Tokugawa Japan 1568-­‐‑1868 aka Tokugawa Shogunate
AP World History
Chapter 20b
Historical overview
•  Aristocratic Society
o Yamato state formation
o Heijo (Nara), Heian (Kyoto)
•  Warrior Society
o Kamakura, Ashikaga, Tokugawa (Edo)
•  Modern Society (“emperor system”)
Pre-Edo fort
(16th c. Sengoku period)
Tokugawa era, 1600-­‐‑1868
"Japan at the End of the Edo Period," Felix Beato
(Yokohama Archives of History Collection)
•  Oda Nobunaga
1534-1582
•  Toyotomi Hideyoshi r 1585-1598
•  Tokugawa Ieyasu
r 1603-1616
Images from “D-project”
Oda Nobunaga
•  Succeeded in unifying the central parts of Japan
o  Including the influential area round Kyoto
•  Restored stable government
•  First of the daimyo (feudal barons) to organize units
equipped with muskets
•  1562 an alliance with Tokugawa Ieyasu, feudal lord
of neighboring province
•  Protected the Jesuit missionaries – saw Christianity
as a means to restrain the influence of the Buddhist
temples
•  Betrayed by one of his generals
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
•  Avenged Nobunaga
death
•  Sword hunt
•  Land survey
•  Implication?
o  Separation of
samurai and
commoner
o  Four class system
Toyotomi Hideyoshi by ISHIKAWA
Mitsuaki. Univ. Art Mueum, Tokyo Nat’l
University of Fine Arts and Music.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi o Role in Japan •  Successful unifier; harsh warlord o Invasions •  Invasion of Korea in 1592 –Imjin War •  Korean use of “turtle boats” (boats with cannon on board) destroyed part of Hideyoshi’s navy with gunpowder: Weakened Korea, which becomes a vassal state of China •  Invaded Manchuria •  Hideyoshi died in 1598, Japanese forces withdraw; Daimyo begin fighPng one another again Imjin War 1592-­‐‑1598
•  Korea – Year of the
Dragon
•  Hideyoshi invaded Korea
•  Facilitated the demise of
the Ming dynasty in
China
4 status system
1.  Samurai - warriors
Daimyo
Ruling class - Shoguns
10% of population
2.  Farmers –
Peasant
Agrarian-based
society/economy
3.  Artisan
4.  Merchant
Others:
•  Burakumin
•  Did unclean jobs
•  Butchering
•  Hinin
•  Actors
•  Wandering musicians
•  Convicted criminals
Age of the Samurai
A.  This period was from about 1192 to the late 1800’s
B. Social Hierarchy – social class structure:
1. Shogun – the head military leader of Japan, usually a samurai who
was very wealthy and who could crate a huge army.
2. The Emperor was the spiritual and ceremonial ruler who had a lot of
status but who had little real power and who usually could do nothing
without the approval of the Shogun.
3. The Daimyo was a regional military commander who had charge of
many cities or villages.
4. The Samurai was a local military leader who the leader and justice
of a a small village or area. He was supposed to live by the following.
Other Four-­‐‑class systems
•  Choson Korea:
o Yangban
o Peasant
o Artisans
o “lowborn”
•  Chinese:
o Scholar official
o Peasant
o Artisan
o Merchant
Other mechanisms of control
•  Alternate attendance
•  Regulation of daimyo
marriages
•  Levies and
assignments--repair,
rebuild
•  One castle/one
domain
•  Re-investiture on
daimyo inheritance
•  Threat of expropriation
•  Ideological
o  Categorization of
daimyo and Fourclass system
o  Neo-Confucianism
and Buddhism
o  Sacralization of
founder--Nikko
o  Imperial patronage
o  International
relations
Tokugawa Shogunate Tokugawa-era castletown
Brown=high-ranking Samurai
Tan=lower-level samurai
Orange/yellow=merchant areas
Blue=shrines and temples
UnificaPon • Tokugawa Ieyasu crushes independent Daimyo; unifies Japan (1603), Capital at Edo (modern Tokyo) • Rival daimyos subjugated, but allowed autonomy in their own territory • Alternate AXendance insPtuted (similar to nobles required to live at Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles) • ChrisPan missionaries convert over 300,000 EDO PERIOD, 1603–1867
Isolation of Japan and the Proscription of Christianity
•  When Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603 at Edo (the present Tokyo), he prohibited the Japanese to leave the country and foreigners to enter with few exceptions. •  The isolation of Japan lasted for the next 260 odd years; and during that time, Buddhism became purely ecclesiastical. Religion
•  The temples and monasteries destroyed by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were restored by Ieyasu as comparatively modest and unfortified buildings. •  The following successors of Ieyasu also followed his policies and continued to patronize Buddhism and to prescribe Christianity. •  These measures were taken in order to weaken and control the power of the Buddhist institutions and to protect Japan from foreign invasion.
Rise of Shinto and Confucianism
•  Zen Buddhism continued to show some vitality.
•  However, from the 17th century on, the influence of Buddhism gradually declined and was overshadowed by the rise of the rival religious and political philosophies of Confucianism and Shinto.
•  Both Buddhism and Shinto were identified by the decree of 1614, but later due to the roles of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto, the three were completely separated; i.e. o  Buddhism functioned in the sphere of religion
o  Confucianism in the moral
o  Shinto in state politics
Unintended outcomes of Tokugawa
Control Mechanisms
• 
• 
• 
• 
Daimyo impoverished
Wealthy Merchants
Daimyo and Samurai Relationship changes
Samurai as Bureaucrats
o Warriors without war
•  Decay and corruption at the center
The Sekisui map of Japan, 1783
• 
• 
• 
The Whole Map of Japan. Nagakubo
Sekisui and Osei Soya. 1783.
One of the first maps published in Japan
to have the meridians and parallels as
well as the scale of distance clearly
marked. Sekisui consultated many
sources, beginning with maps made by
the shogunate, before drafting his own
map. The "Sekisui map" became the
authoritative map of Japan for the next
ninety years until the fall of the
Tokugawa regime. From the Yale University Library Map
Collection. URL: o 
http://www.library.yale.edu/MapColl/
Lan18.htm
Achievements • Edo grows to 1,000,000 • Roads built & sea travel opened to help Alternate AXendance • Merchants and daimyos on outlying islands remained very free and merchants gained great wealth • Japan’s natural resource of silver helps drive new trade with Europe Tokugawa Culture
•  Tea houses, brothels, theater, and public baths
were popular
o  New forms of theater: kabuki & bunraku
(elaborate puppet shows)
•  Ukiyo-e or “woodblock prints”
Samurai and attendant
Unification of Japan
•  Four centuries of feudal warfare ended in 1600
CE
o  Oda Nobunaga (d. 1582)
•  Introduced firearms to Japanese warfare
•  Made alliances with Christian missionaries
o  Toyotomi Hideyoshi (d. 1598)
o  Tokugawa Ieyasu (d. 1616)
•  Finally unified Japan in 1603
•  Starting the Tokugawa Shogunate
•  Japan becomes a feudal
“monarchy”
IsolaPon • ChrisPanity was viewed as a rival to shogun’s power • 1617 – harsh persecuPon begins • Complete isolaPon declared • Tokugawa Japan’s period of isolaPon lasts unPl 1850s. Japanese Isolation
•  Early support for foreigners replaced with
xenophobia
o Many rejected Chinese learning
o Supported the “school” of National
Learning
•  Passed a series of seclusion acts
o Japanese Seclusion Act of 1636
Limited influence of the West
o Dutch were limited to the port of
Nagasaki
o Some interest in Western ideas
continued
•  Schools of Dutch Studies
Lasts unPl: •  1853 Commodore Perry arrives •  1858 Harris Treaty which o Open ports o Tariffs From Shogun to Emperor
•  Tokugawa
Ieyasu Shogun
Meiji emperor 1868
Imperial Japan 1868-1945
Rulers at the end of the
century
Left to Right
•  Akbar the Great (1542-1605)
•  Elizabeth I “the Virgin Queen” (1533-1603)
•  Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616)
•  Shah Abbas the Great (1571-1629)
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