The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Edo shogunate, was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868.
The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars of the Sengoku period following the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate. Ieyasu became the shōgun, and the Tokugawa clan governed Japan from Edo Castle in the eastern city of Edo (Tokyo) along with the daimyō lords of the samurai class.
The Tokugawa shogunate organized Japanese society under the strict Tokugawa class system and banned the entry of most foreigners under the isolationist policies of sakoku to promote political stability. Japanese subjects were also barred from leaving the country. The Tokugawa shoguns governed Japan in a feudal system, with each daimyō administering a han (feudal domain), although the country was still nominally organized as imperial provinces. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan experienced rapid economic growth and urbanization, which led to the rise of the merchant class and Ukiyo culture.
The Tokugawa shogunate declined during the Bakumatsu period from 1853 and was overthrown by supporters of the Imperial Court in the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Empire of Japan was established under the Meiji government, and Tokugawa loyalists continued to fight in the Boshin War until the defeat of the Republic of Ezo at the Battle of Hakodate in June 1869.
History
Following the Sengoku period ("Warring States period"), the central government had been largely re-established by Oda Nobunaga during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu. While many daimyō who fought against him were extinguished or had their holdings reduced, Ieyasu was committed to retaining the daimyō and the han (domains) as the foundations of his new shogunate. Daimyō who sided with Ieyasu were rewarded, and some of Ieyasu's former vassals were made daimyō of strategically positioned regions across Japan. The sankin-kotai policy, in an effort to constrain rebellions by the daimyō, mandated the housing of wives and children of the daimyō in the capital as hostages.
A period of peace occurred between the Siege of Osaka in 1615 and the Keian Uprising in 1651. This period saw the bakufu (shogunate's administration) prioritise civil administration, while civil society witnessed a surge in trade and industrial activities. Trade under the reign of Ieyasu saw much new wealth created by mining and goods manufacturing, which resulted in a rural population flow to urban areas. By the Genroku period (1688–1704) Japan saw a period of material prosperity and the blossoming of the arts, such as the early development of ukiyo-e by Moronobu. The reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune (1716–1745) saw poor harvests and a fall in tax revenue in the early 1720s; as a result he pushed for the Kyoho reforms to repair the finances of the bakufu as he believed the military aristocracy was losing its power against the rich merchants and landowners.
Society in the Tokugawa period, unlike in previous shogunates, was supposedly based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyō were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyō, and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyō might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local rulers.
The largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts that did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners increasingly declined over time. A 2017 study found that peasant rebellions and desertion lowered tax rates and inhibited state growth in the Tokugawa shogunate. In total, historians have documented approximately 3,000 such outbreaks of peasant unrest and violence against authority between 1590 and 1871.
By the mid-18th century, both the shōgun and daimyō were hampered by financial difficulties, whereas more wealth flowed to the merchant class. Peasant uprisings and samurai discontent became increasingly prevalent. Some reforms were enacted to attend to these issues such as the Kansei reforms (1787–1793) by Matsudaira Sadanobu. He bolstered the bakufu's rice stockpiles and mandated daimyō to follow suit. He cut down urban spending, allocated reserves for potential famines, and urged city-dwelling peasants to return to rural areas.
By 1800, Japan included five cities with over 100,000 residents, and three among the world's twenty cities that had more than 300,000 inhabitants. Edo likely claimed the title of the world's most populous city, housing over one million people.
Late Tokugawa shogunate (1853–1867)
The late Tokugawa shogunate (Bakumatsu) was the period between 1853 and 1867, during which Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy called sakoku and modernized from a feudal shogunate to the Meiji government. The 1850s saw growing resentment by the tozama daimyōs and anti-Western sentiment following the arrival of a U.S. Navy fleet under the command of Matthew C. Perry (which led to the forced opening of Japan). The major ideological and political factions during this period were divided into the pro-imperialist Ishin Shishi (nationalist patriots) and the shogunate forces; aside from the dominant two groups, other factions attempted to use the chaos of the Bakumatsu era to seize personal power.
An alliance of daimyō and the emperor succeeded in overthrowing the shogunate, which came to an official end in 1868 with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, leading to the "restoration" (王政復古, Ōsei fukko) of imperial rule. Some loyal retainers of the shogun continued to fight during the Boshin War that followed but were eventually defeated in the notable Battle of Toba–Fushimi.
Religious policy
Christians under the Shogunate
Followers of Catholic Christians first began appearing in Japan during the 16th century.
In 1600, when English sailor William Adams and his Dutch colleague Jan Joosten arrived at Japan, they told Ieyasu about the world situation, including that there were many conflicts in Europe, and that the Jesuits and other Catholics (e.g. Portuguese, Spanish), who had been proselytizing Christianity in Japan, and the Protestants (e.g. Dutch, English) were on different sides and were in conflict with each other. Ieyasu reportedly took a liking to them for their frankness and regarded them as trustworthy.
While at first tolerant of Christianity, Tokugawa Ieyasu soon began to see it as a growing threat to the stability of the shogunate. His attitude changed after 1613, and persecution of Christians sharply increased, with Ieyasu completely banning Catholicism in 1614.
The hostility of Ieyasu towards Catholics was shown when he replaced Jesuit translator João Rodrigues Tçuzu with William Adams in his court in the aftermath of the Nossa Senhora da Graça incident in Nagasaki. This change of attitude is believed to be due to the Okamoto Daihachi incident, where a Catholic daimyō and shogun's official were accused of a series of crimes.
The Shimabara Rebellion is often portrayed as a Christian rebellion against violent suppression by Matsukura Katsuie. However the main academic understanding is that the rebellion was mainly by peasants against Matsukura's misgovernance, with Christians later joining the rebellion. The system introduced by the Shogunate to stamp out Catholicism after the Shimabara rebellion was the Danka system, which made affiliation of every household in Japan to the Buddhist temple compulsory.
Ieyasu's ban of Christianity is often linked with the creation of the sakoku seclusionist policies in the 1630s. His successor shoguns followed his policy, compounding upon existing laws by Ieyasu. The ban on Christianity was enforced via decrees of expulsion and mass-executions in 1613, 1622 (Great Genna Martyrdom), 1623 (Great Martyrdom of Edo) 1630, 1632 and 1634.
Government
Shogunate and domains
The bakuhan system (幕藩体制, bakuhan taisei) was the feudal political system in the Edo period of Japan. Baku is an abbreviation of bakufu, meaning "military government"—that is, the shogunate. The han were the domains headed by daimyō. Beginning from Ieyasu's appointment as shogun in 1603, but especially after the Tokugawa victory in Osaka in 1615, various policies were implemented to assert the shogunate's control, which severely curtailed the daimyō' independence. The number of daimyō varied but stabilized at around 270. Although the shogunate was nominally under the control of the Emperor of Japan, it was actually governed by the shōgun, the supreme military leader.
The bakuhan system split feudal power between the shogunate in Edo and the daimyō with domains throughout Japan. The shōgun and the daimyō were all feudal lords with their own bureaucracies, policies, and territories. Provinces had a degree of sovereignty and were allowed an independent administration of the han in exchange for loyalty to the shōgun, who was responsible for foreign relations, national security, coinage, weights, measures, and transportation.
The shōgun also administered the most powerful han, the hereditary fief of the House of Tokugawa, which also included many gold and silver mines. Towards the end of the shogunate, the Tokugawa clan held around 7 million koku of land (天領 tenryō), including 2.6–2.7 million koku held by direct vassals, out of 30 million in the country. The other 23 million koku were held by other daimyō.
The number of han (roughly 270) fluctuated throughout the Edo period. They were ranked by size, which was measured as the number of koku of rice that the domain produced each year. One koku was the amount of rice necessary to feed one adult male for one year. The minimum number for a daimyō was ten thousand koku; the largest, apart from the shōgun, was more than a million koku.
Policies to control the daimyō
The main policies of the shogunate on the daimyō included:
- The principle was that each daimyō (including those who were previously independent of the Tokugawa family) submitted to the shogunate, and each han required the shogunate's recognition and was subject to its land redistributions. Daimyō swore allegiance to each shogun and acknowledged the Laws for Warrior Houses or buke shohatto.
- The sankin-kōtai ("alternate attendance") system, required daimyō to travel to and reside in Edo every other year, and for their families to remain in Edo during their absence.
- The ikkoku ichijyō rei (一国一城令), allowed each daimyō's han to retain only one fortification, at the daimyō's residence.
- The Laws for the Military Houses (buke shohatto), the first of which in 1615 forbade the building of new fortifications or repairing existing ones without bakufu approval, admitting fugitives of the shogunate, and arranging marriages of the daimyō' families without official permission. Additional rules on the samurai were issued over the years.
Although the shogun issued certain laws, such as the buke shohatto on the daimyō and the rest of the samurai class, each han administered its autonomous system of laws and taxation. The shōgun did not interfere in a han's governance unless major incompetence (such as large rebellions) was shown, nor were central taxes issued. Instead, each han provided feudal duties, such as maintaining roads and official courier stations, building canals and harbors, providing troops, and relieving famines. Daimyōs were strategically placed to check each other, and the sankin-kōtai system ensured that daimyō or their family were always in Edo, observed by the shogun.
The shogunate had the power to discard, annex, and transform domains, although they were rarely and carefully exercised after the early years of the shogunate, to prevent daimyō from banding together. The sankin-kōtai system of alternative residence required each daimyō to reside in alternate years between the han and the court in Edo. During their absences from Edo, it was also required that they leave their family as hostages until their return. The hostages and the huge expenditure sankin-kōtai imposed on each han helped to ensure loyalty to the shōgun. By the 1690s, the vast majority of daimyō would be born in Edo, and most would consider it their homes. Some daimyō had little interest in their domains and needed to be begged to return "home".
In return for the centralization, peace among the daimyō was maintained; unlike in the Sengoku period, daimyō no longer worried about conflicts with one another. In addition, hereditary succession was guaranteed as internal usurpations within domains were not recognized by the shogunate.
Classification of daimyō
The Tokugawa clan further ensured loyalty by maintaining a dogmatic insistence on loyalty to the shōgun. Daimyos were classified into three main categories: