Tenpō

During this time, many factors appeared to have seen to the decline of his health: namely, the great and devastating famine, the many rebellions rising up against the bakufu, and the swift advance of foreign influence.

[4] The Great Tenpō famine of the 1830s was a devastating period in which the whole of Japan suffered rapidly decreasing temperatures and loss of crops, and in turn, merchant prices began to spike.

[5] As crops continued to decline in the countryside, prices increased, and a shortage of supplies left people competing to survive on meager funds.

[8] Formally a police officer and scholar, Ōshio Heihachirō (1792-1837) had requested help from Osaka city commissioners and otherwise wealthy merchants in 1837, only to be met with indifference.

Having also suffered from the Great Tenpō Famine, Ikuta despaired the lack of aid local bureaucrats were willing to provide, and in 1837, he assembled a band of peasants in retaliation.

[10] In 1838, a year following Ōshio Heihachirō's rebellion, and after the fire that had scorched nearly a quarter of Osaka city, the physician Ogata Kōan founded an academy to teach medicine, healing and Rangaku, or Dutch Studies.

[13] In 1837, upon rescuing several stranded Japanese sailors, an American merchant ship called the Morrison endeavoured to return them to their homeland, hoping this venture would earn them the right to trade with Japan.

This stance against the shogunate riled the government into the Bansha no goku, arresting twenty-six members of the Bangaku Shachu, and reinforcing the policies on foreign education by limiting the publication of books, in addition to making access to materials for Dutch Studies increasingly difficult.

The reforms were economic policies introduced prominently to resolve fiscal issues mainly caused by the Great Tenpō famine, and to revisit more traditional aspects of the Japanese economy.

There was a stringency amongst all classes of people, and at this time, travel was regulated (especially for farmers, who were meant to remain at home and work their fields) and trade relations crumbled.

[16] In addition, the bakufu met with fierce objection when land transfers were impressed upon the daimyōs in an attempt to reinforce the reach of influence and authority that remained of the Tokugawa government.

[17] Though the reforms largely ended in failure, the introduction of economical change during this period is seen as the initial approach leading ultimately to the modernization of Japan's economy.