JANSEN: MAKING OF MODERN JAPAN

CHAPTER 2: THE TOKUGAWA STATE

It is noted that while Chinas polity has

progressed from feudal (hoken) to
centralized (gunken), in Japan the
sequence has been reversed
(centralized to feudal)
Chinese-style institutions introduced
into Japan produced a centralized
government under the emperor, but
warrior rule had led to feudalism
thereafter
Some writings argued the case for the
Tokugawa shogun (head of the
government part of the Tokugawa
clan) as having had the power of
kingship on the order of feudal
monarchs in the West; also compared
the emperor to the Pope (no political
power and only has ritual functions)
Westerners often referred to the
shogun as emperor
Tokugawa Japan was pacified and
bureaucratized but not really unified
Daimyo (powerful feudal lords)
domains retained important elements
of autonomy although dependent on
shogunal favor
Edwin Reischauer: centralized
feudalism Japan was neither fully
centralized nor fully feudal
WWII historians in Japan: Tokugawa
system as a bakufu-han state
indicating the duality between central
shogun (bakufu) and regional
daimyo (han)

TAKING CONTROL
Tokugawa Ieyasus goal was to
structure a system that would be more
enduring than those of his
predecessors
First steps: disposition of the
territories held by leaders of the
western coalition that had opposed
him at Sekigahara
o Beneficiaries: Tokugawa vassals
(people who have entered into
mutual obligation) who had
served Ieyasu from the start; in
charge of territories in Kanto
(Tokyo) since Ieyasu was
ordered to move there

These vassals did not have

formal daimyo status originally,
but were eventually given rank
and title when Ieyasu came into
power
Next step: need for additional rewards
+ doubts about loyalty to affect
tenure in lands already granted
Problem: Shimazu, daimyo of
Satsuma, retreated to southern
Kyushu after Sekigahara; used
diplomacy to settle affairs instead
of warfare
o Shimazu explained that his
participation in Sekigahara had
been based on the mistaken
belief that it had been
mandated by his loyalty to
Hideyoshis son
o Ieyasu confirmed him in the rule
of his ancestral territory and
Shimazu pledged his loyalty to
the new Tokugawa hegemon
Prior to this, Ieyasu was offered to be
invested as the head of the
shogunal house of Minamoto but
he declined
o With Shimazu on board, Ieyasu
accepted appointment as
shogun, head of the Minamoto
and of the military houses,
second court rank, and Minister
of the Right in the old
administrative structure of
honors
o 2 years later, he transferred the
office of shogun to his son
Hidetada
Because he was no longer the
[ritualistic] shogun, Ieyasu planned the
reduction of Osaka
o Osaka city full of defeated
lords whose lands were
confiscated
o First step: Ieyasu suggested a
visit with Hideyori who
remained a threat to Tokugawa
legitimacy because Ieyasu and
his peers were pledged to guard
his interests (because of his
father Hideyoshi); meeting did
not improve their relationship
o Hideyori had been appointed
Minister of the Interior at the
same time Ieyasu received his
o

o
o

o
o

titles; there was talk about

appointing him as kanpaku or
regent (his fathers title)
It became urgent to neutralize
the court and keep it out of
warrior politics
Ieyasu issued a set of
instructions for the court
nobility that was designed to
restrict court involvement in
warrior affairs, and
particularly to prevent it from
issuing promotions and titles;
Priority in such matters would
bring pacification and eliminate
rancor at court, and lessen the
likelihood or need to seek
assistance from contacts
within the warrior class
The emperors concerns were to
be cultural, concentrated on
proficiency in the arts of peace
Nevertheless the presence of
Hideyori in Osaka was a
reminder that the Tokugawa
primacy was to some degree
a usurpation; Ieyasu decided
to launch an attack on the
castle; the attack failed
Ieyasu suggested a truce
wherein as a show of good faith,
part of Osaka castles defensive
moats would be filled in
The Tokugawa force which
provided the labor filled in
more of the moats than
what was called for by the
agreement; battle ensued
when Hideyori tried to stop it
Eventually, a small force led by
Hideyori was chased back to the
castle which was then set
ablaze and pummeled with
artillery fire; Hideyori and his
mother committed seppuku
or suicide
With the death of Hideyori, the
problem of loyalty to
Hideyoshis memory was laid to
rest

RANKING THE DAIMYO

The fall of Osaka left the Tokugawa
free to reassign the domains that
had remained in Hideyoris care

Kamakura and Ashikaga shoguns

structured their own house band and
retainers into admin units; squelched
attempts by networks of Kyoto to
retain control of the assets w/in their
realms
Nobunaga removed clerical and
admin interference with his activities
Ieyasu: keep them out of warrior
politics
Vassal bands that Sengoku unifiers
developed were more intimately a
part of the clan structure than their
predecessors had been
Japan alternated between familial
and bureaucratic structures
o In Tokugawa Japan, fictive
family terms came to cloak
most relationships of status
dependency
House (Ie) all obligations were
subordinated to its preservation; not
limited to the warrior class
Fudai principal tenants or servants
of the household
Outsiders were inhabitants of a
different universe of relationships
Translated to the world of Edo
feudality, this brought a distinction
between the traditional Tokugawa
house vassals, the fudai daimyo,
and the tozama or outside lords
o Though some had opposed the
Tokugawa forces at Sekigahara,
as heads of completely distinct
systems of subordination and
command they could never
change their classification
o What was true at the high level
of daimyo was even more so at
the level of ordinary samurai
o Daimyo could interact,
compete, and rank themselves
in relationships to the shogunal
hegemon; Vassals lived
within a world structured
around the daimyo
The categories fudai and tozama
served to separate the Tokugawa
house from its peers
o Tokugawa house vassaks could
serve in the bakufu
organization, while tozama were
forever outside it

A second aspect of the daimyo

system: precision of its ranking
o Important characteristic of
daimyo: directly invested by
the shogun
o Many vassals of daimyo were
invested with subfiefs larger
than that, but they remained
rear-vassals (baishin) and
moved in their daimyos orbit
and not the shoguns national
galaxy
A distinctive aspect of each galaxy:
assessed koku income
(kokudaka), status rank, and
military power (army size or
vassal band) coincided
o Kokudaka figure was based on
domain surveys conducted at
the beginning of the period;
termed official or outer
(omote) yield of the domain;
remained the measure of
status rank
o The standing determined by
that figure would determine his
quality as a feudal lord
Officially, two other ratings for lords
were used:
o Size of the domain if it
incorporated an entire province,
the daimyo was a kokushu or
province-holder
o Whether the domain
included a castle or not
instant indicators of ceremonial
importance
The court ordered that it alone could
petition for court rank and title
for warriors
o Manipulated the lists greatly to
the advantage of the Tokugawa
house and its peers
o Also ordered the deletion of
warriors from court rosters
o Highest ranks were largely
closed to any but Tokugawa
houses
Bannermen (Hatamoto) shogunal
retainers of sub-daimyo level but
invested separately; played an
important role in staffing the bakufu
bureaucracy
Shogunal lands approx. a quarter of
the national total + no. of lands in

fudai daimyo hands = overwhelming

predominance of the bakufu
o Most productive plains belonged
to Tokugawa or his retainers
Outside lords also had large areas; of
the sixteen largest daimyo
holdings, all but five were tozama
In Edo/Tokugawa times, productivity
was negligible; even high officials lived
in relative poverty
Although fudai outnumbered the
tozama by almost half, and
hatamoto certainly outnumbered
fudai, in no case did their
individual kokudaka approach
that of the major tozama daimyo
Bakufu lands were widely scattered
Tokugawa system parcellized
sovereignty

THE STRUCTURE OF THE TOKUGAWA BAKUFU

By the time of Ieyasus death, his son
Hidetada had already been shogun
for a decade
o Historians conclude that
Hidetada was chosen successor
not because of his brilliance
but because he could be
considered careful and
cautious
o Once he was shogun, Hidetada
showed less sensitivity to court
and imperial wishes than his
father had
Iemitsu, the 3rd shogun, was the first
to be born as accepted successor
o Once he had freed himself from
the restraints of his fathers
advisers, he surrounded
himself with personal
friends he felt he could trust
o He was a harsh and selfcentered autocrat with the
feudality but also tried to
communicate with ordinary
people
o Under Iemitsus rule, bakufu
institutions took on the form
they would retain until the
fall of Tokugawa
o At the time of his death, 5 of his
senior aides accompanied him
in ritual suicide (junshi), a
procedure later forbidden by the
bakufu

Once a shogun was invested by the

court he was absolute ruler
o If he was a minor, there might
be a regent and after he
reached maturity he issued
orders through bureaucratic
institutions; though in theory
there was nothing that could
restrain him
Ieyasu: shogunal successors were
to be chosen from 3 great cadet
lines of Owari, Kii, and Mito if a
shogun failed to produce an heir
o Yoshimune, the 8th shogun,
added 3 additional cadet lines
Shoguns kept a wary eye on those
houses from which competitors or
successors might come, and heads of
cadet and collateral houses
seldom if ever found it possible to
receive appointments of national
significance
Shogunal councils were staffed by
Tokugawa vassals
o Fudai daimyo at the highest
levels
o Bannermen below the fudai
The shogun was to be succeeded by
his eldest son
o There was importance of blood
over ability
o But youth in the pampered
interior of the Chiyoda Castle
(the main castle) was not likely
to produce effective
leadership
After a successful assassination
attempt on a high official, steps were
taken to make the shogun and his
top officials less approachable
o This began a period in which
chamberlains became
central
o Unless the shogun was
particularly stubborn or
determined, heads of bakufu
councils and personal
advisers jockeyed for influence
(which characterized Edo
politics)
It was notable that in almost every
case in which the shogun was
actually useful, he came into power

through adoption and was not born in

Chiyoda/Edo Castle
o Innovative and strong people
were usually adopted into the
main line
The shoguns who made a difference
frequently had mothers with
plebeian origins
o Tsunayoshi 5th shogun, most
scholarly of all shoguns, major
sponsor of Confucian studies,
though ridiculed for misguided
edicts he issued to protect
animals; became shogun after
two elder brothers died
o An independent upbringing
that was not geared for
heading the bakufu
produced a strongwilled and
intelligent, albeit
idiosyncratic, shogun
o Yoshimune 8th shogun, most
important after Ieyasu, reacted
against luxury and corruption,
tried to restore martial values in
his samurai corps; tried to free
himself from shogunal
conventions that keep him
inside the palace; became
eligible for shogunate after the
death of two brothers
o Ienari characterized his era as
the Age of the [Harem]
Great Interior; sired over 50
children
Of the powerful and self-willed daimyo
of Edo days, the most remarkable
were outsiders and relatively free
from the aristocratic inhibitions of
childhood in the Edo Castle
Below the shogun the Edo admin
developed into a formidable
bureaucracy
o Major posts tended to become
traditional for, and monopolized
within, certain vassal houses
o The result was
underemployment, alternation
between several men assigned
to the same office during
employment, and no doubt
boredom for the majority
(Council of Elders or roju) Ieyasu and
Hidetada retained as special

advisers men who had served them

in war and peace
Iemitsu set about structuring an admin
that would be loyal to him
personally
o He ordered that the roju be
responsible for all matters
relating to the imperial
court
Ieyasu: trusted vassal at Kyoto in the
shoshidai and the court named a
court noble (buke denso) to deal with
the bakufu (the buke denso is like the
representative to the bakufu)
Roju were the bakufus most
important officials; all matters of
national significance fell to them
A junior council, the Wakatoshiyori,
was responsible for matters within
the shogunal retainer band; was
briefly abolished and after only dealt
with matters of the sub-daimyo level
Membership on the board of roju was
restricted to the highest-rankig and
most trusted fudai daimyo
Roju worked as a committee and
reported their decisions to the shogun
served on a monthly rotation
system; granted fourth (imperial)
court rank
Under the roju, a large staff of
secretaries for paperwork
Lower officials were expected to sink
to their knees when they encountered
roju, and even the heads of the three
great cadet houses bowed to them
Most of the central bureaucracy
reported to roju; they were clearly the
fulcrum of the Edo administration
Where technical knowledge was
required rank became less important
than competence; superintendents
of finance were bannermen;
reported to the roju
There was also the intelligence
service of metsuke to keep admin
posted on performance and apprised
of political or religious subversion

THE DOMAINS (HAN)

of Japan was under control of the
daimyo
o The no. of domains and of
daimyo changed throughout the

period as a result of rewards

and penalties
o of the country was not
under direct shogunal rule
Domains varied enormously in size
and importance; only a few dozen
daimyo houses managed to survive
throughout the Tokugawa rule
Domains varied also in social
structure, depending on the
proportion of their population
that was samurai
o Most of the great tozama
domains were relatively more
highly militarized, and with
samurai scattered throughout
the area, economically less
developed than the heartland
Some of the great tozama domains
fostered a hereditary resentment
of Tokugawa dominance
o Satsuma: had special
arrangements for the reception
of bakufu inspectors that
guaranteed they would not
learn much about the
domain (they essentially
deceived the inspectors to
maintain security)
o On the other hand, many
daimyo were greateful to the
bakufu for having authorized
their rule and treated the
inspectors with courtesy
The factor of size provides the MOST
important distinction among domains
o A daimyo of a small and poor
area Tawara was granted a
location for his Edo estate that
placed him among the great
Tokugawa vassals because he
fought for Ieyasu from the start;
this however was an expensive
honor
o Even someone near the top of
the samurai structure
experienced grinding poverty
o A tiny principality like Tawara
could not constitute much of a
restraint on the authority of the
central bakufu at Edo
The regular samurai umamawari
were, in other words, like the
Tokugawa bannermen. Upper
samurai maintained residences in

the castle town of Kochi as well as

on their lands, and in town their
residences were neatly arranged
in order of power and income
Before long a complex
administrative structure
resembling that of the bakufu
developed
o The chief administrators were
charged with relations with the
bakufu and the supervision of
magistrates who dealt with
county governance, fishing
villages, taxes, and temples and
shrines
o As with the bakufu fudai,
leading families
predominated in important
posts
Domains were called upon for
cooperation in connection with
building projects, but they were not
directly taxed by the bakufu
A domain lived on the income
derived from its own lands
The bakufu set guidelines for military
forces, but it had no control over
domain armed forces
Several dozen of the domains were
very nearly independent states, with
their own armies, administrative and
law codes, tax systems, and tax codes
The han part of the bakuhan state
thus represented a significant
limitation on centralization and Japans
development as a nation state

BAKUFU-HAN RELATIONS
The real test of statehood for early
modern Japan thus lay in the
relations between the bakufu and
the daimyo domains
o Houses with longer histories of
rule were in the daimyo
domains; imperial restoration
after the Tokugawa fall found
leadership here
The early shoguns won their
hegemony by victory in battle and
thus able to confiscate and
redistribute daimyo lands easily
Tozama daimyo decreased in
number and new fudai daimyo
were created

Daimyo held their domains in

trust and not as private
possessions
The shogun invested each daimyo at
the time of his majority, and on the
accession of each new shogun all the
daimyo swore private oaths of
obedience and service
As the Edo period went on and
reassignments and confiscations
diminished, however, tenure became
more secure
The bakufu was clearly concerned with
the maintenance and appearance of
public order
The Tokugawa collateral house of
Matsudaira in Echizen strategic
location as a possible avenue for
invasion of the Edo plain; Ieyasu sent
Hideyasu, had him take the older
family name of Matsudaira, and
consolidated nearby domains into a
formidable integrated realm; His son
soon began to behave erratically
o Hidetada, the shogun, now
banished the daimyo to Kyushu,
appointed the son as successor,
and reduced the domain
o Public humiliation was
combined with drastic
diminution of geopolitical power
o It was generations before the
house was restored to bakufu
favor. By late Tokugawa wiser
leadership had restored the
Matsudaira house honor, with
the result that its daimyo was
able to play an important role in
the politics of late Tokugawa
bakufu reform
The early shoguns also saw to it that
daimyo military prowess was kept
under control
o The bakufu decreed that there
should be only one castle in
each domain; standards of
preparedness were also issued
for all domains to prevent the
diminution of military skills
o As the system of alternate
attendance at Edo became
structured, standards were also
set for the size of the military
entourage that daimyo could
bring with them
o

The centerpiece of bakufu control over

daimyo was its codification of rules
for deportment
o The daimyo were summoned to
receive the Code for the Military
Houses; these injunctions
became the center of
bakufu-daimyo relations
Daimyo were not to admit criminals
or traitors within their borders, they
were prohibited from adding
fortifications, or repairing old ones,
and they were to request official
permission before arranging marriages
for family member; there should be
no unnecessary contact between
neighboring jurisdictions
The bakufu ordered the daimyo to
select men of ability for office
The bakufu was claiming for itself the
right to define and enforce standards
of proper rule by which its vassal
daimyo could be judged
Daimyo had been ordered to leave
family members as hostages with
the bakufu (family members
obligated to stay in the castle and
serve the bakufu)
Hidetada formalized this as an
obligation for fudai daimyo; Iemitsu:
institutionalized and structured for all
the daimyo as a form of military
service
The sankin-kotai alternate
attendance system structured
daimyo life; they themselves were to
come in alternate yearsor, for some,
alternate half yearsto pay homage
to the shogun
Started as a system of hostages,
the system became the basis of a
rotating service life for the elite
Future daimyo were born and raised at
the metropolitan center and never
visited their domain until they were
actually invested as daimyo
The system managed to transform
military leaders to cultured urban
aristocrats
Next came the requirements for the
registration of commoners
o The bakufu and individual
domains conducted registers of
population and livestock

Drive against Christianity

intensified; the bakufu instituted
registration of all residents of its
own domains at Buddhist
temples
o As the persecution of
Christians increased in
Iemitsus years the bakufu
tightened requirements in its
own territories, and a few
decades later domains were
ordered to carry them out as
well; the following year,
registrations were ordered to be
done annually
o The implementing agency
was the Buddhist temple,
which was co-opted in the
service of state security
o Temple registers were
submitted by village headmen
and city elders to certify there
were no Christians
o The shumon aratamecho,
sect investigation registers,
served as powerful measures
of central government
intervention in private life
throughout Japan
o The Buke shohatto also
specified that domain laws
should follow those of the
bakufu in broad outline
The bakufus claim to represent kogi,
the public interest, gave it the right
to oversee and interfere
o It issued and mounted
signboards, kosatsu, which
appeared at conspicuous
locationsintersections and
bridgesthroughout the
country, in daimyo as well as
bakufu lands
o The issuing authority declined in
rank; originally issued over the
name of the bakufu roju, but
later over the name of bakufu
bugyo
(commissioners/magistrates)
o The kosatsu acquainted
commoners everywhere with
the existence and will of the
bakufu
The bakufu showed power again by
appointing corps of inspectors to
o

monitor developments in han that

seemed to merit observation; they
had to submit detailed maps to the
bakufu
The bakufu permitted deathbed
adoptions, thereby removing what
had been the most frequently cited
reason for confiscation: failure of the
daimyo to provide a male heir
The hostage system at Edo was given
up to commemorate 50th anniversary
of Ieyasus death
Transfers of major domains became
less frequent
Near the end of the Tokugawa
rule, a good many daimyo seem to
have regarded the shogunate as
not so much the instrument of a
powerful hegemon as a
bureaucratic council of their peers
The bakufu-han relationship was a
two-way street; the two had a
symbiotic relationship than an
antagonistic one
The bakufu kogi provided a context
of stability for the han. They no longer
had to fear one another, for the bakufu
set the rules of interaction
The Tokugawa overlordship also
provided guarantees against
disruption from below by peasant
rebellions and sectarians
Bakufu frequently farmed out
administration and taxation rights to
han whose location made it easy for
them to play a supervisory role
Bakufu exactions on han for assistance
in building projects gradually came to
be replaced by bakufu assistance to
han in meeting emergency food
shortages that resulted from failed
crops
The bakufu relented with loans to help
the domain manage the mines and
meet its quotas

THE TOKUGAWA STATE

The Tokugawa state was far from all
powerful; It controlled foreign
affairs and foreign trade and
legislated against foreign
subversion like Catholic
Christianity, but it had no central
national treasury or tax codes

There was no national judiciary;

Public justice was imperfectly
administered esp. among the samurai
class who were responsible to their
domain authorities; Private justice
was honorable for those who applied
through proper channels; Blood
feuds were permitted to settle interdomain conflicts; Private vengeance
was authorized
The bakufu established five major
national highways over which it
asserted authority and laid down rules
for support from villages along those
routes, without regard to daimyo
authority, but it had no national
communications system and no
national constabulary
Bakufu army was only one large
force; coercion attempts depended on
the cooperation of its vassals armies
o When the cooperation was
withheld, the bakufu gradually
declined to the status of a
regional power
Economic change and internal
commerce led to a great increase in
the integration of the economy,
particularly in central Japan, but no
political advances accompanied
this
o The great lords, tozama and
cadet houses alike, were
systematically excluded
from participation in
national affairs
o Trade between major domains
was discouraged by the bakufu
and by domains that strove for
mercantilist self-sufficiency
Although power was concentrated, it
was in the collective body of
daimyo and not at the center
Japan faced no requirements of
increasing its central power beyond
the modest incentives of preventing
insurrection by unarmed peasants.
Consequently its central power
waned in centuries of peace
despite the growing centralization
of the larger political economy
o In time, the peasantry became
more of a threat
o The bakufu became increasingly
concerned with popular protest

and ordered neighboring

domains to cooperate in
suppressing it
o There was a greater interest in
law and a new structuring of
procedures for housing and
representing litigants at the Edo
courts; The bakufu became
more conspicuous than it
had been
The late Tokugawa state was
significantly different from that
political order at its birth: things
looked different, they were spoken of
in a different way, and they were in
fact different
Most Tokugawa period writers spoke of
authority as kogi (public matters),
and that centered in Edo so clearly
that it was frequently used almost

interchangeably with the chotei later

reserved for imperial court.
o This entity itself is without a
political role and as much place
as person, was a mysterious
and forbidden entity referred to
as kinchu or kinri
Terms like bakufu, court, and emperor
convey a clear definition of
subordination that was the creation of
late Tokugawa Confucian scholarship
associated with Mito ideologues
o Their scholarship laid the
theoretical basis for the
imperial ideology with which
the modern state was launched
Edo period contemporaries thought of
the shoguns system as authority and
were less conscious of the courtbakufu dualism than later historians