The Six Continents and Five Seas Project for Youth (2)

“But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations.” (Karl Marx, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm) If the essence of a student develops as the ensemble of her/his social relations, she/he will be able to develop her/his geographically wider view by acquiring friends on the Six Continents and in the Seven (Five in reality?) Seas on Facebook. Individually. Socially, once students have dense the-Six-Continents-and-the-Seven-Seas networks, there will be autocatalytic evolution. Until then, second-language teachers are supposed to catalyze students to gain the-Six-Continents-and-the-Seven-Seas networks.

The Six Continents and Seven Seas Project for Youth

“And if those rules were then changed even slightly, they might produce a radically different plant, thus illustrating how easy it is for evolution to make large leaps in outward appearances by making only tiny changes in the course of development.” (M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Complexity”, 1992, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, p.280) As only a tiny difference in DNA leads to a large differentiation, the youth's adding foreign friends abroad on Facebook intentionally or on purpose may change “the structure and evolution of social networks in real time.” (ibid., p.363)

My Farewell Greeting in Sumiyoshi Senior High School

Ladies and gentlemen, as I leave Sumiyoshi High School, here I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my colleague English teachers first, for their understanding and cooperation during these 4 years. Thank you. Secondly, I would like to leave some advice to our dear students. Sumiyoshi High School has varieties of unique English classes both for Science Course students and those in International Course. In these classes, you can enhance your presentation ability in English. In today's world, English proficiency is a must. When I was net-surfing, I found a copy which said, “No English; no jobs.” Absolutely. Finding a job without English proficiency is getting harder and harder today. So, you have to study English for your career's sake. But mastering English is not only for your interest, but it also serves to the world. Even today, many people still “communicate” with their weapons. Bulletes are their words, and rocket bombs are their essays. As the matter of course, more and more bullets and rocket bombs are killing more and more people in the course of this kind of "communication." We should stop this kind of “communication” right away, and start communicating with LANGUAGE. When we communicate with language, however harsh their words may sound, and however unreasonable their contents may read, nobody will die of it. Thus, we have to try to communicate with language instead of fighting. In the last graduation ceremony, one student said, “Our dream is deeply rooted in Sumiyoshi's dream.” Absolutely. Your develop meant as a human is deeply rooted in Sumiyoshi Senior High School. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” It is certain that you are making a part of Sumiyoshi, but Sumiyoshi is making you, too. With this in your mind, with the gratitude to Sumiyoshi in your mind, please study hard, and you can do anything. Thank you.

Land Battles & Naval Battles

What did Toyotomi Hideyoshi (here I sometimes use the surname even when I mention him before he was awarded the surname the Imperial Court in the 14th year of Tensho, 1586) think of the pirates society which even influence the movements of the war lords in Western Japan? He was born in Owari (a part of today’s Aichi Prefecture), and experienced only the societies in Eastern Japan. That must have limited his ability to organize pirates in the Inland Sea. They fought land battles in Eastern Japan essentially, while navies were indispensable in Western Japan. In the West, castles used to be located by rivers, lakes, or the sea. Even when he managed to capture a castle in a day battle, he lost the castle to his enemy pirates’ night attack in some cases. I pay attention to Buke Mandai Santo Kaizoku-ke Ikusa Nikki (The Diary of Militant Generations of Pirate Families in Three Islands), which was written by Mishina Heiemon, a vassal of Ogasawara Tadasane, the lord of Kokura Domain in Buzen in the third year of Kanbun, 1663. The book describes the navy, Kawanouchi People, who were led by Kodama Narikata, a vassal of Mori Clan, from the Age of Provincial Wars till Shoku-Ho Period (the abbreviation of Oda and Toyotomi Period). The book has as many as 50 articles of Kawachi Keigo Oboegaki (Kawanouchi’s Memoranda of Guarding), one of the articles is a rule in marching: 1. When Mori Army marches on land, Kawauchi People should sail on the sea. We divide a fleet of 250 into 5 groups. Following the schedule, and adapting our progress to that of the army, we sail for 12-20km. According to the order, we have contacts with the army. As army progresses 20km a day while navy progresses 60km a day, we have three days of time. When the nave and the army have contacts, the army use fire on a hill which faces the sea. And then we send a boat to get information. This is a detailed rule in Mori Army/Navy that the army and the navy should progress simultaneously. The simultaneous progress of the army and the navy could be dated back to the Age of Provincial Wars, and that seems unique in the Inland Sea Area. Not to mention Hideyoshi, even his lord Oda Nobunaga didn’t have his own naval organization, which could be called Owari Navy. Nobunaga forced Kuki Clan, a pirate war lord in Shima, to obey him, but Hideyoshi had no authority to command them to fight in the Inland Sea. He had to maneuver pirates in the Inland Sea by his own.

The Survival of Pirate War Lords

Hideyoshi came into contact with the Inland Sea Pirate Society as late as 1577, the fifth year of Tensho, when he was ordered to conquer Harima by his lord Oda Nopbunaga. Since then, he kept being committed in the area. He made series of expeditions to Western countries, and attacked Saika in Kii, Shikoku, and Kyushu between the thirteenth and the fifteenth year of Tensho (1585-1587). Farther more, he made dispatched troops to Korea between the twentieth year of Tensho and the third year of Keicho (1592-1598). Through those military operations, he deeply committed himself to the Pirate Society from the time he was a chief servant of Oda Clan till his death after ruling Japan. These days, popular views on Toyotomi regime have tendence to see Hideyoshi’s unification as the result of regional integration by war lords. Even in high schools, they learn that regional torrents toward the integration and unification opened up the road to the national unification by Hideyoshi and enabled him to maneuver the unification sometimes even without military operations. I have been against the view for years. I would rather like to pay attention to the way pirate war lords, such as Kono Clan and Mori Clan, made critical decisions to face the unprecedented crises after years of combats and diplomatic negotiations against Hideyoshi. The pirate war lords who respected authority in Muromatchi period, such as Ashikaga Shogunate and guardian lords in each country. Hideyoshi, meanwhile, advocated to take over Nobunaga’s reform. The both sides had such different outlook on the nation. History is always woven with those kinds of rivalries. The national unification Hideyoshi pursued after taking over Nobunaga’s lines involved developing capable bureaucrats with the new sense of values in the new era, and excluding the incapable bloodline elites from Muromachi period. That was the same with the process of assuming control over the Inland Sea Pirates Society. I am arguing as follows: First, to describe the Inland Sea Pirates Society from various points of view. Second, to reveal the fact how shrewdly and cannily Hideyoshi maneuvered the vassals of pirate war lords mainly during Nobunaga’s last years. Third, to follow the process of the power shift from Kono Clan to Mori Clan in the Inland Sea Pirates Society during and after the end of the Age of Provincial Wars. Forth, to point out the relationship between Toyotomi Regime’s so-called “prohibitions against pirates”, which were ordered several times covering larger territories each time, and Kono Clan’s extinction and Mori Clan’s succeeding reorganization of Murakami Clans. Fifth, to see the birth of the early modern nation from the maritime point of view by paying attention to Ieyasu’s establishing surveillance network against pirates.