The Tokugawa Shogunate EDO JAPAN: 1603-1868 The Tokugawa Shogunate

The emperor reigned, but did not always rule! Feudal Society

Feudalism A political, economic, and social system based on loyalty, the holding of land, and military service. Japan: Shogun Land - Shoen Loyalty Land - Shoen Daimyo Daimyo Loyalty Samurai Samurai Samurai Food Protection Peasant Peasant Peasant Peasant

Feudalism A political, economic, and social system based on loyalty, the holding of land, and military service. Europe: King Land - Fief Loyalty Land - Fief Lord Lord Loyalty Knight Knight Knight Food Protection Peasant Peasant Peasant Peasant

Code of Chivalry Justice Loyalty Defense Courage Faith Humility Nobility

Code of Bushido Fidelity Politeness Virility Simplicity

Medieval Warriors vs. European knight Samurai Warrior

Medieval Warriors vs. Knight’s Armor Samurai Armor

Zen Buddhism A variation of the Mahayana form of Buddhism, Centered on Meditation It reinforced the Bushido values of mental and self-discipline.

将軍 Shogun : De Facto ruler of Japan Literally, “military commander” De Facto ruler of Japan Nominally appointed by emperor (emperor is more of a spiritual leader, like the Pope in Europe) Special rights: Controlled the Daimyo with favors and land grants Samurai    The samurai were the warrior class. At the top was the shogun himself. Beneath him were the daimyo, local lords who controlled large amounts of land. The daimyo had their own collection of samurai, who would serve them in various ways. Some were advisors, some guards for his castle, and some comprised his private army. In addition, samurai in the large cities such as Edo might fulfill a variety of functions--as officials in the Shogun's government or as policemen, for example. Finally, there were the ronin, who were "masterless" samurai, without a lord to answer to, but also without any definite means of support. The ronin might settle down in a particular location to teach or perform other duties, though many of them wandered the countryside, looking for gainful employment. Some sold their services as hired warriors to the highest daimyo bidder. Of the approximately 30 million Japanese during the Tokugawa period, about 2 million were samurai.

大名 Daimyō: powerful landholding elite Direct control of the land and the peasants that lived there Samurai    The samurai were the warrior class. At the top was the shogun himself. Beneath him were the daimyo, local lords who controlled large amounts of land. The daimyo had their own collection of samurai, who would serve them in various ways. Some were advisors, some guards for his castle, and some comprised his private army. In addition, samurai in the large cities such as Edo might fulfill a variety of functions--as officials in the Shogun's government or as policemen, for example. Finally, there were the ronin, who were "masterless" samurai, without a lord to answer to, but also without any definite means of support. The ronin might settle down in a particular location to teach or perform other duties, though many of them wandered the countryside, looking for gainful employment. Some sold their services as hired warriors to the highest daimyo bidder. Of the approximately 30 million Japanese during the Tokugawa period, about 2 million were samurai.

侍 Samurai: Literally, “one who serves” 1/15 of the total population Bound by code of ethics known as bushido Special rights: dai-sho 大小two swords (large and small) kirisute-gomen 切捨て御免right to cut down offending commoners without rebuke seppuku 切腹 right to ritual suicide (self-evisceration) Samurai    The samurai were the warrior class. At the top was the shogun himself. Beneath him were the daimyo, local lords who controlled large amounts of land. The daimyo had their own collection of samurai, who would serve them in various ways. Some were advisors, some guards for his castle, and some comprised his private army. In addition, samurai in the large cities such as Edo might fulfill a variety of functions--as officials in the Shogun's government or as policemen, for example. Finally, there were the ronin, who were "masterless" samurai, without a lord to answer to, but also without any definite means of support. The ronin might settle down in a particular location to teach or perform other duties, though many of them wandered the countryside, looking for gainful employment. Some sold their services as hired warriors to the highest daimyo bidder. Of the approximately 30 million Japanese during the Tokugawa period, about 2 million were samurai.

Farmers & Peasants: More than 80% of total population Taxed 40-50% of the crops they produced. Forbidden access to all recreation and games other than local festivals. Required to provide labor for public works upon demand (construction of roads, bridges, etc.) Farmers    The glue that bonded the social hierarchy was rice, produced of course by the farmers. The standard of measurement for rice was the koku, equivalent to approximately 5 bushels. One koku could feed one person for a year. The estimated annual production of rice in Japan at this time was 25 million koku. The shogun was responsible for the distribution of this national crop. He took 20% off the top for himself. In addition, he distributed significant amounts to the local lords, the daimyo. According to Charles J. Dunn, the most powerful daimyo (the Kaga in northern Japan) received 1,300,000 koku. There were over 270 daimyo in Tokugawa Japan who received at least 10,000 koku.    What was left for the farmers? That depended on the weather. Often farmers gave up over half of their rice crop to the system. In bad years the shogun and the daimyo did not reduce their demands, so the farmers were forced to live on even less. Famine in the countryside was not uncommon during this period. Thus, though farmers held a privileged position in society--just below the status of the samurai--their lives were often hard. Rice requires a great deal of hard physical labor, and even today much of the work is done by hand. In difficult times, farmers were tempted to defy the prohibition of the shogun and move to the cities to engage in trade. Many younger sons did just that when their father's land was inherited by the eldest son.

Townspeople and Merchants: Lifestyles were strictly governed by laws dictating what they could wear, where they could live, size of home, etc. At bottom of social hierarchy as in Buddhist China Major commercial centers emerge. Osaka -- sake, soy sauce, cloth, paper, iron. Kyoto - textiles, pottery. Craftspeople    The dividing line separating craftspeople from merchants was difficult to determine because their economic activities often overlapped. A clothmaker, for example, would likely engage in the selling of his products and the enterprise might also extend in other directions, to moneylending perhaps. Those crafts that were most in demand by the samurai, such as swordmaking, were highly prized in Tokugawa society, so sword makers had a great deal of status. Common crafts in Tokugawa Japan included carpentry, stonemasonry, sake-brewing, and lacquering. Merchants    Merchants, especially those in the cities, were in a position to become wealthy, but they were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. This was due to the Confucian belief that merchants did not produce anything, like farmers or craftspeople did. Instead they made their money off the productive labor of others. Nevertheless, there was money to be made, and those in the other class positions--even the lower ranking samurai--were sometimes tempted to accept this lower status. Furthermore, as the Tokugawa period progressed and the economy gradually shifted from a feudal to a commercial one, merchants as a whole were able to improve their social standing. Trade was generally a slow and cumbersome enterprise in Tokugawa Japan. Though the road system was extensive and well-maintained, the shogun prohibited wheeled traffic on roads for his own military protection. Thus, most goods moved overland on the backs of horses or humans.

C A S T L E S

Osaka Castle

Matsumoto Castle

Himeji Castle Himeji Castle Japan

Caernorfon Castle, Wales

Warwick Castle, England

1453 Portuguese traders and Christian missionaries arrive, strengthening ties with the outside world.

Francis Xavier Jesuit missionary Brings Christianity to Japan 1549 17th century Japanese Bible The persecution of Christianity was initiated by a “Statement on the Expulsion of the Padres” issued in early 1614 over Shogun Hidetada’s seal but drafted on the orders of Ieyasu himself. This document defined Japan as the “Land of the Gods and the Land of the Buddhas.” It stressed, moreover, that the whole realm followed the Confucian “Way of Humanity and Righteousness.” In other words, Shinto, the spiritual core of the native tradition, was amalgamated with the sublime elements of the Indian and Chinese traditions to form the national polity of Japan. This unique polity was under attack, the shogunate’s decree asserted, by the Christian missionaries—“that notorious band of evildoers, the padres”—who not only defied governmental regulations but ridiculed Shinto, slandered Buddhism, and violated Confucian morality. The conclusion was that under a virtuous ruler—“a recipient of the Mandate of Heaven”—the disseminators of the “pernicious” Christian doctrine must be expelled or executed. The daimyo and the regional agents of the bakufu correctly interpreted this decree as an order not only to rid Japan of the missionaries but also to stamp out the adherents of their faith. At the time, there were approximately 300,000 Christians in the country. The priests were harried from the land or tracked down and martyred. Although most of the Japanese Christians abandoned their religion and were registered as parishioners in Buddhist temples, those who refused to recant and died for their faith in the ensuing two and a half centuries of persecution numbered in the thousands. The Christian religion never died out in Japan, as small communities of farmers and fishermen kept its fading tradition alive in remote locations, such as the islands offshore from Hirado. Having been inspired by the regime’s founding father, the deified Ieyasu, the decrees prohibiting Christianity acquired the character of the Tokugawa shogunate’s ancestral law. Their inertia was evidently difficult to counteract. They survived the fall of the bakufu by five years, remaining on the books of the new Meiji government until 1873. Missionaries were not the only foreigners to suffer under the Tokugawa; so did their fellow Catholics, the Portuguese traders. These merchants, whose ships had first called at Kyushu ports in the early 1540s, enriched themselves through their monopoly on the carrying trade from China, importing Chinese silk to Japan through the harbor of Nagasaki. Sanctioned by the Tokugawa bakufu, which itself profited from the silk trade through monopolistic arrangements made with a select group of Japanese merchants as early as 1604, the Portuguese pursued their profitable activities well into the fourth decade of the seventeenth century.

Tokugawa Ieyasu Grasps power after a decisive battle at Sekigahara on October 21, 1600. By 1603, Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun by the emperor and establishes the Tokugawa shogunate

Capital city moves to Ieyasu’s domain of Kanto, capital city established at Edo (modern-day Tokyo) Because the city of Edo (now Tokyo) was its capital, the Tokugawa shogunate is frequently identified as the Edo bakufu, and the period of Tokugawa rule is often labeled the Edo era. But the shoguns did not rule the country by themselves. Rather, the bakufu and the daimyo domains or han controlled Japan together.

sankin kotai alternate attendance system): 参勤交代 sankin kotai alternate attendance system): Suppressed possibility of rebellion (wives, children of daimyo remain in Edo as hostages) Economic costs of travel on daimyo ensured lack of funds for rebel armies policy that required daimyo  to divide their time between the capital of their own domain and the shogun's capital city of Edo (Tokyo).  That the han mimicked the bakufu was no accident. The Tokugawa prescribed its model to the daimyo. The final article of the “Regulations for Military Houses” as revised under Shogun Iemitsu in 1635 put it in black and white: “In the various provinces and localities, observance shall abide by the laws of Edo in everything.” First issued in 1615, in Ieyasu’s lifetime, these “Regulations” told the daimyo that they could not undertake repairs on their castles or plan to be married without its prior approval; cautioned them that addiction to sex and indulgence in gambling were the foundations of ruin; determined what kind of clothing was proper and who was or was not permitted to ride in sedan chairs; and put the lords under various other constraints and obligations. The revised version of 1635 additionally instructed them to keep their roads, post stations, ferries, and bridges in good repair so that there would be no tie-ups anywhere; moreover, they were prohibited from instituting toll stations or imposing new embargoes. Conducive to the free flow of trade throughout the country though these regulations may have been, they were clear intrusions into the autonomous sphere of the daimyo domains. The most significant of the new regulations of 1635, however, was the one requiring the daimyo to take turns in attending on the shogun in Edo, which institutionalized the sankin kôtai (alternate attendance) system. Eventually, this requirement came to mean that most daimyo spent every other year not in their domains but in the shogun’s capital. Their wives and children lived in Edo all the time, being in effect hostages of the shogunate. A daimyo was therefore obliged to lead a double life or, rather, to keep up two establishments, maintaining both a provincial castle and a metropolitan residence, not to mention detached villas and other dependencies. As though being required to flaunt his lordly status in two separate domiciles—his han and Edo— were not wasteful enough, a daimyo could not do without a large entourage and an ostentatious display on his yearly journeys back and forth between them. In the case of the more distant domains, this meant a continuous road show for many hundreds of miles, and was ruinously expensive.

Sankin kotai (alternate attendance system) 参勤交代 That the han mimicked the bakufu was no accident. The Tokugawa prescribed its model to the daimyo. The final article of the “Regulations for Military Houses” as revised under Shogun Iemitsu in 1635 put it in black and white: “In the various provinces and localities, observance shall abide by the laws of Edo in everything.” First issued in 1615, in Ieyasu’s lifetime, these “Regulations” told the daimyo that they could not undertake repairs on their castles or plan to be married without its prior approval; cautioned them that addiction to sex and indulgence in gambling were the foundations of ruin; determined what kind of clothing was proper and who was or was not permitted to ride in sedan chairs; and put the lords under various other constraints and obligations. The revised version of 1635 additionally instructed them to keep their roads, post stations, ferries, and bridges in good repair so that there would be no tie-ups anywhere; moreover, they were prohibited from instituting toll stations or imposing new embargoes. Conducive to the free flow of trade throughout the country though these regulations may have been, they were clear intrusions into the autonomous sphere of the daimyo domains. The most significant of the new regulations of 1635, however, was the one requiring the daimyo to take turns in attending on the shogun in Edo, which institutionalized the sankin kôtai (alternate attendance) system. Eventually, this requirement came to mean that most daimyo spent every other year not in their domains but in the shogun’s capital. Their wives and children lived in Edo all the time, being in effect hostages of the shogunate. A daimyo was therefore obliged to lead a double life or, rather, to keep up two establishments, maintaining both a provincial castle and a metropolitan residence, not to mention detached villas and other dependencies. As though being required to flaunt his lordly status in two separate domiciles—his han and Edo— were not wasteful enough, a daimyo could not do without a large entourage and an ostentatious display on his yearly journeys back and forth between them. In the case of the more distant domains, this meant a continuous road show for many hundreds of miles, and was ruinously expensive.

Social Changes Once Japan was stable, Tokugawa authorities pushed daimyo and samurai to become bureaucrats and government officials. As they lost their place in society, many of the ruling elite (whose income came from collecting rice from peasants), fell into poverty

Merchants in Japan became increasingly wealthy and prominent. Japanese cities flourished. Rice dealers, pawnbrokers and merchants soon controlled more wealth than the ruling elites.

New social roles for samurai during the great Tokugawa peace Teachers Poets, scholars, writers Buddhist monks Government posts -- civil administration

Yoshiwara pleasure districts The Samurai need something to do and the merchants need to stay out of politics… The Three Entertainments kabuki sumo Yoshiwara pleasure districts

By the 1580’s about 150,000 Japanese had converted to Christianity including several powerful daimyo Tokugawa shoguns restricted European access to Japan for fear Christianity might allow for alliances between daimyo and Europeans. Resentment by Buddhist monks grows

Anti-Christian Campaign In 1612, shoguns began rigorous enforcement of decrees putting a halt to Christian missions. They tortured and executed European missionaries who refused to leave as well as Japanese Christians who refused to abandon their faith. They often executed victims by crucifixion or burning at the stake.

Control of Foreign Relations Shogun fears that Christian Europeans might cause serious problems by making alliances with Christian daimyo and supplying them with weapons. Control of Foreign Relations

Control of Foreign Relations During the 1630’s, the shoguns: forbade Japanese from going abroad, prohibited the construction of large ships, expelled Europeans from Japan, prohibited foreign merchants from trading in Japanese ports, controlled trade with Asian lands, permitted only small numbers of Chinese and Dutch merchants to trade in Nagasaki ONLY

“Dutch Island” Dutch merchants brought news of European and larger world affairs.

Social and Economic Change Economy actually improves! Increased agricultural production New methods of water control and irrigation Use of fertilizer increased rice yields Production of cotton, silk, indigo, and sake increased. Move from subsistence farming to market production.