Arai Hakuseki
Arai Hakuseki
Born	(1657-03-24)March 24, 1657 Edo
Died	June 29, 1725(1725-06-29) (aged 68) Edo
Occupation	Neo-confucian scholar, academic, administrator, writer
Subject	Japanese history, literature

Arai Hakuseki (新井 白石; March 24, 1657 – June 29, 1725)^[1] was aConfucianist,scholar-bureaucrat, academic, administrator, writer and politician in Japan during the middle of theEdo period, who advised theshōgunTokugawa Ienobu.^[2][3] His personal name wasKinmi orKimiyoshi (君美).Hakuseki (白石) was his pen name. His father was aKururihan samuraiArai Masazumi (新井 正済).

Hakuseki was born inEdo and from a very early age displayed signs ofgenius. According to one story, at the age of three Hakuseki managed to copy a Confucian book written inKanji, character by character. Because he was born on the same year as theGreat Fire of Meireki and because he was hot tempered and his brow would crease looking like 火 or "fire", he was affectionately calledHi no Ko (火の子) orchild of fire. He was a retainer ofHotta Masatoshi, but after Masatoshi was assassinated byInaba Masayasu, theHotta clan was forced to move fromSakura toYamagata then toFukushima and the domain's income declined. Hakuseki offered to leave, becoming arōnin and studied under ConfucianistKinoshita Jun'an. He was offered a post by the largesthan, that ofKaga Domain, but he offered the position to a fellow samurai.

In 1693, Hakuseki was called up to serve by the side ofManabe Akifusa as a "brain" for theTokugawa shogunate and shogunTokugawa Ienobu. He went on to displace the officialHayashi advisers to become the leading confucianist for Ienobu andTokugawa Ietsugu. While some of Hakuseki's policies were still carried out after Ienobu's death, after the 6th shogun, Tokugawa Ietsugu, died andTokugawa Yoshimune's rule began, Hakuseki left his post to begin his career as a prolific writer of Japanese history and Occidental studies.

He was buried inAsakusa (current dayTaitō, Tokyo), Hoonji temple but was later moved toNakano, Tokyo, Kotokuji temple.

Under the topRōjū,Abe Seikyo, with strong support from Ienobu, he launchedShōtoku no chi, a series of economic policies designed to improve the shogunate's standing. By minting new and better quality currency, inflation was controlled. Calculating from trade records, Hakuseki deduced that fully 25% of gold and 75% of silver in Japan had been spent on trades with foreign countries.^[5] Concerned that Japan's national resources were at risk, he implemented a new trade policy, theKaihaku Goshi Shinrei (海舶互市新例), to control payments to Chinese and Dutch merchants by demanding that instead of precious metals, products like silk, porcelain, and dried seafoods should be used for trading. However, the beneficial effects of this policy were limited as the trade of precious metals fromTsushima andSatsuma was uncontrolled by thebakufu.

He also simplified rituals for welcoming theJoseon dynasty's ambassadors, in the face of opposition from the Tsushima ConfucianistAmenomori Hōshu.^{[citation needed]}

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Hakuseki applied themandate of heaven to both the emperor and theshōgun. Since there had been no revolution to change Japan's basic institutions, he argued that the shogun was subordinate to the emperor and that in showing good governance, moral fortitude and respect to the emperor a shogun proved that he helddivine right. He also traced Tokugawa family roots back to theMinamoto clan and thus to a line of imperial descent in order to show that Ieyasu's political supremacy had been fitting. To strengthen the shogun's power and maintain national prestige he proposed changing the title to koku-ō – nation-king.

Hakuseki's published writings encompass 237 works in 390 publications in 6 languages and 3,163 library holdings.^[6]

• 1709 – 本朝軍器考
• 1709 –Sairan Igen (采覧異言,,Collected views and strange words).^[7]
• 1711 –Hōka shiryaku (Brief history of currency), also known asHonchō hōka tsūyō jiryaku ("Short Account of the circulation of currency in this realm").^[8]
  • _________. (1828).Fookoua Siriak: traité sur l'origins des richesses au japon (translation ofHōka shiryaku by Julius Klaproth). Paris.(in French) (1712). '
• 1712 –Tokushi Yoron (読史余論,,Lessons from History).^[7]
• 1715 –Seiyō Kibun (西洋記聞,,Record of things heard from the West).^[7] A work describing the Occident, based on Hakuseki's conversations withGiovanni Battista Sidotti
• 1729 – 蝦夷志
• 1760 – 同文通考
• 1805 – 東雅
• 1894 –Hankanfu (藩翰譜). A list of daimyo's family tree
• 1936 – 新井白石集
• 1964 – 戴恩記
• 1977 – 新井白石全集
• 1977 – 新編藩翰譜
• 1981 – 新令句解
• Koshitsu (古史通). A work that detailed ancient history of Japan
• Oritaku Shiba-no-ki (折りたく柴の記). A diary and memoir

• Arai Hakuseki Trans.Joyce Ackroyd (1980).Told Round a Brushwood Fire: The Autobiography of Arai Hakuseki. Princeton University Press.ISBN 0-691-04671-9.
• Arai Hakuseki Trans. Joyce Ackroyd (1982).Lessons from History: The Tokushi Yoron. University of Queensland Press.ISBN 0-7022-1485-X.
• Ackroyd, Joyce (Spring 1985). "Correspondence".Monumenta Nipponica.40:97–106.
• Brownlee, John S. (1997)Japanese historians and the national myths, 1600–1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jimmu. Vancouver:University of British Columbia Press.ISBN 0-7748-0644-3 Tokyo:University of Tokyo Press.ISBN 4-13-027031-1
• Brownlee, John S. (1991).Political Thought in Japanese Historical Writing: From Kojiki (712) to Tokushi Yoron (1712). Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.ISBN 0-88920-997-9
• Daehwan, Noh (Winter 2003)."The Eclectic Development of Neo-Confucianism and Statecraft from the 18th to the 19th Century".Korea Journal. Archived fromthe original on June 14, 2011.
• Henderson, Dan Fenno (1970). "Chinese legal studies in early 18th century Japan".Journal of Asian Studies.30 (1). The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1:21–56.doi:10.2307/2942722.JSTOR 2942722.S2CID 159910239.
• Kazui, Tashiro; Videen, Susan Downing (Summer 1982). "Foreign Relations during the Edo Period: Sakoku Reexamined".Journal of Japanese Studies.8 (2). Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2:283–306.doi:10.2307/132341.JSTOR 132341.
• Screech, Timon. (2006).Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822. London:RoutledgeCurzon.ISBN 0-7007-1720-X

• Hatamoto
• Advisors to Tokugawa shoguns
• Writers of the Edo period
• 17th-century Japanese philosophers
• Japanese Confucianists
• 1657 births
• 1725 deaths
• People from Chiba Prefecture
• People of the Edo period
• 18th-century Japanese historians
• 18th-century Japanese philosophers
• 18th-century Confucianists

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