Rai San'yō

[3] Wishing to devote himself to writing instead, at the age of nineteen he detached himself from his domain and became a wandering scholar.

This was a serious crime without receiving special permission so, to save him from greater punishment, his father disinherited him and locked him in his room for three years.

It was there he conceived the idea for his Nihon Gaishi ("Unofficial History of Japan") and began composing the first chapters.

[2] He soon became part of a circle of writers and scholars that included Yanagawa Seigan [jp] and Ōshio Heihachirō and came under the influence of the Kokugaku movement.

[3] One of the main influences of his life was Ema Saikō, a distinguished bunjin painter and composer of kanshi, whom he met in 1813 when visiting her father to further his reputation as a scholar.

[4] In 1827, he completed the Nihon Gaishi, his life work,[2] It was modeled on the Records of the Grand Historian and was in 22 volumes, covering Japanese history from the emergence of the Minamoto clan through the reign of Tokugawa Iemitsu.