Tokugawa shogunate

“ New Japan seems committed to the opposite policy. What are the steps by which she has effected this apparent national reversal of attitude?
We should first note that the absolutism of the Tokugawa Shogunate served to arouse ever-growing opposition because of its stern repression of individual opinion. It not only forbade the Christian religion, but also all independent thought in religious philosophy and in politics. The particular form of Confucian moral philosophy which it held was forced on all public teachers of Confucianism. Dissent was not only heretical, but treasonable. ”

“ Some eighty years after the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate began the Genroku period. The Shogun at the time was the fourth of Iyeyasu’s line. No insurrection was feared at home and there was as little danger of the country’s isolation being disturbed by foreign invasion, for no foreigner was allowed to trade in Japan with the exception of the Dutch and Chinese, whose trade was confined to Nagasaki. The country, in short, enjoyed absolute peace and grew in wealth and prosperity. ”

“ The lords of this kind had formerly been the equals of the Tokugawa, when the latter was standing under the protection of Hideyoshi, and it was difficult for the new Shogunate, in a country where the Emperor has ever been the paramount sovereign, to make those lords formally swear the oath of fealty to itself. The nature of the sovereignty, [Pg 294] therefore, of the Tokugawa over the feudatories aforesaid was only that of primus inter pares. The daimyo who stood in this relation to the Shogunate were called tozama. ”

“ The vendetta of the retainers of Ako, which forms the subject of the play, took place early in 1703; and the play saw the light forty-five years later, in 1748. It was a production of the golden age of Tokugawaiii literature. During the little more than a century and a half that have since elapsed, remarkable changes have come over society. The peace which had lasted under the Tokugawa Shogunate for two centuries and a half was rudely broken by the cannon’s roar off the coast of Uraga ”

“ They chafed perpetually under the rule of one who was in reality a vassal like themselves." [1] They now saw in the rising tide of public sentiment against the Tokugawa Shogunate a rare opportunity of accomplishing their cherished aim. They lent their arms and money for the support of the patriots in carrying out their plan. Satsuma and Choshiu became the rendezvous of eminent scholars and zealous patriots. And in the council-halls of Satsuma and Choshiu were hatched the plots which were soon to overthrow the effete Shogunate. ”

“ The rigorous exclusion, carried to the utmost, of all Christian literature, whatever its relation to our religious tenets might have been, naturally induced men in authority to resort to the safest methods, that is to say, to restrict the kinds of books to be imported to the narrowest scope, and to limit their number to the smallest possible minimum. Accordingly, in the first half of the Tokugawa Shogunate, very few useful books were imported into our country, and the nation had, therefore, a very scanty opportunity of getting knowledge through books about things European. ”

“ The social status of a father was considered sufficient by itself to determine that of his children. No legal scrutiny was thought necessary as to what kind of a woman their mother was, though it was self-evident that the higher the social position of the family from which she sprang, the more the children she gave birth to would be honoured. The establishment of the military régime could effect but very slight change in this domain of social usage, until the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate. ”

“ Many seem to have taken up the lives of wanderers out of a notion of loyalty; the feudal lords to whom they had owed allegiance had been crushed by the Tokugawa and they refused to enter the service of the shogun.
The last-named reason seems to have been what prompted the revolt of 1651, when Ietsuna, aged ten, had just succeeded in the shogunate his father Iemitsu who had exalted the power of the Tokugawa at the expense of their military houses. The ronin headed by Yui Shosetsu and Marubashi Chuya plotted to set fire to the city of Yedo and take the shogun's castle. ”

“ TOKUGAWA YOSHIMUNE THE EIGHTH SHOGUN, YOSHIMUNE By the death of Ietsugu, in 1716, the Hidetada line of the Tokugawa family became extinct, and a successor to the shogunate had to be sought from the Tokugawa of Kii province in the person of Yoshimune, grandson of Yorinobu and great-grandson of Ieyasu. Born in 1677, Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun, succeeded to office in 1716, at the age of thirty-nine. The son of a concubine, he had been obliged to subsist on the proceeds of a very small estate, and he therefore well understood the uses of economy and the condition of the people. ”

“ So long as war is a calamity unavoidable in this world, it is folly to expect in any country that the [Pg 286] cruelty of men to men will entirely cease. But if the intensity of cruelty in warfare be taken as being in inverse ratio to the progress of civilisation, as it generally used to be, then the Tokugawa period evidently should not be lauded as an age of great enlightenment. Until the end of the Shogunate of this house it had been the custom for a warrior on the battlefield to cut off the head of the antagonist whom he had slain. ”

“ The Tokugawa shogunate—its political régime; culture and society (two chapters) ; The restoration of the Meidji; Epilogue. The objects of and the rules of the Yamato society are given in full and there is an index.
“A carefully evolved and well written synopsis of the many centuries of Japanese national life. There is one especially creditable circumstance about the publication of this book. It is honest Japanese propaganda, and it makes no pretensions of being anything else.” S. L. C.
+ Boston Transcript p4 Ja 22 ’21 420w HARBEN, WILLIAM NATHANIEL. Divine event. ”

“ After his death and the subsequent defeat of the partisans of his family in the decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Iyeyasu Tokugawa, who gave himself out as the descendant of Minamoto-no-Yoshiiye, succeeded to the power as Shogun in 1603. With this political change the Emperor had really very little to do, except to give recognition to the fait accompli. The selection of Yedo by Iyeyasu as the site of the new Shogunate created a political situation like that of Kamakura by Yoritomo. ”

“ With the ex-Prince were ranged the Tokugawa Prince of Owari and the influential daimiōs of Chōshiū, Échizen, Tosa and Uwajima, whilst a large measure of sympathy with Imperial aims existed among the prominent clans of the south and west. The anti-Shōgunate movement also derived help from the turbulent class of clanless samurai, known as rōnin, which at this time was rapidly increasing in numbers owing to economic distress in feudal territories, and the growing weakness of the Shōgunate. ”

“ Three causes led to the final overthrow of the Shogunate:
I.The Revival of Learning. The last half of the eighteenth and the first half of the present century witnessed in Japan an unusual intellectual activity. The long peace and prosperity of the country under the rule of the Tokugawa dynasties had fostered in every way the growth of literature and art. The Shoguns, from policy or from taste, either to find a harmless vent for the restless spirit of the Samura or from pure love of learning, have been constant patrons of literature. ”

“ Thus the idea that the persons so created were only made so by the favour of the central government is implied in the term itself. I have already told you that in the sixteenth century, Japan laboured under a condition of the greatest disorder. Many feudal lords rose and fell. When the Tokugawa family assumed the Shogunate, the country was brought to a perfect peace, and that system of "Hoken" was brought to a state of perfection. ”

“ His uncompromising hostility to the treaties led him into a direct quarrel with the Bakufu, and he was directed to return to his own province from Kioto. His abrupt dismissal from Court was calculated to arouse the keenest antagonism to the Shogunate on the part of his followers, who carried the news to Hagi, his castle town in the west of Choshiu, and there was from that time war between the clan and the adherents of the Tokugawa house. ”

“ In the times of the Tokugawa Shōguns, Yedo was required to hold a grand festival in commemoration of the fact that Iyeyasu, the founder of the Shogunate, made his official entry into the city on the 1st of the eighth month. But the Tōkyō of to-day eschews all acknowledgment of the fact that it was once the capital of the Shōguns, and, in September, pays homage to the moon only. There is a Japanese saying that in spring the moon-beams lose themselves among the blossoms; in summer their image reflected from the water is more beautiful than the original; in winter they have an air of desolation ”

“ The great Daimio pointed to the body of Gengo, which no longer writhed on the mats.
“Tokugawa men,” he called in his deep and363 sonorous voice, “you have heard. There lies the tool of the traitors who seek the overthrow of the Shogunate. I charge the Chief Counsellor with complicity. Minamoto Iyeyoshi has gone from us without benefit of medicine. Let Minamoto Iyesada the Shogun be notified of his accession to the rulership. All men have faith in the loyalty and wisdom of Abe Ise-no-kami and Ii Kamon-no-kami. Send for them, that they may advise His Highness.” ”

“ They saw in commerce with the outer world nothing but an agent for causing the appreciation of commodities. They believed that, as one of the three great Tokugawa clans, an obligation devolved on them to save the Shogunate from its own blunders, and they professed to fear that if they surrendered the edict, the sovereign would ultimately be driven to seek the coöperation of some other clan. With regard to the possibility of driving out foreigners, they did not find the question conclusive. Their duty was to devote all their strength to the attempt and trust the rest to the gods. ”

“ The amount of the revenues acquired by the Government in consequence of the surrender of all feudal territories, including the Shōgun’s domains, the administration of which had previously been taken over, is not easy to determine. A very rough estimate is all that is possible. The extent of the latter has already been noticed. Still more remarkable was its wide distribution. Out of the sixty-eight provinces into which Japan at the time of the Restoration was divided no less than forty-seven, by reasons of lands owned therein by the Shōgunate, contributed towards the Tokugawa exchequer. ”

“ Prince Tokugawa Keiki, during his retirement at Shidzuoka, was often visited by those who had shared the fortunes of the Shogunate, but he entirely refrained from all interference with politics, and lived the life of a country gentleman, finding his recreation mainly in fishing, and showing his sympathy with the hard-working agricultural population in a way that won for him the respect and regard of all classes. ”

“ The issue of the new coins took place in the year 1710, and at the same time the daimyo were strictly forbidden to issue paper currency, which veto also was imposed at the suggestion of Arai Hakuseki.
THE SEVENTH SHOGUN, IETSUGU The seventh Tokugawa shogun, Ietsugu, son of his predecessor, Ienobu, was born in 1709, succeeded to the shogunate in April, 1713, and died in 1716. His father, Ienobu, died on the 13th of November, 1712, so that there was an interval of five months between the demise of the sixth shogun and the accession of the seventh. ”

“ Toku, empress Kenrei-mon-in; mother of Emperor Antoku
Tokugawa, descent of family; hereditary system founded by Ieyasu; shogunate of family; oath of loyalty to; the T. Bakufu; "Constitution"; school, Shohei-ko; Imperial family, marries into; strengthened; attitude to feudatories; Hidetada line succeeded by Kii branch; families in ministry; decline of power; end of shogunate
Chikauji (d. 1407?) , ancestor of Matsudaira
Hidetada (1579-1632) , shogun (1605-22) ; anti-Christian edict (1616) ; orders Spaniards deported; in war with Uesugi; daughter weds Hideyori; attacks Osaka ”

“ The shogun remained indifferent even when his mandates were neglected or contravened. The building of splendid residences, the laying out of spacious parks, the gratification of luxurious tastes, and the procuring of funds to defray the cost of his vast extravagance—these things occupied his entire attention.
Associated with the Ashikaga shogunate is a financial device known in history as tokusei, a term signifying "virtuous administration." Originally imported from China, the tokusei meant nothing more than a temporary remission of taxes in times of distress. ”

“ They knew of no history save that of their own country, and that demonstrated the Son of Heaven as too sacred a person [Pg 153] to be troubled with mundane affairs. All desired a strong country under a strong Shogun. There is not the least doubt that Satsuma, Choshiu, and Tosa, to whom Japan chiefly owes its present greatness, worked with that end in view. Nor does it detract from their credit that probably each worked with the ultimate hope to see his own clan take Tokugawa’s place. ”

“ The Shoguns of the Ashi-kaga period (1338-1573) were not less devoted to the faith than the Emperors who succeeded the Emperor Go-dai-go. And even Taka-uji (1338-1357) , the notorious founder of the Shogunate, built a monastery and invited So-seki, [FN#93] better known as Mu-So-Koku-Shi, who was respected as the tutor by the three successive Emperors after Go-dai-go. Taka-uji's example was followed by all succeeding Shoguns, and Shogun's example was followed by the feudal lords and their vassals. This resulted in the propagation of Zen throughout the country. ”