米百俵物語 | 米百俵スクールプロジェクト

米百俵物語

「米百俵」は、新潟県の中央部に位置する長岡市に伝わる郷土の逸話を作家山本有三氏が戯曲化したお話です。その後、舞台での上演や講談・映画などで県内はもとより広く全国に知られるところとなりました。

江戸から明治へと時代が移り変わろうとしている1868年、戊辰の年に勃発したことから名付けられた戊辰戦争は、新政府軍と旧幕府軍の間で激しい戦いを繰り広げながら日本各地へと広がっていきました。

河井継之助率いる長岡藩もこれに参戦して敗れ、長岡の地は焼け野原となり、藩のお取り潰しは免れたものの禄高は七万四千石から二万四千石にまで減らされ、食糧もみるみる底をついてしまいました。飢餓状態が続くなか、隣の三根山藩から見舞いの米、百俵が贈られて皆が喜んだのもつかの間、藩の大参事小林虎三郎はこれを皆に分けることなく、売ってその代金で学校を建てると言うのです。
怒り狂う藩士達に虎三郎は死を覚悟で「その日暮らしでは長岡は決して立ち直らない」と説得を続け、ようやく賛同を得て学校建設にこぎつけました。

いくさは人材がいれば防げたはず、人材の育成こそ明日の長岡、ひいては日本の将来のためには欠くべからざるもの ―― そして、山本有三氏は戯曲『米百俵』のなかで、小林虎三郎にこう語らせることで自分の考えをあらわしています。「この百俵は、今でこそただの百俵だが、後年には一万俵になるか、百万俵になるか、はかり知れないものがある。いや、米だわらなどでは、見積もれない尊いものになるのだ」

人材育成にかけた熱意と信念は静かにしかし着実に受け継がれ、これからも多くの人の中で生き続けていくことでしょう。

About Kome Hyappyo

Kome Hyappyo, One Hundred Sacks of Rice is a dramatized story by Japanese novelist and playwright, Yuzo Yamamoto, based on an anecdote from Nagaoka city, located in the middle of Niigata prefecture in Japan. Via a stage play, story-telling and a movie, this story spread first from Niigata prefecture and then all over Japan.

In 1868, at which time the era was shifting from Edo to Meiji, a civil war called the Boshin War, which is named from the year in the cyclical calendar, began between the forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the Imperial Court. The war became fierce, spreading throughout Japan.
Nagaoka domain, lead by Kawai Tsuginosuke, also joined the war but lost, and the city was burned and ruined.
Though Nagaoka domain avoided being divided, its stipend declined from 74,000 koku to 24,000 koku, causing a shortage of food.
While people in Nagaoka suffered from hunger, the neighboring Mineyama domain sent a hundred sacks of rice to Nagaoka domain as a sympathetic gift. Everyone was pleased by it, but Torasaburō Kobayashi, Daisanji (Grand Councillor) of Nagaoka domain, insisted on not distributing the rice to the people but on selling it in order to build a school.
Torasaburō persuaded the angry Samurai with a strong will, even determined to die, saying, “If we merely live from day to day, Nagaoka will not rise.” Eventually, after his patient persuasion, a school could be established with the people’s support.
Torasaburō believed that the war could have been prevented if they had had people with good prospects, and that education is essential for the future of not only Nagaoka but also Japan.
In the stage play of Kome Hyappyo, Yuzo Yamamoto describes his thought via Torasaburō: “These hundred sacks are now no more than one hundred sacks, but in years to come they will grow to ten thousand sacks, to a million sacks, and then so many they cannot be counted. We’ll have something precious that is not to be measured in terms of the number of sacks.”

The passion for, and belief in, education will steadily but calmly succeed, and live on in many people’s hearts.

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