Yoshida Shoin Foreign Ideology Before The Late Changes And The Reasons For The Above Analysis

Yoshida Shoin (1830～1859), who was born in a Japanese military family in Choshu, was an pioneer of reformation of the latter part of Japanese Edo Bakufu Period. He studied with Sakuma Shozan. In 1853, he failed to immigrate to Russia by Russian Navy battleship, which was illegal according to Japanese laws. Next year, in 1854, he planed to stow away to western world by American Navy Squadron leaded by M.C Perry. Unfortunately he failed again. Then he surrendered to Bakufu government and was thrown into prison. After released next year, he started his private school in his hometown, and trained Yamagata Aritomo, Takasugi Shinsaku, Ito Hirobumi, etc, who were famous great persons in Meiji Restoration. In 1859, he was killed in Ansei Incident.Yoshida Shoin's Thought of Foreign Relations is just like a coin's two faces. The obverse of this coin contains some kind of conservative thoughts which advocate repelling foreign countries' invasion. On the reverse of this coin is the view that compromise to the foreign countries. Two reasons result to this kind of contradiction. First, the situation which Japan faced is quite different between the early and the latter era of the life of Yoshida Shoin. Second, his experience and intercourse were also quite different. At the early stage, he was much influenced by Yamaga Soko's military arts and Yamada Matakai's ideology. This causes his thought is uncompromising to foreign countries but at the same time he began to concern about foreign affairs. At the latter stage, he travelled around Japan, from Kyushu to northeast Japan. This broadened his horizon. During this period, he witnessed battleships from western countries, shocked by their strong forces. At the same time, he got acquainted with Sakuma Shozan, and began to read some books written by Chinese scholars (e.g. Wei Yuan). All of these result to the Evolution of Yoshida Shoin's thought of foreign relations.This thesis focuses on his thought of foreign relations. Tries to analyze the evolution of his thought and to describe his thought's framework by interpretation his works, letters and notes, etc..