Changes

==History==

==History==

===Beginnings===

===Beginnings===

The period 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 Castle]], thus finally eliminating the last serious opposition. The population of the archipelago at that time is estimated to have been around 16 million, having grown by ten million since the end of the [[Heian period]] ([[1185]]).<ref>[[Albert M. Craig]], ''The Heritage of Japanese Civilization'', Second Edition, Prentice Hall (2011), 42.</ref>

The period 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 Castle]], thus finally eliminating the last serious opposition. The population of the archipelago at that time is estimated to have been around 16 million, having grown by ten million since the end of the [[Heian period]] ([[1185]]).<ref>[[Albert M. Craig]], ''The Heritage of Japanese Civilization'', Second Edition, Prentice Hall (2011), 42.</ref> <!--Elements on nation-building and the shogunate's establishment-->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.

<!--Elements on nation-building and the shogunate's establishment-->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.  

Under Tokugawa rule, Emperors and their courtiers were instructed to devote themselves to ritual, and to maintaining the ancient customs of their ancestors, including literary practices, appreciating nature, and managing estates. Emperors retained a powerful, significant, symbolic role, as the source of all political legitimacy, and the ''[[kokugaku]]'' (National Studies) movement of the 18th-19th centuries revived, or at least renewed emphasis on, notions of the divine origins of the Imperial family. But they would continue to exercise little true political influence until after the fall of the shogunate. Indeed, for much of the Edo period, Emperors barely ever even left the [[Kyoto Imperial Palace|Imperial Palace]].<ref>[[Anne Walthall]], "Introduction: Tracking People in the Past," Walthall (ed.), ''The Human Tradition in Modern Japan'', Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), 1, 3.</ref>

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 bugyo|Machi bugyô]]'' in the other cities. [[Nara]], [[Sunpu]], [[Nikko|Nikkô]] were also among the cities administered in this way<ref>Sansom, George. ''A History of Japan 1615-1867''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963</ref>, with the port of [[Niigata]] joining them in [[1843]].<ref>Hellyer, 139.</ref> The ''han'' were then divided among members of the Tokugawa family, Tokugawa retainers, and other clan heads, who thus became ''[[daimyo|daimyô]]''. This patchwork of shogunal, domainal, ''hatamoto'', Imperial, and religious lands covered the entire archipelago. In each locale, peasants and commoners paid taxes only to the one authority that controlled that territory, whether it be a ''daimyô'' house, the shogunate, or a religious institution. The shogunate only collected taxes from its own territory, the ''tenryô'', and did not gain any tax revenues directly from the ''daimyô'' or their domains; rather, what the shogunate got from the ''daimyô'' domains was service, in the form of corvée labor, funds and materials for construction projects, and formal attendance in the form of ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]''.

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 bugyo|Machi bugyô]]'' in the other cities. [[Nara]], [[Sunpu]], [[Nikko|Nikkô]] were also among the cities administered in this way<ref>Sansom, George. ''A History of Japan 1615-1867''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963</ref>, with the port of [[Niigata]] joining them in [[1843]].<ref>Hellyer, 139.</ref> The ''han'' were then divided among members of the Tokugawa family, Tokugawa retainers, and other clan heads, who thus became ''[[daimyo|daimyô]]''. This patchwork of shogunal, domainal, ''hatamoto'', Imperial, and religious lands covered the entire archipelago. In each locale, peasants and commoners paid taxes only to the one authority that controlled that territory, whether it be a ''daimyô'' house, the shogunate, or a religious institution. The shogunate only collected taxes from its own territory, the ''tenryô'', and did not gain any tax revenues directly from the ''daimyô'' or their domains; rather, what the shogunate got from the ''daimyô'' domains was service, in the form of corvée labor, funds and materials for construction projects, and formal attendance in the form of ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]''.