among Marco Polo’s souvenirs brought back from China, taking inspiration from it to invent wooden movable type. This occurred in 1426. In other words, a mere twenty-nine years passed before Gutenberg’s 1455 invention.

This was truly astonishing. In Japan, since the Dharani Sutra, woodblock and copperplate printing had spanned over a thousand years; wooden movable type had endured for more than two centuries since the Tokugawa period began; and Sanzō's era naturally followed this tradition. When considering China and Korea, their histories of woodblock printing were even more ancient. Yet in the West, the age of wooden movable type had lasted a mere twenty-nine years. Castaldi—who marveled upon learning that Marco Polo's Chinese souvenir was a woodblock print—had bypassed woodblocks entirely to directly create wooden movable type. Was this not equally astonishing? Europe's movable type consisted of twenty-six characters. Using wooden type proved far more practical than woodblock printing there.

Let us consider this fact alongside the history of how wooden movable type—which arose in Japan inspired by the copper type that Toyotomi Hideyoshi brought back from Korea—soon declined and reverted to woodblock printing. In Japan, by the mid-Tokugawa period, publications flourished and print runs increased; however, under such circumstances, woodblock printing became more practical than wooden movable type. The first reason was that with woodblock printing, reprints were possible. At the time when paper matrix techniques did not exist, wooden movable type had to be newly typeset each time for a reprint. Did this not illustrate the very circumstance through Matsudaira Rakuō’s confiscation of the woodblocks for *Military Discourse for a Maritime Nation*? Secondly, woodblock printing was far easier and moreover produced more beautiful prints. The printing method of rubbing with a baren was ill-suited to the partial unevenness of wooden movable type. Thirdly, the complex-stroked Japanese characters were prone to wear, and with character types far exceeding ten thousand, each new typesetting required producing a vast number of fresh ones—nearly equivalent to carving new woodblocks every time—while old and new wooden type pieces inevitably varied in height. In other words, the complexity of Japanese characters pulled them back into the realm of woodblock printing, but the Italians who saw Chinese woodblock books immediately set about creating wooden movable type. Just as Castaldi had created wooden movable type, twenty-nine years later, the Germans abruptly created lead-based "cast type". Their alphabet consisted of twenty-six characters.

The printing civilization of Europe was influenced by Chinese civilization. The method of paper-making was also taught by Mongol soldiers who invaded Europe. Therefore, it is said that all old European books followed the Chinese style. Though I have never seen them myself, single-sided printing, pouch-style binding, and the use of sumi ink are all cited as evidence of this. It is common knowledge that Polo sowed these seeds of Chinese culture. This great traveler famously joined Venice's fleet against Genoa after returning home, was captured, and wrote *The Travels of Marco Polo* during his imprisonment. The *Printing Civilization History* describes how "Italy seemed buried under Polo's books" at the time, though being late thirteenth-century manuscripts, their circulation remained limited. Not until a century and a half later—after Castaldi's wooden type and Koster and Gutenberg's lead type emerged, and *The Travels* itself became a printed book around 1470–1480—did Polo's fabrication about "Japan: an island nation in the eastern ocean... with inexhaustible gold" sweep through Europe and electrify the Western Hemisphere.

When one considers it, the woodblocks of the Orient went to the West and turned to gold, only to return to Japan five centuries later. And the primary reason wood transformed into gold was undoubtedly because European characters were simple. Gutenberg was a noble of Mainz and a merchant who handled rings and polished mirrors. Since engraving techniques for rings and casting methods using molds had already advanced by this era, today's printing historians conclude that his inspiration must have originated there.

Even in the West, modern type matrix production through electrotyping did not begin until the nineteenth century. Electrolysis—the so-called "Faraday’s Law"—had to be established before this technique could be perfected. Thus for four centuries since Gutenberg, type manufacturing via the "pouring method" persisted primarily because alphabets had twenty-six characters—lacking the complex strokes of kanji. Therefore, even if Kirishitan type from the Keichō era had remained intact in Nagasaki, how far could it have advanced?

I thought how copperplate techniques like Rembrandt's had come from that same Holland through Shiba Kōkan in Tenmei 3—1783 in the Western calendar, over sixty years before Motoki acquired his complete set of type matrices. While Japan's copperplate printing had flourished steadily since Kōkan's time, with masters like Yōshiatsu emerging, Motoki's cast type still required more than twenty years of development despite his painstaking efforts. When I considered it all, Western printing technology's arrival seemed both belated and premature.

II

Motoki’s first “cast type” was provisionally completed in Kaei 4 (1851), three years after acquiring the “complete set of type matrices.” And it is said that *Ranwa Tsūben* was printed using that “cast type” for Japanese characters alongside imported Dutch type. It can be surmised that Motoki’s production method for “cast type” followed the same approach as the hand-casting devices used by Janco Koster or Gutenberg. In essence, the process involved first carving a convex master punch (also called a matrix punch or embossing tool) into a metal plate, striking this into another metal to create a concave matrix, then pouring lead into this matrix to obtain a convex type piece. However, due to complex character strokes or inadequate technical skill, traces suggest they attempted to bypass creating the master punch altogether, instead directly carving concave matrices to produce cast type. According to Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography*, it is explained roughly as follows: a two-part clasping mold with a hole in the center matching the type’s dimensions. At the base of this casting mold lay a horizontally placed concave matrix—the female die. Molten lead would be scooped with a ladle and poured in; after cooling, the clasping mold was split open to remove the type. The bottom of each piece was then planed down to achieve uniform height—such was the process described. These operations themselves were not particularly difficult, but what metal constituted the matrices? Even Mr. Tamiya’s explanations as an expert remain unclear on this point. While records state that wooden type was initially used as matrices for the female dies, neither boxwood nor cherry wood could withstand lead’s high temperatures—a failure we already knew from Kihē Kimura’s case. In another work, *The Struggles of Japan’s Movable Type Pioneers*, Mr. Tamiya posits that Motoki likely used carvings on water buffalo horn at this time—a theory likely closest to the truth. The matrices crafted by Motoki now housed in the Imperial Household Museum are carved in steel, but these date from several years later during the Ansei era. Experts have determined that the casting molds preserved at Nagasaki’s Suwa Shrine do not originate from the Kaei period either; regardless, what material formed the body of Motoki’s “cast type” matrices during Kaei remains unknown.

The history of human scientific development was said to lie in the discovery of metals and the understanding of their properties. In Kaei 3 (1850), Tarōzaemon Egawa, the magistrate of Izu, built a reverberatory furnace in Nirayama and attempted to melt iron, which required heat exceeding 1,300 degrees Celsius. Since ancient times, the iron used for swords and blades had been forged using bellows, though this process had not yet been fully understood in logical terms. The "blowing method" for copper had emerged quite organically, while antimony—essential for lead type—still lay undiscovered in the mountains of Japan during this era. Under such conditions, many metals remained undeveloped, and furthermore, their circulation under the feudal system proved inefficient. Even with some knowledge from Dutch texts, Sanzō Motoki likely harbored frustration at being unable to achieve his goals; moreover, circumstances like Kihē Kimura in Edo having to conduct research secretly in a room lit by lamps in broad daylight—though interpreters enjoyed certain privileges—were by no means trivial matters.

In any case, according to printing historians' accounts, within what we today would imagine as an atmosphere of extraordinary difficulty, some quantity of type was created; several copies of *Ranwa Tsūben* were printed; *Ranwa Tsūben* was even sent to Holland proper; and several years later this became Sanzō's motivation to send a Japanese character type specimen book to Holland—but now, what were the first Japanese characters Sanzō created? No type from that time survives today, and *Ranwa Tsūben* can no longer be seen. Of course, it exists in no library—they say not even in Nagasaki anymore. Therefore, the only thing I can now rely on are the responses from those who had seen it in the past—responses that Mr. Tamiya managed to verify regarding *Ranwa Tsūben*'s whereabouts in his *Detailed Biography*.

Mr. Jūrō Koga “*Ranwa Tsūben* was a work in which Sanzō Motoki arranged imported Dutch type on the left and his own created katakana characters on the right to translate Dutch texts. It used senka paper, and while it remains unclear whether the cover was black paper or cloth, it was undeniably bound in black covers—a crudely made book of about one hundred pages in Mino yotsugiri format.” Mr. Eijirō Fukushima (proprietor of Nagasaki Kyōeikan Bookstore)

“About four or five years ago, I obtained two rare copies of *Ranwa Tsūben*, but sold them to several people.” “The book had black covers, with contents printed using English type and Japanese katakana type—a thin volume of around a hundred pages in Mino yotsugiri format.”

Mr. Seishichirō Konishi (proprietor of a bookstore in Tokyo’s Kikuzaka-chō) “*Ranwa Tsūben* was in my store two or three years ago, but it’s no longer there.” “I distinctly remember selling it for two yen and sixty sen.” “The book was in Mino yotsugiri format, with contents printed in crude type mixed with katakana.”

Mr. Yonejirō Waseda (proprietor of a Nagasaki antique store)

“*Ranwa Tsūben* had black covers—what we now call shirokuban size.” “The contents were printed on ledger paper from old account books, with foreign characters and Japan’s messy katakana type—a shoddy book.” “I sold one copy to someone four or five years ago.” (—The rest omitted—)

Mr. Tamiya’s survey was conducted in September of Shōwa 7 (1932). Since this was exactly ten years ago, as long as Mr. Tamiya’s account could be trusted, many of these individuals were likely still alive at that time. And furthermore, if one were to trust these witnesses’ testimonies, that precious book—the first in Japan created using cast type—must still have existed somewhere in this country then. The shabby volume with black covers in Mino yotsugiri format must have been surviving somewhere in Japan at that moment, its pages slowly being consumed by insects.

And judging from the consistency in these people's testimonies, it appears that the first type Sanzō Motoki created was katakana. Kihē Kimura had first produced twenty-six foreign characters under Shimazu Nariakira's orders. Motoki devised the fifty-sound katakana syllabary through his own ingenuity. While the exact printing method for *Ranwa Tsūben* remains unclear beyond the type itself, given that when the Nagasaki Magistrate's Office later established a printing facility it was recorded that "press printing spread through Nagasaki," we may surmise that Motoki—then a twenty-eight-year-old youth—must have laboriously arranged imported alphabet type alongside his katakana characters, rubbing each page by hand alone. He likely cut the paper himself, bound the volumes himself, and secretly distributed these "black-covered" books to his acquaintances.

"Ranwa Tsūben had even taken on a somewhat legendary aura." His katakana type was described as "crude." But what clues could Sanzō have possibly possessed to create Japanese type in that era of underdeveloped science? History, they say, admits no miracles. In Gutenberg’s case—just as legend tells of a ring inspiring his type design—the wine presses of Germany’s Rhine region had provided the model for his printing machine; hence even today we call hand-operated presses by that name. The tens of thousands of Chinese radicals and their intricate strokes would have been nearly insurmountable within the technical limits of cast-type methods. In time, even Motoki’s comrades from those early days of acquiring typesetting tools—Konosuke Kitamura, Tōbee Shinagawa, Sadakichirō Narabayashi—all faded from type history’s records.

However, when three years had passed since *Ranwa Tsūben*—reaching Ansei 2 (1855)—the type purchased by Motoki and his colleagues had, in its own right, compiled a record. In the sixth month of the same year, Nagasaki Magistrate Arao Iwami-no-kami submitted a document titled "Proposal for Printing Dutch Books Using Movable Type" to Senior Councilor Abe Ise-no-kami. "1. While demand for Western books has grown notably in recent years, their supply remains inadequate. 2. Though the Dutch interpreters have diligently pursued their hereditary studies with great enthusiasm, their training remained insufficient due to the lack of Dutch texts. 3. Regarding the movable type brought by the Dutch in previous years—which the interpreters had taken into custody with permission from the former Nagasaki Magistrate—we propose purchasing it with public funds, testing printing operations at the magistrate’s office, and selling copies through the Nagasaki association to public volunteers for societal benefit." Such was the content of the proposal.

"The movable type brought by the Dutch"—this statement referred to the type that Motoki and his colleagues had ordered. While this document makes it appear as though Motoki's group had fortuitously acquired the so-called "full set of typesetting tools" that happened to arrive from overseas, such an interpretation would be mistaken given the era's prohibition on private foreign trade. In any event, based on this proposal from the Nagasaki Magistrate, Abe Ise-no-kami approved the measure in August of that year. The Nagasaki Magistrate appointed Motoki as supervisor of type printing operations and established a printing factory within the coastal Nishi Government Office. Historical records note that a Dutchman named Indermaur was present at this time within the Nishi Government Office to impart instruction on Western printing techniques.

In June of Ansei 3 (1856), 528 copies of the Dutch grammar book *Syntaxis* were printed and published; one copy was submitted to the shogunate’s astronomy bureau, while the remaining copies were sold to the general public by the Nagasaki association at two bu per copy. In the fourth year [of Ansei] (1857), *An Elementary English Grammar* was printed and published; in Bunkyū 1 (1861), the printing factory was relocated within Dejima’s trading post, leading to the publication of Siebold’s *Open Brieven uit Japan* and, in the following year (1862), Pompe van Meerdervoort’s *Genesmiddelleer*. Even when viewed in photographs, these books remain Western works containing no Japanese type whatsoever. In other words, they were foreign books manufactured in Japan. Siebold’s so-called “Dejima edition” and Pompe’s medical texts represented splendid printing for their era, yet the complete absence of Japanese type in these domestically produced Western books suggests Motoki’s “cast type” either remained too crude for press printing or existed in quantities too meager for use in formal grammar texts.

I cannot know whether Indermaur was a professional typesetter. However, it appears this typesetter performed no type casting using the electrotyping method whatsoever. This situation clearly demonstrates that the Nagasaki Magistrate's printing factory had to procure all type from Holland, ultimately leading to its discontinuation due to unprofitability—yet it remains puzzling that someone styled a typesetter did not even recast Western type, which would have been relatively straightforward. He likely possessed no more than a modest degree of knowledge and experience, would you not agree? Therefore, even Sanzō Motoki—who as printing supervisor must have worked closely with him—likely learned nothing substantial from this Dutchman, one imagines. The Nagasaki Magistrate's Printing Factory's contribution to Japanese printing technology was likely due primarily to implementing actual "press-style printing."

As recorded in *History of Printing Civilization*: "Even within the private sector, Western-style movable type printing gradually came to be practiced, and books mixing Western characters, kanji, and kana came to be published." Publications such as *Newest Japanese-English Common Phrases Collection* published by Kōhachi Shiota in Ansei 6 (1859) and *Primer of Barbarian Languages* published by Bunji Masunaga in Man'en 1 (1860) belong to the lineage of private movable type editions. It is said to be so, but needless to say, the kanji and kana in these books were either wood type or woodblock. In other words, they had merely replaced the traditional hand-rubbing method with press printing, and even this press-style printing does not appear to have spread far beyond the limited confines of Nagasaki.

Even so, when we recall the Western printing technology that had been expelled from this very land of Nagasaki over two hundred years ago, we could not help but feel a renewed sense of poignancy. The same shogunate that had once banished it alongside the "Kirishitan" now found itself compelled to welcome it back. "Western books made in Japan" had to be reprinted under the designation of being "in significant demand yet insufficiently supplied." Siebold’s "Dejima edition" came to be treasured not only by ambitious Japanese youths visiting Nagasaki but also by Edo students, while Pompe’s medical texts had to be fashioned into textbooks for pupils at Seitokukan—the shogunate-approved school established within Nagasaki’s Daitoku-ji temple.

Western books made in Japan. "The 'movable type of Edo' began with the alphabet." When considering how students of that era would brush-write Japanese characters alongside Western type in their ledger-style textbooks—an act so modest it borders on legend—the significance and historicity of Sanzō Motoki's Japanese katakana "cast type" becomes clear. The Nagasaki Magistrate's Printing Office pioneered modern printing technology in Japan, with "press printing" establishing a fledgling tradition from this period onward—but why did the shogunate feel compelled to produce "Western books made in Japan" and urgently assimilate European civilization, preparing for both cultural and military fronts? The answer lay unquestionably in the pressing political circumstances stretching from the Kaei-era Black Ships to the Ansei-era port openings.

III

“—The foreign ships were prepared with a disposition and state of morale indicating an emergency posture; not only the receiving officers, but even the assembled foreigners showed murderous countenances, leading me to perceive that their true intent was to force through their demands against our will.” “Moreover, as Uraga’s esteemed military preparations are insufficient, should we receive their national documents under pressure from their martial might, it would result in national disgrace—therefore, there is no alternative but to manage affairs as peacefully as possible—” June 3, Kaei 6 (July 8, 1853 in the Western calendar)—this passage from Uraga Magistrate Toda Izu-no-kami’s report to Senior Councilor Abe Ise-no-kami regarding four American warships reveals, upon repeated reading, the intricate foreign affairs confronting the shogunate at that time; it was a rather painstakingly crafted document.

The appearance of American steam-powered warships in our Edo Bay was not the first occurrence. As mentioned earlier, eight years after the American Oriental Society’s chartered ship Morrison had been bombarded in Edo and Kagoshima and forced to withdraw—in Kōka 2 (1845)—Commodore James Biddle of the U.S. East India Squadron, holding the same command that Perry would later assume, arrived in Japan. Though this too had been an action based on orders from the U.S. Secretary of the Navy at the time, since Biddle’s mission was solely to ascertain “whether Japan had any intention of engaging in trade,” he obediently withdrew upon encountering the shogunate’s refusal.

Thus, when they are renowned historically as the "Black Ships of Kaei" or "Perry’s Arrival," it is not due to the ships’ form or their entering Edo Bay while bypassing Nagasaki, but rather because of what America’s intentions entailed—as described in the Uraga Magistrate’s report: "menacing countenances and their underlying resolve to force through demands against our will." It differed from the sixty-ton British merchant ship Brothers, which had slipped into the prohibited Edo Bay only to be driven back; from the Russian envoys Laxman and Rezanov, whose missions resembled trade petitions; and from the Palembang’s “opening recommendation.” It was, in other words, a "trade demand" imposed through military might that disregarded both tradition and legal protocols.

It was truly a grave crisis for the homeland of Japan.

As for the detailed circumstances surrounding this matter, there are already numerous books by experts, and particularly regarding the complex domestic situation of the time, it is surely not our place to intervene. To state only what is certain: Upon receiving the Uraga Magistrate’s report, senior councilors, three magistrates, and even inspectors were immediately summoned, and an emergency council was convened. Yet by the fifth day, no resolution had been reached. Shogun Ieyoshi lay gravely ill, and Senior Councilor Abe too was “unable to contain his distress.” Ultimately, a letter was sent to Mito Nariaki to solicit his opinion, and it was “concluded by setting the time of assembly for the sixth day.” Given that this occurred on the afternoon of the fifth day, one can imagine the urgency of the situation. While Deputy Shogun Nariaki’s hardline foreign policy was of course evident, on the evening of the seventh day, Ise-no-kami visited Nariaki at his Komagome residence. According to records, at this time, “Nariaki also openly presented his views—such as capturing those four warships—but through Ise-no-kami’s explanation, he seemed to realize the impossibility of implementation.” Regrettably, one can imagine the extent of our naval knowledge and coastal defenses at the time.

The shogunate reluctantly adopted a policy of peace. On June 9th, Perry came ashore at Uraga Port accompanied by salutes fired from his steam warship. Guarded by four hundred armed marines, he entered the hastily erected reception hall where he met with Uraga Magistrate Toda Izu-no-kami and delivered the President’s personal letter. On the 10th, the four warships advanced into Edo Bay as far as Kannonzaki, demonstrating intimidation by measuring firing distances before finally departing Japanese waters on the 12th.

Of course, the President’s personal letter and Perry’s “memorial” consisted of two demands: first, improvements in Japan’s treatment of whaling ships and other American castaways; second, trade—with an insistence on receiving a response before their return the following year. The shogunate’s edict that Toda Izu-no-kami read aloud to Perry was not only delicate in content but remarkably modernized in style compared to previous documents, employing far more hiragana. “This location is not designated for foreign engagements; you must proceed to Nagasaki. Though we have repeatedly admonished you, you persist in this mission with unyielding resolve that violates diplomatic propriety. While we recognize your unavoidable circumstances as envoys, our national laws too cannot be lightly disregarded. This time alone—considering your hardships—we shall exceptionally accept your documents. However, as this is not an authorized port of reception, no formal response shall follow. Fully comprehend this intent, complete your mission, and depart promptly.” As previously discussed in the history of foreign ship arrivals, accepting state documents anywhere outside Nagasaki or Matsumae was undeniably unprecedented.

The first arrival of the Black Ships lasted barely ten days, but with Perry’s anticipated return looming, even among the senior councilors, opinions splintered. Mito Nariaki confronted Abe, declaring, “Though a thousand horsemen be reduced to one...” He proclaimed that a grand decree to expel the barbarians must be issued throughout the realm. The coastal defense superintendents Tsutsui Hizen-no-kami and Kawaji Saemon-no-jo countered: “When opening hostilities with foreign nations, it is customary that conflicts cannot be concluded swiftly. Thus, the quantities of cannonballs and gunpowder required—both large and small—would be immense. Therefore, hastily promulgating a grand decree now would be ill-advised.” They added: “Regarding Lord Mito’s intentions—we share not a shred of dissent. Yet after two centuries of peace, particularly lacking experience in naval warfare, even were we to commence battle now, no certainty of victory exists.” Egawa Tarōzaemon then proposed a “delaying tactic,” stating: “Given our defenses’ lamentable weakness—as the vulgar saying goes, ‘string them along’—we shall neither accept nor reject their petitions for five or even ten years. In this interval, we shall rigorously fortify our preparations, and only thereafter deliver our refusal.” Ultimately, the renowned councilor Ise-no-kami issued an extraordinary decree dubbed “harmony and war”—a policy of maintaining accord while readying for battle.

These records form the very foundation used by all modern historians who discuss the shogunate’s circumstances of that time. And even from these records alone, the following becomes clear. First, that Japan’s maritime domain was being threatened by steam-powered warships and long-barreled cannons; second, that Japan at that time was undeniably “insufficient in its esteemed military preparedness”; third, that while Nariaki, Kawaji, and Egawa were naturally in agreement on prioritizing national prestige above all else, they differed in their methods; and fourth, that Kawaji, Egawa, and others intended to complete modern military preparations capable of countering Perry during this “procrastination” period—these were the key points. Therefore, what we today must consider is this: Did Egawa and his faction truly believe that steam-powered warships and modern cannons capable of defeating Perry could be produced immediately—within such a brief span of time—while they were procrastinating? And did they truly believe this "procrastination" could be maintained for five or even ten years? No records clearly demonstrating this appear to remain today.

Mito Nariaki had declared: “Regarding this delaying tactic—while I acknowledge Your Lordship’s discernment—if such measures were feasible, I would raise no objection. Yet when foreign ships arrive, we descend into uproar, and once they depart, we neglect our defenses. Under such circumstances, delay becomes but an unavoidable stratagem for these times—” Yet even Nariaki clearly placed little faith in this “procrastination.” Behind these records lurked a subtle divergence—between those seeking to enhance national prestige through opening the country and others pursuing alternative means of achieving the same end. Exactly ten years prior, when the Palembang had arrived in Kōka 1 (1844), Senior Councilor Mizuno Echizen-no-kami had advocated “returning to the frameworks of Keichō and Genna eras, actively projecting national power abroad while bolstering domestic resolve,” only to be overruled. This pro-opening stance likely gained gradual traction within the shogunate council thereafter—fueled by increasingly frequent foreign ship arrivals, the swelling tide of overseas civilization, and domestic pressures like feudal economic strain. Though foreign accounts warrant skepticism, if we treat them as reference stones from other mountains, consider this: Goncharov—secretary to Russia’s diplomatic mission that reached Nagasaki in July of Kaei 6 (1853)—wrote thus in his *Voyage to Japan*:

"...One of the interpreters—I forget who—let slip that when Rezanov came, only two out of seven or eight senior councilors in Japan had supported foreign trade, but this time only two were opposed." I found no records confirming whether advocates for opening Japan existed within the shogunate council when Rezanov arrived—that was Bunka 1 [1804], a full fifty years prior. Perhaps there had been someone who preceded Mizuno Echizen-no-kami.

In any case, opinions advocating "opening the country" in the broadest sense—meaning "advancing abroad to expand national prestige" and "making overseas civilization our own"—appeared to have spread not only within the shogunate council but also among aspiring individuals of that era. The term “opening of the country” proved quite complex when used in political contexts of the time—even experts would have found it difficult to readily debate its merits. Yet there could be no doubt that interest in “opening” in its broadest sense, or rather in overseas matters, was remarkably strong. It seemed reasonable to conclude that this intensity stemmed at least in part from the cumulative impact of over a century’s worth of foreign ship arrivals since Spangberg’s time, as previously discussed. Moreover, while the fact that the beginning of “opening the country” commenced in the form of the “Black Ships’ arrival” was itself historically significant, it remained undeniably a crisis for our nation—an urgent and critical event that created complex ripples.

At this time, Sanzō was exactly thirty years old. It was the year after he printed *Rangwa Tsūben* and two years before being appointed as the type printing supervisor. Given his position as an interpreter, Perry’s arrival must have delivered an extraordinary shock; yet he himself left behind no records by which we might judge his impressions or thoughts at the time.

Setting aside "Perry’s arrival," Mr. Tamiya stated that Sanzō was a "proponent of opening the country." In his *Detailed Biography*, he described Motoki as a “radical yet moderate proponent of opening the country.” “Though Mr. Sanzō Motoki was not aligned with the pro-shogunate faction,” it read, “his fervent advocacy for opening the country made him a prime target of isolationists for a time. Ultimately misunderstood even by fellow open-country advocates—who erroneously deemed him pro-shogunate—he retreated to Kyoto when activists seeking his assassination frequented Nagasaki, taking temporary refuge with a certain court noble.” While this passage seemed to transcribe Nagasaki’s local lore verbatim, the description of him as a “radical yet moderate proponent” struck an intriguing note. Sanzō appeared to have been rejected by both imperial loyalists and shogunate supporters alike. As we examine his legacy, he emerges as a “proponent who never advocated”—a man who lived his emperor-centered open-country ideology solely through scientific practice, letting us at least glimpse the contours of his sentiments through this lens.

Within the interpreter hierarchy, he held the rank of "Kotsūji Kojin," the senior position among minor interpreters. At fifteen, he had become a trainee interpreter, and over the subsequent fifteen years, his advancement had followed a steady course. Up to this point, his adoptive father Shōzaemon had occupied the position of Ōtsūji metsuke—the highest rank among interpreters—so as a nearly hereditary interpreter, his future was all but assured. Moreover, this year marked the first time he became a father through the birth of his eldest son Kotarō with his wife Nui. Nui was the biological child of her adoptive father Shōzaemon and, at fifteen years old, was quite a young mother; in any case, Sanzō now stood in the prime of his working life.

And then, a mere month after Perry had departed Edo Bay, on July 16th—when even in Nagasaki, where news traveled fast, rumors of Perry were surely still rampant—the "Black Ships" appeared here as well. It was the third Russian diplomatic mission to Japan led by Admiral Putyatin, consisting of the steam warship Pallada and three other vessels. Unlike Edo, this was the main site for foreign ship arrivals; however, it is said that this Russian mission caused a commotion second only to Perry’s coming. Sanzō Motoki, an interpreter in his prime, could no longer devote himself solely to tinkering with type. From the Nagasaki negotiations onward until spring of Ansei 2 (1855)—two years after the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity was concluded—he scarcely had time for his family. Yet upon reflection, his "set of type matrices" etched its mark into Japan’s printing history precisely because the Black Ships’ arrival forced him to temporarily abandon his craft and race east and west in their wake.

IV

It remains unclear how much foreign knowledge Sanzō and others possessed at the time of Perry and Putyatin's arrivals. As an interpreter, he likely received rough outlines of overseas news through the Dutch in Dejima, but given that Dutch ships arrived only once a year, such information would have been severely limited. When it came to academic knowledge, his family had likely amassed many books since the time of the first Shōdayu, so by the standards of Japanese at the time, he must have been exceptionally open-minded—though those too were limited to Dutch texts. Moreover, even those Dutch books were not freely accessible, and books in languages other than Dutch were strictly prohibited. According to Shūzō Kure’s *Genpo Mitsukuri*, during the “Nagasaki Negotiations” over the Russo-Japanese border agreement, Chief Interpreter Einosuke Moriyama translated and read aloud from an English book confiscated at the Nagasaki Magistrate’s Office to introduce northern affairs for Japanese plenipotentiary Kawaji Saemon-no-jo. However, when staff member Genpo Mitsukuri secretly learned of this from Kawaji and earnestly requested to read the English book himself, Kawaji refused, stating it would be too pitiful for Moriyama. In other words, if that were to leak elsewhere, Einosuke would have to be punished as one who had violated the prohibition.

*Printing Civilization History* presents the Motoki family collection passed down until the Meiji era, including works like *Maritime Gunnery Manual*, *Dutch Geographical Atlas*, and *World Atlas*. Among them existed volumes such as *Dutch Maritime Mirror*, *Dutch Materia Medica with Japanese Annotations*, *Illustrated Study of Warship Designs*, and *Japanese-French Bilingual Lexicon*, which Sanzō appears to have studied from this family collection. Photographs reveal these books featured Dutch printed text alongside handwritten annotations, some fully annotated and reformatted into Japanese-style volumes, while others contained ink-drawn diagrams. Though Dutch studies experienced periods of relative freedom—such as during Siebold’s initial years in Japan—these intervals were generally overshadowed by prolonged restrictions. Thus, books preserved through interpreters’ roles must have held significant value.

From childhood, Sanzō had been able to familiarize himself with those family-owned volumes. In Meiji 45 (1912), when the imperial bestowal of posthumous honors upon Sanzō was announced, the author of *Printing Civilization History* visited Nagasaki and wrote about Sanzō’s youth as follows, based on information gathered from his surviving friends and disciples. “When Sanzō came of age, he married a woman of the household and soon succeeded to the family profession as an interpreter. Yet by then, the trivial role of a mere interpreter no longer occupied his vision; he had turned his gaze to the broader currents of the world, privately awaiting the arrival of his moment.” During this period, he constantly perused numerous texts, dedicating himself to studying techniques across all manner of industrial arts. Through the Dutch studies he had mastered, he immersed himself in researching Western artifacts and culture—yet even days proved insufficient for such pursuits. At this time, Japan’s national circumstances saw isolationist sentiment reaching its zenith, with any foreign ship sighted being indiscriminately fired upon. Yet Mr. Motoki paid this no heed whatsoever—quietly continuing his research into Western industrial technologies.

It remained unclear to what extent this passage reflected the author’s own views in *Printing Civilization History* and to what extent it comprised the nostalgic reminiscences of Sanzō’s friends and disciples. However, Sanzō had "privately in his heart"—the text emphasized—believed opening the country to be inevitable, concluding that preparation required adopting Western civilization as their own while maintaining an exclusive focus on industrial arts and technology. This technical characteristic of Sanzō Motoki was also recorded in the *Western Studies Chronology* under the entry for Man’en 1 (1860): “Those who served as interpreters from the first arrival of American and Russian ships through to the Five-Power Treaty were Horie Tatsunosuke, Moriyama Takichirō, and Motoki Shōzō.” “Horie possessed academic prowess as a professor at the Institute for Western Studies; Moriyama demonstrated talent as Chief of Foreign Interpreters; and Motoki, rich in ingenuity, served as superintendent of the ironworks—the three displayed their aptitudes in fitting roles.” Yet from what had been observed thus far, despite Sanzō and his colleagues’ diligent studies, their foreign knowledge at the time of Perry and Putyatin’s arrivals must have remained inherently constrained by various limitations.

However, the arrivals of Perry and Putyatin were epoch-making events that surpassed the existing knowledge limits of the interpreters. Neither Russia nor America were making their first visits, but this time, both militarily and culturally, they were entirely different in nature. According to Mr. Kiyoshi Tabohashi’s *Foreign Relations History of the Bakumatsu Period*, for instance, Perry had landed at Futami Port on Chichijima in the Ogasawara Islands in mid-May to establish a naval base before appearing off Uraga Bay; then, upon departing Uraga, he landed at Naha Port in Ryukyu in July and built another naval base there. “—Being utterly unconcerned with how global circumstances may shift—when negotiating with the Japanese government—designating several provisioning ports along Japan’s coast would constitute the most tactically opportune method.” “If the said government were to obstinately refuse the opening of ports in mainland Japan, thereby risking the calamity of bloodshed, [we] would then designate anchorage grounds for the fleet on islands in the southern regions of Japan that possess good harbors and are convenient for provisioning.” “For this purpose, the Ryukyu Islands are most suitable,” declared Perry with pride in his official report to the Secretary of the Navy when departing the Madeira Islands at the helm of the East India Squadron. “Though we see the territories of Britain—the United States’ great competitor on the seas—increasing daily in the Orient, we keenly feel the necessity for our nation to also adopt swift measures.” “Britain had already seized control of the two strategic gateways in the China Sea—Singapore and Hong Kong—and sought to monopolize trade with China.” “Fortunately, the Japanese Islands have not yet fallen under the control of an ‘annexation’ government, and since several of them lie along commercial thoroughfares most vital to the United States, it is imperative to adopt swift and decisive measures to avoid missing opportunities to secure as many harbors as possible—this being one reason for my leading a formidable fleet in this capacity.――”

“Annexation government” was a nickname for Britain. Moreover, around the time Perry appeared off Uraga Bay, Russia’s third diplomatic mission to Japan—led by the flagship Pallada accompanied by three other vessels—had already been waiting in China’s Hong Kong. While surviving records today make clear that Admiral Putyatin’s approach was less high-handed than Perry’s, it differed substantially from previous Russian diplomatic missions to Japan. In essence, he too was not issuing a “plea for trade” but rather a “demand to open the country.”

A passage from *Japan Travelogue* captured the sentiments of Putyatin’s delegation at the time as follows.

“August 9th—as was customary, clear and sunny, but alas, an excessively hot climate it was.” On this day we first beheld the 'Land of Mystery.' Now at last would we attain the objective of our ten-month voyage fraught with hardships. This was indeed a jeweled box shut fast without its key. This was the nation that countries had long sought in vain to subjugate through wealth, military force, and cunning schemes. This was the great mass of humankind that had adroitly avoided civilization’s outlets, daring to live by its own intellect and laws. A land that obstinately repels foreign friendship, religion, and commerce—that mocks our attempts at enlightenment—

"How much longer could they possibly remain like that?" we would muse while stroking our 60-pound cannons. "If only the Japanese would permit entry and allow an investigation of their natural wealth. Among all inhabited regions of the globe and their statistics, has Japan not become nearly the sole blank space?——" "August 9th" corresponded to the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, but this text laid bare the insolent sentiments of Europeans at the time without reservation. One was their conviction in European cultural advancement. Another was their aggressive presumption that viewed all lands beyond Europe as colonial possessions. These elements fused into an inseparable whole—a history that bound even a literary giant like Goncharov to the rhetoric of "60-pound cannons."

From the mid-eighteenth century onward, the Industrial Revolution led by Britain had now spanned a century, bringing all of Europe close to its completion. The invention of spinning machinery and the discovery of fire-powered engines caused trains and steamships—along with all manner of manufactured goods—to overflow from the globe's West; these necessitated creating markets and outlets reaching every corner of the East. The fleets of nations became their probing tendrils, forced to course through seas stretching from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean across the entire Pacific north to south, from the South Sea Islands to the China continent, finally reaching the Far Eastern waters of the "Land of Mystery"—the nation likened to a jeweled box that had lost its key. This was what Perry called the "great competition." Russia too, though belatedly, had joined France as a member of European industrial civilization. This stood in stark contrast to the era of Rezanov's second diplomatic mission under the Russian-American Company, when they flayed sea otters caught along Alaskan and Kamchatkan shores in attempts to court Japanese customers. By the eighteenth century's end, Russia had secured a market foothold in northern China even before Britain. One such stepping stone had already been laid. Like Perry, they would have needed to seize "virgin Japan"—even by firing those sixty-pound cannons—before the "annexation" government could stake its claim.

Putyatin’s delegation departed Hong Kong on June 1, Kaei 6 (1853), sailed eastward through the East China Sea amid a typhoon to arrive at Futami Port on the Ogasawara Islands on June 28 of the same year, and appeared off Nagasaki on July 15. Previous Russian diplomatic missions to Japan had typically departed Kronstadt, proceeded northward across the Pacific to Alaska and Okhotsk, then come southward through the Kuril Islands. Putyatin, however, became the first to traverse a route from the Indian Ocean through the East China Sea—a development that reduced the distance between Japan and Russia by one-third, a fact surely worthy of note for Japan at the time.

However, history keeps itself remarkably busy. Based on a mutual understanding between the American and Russian governments, Putyatin was supposed to wait for Perry’s return to Hong Kong and adopt a coordinated approach toward Japan. However, during their ten-month voyage, the Crimean War had broken out back home between Russia and Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the entire China Sea region was within the sphere of influence of the British and French fleets. Having learned this news in Hong Kong, Putyatin set course for Nagasaki without waiting for Perry’s return.

Nomozaki, serving as the landmark at Nagasaki Bay's entrance, came into view. They gathered on the deck, gazing in admiration at the green coastline bathed in brilliant sunlight. What could that toy-like boat be—drifting along the water beside their warship, decorated with five-colored windmills?

“That is—a religious ceremony,” someone said.

“No,” one man interjected. “This is merely a superstitious custom.”

“It’s divination.”—— “Excuse my rudeness, but in Kaempfer’s book…” someone began to argue.—— In this manner, Russia’s Black Ships entered Nagasaki Port on July 16th, just as the spirit boats of the Obon festival were drifting upon the waters; the Kaempfer mentioned here refers to the German Engelbert Kaempfer, who served as head of the Dejima trading post from *Genroku* 2 to 4 and was known in Europe as a Japanologist—making it clear they had cultivated considerable preliminary knowledge about this “Land of Mystery.” In contrast, even Western books were strictly prohibited in Sanzō’s circumstances. And yet, the workings of history are intriguing. Sanzō and Ivan Goncharov, the author of *Oblomov*, had met face-to-face quite cordially.

“——On New Year’s night, after everyone aboard had fallen asleep, they arrived as plenipotentiary envoys (Japanese), bringing two officials and two second-class interpreters—Sanzō and Ryūta—with responses to two inquiries. Posietto lay asleep. I had been pacing the deck when I met with them—”

Five

The Russian warships that had entered Nagasaki Port remained anchored there from mid-July until the first days of the first month of Ansei 1 (1855), approximately half a year. The arrival of the shogunate’s Russian reception officers—Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui, Sakon-no-jō Kawaji, and others—in Nagasaki occurred on the twenty-seventh day of the eleventh month of Kaei 6 (1853), and the formal Japan-Russia talks commenced from the fifteenth day of the twelfth month. At this time, the chief interpreter was Senior Interpreter Nishikichibē, with Vice-Chief Senior Interpreter Moriyama Einosuke and another as his deputies. Below them were active Senior Interpreter Shitsuki Ryūta; Junior Interpreter Motoki Sanzō; Junior Interpreter Narabayashi Ryōichirō; Assistant Junior Interpreter Narabayashi Eishichirō; and others.

It is well known that these "Nagasaki negotiations" ended in failure from the Russian perspective. Trade was rejected, the northern border issue remained unresolved, and Putyatin departed with a promise to return. At first glance, the third mission appeared to end the same way as the previous two—yet this time, the Russian gifts were accepted, and Japan too presented gifts. Moreover, they had been given a pledge that if they were to engage in trade with countries other than the Netherlands in the future, they would also trade with Russia as a gesture of neighborly goodwill, making this situation somewhat different from Rezanov’s case. Particularly in terms of atmosphere, it is said that compared to the previous two occasions, matters had become considerably more relaxed.

When foreign envoys came to Nagasaki, it had been customary for Edo’s reception officials to take nearly half a year to arrive; however, this time, the delay stemmed not solely from the distance between Edo and Nagasaki. As was well known, even on this occasion—until Mito Nariaki’s insistence solidified the “trade rejection” policy—the emergence of theories like “using barbarians to control barbarians” prolonged deliberations. This resembled a variation of the “burakashi plan,” proposing that rather than permit trade with the arrogant Perry, they should grant it to Russia—with whom rapport had existed since Spangberg’s era—to counter Perry. Nariaki decisively declared that Perry’s June 12th departure and Putyatin’s July 18th arrival undeniably signaled collusion between the “American ink barbarians” and “Russian fur barbarians,” thus demolishing the perilous “barbarian-control” theory; only then did the policy become finalized, leading to Tsutsui and Kawaji’s departure from Edo in late October.

Tsutsui and Kawaji’s mission was no small task. During Rezanov’s time, Inspector Kinzaburō Tōyama alone could come and simply read out the edict, but now steam warships could travel from Nagasaki to Edo in just two days. The disposition of the Russian barbarians differed from Perry’s; above all, the tradition of their Japan policy since Peter the Great remained alive, and while they seemed somewhat moderate, in the end, there was no change in their possession of "sixty-pound cannons." Moreover, even as they had made [the Russians] accept the rejection of trade, they had to prevent their warships from being sent to Edo. The extent of Tsutsui and Kawaji’s grave struggles was well depicted in Kawaji’s own diary and in Goncharov’s *Japan Travelogue* on the opposing side. The fact that individuals like Tsutsui—a former Edo magistrate who was known among shogunate officials for his modern knowledge and whom Mizuno, the Lord of Echizen, had personally sought out and chosen as a friend—and Kawaji—whom even Nariaki regarded with respect—were selected for this duty spoke to the difficult circumstances of the time.

*Japan Travelogue* was written with Europeans’ sense of superiority. “—The Japanese could do nothing against warships. They had nothing but small boats. These small boats, like Chinese junks, are equipped with mat sails and, very rarely, hemp sails; moreover, as their sterns are left completely open, they can only sail along the coast. ‘Kaempfer stated that during his time there, the shogun had prohibited the construction of ships capable of sailing to foreign countries—’ ” “Nippon, beware!”

However, it has now been revealed that both Putyatin’s "Diana," which came to Nagasaki at that time, and Perry’s "Black Ships" that arrived in Edo were steamships of no more than four hundred to five hundred tons. Moreover, even Kawaji—considered a man of new knowledge at the time—wrote in his diary about "black ships that looked like floating castles" when Putyatin came to Shimoda the following year and the Diana, damaged in the tsunami, sank off Miyajima. The contradictions of feudal governance—which obscured the Emperor’s sacred wisdom, closed the nation, and confined every last ship to crawling along Japan’s coasts—manifested themselves in this manner. Moreover, that was by no means limited to ships alone.

In any case, the thoughtful Japanese of that time must have felt that no matter how rapidly they opened their eyes, they could not catch up. Especially under the system of that time, one can imagine that even such outstanding individuals as the Nagasaki interpreters—who served as the antennae for overseas knowledge—all shared such feelings. Senior Interpreter Nishikichibē was the eleventh-generation head of the Nishi family, one of those responsible for escorting a personal letter from the Dutch king to Edo when the Palembang—the mission advising the opening of the country—had previously arrived, and he was the man under whom Takashima Shūhan apprenticed to learn gunnery. Moriyama Einosuke, Senior Interpreter Extraordinaire—who later changed his name to Tagakurō and became a direct shogunate retainer as Chief of Foreign Interpretation—translated English texts for Kawaji to clarify northern affairs as previously mentioned; and it is said his English was learned through day and night visits to American whaling ship castaways detained at Sōfuku-ji’s prison house. Moreover, the status with which those interpreters were treated even on the diplomatic stage was truly low.

“—The four plenipotentiaries stood in a row.” And then both parties exchanged bows. To the right of the plenipotentiaries sat two Nagasaki magistrates, while to their left were four more figures who appeared to be high-ranking officials from Edo. Behind the plenipotentiaries sat a page, holding aloft a splendid long sword. The plenipotentiaries signaled their desire to speak. “Then suddenly, from nowhere, Einosuke and Kichibē came slithering smoothly like snakes, crawling up to the plenipotentiaries’ feet from both sides.—” wrote Goncharov in astonishment.

However, even within such antiquated customs of feudal governance, new sprouts had emerged—indeed, on the very first day of negotiations, Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui’s greeting was so dignified that it astonished the Russians. This undoubtedly pioneered and surpassed in excellence even those made by Japanese envoys who frequently visited foreign lands from the Man’en to Bunkyū eras onward.

“—The old man began to speak. We stared intently into those eyes. The old man had captivated us from the very beginning. —The corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth were encircled by wrinkles like rays of light, and in both his gaze and voice, there shone through every aspect the demeanor of a good-natured old man—understanding, amiable, and unmistakably elderly. It was the fruit of a life of real hardship. Anyone who saw this old man would want him as their grandfather. The old man’s attitude revealed a refined education.—” With his writer’s eye, Goncharov had captured Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui in a single glance.

“We have come from hundreds of ri away,” said the old plenipotentiary, his face ever adorned with a smile as he gazed at us fondly. “Your Excellencies have traveled thousands of leagues to be here. Though until now we had never met and our relations were most distant, here we find ourselves drawing near in this manner—sitting together in the same room, conversing and dining. Is this not truly a mysterious—and delightful—affair!”

“The Russians, caressing their sixty-pound cannons, wrote: ‘—We felt profoundly grateful for this greeting that expressed our shared sentiments at that time—truly beyond words of thanks.’” This splendid international greeting will live on eternally alongside Goncharov's masterful depiction of Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui.

Kawaji too was splendid. The Russians were astonished at this intelligent Japanese. The author of *Japan Travelogue* also could not help but exclaim, just like Siebold had: "The Japanese are different from the Chinese!" And it was through the efforts of such splendid Japanese that they were saved from the deadlock of three centuries of national isolation, confronted steam warships in Nagasaki, and prevented the reckless firing of "sixty-pound cannons"; yet beyond this, the Russian writer had keenly discerned that there existed many other splendid, new Japanese individuals.

“—Something caught my attention.—I do not know the man’s name. Because he was an attendant, he did not enter together with the inspectors.—He was a well-proportioned, tall man who held his upper body perfectly straight. Whether he felt ill at ease at being unable to enter the ship’s interior, or whether—beyond the honor of being a Japanese official—he had something within himself to rely upon and thus understood his circumstances, I cannot tell. But the man stood proudly on the deck in a splendid yet unassuming pose.—In his facial expression too—there was none of that dull self-satisfaction, none of the comical pretentiousness, none of that transparently naive cheerfulness.—Rather, it seemed that in his eyes there faintly shone the consciousness of being Japanese—an awareness of what he lacked and what he sought.—”

I have taken this from Mr. Mitsuru Inoue’s translation; yet here, Goncharov’s narrative proves both severe and exquisitely nuanced. The inspectors visiting the Russian envoy’s ship anchored offshore were officials of yoriki rank or lower from the Nagasaki magistrate’s office; their attendants must have been samurai of exceedingly low status, yet who exactly they were remains unknowable even through Japanese records. At any rate, there must have existed many such new types of Japanese among the nameless multitudes; indeed, we might recall how around this very time, young Yoshida Torajirō was hurrying off in haste from Edo toward Nagasaki, intent on boarding a Russian ship to seek out universal knowledge.

And naturally, among the interpreters too there existed this new type of Japanese. Just as Perry’s *Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan* had judged the Japanese through the interpreters they interacted with most frequently, Goncharov wrote of even Senior Interpreter Shitsuki Ryūta as belonging to the category of “old, fossilized Japanese,” while noting that “Kichibē has something somewhat fresh about him.” “He harbors no stubborn hatred toward new things,” but “he lacks the vigor to pursue them”—this was what he felt regarding Senior Interpreter Nishikichibē. And this Russian writer took greatest interest in Moriyama, Motoki, and Narahashi’s younger brother, writing: “—In the pauses of conversation—when seeing European things—Einosuke, Shōzō, and Narahashi’s younger brother would perceive their own positions, become aware, and grow melancholy—” Regarding the shogunate officials' antiquated understanding, he wrote: “—[they] form a submissive, silent opposition.”

I tried searching Japanese records to find out how Shōzō and the others conducted themselves at this time, but such details proved exceedingly difficult to uncover. In sources like the Kawaji Nikki, his trusted aide Einosuke was mentioned briefly, but not sufficiently. Moreover, second-tier figures like Shōzō did not appear in official records at all. The Japan Travelogue depicted Einosuke’s brilliant intellect and bold, enterprising character while also describing the intense personality of junior interpreter assistant Narahashi Eishichirō—positioned at the lowest rank—who fervently wished to see European culture with his own eyes. So how did our Shōzō appear in Goncharov's eyes? I point this out, yet strangely, Shōzō alone had none of his characteristics depicted.

It was recorded that Shōzō boarded inspection boats to greet the Russians, transported provisions on patrol boats, assisted with official inspections by handling minor administrative negotiations as an interpreter—though not entirely silent in his duties—and worked diligently. Goncharov, Putyatin’s secretary, mentioned the name “Shōzō” some five times in such contexts; yet this writer, who took such delight in characterizing everyone he encountered, ultimately never touched upon Shōzō’s personality.

However, in *Archival Documents on Late Bakumatsu Foreign Relations, Volume 7*, there existed a gift list from the Russian side that included Tsutsui, Kawaji, and other shogunate officials—extending even to the interpreters. Beginning with Interpreter Inspector Motoki Shōzaemon, they presented gold watches and other items to Nishikichibē and Moriyama Einosuke; glass mirrors and other objects to Shitsuki Ryūta, Motoki Shōzō, Narahashi Ryōichirō, and [the same] Eishichirō. Several days later came an entry of "one book each" for Motoki Shōzō and Narahashi Eishichirō; then after several more days, another entry of "five sheets of Russian text each" for the same Shōzō and Eishichirō.

What those "books" were, I cannot know; as for the "five sheets of Russian text," I can only imagine they might have been a guide or vocabulary list for deciphering those books—but even this remains unclear. However, regarding the "books" and "Russian texts" given exclusively to Shōzō and Eishichirō, I can’t help but feel that it wasn’t merely the givers’ doing—that some will was also at work from the recipients’ side.

Among items entering from foreign countries, books were the most strictly regulated. The *Japan Travelogue* also documented this. "One day—Ōi Saburōsuke came bringing Kichibē with him. —Both the Admiral (Putyatin) and I said we would present books—but they flatly refused. Even Saburōsuke—a direct vassal of the shogunate and one of the coastal defense officers—resorted to such expedient measures and harbored such fear. The gifts from the Russian side had, of course, been received only after obtaining approval from the Nagasaki magistrate. Yet regardless of what official pretext they bore, might there not have been some will and effort on the part of Shōzō and others—unrecorded in any documents—behind them?

Regarding the characteristics and personality of Shōzō that had caught Goncharov’s attention yet remained unexplored in depth, I imagined a Japanese youth of that era—one who was inwardly focused, sparing in expression, yet harboring a bedrock-like steadfastness beneath the surface—a scientific-minded young man of his time.

Concerning the Opening of Ports

I

Toward the end of summer in the 17th year of Shōwa, I had been visiting the S Library at the S Viscount’s residence near Azabu Nino-hashi to examine books. As evening approached, I would return the volumes to their shelves and descend the gentle slope before the viscount's residence, though sometimes I would clutch Nino-hashi Bridge's railing and gaze vacantly at the dark surface of the Mizutsu River while sinking into thought.

"Why am I chasing after things like the 'Kaei-era Black Ships' and 'Ansei port openings' when I'm supposed to be researching the history of type?" A faint anxiety, akin to an illusion, welled up within me. At a dimly lit corner desk in the S Library, I would begin by searching solely for the name "Sanshō" among the borrowed books. From what appeared to be official documents of the Bakufu era, I would cross-reference dates and events as I searched. Lately, characters such as "Motoki," "interpreters," or "type plates" had come to leap into my eyes no matter how carelessly I flipped through pages—yet simultaneously, my interest found itself endlessly drawn to various other writings that seemed wholly unrelated to type, indeed even unconnected to Sanshō himself.

I wanted to know about the birth of Japan’s modern movable type. And so I wanted to know about the life and work of Motoki, that representative figure. This Sanzō, by profession an interpreter, had been involved with both the "Black Ships" and the "port opening." Consequently, I find myself pursuing Putyatin and Perry, Tokugawa Nariaki of Mito and Kawaji Saemon-no-jō, along with various others; yet I cannot easily sever the connections between them. Am I perhaps digressing? Am I climbing a tree in search of fish?

I recalled Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biographies of Motoki and Hirano* along with three or four other biographies of Sanzō Motoki. There too were written accounts of the "Ansei Port Opening" and "Kaei-era Black Ships," but to put it simply, those historical events were cited solely as evidence extolling Sanshō’s greatness. And Japan’s movable type has come to be something that was born by chance through the greatness of that individual, Sanshō. Therefore, when regarding Sanshō as the progenitor of Japanese movable type, one merely needed to find passages within records of the "Black Ships" and "port opening" that attested to his personal greatness. In the case of those who regarded Kihē Kimura as the originator, all they needed to do was seek out accounts of Kihē’s hardships.

However，my true protagonist lay not in individuals like Sh... or Kihē，but in the birth of “movable type” as a cultural tool—a material entity．This was by no means unrelated to the greatness of Sh... and Kihē，but had far transcended such limitations．For instance，Kihē’s tale of hardships would never have come to be without the will of his patron Shimazu Nariakira，and such an unprecedented commission from Nariakira could not be properly assessed without considering the domestic and foreign relations of that time．Therefore，no matter how much one extols Sh...’s greatness or compiles accounts of Kihē’s hardships，Japan’s movable type could not have truly come to life through those efforts alone．

“No, no.” While staring at the methane gas bubbles rising one after another on the black surface of the Mizutsu River, I found myself reflecting. This was my confusion. Even if an amateur like myself were to immerse my head for a year or two in the complex foreign affairs of that time—though what I could comprehend would surely be limited—I concluded that unless I advanced with full force alongside the power of Japan and its people who had birthed the Meiji Restoration, blood would not flow through Japan's movable type.

Now, when Putyatin's black ships withdrew from Nagasaki, a mere nine days later, Perry's black ships—this time seven in number—entered Edo Bay. The stage abruptly expanded from Nagasaki to Edo; but for Sanshō, this "Ansei Port Opening" was considered a pivotal event of his life. For our Japan, this marked a diplomatic undertaking of unprecedented scale since the dawn of creation; for Sanshō, it was akin to a tightly closed bud being drenched by a sudden downpour. For those living in Nagasaki, interacting with foreigners was hardly uncommon, but the grand stage of international negotiations with European nations was an unprecedented event even for those in the role of interpreters.

To recount this chronologically: On the fifth day of the first month of Ansei 1 (January 5, 1854), the Russian envoy's warship Pallada and two accompanying vessels departed from Nagasaki Port, having agreed to return for further negotiations amid delicate diplomatic exchanges. The American envoy Perry and his party made their second arrival in Edo Bay on the fourteenth day of the same first month. And it was on the twenty-eighth day of the same sixth month that they coercively concluded the Treaty of Amity and departed from Shimoda Port. On the eighteenth day of the same ninth month, the Russian envoy’s ships appeared at Osaka’s Ajigawajiri, and in accordance with the shogunate’s edict, returned to Shimoda in the tenth month. Thereafter, taking until March of the following year, they concluded the same Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity as Perry had and returned to their country. In July of the same Ansei 2 (1855), a British warship entered Nagasaki Port. At the time, in the midst of the Crimean War, they seized part of a Russian envoy party returning home, took over a hundred soldiers prisoner, and—like a child who missed out on snacks—hurriedly pressed for a treaty. Having obtained it, they departed within the same month. Following this, the shogunate extended its established policy to France and Holland as well, though the ratification of these treaties naturally required several years. However, when speaking of the "Ansei Port Opening," as many historical texts indicate, they place its most critical period between Kaei 6 (1853) and Ansei 2 (1855). Sanzō’s activities as an interpreter spanned precisely this period; in terms of age, he was thirty to thirty-two years old at the time.

As for how greatly Perry’s second coming shocked the shogunate, this is evident in numerous books, and there is likely no need to elaborate further in detail. Having come to Uraga in July of the previous year and presented the president’s personal letter concerning the treatment of American castaways and Japan-US diplomatic and commercial relations before departing, his return had been expected, but it came far too soon. Perry, upon returning to his base in Shanghai, learned that during his fleet's absence in July of the previous year, the Russian envoy had come to Shanghai and, growing impatient, proceeded to Nagasaki. Fearing that Russia would gain the initiative, he moved up his schedule and returned earlier than planned. However, the shogunate council had no way of knowing these circumstances.

The three steam warships and four sailing warships passed through Uraga, their previous year’s anchorage, ignored countless guard boats’ attempts to stop them, and advanced to Koyashi Bay near Yokohama. At that time, the shogunate council had yet to establish anything definitive since adopting the "evasion plan," with an atmosphere akin to Mito Nariaki’s journal entry: "On the fourth day of the second month, when we twice met senior councilors—Iga-no-kami (Matsudaira) solely advocated peace—and met Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami and Ido Tsushima-no-kami, both men feared Western barbarians like tigers, showing no combative spirit. Though remaining at camp until eight in the evening, council deliberations made no progress—we merely ground our teeth." Iga-no-kami was one of three magistrates; Hayashi and Ido had already been appointed Perry reception officials. Three months prior, when dispatching Tsutsui and Kawaji as Nagasaki reception officers for the Russian envoy through hardliner Nariaki’s efforts, they resolved to "reject commerce"—though theories like "using barbarians against barbarians" still existed. Yet three months later, arguments that "commerce could not be avoided" had apparently gained open traction. While externally imposed measures like the "evasion plan" or "military insufficiency" persisted, "commerce unavoidable" arguments seemingly formed the majority. One American reception officer, Matsudaira Mimasaka-no-kami—quite modernized—reportedly could not keep his limbs still during the first meeting’s Western naval band music, as Perry’s *Narrative* records. Thus Vice Shogun Nariaki found himself outnumbered while Senior Councilor Ise-no-kami maintained indecisive silence. *Nariaki’s Journal* noted: "Fifth day: Yesterday’s council proved futile. From late last month through yesterday—prioritizing peace—senior councilors pressed us to accept reconciliation. Overcome by frustration, fearing disastrous castle attendance under these circumstances, today I claimed illness and postponed it."

Of course, following the death of Shogun Ieyoshi, the Mito house held the highest decision-making authority within the shogunate council; their uncompromising stance of "postponing castle attendance" had likely swayed even Ise-no-kami, and matters of diplomatic communication and commerce were at last resolved to be categorically rejected. Fujita, a retainer of Nariaki, wrote in *Tōko Nikki*: “On the sixth day of the second month, today at around eight in the morning, His Lordship attended court with full retinue—it was reported that the senior councilors had resolved matters of diplomatic communication and commerce to be categorically denied, and this decision was also communicated to Hayashi and Ido. His Lordship must have been thoroughly pleased.” The elaborate nature of Edo’s security measures at the time was, as is well known, no secret. Since the New Year, each domain had deployed troops accordingly—Fukui to Shinagawa Gotenyama, Tottori Domain to Yokohama Honmoku, Kuwana Domain to Fukagawa Suzaki, Himeji Domain from Teppōzu to Tsukuda, and Kaga Domain to Shibaguchi—thus preparing for any eventuality. The shogunate council had issued ordinances such as using wooden clappers to alert Edo’s citizens in emergencies, only to be rebuked by Nariaki: “—Even if Western barbarians stir disorder, there is no need to inform the townspeople within the capital! So long as the samurai class remains vigilant, that suffices—! Beyond that, focus instead on guarding against arsonists and thieves—each household must secure its own premises!”

However, on February 7, when Kuroda Kahei, Magistrate’s Assistant at Uraga, visited Staff Officer Adams aboard the American warship to inform him that a reception hall had been established in Yokohama, he was threatened with: “We acknowledge this—however, should you fail to consent to the matter we have requested on this occasion, we shall have no choice but to prepare for immediate war. If war should break out, we currently have 50 warships stationed in nearby waters, and another 50 readied in California. Should we dispatch word at once, within approximately 20 days, a fleet of 100 great warships will assemble here...” It was utterly outrageous, but this threat would have had some effect on Kuroda Kahei—even if he was a man of martial valor—if he were entirely ignorant of European civilization.

“—The barbarians’ intentions remain inscrutable, and we labor day and night over this matter—Unlike the Dutch or Russians, they possess an exceedingly impatient and violent disposition; even if refuted through reason, they fundamentally lack comprehension of the ethics of benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and filial piety—” Having just managed to see off the Russian ships from Nagasaki, they now had to contend with this new challenge as well; given that the “barbarians’ intentions remained inscrutable,” their efforts were anything but ordinary. Thus, these officials wrote: “—At this present juncture, should we grant tentative permission for commerce with the Americans without subsequently providing equivalent responses to the Russians, British, French, and others, negotiations cannot possibly be brought to agreement. Though we find this most regrettable, given the lamentable state of our military preparedness—” This document was dated January 27 and sent from their field office; as previously noted, during deliberations on February 4, 5, and 6, they resolved to “refuse communication and commerce.” Chief Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami and the reception officials must have withdrawn their own opinions and firmly resolved their determination. Yet the “inscrutability of the barbarians’ intentions” remained unchanged, and these “impatient, violent” “black barbarians”—who knew nothing of “the ethics of benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and filial piety”—might well have “lined up a hundred great warships in Edo Bay within twenty days.” On the ninth, the eve of the first meeting scheduled for February 10, Hayashi and Ido Tsushima-no-kami jointly signed a letter addressed to the Edo Magistrate, lamenting their difficulties. “—As for the Russians—should they return, the manner of reception would prove extremely difficult. Einosuke Moriyama and others are likewise exceptionally concerned about this.” “As Lord Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui and Saemon-no-jō Kawaji will also return to the capital by the end of the month—we humbly request in advance that they be instructed to continue handling matters jointly—we, your humble servants—tomorrow’s first meeting is naught but anxiety; though Your Excellency may deeply surmise our present state of mind from afar in the capital, we believe it shall multiply manifold beyond measure—”

The “Moriyama Einosuke” mentioned in the text refers to Moriyama Einosuke, the chief interpreter. Immediately after concluding the “Nagasaki negotiations,” he had arrived from Nagasaki to Edo via fast palanquin and was dispatched to Kanagawa under orders dated February 1. Yet even in this letter from Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami and Ido Tsushima-no-kami, the phrase “Einosuke and others were exceptionally concerned” regarding dealings with Russia suggested that despite Nariaki’s policy of “refusing communication and commerce” having been formally decided, the broader situation had likely already prepared itself to make some degree of compromise in advance.

February 10 was, as is well known, the historic day of the Japan-US meeting. The day's first agenda item concerned easing treatment procedures for American whaling ships and other castaways, to which both parties raised no objections under their shared principle of "valuing human life." To the proposal for commerce, they rejected it with: "While trade could indeed serve national interests through mutual exchange, Japan inherently sustains itself through its own products; even without foreign goods, no deficiency whatsoever arises—". However, the very act of formally agreeing to improve castaway treatment and provide specified provisions at designated ports itself constituted a groundbreaking new reality. There had indeed been numerous instances in Nagasaki Port where provisions were given to castaways and drifting ships for their needs, but these acts were unilateral gestures of "imperial mercy" as stated in the Tenpō 13 "Revised Edict to Repel Foreign Ships." Perry finally presented the "Treaty of Peace, Amity, and Commerce between the United States and China" for reference, declaring: "Should you thoroughly examine this draft proposal before us now, there will be no need for further explanations. Let us meet here as two nations to mutually understand each other’s intentions and conclude a treaty of amity." "If our present requests remain unaccepted," he concluded, "I shall absolutely not return to my country. With no means to deliver tribute intended for Edo, I will remain anchored in these waters indefinitely awaiting your decision." With these words, the meeting ended.

On February 13, through a written document, Perry emphasized: “The essence of our nation’s mandate lies in expansive intent; thus, we urge your government to discern the times and bring negotiations for peaceful amity to fruition as I desire, establishing arrangements satisfactory to both nations’ peoples without delay—” while insisting on opening ports not only in Nagasaki but also in Hakodate and Ryukyu. During the February 25 meeting, a preliminary agreement was reached to open Shimoda and Hakodate, and through the March 3 meeting, the “Treaty of Kanagawa” was finally concluded. Beginning with the clause, “Japan and the United States hereby establish perpetual amity between their peoples, without distinction of place or person,” it is well known that Shimoda was opened immediately upon treaty ratification, Hakodate opened from the following March onward, and provisions such as “American vessels lacking supplies of water, food, or coal shall be granted said provisions in Japan, and their arrival shall be permitted...” were included. This was truly groundbreaking—for instance, provisions like those in Article V stating, “At Nagasaki, [Americans] shall not be confined or subjected to restrictive treatment as with the Chinese and Dutch, and may freely roam within approximately seven *ri* around the small islands of Shimoda Port…” proved astonishing when contrasted with recent precedent: even when Russian envoys’ warships had anchored off Nagasaki for over half a year, or when the Dutch envoy’s warship *Palembang* had remained moored at sea for five months, not a single step of shore leave had been permitted beyond meetings at the magistrate’s office. It was only natural that Fukuchi Gen’ichirō, in his *On the Decline and Fall of the Shogunate*, referred to this moment as “the fundamental decision to open the country.” In other words, even without formally permitting “communication and commerce,” merely “allowing their arrival” and “providing them with provisions in Japan” already constituted something approximating “commerce.”

Perry's steam warships departed from Koyashi Bay in Edo Bay for Shimoda on April 18 and anchored there for approximately twenty-five days while conducting inspections. On May 13, they also went to Hakodate for inspection. During this period, gifts were exchanged between both parties, and it is well known that among those America presented at this time were a small steam locomotive, Whitworth-style cannons, and other items. However, why did this handling of the Americans—unlike those initial crisis-laden negotiations that resembled ominous storm clouds—conclude so unexpectedly peacefully? As many historical records relate, it was due to what the shogunate termed “the insufficiency of military preparedness.” We must reluctantly admit that they were somewhat intimidated by his long-barreled cannons and the black ships that spewed smoke as they raced. Even if it had not been Mito Nariaki, even Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami himself declared it “most regrettable,” and the shogunate itself had not the slightest proactive will to act of its own accord. In other words, Perry’s success was that of a Perry who, having been appointed envoy to Japan and commander-in-chief of the East India Squadron during the Republican era, pushed through with the Republican-era policy toward Japan to the very end, even when the Democratic Party came to power and sought to revise it.

Yet I cannot help but feel it impossible to conclude that Japan’s politicians of the time had merely capitulated to Perry’s intimidation. Didn’t the manner in which many in the shogunate council expressed opinions such as “commerce could not be avoided,” using insufficient military preparedness as their shield, also have various angles? When the Dutch ship *Palembang* arrived in the first year of Kōka (1844), the shogunate harshly expelled it. At that time, Mizuno Echizen-no-kami had exclaimed during a council before the shogun: “Let us return to the framework of Keichō and Genna—bolstering domestic morale while proactively engaging externally!” Yet nine years later, by the sixth year of Kaei (1853), as observed in Goncharov’s *A Voyage Around the World*—“Back then, only two senior councilors supported [opening]; now only two oppose it”—even if not overtly recorded, one could infer that opposition to national isolation had grown considerably strong, however complex and subtle its undercurrents.

There must have been various facets to this opening and progressive policy. Amid the exhausted economic conditions of the time, there were likely those who sought only profit, and perhaps also those who—as Nariaki lamented—took the path of least resistance due to weakened morale. Yet simultaneously, there existed men like Yoshida Torajirō who demonstrated "initiative"—visiting American warships under cover of night, plotting secret overseas voyages until their arrest. This was an "opening and progress" that involved violating national laws to exhaustively pursue global knowledge, all to secure the imperial nation's stability. While the term "opening of the country" would later acquire complex political dimensions during the decade following the late Ansei period, up until this time it remained relatively uncomplicated—a steady current driven by desires to ensure national security and assimilate not just weaponry but entire civilizations. Goncharov recorded with astonishment how Japanese guests aboard Russian steam warships burned with intellectual curiosity and brimmed with initiative—observations paralleled in Perry's *Narrative of the Expedition to Japan*. "Though we found no printing offices in either Shimoda or Hakodate," Perry noted, "books were visible in shops—for the people had generally been taught reading and showed keen interest in acquiring texts." He added: "The Japanese upper class who encountered Americans demonstrated thorough knowledge of their own land alongside some grasp of foreign geography, material progress, and contemporary history—remarkable given their isolation. They conversed knowledgeably about railways, telegraphy, daguerreotypes, Whitworth cannons, and steamships."

This was likely nurtured chiefly through Dutch-influenced scholarship—the fruit of over a century’s labor by countless scholars since *Rangaku Kotohajime* (Beginnings of Dutch Learning). And even within national isolation, it was precisely this enterprising spirit—one that refused to relinquish its progressive character and sought to safeguard Japan’s stability through exhaustive pursuit of global knowledge—that partly enabled the autonomous success of the Treaty of Kanagawa, constituting one reason it cannot be dismissed as mere capitulation to Perry’s military threat.

II

Now, how did our Sanzō act at that time? Unfortunately, among the materials I had sought out, there remained truly very little. The first was the translation of the main treaty text dated March 3, and the second was the translation of a protest from Perry’s side regarding the handover of Japanese goods dated May 25—each bearing signatures and seals alongside Horitatsu no Suke and Moriyama Einosuke respectively. The other was a passage mentioning Sanzō within a private letter dated July 29 from Portman, Perry’s interpreter, to Moriyama Einosuke—a translated document. Given my current capabilities, I could ascertain nothing beyond this.

It was certain that Sanzō Motoki arrived in Yokohama Village, Kanagawa, from Nagasaki between January 5—when the Nagasaki negotiations had concluded and his official duties ended—and March 3, when he translated the Treaty of Kanagawa text. However, as *Meiji Restoration Historical Materials Part 2 Volume 3* includes an entry dated February 1 from the "Murakata Kōmu Nikki" (Murakata Official Diary) stating, "Item: Nagasaki interpreter Moriyama Einosuke arrived last evening and was dispatched to Kanagawa today," it can be inferred that he likely traveled with him or around that time.

Then, until about when did he remain in Yokohama Village? Given that there exists the aforementioned translation document dated May 25, would it not have been until around June 28, when Perry’s party returned from Hakodate to Shimoda and set out for Naha Port in Ryukyu? In early July, as seen in Shisai Terasaki’s diary within the *Biography of Tōyō Yoshida*, it is evident that he was at the Tosa Domain Shipyard in Tsukiji, Edo. Incidentally, to recount Motoki’s movements up until Ansei 2 (1855): in September of Ansei 1 (1854), he served as interpreter for the Russian warship that appeared at Aji River Estuary; accompanying the Russian vessel’s return voyage to Shimoda, he remained in the Izu region from October of that year until the conclusion of the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity in March of the following year; and from that summer onward, when the shogunate’s Naval Training Institute was established in Nagasaki, he became an interpreter for the training program. As I currently lack documents regarding the interpretation for the Russian warship at Aji River Estuary, I shall temporarily rely on Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography of Motoki and Hirano*, which states: “In Ansei 1 (1854), when negotiating with Russia in Osaka, Mr. Shōzō [Motoki] was assisted in interpretation by Godai Tomoatsu and Katsura Kogorō, among others.” As for his role as an interpreter for the Naval Training Institute program, *Bakufu Jidai to Nagasaki* (compiled by Nagasaki City Hall) notes: “—Training program interpreters Iwasae Yashichirō, Sanzō Motoki, and fourteen others…,” while his name is also recorded in Katsu Rintarō’s *Naval History*, leaving no room for doubt. In other words, from this period onward, his life became one of ceaseless rushing about.

At the time of Perry's arrival, the Nagasaki interpreters included—in addition to senior active officials such as Hori Tatsunosuke and Tateishi Tokujūrō—the aforementioned Einosuke, Shizuki Tatsuichirō, and Namura Gohachirō. The chief interpreter was Moriyama Einosuke, a senior Dutch interpreter; judging by the signing order on the translated documents, Shōzō held a higher position than Hori Tatsunosuke, the deputy chief interpreter. At the time, Hori was a junior interpreter, and Shōzō held the position of senior junior interpreter. However, for some reason, even the third interpreter was listed as “Tokujūrō,” and whether consulting Japanese records or Perry’s documentation, Motoki scarcely appeared prominently. Perry’s *Narrative of the Expedition to Japan*, like Goncharov’s *A Voyage Around the World*, was written with particular familiarity toward the interpreters compared to Japanese records, mentioning not only “Einosuke” but also “Gohachirō” and “Tokujūrō.” "Tatsunosuke," "Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami," and "Izu Tsushima-no-kami" were each presented with remarkable portraits, as were the others.

Each wore their daishō swords positioned at the front, slightly baggy hakama trousers, and thick-corded zōri sandals. Chief Interpreter Einosuke—still under forty and in his prime—had a broad shaved pate, an idiosyncratically thick nose bridge, and a faint smile playing about his lips as he let his left shoulder droop, every inch the picture of self-assurance. Goncharov had described him thus: “As he was the interpreter attached to Kawaji, he handled the most crucial portions of the negotiations.” He had grown arrogant and scarcely listened to the other plenipotentiaries’ words. “—He was not one to shy from debauchery.—On one occasion before Nakamura, he drank four glasses of champagne until thoroughly drunk, attempting to settle matters arbitrarily without interpreting others’ words—” Such depictions coexisted with passages where Goncharov elsewhere admiringly portrayed his bold initiative and talent. Tatsunosuke and others carried themselves with greater solemnity, wearing haori jackets while standing with hands resting on young trainee interpreters’ shoulders—pages in appearance—their dignified bearing overall making them seem comparable to samurai drawing two or three hundred koku stipends.

In truth, their contributions to shogunate diplomacy far surpassed those of samurai with two or three hundred koku stipends. As Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami, the chief plenipotentiary mentioned earlier, had written in official documents disclosed even to senior councilors—stating that “Einosuke and others have shown extraordinary dedication”—matters concerning foreign nations depended on their knowledge in ways that extended far beyond mere “interpretation.” Records from both sides show Chief Interpreter Einosuke visiting Perry alone aboard his flagship *Powhatan* to conduct preliminary treaty negotiations, with numerous instances of Einosuke and other interpreters taking charge of managing Perry’s shore landings. Yet despite these substantial contributions and their dignified bearing as depicted in the *Narrative of the Expedition to Japan*, their social standing bore no relation to such significance. Their samurai-like demeanor as retainers receiving two or three hundred koku resembled sumo referees wearing ceremonial eboshi hats in the ring—a matter of role rather than true status. Even Chief Interpreter Einosuke’s case proved this: an April 29 document from Edo magistrates after the Treaty of Kanagawa’s conclusion titled “Matter Concerning Senior Dutch Interpreter Moriyama Einosuke’s Service” recorded: “Senior Dutch Interpreter Moriyama Einosuke shall receive a ten-koku stipend while stationed in Edo and be permitted swords...” This made clear that even he—the most meritorious contributor during this unprecedented diplomatic undertaking—received only a ten-koku stipend and sword privileges under Edo magistrates. Perry’s delegation too found the interpreters’ status perplexing. On February 28, when treaty prospects solidified and Perry invited Hayashi’s commissioners aboard his flagship, Perry’s principal members dined with shogunate plenipotentiaries in his quarters—Perry’s interpreters naturally seated equally. Hayashi then summoned Einosuke to a side table, perhaps to maintain parity. “The Japanese interpreter Einosuke was permitted—through his superiors’ special favor—the privilege of sitting at a room’s side table,” wrote the *Narrative of the Expedition to Japan*. “Even seated so lowly, Einosuke remained unshaken in spirit and appetite.” But this reflected Perry’s misunderstanding—for Einosuke, dining alongside magistrate-ranked officials was an immense honor unprecedented in Nagasaki interpreters’ history.

Interpreters were of low status. Therefore, they did not appear as principal figures in the records. Even someone of Einosuke’s stature as senior interpreter—who had previously served as a trusted advisor to Kawaji Saemon-no-jō, the magistrate in charge of Russian negotiations, and now acted as consultant to Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami, the shogunate’s plenipotentiary—was reduced in official records to little more than a low-ranking officer under the Uraga magistrate with a meager stipend of ten koku and five retainers’ allowances, with entries like “—Summon Einosuke” for trivial administrative matters. While I will avoid detailing here, these included Einosuke’s earlier visit to Perry’s flagship to “sound out intentions” prior to the treaty’s conclusion; the incident involving an American missionary who had taken Japanese currency and its retrieval; Einosuke’s handling of castaways transported on an American warship who prostrated themselves on deck upon seeing officials; and above all, the efforts of Einosuke and his fellow interpreters—who, sharing the same professional standing as interpreters, negotiated even matters of considerable gravity with Portman from Perry’s side to ensure the situation progressed smoothly—. There lay a contradiction in how such matters were scarcely reflected in official records. For instance, whereas Perry’s *Narrative of the Expedition to Japan* prominently recorded numerous interpreters alongside figures like Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami and Izu Tsushima-no-kami—complete with portraits—there existed a stark contrast when compared [to Japanese records]. To attribute this solely to stemming from the foreigners’ proximity to those they were most familiar with would be misguided.

However, despite all this, the criticality of shogunate diplomacy was already reaching its peak. Though separated by a mere three months, even considering only Einosuke, the scope of his authority had expanded incomparably between the "Nagasaki negotiations" and the "Treaty of Kanagawa." One reason likely lay in the treaty's conclusion in the latter case and Yokohama's inexperience compared to Nagasaki—though this alone could not explain it. The new cause was above all that situations could no longer be resolved by having some shogunate official descend as before to read out an "admonitory edict." They must have been spurred by factors like their counterparts' interpreter-officials doubling as diplomats—men wielding authority and functions beyond anything the Nagasaki interpreters possessed. For his merits since the "Nagasaki negotiations," Einosuke—granted sword-wearing privileges while stationed in Edo—later changed his name to Tagakurō when appointed diplomatic officer for that year-end's "Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity," eventually becoming Chief of the Foreign Interpretation Bureau. Meanwhile, junior interpreter Hori Tatsunosuke was elevated to samurai status and made professor at the Institute for Western Studies.

These likely served as evidence demonstrating how the interpreters' duties had grown in importance amid the Ansei port openings. Moreover, when considering these interpreters not merely through their official capacities but as individuals proficient in foreign languages and somewhat knowledgeable about foreign civilizations, the scope of their contributions expanded even further. Einosuke—now Tagakurō—as "Chief of Foreign Interpretation" might be seen as a kind of diplomat; Hori Tatsunosuke's role as "Professor at the Institute for Western Studies" took on a more academic character, while Motoki Shōzō's later position as "Head of Nagasaki Ironworks" expanded the scope further still. Though unified as interpreters—all versed in Dutch and variably in other languages like English and French—they likely drew upon their individual traits when engaging in this unprecedented commencement of diplomatic relations with Europe, traits destined to diverge. Yet regrettably, I remain unable to ascertain much about Motoki Shōzō's specific activities during Perry's arrival.

But there was just one unexpected discovery for me. In *Dai Nihon Komonjo Bakumatsu Gaikō Kankei Shokan Nanatsu* (Volume VII of Archival Documents on Late Edo Diplomacy), there existed a July 29-translated letter from Portman—Perry’s interpreter-official—addressed to Moriyama Einosuke, within whose text Sanzō appeared. The document was titled “Letter from American Interpreter-Official Portman to Senior Dutch Interpreter Moriyama Einosuke: Greetings Regarding Return to Homeland,” and opened familiarly with “To Einosuke-kun.”

“We arrived at this location by ship this afternoon around half past the eighth hour, and having loaded the coal brought by the Southampton vessel, we shall depart this place with all possible haste, round the Cape of Good Hope, and return to New York.” At that time, we shall call at Honolulu, San Francisco, Panama, Callao, Valparaíso, and Rio de Janeiro. To Your Esteemed Self: Though I deeply regret that circumstances prevent me from paying my respects in person, as previously agreed, I shall be most gratified if you would kindly send word of your well-being in due course. Furthermore, should you require any reports or other materials from me, I shall promptly dispatch such items as described. Rest assured this matter shall not slip my mind. On this occasion, I have taken the liberty to send some stationery; when you write to me, I humbly request you to inscribe your letter upon the enclosed paper. Within said stationery, I further request you to forward a portion to Mr. Sanzō Motoki, and I wish to ascertain through a directly written account of his well-being and that of the same party. I earnestly hope you will convey this message—hereby recorded.

"As recompense for your diligent service in matters of great import, I earnestly pray that Your Excellency may receive advancement befitting your eminent stature. Your good friend, Portman"

P.S. When sending correspondence to me, please use the following address: A.L.C. Portman Esq., New York, United States of America / Her Britannic Majesty’s Mail via Marseille. The aforementioned letter should be entrusted to American ships arriving at Shimoda or Dutch ships at Nagasaki; should you choose to send it via English or French vessels instead, ensure it is delivered with utmost urgency—. And so forth—the following continues for several more lines.

From this it became clear that Portman had been personally acquainted not only with Einosuke but also with Sanzō—a realization that astonished me. There were other letters Portman—who had served as an interpreter-official on Perry’s side—addressed to Einosuke, such as those also recorded in Mr. Tokutomi Sohō’s *History of the Japanese People in Modern Times*, Volume 32. Dated April 16—a petition requesting authorities relax restrictions on Japanese goods trade prior to Perry’s party’s Hakodate journey—this missive translated on July 29 under joint signatures of Hori Tatsunosuke and Shizuki Tatsurō was, as its phrasing showed, an intensely personal correspondence. After departing Japan, the American delegation arrived at Naha in Ryukyu on July 11, sailed from Naha on the 19th, proceeded via Shanghai—base of the American East India Squadron—and Hong Kong, rounded Cape Town (translated as Kaap Hoorn/Cape of Good Hope), and returned home. The letter’s omission of Ryukyu and Hong Kong likely stemmed from political constraints on the senders’ side; however, given another record confirming coal from Muroran in Hokkaido had been loaded immediately before departure—as indicated by “having loaded coal brought by Southampton vessel”—this letter could be surmised dispatched just prior to their Shimoda departure. Since their June 28 Shimoda departure required over a month for translation completion, one could infer various circumstances surrounding how this private letter had been handled then.

Did Einosuke read the letter addressed to himself before having others translate it? Did the separately sent "stationery" reach Einosuke's hands? Furthermore, did Einosuke relay the message to Sanzō as instructed in Portman's letter? And was the "stationery" even shared with Sanzō? I have absolutely no idea. The term "stationery" undoubtedly refers to Western writing paper suitable for European languages. As previously noted, Einosuke was proficient not only in Dutch but also English and French. Moreover, Sanzō—descended from a Nagasaki interpreter lineage specializing in English since his grandfather Shōzaemon—must have possessed at least some command of the language.

However, it is likely that this letter was retained by the authorities as an official document, and neither Einosuke nor Sanzō would have exchanged correspondence with Portman using that "stationery." The treaty had been concluded, but as I had noted earlier, things were still far from such an atmosphere. “As previously agreed, I shall be most gratified if you would kindly send word of your well-being in due course.” Such matters—when considering the position occupied by interpreters within the diplomatic circumstances of that time—reveal how much of a double-edged "agreement" might have been. “Furthermore, should you require any reports or other materials from me—rest assured this matter shall not slip my mind.” Such matters as these allow us to glimpse the fervent desire on the Japanese side to understand the “black barbarians”—who would prove formidable foes—even if they were to become enemies.

What struck me particularly was how abruptly the text brought up: "We humbly request you to kindly forward [the stationery] to Mr. Sanzō Motoki as well, and we wish to ascertain through a directly written account of his well-being and that of his associates." This "and so forth" somehow carried an undercurrent of far greater intensity, did it not? This went beyond mere familiarity cultivated through months of contact. That among all interpreters, only Motoki had left such an impression on Portman—had drawn such focused attention and personal regard—suggested there must have been something distinguishing him from ordinary Nagasaki interpreters, most likely a penetrating grasp of some aspect of European civilization combined with relentless intellectual pursuit.

III

"―Swiftly concluding today's duties for the western seas―Do return promptly," wrote Kawaji Saemon-no-jō―the pivotal figure of the Ansei port openings―in his January 16 diary entry. Having preserved Japan's honor without incident and compelled the Putyatin mission to depart, he himself left Nagasaki that same day. Yet by the 27th, he could no longer avoid learning of Edo's disturbances and being distressed by them. “―Arrived at Nagato Shimonoseki―Since two days prior, numerous reports of foreign ships approaching Uraga―Those making landfall at a certain island are likely American vessels of Perry’s faction; last night in Edo, I could scarcely sleep for wondering how matters stand there.” Considering Kawaji’s diary―which notes that Einosuke came to pay his respects immediately before their departure from Nagasaki―and collating this with the "Murakaki Diary" entry stating their arrival in Edo on the last day of January, it follows that Einosuke and the Nagasaki interpreters either overtook Tsutsui and Kawaji’s procession via a ten-day fast palanquin journey or headed to Edo by sea aboard a special vessel. However, the former scenario, being more substantiated, is likely what occurred.

In any case, even in those days, it took about ten days for news from Edo to reach the vicinity of Shimonoseki, but the coastal defense official Kawaji’s worries must have been immense. In a letter addressed to the senior councilors, Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami also asserted that the Black Barbarians and Russo-Barbarians were colluding—that while the Russians lingered in Nagasaki, their scheme was to let the Americans strike first. Yet when they returned within half a year, it must have felt precisely like an ambush. Moreover, given their attitude during their visit the previous year, they must have considered that even deceptive stalling tactics would not be easily executed, and they likely contemplated the complex situation of whether the shogunate council’s deliberations in their absence would lean toward "expulsion" or "reconciliation." Though his diary does not clarify whether he desired expulsion or reconciliation, Kawaji—ever the practical man—must have considered how to autonomously open the country while maintaining its stability and dignity, for opening was inevitable. Kawaji, along with Egawa and Tsutsui, was regarded as a new breed of politician among the officials of the time, though he could not exactly be called Westernized. He could be called a warrior of unparalleled loyalty, possessing deep strategy and talent.

He was among the first to incorporate thermometers and pocket watches into daily life, though this seems to have been purely for their practical utility. In December of the same year, during the progress of the Japan-Russia Shimoda negotiations, when the Russian warship sank after encountering a typhoon while returning for repairs, he wrote in his diary as follows. "The 16th: Cloudy. Now that the treaty with the Russians has been largely settled in recent days, their unexpected compliance owes not to any minor efforts by Saemon-no-jō and others, but stands as proof of a single marvel—namely, the sinking of that foreign ship. ――The morning began fair, and with the boatmen deeming conditions favorable, some hundred towboats attached themselves and hauled [the ship] about two ri (7.8 km). Then a strange cloud mass appeared; no sooner had the boatmen eyed it warily than a great western wind arose abruptly, bringing mountainous waves that whirled the frigate—its castle-like structure set afloat upon the waters—round and round. To speak of its ferocity would scarcely suffice――”

Egawa was still young, Tsutsui elderly, and Kawaji—who had garnered high expectations within the shogunate council as coastal defense officer—but even had Kawaji replaced Hayashi while in Edo, one could scarcely imagine that this would have resulted in a significantly different Treaty of Kanagawa. At the time of Tsutsui and Kawaji’s return to Edo, the shogunate council’s policy had already been decisively oriented toward “reconciliation” and “peaceful resolution.” Dated February 25 amidst their hurried return, Tsutsui and Kawaji addressed Lord Abe, Governor of Ise: “In light of this recent arrival of Americans, we humbly entreat that the honorable protocols of greeting—in their entirety and intended principles—be aligned without discrepancy with the written courtesies we have already extended to the Russians via official correspondence.” It was only natural they added: “Should the courtesies extended to the Americans be construed as equivalent to those shown to the Russians, we harbor grave concerns this may precipitate significant complications hereafter.” Yet while Hayashi’s negotiations with Perry had preserved a shred of dignity through the “refusal of commerce,” the matter of handling castaways ultimately culminated in the Treaty of Amity. Hayashi had preemptively written to the Edo senior councilors: “Regarding the Russians—should they return, the manner of reception would prove exceedingly problematic—as Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui and Saemon-no-jō Kawaji are scheduled to return to the capital by month’s end—we humbly request you issue instructions for these two to continue handling matters henceforth, per our prior petition—”

Therefore, even after Perry departed Japan on June 28th, the coastal defense officials' hardships did not come to an end. And indeed, on September 18th, Admiral Putyatin's warship unexpectedly appeared in the waters off Hyōgo. In Osaka City, an emergency town notice was issued by the castle deputy, and on the 23rd of the same month, they reverently conducted prayers at seven shrines and seven temples. In addition, there was quite a commotion surrounding the ships of the party that had proceeded to Ajigawaguchi, with various episodes that could be recounted. According to the aforementioned writings of Mr. Tamiya, it was at this time that Sanzō acted as interpreter between the Russian warships and individuals such as Kogorō Katsura and Tomoatsu Godai; however, lacking definitive materials at present, I will not elaborate. However, despite the commotion in Osaka City, the records of the Osaka castle deputy state that the Russian warships offshore remained extremely calm.

On September 29, an official missive from the Senior Councilors addressed to the Russian warship arrived and was immediately delivered by the Osaka castle deputy to Putyatin offshore that same day. The document read: “The letter in Western script and classical Chinese submitted at Hakodate has reached Edo and been reviewed by the Senior Councilors. As Osaka is not an authorized foreign reception site, all negotiations here prove impracticable. You are hereby instructed to proceed to Shimoda Port in Izu. Hizen-no-kami Tsutsui and Saemon-no-jō Kawaji shall likewise hasten to Shimoda; we await your prompt arrival there in accordance with this directive.” The referenced letter—originally sent by Putyatin from Hakodate to the Edo Senior Councilors—had been translated by Moriyama Einosuke and Sanzō Motoki, who remained in Edo while still officially stationed there. It opened with “To the Ruler of Great Japan We Present This Missive,” but this translation stood out as strikingly modern compared to earlier interpretations by Nagasaki interpreters.

"When we arrived at the port of Nagasaki, we informed your esteemed officials of the Japanese government that you should proceed to Aniwa Port after two months had passed." "However, due to discord between Russia and England and France, it became difficult for us to depart from your country's shores." "Having now concluded that matter, we have come to Hakodate, sent this letter to Edo, and intend to stockpile fuel and provisions aboard the Fregate." "In order to conclude treaty negotiations with your esteemed officials of the Japanese government, we shall proceed directly to Osaka from this location." "If the Japanese government desires to hold treaty negotiations in Edo, we request that you issue an official notice to that effect in Osaka; you must come to Edo with all haste."

Furthermore, when examining the date of this letter signed by Putyatin, it was August 31st and had been presented to the Hakodate Magistrate. I have not clarified by what means of transportation this urgent and critical letter was conveyed from Ezo to Edo or when it arrived, but I suspect it may have been overtaken by the fast-sailing Russian warship that departed several days later after "stockpiling fuel and provisions." In other words, had Putyatin’s letter reached Edo without delay from his ship, they would have swiftly identified the true nature of "the foreign ships that appeared in Hyōgo Bay," and Osaka City could have maintained far greater tranquility.

We may not know about eras prior to Keichō and Genwa, but it should be remembered that for over two hundred years since Iemitsu’s reign, Japan—a maritime nation—had not built any ships that could truly be called ships. The ships that Goncharov had marveled at—“Why does your country’s vessel have such wave-catching notches at the stern and such an awkwardly tall rudder?”—were only crawling along Japan’s coast. The pioneering efforts of the intrepid seafarer Takadaya Kahei to open the sea route between Kunashir and Etorofu remain a tale worthy of pride for maritime Japan. Yet foreign ships—with their deep drafts impervious to waves—could cross the equator, traverse the Pacific, and sail south from the Arctic Ocean to the Kuril Islands a full century earlier, even without possessing Kahei's valor or seasoned expertise. The shogunate’s "Large Ship Construction Prohibition Law" was first abolished through the advocacy of Mito Nariaki, but unless this vast gap in shipbuilding and navigation technology was rapidly filled, all manner of foreign ships would continue to menace Japan’s coasts. From the Kōka and Kaei eras onward, and particularly after the Ansei port openings, one can discern that for Japan at that time, more than anything else, it was ships.

On October 14, Admiral Putyatin’s warship Diana and three other vessels returned to Shimoda. On the 17th of the same month, Tsutsui, Kawaji, and others were reappointed and dispatched to Shimoda. The "Shimoda negotiations" commenced on November 1. On the fourth day, a massive tsunami struck Shimoda, inflicting major damage across the area. One Russian warship suffered severe destruction and later sank while being towed beyond the harbor for repairs. Amid these events, the talks extended until December 21 when the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity was concluded. This entailed opening three ports—Hakodate, Shimoda, and Nagasaki—for Russian vessels and their castaways. The Japan-Russia border was established between Etorofu Island and Uruppu Island, while Sakhalin Island remained undivided according to traditional arrangements. A century after Spanberg’s efforts, Russia had finally achieved half of its objective.

When reading the text of this widely recognized "Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity," it proves intriguing to compare it with that of the "Japan-US Treaty of Amity." While excluding border issues, both treaties share nearly identical substance at their core; yet compared to the American-style phrasing of Article I in the Japan-US Treaty of Amity—"Japan and the United States shall establish perpetual peace and amity between their peoples, without distinction of place or person"—the corresponding text in the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity remains markedly restrained. "Henceforth, both nations shall maintain true amity in perpetuity and, within their respective domains, mutually protect one another; not only human life but also property shall remain free from harm" constitutes the same Article I. In other words, compared to the former, the latter carries a more distinctively shogunal character. I refer not to the content but to what might be called the tone of the text—and here too lies a difference between Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami’s dealings with Perry and Kawaji’s with Putyatin.

In the case of the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity as well, one must consider the behind-the-scenes activities of the Nagasaki interpreters. On April 29, shortly after the conclusion of the Japan-US Treaty of Amity, Kawaji issued a notice to Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami, the official handling American affairs: "Regarding Chief Interpreter Moriyama Einosuke—we have been instructed by Lord Abe Ise-no-kami to retain him as our assistant for the time being. As previously agreed, until the Russians arrive, he shall continue striving in his duties at Shimoda, and we foresee no hindrance in this arrangement. This is for your understanding and notification." In essence, since Lord Abe Ise-no-kami was already apprised, they were requesting that Moriyama remain attached to their team as before. There was no telling when the Russian forces might arrive. Moreover, excellent interpreters were absolutely indispensable, and individuals like Einosuke must have been fiercely competed over. Einosuke had changed his name to Takakichiro and been promoted to samurai status, proving more active during the "Shimoda negotiations" than he had been in those of "Yokohama." While the other interpreters dispatched from Nagasaki were each undoubtedly exceptional in their own right, even if their deeds went unrecorded, there can be no doubt that they provided diverse assistance to the coastal defense officials of the time.

Kawaji was a statesman of considerable ability and talent. Today's historians even assert that among the shogunate councilors of that era, there likely existed no other diplomat capable of matching Putyatin—said to have been a figure surpassing Perry—save Kawaji. Putyatin too stood as an exceptional figure compared to Russia's two previous envoys to Japan. At that time, Putyatin's position was one of complete encirclement on all fronts—utterly incomparable to Perry's circumstances. "Nagasaki Negotiations" The Crimean War, which had commenced earlier, had by then extended its reach to Japan's very shores. The Anglo-French fleet seeking to capture Putyatin's Diana and its crew saw the French warship Porte-Aune appear off Shimoda with six cannons deployed on March 5th and 11th of Ansei 2 (1855). On that same twelfth day, three British warships materialized at Hakodate, arraying forty cannons as they lay in ambush for Putyatin's return voyage. Having departed his homeland years earlier for this alien land thousands of miles away, he remained there too as "an uninvited guest." Records including certain opinions from Mito Nariaki regarding the Russian mission and Abe's written responses attest to this reality, compounded by a maritime disaster where one of Putyatin's warships—damaged by tsunami waves—sank while under tow near Miyajima for repairs, forcing even Putyatin himself to swim ashore bodily. Moreover, Putyatin proved himself a man who—even while waging war against French vessels on another front through counterattacks and attempted seizures—never once showed the slightest vulnerability to Japanese commissioners until the treaty's full conclusion.

Kawaji wrote in his Shimoda Diary on December 8th: “Consider Admiral Putyatin of Russia—eleven years away from his homeland, over ten thousand *ri* from his family, making warships his dwelling as he strove to expand his nation’s territory and wealth. Since last year, when England and France mobilized navies against Russia, he too fought at sea once—losing ships witnessed at Nagasaki—and now relies solely on a single warship. Three or four times he came to Japan to dispute borders—once struck by tsunami—his vessel sank to the seabed. Yet undaunted, he rebuilt small boats here. Though men might insult him daily as ‘Puteyatsu,’ reflect: his labors surpass those of Saemon-no-jō and others tenfold—nay, a hundredfold. Truly—a genuine hero—”

Kawaji also knew his enemy. The term "Futeiyatsu" contained a pun derived from rendering Putyatin in Japanese style as 布恬廷 ("Buten-tei"). In another diary entry, he had mused: "Were I to straddle the globe like Putyatin and face fourfold or fivefold adversities, I might become a man of his stature. Yet how could one cultivate true heroism while confined within peace and national isolation?" For that age, such contemplations alone must have carried profound significance.

Even if their coats and eye colors differed, heroes could recognize heroes. Just as one could sense a difference in tone between the Japan-US and Japan-Russia Treaties of Amity, Kawaji's diplomatic efforts had succeeded admirably in preserving autonomy—yet even he could not escape far from the isolationist restraints of his era. The "new knowledge" among shogunate officials too fell victim to this, plunging them into unforeseen predicaments. Article 6 of the treaty stipulated: "When unavoidable circumstances arise, the Russian government may station officials at one port selected from Hakodate or Shimoda." Appendix Article 6 further stated: "Russian officials shall be established from Ansei 3 onward; however, their residences and land allocations shall be left to the discretion of the Japanese government—". This became the focal point of Lord Ise-no-kami's fury. Though nearly identical provisions existed in Article 11 of the Japan-US Treaty—stipulating implementation eighteen months after signing—Abe declared: "The Kanagawa Treaty was already flawed." Yet he remained evasive, preserving room for future negotiations. "This explicitly permits stationing officials," he continued. "Even among our diplomatic staff—with someone as exceptionally capable as Saemon-no-jō present—is this not the height of regret?" Whether Kawaji's measures constituted mere procedural overreach based on prior treaties or stemmed from progressive conviction about inevitable port-opening remained unclear even in his diary. Yet it seemed evident they weren't coerced by Russian military threats. Mr. Tokutomi Sohō had written: "Once concluding treaties of amity, stationing consuls at open ports becomes inevitable... Seeing even Abe Masahiro expose such imprudence—was it not natural that the shogunate's grand foreign policy never solidified?" As recorded in Volume 33 of *Kinsei Nihon Kokuminshi* (Modern Japanese National History), the inertia of national isolation continued overshadowing—both overtly and covertly—those laboring on reform's frontlines, even during this stormy period of diplomatic transformation. The negotiation records between Kawaji and Putyatin at Hōzenji Temple in Toda Village, Izu—dated February 24, Ansei 2 (1855), concerning Article Six's revocation—left nothing wanting in conveying Kawaji's anguish.

“If our earnest endeavors since Nagasaki remain disregarded, and should you fail to acknowledge these matters we have deliberated upon thus far, I shall find myself without justification before my government—indeed, this has become an affair binding life and death.” “Therefore, I shall transfer these aforementioned affairs to Lord Chikugo, and henceforth shall no longer handle any such matters.” “While I deeply appreciate your magnanimous proposal, compliance with these stipulations proves impracticable. However, considering the considerable exertions you have undertaken since your dispatch two years past—and particularly in light of your gracious discourse—I shall strive to accommodate your request. Yet as an immediate resolution remains beyond reach, I must respectfully entreat you to grant us further time for contemplation.”

Saemon-no-jō: “I am most gratified; however, our current troubles pale in comparison to those endured by your envoy during the shipwreck off Miyajima some time past—this I humbly state.” Putyatin: “Regarding the treaty matters over which Your Excellency has been deeply concerned since last year—as an agreement had been reached—I had humbly believed there remained no point unaccepted by our government. Thus, to unexpectedly receive word of these present circumstances leaves me utterly astonished.” Saemon-no-jō: “As the hour has grown late, I have ordered simple provisions to be prepared; I humbly entreat you to partake of them.” The complexion Kawaji wore when declaring “This has become a matter of life and death—I humbly state” left no doubt that by then, he had steeled himself for seppuku. This was met with Putyatin’s bold rebuttal—“While we deeply appreciate this earnest proposal, compliance with such terms proves unfeasible”—uttered in one decisive stroke. These few lines depicted a contest of strength between two men—Saemon-no-jō’s declaration about ordering provisions serving as the dramatic curtain fall on this grand stage. Yet the contrast between Kawaji staking his very life and threatening to transfer matters to Lord Chikugo (the former Nagasaki Magistrate and secondary negotiator), thereby nullifying everything, and Putyatin’s astonished response about their prior agreement likely represented more than just Kawaji’s personal grievance.

IV Even during the Japan-Russia Shimoda negotiations, interpreter Shōzō's activities remained unclear. Einosuke—now Takakichiro—though still a junior direct retainer of the shogunate at this time, had his activities thoroughly documented; yet compared to Hori Tatsunosuke, who worked alongside him as an interpreter during these events, conspicuous records of Takakichiro appear scarce. In Perry’s *Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan* and similar accounts, nearly all Nagasaki interpreters of that period were recorded—yet Shōzō alone was absent. Moreover, considering that Portman—Perry’s most active interpreter—specifically noted Shōzō in that aforementioned letter to Einosuke, one senses some facet of Shōzō’s character lingering there. This will be discussed later in detail, but as an interpreter, he never rose beyond the rank of junior interpreter throughout his career. That he—descendant of Nagasaki’s most prestigious interpreter lineage as hereditary Inspector of Interpreters since the first Shōdayu—remained perpetually a “junior interpreter” stands as one of history’s great mysteries by any reasonable measure. Given his continuous selection for major diplomatic events since the Nagasaki Negotiations, one cannot attribute this to linguistic incompetence; rather, might there not have been in him a certain stoic resolve—a quality diverging from typical Nagasaki interpreters—where he quietly nurtured his scientific talents?

According to records in *Volume 8 of Archival Documents on Bakumatsu-Era Foreign Relations*, it is known that since November of Ansei 1 (1854)—that is, from midway through the Shimoda negotiations—he had been staying in Toda Village, Izu, together with the Russians. “Having arrived at Toda Village in Tōshū on the 14th of last month—upon urgently receiving word of the Russian envoy’s arrival and desiring an audience, we sent notice via interpreter Sanzō Motoki. Accordingly, we immediately proceeded to Hōzenji Temple, where the envoy was residing, accompanied by official recorders and junior inspectors, and conducted the meeting—” [and so forth.] This is an excerpt from a report dated February 15 of the following year by Nakamura Tameya, head of the accounting group and one of the Russian reception staff members, addressed to Kawaji. However, the Russians were constructing ships along the coast of Toda Village. Due to the tsunami on November 4 of the previous year and the sinking of the frigate off Miyajima, among other events, the Russian envoy found themselves short of ships to repatriate hundreds of crew members. They borrowed American whaling ships, but during that time, landing the American crew members from the whaling ships and finding a place to keep them waiting proved difficult, and several amusing episodes that arose between them and the shogunate officials are recorded. Admiral Putyatin initially earnestly requested the construction of warships, but as the shogunate feared that a naval battle might break out with the British and French fleets patrolling offshore in neutral waters, they did not permit it; instead, a single schooner for transport was being built by Russians and Japanese.

On February 16th as well, there was a report submitted to Kawaji by Takakichiro Moriyama stating: “On this 16th day, having submitted through interpreter Sanzō Motoki our intention to request an audience with the Russian envoy Takakichiro, we—Yukizō and others—proceeded to meet at Hōzenji Temple in Toda Village upon official notification—” [...] After commencing construction of the schooner, Putyatin had taken up lodging at Hōzenji Temple in Toda Village while serving as supervisor. Therefore, as the interpreter attached to both the shipyard and Hōzenji Temple, Sansō maintained more contact with Russians than any other interpreter of that period.

Toda Village was located in the innermost part of Suruga Bay, over ten ri from Shimoda; from this time onward, it became a historic site where Japan first constructed Western-style modern ships. The schooner’s construction was of course designed by the Russians, with Russian shipbuilders undertaking the work, but many Japanese shipbuilders also participated. Putyatin’s gratitude—for Japan’s thorough understanding of his dire circumstances after losing many ships thousands of miles away in a foreign land, and their assistance in construction—was evident both in his own records and in the letter of thanks sent the following year under the Russian government’s name. Yet for its part, the shogunate had seized upon this rare opportunity to master Western-style shipbuilding techniques; it is said that the shipbuilders who participated at the time were gathered exclusively from among the most skilled craftsmen across the Kantō region.

The Russians, too, showed no reluctance in sharing their technological expertise. On February 29, Putyatin—who had been conducting discussions at Hōzenji Temple—addressed Nakamura Tamiya as follows: “Regarding the new schooner’s blueprints and other particulars, I shall present them to Lord Kawaji—though my departure is but two or three days hence. When employing the schooner in Japan, it can sail from Nagasaki in approximately three days’ time, which should prove most serviceable—however, if one fails to load sufficient weight into the schooner’s hold due to its deep draft, it becomes unseaworthy; thus even stones must be loaded as ballast. Further details regarding cargo quantities shall be explained.” This revelation—that stones might serve as ballast and that Edo-Nagasaki voyages could be completed in three days—must have struck his listeners as nothing short of miraculous for that era.

Kawaji, of course, had taken considerable interest in this newly built ship, as evidenced by his diary entry from February 24: “Clear weather. At 8:30 in the morning, summoned Russian envoy Putyatin to Hōzenji Temple in Toda Village for discussions, then proceeded to the Russian shipyard. Japanese and foreign shipbuilders have gathered and are working diligently—it appears our Japanese craftsmen have now become quite skilled—.” The complete set of schooner blueprints presented by Putyatin was forwarded by Kawaji to the senior councilors. Abe then commanded, “Though it may not serve as a warship, I hear it is an exceedingly convenient vessel. Therefore, have one built posthaste wherever possible.” Thus did a portion of Western shipbuilding techniques become our own.

This schooner measured twelve *ken* in length and three *ken* in width, with its cost at the time recorded as over three thousand *ryō*; however, the aforementioned *Archival Documents—Volume 9* features an illustration of this schooner’s launching ceremony at its beginning. The artist is said to have likely been an anonymous painter who had become a retainer at the residence of Egawa, the magistrate of Izu. The painting is fascinating as it conveys the appearance of that era. The copper-sheathed ship, hoisting a blue Russian national flag, had just slid out onto the water surface, surrounded by Russian carpenters in sailor-like attire with both hands raised high and Japanese carpenters in traditional topknots, headbands, work pants, and straw sandals standing with arms folded, watching it depart. In the crowd, a tall Russian who appeared to be a missionary offering prayers stood side by side with a Japanese samurai who had smartly adjusted the hem of his haori with his sword—a scene imbued with historical significance.

Putyatin boarded this newly built ship and returned to his country. They first set sail on March 21, but upon discovering French warships lying in wait offshore, turned back and departed again on the 22nd, soon vanishing from view. The fact that this schooner was copper-sheathed likely stemmed from Japan’s still-nascent expertise in iron plate manufacturing at the time. The Russians had maintained their custom—since Spangberg’s era—of constructing iron-clad ships at Okhotsk Port; Putyatin surely never imagined being compelled to build a vessel in Shimoda, Japan. The passage from Kawaji’s report to the senior councilors states: “Among the Russian subordinates are three or four shipbuilders, with others versed in carpentry and blacksmithing—Admiral Putyatin and three or four officers personally oversaw blueprint markings using British reference materials, as conveyed by interpreters.” Yet even this suggests they were mere technicians equipped for repairs. Admiral Putyatin and his crew of semi-amateurs building a schooner collectively had conversely made the process more comprehensible for participating Japanese shipwrights. The “interpreter” mentioned was undoubtedly Sansō attached to the shipyard; he had been involved from lumber procurement across Izu through to the launching ceremony. According to Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography*, Russia presented Sansō with a gold watch the following year acknowledging his efforts; records show Putyatin gifted him “one samovar and two paintings” before departing. While *yuwakashi* denotes Russia’s famed samovar, comparisons with Kawaji’s “boxed sextant, thermometer, five paintings” or Moriyama’s “thermometer and carpet” reveal these modest tokens still signified Sansō’s deeper gratitude from the Russians.

However, Sanzō and his fellow interpreters became rapidly busier since the final years of the Kaei era. They had to station permanent interpreters at the newly opened port of Hakodate in Ezo, while Nagasaki itself had newly opened to Britain. In Shimoda, whaling ships began arriving from the very day the treaty was signed—with Americans roaming ashore—so that now, Nagasaki interpreters could no longer remain interpreters solely for Nagasaki. "Regarding the Dutch interpreters currently stationed in Shimoda—whereas there have hitherto been two personnel—when foreign vessels arrive, their duties encompassing reception, interpretation, arrangements for supplying water and provisions, and all attendant tasks become exceedingly multifarious. Moreover, when foreigners stroll about and either visit unauthorized locations or disembark in large numbers, should any disturbances arise, the current paucity of interpreters would prove gravely inadequate, inevitably complicating supervision. Furthermore, vessels now arriving at this port are not limited solely to those requiring provisions—it being impossible to predict which nation’s ships may come or when. As duties will only multiply hereafter, two personnel can scarcely manage even basic operations—hence a petition has been submitted to appoint five additional personnel. However, given that Nagasaki itself currently suffers personnel shortages, and transferring its key personnel here would impede affairs there, we have instructed the Nagasaki Magistrate to dispatch three junior interpreters including assistants to this port with all haste—" This refers to a report submitted by Kawaji to the senior councilors on February 25th, whose appendix contains a petition from Hori Tatsunosuke and Shizuki Tatsuchirō—the two Dutch interpreters stationed in Shimoda—to the Shimoda Magistrate requesting an increase in personnel.

Having only two interpreters stationed in Shimoda would have been utterly impossible. While scholars and samurai proficient in Dutch were likely scarce across Japan at the time, interpretation itself stood apart as a distinct skill—moreover, interpreters were treated as a specialized class of craftsmen. As noted earlier, they remained under the Nagasaki Magistrate’s jurisdiction, meaning even Dutch-speaking scholars or samurai would not have willingly sought such positions. Compounding this mismatch, while Nagasaki interpreters primarily knew Dutch, their treaty counterparts were Americans and Russians. A March 1st letter from the Shimoda Magistrate to Kawaji lamented: “Among the Americans currently residing here, none understand Dutch. Though our interpreters have acquired a rudimentary grasp of English through self-study this past year, matters of complexity remain beyond their comprehension—” such was the dire reality.

Even those interpreters who “could not comprehend” [complex matters] were described thus: “—Hori Tatsunosuke, an interpreter who has been engaged [in these duties] for several years since last year, is currently ill and confined—. As negotiations cannot proceed under these circumstances, causing significant hindrance—though Your Excellency’s office must surely be occupied with pressing matters—if arrangements can somehow be made, we humbly request that Official Recorder Moriyama Takakichiro be kindly dispatched to conclude said negotiations—. Should this prove difficult, we ask that Interpreter Motoki Sansō be sent with all haste—.” and so forth. The negotiations mentioned in this document concerned dozens of American men and women from a whaling ship—whose vessel had been borrowed by Putyatin—who were staying at Gyokusen-ji Temple in Shimoda’s Kakizaki Village, and the discussions with the Americans regarding their disposition. However, as seen in Kawaji’s reply to the Shimoda Magistrate, Sanzō Motoki had also fallen ill from his strenuous duties, and Moriyama, now acting as Kawaji’s right-hand man in wrapping up matters from the Japan-Russia Treaty of Amity, could not be spared. That said, we could not simply allow the Americans at Gyokusen-ji to roam about as they pleased. “—Though Sansō is presently indisposed by illness, given the exigencies of these circumstances, he shall be compelled to attend by palanquin and discharge his duties—having conveyed this directive, he shall assuredly arrive at your location by the morning after next—. Moreover, barbarian ships have now been sighted offshore around seven bells—” "...and so forth," wrote Kawaji to the Shimoda Magistrate.

It was truly an extraordinary crisis, with interpreters at its very front lines. This was dated March 4th from Toda Village; “foreign ships sighted offshore” likely referred to French warships that first appeared off Shimoda on the following day, the 5th. Yet the interpreters had to board each of those warships to ascertain their intentions and conduct receptions. That Sanzō had to cross the ten-ri mountain pass to Shimoda—his ailing body jostled in a palanquin—was likewise “given the exigencies of these circumstances.” It was not only the Americans from Gyokusen-ji who walked through the streets of Shimoda. Even after Putyatin returned to his country, around a hundred Russians remained due to the lack of ships. In addition to these, other American whaling ships were newly arriving, and the unprepared authorities were driven to the height of busyness in their regulatory efforts. The shogunate’s traditional suppression of Christianity had to be enforced, resulting in an edict stating: “As foreigners are permitted to stroll within this port, the Christian faith is hereby strictly prohibited. Should any unnatural practices be discovered, informants shall receive rewards—however, if concealment is uncovered, penalties will be imposed upon all involved—.” Another edict declared: “Town residents are absolutely forbidden from direct trade with foreigners,” while a third mandated: “Even if townspeople receive gifts from foreigners, they must not accept them under any circumstances. Should minors innocently accept such items, they must immediately report to the magistrate’s office—if hidden possession is discovered—”

Even so, the foreigners walked through the towns day after day in search of daily necessities. The merchants at Ketsubusho—the officially sanctioned Japanese goods exchange for foreigners—had to cease communicating through broken attempts at foreign languages and gestures. However, the illiterate American sailors could read neither Japanese characters nor Dutch letters. "Regarding Ketsubusho: Following recent negotiations, to prevent direct interactions between townspeople and foreigners, we had them write Dutch letters alongside Japanese characters for pricing and managed matters so that no inconveniences should arise thereby. Yet when it came to sailors and their ilk, there were illiterate individuals. Though townspeople present [at Ketsubusho] received [quoted] prices per established custom, being unable to alter their speech [for comprehension], [the sailors] ultimately grew enraged—waving their hands or contorting their mouths—" Such being the case, Hirayama Kenjirō under Shimoda supervision petitioned Kawaji that interpreters were urgently required here as well.

The Nagasaki interpreters had not only ceased to be "interpreters of Nagasaki" but were even becoming unable to remain "interpreters of Dutch." They now had to serve as interpreters for every port across Japan, and not only for Dutch but also for English, Russian, and French. And what was even more significant was that these interpreters could no longer remain merely as translators. Since they had become proficient in foreign languages and acquainted with foreign cultures, and since their homeland was facing hardship because of this, they had no choice but to diversify into various fields and put their skills into practice through their individual capabilities.

The First Printing Factory

I

In Kaei 6 (1853), when the third Russian mission came to Nagasaki, Sanzō was thirty years old and became a father for the first time. By contemporary standards, this would have been considered late, but his wife Nui gave birth to their first son Shōtarō at age fifteen. According to the family tree in Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography*, Nui was born in April of Tenpō 5 (1834) to her adoptive father Shōzaemon and his second wife Kura—making her precisely fourteen years and several months old at childbirth, an exceptionally young mother. Thus Sanzō and Nui must have married when he was twenty-eight or twenty-nine and she thirteen or fourteen years old.

Nui and Sanzō were cousins united in marriage. The author of *Printing Civilization History* writes: “When he underwent his genpuku coming-of-age ceremony at fifteen, he married a female relative of the household and soon succeeded to the family’s interpreter profession.” However, since Nui had just been born that year, they must have held a betrothal ceremony between him at fifteen and her as a newborn. Of course, such marriage customs were deeply connected to the hereditary system of the Edo period. The interpreter profession had long maintained an examination system, yet despite the Bakumatsu period’s rapid expansion of foreign relations requiring many new recruits, its hereditary structure remained powerfully intact—barring exceptional deficiencies—mirroring samurai-class traditions. This fact is evident in Japanese documents and appears in Siebold’s and Goncharov’s writings. When Sansō became Shōtarō’s father, his adoptive father Motoki Shōzaemon still wielded influence as “Chief Interpreter and Inspector of Interpreters.” This is confirmed by records in *Ancient Documents—Volume VII* stating that during the “Nagasaki negotiations,” when gifts were presented by Russian envoys to shogunate commissioners and attending interpreters—though uninvolved directly—Shōzaemon was listed as head interpreter with an entry reading: “To Inspector of Interpreters Motoki Shōzaemon: one silver watch.” The Inspector of Interpreters served as overseer of interpreters, as recorded under Genroku 8 (1695) in *Chronology of Western Studies*: “In November Nagasaki established Dutch interpreter inspectors to supervise all personnel; Motoki Shōdayū first appointed.” Through hereditary succession Sansō was thus fated to become its sixth generation.

Nui gave birth to Kotarō in Ansei 4 (1857) after Shōtarō and died in July of the following year. The eldest son Shōtarō had predeceased Nui by four months, while Kotarō became president of Tokyo Tsukiji Type Foundry—the first privately established type manufacturing company of the Meiji era. Later Sansō took Tane as his second wife and had Seijirō and Shōsaburō. With another concubine he had a daughter named Matsu. In his later years, though no more children were born, he kept a concubine named Taki. The woman who bore Matsu was a certain concubine he came to know when stranded on Hachijōjima in Genji 1 (1864). Yet even considering such tumultuous circumstances, his married life appeared far from happy. Though the year of second wife Tane's death remains unclear, seeing how she bore Seijirō in Genji 1 (1864) and Shōsaburō in Keiō 3 (1867) in rapid succession before ceasing childbearing altogether, one might surmise she too preceded him in death. He was, in essence, a man cursed with marital misfortune—a circumstance that seemed inextricably tied to such unnatural realities as his first wife Nui marrying at thirteen or fourteen only to die at nineteen, or Sansō himself being compelled to wed a newborn infant. This is how it appears to me, and I cannot think otherwise.

As for Sanzō himself—what views he held regarding the marital customs of his time remain unknown, for none are revealed in his extant writings. Yet even had he harbored some novel perspective, such matters of social practice and tradition would have proven more intractable than the transitional politics or scientific challenges of the era—reforms inconceivable without the Meiji Restoration. He is generally viewed solely as a scientist, and his writings too appear to offer nothing beyond that. The author of *Printing Civilization History*, when the imperial decree posthumously honoring Sanzō was issued in Meiji 45 (1912), visited Sanzō’s surviving friends in Nagasaki—including Mr. Teruo Tachibana, chief priest of Suwa Shrine—and disciples such as Mr. Kenji Sakai, soliciting their recollections of Sanzō, and wrote as follows: "At that time, he no longer saw the role of a mere interpreter as significant; his eyes were fixed on global trends as he quietly awaited the opportune moment." During this period, he constantly perused numerous books, devotedly researching techniques across all manner of crafts—particularly through the Dutch studies he had mastered—such that even days seemed insufficient for his investigations into Western culture and technology. At this time, our national sentiment saw the advocacy of national isolation reach its peak—a state where the mere sight of a foreign ship would provoke indiscriminate cannon fire—yet Mr. Motoki did not allow this to sway his heart in the slightest, quietly holding faith within that the time for open ports and trade would arrive. And anticipating that a commercial treaty would inevitably be concluded—he first thoroughly investigated every aspect of foreign customs, practices, and industrial technologies, determined in advance policies toward foreign nations—despite the entire nation being engrossed in theories of national isolation, Mr. Motoki calmly continued his research into Western industrial techniques."

These recollections from friends and disciples during Sanzō Motoki’s lifetime are now over thirty years old—precious and irreplaceable—yet I cannot help but find their phrasing regrettably abstract. The era was that of Tenpō 13’s (1842) “Revised Order to Repel Foreign Ships,” It could be perceived as belonging either to an earlier period—prior to Tenpō 13’s (1842) “Revised Order”—or alternatively, to the years following the Kanagawa and Shimoda Treaties, during the Man’en and Bunkyū eras when debates over implementing the Five-Nation Treaties ignited rampant anti-foreign sentiment. Though this temporal ambiguity persists, phrases like “he no longer saw significance in the trifling role of interpreter; his gaze fixed upon global currents as he quietly awaited the opportune moment,” “remained utterly unswayed by such matters,” or “serenely pursued his studies of Western industrial arts” may be accepted as genuine facets of Sanzō’s character, faithfully transmitted by former associates and pupils. In essence, Sanzō must have thrown himself wholeheartedly into what then stood as the paramount task for his countrymen—assimilating foreign sciences and making them their own.

And this distinctive aspect of his character manifested in such episodes as Putyatin presenting only him and Narabayashi Eishichirō with “one book each” and “five sheets of Russian text” during the Nagasaki negotiations, as well as in the written message addressed to Motoki seen within the letter that Portman—Perry’s interpreter—sent to Moriyama Einosuke. Particularly during the Shimoda negotiations, the fact that Sanzō alone served as interpreter at Toda Village’s schooner construction site—a position seemingly self-sought in a place of little shogunate prominence—when considered alongside these other instances, appeared to dovetail perfectly, evoking the visage of a scientist gazing far beyond his era.

The month in Ansei 2 (1855) when Sanzō returned from Shimoda to Nagasaki remains unknown to me now. As Putyatin’s departure from Shimoda occurred on March 23rd, with some crew members remaining to handle various tasks, the conclusion of official duties likely came somewhat later. Moreover, during intervals in his public service, he—being a pioneer in shipbuilding and steam engines for his time—received invitations from daimyos fervent with shipbuilding zeal following the recent lifting of the Edict Prohibiting Large Ship Construction, making it uncertain whether he returned directly to Nagasaki. However, as previously noted, he had become an interpreter for the training division at the Naval Training Institute—established that July in Nagasaki under Nagai Genbanokami and Katsu Rintarō—confirming his return by summer. From July of Kaei 6 (1853) through nearly three years, Sanzō had literally been rushing east and west—a period proportionally aligned with the four-year span from Kaei 6 to Ansei 4 (1857), during which Nui bore their first son Shōtarō and then their second son Kotarō.

It was previously mentioned that in July of Ansei 1 (1854), Sanzō was at the Tsukiji shipyard of the Tosa Domain lord. In the quoted text found in *Yoshida Tōyō Den*, Sanzō’s name appears up until early September; however, it is thought that he likely remained in Edo until mid-September working for the shogunate’s astronomy bureau. In other words, this was the period between the conclusion of the Kanagawa Treaty—with Perry’s withdrawal in June—and late September, when Putyatin’s ship appeared at the mouth of Osaka’s Ajigawa River, to which the shogunate delivered its official missive. Furthermore, judging from the fact that he translated a letter from Putyatin via the Hakodate magistrate jointly with Moriyama (then Einosuke), it can be inferred that he was also engaged in work for the astronomy bureau. However, according to *Tōyō Den*, Sanzō is credited as the pioneer who built the first Western-style ships in Edo.

In July of Ansei 1 (1854), Sanzō Motoki, interpreter of Nagasaki, while en route to Shimoda on official business, diverted to enter Edo. On August 29, Lord Yōdō summoned Sanzō Motoki to hear about overseas affairs, inspected the steam ship model he had brought, ordered his accompanying craftsman Kōhachi to create an additional model, and petitioned the shogunate to conduct a trial operation. "This marked the genesis of Western-style shipbuilding in Edo—" Yoshida Tōyō was the Tosa Domain’s ship magistrate and an advocate of opening the country—a man who would be assassinated in Bunkyū 2 (1862) by anti-foreign loyalists. The text’s phrasing about "[he] diverted to enter Edo while en route to Shimoda" appears inconsistent with Sanzō Motoki’s previously documented movements. Nevertheless, it seems contemporaries in those circles recognized Motoki’s expertise in shipbuilding and other Western sciences. The 1912 petition for his posthumous honors listed works including *Rangwa Tsūben* and *Draft Manuscript on Naval Engineering*, and just as other pioneers of printing technology contributed across multiple fields, Sanzō Motoki too became an irreplaceable figure in Japan’s naval development history. "In the following year [Ansei 2 (1855)], when Yamauchi Toyoshige [Yōdō] faced his sankin-kōtai rotation, after returning to his domain he had it transported to Kōchi, launched it in Urado Harbor, and presented this novel specimen of Western progress for viewing by Toyosuke, other relatives, and retainers—thereby greatly awakening them from their stubborn slumber."

Of course, when it speaks of someone having “greatly—awakened” the Tosa samurai, this refers to Yoshida Tōyō; but if the Western-style shipbuilding in the Tosa domain was indeed initiated by Tōyō, then it stands to reason that it was also Tōyō who recommended Sanzō, and it is possible that Tōyō and Sanzō were somewhat acquainted. However, whether the Tosa Domain’s Western-style ships were truly Japan’s first remains doubtful. The Tosa Domain’s ship was completed in Tsukiji and began operating in Tosa’s port in August of the following year (Ansei 2), but the Satsuma Domain’s Shōheimaru had already made its return voyage to Edo in April of that same year. According to Mr. Toshiwo Tsuchiya’s *The Study of the Collapse Process of Feudal Society*, the Satsuma Domain had created a steamship model based on Dutch books in Kaei 5 (1852). Though ostensibly obtaining shogunate approval under the pretext of Ryukyu defense, when Tokugawa Nariaki’s advocacy led to the repeal of the "Edict Prohibiting Large Ship Construction," they donated one of their vessels under construction to the shogunate—thus, according to *Tōyō Den*, proving a step behind.

However that may be, the Tosa Domain had long been renowned for its ships, and since Tosa and Satsuma were said to have been engaged in a shipbuilding rivalry, there could be no doubt that taking the initiative after the repeal of the "Edict Prohibiting Large Ship Construction" must have ranked among the greatest honors of Sanzō's life. What sort of steam ship model Sanzō Motoki had brought remains unknown today—nothing of it survives—but they apparently demonstrated its operation in a large water reservoir or similar structure. In *Tōyō Den*, the quoted diary of Shisai Terada depicts him being astonished upon viewing it.

"Clear weather on the first day of July (Ansei 1 [1854]). Left after nine o'clock. Due to the arrival of Lord Tōtōmi-no-kami, around eight o'clock, I went out again and immediately withdrew. Kōhachi Shiota of Nagasaki brought out a steam ship model, which was presented for viewing at the riding ground; it was truly marvelous. 'I went out before dusk to view it and withdrew at sunset'—so that riding ground must have been packed with Tosa samurai spectators." The "Shiota Kōhachi" mentioned here refers to the carpenter Kōhachi who accompanied Sansō from Nagasaki. As seen in Terada’s diary, it becomes clear that under Sansō’s supervision, it was actually Kōhachi who built the ship. On the same fourth day, Sanzō himself operated and demonstrated it. "Clear weather, departed at the fourth hour. Today, Nagasaki interpreter Sanzō Motoki presented a steam ship model for viewing. Compared to the one presented on the first day, it was larger and its mechanism relatively precise; [he] withdrew after seven o’clock. In the evening, went to Denji Shibuya’s residence; together with Kominami, Asahina, and Izuma. Returned at ten o'clock."

"In Sanzō’s account of this occasion: 'Russia fought against Turkey, with Britain and France aiding Turkey, resulting in ten Russian warships being captured by the British forces,' wrote Shisai." The model presented on the fourth day must have been larger and more precise than the first one, which Sanzō himself operated and demonstrated. Judging from this text and synthesizing it with subsequent diary entries, was Sanzō Motoki staying at the residence of Denji Shibuya, a Tosa Domain samurai? People like Kominami, Asahina, and Izuma—whether they were fellow domain samurai remains unclear—had also gathered, and it becomes evident that they were listening to news of the Crimean War from Sanzō. Though there remains no way to know the exact nature of Sanzō’s storytelling, we can imagine that his discourse—linking overseas political developments with introductions to foreign sciences and emphasizing the urgency of maritime defense for Japan as a seafaring nation—likely planted these concepts in the minds of Terada and the others present. Shisai Terada participated in domain administration as a magistrate of the Tosa Domain, just like Tōyō, and had served as Yōdō’s close aide. Given his close association with figures like Kawaji Saemon-no-jō, and setting aside the complex political circumstances of the time—such as his later emergence as a leading figure among the pro-shogunate signatories—there can be no doubt that he was a man of considerable insight who maintained a keen interest in Sanzō’s reports on overseas developments.

On July 16th, he went to Shibuya again to discuss matters concerning the steamship order with Sanzō Motoki; on the 24th, he conducted a preliminary inspection of the Tsukiji shipyard alongside other domain samurai. "The entry states, 'Finally, they served sake to Sanzō Motoki,' which suggests that he was already overseeing operations at that shipyard." On August 1st, the entry states, "Sanzō Motoki returned the promised item," concealing its name—though I imagine it was probably not Dutch books or similar materials. Dutch books were something many ambitious samurai of that time desired; moreover, they could not be obtained by anyone except those of special status, and this was especially true depending on the type of Dutch book. On August 5th, he discussed the ship under construction with Sanzō Motoki; on September 7th, he wrote: "Rain. Went out and passed by the steam ship manufacturing site—the ship’s form had taken considerable shape."

The efforts Sanzō Motoki exerted for the Tosa Domain were not limited to just once or twice in model-making alone; it appears he refined one innovation after another. Lord Yōdō’s diary records that on August 4th, “with full retinue prepared, even those returning from duties were ordered to ride horses, proceeding to Sunamura’s residence where the Nagasaki interpreter was summoned to present the steam ship for viewing.” Then on the 8th of the same month, when inviting the Uwajima Domain lord, Lord Date: “In the evening, interpreter Sanzō Motoki brought a steam ship model, which was viewed together with Lord Tōtōmi-no-kami Date at the riding ground—on that occasion, Nakahama Manjirō [John Manjirō] was also summoned—” Thus, Sanzō Motoki met John Manjirō, recently returned from America, during this time. Nakahama Manjirō famously returned to Japan in Kaei 3 (1850) as a castaway and remained under restricted status for two subsequent years, but after the Ansei-era port openings, his language skills and foreign knowledge were valued, leading him to become a professor at the shogunate's Naval Training Institute. Because the Tosa Domain had already taken the lead over the shogunate in employing Manjirō and appointing him as a domain samurai, they likely summoned him on this occasion as well to critique Sanzō’s model using his knowledge.

After the conclusion of the Kanagawa Treaty, throughout Japan, the fervor for building modern large ships was at its peak. The Tosa Domain records state: “On intercalary July 24th (Ansei 1 [1854]), custodial officials submitted a petition to Duty Officer Lord Kuze Yamato-no-kami, which was received and retained. On August 23rd of the same year, said custodial officials were summoned to his office, and the petition was returned with an appended document, as follows.” The shogunate granted permission within the short span of one month, noting: “As official approval for large ship construction has now been issued, [this is] for trial purposes.” Since Sanzō Motoki’s presentation of the model had begun on the first day of July as previously mentioned, it was likely that the Tosa Domain’s submission of the petition was decided based on that. And what manner of vessel was this first steam ship constructed in Edo—born from Sanzō’s model and erected under his supervision? The Tosa Domain records likewise document the contents of that petition as follows. "The petition stated: 'One steam ship: length six ken, beam nine shaku, depth five shaku four sun, number of cannons two.' Though small, it was a type of warship." “In accordance with the aforementioned model, we hereby instruct craftsmen at our Tsukiji residence to commence construction. As Kōhachi, a carpenter residing in Nagasaki, is currently present in Edo, we shall summon him to inspect [the work]. Once completed, we intend to conduct trial operations in the Inland Sea. Furthermore, should [the vessel] prove sufficiently navigable, we humbly propose dispatching it via sea route to our domain for crew training, followed by round trips between Edo and Osaka. We await Your Lordship’s wise directives on these matters. Respectfully submitted on intercalary July 24th by Matsudaira Tosa-no-kami.”

The plan was that once completed, they would first operate the ship in Edo's Inland Sea, then send it to their home province of Tosa to train the domain's sailors; once sufficiently navigable, they would have it shuttle between Edo and Osaka. However, while Kōhachi's name appeared in the document, Sanzō Motoki's was conspicuously absent—likely because Motoki, being subordinate to the Nagasaki Magistrate and currently on official duty in Edo, required discretion toward the shogunate. Did the ship perform as well as the model? When was it completed, and how did they conduct trial runs in Edo's Inland Sea? Though these details remain unclear, Shisai Terada's diary—he having already returned home—records that by August of the following year, the vessel had safely completed its return voyage to Tosa.

"On the 4th, we passed through Yui Inai." From there we attended duty. Today I closed up early and withdrew at nine o'clock. "—The steamship returned from Edo.” And on the same August 23rd: “—I departed at four o'clock and withdrew at eight." Today Lord Gakunosuke (Yōdō’s younger brother) went to view the steam ship. I too received orders to go and first arrived at the three leaders. Lord Gakunosuke arrived; presently returning to his seat he finally boarded that ship—I too followed. This ship—during my previous post in Edo I had been deeply involved in its planning—though I had feared it would lack swiftness indeed it advanced but sluggishly—"

"Tōyō Den describes how this steam ship was far slower than the guard boats, causing people’s bewilderment, yet also notes how they marveled at seeing a vessel propelled by machinery." In any case, the early steam ship created by Japanese hands—by Sanzō and Kōhachi—was launched into Japanese waters, slow as it was.

However, through what means did Sanzō learn the practical aspects of steam ship construction? The Dutch warship Palembang had arrived in Kōka 1 (1844). Since then, he must have seen several steam ships; however, even as an interpreter, he would not have been freely permitted to inspect engine rooms of foreign warships and such facilities. During that same Kōka era (1844–1848), though the shogunate had ordered a small steam engine from the Netherlands, Sanzō was still a junior apprentice interpreter at that time and likely could not access such privileges freely. He must have learned through documents or perhaps by secretly constructing models—likely the culmination of his prior painstaking efforts—but that a steam ship built solely by Japanese hands was launched at all, however sluggish its speed, must be considered a remarkable feat for its era. When one considers that Toda Village’s “schooner”—preserved as Japan’s first historical instance of Western-style shipbuilding—dates to Ansei 2 (1855), it seems all the more natural that a vessel measuring “six *ken* in length” and “armed with two cannons” had a “depth of only five *shaku* four *sun*,” making Sanzō and Kōhachi’s struggles all too imaginable.

II

That Sanzō Motoki's steam ship model was a type of warship equipped with "two cannons" is said to have been commissioned by the Tosa Domain under the pretense of "strict coastal defense"—a detail that becomes particularly intriguing when aligned with the contemporaneous events of Perry and Putyatin's arrivals in Kaei 6 (1853), followed by the establishment of the Kanagawa and Shimoda treaties in Ansei 1 (1854). That Sanzō Motoki was immediately appointed as interpreter at the Naval Training Institute under Nagai and Katsu upon returning from Edo in Ansei 2 (1855) must have been dictated by the tides of the era. Their colleague Moriyama Einosuke changed his name to Takijirō and became head of the Foreign Interpretation Bureau; their colleague Hori Tatsunosuke became a professor at the Institute for Western Studies. Had Sanzō continued on this course, he would likely have swiftly attained some prominent official position within the shogunate. However, in that same year [Ansei 2 (1855)], he was charged with a crime by the shogunate and "imprisoned."

"In this year [Ansei 2 (1855)], he returned to Nagasaki; however, Mizuno Chikugo-no-kami, the Nagasaki Magistrate of the time, acting on orders from the shogunate, suddenly commanded him to confinement in the *yagura* prison." Thus, Motoki became a prisoner. "The reason," writes *History of Printing Civilization*, "was that during his stay in Edo, he had accepted a request from officials of the astronomical observatory to handle the procurement of Dutch books on astronomy." Except for Mr. Tamiya’s *Motoki and Hirano: A Detailed Biography*, Genichirō Fukuchi’s *Biography of Motoki*, *World History of Printing: Japan Volume*, and many other Motoki biographies supported the theory of his imprisonment. Moreover, the period of his imprisonment was consistently recorded as a lengthy term from Ansei 2 (1855) through November of Ansei 5 (1858). This was likely no mere "stumbling block" in Motoki’s life. As I had mentioned before, penalties for interpreters were generally severe; however, even if we take the *History of Printing Civilization* at its word, I cannot help but feel that punishment merely for acting as an intermediary in procuring Dutch books would be excessively harsh.

"The 'officials of the astronomical observatory' were part of the shogunate's foreign relations office." Moreover, in Ansei 2 (1855), when Dutch book imports could not be procured in time, they had even established a printing office within the Nagasaki Magistrate’s Nishi Office to produce 'Japanese-made Western books.'" Moreover, Mizuno Chikugo-no-kami—who interrogated Sanzō Motoki—had been the deputy reception officer during the Shimoda negotiations, with Motoki under his command." Sanzō Motoki’s adoptive father Shōzaemon was an Inspector of Interpreters still living at the time; had personal connections held any sway, he should have wielded considerable influence." Moreover, Sanzō Motoki had been a man of distinguished service among Nagasaki interpreters since the Nagasaki negotiations." I cannot help but wonder why acting as an intermediary for procuring Dutch books—a matter that should have been treated with at least superficial leniency unlike in early Kaei years—had to be charged as such a grave crime."

Many Biographies of Motoki tended to portray his imprisonment as “a mere stumble.”

Genichirō Fukuchi wrote: “In the same year, Mr. Sanzō Motoki was imprisoned for certain reasons. “The exact reason remains unclear, but according to popular accounts, Mr. Sanzō Motoki—driven by chivalrous spirit—shouldered false charges unrelated to himself to rescue others from their crimes.” The World History of Printing: Japan Volume merely states “due to certain circumstances” while avoiding detailed discussion, whereas Motoki and Hirano: A Detailed Biography excels in compiling the most thorough records of this incident—yet persistently maintains the theory denying his imprisonment “so as not to tarnish the name of Mr. Sanzō Motoki, who was after all a great man.” In essence, whether through denial or affirmation, they remained united in their effort to forcibly distance Sanzō from the disgrace implied by “imprisonment.”

However, this significant event in Sanzō Motoki's life also relates to the history of Japanese type; though I possess no particularly new materials on the matter, I would like to consider it as thoroughly as possible. The *History of Printing Civilization* elaborates on Fukuchi’s theory—“[Motoki] shouldered false charges to rescue others from their crimes”—by stating: “However, Umekichirō Shinagawa—Motoki’s biological elder brother—being of dissolute character, secretly sold the Western books that Mr. Motoki had procured to samurai in Edo. It writes that “samurai who had no interest in Western books sold these Dutch books to Western scholars at high prices, using the proceeds for their dissolute activities—these accumulated factors ultimately led to Mr. Motoki being confined in prison,” and the “pro-imprisonment faction” attributes the cause solely to “Dutch book procurement.”

In contrast, *Motoki and Hirano: A Detailed Biography*—which advocates the "imprisonment denial theory"—presents compelling counterevidence and states as follows: The first [point] is that from Ansei 2 (1855) to Ansei 3 (1856), Sanzō Motoki supervised movable type technician Inder Maur at the Dutch trading house on Dejima and printed *Rangwa Jiten* (Dutch-Japanese Dictionary). The second [point] is that in Ansei 2 (1855), he was appointed as Type Printing Supervisor. The third [point] is that in Ansei 2 (1855), a “Historical Record” concerning shipbuilding and maritime transport was submitted to Nagai Genbanokami via Magistrate Arao Iwaminojo. The fourth [point] is that in Ansei 3 (1856), he authored *Oranda Bunten Bunsōhen* (Dutch Grammar and Composition). The fifth [point] is that in Ansei 4 (1857), he sent the type specimen book of Japanese type for *Nihon Bunten* (Japanese Grammar), which was published in Holland. The sixth [point] is that in Ansei 4 (1857), he published the *Japanese-English Commercial Handbook*. The seventh [point] is that in Ansei 5 (1858), he published the *Book of Physics*. The eighth [point] is that in Ansei 4 (1857), his second son Kotarō was born. The ninth [point] is that there is no record in the Nagasaki Magistrate’s Office’s “Prison and Criminal Ledgers” either; among these, the appointment as “Type Printing Supervisor” lacks a clear month, making it uncertain whether it occurred before or after the incident; the “Historical Record” on shipbuilding and maritime transport dates to when the Naval Training Institute was established, so this too might predate the incident; however, the other counterarguments are indeed beyond doubt based on surviving documents and family records; yet the author of *Motoki and Hirano: A Detailed Biography* also cites Mr. Koga Jūrō’s account, stating, “However, he did face censure regarding Dutch book imports,” adding, “In Ansei 2 (1855), under shogunal orders, he underwent interrogation by Magistrate Mizuno Chikugo-no-kami; While agreeing with the “Dutch book procurement cause theory”—stating “this constitutes unauthorized Dutch book acquisition”—the author nevertheless persists in the denial theory, asserting that “given its trivial nature, one cannot imagine it resulting in imprisonment.”

Therefore, what we can determine—through both affirmation and denial of his imprisonment—is that it is certain Sanzō Motoki was charged by the shogunate in Ansei 2 (1855) for "Dutch book procurement" or "purchase." For instance, while it may not have been the "formal imprisonment" described in *History of Printing Civilization*—which claims he was "ordered into confinement in the *yagura* prison"—the author of *Motoki and Hirano: A Detailed Biography* also cannot definitively deny that there were absolutely no other forms of punishment administered. Conversely, why did Sanzō Motoki’s public life as an interpreter—which had been extraordinarily busy and, by all accounts, successful since Kaei 6 (1853)—virtually cease after Ansei 2 (1855), only resuming when he became an official at Akunoura Ironworks at the end of Man'en 1 (1860)? Why, as an interpreter, did he never rise beyond the rank of minor interpreter after the Shimoda negotiations throughout his entire life? And none of them have provided an answer to these questions.

In short, neither the affirmative nor denial theories could be fully trusted; however, if we were to imaginatively extend our judgment, we would likely have to seek the common cause in "Dutch book purchases." As the author of the Detailed Biography states, the question was whether it truly had been a "minor" offense. As previously mentioned, from the latter half of Ansei 2 (1855), it had become an era when—at least superficially—"Dutch book imports could not be procured in time." It was for this very reason that Japan’s first officially approved "printing factory" was established during this period. When viewed against the backdrop of Kaei 2 (1849)—marked by the shogunate edict declaring, "It has come to our attention that Dutch physicians have recently proliferated and gained undue public trust; given differences in climatic conditions, all court physicians are hereby prohibited from employing Dutch methods"—there appeared a stark contrast. Yet on the other hand, there remained the reality that even Minase Genpaku, a fellow reception officer during the Nagasaki negotiations, could not read the English books Moriyama Einosuke had translated for official use—and this had occurred at the end of Kaei 6 (1853). Furthermore, regarding an anecdote about Genpaku—who had accompanied Saemon-no-jō Kawaji to participate in the Shimoda negotiations from Ansei 1 (1854) to Ansei 2 (1855)—Mr. Kure Hidezō wrote as follows: "Thus, in the early Ansei years [1854–1860], when Uzosaburo Shimizu went to where Genpaku was staying in Shimoda to request becoming his disciple, Genpaku apparently suspected him of being a spy and flatly refused." After repeated entreaties from Shimizu, Genpaku agreed on a promise to teach him once they reached Edo; thus, Shimizu later became a disciple at Genpaku’s school there. "As for when the translation and publication of Western books gradually became more common," Kure added, "that was much later—Genpaku had long served as a translator at the astronomical observatory, subordinate solely to the astronomy department and translating Western books strictly as ordered."

However, while Genpaku was situated within the shogunate's political sphere, figures like Sugita Seikei in Edo and Ogata Kōan in Osaka had opened large academies in their respective regions that were thriving remarkably. As seen in *Biography of Ogata Kōan* (by Tomio Ogata), in Ansei 1 (1854), he wrote in a letter with vigorous determination: “At present, I have resolved to forgo medical practice and devote myself entirely to instructing students, intending to cultivate the Western scholars our nation now requires.” Seeing that he had gathered numerous disciples—including Ōmura Masujirō and Ōtori Keisuke—one might infer his environment was rather lenient. Fukuzawa Yukichi traveled to Nagasaki at age 21 in Ansei 1 (1854) and entered Osaka’s Kōan Academy in the following year; even at that time, resident students alone numbered “50–60,” and since there were also commuting students, the total likely exceeded 100. Moreover, it was said that “students of Ogata” were renowned throughout Osaka. According to accounts in works like *Fukuo Jiden* (*Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi*), there are stories such as how Yukichi and his fellow students stayed up all night to hand-copy and return a certain Dutch book that a daimyo had loaned to Kōan. In this case as well, the emphasis lay in the fact that the original book was expensive and difficult to obtain; it does not appear that the matter itself was particularly secret or in violation of any regulations.

Ogata Kōan’s statement—“cultivating the Western scholars that are currently necessary”— As the author clarifies, this declaration was by no means intended to signify “raising scholars infatuated with the West,” but rather stemmed from the imperative—following the Black Ships’ initial arrival—to assimilate Western civilization and prepare defenses against foreign threats. Yet Ogata Kōan, save for his brief final years as director of the Western Medical Institute in Bunkyū 2 (1862), spent his entire life as a private physician and Dutch studies scholar of considerable merit, scarcely engaging in political affairs. Similarly, while Sugita Seikei was a Dutch studies scholar, the *Biography of Minase Genpaku* records that he advocated no policies for opening the country.

In other words, when we synthesized all these factors, it became clear that issues surrounding the purchasing and studying of Dutch books were truly delicate matters. While adopting Western civilization to prepare against foreign threats had become the prevailing trend of the time, in practical political terms, society became divided between "national isolation" and "open-country" factions—just as there were pro-shogunate elements within isolationism, so too did imperial loyalists exist among open-country advocates. Motoki, of course, belonged to the "pro-imperial open-country faction," but with each political upheaval, these groups became intricately entangled, creating circumstances where even fellow Dutch scholars in political positions—like Genpaku—had to regard new disciples with initial suspicion as potential spies.

In other words, by around Ansei 2 (1855), regulations on the import and study of Dutch books were gradually being relaxed. At the very least, interest in Dutch studies was rapidly rising among the general public alongside the Ansei opening of ports, and even the shogunate had to produce "Japanese-made Western books" out of sheer necessity for national defense. However, while regulations concerning Dutch book procurement and study had not been revised—and regardless of whether they had been revised—depending on the nature or circumstances of the purchasers and students themselves, they would inevitably face strong pressure from either the shogunate or other quarters. Comparing Minase Genpaku and Ogata Kōan makes this clear in many respects. In Motoki’s case, beyond that, his position as an interpreter—which afforded him special privileges in procuring Dutch books—presented another danger. This danger could stem from someone’s morally base motives—mere “profit-seeking”—but there could also be cases where someone not morally base utilized it for academic purposes. Since the *Rangaku Hajime* (Beginnings of Dutch Studies), Western scholars may have rarely been able to pursue their studies entirely unconnected to these “side-cargo-like” import methods. As for which side Sanzō belonged to—whether [to those driven by] base profit or scholarly intent—we shall not elaborate here, for it has become evident from what we have seen thus far and will further clarify in due course. Regardless, that danger was one of his fate, born in Nagasaki and raised in an interpreter’s household; moreover, they, not being of samurai status, had no protective backing such as “clan influence” whatsoever.

However, if that were all, the crime with which Sanzō was charged would have been straightforward. As previously noted, his grandfather Shōzaemon—Fourth-Generation Inspector of Interpreters—had been reported by Kapitan Dufu to the Nagasaki magistrate of his time for similar matters, yet that incident had not hindered Shōzaemon’s position as an interpreter. Moreover, given that certain profits from these side ventures had long been treated as “supplementary income” not just by ordinary interpreters but even magistrate officials, it seems improbable that this alone would have forced Sanzō to effectively resign from his official interpreter post—even if he could not inherit the Sixth-Generation Inspector of Interpreters title. Furthermore, regardless of the formal nature of his “confinement in the yagura prison,” the prolonged punishment spanning from Ansei 2 (1855) through late Ansei 5 (1858)—while undeniably linked to “Dutch book procurement”—appeared to originate from deeper underlying circumstances.

"—His position as an interpreter afforded him convenient access to purchasing Western books. 'Particularly given that Mr. Motoki had originally devoted himself to importing Western cultural artifacts,' wrote *History of Printing Civilization*, 'under the pretext of purchasing astronomy books, he secretly exerted efforts to spread enlightenment thought.' Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography* also stated: 'The theory of Old Man Motoki’s imprisonment allegedly stemmed from three factors—the printing and publication of *Rangwa Tsūben* [Dutch-Japanese Discourse], secret reports of his plan to compile a *Japanese-English Dictionary* based on Dutch books, and his public reputation as an open-country advocate.' Here, both pro-imprisonment and denial factions shared common ground in attributing the cause to 'Dutch book procurement theory,' while also concurring in their observation of Sanzō Motoki’s nature and conduct as a Dutch scholar that formed these events’ backdrop. However, the *Detailed Biography* further emphasized Motoki’s stance: '—Though Mr. Motoki was not a pro-shogunate partisan, his vehement advocacy for opening the country made him a prime target for isolationists—so much so that loyalist activists frequently descended upon Nagasaki intending to assassinate Mr. Sanzō Motoki. Fearing for his safety, he fled to Kyoto and temporarily sought refuge with a certain court noble.' It remains unclear exactly when this occurred or who this noble was—there are indications that some accounts may have simply recorded rumors circulating in Nagasaki—yet taken collectively, we can dimly grasp the true nature of the charges brought against Sanzō Motoki for 'Dutch book procurement.'"

I too consider what *History of Printing Civilization* describes as "confinement in the yagura prison" to be an exaggeration, even if not entirely incorrect. As Mr. Koga Jūrō’s account states: "The fact that he underwent interrogation by Mizuno Chikugo-no-kami was indeed true," and I believe this constituted a significant, deeply meaningful matter even if not formal imprisonment. It was a prolonged form of house arrest that persisted until his appointment as an official at Akunoura Ironworks in Man'en 1 (1860). "Mr. Aoki Kyūshichirō—then serving as purveyor to the Lord of Kishū—learned of these circumstances and secretly visited the residence of newly appointed Magistrate Okabe Suruga-no-kami on the night of August 15th, Ansei 5 (1858). There, he argued that indefinitely confining Mr. Sanzō Motoki—a man of indispensable talent—in the yagura prison would constitute a grave national loss, petitioning for his release." Suruga-no-kami appeared convinced by this reasoning, dispatching a retainer named Kobayashi to Mr. Kyūshichirō’s residence on November 21st to announce Motoki’s bail would be granted on the 28th of that month. Thus, as *History of Printing Civilization* records, "he was released from long imprisonment"—an account that cannot be dismissed outright despite lingering doubts about the confinement’s nature. This episode reveals how Sanzō’s alleged crime—unlike profit-driven acts like "Dutch book smuggling"—bore delicate political implications through Aoki Kyūshichirō, his close friend who reappears later in this narrative.

III

In Ansei 2 (1855), when Sanzō Motoki was confined in the yagura prison, he was thirty-two years old; by Ansei 5 (1858), when he was released on bail, he had reached thirty-five. Volume 4 of *History of Printing Civilization* features a rare photograph believed to have been taken around Man'en 1 (1860) or Bunkyū 1–2 (1861–1862), when Sanzō Motoki was thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old. The marginal note reading "Mr. Motoki during his ironworks period" leads to this conclusion, yet what astonishes is how starkly its atmosphere differs from the late-life photographs found in many Motoki biographies—images presumed to have been taken in the early Meiji period. The photograph captures five individuals; while the three seated in front are labeled as "ironworks officials," their specific identities remain unknown. To the rear right stands Aoki Kyūshichirō, and to the left stands Sanzō. It was likely taken by a foreigner, but like photographs from the Bakumatsu period through early Meiji era, this too freezes them in an awkwardly stiff pose directly imported from the West. Given that Deputy Director Aoki stands to the right, Sanzō must have been the director at this time. However, the three young officials seated in front—all wearing topknots—do not appear to be high-ranking figures of any particular note. Thus, even as director, Sanzō and his technical team would have occupied a status far lower by today's standards.

In any case, this photograph of Sanzō Motoki in his prime differed utterly from images of his later years—those serene eyes and gentle, gaunt face that harmonized with his white-haired topknot. Here, his right shoulder was raised high, the flesh of his slightly turned face still thick and angular, brows furrowed as he gazed intently at a single point—exuding an air of unyielding pride and brimming with fighting spirit to such a degree that one might doubt this was the same man. The three young officials seated in front—bearing themselves with the magnanimity of pedigreed samurai backed by shogunal or domainal authority—contrasted sharply with Aoki on the right, whose demeanor carried a slightly Westernized, merchant-like calmness from his later years as a trade magnate. Yet beyond mere photographic pose, Motoki’s unwavering rigor and integrity appeared to possess an intensity bordering on ferocity.

Now, while Sanzō Motoki’s tenure as a technician at Japan’s first Akunoura Ironworks in Nagasaki—post-Man'en 1 (1860)—would be discussed in the latter half of this account, his prolonged period of confinement spanning Ansei 2 (1855) to Ansei 5 (1858) marked the second phase during which he devoted himself to Japanese movable type and printing techniques. I presume he was appointed as Type Printing Supervisor in the latter half of Ansei 2 (1855), after serving as an interpreter at the naval training institute. It remains unclear whether his confinement in the yagura prison preceded or followed this appointment, though the first half of that year prior to his interpreter role had been broadly outlined in previous accounts. The specific nature of this “confinement” or “seclusion” remains ambiguous, but in my estimation, after undergoing interrogation by Mizuno Chikugo-no-kami, he likely withdrew—at least nominally—from political interpretation duties. Even if not formally confined, might he not have remained largely sequestered at his residence? Furthermore, even had his appointment as printing supervisor occurred before this confinement, could that relatively apolitical technical role not have continued in some attenuated form? This becomes all the more plausible when considering the true nature of the charges against him as previously elucidated.

As for whether the title of "Type Printing Supervisor" had previously existed within the shogunate, I do not know. Publications by the shogunate itself were originally referred to as "official editions," and it appears that each time the more scholarly among successive shoguns—such as Ietsuna, Tsunayoshi, Yoshimune, and Ieyoshi—undertook publishing projects, they would gather craftsmen to establish printing offices. In the era of Ieyasu, many printed materials using copper type had been published, but of course no such title existed at that time either; though books were treasured, the work of producing them was greatly disparaged. According to records, when *Daizō Ichiran-shū*—a compilation by Sūden, founding abbot of Edo’s Kōchi-in Temple—was printed using copper type in Keichō 20 (1615), it became evident that monks primarily handled this task. “—In accordance with the imperial decree ordering the publication of *Daizō Ichiran*, six or seven scribes and type designers have been dispatched. We hereby direct your temple, Rinzai-ji, to be informed of this matter. However, as Rinzai-ji currently has no personnel available except one attendant, we request that five or six monks from your esteemed temple be sent forthwith; preparations to receive them shall commence today.—22nd Day of the Third Month, Kōchi-in, Respectfully Submitted to the Esteemed Clergy of Seiken-ji.” The term “scribes and type designers” here referred not only to those who hand-copied manuscripts but also to those who wrote the master characters for copper type. “Collation.” What we today call “proofreaders” stood as prominent figures, and these too had been handled by monks. And according to the aforementioned record, those engaged in printing work were apparently referred to vaguely as “printing artisans.” The *Daizō Ichiran-shū* had been published using copper type, but they likely continued to refer to it by its conventional name. “Received stipend rice: Total quantity—1 koku 8 to. This constitutes the allotment for the eighteen *Daizō Ichiran* printing artisans, spanning from the 21st to the final day of the Third Month, with a daily ration of 1 to 8 shō per person.” The names of those receiving this stipend were listed beginning with “Collator Jukan,” followed by nine individuals including “Engraver Han’emon,” “Typesetter Nihei,” and “Printer Seibei,” with the date “Keichō 20, Third Month, 26th Day” recorded. In short, the daily stipend for the printing artisans amounted to 2 shō of rice per person. The *suri-te* corresponded to printers, the *ue-te* to typesetters, compositors, and all other plate-making craftsmen, while the *ji-hori* handled what would today encompass the entire type-casting process. Yet even when examining these records, it becomes clear that “printing” had never existed as a permanent bureaucratic role within the shogunate. Even by the mid-Edo period, when publications flourished among the populace—while various records exist concerning publication censorship—no evidence yet shows a permanent shogunate printing office.

According to Kawata Hisanaga’s *Nagasaki Movable-Type Reprints of Dutch Books* (published in the September 1942 issue of *Gakutō*), Akazuma Shōzō was appointed director of the “Type Printing Office” established at this time, with Yasuda Shinsaku and Imai Izusaburō serving as controllers. It further notes that “even Sanzō Motoki was among those appointed as type printing supervisors.” The very fact that a director and others were newly appointed—something unprecedented—and that this involved Western-style printing made it an epoch-making event in Japanese printing history. I know nothing of Akazuma, Yasuda, and Imai—likely shogunate retainers or samurai under the Nagasaki magistrate’s jurisdiction—but it stands to reason that Sanzō occupied a humble position. Yet this fact should not cast the slightest shadow over his place in Japanese printing history. All the more so when one considers—as records demonstrate—that one concrete motive for establishing the "Type Printing Office" lay in the type purchased by Sanzō and others, and when one reflects that Sanzō was both publisher of *Rangwa Tsūben* [Dutch-Japanese Discourse] and creator of Japan’s first "poured type." From a printing history perspective, it is Sanzō’s role as printing supervisor, rather than Akazuma’s directorship, that must hold essential importance.

As Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography* presented as evidence to deny [Motoki’s] imprisonment states, Sanzō produced three written works during his tenure as printing supervisor. In Ansei 3 (1856), he produced *Oranda Bunten Bunsō-hen* (Dutch Grammar and Composition); in the same year, *Wa-Ei Taiyaku Shōyō Benran* (Japanese-English Commercial Handbook); and in Ansei 5 (1858), *Butsuri no Hon* (Book of Physics). It was said that in Shōtoku 4 (1714), Sanzō sent Japanese characters to serve as master copies for the type used in *Nihon Bunten* (*Japanese Grammar*) published in Holland. It appears that one copy of *Nihon Bunten* (*Japanese Grammar*) still exists in Nagasaki. As I have not yet seen it myself, I hope to have an opportunity in the latter half [of this account] to discuss what exactly the Japanese character master copies written by Sanzō were—though at present, I imagine they were either hiragana or katakana. Moreover, of the three aforementioned works, *Japanese-English Commercial Handbook* also survives in a single extant copy. It was said to have been a pioneering effort either for Nagasaki’s commercial transactions—which had opened to British ships in Ansei 1 (1854)—or for an era when the dominant foreign language was shifting from Dutch to English. It was a Japanese translation of highly common vocabulary, but among interpreters, [they] could speak of an English lineage dating back to his grandfather Shōzaemon.

However, regarding the two remaining works—*Oranda Bunten Bunsō-hen* (Dutch Grammar and Composition) and *Butsuri no Hon* (Book of Physics)—*Nagasaki Movable-Type Reprints of Dutch Books* presented detailed accounts that refuted Mr. Tamiya’s theory. Mr. Tamiya’s “Oranda Bunten Bunsō-hen” The “grammar book *Sintaxis*” mentioned in *History of Printing Civilization*, being published in the same month and year—June of Ansei 3 (1856)—made it evident that this was identical to what Mr. Kawata Hisanaga referred to as “grammar book *Syntaxis*” in his earlier essay. Furthermore, photographs of the book clearly showed it to be a reprint of the work Mr. Kawata described as “published in Leiden, Holland, in 1846 (Kōka 3),” while the “*Butsuri no Hon* (Book of Physics)”, when examined via photographs, bore its original title *Physica Naturalis*, had been rendered in Japanese as *Rigaku Kunmō* (Primer of Natural Philosophy), and thus confirmed the validity of Mr. Kawata’s argument that it was not Sanzō Motoki’s original work. In other words, had Mr. Tamiya’s *Detailed Biography* claimed that Sanzō Motoki possessed a manuscript draft under the same title, that would have been a separate matter—but given what was published by the Type Printing Office, one could not deny evidence that works Sanzō printed had been conflated with those he authored.

Now, Sanzō Motoki’s dedication to “poured type” during this second phase of Japanese movable type creation can be understood through such evidence as the provenance of his steel Japanese character matrices—housed today in the Imperial Household Museum—which date from the Ansei era. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that during his tenure as printing supervisor, he also engaged in pouring Western type alongside typographic engineer Inder Maur. The photographs presented in the aforementioned text *Nagasaki Movable-Type Reprints of Dutch Books*, the cover and title page of *Syntaxis* and *Spraakkunst*—the latter also published in September—as well as *Primer of Natural Philosophy* owned by Mr. Kawata—when observing the photograph of the title page, one notes a striking abundance of Western typefaces—unmistakably Japanese-made—intermixed with Dutch type. “Primer of Natural Philosophy”—the title page bears the inscription “TE NACASAKI IN HET 5de IAAR VAN ANSEI (1858),” and among this, the mismatched Western numerals in the type are unmistakably Japanese-made. Other details—such as the N shaped like the clock numeral IV—are immediately apparent even to a printing novice. The Western type in Mr. Kawata’s ledger-style *Oranda Tangō-hen* (“Dutch-Japanese Glossary”) clearly differs in character form from what appears to be Kahē’s “Edo type.” Therefore, even if the Western type judged to have been produced by the Type Printing Office had been created under Inder Maur’s guidance, it could not have been unrelated to Sanzō—an experienced practitioner of poured type.

When *Syntaxis* from Ansei 3 (1856), Sixth Month, transitioned to *Spraakkunst* in the Ninth Month of the same year, the proportion of Japanese-made Western type intermixed with Dutch type increased; by Ansei 5 (1858), this blending became even more pronounced in *Rigaku Kunmō* (*Primer of Natural Philosophy*). Needless to say, this occurred because the original plate-printed type had become severely worn and unusable, while replacements had to be procured from lands thousands of miles overseas. One could imagine the hardships endured by Sanzō and his team, yet even this artisanal "poured type" must have required its own corresponding history and tradition. The Western type imported by Sanzō and others already possessed four centuries of history, having become intricately refined and compact in size. Since Western type at the time measured a maximum of around twelve-point pica, Japanese-made Western type also had to imitate these dimensions for resupply—a task that must have proved particularly challenging when contrasted with the exceptionally large characters of early poured-type pioneers like Gutenberg. Yet when considering that Motoki’s true intention, as evidenced by his surviving Ansei-era steel matrices crafted for Japanese characters—and kanji at that—it becomes clear that Western typography was never his primary objective.

We can only imagine Sanzō Motoki’s state of mind during this period through scant records and surviving works. Yet when one observes that the *Japanese-English Commercial Handbook* was merely a single carved wooden block with nothing but Japanese-made Western-style page numbers added, one suspects he must have been overwhelmed by profound despair at times. Just as the shogunate’s printing factory, amidst the unprecedented upheaval of the Ansei Opening of Ports, had to close its doors after a mere seven-year history—leaving behind only the legacy of “press printing”—so too did Sanzō’s “poured type” for Japanese characters ultimately fail to achieve development sufficient to leave enduring printed works.

I repeat: For the history of movable type, how immense must be the destiny borne by a nation’s script! The Western movable type produced by Kahē in Edo and that from the Type Printing Office in Nagasaki managed—albeit imperfectly—to yield results relatively serviceable for printing. Moreover, with the exception of Sanzō’s *Rangwa Tsūben*—deemed extremely rudimentary—Japanese poured type left behind nothing of note surviving to this day, despite the struggles of Kahē in Edo and Sanzō in Nagasaki. When one considers it, the Alphabet peoples—as previously mentioned—possessed a history of woodblock and wooden movable type lasting barely half a century, yet maintained a four-century-long history of poured type from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. In contrast, our Japan—from the Tenpyō era of the Dharani Sutra to the end of the Tokugawa period—possessed a millennium-long history of woodblock and wooden movable type, whereas an age of poured type was entirely absent. In Motoki’s case, while the first period of *Rangwa Tsūben* was one thing, by the second period he already appeared to have fallen into despair. This was because from the Keiō era through the beginning of Meiji—the third period—no traces could be found of them having repeated the “poured type” method again.

Japanese characters—with their near-infinite variety and strokes of utmost complexity—could only be produced either through completely manual craftsmanship like woodblock printing or via the limited scientific methods then available. In this regard, Sanzō Motoki’s pioneering acquisition of the electrotyping method from Gamble in Nagasaki during Meiji 2 (1869) was truly epoch-making. The magnitude of its significance likely surpassed anything Gamble—the American who had imparted it—could have conceived. For among peoples using alphabets, electrotyping played no comparably vital role in type matrix production. Oswald’s *History of Western Printing Civilization*, for instance, omits any account of electrotyping’s use in matrix manufacturing while emphasizing photogravure and relief plates perfected after 1840. Russians like Jacobi, Englishmen like Jordain, Americans like Adams, and Austrians like Pletchie. Though electrotype plates held importance in Japanese printing history, electrotyping’s application to matrix production proved immeasurably more consequential.

For Japanese movable type to be created, a further leap in modern science was required; yet when one considers that Faraday's Law was established in 1833 and the Type Printing Office in 1855, it became evident that this was a painful period where Sanzō Motoki—while struggling with his "poured type"—could not easily progress to the next breakthrough. The period between 1833 and 1855 spanned twenty-two years, and if we consider that Faraday’s Law began to be practically applied as electrotype plates after 1840, then it amounted to roughly ten years. When one considers East-West exchange and reflects on the national circumstances of that time, that period was by no means long.

However, the scientists of the late Edo period were pioneering a path fraught with hardship. When one considers that Kawamoto Kōmin’s systematic explanation of electrotyping in *Enseiki Kikijutsu* (*Far Western Marvelous Devices Described*) dates to Kaei 6 (1853), while experiments with primitive generators—the so-called *erekiteru*—by Hiraga Gennai, Hashimoto Donsai, Motoki Dōhei, and others trace back even further to the Tenpō era (1830s), then indeed—as Perry wrote, as Goncharov wrote, as Siebold wrote—the Japanese people were truly remarkable. I know nothing of electrical studies’ developmental history in Japan, but it seems that from Hiraga’s, Hashimoto’s, and Motoki’s so-called *Erekiteru* period during Tenpō to Kawamoto Kōmin’s time marked a distinct epoch. The *Erekiteru* era’s researchers had merely marveled at invisible electromagnetic forces existing in space, whereas Kōmin and his peers marked an age that ventured into electrolysis—probing electricity’s fundamental nature. I previously speculated that Kōmin’s “electrotyping method” (*garahani* [Galvani]) likely influenced “Edo type,” but there must have been other Dutch scholars at the time who possessed electrolysis-related knowledge. The period from Kōka through early Ansei is said to have been Dutch scholars’ most flourishing era since *Rangaku Kotohajime* [*The Dawn of Dutch Studies*]. And I was startled to unexpectedly discover within Mitsukuri Genpo’s *Nagasaki Diary of the Shaanxi Journey* a passage where Yoshio Keisai demonstrates an electrolysis experiment. It was the first month of Ansei 1 (1854), at Nagasaki’s Dejima Dutch Trading House.

"—During the inspection tour, Kawaji-kun accompanied Ōsawa, the garrison commander—on one desk lay electrical apparatuses." A tin cylinder contained an earthenware pot; within this pot sat another tin cylinder, the entire assembly filled with chemical solution. They arranged six jar-cylinders in two rows, connecting each with flat copper strips along their outer surfaces to generate galvanic charge. Before these six vessels stood a glass bottle—its base pierced with two fine apertures and its mouth tightly stoppered—which, when filled halfway with water, would undergo decomposition upon contact with the two poles of galvanic energy. Separately, upon a dial inscribed with characters resembling clock numerals, they arranged two strands of silk-wrapped copper wire extending from copper cylinders—one strand connecting to the dial's base, the other to its underside. When linked, the needle on this electrical dial would respond along the copper pathways; by observing its position and reading the corresponding character, one could ascertain the phenomenon's nature—a mechanism whose ingenuity proved astonishing. "—Yoshio Keisai, a physician said to have been meticulously instructed in this method by Juan Delberg, later visited Sanpō-ji and explained its configuration—" How unlike his typical meandering diary entries; does this not constitute an exceptionally precise account?

This was a simple analysis of water through electrolysis. Though differing from modern methods of type matrix production, one could see that the principle of using galvanic charge to transfer material between positive and negative poles had already been attained here. Kōmin's "electrotyping machine," described in *Far Western Marvelous Devices Described* as "a technique that deposits one metal onto another—applicable to gold, silver, copper, iron, stone, or wood—by affixing copper to an engraved surface and then peeling it away to capture its form," originated from principles observed in Keisai's experiments. This method addressed woodblocks' limitations—how their "sharp details would self-destruct through repeated printing friction until becoming unusable"—thereby "eliminating re-carving labor through its use" and enabling "multiplication of prints as desired while preserving plate sharpness identical to the original." Though perfected after 1840 by Professor Jacobi and other Russians, Japan's pioneers had already begun applying these principles over a decade later. For instance, the testing methods for the "electrotyping machine" described in *Far Western Marvelous Devices Described* were exhaustively detailed, and its application to distinctly Japanese techniques like woodblock printing demonstrated this was far more than mere translation of Dutch texts.

As for Juan Delberg, I still know nothing, but Yoshio Keisai was a Nagasaki native—a surgeon of the Yoshio school, son of Kōsai and nephew of Yoshio Kōgyū who founded the Yoshio tradition. The Yoshio family had served for generations as Nagasaki interpreters. According to *History of Japanese Medicine*, Kōgyū not only pioneered the Yoshio school of surgery but is also credited as Japan's first physician to incorporate urinalysis into medical examinations. Both Maeno Ryōtaku and Sugita Genpaku studied under Kōgyū, who is further acknowledged for contributing to the success of *Kaitai Shinsho* (*New Anatomical Atlas*). As the third-generation successor of this lineage, Keisai is recorded in *Chronology of Japanese Science History* as having conducted Japan's earliest documented vaccination attempts on his three children in Kaei 2 (1849).

The temple mentioned in Genpo’s text as “later came to Sanpō-ji” was his lodgings when he accompanied Tsutsui and Kawaji for the “Nagasaki negotiations.” The diary entry was dated the Thirteenth Day of the First Month—after Putyatin’s warships had withdrawn—and mentioned “Kawaji.” This passage described their inspection tour of Dejima Dutch Trading House conducted alongside Saemon-no-jō and others. While unclear whether it involved the same electrolysis experiment or another conducted that day, Kawaji wrote in his diary: “This combines elekteru and jishaku.” Compared to Kawaji’s fascinated account—“Thus when grasping [the chain’s end], hands twitch; ten or twenty seizing hands all twitch alike—even ninety-nine holding tight collapse shouting ‘Atsu!’ when strongly charged”—Genpo’s writing revealed striking sophistication and scientific rigor.

Mitsukuri Genpo was a medical scholar, a natural historian, a military strategist, and a scientist. An author of medical texts, historical works, geographical treatises, geological studies, mineralogical manuals, applied craft books, military strategy volumes, travelogues, poetry collections, and more—totaling 160 volumes—he nevertheless rebuked them on that same fifteenth day while inspecting the Western-style battery that the Saga Domain (one of the few in Japan at the time to possess an iron refinery) took such pride in: "The evils of national isolation know no bounds." "—The Kanzaki New Battery, newly constructed by Lord Nabeshima, was equipped with two 150-tt cannons, several 24-tt cannons, and numerous others of varying sizes. Takeda remarked: 'Most of these cannons do not conform to Western artillery standards. The coastal gun carriages are all crude, the gun emplacements poorly designed, and the breastworks incomplete.' People had previously marveled at how even Westerners were astonished by the New Battery's use of Western cannons—yet I never imagined they would prove so deficient! The powder magazines were perilously exposed, the cannons left uncovered on the shorelines, and bombproof shelters entirely absent. To boast of such fortifications is akin to Liaodong pigs preening themselves! With a single breath of realization, I sighed: 'The evils of national isolation know no bounds—'"

In its dawn period, modern Japanese medicine was said to form the main branch of modern Japanese science. Medicine proved most capable of overcoming political constraints—a key reason why it could readily guide other sciences through the medium of writing. Just as Mitsukuri Genpo had already exemplified this principle, it came as no surprise that Yoshio Keisai—a surgeon of the Yoshio school—conducted experiments in electrolysis. Keisai would later pioneer the Meiji medical world alongside Nagayo Senzai and others. *Printing Civilization History* records Keisai’s relationship with Sanzō Motoki thus: “Mr. Motoki was his childhood companion, serving greatly as both his advisor and personal physician—[etc.].” Yet Motoki was born in Bunsei 7 (1824), while Keisai entered the world in Bunka 10 (1813), making Keisai a full decade older—rendering their designation as “childhood companions” somewhat peculiar.

And then, two or three years after Keisai, Fukuzawa Yukichi and others too came to study "Faraday’s Law"— The fact that they went on to study the new electrical science developed after Faraday’s Law was recounted in *The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi*. “—In a certain year—I believe it was Ansei 3 (1856) or Ansei 4 (1857). The teacher went as usual to the Nakanojima residence, and upon returning home promptly called for me. Wondering what it might be, I went to see him, whereupon he produced a volume and showed it to me, saying: ‘When I visited the Chikuzen residence today, they showed me this original book that had come into Lord Kuroda’s possession, so I borrowed it for a while.’ Looking at this, it was an original book titled *Wandāberuto*—a physics text translated into Dutch from the latest English publication. Its pages brimmed with entirely novel material, and particularly, the section on electricity appeared remarkably detailed.”

As for someone like me learning about electricity in Osaka, it was nothing beyond what was sporadically discussed in Dutch school textbooks. However, this newly imported physics book—grounded in the electrical theories of the great British scholar Faraday and containing precise descriptions of battery construction methods—was so novel, so utterly beyond mere novelty, that I could only stand astonished; at first glance, my soul was immediately seized. (pp. 90–91) The "sensei" referred to Ogata Kōan, and Kōan was the attending physician to the Lord of Chikuzen. “Wandāberuto” was likely Dutch, but when I asked a friend, they mentioned a German term “Undā Vueruto” existed, and it probably meant something like “Land of Wonders” or “World of Marvels”—that was the idea. I myself have never seen this original book, but judging from Yukichi’s account, wouldn’t it have been a compilation of various advancing European sciences from the early to mid-nineteenth century—astronomy, natural history, medicine, and the like?

“I said to Sensei, ‘This is a truly rare original book you have here—how long may I keep it borrowed?’ To which he replied, ‘Indeed.’” “In any case, Lord Kuroda will be staying in Osaka for something like two nights.” “He likely won’t need it there until his departure.” “Is that so? If you’ll permit me, I’d like to show it briefly to those at the school.” With this, I brought it to the school and said, “Well now—what do you make of this original book?” Whereupon students swarmed like clouds to examine the volume. After consulting with two or three seniors, I resolved: “Merely looking at this original book won’t serve any purpose.” “Stop just looking—come on, let’s start copying.” “But copying this entire thousand-page tome is utterly impossible. Let’s just transcribe the section on *Erekitoru* at the end.” “‘Everyone prepared brushes, paper, and ink for an all-hands-on-deck effort’—” (op. cit., pp. 91–92). Now, despite calling it “all hands on deck,” they couldn’t risk damaging Lord Chikuzen’s precious book—so one person read aloud while another transcribed. If the reader showed even the slightest fatigue, the next person would take over; if the writer’s brush slowed by a hair’s breadth, those waiting in reserve would immediately step in. The scene of those two days—where the exhausted would sleep, those who awoke would take over shifts, continuing without distinction between day and night—remains one of the most stirring passages in *The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi*. “—When we students heard from Sensei that Lord Kuroda had purchased this single volume for eighty ryō,” he writes, “we impoverished scholars could only stare in astonishment.” From the very start, not even an ambition to purchase it ourselves arose. “At last, this evening—with the lord’s departure now decided—we caressed and returned that original book, truly reluctant to part with it as though bidding farewell to a parent—” he writes. The price of eighty ryō was likely not the initial amount at which Dutch ships sold [such books] to Japanese—herein lay the struggles of those “impoverished students.” Yet it was precisely these “impoverished students” who could declare without hesitation that “from then on, theories of *Erekitoru* within our school took on a new dignity, reaching the highest level in all of Japan at that time.”

When one considers it, during the era when Sanzō Motoki, the type printing supervisor, was struggling with "poured type," the foundation of scientific leaps was gradually taking shape not only in Nagasaki but also in Osaka and Edo. From today’s perspective, Keisai’s experiment stood just one step removed from "manufacturing type matrices via electrotyping." Yet how circuitous human thought could be at times! Though Kōmin’s “electrotyping machine” addressed how “woodblocks lose their sharpness through repeated printing friction—[etc.],” it never extended its discussion to “wooden type.” Though it seems inconceivable that Motoki Shōzō—living in the same Nagasaki and likely a friend of Keisai’s—remained wholly unaware of these experiments, could his thinking—consumed by Gutenberg-style “hand-casting devices”—have ever bridged the gap to electrolysis-based methods that fused copper powder, transferring forms between patrix and matrix? Nor can we imagine Keisai himself directing his mind toward such applications. The scientists of the Bakumatsu period each wrestled with their own challenges. And the realm of science stretched too wide. Moreover, these sciences—cast ashore like waves surging irregularly against the coast—lacked both unity and foundational principles. People could only press onward through Japan’s dawning age of modern science—a twilight where darkness and light intertwined as each saw fit.

Four

Nimbly plucks and sets into the composing stick The typesetter before the case Whether his eyes are quick or his hands respond instantly nimbly plucks up the type he forms word by word

Slowly but steadily Slow but certain Word by word, he piles them up. And still it continues. Words of fire turn into scorching heat. The soundless, mysterious words traversing the entire world evoking fearsome tremors The oppressed shackles are shattered.

Words, in rightful struggle, Shatter swords thrice their might. People see movable type as leaden clusters, Though one might toy with it at fingertips, The printer smiles while setting character upon character, Plucking each with clockwork precision, Assembling text through humming breath.

He was immersed in his work. With such simple tools as mine, Could there truly be any other ruler of this world?

Humble printing presses and iron composing sticks And a mere smattering of lead blossoms White paper and black ink That was all there was to it. It supported justice and shattered injustice. Who would dare oppose this printer’s power?

I did not know the original text of this poem, "Song of Movable Type." Though likely not an exceptional translation—being included in the *World Printing Chronology* and said to have been composed in 1855 CE by Thomas MacKellar, an American who edited the world’s first printing magazine—even from the cadence of this “Song of Movable Type,” one could discern that in Europe and particularly America, movable type was now emerging as the nucleus of modern culture. By this era, Western movable type had ceased to rely on the “pouring method.” It had become type fashioned through electrotyping matrices and type produced via the modern “Bruce-style casting” pioneered by David Bruce. Moreover, the role of movable type had vaulted beyond merely printing church-affiliated religious texts, replicating histories owned by lords and feudal magnates, or reissuing classical manuscripts—it had transformed into an instrument that suffused the daily lives of ordinary commoners as pervasively as air itself.

According to Western printing histories, Gutenberg’s mid-fifteenth-century “pouring” movable type had reached its second golden age by the eighteenth century. In other words, it was after movable type crossed over from the European continent to the American continent that the second great leap occurred. Of course, this temporal coincidence between geographical circumstances and printing’s development was likely related to global industrial progress; however, the fact that printing technology—imported two centuries later compared to Europe—achieved its second great leap in America remained a matter of considerable interest.

The "poured type" invented in Germany in 1455 CE, according to the *History of Printing Civilization*, spread as follows. 1465 Italy, 1466 Greece, 1468 Switzerland, 1470 France, 1473 Netherlands, 1473 Belgium, 1473 Austria-Hungary, 1474 Spain, 1477 Britain, 1482 Denmark, 1483 Sweden, Norway, 1487 Portugal, 1533 Russia, and the United States of America in 1638. To be precise, such chronological classification proves inherently difficult, with slight variations among scholars; however, viewing Mainz in Germany as the birthplace makes this geographical spread comprehensible. The Rhine River carried the type of Gutenberg and his collaborators Fust and Schöffer across borders. Its downstream flow brought it to the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden; its upstream current carried it to Switzerland and France, particularly to Rome and Venice. Venice became the center of European printing culture from the fifteenth through sixteenth centuries. This city birthed so-called "Italic type," while records indicate 436 printing workshops existed across Italy by the early sixteenth century. The Manutius father and son of Venice, Caxton of Westminster, Robert of Paris, and others gained renown as those who brought forth Western movable type culture's first glorious flowering. They designed original type matrices and poured lead. Using wooden hand presses, they printed texts adorned with wood-carved initials alongside movable type, even employing multiple colors. They simultaneously wrote works and sold books. Many received ecclesiastical ranks from the Papal Court for their printing skills, assumed municipal honors, and became regional cultural leaders. Yet this first period's printed works consisted chiefly of Bibles and doctrinal materials. In reproducing classical manuscripts, Caxton of Westminster himself translated twenty-two works from Latin and other handwritten texts. Thus we might say this era's printing culture finds symbolic expression in Gutenberg's first printed work being the "Forty-Two-Line Bible." From one perspective, printers of this time could scarcely have succeeded without patronage from churches, seminaries, and ultimately the Roman Papal Court.

This fact remained proportionally intriguing—though printed materials of that time were primarily based on "poured type," they were also works of great beauty featuring intricate woodblock outlines, hand-drawn patterns, and color printing. It was no exception in the West that printing's earliest period maintained close ties with religious culture; there are even examples among Gutenberg and Schöffer's printed works deliberately made to resemble handwritten manuscripts. On one hand, this relationship—preserving value through manuscript imitation while elevating religious dignity through beautiful printing—aligned with printing's early history in the Orient. Yet it was Benjamin Franklin, widely hailed as the reviver of global printing arts, who most deserved credit for steering movable type from religious and classical realms into modern, popular, and scientific spheres.

From Franklin’s start as a thirteen-year-old printing apprentice to his seventeen-year-old self relocating to Philadelphia in 1723 and launching a weekly newspaper, his autobiography recounts—with no less passion than when he drafted the U.S. Constitution—the profound role played by those two or three type cases he brought from England, as is widely known. The town of Philadelphia was entirely new, entirely in its infancy. The people migrating to this continent, still young since Columbus’s discovery, carried with them the cultural traditions of eighteen past centuries, and all were burning with the zeal to build a new world entirely through their own efforts. Franklin’s meager type, within the lives of such people, had to create a new order and become the darling of public opinion that determined the town’s development and direction. The two or three cases of old type had no room for elaborate wood-carved initials or hand-painted coloring. What mattered most was the precision of the characters rendered by the type itself. It was the words and ideas that movable type represented. Rather than the antiquated “Italic” or “Roman” styles, it was the precise and straightforward “New Style.” It needed to swiftly express an abundance of words and moreover reach the majority. Franklin’s old type quickly wore down, and not only did the old-fashioned handpresses imported from Europe become unusable, but they were also inconvenient. Moreover, there were no type foundries—not even in Philadelphia, let alone anywhere else in America. He crossed the Atlantic to England on a second trip to purchase type, but in his autobiography, he states that at age nineteen, he devised his own type-casting method. “In America, there were no type foundries. However, I devised a mold and, using the type at hand as a matrix, stamped them into lead—thus managing to assemble the type that was often inadequately crafted. Also, I occasionally engraved various other things and made ink——” so here, the term “matrix” likely refers to type matrices. Western printing histories do document the essence of what he observed at London type foundries, but given how simplistically it is described in his autobiography, it remains impossible to determine how much improvement he actually made to casting methods since Gutenberg’s time. One can only imagine that he, being the great scientist widely known for his electrical discoveries among other achievements, must have made some improvements; for instance, Oswald’s *History of Western Printing Culture* also lacks detailed accounts on this point. However, the printing press designed by Benjamin Frankrin that survives today is said to have incorporated several new modifications, and *History of Printing Civilization* includes a photograph of this. A massive wooden hand press, closely resembling the printing machine first designed by Leonardo da Vinci. “Benjamin Frankrin, printing press” is inscribed on the machine base, and the five figures assembling it appear so small atop it that when operating its handle, it must have required several people.

However, as I see it, the foremost reason Benjamin Franklin is hailed as “the progenitor of the revival of printing worldwide” lies not in his minor improvements to movable type or presses, but in how he integrated printing technology into people’s daily lives. Take, for instance, how this young clerk in Philadelphia would swiftly print and distribute records of town meetings organized by civic-minded residents. By the next morning, every participant could fully grasp both the progression and outcomes of the previous night’s heated debates through these printed materials, enabling each person to further refine their ideas ahead of the next gathering. In short, his true achievement was pioneering new roles for movable type itself. Franklin created libraries, established newspapers, and worked tirelessly to help motivated individuals establish printing offices throughout America. Yet in founding book guilds and building printing offices, neither Manutius of Venice nor Caxton of Westminster was inferior to Franklin. Thus, the true magnitude of Franklin’s achievement lay in the differences: the methods he employed in establishing libraries; the substance of his writings even when covering similar subjects; the novel form and content of newspapers; and in constructing printing offices, the nature of their management practices, operational discipline, and overall character. This was an achievement tied to new collectives and ways of life unseen in the old European continent—it lay in how Gutenberg’s movable type, over three centuries prior unimaginable, now propelled itself into the daily existence of commoners: not merely into realms of faith, historical knowledge, or ornamentation, but into a vivid and boundless oceanic expanse meant for today and tomorrow.

And it was precisely there that the elements enabling the second flowering of movable type also took root. In 1796, Adam Ramage of Philadelphia created the world's first iron hand press, and in response, mathematician Stanhope in London completed the "Stanhope-style hand press," for which he was granted an earldom. In 1813, George Clymer of Philadelphia created the "Columbia Press"; in 1821, Rast and Smith of New York created the "Washington Press"; and in 1820, Daniel Treadwell of Boston invented the world’s first treadle-powered printing press. The shift from wood to iron and from hand to foot power may seem inconsequential, but in truth, they concealed the development of a revolutionary new conception of human-powered machinery. And by this time, the British William Nicholson and the German Friedrich Koenig had already completed the "cylinder-type printing press," and this cylinder type is precisely what is known today as the "roll."

Friedrich Koenig’s invention was said to be the most outstanding, upholding Germany’s reputation as a nation of science and honoring the glorious printing tradition since Gutenberg; yet Koenig’s completed “cylinder-type printing press” had to make its debut in England’s *The London Times*. Koenig’s itinerant invention had to make its debut in England’s *The London Times* because no one on the senescent European continent would give it heed.

The revolutionary nature of the invention of the "cylinder-type printing press," which shattered the traditions of Western printing techniques, remains imaginable even from today’s perspective. It was solely by the force of the driving wheels rotating in the same direction that the printed materials came flying out. With a reported capacity of one thousand sheets per hour, British printers were said to have been thrown into collective turmoil by news that Koenig’s massive press would cross over from the continent. John Walter, president of *The London Times* at the time, recorded the era’s atmosphere in his autobiography: “—Though we attempted to secretly print newspapers at night using the new-style press in a separately erected building, I could not bear my anxiety over potential worker disturbances and thus enforced strict vigilance—[I] placated them by assuring that even with this machinery printing 1,100 sheets hourly with remarkable speed, none would be dismissed—and resolved to employ it.”

However, Koenig’s "cylinder-type" remained hand-cranked. Even in present-day Japan, one may still occasionally glimpse that machine—operated by human hands—in remote rural areas; yet barely a decade later, the New York newspaper *Temperance Record* set its cylinder-type press into motion through steam power. Then in 1838 came David Bruce’s invention of “Bruce-style casting” in New York—a development that stirred the global printing world into greater turmoil than Koenig’s cylinder-type ever had—and in that same city, the world’s first rotary press, the “Hoe-style rotary printing machine,” came into being. This occurred in 1846, and by 1860, the rotary press employed by the *New York Tribune* achieved a speed of twenty thousand sheets per hour.

The first period of Western printing culture, which had blossomed in Venice in the early sixteenth century, saw its second period flower in America two centuries later. One of its causes was the spirit—as previously described—that made Franklin “the progenitor of the revival of printing worldwide,” and indeed, it was this very spirit that a century later compelled Thomas Matsukeller to compose *The Song of Movable Type*. And here we realize that 1855—the year *The Song of Movable Type* was sung—was the 2,515th year of our imperial calendar and precisely Ansei 2 (1855), when Sanzō assumed the position of type printing supervisor. In other words, of the two periods in which Western movable type arrived in Japan, the first was that which came during the Genki and Tenshō eras alongside the so-called Christian missionaries, while the second—inaugurated by Sanzō Motoki and others—was that of imported type following the Kaei era. Though both were lead type with no material difference, their inherent social properties diverged significantly; whether arriving from the Netherlands or the American continent, they remained unmistakably products of the nineteenth century.

One of the world's earliest all-iron hand presses, the "Stanhope Press"—the so-called "Daruma-type"—was presented from the Netherlands to the shogunate in Kaei 3 (1850), fifty years after its invention by mathematician and newly created Earl Stanhope. If we provisionally accept Mr. Hisanaga Kawada’s theory that the Washington Press might have been used at the Nagasaki Magistrate’s Office printing facility after passing through Shanghai, this would place it within the Ansei era (1854–1860). Even setting that aside, considerable evidence exists of imports via Shanghai after port openings. When considering the hand press Sanzō acquired from Satsuma’s Shimazu workshop during the Keiō era (1865–1868), along with the unidentified hand press—reportedly a castoff from some daimyo—that Tomiji Hirano discovered at a Ginza antique shop in early Meiji, these presses must predate the Meiji period by at least thirty to forty years following their invention. The Tokyo Asahi Shimbun Company began using German Koenig’s "cylinder-type printing press" in Meiji 10 (1877)—sixty years after its invention—while France’s "Marinon-style rotary press," first introduced to Japan as a newspaper printing machine in Meiji 30 (1897), had been completed in the 1870s, roughly twenty years post-invention.

From the Ansei opening of ports through the Meiji Restoration, while exporting nations and import methods/routes underwent complex transformations due to delicate domestic conditions and foreign relations, it becomes evident that printing presses arrived relatively quickly and easily after their invention. In other words, the printing press differed considerably from movable type. The "Stanhope-style," "Washington-style," and "Marinon-style" presses could operate in Japan just as they were. However, movable type—the characters themselves—could not be used as-is even when brought to Japan.

Moreover, movable type constituted the core of printing technology. Even when the Stanhope-style press was introduced in Kaei 3 (1850), it could do nothing but rust away in a shogunate storage shed—a perfectly natural outcome. The struggles of Sanzō and his associates still had to continue. It was a time when Kahei of Edo too had to toil in secret chambers lit by hand lanterns while evading the shogunate's watchful eyes.

And it was also a time when scientists across Japan had to work with utmost diligence. For Japan’s modern movable type was not born in isolation. For it emerged intertwined with the birth of various other modern sciences. For it could not have come into being without connections to ships, cannons, steam locomotives, electricity, modern medicine, the solar calendar, and the abolition of topknots. In short, it could never have been born without the Meiji Restoration.

Japanese movable type had origins entirely different from those of Western movable type. As previously noted, Japanese movable type bore within itself both the inherent fate of being created either through purely manual craftsmanship like woodblock printing or through advanced chemical processes like electrotyping, while simultaneously possessing a characteristic unparalleled in the world—that of having been born during the Bakumatsu period's brief span of years amidst a political maelstrom.

Therefore, my protagonist was not Sanzō alone. The whereabouts of "Edo's type" too remained unknown. We had also to discuss Tomiji Hirano—he who spread Sanzō's type from Osaka to Tokyo and became Japan's first manufacturer of printing machinery. We needed both to investigate how the hiragana in the so-called Hepburn Dictionary—attributed to Ginkō Kishida, Japan's pioneer newspaperman—had been produced in Shanghai, and to recount how Japan's paper manufacturing industry had laid today's foundations. The activities of early Meiji Western scholars epitomized by Fukuzawa Yukichi, along with the transportation circumstances between Nagasaki and Shanghai—then cultural capitals of the East—proved indispensable elements in Japanese movable type's birth. Together with my readers, I resolved to examine this latter half while tracing Sanzō's post-Man'en 1 (1860) achievements.

Author's Note

I believe I have already described within this work the mindset with which I came to write this novel.

However, to be perfectly honest—both before I began writing and even after starting—everything remained chaotic for some time. I wrestled with whether to make this purely biographical about Sanzō Motoki or focus on movable type and printing history before settling on the latter. While I believe this orientation shows through in the work itself—more than anything—what proved most vexing was how woefully unprepared I found myself across various aspects. The creation or development of any cultural artifact rests upon vast histories stretching vertically through time and horizontally across geography—histories that wind through East and West alike—so whenever some inexplicable matter surfaced during my research,I found myself thrown into disarray each time.

For instance, if one were to set aside the overseas origins of the lead type that arrived in Nagasaki, it might seem simple enough; yet when it becomes not a matter of human affairs but rather that of an instrument, we find ourselves somehow unable to delineate it. Tools and materials, unlike humans, know no "death," and thus their lifespans stretch exceedingly long. Though tools and machines are constrained by their era's social circumstances, their relationships with other tools and machines, and even transportation networks, their limitations remain far more expansive compared to those of humans. Moreover, within the history of any single cultural artifact—across vast spans of time and the full breadth of the globe—lie engraved the individual histories of countless people: those with black eyes, brown eyes, blue eyes.

In other words, I had to acquire at least some degree of specialized knowledge. I had to become a scholar. This was what troubled me. It was one of the things that kept sending me into disarray. To put it grandly, I would need to thoroughly understand not only the histories of East and West, global transportation history, and scientific development history—but also know both Oriental and Western languages as a matter of course. In those specialized books from which I borrowed various knowledge this time around, I found myself deeply impressed by how historians across different fields could read original texts spanning Eastern scripts—Chinese of course, but also Korean and Indian languages—all the way through Western scripts like Dutch and Latin. Yet for someone like me—who could barely recall even Eastern history properly, let alone Western—it ended up being a tremendous waste of time even when dealing with general matters, much less specialized ones. Moreover, there were instances where general interest and specialized interest became hopelessly jumbled together.

To tell the truth，such knowledge needed soaking into one’s very being for ten years or more．Upon that foundation，it might have taken shape naturally—but then came my fear：would I even live long enough？Thus，to plunge into such themes was itself problematic，yet I maintain that type’s history seen through fiction’s lens differs inherently from specialists’ accounts．Asked how，I’d struggle，but know this：in novels，the weight lies chiefly with clarifying both myself—this “I” fascinated by type’s history—and how such fascination takes root．Now，whatever others say，I’ll chase no further．

It was as if a cargo boat had set out into the Pacific. Even when I thought I was gripping the helm tightly, a single wave left me disoriented—unable to discern from which direction I had come or toward which I should steer. In truth, I had initially intended it to be a single volume, but before reaching even halfway, it had grown into a full book; thus necessitating an unexpected second volume to follow.

However, in any case, the cargo boat would press onward. In the next volume, I intended to trace back the electrotyping-based movable type that had arrived in Nagasaki—this time following its path from Japan to Shanghai—and examine what the British and Americans called the "creation of Chinese character movable type" within the history of their incursions into China, Burma, and India.

Due to my haphazard scrambling about during research, I caused considerable trouble for many people. There were numerous instances of kindness extended to me—books being lent from personal collections, donations of entire libraries, opportunities to examine rare artifacts. I have already written about the late Mr. Yukichi Tamiya within this work itself. I received invaluable assistance from Mr. Yoshitaro Hirano, Mr. Hisanaga Kawada, Mr. Yukio Koriyama, Mr. Chikara Mawatari, Mr. Yasunari Kawabata, Mr. Takao Tsuchiya, Mr. Hidetaka Tezuka, Mr. Katsumi Iwasaki, Mr. Makoto Abe, and many other friends and acquaintances—though I intend to compile a complete list of names and properly express my gratitude in the forthcoming volume. As for cited works, I have provided references at each relevant instance and shall not repeat them here. Regarding this book's printing too, owing to my particular fondness for Seikosha's typeface designs, I made unreasonable requests of Mr. Minoru Sumikawa at Kawade Shobo Publishing House to handle the production. I wish to extend my deepest thanks to Mr. Kakutarō Shirai, proprietor of Seikosha, along with all those involved in the plate-making, printing, and binding processes for this work.

May 1943, Tokunaga Sunao