Keichō
Keichō was a Japanese era name after Bunroku and before Genna. This period spanned from October 1596 to July 1615; the reigning emperors were Go-Yōzei-tennō and Go-Mizunoo-tennō. 1596 Keichō gannen: The era name was changed to Keichō to mark the passing of various natural disasters. The preceding era ended and a new one commenced on October 27 of the 5th Bunroku. 1596: Keichō Invasion. September 18, 1598: Toyotomi Hideyoshi died in his Fushimi Castle at the age of 63. October 21, 1600: Battle of Sekigahara; the Tokugawa clan and its allies decisively vanquish all opposition. January 15, 1602: A fire at the Hōkō-ji temple complex in Kyoto was caused by careless workmen. 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu became shōgun, which becomes the beginning of what will become the Edo bakufu. Toyotomi Hideyori was elevated to Naidaijin in Miyako Daijō-kan. 1604-1606: Tokugawa Ieyasu undertook the rebuilding of Asama Shrine at the base of Mount Fuji in Suruga Province in fulfillment of a vow and in gratitude for the help of the kami during the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600.
1605: Tokugawa Hidetada was named successor shōgun after his father "retires" from the position of shōgun. 1605: The first official map of Japan was ordered in this year and completed in 1639 at a scale of 1:280,000. January 23, 1605: A new volcanic island, Hachijōko-jima, arose from the sea at the side of Hachijō Island in the Izu Islands which stretch south and east from the Izu Peninsula. 1606: Construction began on Edo Castle. 1607: Construction began on Sunpu Castle in Suruga. 1609: Invasion of Ryukyu by Shimazu daimyō of Satsuma. August 24, 1609: Trading pass issued to Dutch East Indies Company in the name of Ieyasu Tokugawa. November 15, 1610: Toyotomi Hideyori sponsors work, begun to rebuild the Hōkō-ji in line with the plans which his father had supported. At this time, Hideyori decides to order a great bell cast in bronze. May 20, 1610: Hideyori came to Kyoto to visit the former-shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Emperor Go-Yōzei abdicates. 1611: Emperor Go-Mizunoo formally accedes to the throne. 1613: In the years 1613 through 1620, Hasekura Tsunenaga headed a diplomatic mission to the Vatican in Rome, traveling through New Spain and visiting various ports-of-call in Europe.
This historic mission is called the Keichō Embassy. On the return trip and his companions re-traced their route across Mexico in 1619, sailing from Acapulco for Manilla, sailing north to Japan in 1620; this is conventionally considered the first Japanese ambassador in Europe. 1614: Siege of Osaka. The shōgun vanquished Hideyori and set fire to Osaka Castle, he returned for the winter to Edo. August 24, 1614: A new bronze bell for the Hōkō-ji was cast – see 19th century photo of Hōkō-ji belland see old photo of bell; this incident of the inscription was, of course, a mere pretext, but Ieyasu realized that he could not enjoy the power he had usurped as long as Hideyori lived, although the latter more than once dispatched his kerei Katagiri Kastumoto to Sunpu Castle with profuse apologies, Ieyasu refused to be placated."October 18, 1614: A strong earthquake shook Kyoto. 1615: Osaka Summer Battle begins. Copper and gold coins called Keichō-tsūhō were issued in the Keichō era helping to unify the currency system.
Keichō-chokuhan called Keichō shinkoku-bon, were Imperial publications, produced during the Keichō era at the command of Emperor Go-Yōzei and printed using moveable type, imported from the Joseon Kingdom on the Korean peninsula. Keichō no katsuji-ban was the general name for the first works printed with moveable typ during the Keichō era. Things Heard and Seen During the Keichō Era called the Kembun-shū was a book, a collection of tales and anecdotes compiled by Miura Jōshin. de Winter, Michiel.. "VOC in Japan: Betrekkingen tussen Hollanders en Japanners in de Edo-periode, tussen 1602–1795". Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth.. Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5.
Edo
Edo romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. It was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868. During this period, it grew to become one of the largest cities in the world and home to an urban culture centered on the notion of a "floating world". From the establishment of the Tokugawa bakufu headquarters at Edo, the town became the de facto capital and center of political power, although Kyoto remained the formal capital of the country. Edo grew from what had been a small, little-known fishing village in 1457 into the largest metropolis in the world with an estimated population of 1,000,000 by 1721. Edo was devastated by fires, with the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 being the most disastrous. An estimated 100,000 people died in the fire. During the Edo period, there were about 100 fires begun by accident and quickly escalating and spreading through neighborhoods of wooden machiya which were heated with charcoal fires. Between 1600 and 1945, Edo/Tokyo was leveled every 25 -- 50 years or so by fire, war.
In 1868, when the shogunate came to an end, the city was renamed Tokyo. The emperor moved his residence to Tokyo, making the city the formal capital of Japan: Keiō 4: On the 17th day of the 7th month, Edo was renamed Tokyo. Keiō 4: On the 27th day of the 8th month, Emperor Meiji was crowned in the Shishin-den in Kyoto. Keiō 4: On the eighth day of the ninth month, the nengō was formally changed from Keiō to Meiji and a general amnesty was granted. Meiji 2: On the 23rd day of the 10th month, the emperor went to Tokyo and Edo castle became an imperial palace. Ishimaru Sadatsuga was the magistrate of Edo in 1661. During the Edo period, Roju were senior officials. Machi-bugyō were in charge of protecting the citizens and merchants of Edo, Kanjō-bugyō were responsible for the financial matters of the Shogunate; the city was laid out as a castle town around Edo Castle. The area surrounding the castle known as Yamanote consisted of daimyō mansions, whose families lived in Edo as part of the sankin kōtai system.
It was this extensive samurai class which defined the character of Edo in contrast to the two major cities of Kyoto and Osaka neither of which were ruled by a daimyō or had a significant samurai population. Kyoto's character was defined by the Imperial Court, the court nobles, its Buddhist temples and its history. Areas further from the center were the domain of the chōnin; the area known as Shitamachi, northeast of the castle, was a center of urban culture. The ancient Buddhist temple of Sensō-ji still stands in Asakusa, marking the center of an area of traditional Shitamachi culture; some shops in the streets near the temple have existed continuously in the same location since the Edo period. The Sumida River called the Great River, ran along the eastern edge of the city; the shogunate's official rice-storage warehouses, other official buildings and some of the city's best-known restaurants were located here. The "Japan Bridge" marked the center of the city's commercial center, an area known as Kuramae.
Fishermen and other producers and retailers operated here. Shippers managed ships known as tarubune to and from Osaka and other cities, bringing goods into the city or transferring them from sea routes to river barges or land routes such as the Tōkaidō; this area remains the center of Tokyo's financial and business district. The northeastern corner of the city was considered a dangerous direction in traditional onmyōdō, is protected from evil by a number of temples including Sensō-ji and Kan'ei-ji. Beyond this were the districts of the eta or outcasts, who performed "unclean" work and were separated from the main parts of the city. A path and a canal, a short distance north of the eta districts, extended west from the riverbank leading along the northern edge of the city to the Yoshiwara pleasure districts. Located near Ningyocho, the districts were rebuilt in this more-remote location after the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657, as the city expanded. See Tokyo for photographs of the modern city.
Edo period Edo society Fires in Edo 1703 Genroku earthquake Edokko History of Tokyo Iki Asakusa Forbes, Andrew. 100 Famous Views of Edo. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B00HR3RHUY Gordon, Andrew.. A Modern History of Japan from Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511060-9/ISBN 978-0-19-511060-9. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard.. Kyoto: the Old Capital, 794–1869. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. Sansom, George.. A History of Japan: 1615–1867. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0527-5/ISBN 978-0-8047-0527-1. Akira Naito, Kazuo Hozumi. Edo, the City that Became Tokyo: An Illustrated History. Kodansha International, Tokyo. ISBN 4-7700-2757-5 Alternate spelling from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article. A Trip to Old Edo Fukagawa Edo Museum Map of Bushū Toshima District, Edo from 1682
Arai Hakuseki
Arai Hakuseki was a Confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, administrator and politician in Japan during the middle of the Edo period, who advised the shōgun Tokugawa Ienobu. His personal name was Kimiyoshi. Hakuseki was his pen name, his father was a Kururi han samurai Arai Masazumi. Hakuseki was born in Edo and from a early age displayed signs of genius. According to one story, at the age of three Hakuseki managed to copy a Confucian book written in Kanji, character by character; because he was born on the same year as the Great Fire of Meireki and because he was hot tempered and his brow would crease looking like 火 or "fire", he was affectionately called Hi no Ko or child of fire. He was a retainer of Hotta Masatoshi, but after Masatoshi was assassinated by Inaba Masayasu, the Hotta clan was forced to move from Sakura to Yamagata to Fukushima and the domain's income declined. Hakuseki studied under Confucianist Kinoshita Jun ` an, he was offered a post by the largest han, that of Kaga Domain, but he offered the position to a fellow samurai.
In 1693, Hakuseki was called up to serve by the side of Manabe Akifusa as a "brain" for the Tokugawa shogunate and shogun Tokugawa Ienobu. He went on to displace the official Hayashi advisers to become the leading confucianist for Ienobu and Tokugawa Ietsugu. While some of Hakuseki's policies were still carried out after Ienobu's death, after the 6th shogun, Tokugawa Ietsugu and Tokugawa Yoshimune's rule began, Hakuseki left his post to begin his career as a prolific writer of Japanese history and Occidental studies, he was buried in Asakusa, Hoonji temple but was moved to Nakano, Kotokuji temple. Under the top Rōjū, Abe Seikyo, with strong support from Ienobu, he launched Shōtoku no chi, a series of economic policies designed to improve the shogunate's standing. By minting new and better quality currency, inflation was controlled. Calculating from trade records, Hakuseki deduced that 25% of gold and 75% of silver in Japan had been spent on trades with foreign countries. Concerned that Japan's national resources were at risk, he implemented a new trade policy, the Kaihaku Goshi Shinrei, to control payments to Chinese and Dutch merchants by demanding that instead of precious metals, products like silk and dried seafoods should be used for trading.
However, the beneficial effects of this policy were limited as the trade of precious metals from Tsushima and Satsuma was uncontrolled by the bakufu. He simplified rituals for welcoming the Joseon dynasty's ambassadors, in the face of opposition from the Tsushima Confucianist Amenomori Hōshu. Hakuseki applied the mandate of heaven to the shōgun. Since there had been no revolution to change Japan's basic institutions, he argued that the shogun was subordinate to the emperor and that in showing good governance, moral fortitude and respect to the emperor a shogun proved that he held divine right, he traced Tokugawa family roots back to the Minamoto clan and thus to a line of imperial descent in order to show that Ieyasu's political supremacy had been fitting. To strengthen the shogun's power and maintain national prestige he proposed changing the title to koku-ō – nation-king. Hakuseki's published writings encompass 237 works in 390 publications in 6 languages and 3,163 library holdings. 1709 – 本朝軍器考 1709 – Sairan Igen.
1711 – Hōka shiryaku known as Honchō hōka tsūyō jiryaku._________.. Fookoua Siriak: traité sur l'origins des richesses au japon. Paris..' 1712 – Tokushi Yoron. 1715 – Seiyō Kibun. A work describing the Occident, based on Hakuseki's conversations with Giovanni Battista Sidotti 1729 – 蝦夷志 1760 – 同文通考 1805 – 東雅 1894 – Hankanfu. A list of daimyo's family tree 1936 – 新井白石集 1964 – 戴恩記 1977 – 新井白石全集 1977 – 新編藩翰譜 1981 – 新令句解 Koshitsu. A work that detailed ancient history of Japan Oritaku Shiba-no-ki. A diary and memoir Arai Hakuseki Trans. Joyce Ackroyd. Told Round a Brushwood Fire: The Autobiography of Arai Hakuseki. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04671-9. Arai Hakuseki Trans. Joyce Ackroyd. Lessons from History: The Tokushi Yoron. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 0-7022-1485-X. Ackroyd, Joyce. "Correspondence". Monumenta Nipponica. 40: 97–106. Brownlee, John S. Japanese historians and the national myths, 1600–1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jimmu. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 0-7748-0644-3 Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
ISBN 4-13-027031-1 Brownlee, John S.. Political Thought in Japanese Historical Writing: From Kojiki to Tokushi Yoron. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 0-88920-997-9 Daehwan, Noh. "The Eclectic Development of Neo-Confucianism and Statecraft from the 18th to the 19th Century,". Korea Journal. Archived from the original on June 14, 2011. Henderson, Dan Fenno. "Chinese legal studies in early 18th century Japan". Journal of Asian Studies; the Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1. 30: 21–56. Doi:10.2307/2942722. JSTOR 2942722. Kazui, Tashiro. "Foreign Relations during the Edo Period: Sakoku Reexamined". Journal of Japanese Studies. Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2. 8: 283–306. Doi:10.2307/132341. JSTOR 132341. Screech, Timon.. Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822. London: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-7007-1
Tokugawa Hidetada
Tokugawa Hidetada was the second shōgun of the Tokugawa dynasty, who ruled from 1605 until his abdication in 1623. He was the third son of the first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate. Tokugawa Hidetada was born to Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Lady Saigō on May 2, 1579; this was shortly before Lady Tsukiyama, Ieyasu's official wife, their son Tokugawa Nobuyasu were executed on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Oda Nobunaga, Nobuyasu's father-in-law and Ieyasu's ally. By killing his wife and son, Ieyasu declared his loyalty to Nobunaga. In 1589, Hidetada's mother fell ill, her health deteriorated, she died at Sunpu Castle. Hidetada with his brother, Matsudaira Tadayoshi, was raised by Achaa no Tsubone, one of Ieyasu's concubines, his childhood name was Chomaru become Takechiyo. The traditional power base of the Tokugawa clan was Mikawa. In 1590, the new ruler of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi enlisted Tokugawa Ieyasu and others in attacking the domain of the Hōjō in what became known as the Siege of Odawara.
Hideyoshi enlisted Ieyasu for this campaign by promising to exchange the five provinces under Ieyasu's control for the eight Kantō provinces, including the city of Edo. In order to keep Ieyasu from defecting to the Hōjō side, Hideyoshi took the eleven-year-old Hidetada as a hostage. In 1592 Hideyoshi presided over Hidetada's coming of age ceremony, he was named the heir of the Tokugawa family, being the eldest surviving son of Ieyasu, his favorite. In 1593, Hidetada returned to his father's side. In 1590 Hidetada married O-Hime, daughter of Oda Nobukatsu and adopted daughter of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. O-Hime died in 1591, was given the posthumous Buddhist name Shunshoin. In 1595, Hidetada married Oeyo, daughter of Azai Nagamasa and adopted daughter of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, their wedding was held in Fushimi Castle. In 1595, Hidetada married Oeyo of the Oda clan and they had two sons, Tokugawa Iemitsu and Tokugawa Tadanaga, they had two daughters, one of whom, married twice. The other daughter, Kazuko hime, married Emperor Go-Mizunoo.
Knowing his death would come before his son Toyotomi Hideyori came of age, Hideyoshi named five regents—one of whom was Hidetada's father, Ieyasu—to rule in his son's place. Hideyoshi hoped that the bitter rivalry among the regents would prevent any one of them from seizing power, but after Hideyoshi died in 1598 and Hideyori became nominal ruler, the regents forgot all vows of eternal loyalty and were soon vying for control of the nation. Tokugawa Ieyasu was one of the strongest of the five regents, began to rally around himself an Eastern faction. A Western faction rallied around Ishida Mitsunari; the two factions clashed at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu won decisively. Hidetada had led 16,000 of his father's men in a campaign to contain the Western-aligned Uesugi clan in Shinano. Ieyasu ordered Hidetada to march to Sekigahara in anticipation of the decisive battle against the Western faction, but the Sanada Clan managed to tie down Hidetada's force, so he arrived too late to assist in his father's narrow but decisive victory.
Hidetada and Ieyasu's relationship never recovered. On 3 December 1601, Hidetada's first son, Chōmaru, was born to a young maiden from Kyoto named Onatsu. In September 1602, Chōmaru died. In 1603 Emperor Go-Yōzei granted Ieyasu the title of shōgun, thus Hidetada became the heir to the shogunate. To avoid his predecessor's fate, Ieyasu established a dynastic pattern soon after becoming shogun by abdicating in favor of Hidetada in 1605. Ieyasu retained significant power until his death in 1616. Much to the dismay of Ieyasu, in 1612, Hidetada engineered a marriage between Sen, Ieyasu's favorite granddaughter, Toyotomi Hideyori, living as a commoner in Osaka Castle with his mother; when this failed to quell Hideyori's intrigues, Ōgosho Ieyasu and Shogun Hidetada brought an army to Osaka. Father and son once again disagreed on how to conduct this campaign against the recalcitrant Toyotomi forces in Osaka. In the ensuing siege Hideyori and his mother were forced to commit suicide. Hideyori's infant son, that he had with a concubine, was not spared.
Only Sen was spared. After Ieyasu's death in 1616, Hidetada took control of the bakufu, he strengthened the Tokugawa hold on power by improving relations with the Imperial court. To this end he married his daughter Kazuko to Emperor Go-Mizunoo; the product of that marriage, a girl succeeded to the throne of Japan to become Empress Meishō. The city of Edo was heavily developed under his reign. In Genna 9 Hidetada resigned the government to heir, Tokugawa Iemitsu. Like his father before him, Hidetada became Ōgosho or retired shōgun, retained effective power, he enacted draconian anti-Christian measures, which Ieyasu had only considered: he banned Christian books, forced Christian daimyōs to commit suicide, ordered all other Christians to apostatize, executed the fifty-five Christians who refused to renounce Christianity or to go into hiding, in Nagasaki in 1628. Ōgosho Hidetada died in Kan'ei 9, on the 24th day of the 1st month. His Buddhist posthumous name is Daitoku-in (台徳院
Ryukyu Kingdom
The Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent kingdom that ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th to the 19th century. The kings of Ryukyu unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, the Sakishima Islands near Taiwan. Despite its small size, the kingdom played a central role in the maritime trade networks of medieval East and Southeast Asia the Malacca Sultanate. In the 14th century, small domains scattered on Okinawa Island were unified into three principalities: Hokuzan, Chūzan, Nanzan; this was known as the Three Kingdoms, or Sanzan period. Hokuzan, which constituted much of the northern half of the island, was the largest in terms of land area and military strength but was economically the weakest of the three. Nanzan constituted the southern portion of the island. Chūzan was economically the strongest, its political capital at Shuri, Nanzan was adjacent to the major port of Naha, Kume-mura, the center of traditional Chinese education.
These sites and Chūzan as a whole would continue to form the center of the Ryukyu Kingdom until its abolition. Many Chinese people moved to Ryukyu to serve the government or to engage in business during this period. At the request of the Ryukyuan King, the Ming Chinese sent thirty-six Chinese families from Fujian to manage oceanic dealings in the kingdom in 1392, during the Hongwu emperor's reign. Many Ryukyuan officials were descended from these Chinese immigrants, being born in China or having Chinese grandfathers, they assisted the Ryukyuans in advancing diplomatic relations. On 30 January 1406, the Yongle Emperor expressed horror when the Ryukyuans castrated some of their own children to become eunuchs to serve in the Ming imperial palace. Emperor Yongle said that the boys who were castrated were innocent and did not deserve castration, he returned them to Ryukyu, instructed the kingdom not to send eunuchs again. According to statements by Qing imperial official Li Hongzhang in a meeting with Ulysses S. Grant, China had a special relationship with the island and the Ryukyu had paid tribute to China for hundreds of years, the Chinese reserved certain trade rights for them in an amicable and beneficial relationship.
These three principalities battled, Chūzan emerged victorious. The Chūzan leaders were recognized by Ming dynasty China as the rightful kings over those of Nanzan and Hokuzan, thus lending great legitimacy to their claims; the ruler of Chūzan passed his throne to King Hashi. Hashi received the surname "Shō" 尚 from the Ming emperor in 1421, becoming known as Shō Hashi 尚巴志. Shō Hashi adopted the Chinese hierarchical court system, built Shuri Castle and the town as his capital, constructed Naha harbor; when in 1469 King Shō Toku, a grandson of Shō Hashi, died without a male heir, a palatine servant declared he was Toku's adopted son and gained Chinese investiture. This pretender, Shō En, began the Second Shō Dynasty. Ryukyu's golden age occurred during the reign of Shō Shin, the second king of that dynasty, who reigned from 1478 to 1526; the kingdom extended its authority over the southernmost islands in the Ryukyu archipelago by the end of the 15th century, by 1571 the Amami Ōshima Islands, to the north near Kyūshū, were incorporated into the kingdom as well.
While the kingdom's political system was adopted and the authority of Shuri recognized, in the Amami Ōshima Islands, the kingdom's authority over the Sakishima Islands to the south remained for centuries at the level of a tributary-suzerain relationship. For nearly two hundred years, the Ryukyu Kingdom would thrive as a key player in maritime trade with Southeast and East Asia. Central to the kingdom's maritime activities was the continuation of the tributary relationship with Ming dynasty China, begun by Chūzan in 1372, enjoyed by the three Okinawan kingdoms which followed it. China provided ships for Ryukyu's maritime trade activities, allowed a limited number of Ryukyuans to study at the Imperial Academy in Beijing, formally recognized the authority of the King of Chūzan, allowing the kingdom to trade formally at Ming ports. Ryukyuan ships provided by China, traded at ports throughout the region, which included, among others, China, Đại Việt, Java, Luzon, Pattani, Palembang and Sumatra.
Japanese products—silver, fans, folding screens—and Chinese products—medicinal herbs, minted coins, glazed ceramics, textiles—were traded within the kingdom for Southeast Asian sappanwood, rhino horn, sugar, ambergris, Indian ivory, Arabian frankincense. Altogether, 150 voyages between the kingdom and Southeast Asia on Ryukyuan ships were recorded in the Rekidai Hōan, an official record of diplomatic documents compiled by the kingdom, as having taken place between 1424 and the 1630s, with 61 of them bound for Siam, 10 for Malacca, 10 for Pattani, 8 for Java, among others; the Chinese policy of haijin, limiting trade with China to tributary states and those with formal authorization, along with the accompanying preferential treatment of the Ming Court towards Ryukyu, allowed the kingdom to flourish and prosper for 150 years. In the late 16th century, the kingdom's commercial prosperity fell into decline; the rise of the wokou ("Japanese
Daimyō
The daimyō were powerful Japanese feudal lords who, until their decline in the early Meiji period, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. In the term, dai means "large", myō stands for myōden, meaning private land. Subordinate to the shōgun, nominally to the Emperor and the kuge, daimyō were powerful feudal rulers from the 10th century to the middle 19th century in Japan. From the Shugo of the Muromachi period through the Sengoku to the daimyō of the Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history; the backgrounds of daimyō varied considerably. The term daimyō sometimes refers to the leading figures of such clans called "Lord", it was though not from these warlords that a shōgun arose or a regent was chosen. Daimyō hired samurai to guard their land and they paid the samurai in land or food as few could afford to pay samurai in money; the daimyō era ended soon after the Meiji Restoration with the adoption of the prefecture system in 1871. The shugo daimyō were the first group of men to hold the title daimyō.
They arose from among the shugo during the Muromachi period. The shugo-daimyō held not only military and police powers, but economic power within a province, they accumulated these powers throughout the first decades of the Muromachi period. Major shugo-daimyō came from the Shiba and Hosokawa clans, as well as the tozama clans of Yamana, Ōuchi, Akamatsu; the greatest ruled multiple provinces. The Ashikaga shogunate required the shugo-daimyō to reside in Kyoto, so they appointed relatives or retainers, called shugodai, to represent them in their home provinces; some of these in turn came to reside in Kyoto, appointing deputies in the provinces. The Ōnin War was a major uprising. During this and other wars of the time, kuni ikki, or provincial uprisings, took place as locally powerful warriors sought independence from the shugo-daimyō; the deputies of the shugo-daimyō, living in the provinces, seized the opportunity to strengthen their position. At the end of the fifteenth century, those shugo-daimyō who succeeded remained in power.
Those who had failed to exert control over their deputies fell from power and were replaced by a new class, the sengoku-daimyō, who arose from the ranks of the shugodai and ji-samurai. Among the sengoku daimyō were many, shugo-daimyō, such as the Satake, Takeda, Rokkaku, Ōuchi, Shimazu. New to the ranks of the daimyō were the Asakura, Nagao, Miyoshi, Chōsokabe, Jimbō, Hatano and Matsunaga; these came from the ranks of their deputies. Additional sengoku-daimyō such as the Mōri, Ryūzōji arose from the ji-samurai; the lower officials of the shogunate and rōnin, provincial officials, kuge gave rise to sengoku-daimyō. The Battle of Sekigahara in the year 1600 marked the beginning of the Edo period. Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu reorganized 200 daimyō and their territories into han, which were assessed by rice production; those heading han assessed at 10,000 koku or more were considered daimyō. Ieyasu categorized the daimyō according to their relation to the ruling Tokugawa family: the shinpan were related to the Tokugawa.
The shinpan were collaterals of Ieyasu, such as the Matsudaira, or descendants of Ieyasu other than in the main line of succession. Several shinpan, including the Tokugawa of Owari and Mito, as well as the Matsudaira of Fukui and Aizu, held large han. A few fudai daimyō, such as the Ii of Hikone, held large han; the shogunate placed many fudai at strategic locations to guard the trade routes and the approaches to Edo. Many fudai daimyō took positions in the Edo shogunate, some rising to the position of rōjū; the fact that fudai daimyō could hold government positions while tozama in general, could not was a main difference between the two. Tozama daimyō held large fiefs far away from the capital, with e.g. the Kaga han of Ishikawa Prefecture, headed by the Maeda clan, assessed at 1,000,000 koku. Other famous tozama clans included the Mori of Chōshū, the Shimazu of Satsuma, the Date of Sendai, the Uesugi of Yonezawa, the Hachisuka of Awa; the Tokugawa regarded them as rebellious, but for most of the Edo period, marriages between the Tokugawa and the tozama, as well as control policies such as sankin-kōtai, resulted in peaceful relations.
Daimyō were required to maintain residences in Edo as well as their fiefs, to move periodically between Edo and their fiefs spending alternate years in each place, in a practice called sankin-kōtai. In 1869, the year after the Meiji Restoration, the daimyō, together with the kuge, formed a new aristocracy, the kazoku. In 1871, the han were abolished and prefectures were established, thus ending the daimyō era in Japan. In the wake of this change, many daimyō remained in control of their lands, being appointed as prefectural governors. Despite this, members of former daimyō families remained prominent in government and society, in some cases continue to re
Satsuma Domain
Satsuma Domain Kagoshima Domain, was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It is associated with the provinces of Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture and Miyazaki Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. In the han system, Satsuma was a political and economic abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields. In other words, the domain was defined in terms of kokudaka, not land area; this was different from the feudalism of the West. The domain was ruled from Kagoshima Castle, the core of what became the city of Kagoshima, its kokudaka was assessed at the second highest kokudaka after that of Kaga Domain. The Shimazu family controlled Satsuma province for four centuries prior to the beginning of the Edo period. Despite being chastised by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his 1587 Kyūshū Campaign, forced back to Satsuma, they remained one of the most powerful clans in the archipelago. During the decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the Shimazu fought on the losing side.
Satsuma was one of the most powerful feudal domains in Tokugawa Japan. It was controlled throughout the Edo period by the tozama daimyō of the Shimazu clan. Since the mid-15th century, Satsuma fought with the Ryukyu Kingdom for control of the Northern Ryukyu Islands, which lie southwest of Japan. In 1609, Shimazu Iehisa requested permission from the shogunate to invade Ryukyu. After a three-month war which met stiff resistance, Satsuma captured the Ryukyuan capital of Shuri and King Shō Nei. In the ensuing peace treaty, Satsuma annexed the Amami and Tokara Islands, demanded tribute, forced the King and his descendants to pledge loyalty to Satsuma's daimyō. For the remainder of the Edo period, Satsuma influenced their politics and dominated their trading policies to take advantage of Ryukyu's tributary status with China; as strict maritime prohibitions were imposed upon much of Japan beginning in the 1630s, Satsuma's ability to enjoy a trade in Chinese goods, information, via Ryukyu, provided it a distinct and important, if not unique, role in the overall economy and politics of the Tokugawa state.
The degree of economic benefits enjoyed by Satsuma, the degree of their influence in Ryukyu, are subjects debated by scholars, but the political prestige and influence gained through this relationship is not questioned. The Shimazu continually made efforts to emphasize their unique position as the only feudal domain to claim an entire foreign kingdom as its vassal, engineered repeated increases to their own official Court rank, in the name of maintaining their power and prestige in the eyes of Ryukyu. In 1871, Emperor Meiji abolished the Han system, the following year informed King Shō Tai that he was designated "Domain Head of Ryukyu Domain", transferring Satsuma's authority over the country to Tokyo. Though not the wealthiest han in terms of kokudaka, Satsuma remained among the wealthiest and most powerful domains throughout the Edo period; this derived not only from their connection to Ryukyu, but from the size and productive wealth of Satsuma province itself, from their extreme distance from Edo, thus from the shōgun's armies.
The Shimazu exercised their influence to exact from the shogunate a number of special exceptions. Satsuma was granted an exception to the shogunate's limit of one castle per domain, a policy, meant to restrict the military strength of the domains, they received special exceptions from the shogunate in regard to the policy of sankin-kōtai, another policy meant to restrict the wealth and power of the daimyō. Under this policy, every feudal lord was mandated to travel to Edo at least once a year, to spend some portion of the year there, away from his domain and his power base; the Shimazu were granted permission to make this journey only once every two years. These exceptions thus allowed Satsuma to gain more power and wealth relative to the majority of other domains. Though arguably opposed to the shogunate, Satsuma was one of the strictest domains in enforcing particular policies. Christian missionaries were seen as a serious threat to the power of the daimyō, the peace and order of the domain.
The ban on smuggling unsurprisingly, was not so enforced, as the domain gained from trade performed along its shores, some ways away from Nagasaki, where the shogunate monopolized commerce. In the 1830s, Satsuma used its illegal Okinawa trade to rebuild its finances under Zusho Hirosato; the Satsuma daimyō of the 1850s, Shimazu Nariakira, was interested in Western thought and technology, sought to open the country. At the time, contacts with Westerners increased particularly for Satsuma, as Western ships landed in the Ryukyus and sought not only trade, but formal diplomatic relations. To increase his influence in the shogunate, Nariakira engineered a marriage between Shōgun Tokugawa Iesada and his adopted daughter, Atsu-hime. In 1854, the first year of Iesada's reign, Commodore Perry landed in Japan and forced an end to the isolation policy of the shogunate. However, the treaties signed between Japan and the western powers the Harris Treaty of 1858, put Japan at a serious disadvantage. In the same year, both Iesada and Nariakira died.
Nariakira named Shimazu Tadayoshi, as his successor. As Tadayoshi was still a child, his father, Shimazu Hisamitsu
