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The was an uprising in southwestern Japan lasting from December 17, 1637 to April 15, 1638, during the Edo period. It largely involved peasants, most of them Catholic Christians. It was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule.〔Borton, ''Japan's Modern Century'', p. 18.〕 In the wake of the Matsukura clan's construction of a new castle at Shimabara, taxes were drastically raised, which provoked anger from local peasants and rōnin (samurai without masters). Religious persecution of the local Catholics exacerbated the discontent, which turned into open revolt in 1637. The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops to suppress the rebels and, after a lengthy siege against the rebels at Hara Castle, defeated them. In the wake of the rebellion, the Catholic rebel leader Amakusa Shiro was beheaded and the prohibition of Christianity was strictly enforced. Japan's national seclusion policy was tightened and official persecution of Christianity continued until the 1850s. Following the successful suppression of the rebellion, the daimyo of Shimabara, Matsukura Katsuie, was beheaded for misruling, becoming the one and only daimyo to be beheaded during the Edo period. ==Leadup and outbreak== In the mid-1630s, the peasants of the Shimabara Peninsula and Amakusa, dissatisfied with overtaxation and suffering from the effects of famine, revolted against their lords. This was specifically in territory ruled by two lords: Matsukura Katsuie of the Shimabara Domain, and Terasawa Katataka of the Karatsu Domain.〔Murray, ''Japan'', pp. 258–259.〕 Although the rebellion is portrayed by many historians as a religious uprising, this ignores the issues of discontent from famine and overtaxation. Those affected also included fishermen, craftsmen and merchants. As the rebellion spread, it was joined by rōnin (masterless samurai) who once had served families such as the Amakusa and Shiki that had once lived in the area, as well as former Arima clan and Konishi retainers.〔 As such, the image of a fully "peasant" uprising is also not entirely accurate.〔De Bary et al. ''Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600'', p. 150. "...a peasant uprising, known in history as the Shimabara Rebellion, that swept the area..."〕 Shimabara was once the domain of the Arima clan, which had been Christian; as a result, many locals were also Christian. The Arima were moved out in 1614 and replaced by the Matsukura.〔Murray, p. 258.〕 The new lord, Matsukura Shigemasa, hoped to advance in the shogunate hierarchy, and so he was involved with various construction projects, including the building and expansion of Edo Castle, as well as a planned invasion of Luzon in the Spanish East Indies (today a part of the Philippines). He also built a new castle at Shimabara.〔Naramoto (1994), ''Nihon no Kassen'', p. 394.〕 As a result, he placed a greatly disproportionate tax burden on the people of his new domain, and further angered them by strictly persecuting Christianity.〔 These policies were continued by Shigemasa's heir, Katsuie. The inhabitants of the Amakusa Islands, which had been part of the fief of Konishi Yukinaga, suffered the same sort of persecution at the hands the Terasawa family, which, like the Matsukura, had been moved there.〔Murray, p. 259.〕 Other masterless samurai in the region included former retainers of and Sassa Narimasa, both of whom had once ruled parts of Higo Province. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Shimabara Rebellion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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