Edo Period

I

Introduction

Edo Period, epoch of Japanese history from 1600 to 1868, presided over by the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns and named after the Tokugawa capital of Edo (modern Tokyo). The actual Tokugawa shogunate lasted from 1603, with the appointment of Ieyasu Tokugawa as shogun, to 1867, with the retirement of Yoshinobu Tokugawa; but Tokugawa supremacy lasted from the Battle of Sekigahara (October 21, 1600) until the triumph of forces supporting the emperor (mikado) in 1868 in the Meiji Restoration. After centuries of civil war, the Edo period brought over 250 years of peace, prosperity, and progress for Japan, which, however, remained closed to outside contact and constricted by a rigid feudal hierarchy.

II

Foundation of Edo Government

Edo Japan was built by the first three Tokugawa shoguns, Ieyasu Tokugawa, Hidetada Tokugawa (1579-1632, shogun 1605-1623), and Iemitsu Tokugawa: they completed the work of Nobunaga Oda and Hideyoshi Toyotomi by ending the struggles between daimyo clans that had divided Japan during the Muromachi period and Azuchi-Momoyama period, and forcibly establishing centralized government. Relocated to the fishing village of Edo in 1590 by his wary master Hideyoshi, Ieyasu made it the nucleus of his bakufu (military government). The Battle of Sekigahara made Edo a national capital: all surviving daimyo fought in the battle, and afterwards Ieyasu destroyed over 85 daimyo opponents, relocated over 40 more, and created nearly 70 from his followers. Confiscations from the defeated and from Hideyoshi’s family gave Ieyasu and his vassals around a quarter of Japan’s cultivable land, and in 1611-1612 all surviving daimyo were forced to swear loyalty to him.

Ieyasu won Sekigahara as head of a daimyo coalition: he subsequently exploited the daimyo instead of replacing them, leaving them some power and autonomy. Tokugawa rule evolved into the bakuhan system, the Tokugawa bakufu dominating the daimyo han (fiefs). After his appointment as shogun in 1603, Ieyasu changed the legal basis of han ownership to one that closely resembled European feudalism: instead of inheriting their han as before, daimyo were granted them by the shogun, custodian of all Japan’s land on behalf of the emperor. Courtiers around the emperor had briefly sponsored Ieyasu’s opponent, Hideyoshi’s young heir, so bakufu laws issued in 1615 permanently secluded the court in the old capital of Kyoto, under close supervision, and the shogun became the conduit for imperial sovereignty. With this mandate from the emperor, daimyo could be legitimately dispossessed for rebellion, misconduct, failure to produce an heir, or simply to maintain Tokugawa supremacy: the shogunate toppled over 110 more daimyo by the early 18th century. Bakufu military strength forced daimyo to obey. Direct Tokugawa vassals, the bannermen, formed a permanent standing force ready in Edo, and hundreds of thousands of client samurai formed a second group of loyal supporters.

The Tokugawa split the daimyo into three groups: shimpan (branch Tokugawa houses), fudai (houses created by the Tokugawa), and tozama (“outsiders”, independent since before 1600). The tozama were seen as the worst threat: Tokugawa action reduced their numbers from 117 (out of 195 daimyo) after Sekigahara to 98 (out of 266) in 1795; many were relocated or partially dispossessed. All three groups were subjected to the Buke Shohatto (Laws for Military Houses), issued in 1615 and subsequently expanded, which forbade them to build fortifications, shelter fugitives, or marry without permission. The unique system of sankin kotai (alternate attendance), introduced for the tozama in 1635, but extended to all daimyo by 1642, compelled them to leave their heirs and families in Edo as hostages (in huge, expensive mansions), and personally attend the shogun in his great Edo Castle every other year. They were compelled to submit disputes to the shogunal tribunal for arbitration. They were only allowed one castle in their domains, others being demolished, and had to contribute to vast shogunal projects such as the rebuilding of Edo after the disastrous fire of 1657. The shogunate assumed the rights to regulate foreign contact, public highways, and religion.

Despite shogunal bullying, the daimyo settled quickly into the Edo system. Tokugawa rule protected them from each other, and they were left virtually supreme inside their fiefs, and not even taxed directly. Most owed their status to Tokugawa favour and had no incentive to challenge Tokugawa supremacy; by the 1650s the majority of daimyo were Tokugawa creations, with no tradition of autonomous action. Most followed shogunal precedents in administering their fiefs, so that law and institutions remained remarkably consistent across Japan, considering that some 75 per cent of the country was effectively ruled by petty princelings. The shogunate was never strong enough by itself to defeat any large daimyo alliance, but it successfully divided and ruled, relying on fudai daimyo support and mutual daimyo mistrust. The fudai, who provided the shogunate’s senior counsellors and other high officials, had every incentive to use the system for their own advantage against the tozama. Consequently, by Iemitsu’s death in 1651 the bakuhan system had become stable enough to support a long regency while daimyo advisers ruled for his young son Ietsuna (shogun 1651-1680). The daimyo never seriously threatened Tokugawa hegemony.

III

The Moulding of Edo Society

Tokugawa lawmakers devoted equal attention to society below daimyo level. Following practices begun by Hideyoshi, and the Neo-Confucian doctrines of Ieyasu’s counsellors, 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, became outcastes. The most politically important class, the samurai, kept their right to carry two swords (and initially to cut down any member of the lower orders who displeased them). However, in all but a few backward fiefs, they were removed from the villages where they had traditionally lived off the peasantry, and segregated in wards of the castle towns where their daimyo lords lived. Here they were paid in rice and employed in bakuhan administration, becoming civil servants and officials, or even simply clerks and constables, disciplined by the code of bushido. The castle towns themselves rapidly lost their military purpose and became centres of government and trade, while major cities such as Nagoya and Osaka remained under direct shogunal control. The peasants, though in theory second only to the samurai, were denied weapons, forbidden to leave their lands, and ordered to live frugally and farm diligently to feed their superiors. In fact, the removal of the samurai freed peasants to organize village life to suit themselves; the village headman was usually the only one in direct contact with the upper classes. The artisans and merchants merged into the chonin (townspeople) who supplied goods for the daimyo and samurai in Edo and the castle towns.

The Tokugawa insisted on regulating their subjects’ religious lives because of fears of subversion, especially by Christians. The 16th-century unifiers of Japan had fought to subdue militant peasant sects professing Pure Land Buddhism. Christianity, previously introduced by European missionaries, was feared as an alien creed, and persecuted accordingly. All Japanese families were made to register at a Buddhist temple and demonstrate that they were not Christian. Such persecution led to the Shimabara Rebellion, a Christian uprising in 1637-1638 in which some 37,000 men, women, and children held off a shogunal army in a castle on the Shimabara Peninsula on Kyushu, then perished when the castle fell. Significantly, many of the rebels were ronin, masterless samurai who had lost their place in peaceful Edo society. Actual Christians were little threat to the Tokugawa system, but kept their faith in secret, in constant danger of exposure and execution.

Christianity was a major factor in the Tokugawa decision to cut Japan off from the outside world after the 1630s. Foreign ideas and contacts were feared by the shogunate as endangering national stability and Tokugawa supremacy. Rules against the building of large ocean-going ships kept the daimyo from developing naval forces or trading abroad. In 1635 all Japanese were officially forbidden foreign travel, and the Japanese merchant communities in the Philippines and elsewhere were cut off. In 1639 the Portuguese Empire was banned from trading with Japan: only the Dutch Empire was allowed a trading presence, confined to an artificial island in Nagasaki harbour. More trade with Korea and China continued, but usually via foreign ships and under close supervision.

Trade inside Japan was encouraged by improved highways, including the famous Tokaido, radiating from Edo and maintained by roadside villages. The shogunate issued improved gold and silver currency from 1601, and took control of Japan’s mines, especially the silver mines on the island of Sado, to feed its mints and coffers: nearly 50 new bullion mines were opened in Ieyasu’s lifetime. These and the new standardized shogunal weights and measures aided commerce, but also emphasized Tokugawa legitimacy. Tokugawa supremacy was signified by the building in 1634-1636 of the great family shrine, the Toshogu, at Nikko, where the remains of Ieyasu (now deified) were enshrined in an ornate, awe-inspiring complex mingling Shinto, Buddhism, and Chinese Confucianism.

IV

The Edo Golden Age

By the mid-17th century Tokugawa policies, however autocratic, had brought Japan more peace and stability than it had known for centuries: the result was a demographic and economic boom. The population grew from around 12 million in 1600 to around 31 million by 1720, while Edo grew in the same time from a hamlet with under 200 residents to a metropolis of over 1 million citizens. Though reliable figures are unavailable, the Edo economy certainly grew just as fast: construction of castle towns and Tokugawa official projects created new employment, and urbanization brought new consumption habits in an increasingly commercialized economy facilitated by the enforced peace, new highways, standardized units, and sound coinage. The constant traffic of daimyo and their retinues on the sankin kotai circuit, and their lavish households in Edo, created extra economic demand.

The new wealth and leisure of peace also brought a cultural flowering. The traditions of Japanese art nurtured by Hon’ami Koetsu flowered in the Rimpa school, exemplified by Korin. In Japanese literature, the new short poetry form, haiku, was perfected by the wandering poet Basho, while Ihara Saikaku and Monzaemon Chikamatsu furnished novels and kabuki plays for an urban audience. The tea ceremony was codified by various schools, and superb ceramics, such as the great Raku wares, were made for it. Traditional architecture was perpetuated in the marvellous Katsura Detached Palace, completed in 1662. The “licensed quarters” where prostitution was officially regulated, such as the Yoshiwara in Edo, became centres of fashion, competitive display, and the arts; social-climbing merchants came to show off their money and sophistication before the cultivated courtesans and geisha immortalized in Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

These developments ornamented what was later seen as the Edo golden age, the Genroku era (1688-1704). Yet prosperity and growth were already straining the Tokugawa’s tightly controlled society. The chonin, theoretically the bottom of the Edo hierarchy, flourished at the expense of daimyo and samurai, who were eager to trade their rice income for cash but vulnerable to fluctuations in yields and agricultural prices. The economic geography of Japan shifted in favour of Edo and away from Kyoto, though Osaka remained important as the marketing centre for daimyo and samurai rice. Social hierarchies were challenged by mass-market innovations, for example, the vast Edo department stores with discounts and cash-only policies. To increase their incomes and pay off debts, daimyo opened up new lands and explored new farming techniques, but also pushed their peasants into growing cash crops such as cotton and tobacco. With growing commercialization of peasant life, wealthy farmers used new economic opportunities to rise above poorer smallholders, who often became wandering labourers or fled to the towns. Samurai often grew equally poor, caught between grasping merchants and tight-fisted daimyo, so that many resigned their status and became tradesmen, or took up medicine, scholarship, or some other more rewarding profession. Edo Japan was outgrowing the simple Confucian strictures of Ieyasu’s day.