Eiji Asabuki

In the autumn of Meiji 3 (1870), Yukichi Fukuzawa headed to Nakatsu accompanied by his nephew Hikojiro Nakamigawa and others to bring his mother, O-jun, who was living in Nakatsu, to Tokyo. On the way, in Osaka, they stayed for several days at the home of Fukuzawa's cousin, Senzan Fujimoto, while waiting for a ship. At that time, Eiji Asabuki was working diligently as Fujimoto's servant, handling all the cooking and errands.

In the upper reaches of the Yamakuni River, which flows through the castle town of Nakatsu where Fukuzawa grew up, there is a beautiful valley called Yabakei. Asabuki was born in 1849 in Miyazono Village near Yabakei. Having studied under a local scholar of Chinese classics during his youth and fully adopting the "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" (sonno joi) ideology, Asabuki had come to Osaka as Fujimoto's servant the year before Fukuzawa's stay.

Upon arriving in Osaka, Fukuzawa wanted to eat beef, and it was decided that Asabuki would cook beef purchased from the only butcher shop in Osaka. At that time, the idea of eating beef was still unthinkable for many Japanese people. While Asabuki was indignant about having to flip the cutting board over to cut the meat and feeling that his hands had been defiled, Fukuzawa, unaware of this, offered some beef to Asabuki. When Fujimoto intervened, saying that Asabuki disliked beef, Fukuzawa went further and suggested eggs instead. Having no choice but to eat the egg, Asabuki found it far from delicious. Once a bad impression is formed, every single move of the other person becomes irritating. Asabuki's resentment toward Fukuzawa continued to grow.

Around that time, a man named Sotaro Masuda, a friend of Asabuki from his Nakatsu days and a second cousin to Fukuzawa, arrived in Osaka. Masuda held extreme anti-foreign views and hated scholars of Western learning. Upon hearing about Fukuzawa's activities from Asabuki, he became indignant and entrusted Asabuki with the task of assassination, asking him to "take care of" Fukuzawa. Unaware of any of this, Fukuzawa was walking all over Osaka with a bookstore clerk to buy up pirated editions of "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)" to report the crackdown to the government. Meanwhile, Asabuki, who had been ordered by Fujimoto to act as a guard, was watching for an opportunity to assassinate Fukuzawa.

Then came the day Fukuzawa visited the home of Koan Ogata's widow. As Fukuzawa and the widow reminisced, the night grew late. When Fukuzawa left the Ogata residence around 10 or 11 PM, the surroundings were pitch black and silent. Just as Asabuki put his hand on his sword and was about to leap out, a thunderous noise rang out. It was the sound of drums from a nearby yose (storytelling theater). The tension that had gripped Asabuki's body suddenly relaxed, and as he stood there deflated, a large crowd of customers poured out of the theater. Thus, the assassination plot ended in failure without Fukuzawa ever knowing.

Fukuzawa learned of this incident years later through Asabuki's confession, but he did not record it in "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa." Fukuzawa spoke of the fear of assassination, saying, "Of all the things in the world that are unpleasant, disagreeable, eerie, and terrifying, assassination is the foremost. I believe this feeling can only be understood by those who have been targeted" ("The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa"). As an example of being a target, he only introduced an incident where he was targeted by Masuda in Nakatsu after this event and narrowly escaped with his life. The attempted assassination by Asabuki only became public in Meiji 41 (1908), after Fukuzawa's death, when Asabuki spoke of it himself at a Keio University alumni meeting in Osaka.

Asabuki, once a proponent of anti-foreign ideology who had even targeted Fukuzawa's life, completely switched to the Western learning faction after Fukuzawa spent three days and nights explaining the necessity of opening the country and taking initiative. Asabuki cut off his topknot, sold the sword he had received from his father to raise travel funds, and followed Fukuzawa to Tokyo after Fukuzawa returned from Nakatsu with his mother and others.

After entering Keio University, Asabuki lived in Fukuzawa's house and served as a doorkeeper. Being a doorkeeper did not just mean announcing guests; he also handled cleaning, family chores, errands, and even babysat Fukuzawa's daughters, Sato and Fusa, by placing them in a baby carriage Fukuzawa had bought as a souvenir from America. In later years, Fukuzawa reportedly praised his work, saying, "I have kept many dependents over the years, but most ended up being a waste of food. Only Asabuki and Takuzo Ushiba (later a member of the House of Representatives and manager of Sanyo Railway) truly paid back that debt."

Seeing potential in Asabuki, Fukuzawa encouraged him to marry Sumi, Fukuzawa's niece and Nakamigawa's sister. At the time, 16-year-old Sumi, who was commuting to a girls' school in Ochanomizu from the Fukuzawa residence, refused to agree, saying she would follow her uncle's advice on anything else, but she begged to be excused from marrying Mr. Asabuki. Asabuki had contracted smallpox at the age of nine, and although he fortunately survived, his face was covered in pockmarks from the scars. Fukuzawa persuaded her, saying that Asabuki had a bright future and that with a face like that, he wouldn't be popular with women, ensuring a peaceful home. Sumi finally agreed to Fukuzawa's recommendation, and the two were married with Fukuzawa acting as the matchmaker. As it turned out, Fukuzawa's assessment was correct on the former point, but completely wrong on the latter. Asabuki became very popular with both men and women.

Asabuki demonstrated his abilities in any field—not only in the work he was involved in, such as spinning, machinery, and construction, but also in his hobbies like tea ceremony and collecting antiques—as if he had been involved in them for many years. Nakamigawa described the way Asabuki could open countless drawers and have materials for any given path come out endlessly by saying, "Asabuki's brain is like an old-fashioned medicine chest." Everyone recognized that Asabuki was quick-witted. At the same time, his flaws of being impatient and scatterbrained were also on full display, which became the human touch that made him beloved by many.

Seihin Ikeda, Nakamigawa's son-in-law who led the Mitsui Zaibatsu in the early Showa era, recalled Asabuki as "a person of deep affection in human relationships. He was also a man of great hardship, not someone who grew up slowly like us. He was a truly flavorful person" ("Kojin Konjin"), while also sharing anecdotes that conveyed Asabuki's personality. One day, Asabuki shouted at his secretary, saying his glasses were missing. Even after the secretary searched everywhere and couldn't find them, they returned to find the glasses were in the master's own hand. When the secretary pointed this out, Asabuki reportedly said, "Why didn't you say so sooner?" The fact that the person being scolded didn't take it to heart and it became a funny story was a feat possible only because of the charming Asabuki. On another day, when visiting an acquaintance's house, Asabuki was shown into the drawing room. Since it was hot and they were close friends, he waited while naked, only for a stranger to appear to greet him. Realizing he had the wrong house, Asabuki rushed out in a panic.

Whenever something happened, Fukuzawa would consult Nakamigawa. Nakamigawa was a man of clear intellect and quick decision-making, but he would bluntly say no to things that were impossible, even to Fukuzawa. In that regard, Asabuki would read the other person's rhythm and guide the conversation skillfully. Fukuzawa valued Asabuki as someone he could consult without reservation. While Asabuki's main stage was in the business world of Mitsui and Mitsubishi, he was always present at important moments for Fukuzawa, such as the founding of Kojunsha and the construction of Meiji Kaido.

When Fukuzawa, Yataro Iwasaki of Mitsubishi, and then-Finance Minister Shigenobu Okuma agreed that a company was needed to promote trade with foreign countries by Japanese hands, and the Boeki Shokai (Trade Association) was established in Yokohama, Asabuki was the one chosen to be its manager.

Transitioning from a manager at Mitsubishi, Asabuki took on the challenge of fighting foreign merchants in the raw silk trade to protect the country's rights and independence. Just then, in the Political Crisis of 1881, his benefactor Okuma lost power. The Boeki Shokai, which had its bank support cut off by rival Satsuma and Choshu officials, was forced to close. Asabuki took on the large remaining debt by himself and spent several years as a ronin (unemployed).

Even when he was called the "unprecedented king of debt" and lacked even the money for transportation, Asabuki remained energetically active. It was during this period that he helped two Keio University juniors, Tsuyoshi Inukai and Yukio Ozaki, who would later be called the "God of Constitutional Government," when they were in financial trouble. When Inukai wished to observe conditions overseas, Asabuki managed to secure the funds from somewhere. However, because Ozaki was ordered to leave Tokyo under the newly issued Security Regulations, this large sum was suddenly diverted to Ozaki's travel expenses. Inukai, having been "robbed by Ozaki," never had the opportunity to travel to Europe or America in his lifetime.

When Nakamigawa joined Mitsui Bank and began a major reform toward the modernization of Mitsui as its head, the subsidiary Kanegafuchi Spinning Company (Kanebo) was suffering from a continuous slump and needed a driving force for its recovery. Following recommendations from those around him, Nakamigawa appointed Asabuki as the Senior Managing Director in charge of Kanebo. Asabuki studied spinning enthusiastically, visited the factories frequently, and put Kanebo's management on track by improving the treatment of employees. Furthermore, when the Mitsui Industrial Department was established to manage the group of factories that had come under Mitsui's umbrella through foreclosures and other means, Asabuki was appointed as its Executive Director. At that time, the top four executives of Mitsui were Nakamigawa of Mitsui Bank, Takashi Masuda of Mitsui & Co., Takuma Dan of the mines, and Asabuki of the Industrial Department. Among them, Nakamigawa and Masuda were both powerful figures who pushed Mitsui to the top of the zaibatsu, and it was not uncommon for a tense atmosphere to exist between them due to their different positions. And "the primary person of merit who stood between the two heroes, Nakamigawa and Masuda, and successfully handled the task of buffering and reconciliation," preventing the breakup of Mitsui, "was Eiji Asabuki himself" ("Biography of Hikojiro Nakamigawa").

After his mentor Fukuzawa passed away, followed shortly by Nakamigawa, Asabuki became a guardian for the young talent from Keio University whom Nakamigawa had recruited for the Mitsui reforms, nurturing them. From among them emerged representative Japanese business leaders such as Sanji Muto (President of Kanebo), Toyoji Wada (President of Fuji Spinning), and Ginjiro Fujiwara (President of Oji Paper).

In a memorial record of Asabuki, Sanji Muto evaluated him by saying, "There are many things we should learn from his (Asabuki's) biography, but the thing we must learn most of all is the warm compassion that resided strongly in his heart, which led him to spare no effort or expense for the sake of others."