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The Shimabara Rebellion was an
uprising of
Japanese peasants, many of them
Christians, during the
Tokugawa Shogunate in
1637-1638.
Rebellion broke out on (according to western calendar)
December 17, 1637 when peasants rose against their
daimyo
Matsukura Shigeharu. Christians like to emphasize the fact that most
rebels were Japanese converted to
Christianity but the other prominent reason for the revolt was the
very heavy
tax burden. Rebels took the mantle of Christianity later.
Rebels included maybe up to 23.000
peasants and
ronin, including many women, in
Shimabara and nearby
Amakusa Islands under the leadership of
Masuda Shiro who used a Christian name Jerome. Both areas had
been under heavy
Jesuit missionary activity during the previous Christian daimyo
Konishi Yukinaga.
Terazawa Hirotaka, governor of the
Nagasaki, dispatched an army of 3,000
samurai to Amakusa but rebels defeated them on
December 27, 1637 with 2,800 casualties. Survivors retreated to
Nagasaki and governor asked
shogunate for reinforcements. However, in battle on
January 3, 1638 shogunate warriors defeated the rebels who lost about
1,000. They retreated to Shimabara.
In Shimabara, rebels besieged Shimabara castle and took over the
fortress at Hara.
Hirotaka had already left for Shimabara on
January 2 with 500 samurai and gathered 800 more from Omura. They made
camp half a mile from Shimabara castle. They commenced
artillery fire from cannons commandeered from Japanese and
Chinese vessels. They then requested aid from a
Dutch merchant vessel to bombard the Hara fort from the sea. Rebels
shot two Dutch lookouts and the ship withdrew.
Shogunate troops arrived but rebels in Hara fortress resisted siege for
months and caused them heavy losses. Both sides had a hard time fighting
in
winter conditions. On
February 3, 1638, a rebel raid killed 2,000 warriors from Hizen
including their daimyo. However, they slowly ran out of food, ammunition
and other provisions.
On
March 10, shogunate forces begun to gather in Shimabara and by April
there were 30,000 rebels facing 200,000 shogunate soldiers. Desperate
rebels mounted an assault against them on
April 4 and were forced to withdraw. Captured survivors revealed the
fortress was out of food and
gunpowder.
On
April 12, 1638, Hizen warriors stormed the fortress and captured the
outer defenses. Rebels held out and caused heavy casualties until they
were routed on
April 15. The Shogunate had lost about 10,000 soldiers.
Afterwards, the shogunate forces beheaded an estimated 37,000 rebels
and sympathizers. Masuda Shiro's head was taken to Nagasaki and Hara
fortress was destroyed. The Shogunate banned Christianity and the
remaining Japanese Christians had to go underground. The Shogunate
suspected that western
Catholics had been involved in spreading the rebellion and
Portuguese traders were driven out of the country.
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