Tokugawa Ieyasu installing himself as shogun did not wash away the grievances felt by those daimyo with ambitions for power or who thought Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s son, Hideyori, was the legitimate successor. Ieyasu exacerbated such tensions by rewarding those daimyo who had sided with him at the Battle of Sekigahara (fudai daimyo) with land taken from those who had not (tozama daimyo). It was only with Ieyasu’s victory at the Siege of Osaka in 1615, which ended with Hideyori committing seppuku, that the Tokugawa clan could concentrate on government. No chances were taken: Hideyori’s 8-year-old son, Kunimatsu, was captured and beheaded in Kyoto, putting an abrupt and bloody end to the Toyotomi line.
Despite the relative stability that the removal of Ieyasu’s main rival brought about, something still needed to be done to address the fragility of rule in a newly unified Japan. To this end, the Tokugawa shogunate began to consolidate power in Edo. Construction began on the gokaido (“Five Routes”)—five highways leading out from Nihombashi which would considerably cut the time needed to travel across the country, allowing better control over the outer provinces. The third Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu (1623–51), implemented a system of sankin-kotai (“alternate attendance”) which dictated that the daimyo must hold a residence in Edo and base themselves there every other year. Moreover, during the periods when they travelled back to their home regions, their wife and heir were required to remain in Edo as “hostages.”
The system was primarily a strategic move to lessen the chance of rebellion, but it also had important secondary effects. Firstly, the more powerful daimyo travelled in processions over 1,000 men strong, which proved a considerable financial burden and limited their ability to build private armies. Secondly, the presence of the daimyo and their entourage in Edo helped cement the city as the de facto capital (Kyoto remained the residence of the emperor as well as the official capital until 1868).
A huge wave of public infrastructure projects in Edo also helped—most notably, the reclamation of land around the delta of the Sumida River (upon which Tsukiji Fish Market and the high-rises of Shiodome now stand) as well as the commissioning of Edo castle (on the grounds of which the Tokyo Imperial Palace was later built). Often the substantial cost of these projects was borne by the daimyo, further weakening their financial clout. By the end of the 17th century, Edo was one of the most populous cities in the world with over one million inhabitants.
Changes were also happening beneath the surface. Societal structure during the Edo period was based on shinokosho (“four divisions”), which rigidly defined a person’s status by occupation. At the top were the samurai (shi), loyal to their daimyo and paid in stipends; next were the farmers (no), highly valued because of their necessity to society as food producers; after the farmers were the artisans (ko); and, finally, the merchants (sho), the lowest rung on the ladder because they, as middlemen, did not produce anything.
Movement up and down this hierarchy was all but impossible. However, since Hideyoshi’s Sword Hunt in 1588, which saw the farmers give up arms and the samurai move to the cities, the lives of the two rarely ever crossed. It was more commonly the samurai, artisans, and merchants who found their lives intertwined in the growing urban areas. The lower ranks of samurai often lived in borderline poverty while some successful merchants saw their fortunes accumulate rapidly. This rise of the merchant class was a source of aggravation for the samurai, who were finding it difficult to reconcile their status as warriors with the administrative tasks of a prolonged peace. In short, the evolution of society into one where commerce played a major role was incompatible with the neo-Confucian shinokosho structure.
The stability of the Edo period provided a base from which culture could flourish. This evolution was uniquely Japanese, and the urban hedonism and the pursuit of art and theatre are forever captured in the ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) woodblock prints that developed during this time.
But while the country changed from within, interactions with the outside world were roundly rejected. The Edo period is famous for sakoku (“locked country”), an isolationist policy which lasted for approximately 250 years. Japan’s first direct encounter with the West was in 1543 when a Portuguese ship landed on Tanegashima and introduced the matchlock firearm; hence why the Japanese arquebus is called a tanegashima. Six years later, the missionary St. Francis Xavier arrived in Kagoshima to spread Christianity.
By the mid-17th century, the Tokugawa shogunate decided to cut itself off from the external world: traders were relegated to the island of Dejima in Nagasaki, and the daimyo were ordered to fire at foreign vessels on sight. A small amount of Western literature (rangaku) managed to find its way through the Dutch, challenging traditional Confucian values. This more or less continued until Commodore Matthew Perry sailed his “black ships” into Edo Bay in 1853.
It is Japan’s limited interaction with the outside world that gave it its name in English. In Japanese, Japan is Nihon or Nippon (“sun origin”). We owe “Japan” to Portuguese traders who heard of a country called “Jepang” in Malay—itself a variation of the Chinese pronunciation of the kanji for Nihon. Jepang became Japan in English, first appearing as Giapan in 1565.
Perry’s arrival set off a chain of events in a fragile Japan that would, fifteen years later, result in the overthrow of the shogunate. Pressure came from the southern clans of Satsuma and Choshu, rallying under the cry of sonno-joi (“Expel the barbarians, revere the emperor”). They saw the need to modernize to avoid the fate of China during the Opium Wars. The Harris Treaty of 1858 subsequently forced Japan to open several ports to trade, ending 250 years of isolationism and sowing seeds of resentment that would fuel rapid industrialization.
Despite almost 700 years of samurai rule, the transfer of control back to the emperor was relatively subdued. The alliance between Satsuma and Choshu finally brought an end to Tokugawa rule during the Boshin War (1868–1869), installing the emperor as the ruling authority in an event known as the Meiji Restoration.
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