Ninomiya Sontoku — The Man Who Won It Back and Let It Go

The Lamp Under His Robe

"You have no house. You have no fields. You are alive only because other people help you. What good is studying? Stop it, right now."

His uncle Mambei is said to have scolded his nephew like this when he found him reading at night. Do you know how much it costs to feed you? And you waste lamp oil on night study without a thought. That is ungrateful.

The nephew cried and apologized, they say.

"I was wrong."

His name was Kinjiro. Years later he would be known as Ninomiya Sontoku. He is the man remembered in statues as a boy carrying firewood on his back, reading a book as he walks.

But the Kinjiro in the biography written by his disciple looks a little different. On his way to and from the mountain to gather firewood, he kept a book called the Great Learning, a Chinese classic, tucked inside his robe. He read it aloud as he walked. He read so loudly on the road that the villagers found it strange, and some thought he was an odd child, they say.

Kinjiro was born on September 4, 1787, in Kayama village in the province of Sagami, southwest of Edo (now Tokyo). His father, Riemon, was a man the whole village called "a good man," the biography says. If someone asked for help, he gave. If someone asked for a loan, he lent. Before long he had used up, in just a few years, the wealth that Kinjiro's grandfather had left.

When Kinjiro was five, by the old Japanese way of counting age, the bank of the Sakawa River broke. Most of the family's fields turned into a stony riverbed.

Then his father fell seriously ill. There was no money for medicine, so he sold a field for two ryo, a gold coin. After he recovered, he took the two ryo to thank the doctor. The doctor wept, it is said, and took only half. He told the father to use the rest to buy the field back. Poor or rich, he said, life turns like the wheel of a cart.

The father bowed to the doctor three times and did as he said. Kinjiro had gone out to meet him. His father came home swinging both arms, as if he were dancing, so the story goes.

Even as a small child, Kinjiro made straw sandals. With the money from them he bought one go of sake, about one cup, every day and offered it to his father every night, they say.

From about the age of twelve by the old count, he went to work on the repair of the Sakawa River bank for his family. But a child's strength was no match for a grown man's work. He is said to have prayed to heaven:

"I do not have enough strength to do my family's duty. Please, make me a grown man soon."

In 1800, his father died. Kinjiro was fourteen by the old count. His mother said she could not raise the youngest child, and left the baby with relatives, they say.

That night his mother could not sleep. Her milk was full and it hurt, and she wet her pillow with tears. When Kinjiro learned why, he asked her to bring the baby back at once. From tomorrow, he said, he would cut firewood in the mountains and sell it, and raise his little brother. His mother was overjoyed and ran out into the night. Her son tried to stop her from going out so late, but she would not listen. She came back from the relatives' house in the next village with the baby in her arms. The four of them rejoiced together, it is said.

A story is told about one New Year.

In the village, there was a custom: a troupe of lion dancers called daikagura went from house to house to perform. A house that wanted a dance paid one hundred mon, small copper coins. A house that said no paid twelve mon to send them away. They did not have even those twelve mon. His mother searched the whole house. Not one coin turned up.

Kinjiro said:

"We are poor, but we are one of the houses in this village. If we say we don't have twelve mon, no one will believe us. The only way is to pretend that we are all out in the fields and no one is home."

His mother did so. They shut the door and lay flat, holding their breath. Soon the dancers came and called out their lucky words. From inside the door, there was no sound. The dancers moved on to the next house.

Only then did mother and son feel relief.

In 1802, his mother also died of illness. The family's wealth was gone, and their fields were in other people's hands. The three brothers were sent to live with different relatives, and Kinjiro was taken in by his uncle Mambei.

The night at the beginning happened in that house.

After being scolded, Kinjiro cleared a patch of barren land by the river, where not even grass grew. He sowed rapeseed and harvested seven or eight sho, about thirteen liters. He sold it at the market and bought lamp oil. It was oil he had made with his own hands.

His uncle scolded him again. If you got the oil by your own work, it has nothing to do with my expenses. But what use is studying? Instead of wasting your time, braid rope late into the night and help with the work of the house.

Kinjiro did as he was told. At night he braided rope and wove straw mats.

And when everyone in the house was asleep, he secretly lit his lamp every night and covered it with his robe, so that no light would leak out. He wrote and read until the rooster crowed, the biography says.

By day he gathered firewood in the mountains, plowed fields, and worked on the river bank for wages. When he had saved a little money, he gave it away: two hundred mon, three hundred mon, to widows in the village and old people with no family. He did not spend it on himself. The biography says this was his small joy in the middle of hardship.

On the road he read aloud. At home he hid even the light. Both were the same boy.

In 1803 a flood changed the flow of the irrigation channel, and an old channel was left unused. On his days off, Kinjiro dug it up and planted the spare rice seedlings that villagers had thrown away. In time it gave about one bale of rice.

Kinjiro was glad, and is said to have said:

"Piling up small things until they grow big is the way of nature. With this I can surely bring back my family line and give peace to the spirits of my ancestors."

This was a boy whose uncle had told him he had no house.

Buying the Fields Back, One at a Time

After leaving his uncle's house, Kinjiro worked while staying with other families. Then, at twenty by the old count, he went back to the house where he was born.

According to the biography, the house had stood empty for years and was badly damaged. Tall weeds covered the eaves. He cut the weeds by himself and fixed what was broken. He lived there alone and worked day and night.

There was that one bale of rice from the thrown-away seedlings. He used it as seed and made it grow bigger year by year, the biography says.

The year he came back, he bought back one field that had passed into other hands. It was a small field that had been pawned. He paid three ryo.

At last, smoke rose again from the empty house, the biography says.

Four years later, his fields had grown to about 1.5 hectares, almost four acres. The next year he bought books and a bookcase.

He no longer had to hide his lamp under his robe.

In 1817 he married Nakajima Kino. Soon the Hattori family, chief retainers of the Odawara han, a domain ruled by a lord, asked him to do something about their debts. Kinjiro had worked in service in that han when he was young. He said that he was only a farmer and knew nothing about the affairs of a samurai house, and refused. But he was asked again and again, and in the end he took the job, it is said.

Before leaving, he told his wife that she would surely have a hard time. Please keep the house for me, he said. In five years I will clear away that family's worries and come home.

His wife wept and said she understood, the biography says.

When he reached the Hattori house, he scolded the master: even if the family name remains, he said, the inside already belongs to other people. The chief retainer bowed to the ground and apologized, they say.

Then, it is said, Kinjiro set his terms.

"Meals must always be only rice and soup. Clothes must always be cotton. And never take pleasure in things that are not needed."

In the middle of this work, in 1819, a baby boy was born. His name was Tokutaro. The child died after about a month. The same year, Kinjiro and Kino parted. Why they parted is not known for certain.

He had left his home saying he would be back in five years. Before five years had passed, both his child and his wife were gone from it.

The next year, he took Okada Namiko as his wife.

While the work for the Hattori house was still going on, word came from the lord of the han. He wanted to put Kinjiro in charge of a ruined village that officials, however many were sent, had failed to set right. Kinjiro refused again, and kept refusing.

In 1821 he finally went to see the village, Sakuramachi. When he came back, he told the lord, it is said, that there was a way to set it right. But the han must not give even one ryo. Ruined land, he said, should be opened by the strength of the ruined land itself.

The same year, the debts of the Hattori house were cleared. The money offered to him as thanks, he is said to have handed out to the servants of the house as soon as he received it.

He went home from the Hattori house without taking anything.

In 1822, Kinjiro accepted the Sakuramachi job. On the day he decided, he visited his ancestors' grave and put his hands together. At home, it is said, he told his wife Namiko:

He was going to Sakuramachi. He did not know what hardships there would be. If she did not like hardship, she should leave now, while she could.

Namiko answered:

"If you walk through water and fire, I will walk through them with you."

Kinjiro laughed and said, "You are right," they say.

It was 1823. Seventeen years had passed since he came back to the house where he was born. He sold the fields he had bought back one by one. He sold the household tools too.

With his three-year-old son Yataro, the family set out for Sakuramachi.