Aoki Konyō grave at Ryusen-ji, Tokyo Sweet Potato Monument at Koishikawa Botanical Gardens (June 19, 1698 – November 9, 1769) was a Confucian scholar, minor ''

hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the Shōgun, shogunates in History of Japan, Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred ...

'' and pioneer ''

rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: , ), and by extension , is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the countr ...

'' scholar in early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. He is also credited with introducing the cultivation of

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...

to many parts of Japan.

Biography

Aoki was born in the

Nihonbashi is a business district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan, which sprung up around the bridge of the same name that has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603. The curre ...

district of

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

, as the first son of a fishmonger Tsukudaya Han’emon. Nothing is known about his childhood or early education. He later studied Confucianism in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

under Itō Tōgai, the son and successor of the famous Confucian philosopher

Itō Jinsai , who also went by the pen name Keisai, was a Japanese Confucian philosopher. He is considered to be one of the most influential Confucian scholars of seventeenth century Japan, and the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) generally, his teachings flou ...

. After his return in Edo, he was given access to the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

's library, the Momijiyama-bunko, within

Edo Castle is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is therefore also known as . Tokugawa Ieyasu established th ...

in 1733 through the intercession of

Ōoka Tadasuke was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate () of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate () prior to his tenure as South Ma ...

, the Edo '' machi-bugyō''. During the middle of the

, Japan frequently suffered from crop failures caused by inclement weather and natural disasters, resulting in widespread famine and political and social unrest. This included the

Kyōhō famine , also pronounced Kyōho, was a after ''Shōtoku (era), Shōtoku'' and before ''Genbun.'' This period spanned the years from July 1716 through April 1736. The reigning emperors were and . Change of era * 1716 : The era name of ''Kyōhō'' (m ...

of 1732 to 1733, which resulted in a population loss of 20% in some areas of western Japan. However, it came to Aoki's attention that the island of Ōmishima in the

Seto Inland Sea The , sometimes shortened to the Inland Sea, is the body of water separating Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, three of the four main islands of Japan. It serves as a waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan. It connects to Osaka Ba ...

had largely escaped the effects of the famine as the islanders had planted a new type of sweet potato which had been grown in

Satsuma Province was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Satsuma" in . Its abbreviation was . History Satsuma's provincial capital was Satsumasendai. Dur ...

since 1711. This new ''Satsuma-imo'' had arrived in

Ming China The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

from South America via the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

and to Satsuma from their overlordship over the

Ryūkyū islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands ( Ōsumi, Tokara and Amami) and Okinawa Prefecture ( Daitō, Miyako, Y ...

. Aoki wrote a treatise called "Thoughts on the Barbarian Yams" describing the new food source, which caught the attention of senior officials. He was appointed to an official post as "Satsuma-imo commissioner", thus making a change in status from a commoner to a

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

. In his new position he oversaw the successful cultivation of the new crop at the government's

Koishikawa Botanical Garden The is a botanical garden with an arboretum operated by the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Science. They are located at 3-7-1 Hakusan, Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan, and open daily except Mondays; an admission fee is charged. History The T ...

and at experimental fields at villages called Makuwari (present day

Hanamigawa-ku, Chiba is one of the six Wards of Japan, wards of the city of Chiba, Chiba, Chiba in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. As of April 2012, the ward has an estimated population of 179,770 and a population density of 5,250 persons per km². The total area is 34.24& ...

) and Fudōdō (present day Kujūkuri, Chiba). The new crop proved to be an invaluable source of food in later famines. The village of Makuwari is now called

Makuhari is a community in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is within Hanamigawa-ku and Mihama-ku. The seaside area of Makuhari was reclaimed from the sea. The district was constructed in a span of 10 years. Steven Poole, author of ''Trigger Ha ...

in what is now

Chiba Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama ...

, and the site of the experimental sweet potato field is a Chiba Prefectural Historic Site In 1739, Aoki was entrusted with the acquisition of books and writings for the Momijiyama-bunko, and in this position he gathered historical documents from Kai, Shinano,

Mikawa Province was an Provinces of Japan, old province in the area that today forms the eastern half of Aichi Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Mikawa''" in . Its abbreviated form name was . Mikawa bordered on Owari Province, O ...

, and other locations, which he copied and annotated under the title "Ancient writings in some provinces" (''Shoshū komonjo''). In 1740, together with the doctor and herbalist Noro Genjō (野呂元丈, 1693–1761), he was assigned to learn the

Dutch language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speak ...

. Since the middle of the 17th century, translation and interpretation between the Japanese and

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

post at

Dejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called , was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan, that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1858). For 220 years, it was the central con ...

in Nagasaki has been a monopoly held by a small group of hereditary "Dutch interpreters" who were appointed and supervised by the local governor. Under the

Shogun , officially , was the title of the military aristocracy, rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor of Japan, Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, exc ...

Tokugawa Yoshimune was the eighth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1716 until his abdication in 1745. He was the son of Tokugawa Mitsusada, the grandson of Tokugawa Yorinobu, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Yoshimune is know ...

this monopoly was broken, and the official policy of the government changed to more intensively acquire and disseminate European technology. Aoki moved to Nagasaki for a short time and was able to master Dutch to the extent that he wrote introductions to the Dutch language and script and produced fragmentary translations from Dutch works on

natural science Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

and herbology. Although he not get beyond comparatively rudimentary language skills and rough translations, he became a model for other scholars and the forerunner of the field of study which was later termed ''

''. In 1744 Aoki was appointed fire guard of the Momijiyama-bunko library. Three years later he was transferred to the ''

Hyōjōsho The , established in 1225 b Hōjō Yasutoki, was a judicial council in Japan. Overview During the Tokugawa shogunate it was composed of the ''Rōjū'' (Elders), the highest officials in the shogunate government, and a number of Commissioners called ...

'', the senior council within the shogunal administration. In 1767 he was appointed administrator of the Momijiyama-bunko library. Aoki died in 1769 during an

influenza epidemic Flu season is an annually recurring time period characterized by the prevalence of an outbreak of influenza (flu). The season occurs during the cold half of the year in each hemisphere. It takes approximately two days to show symptoms. Influen ...

at the age of 80. His grave at the temple of Ryūsen-ji in

Meguro is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in the Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. The English translation of its Japanese self-designation is Meguro City. The ward was founded on March 15, 1947. Meguro is predominantly residential in character ...

, Tokyo was designated a National Historic Site in 1943.

Bibliography

* ''Shoshū komonjo'', * ''Banshokō'', 1735 * ''Oranda bunyaku'', * ''Sōro zatsudan'', 1738 * ''Oranda moji ryakkō'', * ''Keizai sanyō'', * ''Kansho no ki'', 1745

References

* Sugimoto, Tsutomu: Aoki Konyō to rango no gakushū. In: Sugimoto T.: ''Edojidai rangogaku no seiritsu to sono tenkai II.'' Tōkyō: Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1977, S. 49–170 ()

External links

Meguro Ward home page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aoki, Konyo 1698 births 1769 deaths Rangaku Hatamoto Japanese Confucianists Writers of the Edo period 18th-century Japanese scientists 18th-century Japanese translators Japanese agronomists History of agriculture in Japan Deaths from influenza People from Chūō, Tokyo Writers from Tokyo Scientists from Tokyo