Shimabara Rebellion The was an uprising in southwestern Japan lasting from December 17 , 1637 to April 15 , 1638 , during the Edo period . It largely involved peasants , most of them Catholic Christians . It was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate ' s rule . In the wake of the Matsukura clan ' s construction of a new castle at Shimabara , taxes were drastically raised , which provoked anger from local peasants and rōnin , samurai without masters . Religious persecution of the local Catholics exacerbated the discontent , which turned into open revolt in 1637 . The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125 , 000 troops to suppress the rebellion and after a lengthy siege against the rebels at Hara Castle , defeated them . In the wake of the rebellion , the rebel leader Amakusa Shiro was beheaded and the prohibition of Christianity was strictly enforced . Japan ' s national seclusion policy was tightened and official persecution of Christianity continued until the 1850s . Leadup and outbreak . In the mid - 1630s , the peasants of the Shimabara Peninsula and the Amakusa Islands , dissatisfied with overtaxation and suffering from the effects of famine , revolted against their lords . This was specifically in territory ruled by two lords : Matsukura Katsuie of the Shimabara Domain , and Terasawa Katataka of the Karatsu Domain . Though the rebellion is cast by many historians as a religious uprising , this ignores the issues of discontent from famine and overtaxation . Those affected also included fishermen , craftsmen and merchants . As the rebellion spread , it was joined by rōnin ( masterless samurai ) who once had served families such as the Amakusa and Shiki who had once lived in the area , as well as former Arima and Konishi retainers . As such , the image of a fully " peasant " uprising is also not entirely accurate . Shimabara was once the domain of the Arima lordly family , which had been Christian ; as a result , many locals were also Christian . The Arima were moved out in 1614 and replaced by the Matsukura . The new lord , Matsukura Shigemasa , hoped to advance in the shogunate hierarchy , and so he was involved with various construction projects , including the building and expansion of Edo Castle , as well as a planned invasion of Luzon . He also built a new castle at Shimabara . As a result , he placed a greatly disproportionate tax burden on the people of his new domain , and further angered them by strictly persecuting Christianity . Even the Dutch , who had a trading post nearby and were anti - Catholic , were startled at the excessive degree of repression . These policies were continued by Shigemasa ' s heir , Katsuie . The inhabitants of the Amakusa Islands , which had been part of the fief of Konishi Yukinaga , suffered the same sort of persecution at the hands the Terasawa family , which , like the Matsukura , had been moved there . Other masterless samurai in the region included former retainers of and Sassa Narimasa , both of whom had once ruled parts of Higo Province . Event . Start . The discontented rōnin of the region , as well as the peasants , began to meet in secret and plot an uprising ; this broke out on December 17 , 1637 , when the local " daikan " ( tax official ) Hayashi Hyōzaemon was assassinated . At the same time , others rebelled in the Amakusa Islands . The rebels quickly increased their ranks by forcing all in the areas they took to join in the uprising . A charismatic 16 year - old youth , Amakusa Shirō , was soon chosen as the rebellion ' s leader . The rebels laid siege to the Terasawa clan ' s Tomioka and Hondo castles , but just before the castles were about to fall , armies from the neighboring domains in Kyūshū arrived , and forced them to retreat . The rebels then crossed the Ariake Sea and briefly besieged Matsukura Katsuie ' s Shimabara Castle , but were again repelled . At this point they gathered on the site of Hara Castle , which had been the castle of the Arima clan before their move to the Nobeoka Domain , but was dismantled . They built up palisades using the wood from the boats they had crossed the water with , and were greatly aided in their preparations by the weapons , ammunition , and provisions they had plundered from the Matsukura clan ' s storehouses . Siege at Hara Castle . The allied armies of the local domains , under the command of the Tokugawa shogunate with Itakura Shigemasa as commander - in - chief , then began their siege of Hara Castle . The swordsman Miyamoto Musashi was present in the besieging army , in an advisory role to Hosokawa Tadatoshi . The event where Musashi was knocked off his horse by a stone thrown by one of the peasants is one of the only few verifiable records of him taking part in a campaign . The shogunate troops then requested aid from the Dutch , who first gave them gunpowder , and then cannons . Nicolaes Couckebacker , Opperhoofd of the Dutch factory on Hirado , provided the gunpowder and cannons , and when the shogunate forces requested that he send a vessel , he personally accompanied the vessel " de Ryp " to a position offshore , near Hara Castle . The cannons sent previously were mounted in a battery , and an all - out bombardment of the fortress commenced , both from the shore guns as well as from the 20 guns of the " de Ryp " . These guns fired approximately 426 rounds in the space of 15 days , without great result , and two Dutch lookouts were shot by the rebels . The ship withdrew at the request of the Japanese , following contemptuous messages sent by the rebels to the besieging troops : Final push and fall . In an attempt to take the castle , Itakura Shigemasa was killed . More shogunate troops under Matsudaira Nobutsuna , Itakura ' s replacement , soon arrived . However , the rebels at Hara Castle resisted the siege for months and caused the shogunate heavy losses . Both sides had a hard time fighting in winter conditions . On February 3 , 1638 , a rebel raid killed 2 , 000 warriors from the Hizen Domain . However , despite this minor victory , the rebels slowly ran out of food , ammunition and other provisions . By April 1638 , there were over 27 , 000 rebels facing about 125 , 000 shogunate soldiers . Desperate rebels mounted an assault against them on April 4 and were forced to withdraw . Captured survivors and the fortress ' rumored sole traitor , Yamada Emosaku , revealed the fortress was out of food and gunpowder . On April 12 , 1638 , troops under the command of the Kuroda clan of Hizen stormed the fortress and captured the outer defenses . The rebels continued to hold out and caused heavy casualties until they were routed on April 15 . Forces present at Shimabara . The Shimabara rebellion was the first massive military effort since the Siege of Osaka where the shogunate had to supervise an allied army made up of troops from various domains . The first overall commander , Itakura Shigemasa , had 800 men under his direct command ; his replacement , Matsudaira Nobutsuna , had 1 , 500 . Vice - commander Toda Ujikane had 2 , 500 of his own troops . 2 , 500 samurai of the Shimabara Domain were also present . The bulk of the shogunate ' s army was drawn from Shimabara ' s neighboring domains . The largest component , numbering over 35 , 000 men , came from the Saga Domain , and was under the command of Nabeshima Katsushige . Second in numbers were the forces of the Kumamoto and Fukuoka domains ; 23 , 500 men under Hosokawa Tadatoshi and 18 , 000 men under Kuroda Tadayuki , respectively . From the Kurume Domain came 8 , 300 men under Arima Toyouji ; from the Yanagawa Domain 5 , 500 men under Tachibana Muneshige ; from the Karatsu Domain , 7 , 570 under Terasawa Katataka ; from Nobeoka , 3 , 300 under Arima Naozumi ; from Kokura , 6 , 000 under Ogasawara Tadazane and his senior retainer Takada Matabei ; from Nakatsu , 2 , 500 under Ogasawara Nagatsugu ; from Bungo - Takada , 1 , 500 under Matsudaira Shigenao , and from Kagoshima , 1 , 000 under Yamada Arinaga , a senior retainer of the Shimazu clan . The only non - Kyushu forces , apart from the commanders ' personal troops , were 5 , 600 men from the Fukuyama Domain , under the command of Mizuno Katsunari , Katsutoshi , and Katsusada . There was also a small number of troops from various other locations amounting to 800 men . In total , the shogunate ' s army comprised over 125 , 800 men . Conversely , the strength of the rebel forces is not precisely known . Combatants are estimated to have numbered over 14 , 000 , noncombatants who sheltered in the castle during the siege were over 13 , 000 . One source estimates the total size of the rebel force as somewhere between 27 , 000 and 37 , 000 , a fraction of the size of the force sent by the shogunate . Aftermath . After the castle fell , the shogunate forces beheaded an estimated 37 , 000 rebels and sympathizers . Amakusa Shirō ' s severed head was taken to Nagasaki for public display , and the entire complex at Hara Castle was burned to the ground and buried together with the bodies of all the dead . Because the shogunate suspected that European Catholics had been involved in spreading the rebellion , Portuguese traders were driven out of the country . The policy of national seclusion was made more strict by 1639 . An existing ban on the Christian religion was then enforced stringently , and Christianity in Japan survived only by going underground . Another part of the shogunate ' s actions after the rebellion was to excuse the clans which had aided its efforts militarily , from the building contributions which it routinely required from various domains . However , Matsukura Katsuie was pressured to commit suicide by the shogunate and his domain was given to another lord , Kōriki Tadafusa . The Terazawa clan survived , but died out almost 10 years later , due to Katataka ' s lack of a successor . On the Shimabara peninsula , most towns experienced a severe to total loss of population as a result of the rebellion . In order to maintain the rice fields and other crops , immigrants were brought from other areas across Japan to resettle the land . All inhabitants were registered with local temples , whose priests were required to vouch for their members ' religious affiliation . Following the rebellion , Buddhism was strongly promoted in the area . Certain customs were introduced which remain unique to the area today . Towns on the Shimabara peninsula also continue to have a varied mix of dialects due to the mass immigration from other parts of Japan . With the exception of periodic , localized peasant uprisings , the Shimabara Rebellion was the last large - scale armed clash in Japan until the 1860s . References . English Japanese