Kudo Heisuke

Kudô Heisuke was a physician in the service of Sendai han, known for his memorials to the Tokugawa shogunate on matters of foreign policy and trade.

In a memorial to the Nagasaki bugyô written sometime in the early 1770s, Kudô echoed the assertions of Arai Hakuseki that precious metals were "bones of the earth" and that their outflow from the country should be limited as much as possible. A physician with extensive knowledge of medicinal products, he emphasized their importance, and suggested that in order to limit precious metal outflows and also curb smuggling, the shogunate should establish particular merchant associations in Edo and Osaka dedicated to directing imported medicinal products from Nagasaki to these central cities. This would circumvent the private profit-seeking activities of Nagasaki-based merchant middlemen, who might have encouraged or allowed smuggling, replacing them instead with merchants formally authorized and regulated by the shogunate. It is unclear whether the shogunate, under Tairô Tanuma Okitsugu, adopted any of Kudô's suggestions directly, though similar measures were undertaken for other goods around the same time (see za, kabunakama).

Around the same time, in 1773, Kudô also wrote a memorial to the shogunate urging a more active stance on matters in Ezo (Hokkaidô), particularly in regards to defending against possible Russian incursions. A report from a Hungarian adventurer named Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky had reached shogunate officials two years earlier, claiming that Russia was preparing a naval assault against Matsumae han. This turned out to be untrue, but it nevertheless stirred up concern among many samurai officials. It is unclear whether Kudô would have ever seen the document, but by virtue of interactions with members of the Dutch East India Company based in Nagasaki, he possessed a certain awareness of the international situation; this 1773 memorial claimed that Matsumae authorities were engaging in unofficial trade with the Russians, and though he provided little hard evidence, this, combined with writings in a similar vein by Hayashi Shihei, spurred Tairô Tanuma to send a mission to Matsumae in 1785 to investigate the situation.