JAPAN 50 Study Guide - Final Guide: Tokugawa Mitsukuni, Watanabe Kazan, Industrial Revolution
Japanese 50 Final Study Guide
February 11, 2015
bakufu
tokugawa ideology
samurai class/merchant class
Tokugawa: Background, Establishment, and Middle Years
The Tokugawa Political Consolidation (1600-1651)
● Political structure of Tokugawa rule was devised by Ieyasu and completed by his
two immediate successors, Hidetada, and Iemitsu.
● Ieyasu rose to supremacy as the leader of a group of daimyo, each of whom was
backed by his own vassals and supported by his independent power base.
● They all lost trust in Hideyoshi after failure in Korea and giving power to son.
● Ieyasu did this better with his own son by resigning from office of shogun, but still
being in power.
● Vassals were classified by trust levels.
○ dangerous - tozama - Hideyoshi’s
○ trustworthy - fudai - Tokugawa
○ collateral - shimpan - Tokugawa branch families
● Placed these vassals strategically.
● To keep the daimyo from forming political alliances that might threaten the
bakufu, they were required to obtain bakufu consent for their marriage plans.
● Shogunate enacted a vigorous policy of increasing its own strength at the
expense of the daimyo.
● shimpan 2.6 million, fudai 6.7 million, tozama 9.8 million, religious 600,000,
emperor and the court nobility 187,000.
● Inspectors of the shogunate made sure the daimyo obeyed bakufu orders.
● Shogun was both emperors deputy and feudal overlord of all the daimyo thus he
had political legitimacy and the authority of a supreme commander standing at
the apex of the military hierarchy.
February 18, 2015
Literary culture and the city: Haikai and popular fiction
Theater and the pleasure quarters; samurai ideals
The Middle Years
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● Bakufu-Han Relations
● The Daimyo remained largely free to manage affairs in their own han.
○ Han chauvinism was strongest among the tozama.
● Under the fourth Shogun, Ietsuna, the daimyo regained much lost ground
and the Bakufu policy was reversed.
○ Shogunate allowed han to issue their own paper money.
● The fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, reasserted the bakufu power which earned
him the enmity of the daimyo and lasting ignominy and ridicule
○ Very religious so people made fun of him a lot. Dog shogun.
○ His period saw a great flowering of culture and a resurgence of
centralizing activity. But not permanently.
● Constant pendulum between bakufu and the han.
○ Bakufu usually happened under strong shoguns.
○ When the shogun was a minor or incompetent, control over bakufu
reverted to the senior councilors - descendants of the Tokugawas
most favored and highly trusted vassals.
● Inner tension between shogunate and han - but usally they would always
act more as daimyo rather than bakufu officials.
○ They were not ready to sacrifice han privileges for the sake of the
larger body politic.
● Most samurai belonged to a specific han and only few samurai retained
local roots in the country.
● Economic and Social Change
● Economy increases due to demand to meet the needs of samurai and
growing expenses of daimyo.
● System of alternate attendance stimulated commercialization of
agriculture, and agricultural productivity, and agricultural technology?
○ Regional separation of different agricultural goods
● Very high population, but dropped due to famine and disease.
● many were poor, but the standing of living rose.
○ one child. abortion. late marriage
● No samurai = villages were left virtually free to collect taxes due their
overlord.
○ Separation of wealth.
● Main house of an extended family had claims on the services of the lesser
households and some obligations to look after the poorer members
○ Led to tension aggravated by economic disparities between poorer
and rich families
● Economic expansion and internal peace
● With the bakufu, daimyo, and samurai dependant on them, the merchants
prospered.
● Classes and Values
● Clear line between samurai and commoners.
○ samurais jobs turned more civil than military.
● samurais were hereditary more than skill
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● Confucianism began to prevail and warrior values of Yamaga Soko.
bushido.
● merchant house resembled feudal fiefs.
● merchant and samurais had much in common but it was a samurai value
to view money with contempt
● Heart Learning, a religion found by Kyoto merchant and philosopher ishida
Baigan combined elements of shinto confucianism and buddhism to create
an ethic for the artisan and merchant stressing honesty, frugality, and
devotion to ones trade.
● The Aesthetic Culture of the Aristocracy
● Honami Koetsu who established a community of artists and craftsmen on
a site granted him by Ieyasu in recognition of his prominence as a
member of that city’s nichiren Buddhist community.
○ family-art of sword repair and connoisseurship
○ tea bowls, lacquer inlay work, and cast metal vessels, painting,
calligraphy
○ Thousand Cranes
● Ogata Korin
○ iris screens
● Genroku Urban Culture
● Genroku Era 1688-1704
○ Chikamatsu - playwright, Saikaku - short story, Moronobu - print,
Matsuo Basho - haiku
● Sophisticated stylishness in dress, coiffure, perfume, gesture, and life
itself
● The Print
● Pictures of the Floating World - ukiyoe
○ scenes from urban life were carved into wood blocks and inked and
printed
● First black and white, then red and green and ¾ colors.
● Okumura Masanobu
● required many artists
● Theater and Literature
● Kabuki theater were very popular
● originated in the dances and skits performed in kyoto
● Women’s kabuki was banned because guys would fight over the woman's
favor
○ Men’s flourished
● Kabuki was under restrictions, tolerated but licensed and controlled, but
could not be suppressed
● Men played female roles
● Puppet acting was so popular that real actors would often imitate
movements of puppets
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Document Summary
February 11, 2015 bakufu tokugawa ideology samurai class/merchant class. Political structure of tokugawa rule was devised by ieyasu and completed by his two immediate successors, hidetada, and iemitsu. Ieyasu rose to supremacy as the leader of a group of daimyo, each of whom was backed by his own vassals and supported by his independent power base. They all lost trust in hideyoshi after failure in korea and giving power to son. Ieyasu did this better with his own son by resigning from office of shogun, but still being in power. Collateral - shimpan - tokugawa branch families trustworthy - fudai - tokugawa. To keep the daimyo from forming political alliances that might threaten the bakufu, they were required to obtain bakufu consent for their marriage plans. Shogunate enacted a vigorous policy of increasing its own strength at the expense of the daimyo. Shimpan 2. 6 million, fudai 6. 7 million, tozama 9. 8 million, religious 600,000, emperor and the court nobility 187,000.
