[Music]
00:04
In Japan, there is a legend of a great
00:27
buried treasure.
00:30
You would be talking about tens of
00:32
millions of dollars worth of gold coins
00:33
in today's money. It is the supposed
00:35
fortune of a mighty warlord buried deep
00:38
in the mountains.
00:41
It's in a bit of Japan that's pretty
00:44
much ignored. This warlord, Tokugawa
00:46
Yoshobu, was the last of his kind, the
00:50
last shogun of Japan. The shogunate
00:53
stayed for 250 years. Um, 15
00:57
generations.
01:01
The key to his riches lay with a
01:03
faithful servant who carried his secret
01:05
to the grave. He was just rounded up
01:07
suddenly and decapitated.
01:10
Two rival families are locked in a race
01:14
to find this fabulous treasure. It was
01:16
such an important part of Japan's
01:18
history. If only you could dig up some
01:21
bit from the time. Their quest would
01:23
bridge generations lasting more than a
01:27
century and capture the imagination of a
01:29
country. This just kind of fed into
01:33
people's desire to believe in some kind
01:35
of fantasy. This is the story of an
01:37
extraordinary treasure hunt, a bitter
01:40
rivalry, and a fortune beyond
01:42
imagination. The lost treasure of the
01:45
last shogun.
01:48
At the turn of the 21st century, an
01:59
elderly man spent his last days digging
02:02
deep in the mountains of central Japan.
02:04
He was looking for
02:08
gold. Japan is very mountainous, so
02:10
there's huge numbers of areas where
02:14
potentially somebody could have gone and
02:16
sequestered some stuff. His name was
02:18
Miso Tomayyuki. The fortune he sought
02:22
was a treasure that was lost almost 140
02:26
years
02:29
previously. According to the most
02:32
popular version of the legends, there
02:34
were originally over four or 5 million
02:37
coins total. So you would be talking
02:40
about tens of millions of dollars worth
02:41
of gold coins in today's money. Misano
02:43
Tomyuki had spent his entire life on a
02:46
quest for this vast horde of coins and
02:49
felt he was on the verge of an
02:53
extraordinary breakthrough.
02:54
We Mizuno can dig for three, four, five,
02:57
even 100 generations because warriors
03:01
from the Samurai days entrusted this to
03:03
us. If we hadn't been entrusted with
03:05
this, it would be just some treasure
03:08
hunt and I would have stopped long ago.
03:10
I'm not that stupid.
03:13
Where did all this money come from? And
03:16
why did it mysteriously vanish?
03:19
The roots of the legend stretch back to
03:23
a time of great
03:25
upheaval. 1866.
03:31
For 263 years, one family, the House of
03:35
Tokugawa, held the reigns of
03:40
power. They seized the country in a
03:43
violent insurrection, then brought
03:45
centuries of peace to this wild land.
03:47
Historically, it's been very hard to
03:51
hold the country together. It always
03:53
falls apart. Um, civil wars repeatedly
03:55
take place. If you imagine Switzerland
03:58
where you have mountain valley torrent,
04:00
another mountain, another torrent and
04:03
imagine that continuing from Stockholm
04:05
to Naples. That's what Japan
04:08
is. So far, there had been 15
04:12
generations of Tokugawa rulers, but they
04:14
were not
04:17
emperors. They were shoguns.
04:19
Shogun literally means barbarian
04:25
subduing general Lissimo. Um, and it's a
04:27
title that is given to someone
04:30
officially by the emperor who lives in
04:32
Kyoto. The latest of this long line was
04:36
Tokugawa
04:39
Yoshobu. In theory, he was a military
04:41
commander who served at the emperor's
04:44
pleasure.
04:46
In practice, he ruled supreme and all
04:48
bowed to
04:52
him. From his ancestral home at Edeto
04:53
Castle, the Shogun governed with the aid
04:56
of a vast aristocratic class, the
04:59
samurai. It was an ancient feudal system
05:02
that had endured for centuries. The
05:06
shogunal system was created early in the
05:09
17th century and the first shogun was
05:12
deified. that made it very difficult
05:15
ever to change anything that he had set
05:18
in place.
05:20
From his exalted position, the Shogun
05:22
not only held the reigns of power, but
05:25
wealth beyond
05:28
imagination. At his court, a group of
05:31
his most loyal and trusted samurai were
05:34
given the task of administering his vast
05:36
fortune. One of them was a man named
05:39
Oguri Tadamasa.
05:42
Aguri Tanamasa is what's called a
05:44
bannerman. He's one of about 5,000
05:47
mid-ranking samurai who are loyal to the
05:50
Tokugawa Shogunate and really function
05:52
as mid-level bureaucrats in the regime.
05:55
He was well educated bureaucrats, come
05:58
from a decent family. when he was young,
06:01
people very quickly realized he had both
06:04
mastered the military skills, but also
06:07
kind of literature and poetry and things
06:09
like that, which was what you needed in
06:10
order to have legitimacy in the top
06:11
levels of the Japanese bureaucracy.
06:14
Okuri reached an exalted position as the
06:16
Shogun's commissioner of
06:19
finance. His role was to account for the
06:21
huge sums paid to the Shogun in
06:24
taxation.
06:26
Every warlord owed the shogun an annual
06:28
tribute and all that wealth passed
06:32
through Aguri's hands. Essentially, he
06:34
was the accountant for the Tokugawa
06:36
regime itself. And this was a very
06:38
important position because the Tokugawa
06:40
shogunate needed money not only to pay
06:42
all of its samurai, but to manage any
06:45
reforms that they wanted to
06:47
pursue. Aguri knew that reforms were
06:51
badly needed. Life in Japan had barely
06:54
changed in 200
06:57
years. Yet beyond her shores, the world
06:59
was in the throws of the industrial
07:03
revolution. Aguri was one of the few
07:06
Japanese who had been abroad and seen
07:08
the benefits this brought to Western
07:11
nations. He developed grand plans to
07:13
modernize his deeply traditional
07:16
society.
07:18
Our good was just stunned by how far
07:20
behind Japan was in terms of modern
07:23
infrastructure. He wanted to create a
07:25
postal system. He wanted to create a
07:28
shipyard to kind of imitate what the
07:30
west had. So he was one of the most
07:32
vocal supporters of westernization, if
07:34
you will.
07:37
But the shogun was not interested in
07:39
change. And while he continued to live
07:41
in splendor, the rest of Japan struggled
07:44
in dire poverty. 95% of people they were
07:47
living in little miserable huts in the
07:51
countryside as they had done for a
07:54
thousand years. They never left their
07:56
village. Life was hard and miserable and
07:58
cold in winter and hot in summer and
08:00
they died
08:01
young. This imbalance bred a wave of
08:04
resentment that slowly spread through
08:08
the country. A group of disaffected
08:10
warlords banished to the farthest
08:12
corners of Japan began to plot against
08:14
the Shogun. One starts to get already
08:18
feelings that the Shogunates outlast its
08:22
usefulness and there comes a movement to
08:25
return power to the emperor. The
08:29
conspirators were deeply loyal to the
08:32
16-year-old emperor
08:34
Magi. In 1868, they hatch a plot to
08:36
restore him to power and grab the wealth
08:40
of the Shogun for
08:43
themselves. Encouraged by his growing
08:45
band of supporters, Magi orders the
08:48
Shogun to resign and sends his troops to
08:51
remove
08:55
him. The response from the Shogun is not
09:01
what anyone expected.
09:05
When the shogunate collapses, it's
09:08
actually quite startling. Uh, the shogun
09:10
kind of like retires. He doesn't kill
09:12
himself. He doesn't set the city on
09:14
fire. He just goes off and lives in the
09:16
country the rest of his life. The Shogun
09:18
was gone.
09:21
Without their master's protection, all
09:26
of the Tokagawa retainers were in great
09:28
danger. None more so than Aguri
09:30
Taramasa, the man in charge of the
09:34
Shogun's
09:36
treasury. Aguri knew that the Maji
09:38
forces would be coming for him. They
09:41
desperately wanted the Shogun's vast
09:44
wealth, and he would be tortured and
09:46
killed in their efforts to find it. So,
09:48
he too fled the
09:52
castle. But far from saving his own
09:54
life, Aguri put himself at even greater
09:56
risk. His flight sparked a rumor that
09:59
would make him Imperial enemy number
10:03
one.
10:05
When Oudi was moving out, he had a lot
10:06
of luggage with him. Uh some of those
10:08
boxes were coin boxes, of course, so
10:10
people thought that there must be coins
10:13
in there.
10:16
A good escaped just in time.
10:18
When the Emperor's forces arrive in
10:23
Edeto Castle, they immediately go into
10:25
the treasuries and find that there are
10:27
no coins there at all.
10:29
The treasuries were empty. The vast
10:34
wells of the Shogun had vanished.
10:37
The Maji forces just can't believe that
10:41
there's no money at all. Someone must
10:43
have the money uh somewhere.
10:45
In one of the famous stories, they ask
10:52
one of the Tokugawa samurai, "Where's
10:54
all the money?" He tells them, "I don't
10:56
know, but you should ask Ouri, the
10:59
commissioner of finance."
11:01
But where was Aguri, and where could he
11:04
have hidden such a large cash of money?
11:07
It came to their attention that Agoodi
11:11
had disappeared. There were also some
11:14
rumors at the time from witnesses who
11:16
claimed to have seen a man getting off
11:18
of a boat in GMA Prefecture laden and
11:20
going off and potentially hiding
11:24
something.
11:25
GMA Prefecture was a Guri's ancestral
11:27
home. It was a wild region about 100
11:30
miles in land from Edeto.
11:33
Gunmar is is a is a fairly high area
11:36
with many mountainous plateaus. It's
11:39
wild. Um, it's far from everywhere. It's
11:42
very rural. Um, it's in a bit of Japan
11:45
that's pretty much ignored.
11:48
In other words, it was the ideal
11:51
location to conceal a
11:54
fortune. Aguri was now hiding here in a
11:56
Buddhist temple on the slopes of a
11:59
dormant volcano, Mount
12:01
Akagi. The rumor that he had millions of
12:06
coins in his possession made him a
12:08
marked man.
12:10
A matter of days after his arrival,
12:12
people came to rob him.
12:15
A group of about 10 gangsters or so whip
12:18
up a mob of up to 700 people and they
12:21
essentially send a messenger to Oudi
12:25
telling him to hand over all of the
12:27
money that he has. Oudi sends a
12:29
messenger with about 50 coins and says,
12:32
"Look, this is really all I have."
12:34
They don't believe him and this mob
12:37
attacks the temple where Oudi is staying
12:40
and Ogoodi and his retainers route the
12:43
mob and kill many of the
12:46
gangsters. Aguri and a small band of
12:51
servants survive this attack in a
12:53
stunning display of marshall
12:57
skill, but it was a hollow victory.
12:59
Emperor Magi now saw him as a serious
13:06
threat to the new regime. Anyone with so
13:10
much might and so much money had to be
13:13
eliminated. Because Ouri demonstrated
13:18
that he has some kind of military
13:21
expertise and he has retainers with him
13:23
and also village men with him who know
13:26
how to fight. It is thought by the magi
13:28
forces that perhaps Ouri is plotting to
13:31
launch a counterattack.
13:35
A detachment of the emperor's best
13:38
samurai are sent to kill
13:40
Aguri. He was declared an outlaw on the
13:44
spot and summarily sentenced to
13:47
death. But because Ogoodi was just
13:52
rounded up suddenly and accused of being
13:54
a criminal, he was just decapitated.
13:56
The next day, Aguri's family and the
14:01
last of his loyal followers are rounded
14:04
up, too. They are also
14:06
executed. The only ones who knew the
14:12
treasures
14:14
whereabouts were
14:15
dead. Yet, from the ashes of Aguri's
14:18
household, the legend of the lost
14:21
treasure of the last Shogun was born.
14:23
With the restoration of the emperor,
14:31
Japan entered a brave new world. After
14:33
the Maji Emperor took over, Japan
14:36
changed dramatically, incredibly
14:39
quickly. Um, it was full-on
14:41
modernization.
14:43
The feudal system was abolished. Old
14:45
Edeto was renamed Tokyo. And Japan
14:48
leaped into the white heat of the
14:51
industrial revolution.
14:53
The world of the Shogun was consigned to
14:55
history. When the major regime came to
14:58
power, they had to villainize the
15:01
previous regime. So the Tokenau was
15:04
turned into a kind of dark, primitive,
15:07
unprogressive, feudal time.
15:10
Within a few short years, Aguri Taramasa
15:14
was all but forgotten. Though
15:17
ironically, his ideas about shipyards,
15:20
postal systems, and other new fangled
15:22
technology were adopted
15:25
wholesale. But one man could not let go
15:32
of the past. His name was Nakajima
15:34
Kurando. He would be the first in a long
15:38
line of treasure hunters.
15:40
Nakajima Kunando supposedly worked
15:45
within the Commission of Finance uh as a
15:48
very lowranking
15:52
bureaucrat. This petty bureaucrat
15:54
claimed he was a noble samurai and one
15:56
of Aguri Taramasa's most loyal
15:59
retainers. Somehow he escaped death at
16:03
the hands of the emperor's men and he
16:06
knew about the existence of the hidden
16:08
gold.
16:11
Sometime in the late
16:12
1870s, he began to search for
16:14
it. He believed it was somewhere in the
16:18
wild terrain of Mount Aagi, where his
16:20
master Aguri had died several years
16:23
earlier. He enlisted an American railway
16:29
man, one of thousands of foreigners
16:32
trying to make their fortune in the new
16:34
Japan. The American had two things that
16:37
Nakajima needed. money to fund an
16:40
expedition and dynamite to blast into
16:43
the hard rock of the
16:46
mountain. Nakajima buys land and says to
16:51
this American, "Here, I found this gold
16:54
coin and there's more of it up there.
16:57
You can go digging in there and find
16:59
it."
17:01
The pair dug together for
17:03
months.
17:05
However, no gold was found.
17:06
Believing he had been duped, the
17:13
Americans sued Nakajima.
17:15
And Nakajima was sentenced to 2 years in
17:20
prison for
17:22
[Music]
17:24
fraud. After his release, this once
17:29
proud samurai was destitute.
17:32
He was left homeless on the streets of
17:35
Tokyo and had to seek shelter with some
17:37
old family friends, the
17:39
Misenos. During his stay in the Misano
17:43
house, Nakajima quickly made an
17:46
impression with several members of the
17:48
family, especially Mrs. Miseno and her
17:50
oldest son, Tommoayoshi.
17:54
Miso Tommoayoshi was a young man. He
17:58
remembers Nakajima essentially having an
18:01
illicit relationship with his mother
18:04
after his father died.
18:06
For some months, Nakajima continued as a
18:09
living lover for Mrs.
18:12
Miseno. In that time, he also became an
18:14
inspiration to her
18:17
son. Tommy Yoshi came to regard him as a
18:19
stepfather.
18:22
Yet despite their close
18:24
relationship, Nakajima kept the legend
18:25
of the gold a closely guarded
18:27
[Music]
18:30
secret. Then without warning, Nakajima
18:34
strangely
18:38
vanished. Tomayoshi took the
18:40
disappearance particularly
18:43
hard. He assumed he would never again
18:45
hear from the man he once called his
18:47
dad.
18:50
He was wrong. A decade after he went
18:53
missing, Nakajima Kurando broke his
18:56
silence. One day after not seeing
18:59
Nakajima for some 10 years, a letter
19:02
suddenly arrives.
19:05
In the letter, Nakajima explains that he
19:07
is dying. He begs Tomayoshi's
19:09
forgiveness and pleads for his adopted
19:12
son to come to see him one last time.
19:15
He had to tell Tomoayoshi a secret about
19:18
the lost treasure of the last
19:21
[Music]
19:25
Shogun. So Mizuno Tomayoshi visits
19:28
Nakajima as he's sick and dying um and
19:31
is essentially given a bunch of
19:34
documents and told to go find the gold.
19:37
When they met, Nakajima revealed that in
19:41
all his years away, he had been
19:44
desperately searching for the hidden
19:46
treasure. To Tomoshi's utter amazement,
19:49
Nakajima asked him to continue the quest
19:53
and gave him all of his research.
19:56
It doesn't have a map and it doesn't say
20:00
the treasure is here, but it supposedly
20:02
has all these puzzles that will help him
20:04
find the treasure.
20:05
Just days after this
20:08
encounter, Nakajima died. Tomayoshi was
20:09
shocked at the secret life of his
20:13
stepfather. To him, the whole idea of
20:15
the quest seemed
20:18
ludicrous. Mount Akagi is 6,000 ft high
20:22
and covers hundreds of square miles. The
20:26
gold could be anywhere, and Nakajima's
20:29
documents offered no concrete
20:33
information.
20:35
But around the turn of the 20th century,
20:38
his life took a dramatic
20:41
turn. It seems that the real tipping
20:50
point for Miseno was when his wife
20:53
suddenly died of uh pneumonia.
20:55
In the wake of this devastating loss,
20:59
Tomayoshi fell back on the legacy of the
21:01
lost treasure and threw himself into
21:03
Nakajima's cryptic
21:06
research. He essentially has an
21:08
emotional crisis, sells his business,
21:10
sells his house, and moves out to Mount
21:12
Akagi in Guma Prefecture to begin buying
21:15
land and looking for the treasure.
21:17
Tomayoshi made a solemn vow to carry on
21:20
Nakajima's quest for the lost treasure
21:22
of the Shogun.
21:25
It wasn't long before he made a
21:28
breakthrough in deciphering some of the
21:30
arcane riddles and that in turn led to
21:32
his first real
21:36
discovery. He claims to have found a
21:39
small gold statue. He also claims to
21:42
have these copper plates that have
21:45
markings on them and a little map.
21:47
[Music]
21:53
Tommy Yoshi's entire life was now
21:54
dedicated to the search for gold. He
21:56
goes around and tells people that he has
22:00
these things in order to get money to
22:02
continue digging for the gold in Mount
22:04
Akagi. For almost 40 years, he
22:06
dug and
22:10
dug and
22:12
dug. He even found a new wife who agreed
22:14
to help him in his search and started a
22:18
family. All the while with no job to
22:20
speak of, Tommyoshi burned through the
22:23
savings he built up from his previous
22:26
life.
22:28
When he starts off, he's rather wealthy.
22:30
He was a real estate guy in Tokyo, and
22:32
he had a lot of money with him when he
22:34
first moved out there, but he gradually
22:36
ran out of money.
22:38
The quest for the treasure bankrupted
22:43
Tomayoshi. But whatever troubles he had,
22:45
he ignored them. He was obsessed with
22:48
only one thing, finding the Shogun's
22:51
gold. Yet, no matter how deep he went,
22:56
no matter how carefully he scrutinized
22:59
the clues in his growing pile of
23:01
documents, he
23:03
found
23:05
nothing. In 1926, Miso Tomayoshi died
23:08
heartbroken and penniless.
23:14
Tommyoshi's son, Misano Aizaburo, was a
23:19
policeman who wanted nothing to do with
23:22
buried treasure. But Aizaburo's mother
23:24
was desperate to continue the search.
23:27
She begged Aabaro to carry on the family
23:30
quest. After Tomayoshi dies, Tomoshi's
23:33
wife tells her son, "Look, your father
23:37
felt that you were the one who really
23:39
should be digging for treasure." And so
23:41
she gives Aabaro
23:44
uh all of the documents that uh
23:46
Tommoayoshi had.
23:48
Aabaro felt he had no choice but to
23:51
honor his father's wishes. He quit his
23:53
job and moved to Mount Akagi. The torch
23:56
had passed to a new generation.
24:00
In a way, this tradition of treasure
24:04
hunting has become associated with the
24:07
Misor family. So they're the experts and
24:08
they have this lineage as well.
24:10
Aabaro had inherited all of Nakajima
24:17
Kurando's documents and still more
24:20
research that his father had done in 40
24:23
years of searching. Still, no gold had
24:26
yet been found and the vast bulk of
24:31
Mount Akagi remained unexplored. Where
24:34
to start? He does continue in some part
24:38
digging some of the tunnels that his
24:41
father had started. But through his own
24:43
research, he also starts digging other
24:46
tunnels around uh Mount Akagi.
24:48
[Music]
24:52
After just a few months of digging, some
24:54
valuable new clues were uncovered.
24:56
And they do find this kind of stone
24:59
tortoise with strange writing on it. And
25:02
they see that as a sign that this is a
25:04
clue that will lead us closer to the
25:06
[Music]
25:09
treasure. Isaburo's search continued
25:18
into the 1930s. But as he dug on, Japan
25:21
was changing around him. The country
25:25
harbored vast imperial ambitions, and it
25:28
was marching steadily towards war.
25:31
At this time, there was a newfound
25:35
interest in Aguri Taramasa, the last
25:37
Shogun's most fervent modernizer and the
25:40
source of the Shogun's treasure
25:43
legend. In the late 1920s and early
25:45
1930s, there's an ogoodi boom. He really
25:48
becomes a kind of national hero, a
25:51
supporter of the Japanese Navy, and
25:53
there are lots of books and biographies
25:55
written about him.
25:57
One man decided to use Aguri's newly
25:59
restored good name for his own ends to
26:02
seek out the Shogun's missing fortune.
26:05
He was called Kawahara
26:08
Hideori. Now the Misenos had arrival and
26:12
the race to find the treasure was
26:17
heating up. Kawahare Hide Muri decides
26:18
to claim that he is the grandson of an
26:22
illicit relationship between Oguri and
26:26
some mistress.
26:28
As Aguri's illegitimate grandson,
26:30
Kawahara believed only he had the right
26:33
to search for the Shogun's treasure. He
26:36
had been researching likely burial sites
26:39
for
26:41
years. But before he could begin his
26:42
dig, he needed to raise a substantial
26:44
amount of money.
26:47
In 1934, he launched a publicity drive.
26:53
Taking advantage of the nationalist
26:57
sentiment of the day, Kawahara arranged
26:59
a press conference at the Buddhist
27:02
temple where the severed head of Aguri
27:04
Taramasa was supposedly buried.
27:07
He becomes very popular in the 1930s uh
27:10
among treasure hunters. He shows up with
27:14
a kimono with the Oudi family crest on
27:17
it and essentially says that he's here
27:20
to, you know, help find the treasure.
27:23
Before a small crowd at the temple,
27:26
Kawahara promised to completely
27:29
refurbish it in Aguri's memory and
27:31
donate the rest of the money to the
27:33
nation, minus his own cut for expenses,
27:35
of course.
27:38
But then the chief monk of the temple
27:41
unexpectedly
27:43
intervened. He had been watching
27:44
Kawahara's performance and didn't
27:46
believe a
27:48
word. He stepped in front of the crowd
27:51
himself to denounce Kawahara as a fraud.
27:53
In the monk's opinion, Kawahara was
27:57
definitely not Aguri's grandson, and
28:00
Aguri himself would not have approved of
28:03
this whole sherad.
28:05
Still, many members of the Japanese
28:10
public bought into his story and gave
28:13
money. Kawahara also attracted one major
28:15
sponsor, a shady pachinko gambling boss.
28:19
A wash with money, Kawahara began his
28:23
own dig for the treasure. Unlike the
28:26
Miseno family, he claimed the gold was
28:28
not on Mount Akagi, but in a small
28:31
village to the southwest of Tokyo.
28:34
[Music]
28:37
Like his rivals, Kawahara dug for many
28:39
fruitless years. Nothing stopped his
28:41
relentless quest or the flow of money
28:44
from
28:46
well-wishes. Not even the Second World
28:48
War. Indeed, his promise to donate any
28:51
gold he found to the Japanese nation was
28:54
a source of hope in those turbulent
28:57
years
28:59
throughout the war and even into the
29:01
1950s. Kamahara continues to uh dig in
29:04
all sorts of places south of Tokyo and
29:08
earns a lot of money from people who he
29:11
convinces that this story is
29:14
true. By the early 1960s, Kawahara had
29:20
been searching for almost 30 years. Now,
29:24
Japan was undergoing a massive economic
29:27
revival. And Kawahara's gambling boss
29:30
patron was a rich man. His change in
29:33
fortunes helped take the expedition to a
29:36
new
29:39
level. In this period, Japan forms an
29:40
economic miracle. It's absolutely
29:42
incredible. And the middle class expands
29:44
and everybody seems to be doing
29:46
incredibly well out of this economic
29:48
nationalism. Unlike the Misenos
29:49
struggling in poverty, Kawahara could
29:52
afford to delve far underground.
29:55
He dug a deep mine with an electric lift
29:57
and the latest groundwater pumps to keep
30:00
the site dry. He also had 13 workers to
30:03
help him
30:06
[Music]
30:07
excavate. With these new resources, he
30:09
raced ahead in the contest to uncover
30:12
the
30:14
gold. He dug down 250 ft to the supposed
30:15
location of the great chests of coins.
30:19
But despite his well- financed
30:23
operation, Kawahara Hideori, the alleged
30:25
illegitimate grandson of
30:28
Aguri, was unable to find any
30:30
treasure. In 1967, he died, but still
30:35
the legend of the treasure lived on.
30:40
People were aware of this idea of the
30:43
the Tokugawa treasure. in the 1970s that
30:46
the Yomi newspaper ran a massive series
30:49
on this idea of hidden treasure. Every
30:52
single article said, "Well, this is the
30:54
legend and nothing's been found. This is
30:58
the legend, but nothing's been found."
30:59
These people um were searching and they
31:01
didn't find anything. But this went on
31:03
and on and on for 16 separate articles.
31:04
Rumors of buried treasure rumbled on for
31:09
decades after Kawahara's death, and the
31:11
legend became part of Japanese popular
31:14
culture.
31:16
But it was not until the 1990s that
31:19
another serious effort was made to find
31:21
it. This time it was the Misenos, the
31:23
rival treasure hunting family, that
31:27
would come closer than ever to unlocking
31:29
the mystery of the Shogun's lost
31:31
fortune. Two generations of the family,
31:35
Tomayoshi and his son Aizaburo, had been
31:37
digging on the slopes of Mount Akagi for
31:40
nearly a century.
31:43
Now a third generation of Misano
31:45
treasure hunters was about to enter the
31:48
game. Misano Tomyuki, the son of
31:49
Aizaburo. Like his father and his
31:54
grandfather before him, he was highly
31:57
skeptical of the legend. Initially, he
31:59
did not want any part of the treasure
32:02
hunting. He thought it was a total sham.
32:04
He didn't believe that the Tokugawa
32:07
Shogunate would have buried gold coins.
32:09
And basically he went off on his own in
32:11
Tokyo and worked in a variety of jobs.
32:13
But Tomayuki could not resist the pull
32:19
of the quest that his family had been
32:22
pursuing since the late 19th century. It
32:24
was not simply a question of finding the
32:27
money. It was a matter of family honor.
32:29
There's the weight of carrying on the
32:35
family tradition which is established in
32:37
Japanese culture and history and
32:39
society. This idea of you trying very
32:41
very hard until the end. This idea of
32:43
gambaru you you which means to work
32:45
hard. You will persevere through
32:48
whatever comes along and you will
32:50
ultimately succeed in the end. This is
32:52
very much instilled in people in Japan
32:53
at a very very early age. Tomayuki
32:56
decided that he must follow in the
32:58
footsteps of his forebears and give up
33:00
his day job in Tokyo. He swore to
33:02
dedicate his life to the completion of
33:05
this epic
33:07
quest was just attracted by the legacy
33:09
of his father and his grandfather. And
33:13
he also became convinced because of all
33:16
these old documents that his grandfather
33:18
had from the 19th century. So he began
33:20
doing research on his own and began
33:23
digging a whole separate series of
33:26
tunnels separate from his father and
33:28
grandfather. Tommyuki's quest coincided
33:32
with a new time of upheaval in
33:35
Japan. The economy had collapsed and a
33:38
national mood of depression set in. The
33:41
Japanese media began casting
33:44
around for a hero.
33:47
The 1990s is called the lost decade.
33:51
Japan's lost decade is about economic
33:55
stagnation. One should remember that
33:58
that stagnation came after an protracted
33:59
period of enormous growth which could
34:02
not have been maintained forever.
34:04
Not only was there economic crisis, but
34:07
there was political scandal, a natural
34:10
disaster, a terrorist attack in
34:12
Tokyo. And this just kind of fed into
34:15
people's desire to believe in some kind
34:17
of fantasy. And what better fantasy than
34:20
the legendary lost treasure of the
34:23
showun? One enterprising television
34:25
network called Miso Tomyuki to see if he
34:28
wanted to be on TV.
34:31
[Music]
34:36
In the early 1990s, there was a Japanese
34:40
uh entertainment show appropriately
34:44
called Give Me a
34:46
Break. It follows a pattern of Japanese
34:54
television shows that you still get
34:57
today. It'll have a number of
34:59
celebrities interviewing other
35:00
celebrities, um, music, animation, um,
35:02
sketches, all put together in a 2-hour
35:06
format.
35:08
A Japanese copywriter who grew up in
35:10
Guma was familiar with the legend, and
35:13
he decided to produce a show about the
35:15
treasure hunting in Mount Akagi.
35:19
In their call to Tommyuki, the producers
35:22
explained they wanted to cast him and
35:25
his family as modern-day heroes. Men
35:26
determined to succeed in the face of
35:30
insurmountable
35:32
odds. Men who embodied the noble idea of
35:33
GBA is entirely sensible for them to get
35:38
in contact with the misinos and try and
35:40
use their expertise, but also to
35:43
legitimize what they're doing. They're
35:45
not just rushing off into Gum Prefecture
35:46
with a load of cranes and digging holes.
35:48
They've got the guy and he's the person
35:49
who's going to make sure we do this
35:51
properly.
35:53
It was a mutually beneficial
35:55
arrangement. The producers of Give Me a
35:57
Break got a neverending real life soap
36:00
opera to inspire the nation. In return,
36:02
Tomayuki received more resources than he
36:06
could ever dream of. After years in the
36:09
wilderness, the Misenos were back with
36:12
the best chance they would ever have of
36:15
striking gold. The Miso um they've been
36:18
searching for 120 years and haven't
36:21
found anything. If a TV producer says to
36:23
you, "We're going to give you 12 cranes
36:25
um and loads of digging equipment. Would
36:28
you like to get on board?" I mean, for
36:29
him, this is a huge boon cuz he doesn't
36:31
have to do it on his own.
36:33
The whole nation seemed to be willing
36:36
Tommyuki on. And with his help, the TV
36:37
company found gold. Ratings gold.
36:41
There would be these huge backhoes and
36:47
cranes that would dig this enormous uh
36:49
pit almost the size of a rock quarry. Uh
36:53
and they would find these uh horizontal
36:56
tunnels. And so they would go digging in
36:59
there and then some earth would fall in
37:01
a funny way and they would say, "Aha,
37:03
someone must have buried something
37:04
there." They would find a few bottles
37:06
which was an indication that perhaps
37:08
Ogood's French connections had wine out
37:11
here and dropped a bottle long ago.
37:14
Altogether, the network revisited the
37:17
Mount Aagi treasure site 10 times in the
37:19
1990s, each time with a more elaborate
37:22
and expensive effort to find the hidden
37:25
treasure. When they find lots and lots
37:28
of tunnels, what they're finding are the
37:30
tunnels that were dug in the 1930s in
37:32
order to find the treasure. But that is
37:34
conveniently left out of the story
37:37
because it's not very exciting. This was
37:38
no longer about logic. It was about
37:41
magic. Fueled by growing viewer numbers,
37:43
the search soon became completely
37:46
detached from reality.
37:48
When more money started coming in to
37:52
produce the show, they hired a few
37:54
American psychics to come over. They
37:57
flew over Mount Akagi in a helicopter to
38:00
try to feel the psychic power of where
38:02
the treasure would be buried. They also
38:04
hired an esoteric Buddhist monk uh to
38:07
pray to the ancestors to find where the
38:10
treasure was. And each episode ended
38:13
with a cliffhanger that, you know,
38:16
something had just been found uh that
38:18
would get people to watch uh the next
38:20
time. In the final installment in
38:22
1999, the dig reached fever pitch. By
38:26
now, the Misano excavation works
38:30
resembled something like an open cast
38:33
mine. It descended fully 200 ft below
38:35
the surface of the mountain, a network
38:38
of tunnels dug over generations by the
38:41
Misenos went down even further still. In
38:44
one final dramatic push, a huge
38:48
industrial mining drill was brought in
38:51
to dig still further, hoping to find a
38:53
hidden cavern containing the
38:56
gold. But the media frenzy had
38:59
overwhelmed
39:02
Tomyuki. He came to believe the TV
39:03
company did not care about the treasure
39:06
itself. All they wanted was a grand
39:08
spectacle to please their audience. It
39:11
seems that in the later episodes, Miso
39:13
felt that they were going on the wrong
39:16
track and he almost felt that there was
39:19
a rivalry between this team and his own
39:21
search and he eventually dropped out of
39:25
the project altogether.
39:27
The TV audience soon began to dwindle
39:30
and the show was eventually
39:33
cancelled. Tomayuki was alone once more
39:35
and still he pressed on with his dig.
39:38
[Music]
39:43
there was always some aspect uh
39:44
something that made them feel like we're
39:47
almost 90% there and so he couldn't give
39:49
up. Meanwhile, the Misanu's rivals for
39:54
the treasure, the Kawahara family, had
39:58
been laboring away 140 m to the south,
40:00
largely under the radar since the death
40:04
of Kawahara Hideori in 1967.
40:06
The quest to find the lost treasure had
40:12
passed from old Hidamorei to his son
40:13
Kawahara
40:17
Jiro. In his early digs, Jiro made a
40:19
number of discoveries which he claimed
40:22
were clear evidence that the gold itself
40:25
was only a few meters further down.
40:27
He claims to have found uh little
40:31
objects here and there, and those
40:34
objects he gives as proof that he's
40:36
closer to the treasure legend. And of
40:39
course, that makes it easier for him to
40:41
convince people to give him money. Among
40:43
the objects he found were human bones
40:46
and other Tokugawa era artifacts
40:48
pointing towards the treasur's
40:51
location. In the year 2000, Jiro took a
40:56
leaf from his father's book and launched
41:00
a publicity drive. Just like his father,
41:02
the thing he wanted was
41:06
money. The press descended on the same
41:09
location where his father had appeared
41:11
almost 70 years
41:13
before. There they witnessed Kawahara
41:17
unveiling a bronze sword and a golden
41:20
coin dating from the time of the
41:23
Tokagawa shogunate.
41:25
[Music]
41:29
But however much Jirro insisted his
41:32
artifacts were
41:34
genuine, the public was now quite
41:37
skeptical of the whole story. When
41:39
experts look at the objects, they find
41:43
out that essentially these are objects
41:45
that he bought at a local antique store.
41:46
Jirro's claim to be on the verge of
41:52
finding the treasure was widely
41:53
denounced. and he seemed to have little
41:55
hard evidence to back his story up. The
41:58
Kawahara family's hunt for the treasure
42:01
was
42:03
over. The latest generation, Jirro's
42:04
son, has abandoned the quest
42:07
completely. The youngest member of the
42:14
family wants absolutely nothing to do
42:17
with his father's search for buried
42:19
treasure and is actually quite
42:22
embarrassed by it.
42:23
But what of Miseno
42:29
Tomayuki, the unlikely star of Give Me a
42:31
Break? In 2006, another filmmaker caught
42:34
up with
42:38
him. These are some of the extraordinary
42:42
images he
42:44
captured. Now a wized old man dying of
42:46
cancer, the proud treasure hunter felt
42:49
he had been cursed by two generations of
42:51
his family.
42:54
He could not give up his
42:55
quest ever.
42:57
But that's the star I've been born under
43:00
with this family. I have this sense of
43:03
responsibility that I have to do this.
43:05
That's why I do it. Is there anyone else
43:08
who has this kind of responsibility? If
43:10
so, I'd like to meet them. Is there
43:13
anyone else in Japan who has been
43:15
entrusted by the samurai of the past?
43:17
Someone asked him once, you know, what
43:21
would you do if you found the treasure?
43:23
And he said, I would kick it really hard
43:24
because my family struggled and lost a
43:26
lot of money and energy in finding this.
43:30
But he just felt that it was his
43:32
destiny, his fate, uh, to find this
43:34
treasure, a fate that no one else but he
43:36
and his family would be able to fulfill.
43:39
After almost 140 years of
43:42
searching, no one has yet found any
43:45
gold.
43:48
So does the treasure really exist or was
43:50
the legend just that?
43:53
There has been a lot of stories about
43:57
the shogunate the kind of shogunate that
43:59
wouldn't die. It was such an important
44:01
part of
44:04
Japan's history. There's a kind of
44:04
romantic feeling. We don't want it to go
44:07
away. Only you could dig up some bit
44:08
from the time.
44:12
Despite all of the research done down
44:14
the years by the Miseno family, a more
44:16
objective examination of the facts show
44:19
that in all likelihood there was no
44:21
money buried in the first place.
44:24
There's absolutely no evidence and no
44:27
possibility that there was buried
44:30
treasure anywhere.
44:31
This is because in Japan during the
44:34
shogunate, gold coins were not used as a
44:37
measure of wealth.
44:40
It's a sort of western notion that you
44:43
have a kind of a jewel tower in which
44:44
you put all these rich things and as
44:47
long as they're in there, you're rich.
44:48
But for Japan, you're simply having um
44:50
gold sitting in a tower was not of a
44:53
great deal of use to anyone.
44:56
Instead, the great lords of the era
44:59
counted their riches using a different
45:02
material, rice. The standard unit of
45:05
exchange was rice. And rice is a
45:09
wonderful unit of exchange because if
45:13
you're hungry, you can eat it. But also,
45:14
it can be broken up into any sizes.
45:16
Also, it lasts for quite a long time.
45:18
And the principal unit of rice was what
45:20
they call a koku. And a koku, it's
45:22
enough to sustain an adult for a
45:25
year. A junior samurai might earn 100
45:28
koku a year. The higher up the social
45:31
scale he was, the more koku he would be
45:35
entitled to as tribute from the farmers
45:38
on his
45:40
land. The leading lords such as the
45:41
shogun himself would have each claimed
45:44
more than 1 million koku
45:46
annually. In fact, the entire class
45:49
structure of Japan during the shogunate
45:52
was built around the growing and storage
45:55
of
45:57
rice. This was helpful for feeding
45:58
armies.
46:01
But when it came to acquiring desirable
46:02
goods like silk, pottery or
46:04
weapons, rice was useless. The samurai
46:07
class are paid in rice
46:12
yield. Um the merchants operate in coin.
46:15
You can't buy things with rice. So that
46:19
the merchants change rice into coin and
46:22
they take a rake off and over time uh
46:27
the amount of coin you get for your rice
46:30
goes down. The samurai class are
46:32
increasingly impoverished.
46:34
In time even the shogun himself found
46:37
his vast stockpiles of rice were worth
46:40
barely a handful of gold
46:43
coins. So when the revolution came, he
46:45
could not afford to defend himself.
46:49
[Music]
46:51
One of the reasons why the Tokugawa
46:54
regime falls is because it doesn't have
46:56
cash to pay its allies for continued
46:58
military support. If they had any money
47:01
at all, the Tokugawa shogunate would
47:04
have been using it to fund their defense
47:06
against their warlords.
47:08
So the question then
47:10
remains, if there was no gold, why would
47:12
anyone spend so much time and effort to
47:16
try and find a treasure that never
47:19
really
47:21
existed? I think they really believed in
47:23
this legacy. Especially Miso Tomayoyuki
47:26
felt that this was just the destiny of
47:29
his family that there was too much in
47:31
terms of hundred-year-old documents to
47:33
really just give it up.
47:36
Regardless of how much Misano Tomayuki
47:38
believed in the legend, he could not
47:41
convince his children that the gold
47:43
really
47:45
existed. He would be the last in his
47:46
family's long line of treasure hunters.
47:49
He has three adult children. None of
47:52
them have expressed any interest at all
47:54
in continuing this Miseno family legacy
47:56
of searching for the treasure.
47:59
Tomayuki was utterly alone in his
48:02
quest. But even though he had no one to
48:05
help him, he continued to dig until his
48:07
very last
48:10
days. In 2010, Misano Tomyuki died.
48:13
The search for the lost treasure of the
48:19
last Shogun died with him.
48:21
[Music]
48:28
[Music]
48:44
歌词与翻译
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重点词汇
开始练习
| 词汇 | 含义 |
|---|---|
|
treasure /ˈtreʒər/ B1 |
|
|
legend /ˈledʒənd/ B2 |
|
|
buried /ˈberid/ A2 |
|
|
fortune /ˈfɔːrtʃuːn/ B2 |
|
|
warlord /ˈwɔːrlɔːrd/ C1 |
|
|
secret /ˈsiːkrət/ A2 |
|
|
rival /ˈraɪvəl/ B1 |
|
|
history /ˈhɪstəri/ A2 |
|
|
dig /dɪɡ/ A1 |
|
|
generation /ˌdʒenəˈreɪʃən/ B1 |
|
|
capture /ˈkæptʃər/ B2 |
|
|
desire /dɪˈzaɪər/ B2 |
|
|
rivalry /ˈraɪvəlri/ C1 |
|
|
fortune /ˈfɔːrtʃuːn/ B2 |
|
|
hunt /hʌnt/ A2 |
|
|
wealth /welθ/ B2 |
|
|
modernize /ˈmɒdərnaɪz/ C1 |
|
重点语法结构
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相关歌曲