Egawa Hidetatsu


Egawa Tarōzaemon Hidetatsu was a Japanese Bakufu intendant of the 19th century. He was Daikan, in charge of the domains of the Tokugawa shogunate in Izu, Sagami and Kai Provinces during the Bakumatsu period. He took a leading role in the reinforcement of Japanese coastal defenses against Western encroachments in the 19th century.

Coastal defenses

Due to his holdings on the coast, Egawa Hidetatsu was involved in issues of coastal defences, critical to Japan at that time. He was in relations with the group of Watanabe Kazan, and Takano Chōei.

Westernization debate

Egawa was involved in an important debate at that time, whether to adopt Western guns and methods or not. He advocated that the English had shown great superiority over the Chinese in the 1840 Opium War, and that it was necessary to use their own techniques to repel them. Others, such as Torii Yōzō argued that only traditional Japanese methods should be employed and reinforced. Egawa argued that just as Confucianism and Buddhism had been introduced from abroad, it made sense to introduce useful Western techniques. Sakuma Shōzan was a student of a school founded by Egawa Hidetatsu.
A theoretical synthesis of "Western knowledge" and "Eastern morality" would later be accomplished by Sakuma Shōzan and Yokoi Shōnan, in view of "controlling the barbarians with their own methods".
At one point Egawa hired the services of Nakahama Manjirō, a Japanese castaway who had spent 10 years in the West before returning to Japan, in order to obtain better knowledge of the West.