Edo Period

I

Introduction

Edo Period or Tokugawa Period, period of Japanese history that lasted from 1603 to 1867, when the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns (military dictators) ruled Japan. It is named after the Tokugawa capital of Edo (modern Tokyo) and is also known as the Tokugawa period.

Tokugawa supremacy began with the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, in which Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated several rivals for power, and was formalized in 1603 by the emperor of Japan. The period ended in 1867, when the last Tokugawa leader resigned, and was followed by the Meiji Restoration, which restored the emperor to power. Following centuries of civil war, the Edo period brought more than 250 years of peace, prosperity, and progress to Japan. Throughout the period, however, Japan remained closed to outside contact and constricted by a rigid class hierarchy.

II

Foundation of the Edo Government

In the early 16th century Japan was divided among more than 250 warring daimyo (landholding military lords). Each daimyo maintained absolute control over a certain region, or domain, and thus Japan was administered locally rather than by central authority. One daimyo, Oda Nobunaga, began the process of unifying the country, gaining control of all of central Japan by 1580. Upon Nobunaga’s death in 1582, his former general Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued the process by expanding the unified realm westward and then eastward. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had gained territory and power as an ally of Nobunaga, emerged as Hideyoshi’s most powerful vassal. Hideyoshi became wary of the potential rivalry and had Ieyasu relocated to the fishing village of Edo in 1590.

Before his death in 1598, Hideyoshi installed a regency comprising Ieyasu and four other daimyo to conduct affairs of state until his son Hideyori was old enough to rule. Ieyasu, the most powerful of the regents, began forming alliances and consolidating power. The others soon challenged his authority, but Ieyasu defeated them in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. He secured appointment as shogun, a title meaning “military dictator,” from the imperial court in 1603. Although the shogun was in theory the delegate of the emperor, Ieyasu and his successors made every effort to limit the political influence of the imperial court. The court maintained its existence in Kyōto throughout the Edo period, but nearly all authority over national and foreign affairs resided with the shogun.

---

---

Ieyasu began fortifying the town of Edo as the headquarters of his bakufu (military government), often referred to in English as a shogunate. By confiscating territory from defeated daimyo throughout Japan and from Hideyoshi’s family, Ieyasu and his followers secured about one-quarter of Japan’s cultivable land. He left many existing daimyo in place, relocated others, and created many more from among his followers, giving them considerable power and autonomy. He appointed his son Tokugawa Hidetada shogun in 1605, establishing the precedent of transmitting the title of shogun through Tokugawa descendants. However, Ieyasu retained actual authority until his death in 1616.

During the early 17th century Ieyasu gradually strengthened Tokugawa rule. By 1612 all surviving daimyo were forced to swear loyalty to Ieyasu. Central authority evolved into the bakuhan system, a combination of the bakufu, which functioned as the central government, and the han, feudal domains under the control of the daimyo. The shogun had direct control over only about one-quarter of Japan’s productive land. The rest was dominated by the daimyo, who maintained their own governments, castle towns, warrior armies, tax and land systems, and courts. Some daimyo domains were holdovers from the period prior to military unification; others were newly created and granted by Ieyasu and his heirs. Imperial mandate gave the shogun the legal authority to dispossess daimyo from their land for rebellion, for misconduct, for failure to produce an heir, or simply to maintain Tokugawa supremacy—a power the shogunate used often in its first century of rule. Other laws issued in 1615 forbade daimyo from building fortifications, sheltering fugitives, or marrying without permission.

To further cement authority, Ieyasu established three categories of daimyo: shimpan (those related to the Tokugawa), fudai (“hereditary vassals”; those allied with the Tokugawa before 1600 or created after that time by the shogunate), and tozama (“outside lords”; those independent since before 1600). The shimpan enjoyed great prestige and held strategic territory near Edo but had no decision-making power in national affairs. The fudai, who had the least independent power, were given the most political authority. The tozama were seen as the worst threat, and many were destroyed or relocated to outer areas of Japan. Although they controlled vast realms and had considerable autonomy in their local affairs, the tozama were excluded from national affairs. In addition, the shogun often placed fudai in neighboring domains to keep the tozama in check and to prevent alliances among them.

Tokugawa supremacy was completed by Hidetada’s son and successor, Tokugawa Iemitsu, who became shogun when his father abdicated in 1623. Tokugawa vassals formed a permanent standing military force in Edo, and hundreds of thousands of client samurai (warriors retained by daimyo) increased the shogunate’s military strength. The shogunate assumed authority over justice, foreign contact, public highways, and religion.

Iemitsu introduced the system of sankin kōtai (alternate attendance) in 1635. This system forced the daimyo to spend half their time in Edo in attendance to the shogun and to leave their wives and children there all the time. Besides securing loyalty, the system drained the daimyo financially; each had to maintain at least two expensive mansions in Edo (one for his heir and one for himself during his stay) in addition to the one castle he was allowed in his domain. The daimyo also had to contribute to vast construction projects in Edo. The system spurred the city’s growth into a national capital and center of commerce.

Despite demands and restrictions from the shogun, the daimyo settled quickly into the centralized feudal system. Tokugawa rule kept daimyo from threatening one another’s holdings, thereby protecting them from one another. They remained virtually supreme within their domains and were not taxed directly. Most owed their status to Tokugawa favor: By the 1650s the majority of daimyo were Tokugawa creations. With no tradition of autonomous action, they had no incentive to challenge Tokugawa supremacy. Most followed shogunal precedents in administering their domains. Because of this, laws and institutions remained remarkably consistent across Japan, especially considering that about 75 percent of the country was effectively ruled by the largely autonomous daimyo.

The shogunate was never strong enough by itself to defeat any large daimyo alliance, but due to fudai daimyo support and mutual daimyo mistrust such an alliance never developed. The fudai, who acted as the shogunate’s senior counselors and other high officials, had every incentive to use the system for their own advantage against the tozama. By the time of Iemitsu’s death in 1651, the bakuhan system had stabilized; daimyo advisers who ruled for Iemitsu’s ten-year-old son, Tokugawa Ietsuna, never seriously threatened Tokugawa dominance.

III

The Molding of Edo Society

Tokugawa lawmakers devoted equal attention to society below the daimyo level. Following practices begun by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and drawing on ideas of Confucianism (the major source of elite social and political ideas during the Tokugawa period), society was divided into four layers of descending status: samurai, peasants, craftsmen, and merchants. A fifth group, composed of leatherworkers, butchers, and others whose occupations were condemned by Buddhism (the state religion of Japan beginning in the 6th century), became outcasts.

The role of the samurai, who in medieval times had been a true military class throughout the villages of Japan, changed drastically in this age of peace. Although they retained the right to carry two swords (and initially to kill any member of the lower orders who displeased them), the samurai were segregated in wards of the castle towns (administrative headquarters of the daimyo domains) and were employed in bakuhan administration as civil servants and officials. The samurai continued to set themselves apart from the common classes by maintaining a different code of ethics, later known as Bushido, that emphasized loyalty, truthfulness, frugality, and courage.

The shogunate also outlined rules for the classes below the samurai. The peasants were denied weapons, forbidden to leave their lands, and ordered to live frugally and farm diligently to feed their superiors. However, their relative isolation from the other classes and the removal of the samurai from the villages allowed the peasants to organize village life to suit themselves. Because the artisans and merchants lived in the same administrative units, called chō, they were soon merged into a single class, the chōnin (townspeople). The chōnin supplied goods for the daimyo and samurai in Edo and the castle towns.

The Tokugawa leaders sought to regulate the religious lives of their subjects. They recognized the potential for foreign religions, especially Christianity, to threaten their absolute authority and leave the country vulnerable to European conquest. Christianity was therefore prohibited. All Japanese families were ordered to register at a Buddhist temple and to demonstrate that they were not Christian. The Shimabara Peninsula, with a heavy Christian population that included many ronin (masterless samurai) who had lost their place in Edo society, became the site of the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637 and 1638. Angered by religious persecution and economic restrictions, about 37,000 men, women, and children took refuge in Hara Castle. They held off a shogunal army for several months but were all killed when the castle fell. For the remainder of the Edo period, surviving Christians kept their faith secret due to constant danger of exposure and execution.

Christianity was a major factor in the shogunate’s decision to seclude Japan from the outside world beginning in the 1630s. The Tokugawa feared that foreign ideas and contacts endangered national stability and Tokugawa supremacy. Rules against building large oceangoing ships kept the daimyo from developing naval forces or trading abroad. In 1635 foreign travel was officially forbidden for all Japanese, and the Japanese merchant communities in the Philippines and elsewhere were cut off. In 1639 the Portuguese were banned from trading with Japan. The Dutch were the only Europeans allowed a trading presence, which was confined to the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor. Trade with Korea and China continued, but only under close supervision.

IV

The Edo Golden Age

Although Tokugawa rule undoubtedly restricted personal and political freedom, by the mid-17th century it had brought Japan more peace and stability than the country had known for centuries. The results were population growth and economic prosperity. Between 1600 and 1720 Japan’s population grew from 12 million to 31 million. The population of Edo grew even more dramatically, from less than 200 to more than 1 million. The economy grew just as fast. Construction of castle towns and Tokugawa official projects created new employment. The growth of cities and the alternate attendance of daimyo at their lavish households in Edo created new consumption habits and more demand for goods and services. Improved highways aided commerce by encouraging trade between different regions of Japan; the most heavily traveled highway was the Tokaido, which connected Edo with the Kyōto and Ōsaka region. The shogunate also issued improved currency, taking control of Japan’s bullion mines to supply gold and silver for coins. New standardized weights and measures made commercial transactions easier.

The new wealth and the leisure of peacetime also brought a cultural flowering in the early years of the Edo period. In the early 1600s artist Hon’Ami Koetsu founded the Rimpa school, which was characterized by its decorative naturalist style and exemplified by artists such as Sōtatsu and Kōrin; the Rimpa school remained influential for more than 250 years. In literature, poet Bashō perfected the short poetry form of haiku, while Ihara Saikaku wrote novels and Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote kabuki plays (theatrical performances known for their brightly colored sets, exaggerated acting, and lively music and dance) for an urban audience. The tea ceremony—the formal artistic service of tea to guests—was systematized by various tea schools, and superb ceramics such as raku ware were made for it. Traditional architecture displayed refined simplicity and was exemplified in the Katsura Detached Palace of Kyōto, completed in 1662. Meanwhile, a new urban culture developed in the cities, centering on theaters and pleasure quarters, or entertainment districts. The last years of the 17th century and the first years of the 18th century were a golden age of culture known as the Genroku period. Artists illustrated and immortalized Genroku culture by using the woodblock print technique to create prints in the ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” style, which portrayed the lives of actors, courtesans, and other inhabitants of the pleasure quarters. See Japanese Art and Architecture: Art of the Edo Period; Japanese Literature: Edo Period.

By the late 17th century the prosperity and growth of Edo Japan were producing unforeseen changes in the Tokugawa social order. The chōnin, or townspeople, who were theoretically at the bottom of the Edo hierarchy, flourished socially and economically at the expense of the daimyo and samurai, who were eager to trade rice (the principal source of domainal income) for cash and consumer goods. Mass-market innovations further challenged social hierarchies. For example, vast Edo department stores had cash-only policies, which favored the chōnin with their ready cash supply.

The rise of the chōnin affected all other levels of society. To increase their incomes and pay off debts, daimyo opened new lands for cultivation and explored new farming techniques, but they also pushed peasants in their domains into growing cash crops such as cotton and tobacco. In the peasant communities, some more prominent farmers became wealthy from the new economic opportunities; however, the less prominent peasants often became migrant laborers or fled to the towns in search of employment. Many samurai, caught between the high prices of merchant goods and the low wages paid by their daimyo, resigned their status to become tradesmen or to pursue more financially rewarding professions.

	More from Encarta
	•  Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be discontinued. Learn more. •  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain