Honestly, to many modern observers, Yamaguchi Ken has been relegated to the land of "inaka" or "in the rice paddies," but Yamaguchi has had quite an interesting history, and has long been in the cultural and international forefront. Owing a great deal to its position in Japan, Yamaguchi is steeped in history.

Much of Japan's culture has been imported from the Asian Continent, and Yamaguchi has felt the influence of its western neighbors in Asia since about the 4th or 5th century BC. Starting form the first major import of wet rice cultivation methods, Yamaguchi to this day has had strong ties with China and Korea.

While maintaining a window of trade with the continent, what is now known as Yamaguchi Ken grew from seven separate regions that were consolodated in the 7th century AD to become the two nations of Suo and Nagato. Under protection from the imperial government the region flourished for the next four hundred years with its capital at Hofu. Hofu's Kokubun Temple and Tenmangu Shrine, originally built during that time, speak to this fact as symbols of wealth and political connection.

The Japanese central government's power withered in the late Heian era, and powerful warrior clans took increasing control over the more rural areas. Conflict was inevitable, and in 1185 Yamaguchi witnessed the culminating battle in the war for control over the nation. In the Dan no Ura straits off the coast of Shimonoseki, prince Antoku, the Taira child imperial candidate, along with the aspirations of the Taira Clan were drowned in the losing sea battle.

After the victorious Minamoto Clan established the first Shogunate national government, the Ouchi family, claiming Korean imperial descent, consolodated its feudal power in Suo province. The Koto family of Nagato maintained the balance of power in the region until 1355, when the Ouchi clan finally conquered its neighbor and set up a dynasty that ruled the Yamaguchi area for the next 196 years.

With power came more conquests until, at its height, the dynasty controlled what is now modern Hiroshima and Tottori, as well as parts of Okayama, Shimane, and Kitakyushu City. With a strong military came political stability, and with that came trade and commerce. The Ouchi set up a thriving trade with China and accumulated great wealth as one of the only governments to do so at that time. 1360 saw the founding of a new city, modeled after Kyoto, which was to serve as the new capital. Using the assets gained from conquest and trade, the clan commissioned famous artists and craftsmen to complete the task. The new Yamaguchi City thrived, and its beauty and power was thought to have rivaled that of the ancient capital on which it was modeled.

Political instability rocked the more central Kansai area in the 15th century, and stable, temperate, and forward looking Choshu, as Yamaguchi was known then, attracted a good deal of artisans and scholars away from the chaos. This growing artist community included the famous painter, Sesshu, who designed the still existant Jyoeiji Temple Garden, and other displaced craftsmen who built the five-storied pagoda of Rurikoji. Not only did the arts and crafts flourish, but because of its power and location, in 1550 St. Frances Xavier, the first Christian missionary in Japan, came to Yamaguchi City to preach.

In 1551 Harutaka Sue, a retainer, attempted to seize power from the ruling Ouchi. After six years of turmoil the Mori family of Hiroshima gained the upper hand and took all of western Japan under its control. They remained in power for the next 300 years, a time during which the fabulous Ouchi culture fell into decline. Around 1600 the "new" Mori leadership of the region made the fatal error of supporting the losing side in the decisive battle of Sekigahara, which determined the final shogunate of Japan. The Mori would have their revenge, but their feudal lands were reduced to Suo and Nagato, (Choshu) the area known today as Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Despite the famous, "closed door policy" of the newly placed Tokugawa Shogunate, the Mori Clan in Yamaguchi maintained trading relations abroad and continued to trade in "the three whites," salt, rice, and paper. This move placed the area in a position that allowed for cultural interchange and advancement, as well as provided a financial basis for better education. During this time the official capitol of the Choshu feif was moved to the city of Hagi and its newly built castle.

The Mori clan were patrons as were the Ouchi before them, but in an era of pending cultural and intellectual stagnation, their patronage concentrated on fostering scholarly pursuits. In a time when the extreme xenophobia and closed society of the earlier Edo period was waning, Shoin Yoshida, who was born in 1829, was traveling widely in Japan and gaining vital knowledge and experience. He used his knowledge of the outside world to recognize the mounting danger of the Western powers and their Asian colonization. When Commodore Perry arrived in Japan from the U.S., Yoshida saw his chance to gain the skills and information that could ward off western colonial incursion into Japan. Yoshida's petition to join him on his travels abroad was refused by Perry, and he was forced to confess his attempt to leave Japan.

While under house arrest in Hagi, he began to tutor other scholars and intellectuals who had gathered under the Mori patronage. Radically ignoring class status by structuring lectures based on ability as well as subversively espousing his modernization and unification ideas eventually cost Yoshida his life. He was executed in 1859, but his students went on to greatness. Shinsaku Takasugi was the general who conducted many of the civil skirmishes that sped the Meiji restoration, and Horobumi Ito was the first prime minister and major author of the new constitution of Japan. Yamagata, the military and political reformer, Genzui, and others join them on the list of powerful statesmen from the Yoshida school.

In 1863, dissatisfied with the inaction of the central government against the encroaching "barbarians," the Choshu government fired upon a foreign ship using the straits of Shimonoseki. The US, France, the UK, and Holland declared war on the Mori Clan. While an embarrassing defeat, the Western actions gave some gravity to their concerns. After this, relations with the central government were at their lowest point. In 1868 with the support of various other fiefdoms that were concerned about the future of Japan as well as their own, the Mori Clan declared a victorious war on the Shogun and restored the Emperor as head of the government. Emperor Mutsuhito, who took the name Meiji, moved his imperial capital from Kyoto to the civil and military capital of Edo (Tokyo). In 1869 the Mori clan officially surrendered their fiefs to the Emperor and in 1871 an imperial decree abolished all fiefdoms and created centrally administered prefectures in their stead. While having relinquished feudal power, the Choshu nobles and the Yoshida school went on to be the driving force in the new restoration government.

As well, the leaders from this Yoshida school who originally were weary of Western encroachment were key founders of the system of government that maintained a strangle hold on the Japanese population and forced rapid modernization in the face of Western dominance. These feelings eventually lead to expansionist ideas and military operations (the Sino-Japanese War, and Russo-Japanese War) that placed Japan solidly on the world stage as a force to be reckoned with.

From the end of the restoration wars, Japanese government took on a more modern and unified role, and Yamaguchi became subject to the whims of the very government and social system that its residents had helped to create. Of course as a modern prefecture, Yamaguchi has been a crossroads and has provided Japan with a strong fishing, agricultural, and industrial base, as well as seven prime ministers and a Nobel Lauriet. The industrial strength, nationalistic notions, and strategic location of the area placed Yamaguchi Ken unquestionably in the thick of the national conflicts of World Wars I and II. Click here to read an about.com article on how one Yamaguchi resident remembers his role in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The conservative imperial ideals of the early reformers can still be felt in and around Yamaguchi Ken today. As in most places in Japan, Yamaguchi is home to an aging population, and until the recent decline in the Japanese economy, many younger residents had been moving away to the more influential centers of commerce and economy. As a result the radical bureaucracy and attitudes that were forged in the initial time of the Meiji reform have translated into a largely unbuffeted traditional conservatism of today.

Currently all of Japan is once again facing major social and economic dilemmas that speak to the overthrow of just these types of conservative practices. Yamaguchi is definitely making a strong international effort, and in many areas the population has a desire for healthy social, cultural, and economic advancement. It remains to be seen, though, how Japan as a whole and Yamaguchi Ken in particular will ultimately overcome these difficulties and thrust itself into the ever-expanding multinational world.

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