Virtual Tama Aqueduct Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #29 Fukusho-ji Temple

 

     Matsubara Yaemon became a naturalized Japanese from China, which was under the reign of Emperor Tianqi (1605-1627), the second last emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).  At the end of each dynasty, educated refugees flooded into Japan.  He might have been one of them.  Yaemon worked for the Tokugawa Shogunate as a doctor, and was practically given Kyodozaike Village as his salary.

     Yaemon founded Fukusho-ji Temple in Kyodozaike Village, inviting Priest Xuanmu (?-1631), who was also a naturalized Japanese from China, either in 1624 or in 1626.

     The Kyoho Famine broke out in the 1730's.  Bad weather started at the end of 1731.  In 1732, the rainy season lasted for 2 months, and that caused a cold summer.  Harmful planthoppers bred on rice plants.  In 46 domains, their rice harvest was reduced to 27 percent.  969,900 people died of hunger.  In the Kanto Region, tax increases from 40 percent to 50 percent imposed by Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684-1751) had weakened the resilience of peasants. The greed of samurai forced farmers and peasants to switch their planting from other crops to rice, regardless of the suitability of the climate and soil.  Their poor resilience caused them to die of diseases.  All the peasants in Kyodozaike Village died out.  The 10th priest, Hakusen, made up his mind to relieve people, visited the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, the Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, and the Chichibu 34 Kannon Pilgrimage, collecting the soil of each temple.  He also built the copies of the 100 deities of the pilgrimages and enshrined them in Fukusho-ji Temple’s precincts in 1750.  His religious efforts and the spread of planting sweet potatoes prevented the further outbreaks of great famines.

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