science

Hamaguchi Goryō

Hamaguchi Goryō is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hamaguchi Goryō rather than just read about it. In short: Hamaguchi Goryō (濱口梧陵; June 15, 1819 – April 21, 1885) was a village headman in Hiro, Kii Province (current Hirogawa, Wakayama) noted for his role in saving villagers from a tsunami during the 1854 Ansei-Nankai earthquake. In the Meiji period, he became an entrepreneur, the seventh owner of Yamasa, the noted soy sauce brewer, philanthropist and politician.

Key takeaways

Hamaguchi Goryō belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hamaguchi Goryō to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hamaguchi Goryō from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hamaguchi Goryō (濱口梧陵; June 15, 1819 – April 21, 1885) was a village headman in Hiro, Kii Province (current Hirogawa, Wakayama) noted for his role in saving villagers from a tsunami during the 1854 Ansei-Nankai earthquake. In the Meiji period, he became an entrepreneur, the seventh owner of Yamasa, the noted soy sauce brewer, philanthropist and politician.

Biography

Early history Hamaguchi Goryō was born to a cadet branch of the Hamaguchi family in what is now Yuasa, Wakayama. The Hamaguchi family were soy sauce brewers and merchants, and had operations in both Shimosa and Kii Province. At the age of 12, he was adopted by the main family, which was based at what is now Chōshi, Chiba, where he relocated. In October 1839, he married a daughter of Ikenaga Umetaro in Yuasa at the age of 20. After staying in Hiro-mura for another six months, he returned to Chōshi via Edo in the following spring. By that time, he had already mastered the techniques of martial arts, especially kendo. In addition, he was very good at composing and writing poems. As a youth, he was interested in western medicine and natural history and during the Bakumatsu period, he volunteered to the Tokugawa shogunate to be sent abroad for training, but was not accepted. At the age of 30, he returned to his native Kii Province and in 1852, opened a private academy for the training of commoner youths in trades. This academy was the forerunner of the current Wakayama Prefectural Taikyu High School. In 1854, he inherited the position of family head as the 7th generation Hamaguchi Goryō.

The Ansei-Nankai earthquake and aftermath In the hours after the 1854 Ansei-Nankai earthquake, Hamaguchi Goryō recognized the danger to the village posed by a tsunami and urged the villagers to evacuate to a nearby hill containing the Hiro Hachiman Shrine. Since it was night, he ordered that the stacked sheaves of rice, which were drying after the recent harvest, be set on fire to guide the villagers to safety. As a result, more than 90 percent of the villagers escaped the tsunami. The story was quickly popularized by Inamura no Hi: The Burning Rice Fields by Tsunezo Nakai (translated and published in English by Sara Cone Bryant) and Lafcadio Hearn's Gleanings in Buddha-Fields (1897), with some elaborations, and the account of his heroism became required reading in Japanese textbooks. After the disaster, Hamaguchi Goryō worked to restore the damaged bridge and built a huge seawall, the Hiromura Embankment, over a four-year period. This large-scale civil engineering work was intended not only for disaster prevention, but was also to provide employment for the villagers who had lost everything due to the tsunami. The cost of the 600 meters long, 20 meters wide and 5 meters high embankment was the equivalent of 4667 ryō and was paid for by Hamaguchi and earned him the sobriquet of "a living god". Some 88 years later, this embankment protected Hirogawa from a tsunami from the 1946 Nankai earthquake.

Political career In 1868, despite his commoner status, Hamaguchi was appointed a magistrate (bugyō) of Kishū Domain and a professor at the domain academy. He was asked to lead efforts to reform and modernize the domain's economy. Following the Meiji restoration, in 1871 he was asked by Okubo Toshimichi to head the Ekiteishi (駅逓司), a department set up by the Meiji government to manage post stations, but as the department overlapped that of the Bureau of Posts, the position was abolished after only a few weeks. In 1880, he became the first chairman of the Wakayama Prefectural Assembly. In preparation for the opening of the Imperial Diet, he formed the Kikuni Doyukai a local proto-political party. In 1885, he went on a world trip, which had been his dream since his youth. He died in New York, in the United States. His funeral was held on June 15, 1885, in Hirogawa and more than 4,000 people gathered to pay their final respects.

Timeline

See also Lafcadio Hearn Yamasa The Fire of Rice Sheaves

References

Hearn, Lafcadio Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far East (1897) Ladd, George Trumbull Rare Days in Japan (1910) Ladd, George Trumbull In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908) Bryant, Sara Cone The Burning Rice Fields (1963) Hodges, Margaret Moore The Wave (1964)

External links Yamasa Corporation Archived September 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Yamasa Corporation USA "Inamura no Hi" no Yakata Speech by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hamaguchi Goryō

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hamaguchi Goryō claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hamaguchi Goryō before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hamaguchi Goryō ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hamaguchi Goryō

In research: Hamaguchi Goryō appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hamaguchi Goryō in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hamaguchi Goryō is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1820 births, 1885 deaths, 19th-century philanthropists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hamaguchi Goryō outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hamaguchi Goryō in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hamaguchi Goryō means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hamaguchi Goryō out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hamaguchi Goryō in simple terms?

Why does Hamaguchi Goryō matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hamaguchi Goryō?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hamaguchi Goryō.