Chapter 13: The Administration Under the Tokugawa

In 1958 Hideyoshi arrange for 5 of the greatest Daimyo to govern the country as a Council
of regents on behalf of his 5 yr. old son, Hideyori.
Mixed governments by regents and commissioners managed to organize the recall of
Japanese troops from Korea.
Most powerful regent was Tokugawa Ieyasu. He has a foe in one of the commissioners,
Ishida Mitsunari.
Ishida Mitsunari incited other daimyo against Tokugawa. On 21 October 1600 an army
eighty thousand strong, led by him but provided by a coalition of "western" daimyo,
attacked the same number of "eastern" troops under the command of Ieyasu
This encounter took place in Sekigahara and Ishidas forces were defeated.
15 years later Ieyasu destroyed the headquarters of the Toyotomi party in Osaka
Castle. Hideyori died in the flames of thhe final attack.
The success of the campaigns in Sekigahara and Osaka gave Ieyasu and his heirs military
control of the entire country.

The new Bakufu

After Sekigahara, Ieyasu was able to claim appropriate Minamoto lineage to take the title
of sei-i-tai-shogun for himself and his descendants. The court issued the formal letter of his
appointment towards the end of 1603
Ieyasu was only a shogun for two years since 1605 and he arranged for the title to be
passed on to his son, Hidetada.
Hidetada in turn, transferred the office of Shogun to his son, Iemitsu, in his own lifetime.
After his fathers death in 1632, Iemitsu ruled in his own right until he died in 1651,
leaving the 10 yr. old Ietsuna as his successor.
The device of having the court appoint their successor while they themselves were still
hale and hearty allowed the first two shoguns to make sure that there would be continuity
of policy, and generally strengthened their administrative system during the critical years
of its foundation.
Ieyasu, Hidetada, and Iemitsu performed well in their basic task of consolidation that in
1651 the regime was able to overcome the immediate problem of having a child shogun
and they remained effective even when Ietsuna grew up too sick to govern.
leyasu, Hidetada, and Iemitsu accepted the existence of other centers of power and
privilege besides the Tokugawa house, they managed to build a governmental machine
which would control all of these rival elites indefinitely.
Like Hideyoshi, the Tokugawa leaders contented themselves with ruling as "first
subjects" and deferred to the court by acknowledging the titular sovereignty of the
emperor. Also, like Hideyoshi, they tolerated, within fairly broad limits, the
independence of both daimyo and religious sects. Unlike Hideyoshi, however, they
used their sweeping authority as shoguns to regulate the activities and
relationships of court, daimyo, and clerics so as to keep these groups in a state of
perpetual subordination.
Successive Tokugawa shoguns were all formally nominated to their position by the
emperor. They ruled Japan not because of their sovereign right but because the emperor
called on them to do so.
The personal qualities of the first three Tokugawa rulers did much to confirm their familys
power.
o Hidetada appears prim and colorless but there is no doubt of his administrative
ability.

Iemitsu behaved like a strong ruler. It was in his time that the bakufus control
system was perfected.
o Ieyasus career is the most controversial. He was a youth political hostage to the
Imagawa family. He spent his time fighting and working his way back. Self-control
and patience stamped his character from childhood.
The Tokugawa daimyo labored quietly for the good of his household, retainers, as well as
children, and refused to compete for purely personal glory.
o

Regulation of Elites: Buddhist Sects and the Imperial Court

Detailed regulations for important groups or classes underpinned the Tokugawa

administrative system.
Regulations for Buddhist monasteries (jiin hatto)-left doctrine and internal sect
organization largely in the hands of clergy, but made aggressive propaganda an offense
and put the management and taxation of temple states under bakufu supervision.
Temple magistrates (jisha bugyo)- the ones enforcing rules for religious houses
Laws for noble familes (kuge sho hatto) imposed stringent restrictions on the personal
freedom of movement of the emperor and his courtiers. They were confined to Kyoto.
One regulation told the nobles they were strictly forbidden to go sauntering through
streets or lanes in places they have no business to be.
Monarch was left with nothing but the style of sovereignty, the right to appoint the
Shogun, and his traditional religious functions as chief mediator.
Although Kyoto court lived as sort of a prisoner of the Edo Bakufu, the imperial court and
other court families regularly receive an adequate income from shogunal estates.

Central Government and Local Autonomy: The Bakuhan System

The law for the military houses (buke shohatto), promulgated in 1615 on the morrow of
leyasu's culminating victory at Osaka castle, ranks as the most important single
enactment of the regime. I
Provisions applied to all daimyo equally. The military lords were forbidden to: move troops
outside their own frontiers; form political alliances among themselves; maintain more than
one castle in their domain; marry without shogunal approval.
Later prohibitions made it illegal for daimyo to do such things as coin money, enter into
direct relations with the court of foreigners except with the express permission of the
bakufu, or build large ships except for trade.
The military house legislation succeeded in its primary object of protecting the Tokugawa
against daimyo attack and ushered in the long period of Tokugawa peace.
Obedience of the daimyo was exacted under the guise of vassal loyalty. They had to
tender written oaths of obedience to Ieyasu acknowledging him as their feudal overlord.
These pledges were renewed by each daimyo of a han, and by all the daimyo whenever a
new Shogun took office
Alternate Residence System (Sankin-kta)- policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during
most of the Edo period of Japanese history. The purpose was to strengthen central control
over the daimyo, or major feudal lords. A vassal had been expected to go every so often in
person to pay his respects to his overlord. This effectively shackled the power of the
daimyo, especially as they had to leave their wives and eldest sons behind in Edo when
they returned to their domains.
Shoguns maintained direct control over no more than about a quarter of the territory and
people of Japan.
o this area had 2 focal points, the Kanto plain and the Kinai districtheavenly domain

The remaining 3 quarters of the country was parceled out among the daimyo to rule
as their own domains (han).
All domains were technically self-governing units, subject only to the broad requirements
of Tokugawa hegemony and national policy.
There were restraints on the exercise by the han of both administrative and fiscal
independence.
o No han government could flout the general regulations of the bakufu on such
matters as religion, monetary policy, civil war, etc
o smaller han were instructed to follow shogunal practice in day to day administration
o even though a direct levy on han revenues was adopted only once or twice by the
bakufu as a last resort in times of grave financial crisis, individual han frequently
found themselves compelled to contribute to costly public works schemes
o shogun's prerogatives as feudal overlord allowed him to intervene at will in the
domestic affairs of a han
Daimyo were victims of bureaucratization; most of their authority they once had are now
passed to councils of hereditary clan members (karo).
The development of hereditary ruling councils owed much to the daimyos periodic
absences in Edo fulfilling the obligations of the alternate residence system.
For the later period, the baku-has system is a more accurate description. This
development was facilitated by a 17th century switch from force to moral persuasion as a
political means.
Great majority of daimyo had been divided into 2 classes:
o fudai: hereditary vassal lords. successive heads of families which were already
Tokugawa vassals before the fateful battle of Sekigahara.
o tozama: outside lords whose ancestors had been Ieyasus peers in 1600 and had
only sworn allegiance to him after his victory.
Fudai han were usually small, but they were startegicaly placed around Kanto plain, along
an axis to Kinai district, in Kinai itself, and on the borders of large tozoma han. They were
the ones who faithfully followed Tokugawa precedent.
fudai daimyo provided the bakufu with its councilors and senior officials.
Traditionally, the tozoma were objects of Tokugawa distrust. These lords could never hope
to occupy the positions in the Shogunal administration ope to their fudai collegues,
nevertheless, they still benefited from long-term changes.
By 1800, the Tokugawa administration at its topmost level had evolved into an elaborate
coalition of different interests.
structural pluralism was not confined to politics. Eventhough the bakuhan system has long
since been disposed of, the underlying principle of rule by a diversified establishment,
each element of which enjoys its own recognized power base, has survived down to
contemporary times.
o

Foreign Policy: Closure of the Country and Relations with neighboring states

Shoguns and their ministers determined Japans relations with the outside world from 1600
to 1850s
Japanese merchants could not lawfully participate in trade without having a licensed
trading vessel (go-shuinsen). These boats carried special passports, stamped with the
vermilion seal of the shogun, authorizing them to engage in foreign trade.
Ieyasu wished to build Japans maritime commerce so his countrymen would no longer be
dependent on foreign traders
the Bakufu used the license system to swell its revenues by collecting fees, allocating
permits, and stipulating that traders should give a percentage of a voyages earnings

Within Japan the political tide began to run strongly against the catholic converts and their
Jesuit mentors.
Ieyasu had issued an expulsion edict calling for the removal of all foreign priests and
announcing the prohibition of Christianity in Japan.
In 1618 a full scale persecution of Christians developed. The initiative for this came from
the Shogun, Hidetada and Iemitsu. One of the purposes of this terror was to dissuade
Jesuits and others from entering the country. Japanese Catholics on the other hand, the
persecutors definitely sought
In 1637, final convulsion of the Shimabara rebellion occurred in northern Kyushu. The
Tokugawa authorities had great difficulty in suppressing the rising and had to ask the help
of the Dutch ships. These rebels openly proclaimed their allegiance to Christianity.
By 1639 a series of measures were enacted which are commonly called the sakoku or
closed country policy. At the time and for long afterwards they were referred to as
Kaikin or maritime prohibitions.
Japan was never entirely closed, external contacts was severely reduced.
it was decreed that no Japanese could leave the country and no Catholic national could
enter the country and all foreign trade must be conducted at Nagasaki
The closed country policy remained in force for over 200 years. Despite this a bakufuauthorized trade still exists.
The major factors which moved the bakufu to close the country were:
o trade that meant an exchange of their precious metals for products they could do
without
o mistrust of a new proselytizing religion that had flourished in an area hundreds of
miles from Edo where Tokugawa had little military strength
o Final shock of the Shimabara rebellion
Long term effects of sakoku?
o Japan was not able to participate in the great scientific discoveries of 17 th century.
o On the other hand, Japan was able to make significant national developments in
political and social organization, and also in commerce and culture
o Above all, it did not suffer the same fate of other Asiatic countries of having a ruling
class so permeated with western influences that it eventually became hopelessly
alienated from the masses
Tokugawa foreign policy was one of the things that allowed the country to prepare for
modernization in its way.
Korea was the country that mattered most to Tokugawa period. Great bulk of the Korean
trade, which exceeded that with any other country, was managed by the daimyo of
Tsushima and his agents.

Bureaucratization and the Changing Role of the Samurai

Throughout the 260 years of effective Tokugawa government, the Edo bakufu was
organized depending on the efficiency on a division of labor bet. various branches of
government and its authority reached down to the mass of the people.
Such administrative organization and orderliness denote a considerable element of
rationality.
People who decided the policy were high-ranking bureaucrats and stood in the direct
tradition of bureaucratic rationality.
Tokugawa policies were Confucian in inspiration and Confucianism held that actions should
spring from reason rather impulse.
This is not to say that the governmental system had no irrational features.
o One obvious irrationality concerned the recruitment to the bureaucracy: only men of
warrior class could obtain official post

o this limited the field for recruitment to about 5% of the population

But despite this^^^ for its place and time, Tokugawa administration was a rational form of
government.
Bureaucratization was not confined to the administration, but affected Tokugawa society at
all levels, most importantly, it altered the role of the samurai class after 1600
o samurai class became bureaucratized. They stopped being illiterate warriors and
started to be educated bureaucrats who lived in Edo.
o there was no longer any real military rule for the samurai class. They served as
escorts or ceremonial guards, nothing more.