Han

For other meanings of the word han, see Han (disambiguation).

• Japanese: 藩 (han)

The feudal domains ruled by daimyô in the Edo period are today most commonly referred to as han. The han were largely autonomous in terms of their internal affairs, but were subject to numerous strictures imposed by the Tokugawa shogunate, as well as taxation and ritual obligations.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun, officially acknowledged 185 domains in the early 17th century; by the mid-18th century, the number of domains stabilized around 260, but the total number of distinct domains that existed at one time or another over the course of the Edo period exceeds 540.

Though many daimyô continued to hold their ancestral territory as their han, in theory all han were fiefs granted by the shogunate. The shogunate reserved the right to give and take away lands from daimyô, and often made use of this power, reassigning a given territory to a different samurai clan, and assigning the former lords of that territory to a different domain elsewhere in the archipelago, or simply denying them a territory entirely. This occurred particularly frequently in the first fifty years or so of Tokugawa control, with 281 instances of clans being moved from one domain to another, and 213 instances of clans losing daimyô status, and their domains, entirely during that fifty-year period. The latter was most often due to the absence of an heir; though shogunate policies were relaxed later on, initially, deathbed adoptions were not permitted.

The power or status of each han (and of their daimyô) was determined by its kokudaka, normally a measure of agricultural or commercial production in units of koku; in some cases, domains were assigned a kokudaka out of proportion to their agricultural production, in recognition of their importance strategically, diplomatically, or otherwise. The smallest domains, by definition, had a kokudaka of at least 10,000 koku, while the largest, Kaga domain, boasted a kokudaka of 1,000,000 koku. The vast majority of domains were closer to the lower end of this range, and only a handful of domains were assessed in the hundreds of thousands of koku.

Matsumae han, on the island of Ezo (Hokkaidô) was the only han to not have a designated kokudaka, hold its land in fief from the shogunate, or have definite geographical borders.

Terminology

The term han was only first officially applied to these domains in the Meiji period, as they were being abolished (廃藩置県, haihan chiken), and as "modern" historians began to write "modern" histories of Japan. The term derives from the use of the same character (C: fān) being used during China's ancient Zhou Dynasty to refer to fiefs or domains of that time.

During the Edo period, the term han was not used for the most part, and domains were instead referred to by a number of terms including kuni (国, "country", "state"), ryô or ryôbun (領・領分, "territory", "portion of territory"), shiryô (私領, "private territory"), ie (家, house), zaisho (在所, "place where one is resident"), fu or seifu (府・政府, "government"), and kôgi (公儀, "government", "public affairs"), among others. The use of these terms was often governed by omote and uchi (or "external" and "internal") concerns; a term such as kuni might be used in internal domain documents to refer to the domain, but when speaking to the shogunate about one's domain, kuni would be used to refer to Japan as a whole, and another term, such as zaisho, would be used to the daimyô's humble appointed territory.

References

• Roberts, Luke. Performing the Great Peace: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan. University of Hawaii Press, 2012.