Edo Period

• Japanese: 江戸時代 (Edo jidai)

The Edo period, also known as the Tokugawa period, covers the years during which the Tokugawa shogunate controlled Japan. It runs from around 1600 until 1868. A space of over 250 years in between the countrywide wars of the Sengoku period and the violence surrounding the Meiji Restoration, the Edo period was characterized chiefly by the rise of urban culture and modern economic structures. It is also known as the Early Modern period in Japan, and shares many of the features of social, economic, and political development of the same period in the West.

History

Beginnings

It is sometimes said to begin in 1600, the year of the battle of Sekigahara, in which Tokugawa Ieyasu eliminated nearly all opposition to his rule. He was officially granted the title "Shogun" by the Emperor in 1603, so the period is sometimes said to begin then, or in 1615, following the Tokugawa victory over the Toyotomi clan in the siege of Osaka, thus finally eliminating the last serious opposition.

Having defeated the armies of his enemies, and been named Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu began the process of establishing the legitimacy and stability of his clan's rule. It was not a rapid process, and many of these policies and structures were put into place by Ieyasu's successors over the course of several decades.

Ieyasu divided the provinces of Japan into several hundred feudal domains, called han. Some areas, including Edo, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and Osaka after its fall in 1615, were administered directly by shogunal representatives called Shoshi-dai in Kyoto and Machi bugyô in the other cities. Nara, Sunpu, Nikkô were also among the cities administered in this way. The han were then divided among members of the Tokugawa family, Tokugawa retainers, and other clan heads, who thus became daimyô.

Members of the family granted land were known as shinpan and most were granted territory close to Edo such as Mito han. Other important Tokugawa retainers were made fudai daimyô and given territories in the Kantô or Kinai (the center of the country), or in strategic locations, such as overseeing important points along the Tôkaidô highway, or watching over the last group of daimyô, the tozama daimyô. The 'tozama were those who opposed Tokugawa Ieyasu at Sekigahara. Many of them held the largest, wealthiest and most powerful territories, and most were allowed by the shogunate to keep their lands in exchange for their loyalty.

The Tokugawa state has been described as a "compound state", not a single unified state under a central government with absolute powers. On the contrary, the han enjoyed a considerable degree of independence, and the shogunate very rarely made efforts to directly impose or enforce policy within a domain, circumventing the authority of the daimyô. Within a domain, the daimyô had more authority, or rather more direct authority, than the shogunate. For this reason, a variety of systems were established to ensure the peace and to prevent daimyô rebellion.

Each han was ordered in 1615 to destroy all but one castle in its territory, and was not allowed to make repairs or expansions upon the domain's defenses without shogunate approval. Samurai were restricted to the castle towns, so as to prevent them from organizing rebellions or building armies in the countryside, and marriages between daimyô clans, which could represent the beginnings of alliances, were similarly forbidden without shogunate approval. The sankin kôtai system was another key element of these restrictive measures. Initially voluntary, the system was made mandatory in 1635; daimyô were obligated to maintain a residence in Edo, where members of their close family would reside as hostages against the daimyô's disobedience or rebellion. The daimyô were also obligated to make annual journeys to Edo, and to reside there for half of each year; the massive expenses associated with these journeys served to place limits on even the wealth of the most powerful daimyô.

The early decades of the Edo period were also marked by extensive foreign trade and cultural exchange. Continuing a system established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the shogunate sent formally licensed ships called shuinsen (vermillion seal ships) throughout East and Southeast Asia. The region's seas were overrun with pirates and raiders, known as wakô throughout the Sengoku period and the 17th century; in theory, these licenses helped foreign authorities distinguish legitimate traders from wakô.

This trade came to an end in 1635 with the imposition of a set of maritime restrictions known as kaikin which forbade Japanese from traveling abroad or from returning to Japan. Over the course of the period from 1633 to 1641, the shogunate imposed a number of other related policies, restricting Chinese traders and representatives of the Dutch East India Company to Nagasaki, and all trade and relations to only four ports. Relations and trade with the Dutch and Chinese were managed at the shogunate-controlled port of Nagasaki; contact and trade with China was also effected through Satsuma han in the far south of Kyûshû and its vassal state, the Kingdom of Ryûkyû. The Sô clan of Tsushima han handled relations with Korea and Matsumae, the only han on Ezo (now known as Hokkaidô), managed relations and trade with the native Ainu. Relations also continued, albeit to limited degrees, with various Southeast Asian polities, through Chinese traders who carried gifts and missives.

Genroku

The period from 1688 to 1709 was known as the Imperial era of Genroku, and is remembered as a period of incredible wealth among the commoner merchant classes of Japan's cities, and of a great flowering of popular culture.

Decline and Fall

The period of the shogunate's decline and fall is known as the Bakumatsu period, which is typically said to begin in 1853, with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry and the Black Ships.

The Edo period came to a close in January 1868, when Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu voluntarily resigned his position and ended the shogunate in the Meiji Restoration.

Political Structures

• bakuhan taisei, Shogun, Roju, Hatamoto, Daimyo (fudai and tozama)

Economy and Trade

• kaikin (sakoku), intensification of agriculture, development of domestic trade networks, merchant guilds and organization, rice brokers --> banks

Popular Culture

Many aspects of Japanese culture which are today stereotypically considered to be quite "traditional" in fact had their start in the Edo period. Kabuki and jôruri puppet theatre (also known as bunraku) developed over the course of the 17th century, reaching their climax around 1690-1750. Ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world", developed over the course of the 17th century, emerging in earnest in the Genroku period; but full-color prints did not appear until 1765.

The Yoshiwara and other realms of the courtesans likewise did not appear until the Edo period, and developed over the course of the period from a simple place for prostitution into the highly romanticized and ritualized subject of countless works of art and literature, both contemporary and modern.

Bushidô, or the "Way of the Warrior", was likewise codified and established in the Edo period. Though it certainly drew upon earlier notions of honor, loyalty, and a particular code of ethics, the concept only truly coalesced in this period. Tsuramoto Tashiro, the compiler of the Hagakure, along with Miyamoto Musashi, Yagyû Jûbei, and many other great philosophers of the warrior code lived during this period.

• ukiyo-e, urbanization, kabuki & bunraku, kibyoshi/sharebon, pleasure quarters (Yoshiwara)

Society

• mibunsei, four classes of society, rise of merchant class, decline of samurai (warrior class in a peaceful time)

Further Reading

• Berry, Mary Elizabeth. "Public Peace and Private Attachment: The Goals and Conduct of Power in Early Modern Japan," Journal of Japanese Studies, 12:2 (Summer 1986). pp237-71.
• Ravina, Mark. Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
• Toby, Ronald. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.