Edo Period
Over 200 Years of Peace And Isolationism
The Edo period, also know as the Tokugawa period (1603 – 1868) is a time-period subdivision of Japan’s modern history, beginning when Tokugawa Ieyasu is appointed shogun and ending with the restoration of the imperial power. The country benefits from a long period of peace, ruled from Edo (nowadays Tokyo) by the Tokugawa dynasty, promoting an isolationist policy that allowed the development of an original Japanese culture.
At the end of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543 – 1616), victorious at the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), is given the title of shogun by the emperor in 1603 and consequently became the undisputed ruler of Japan. Power was then transferred to the eastern side of the country where his domain was located, and its capital Edo grew under his and his successors’ influence. The emperor and the Court stayed in Kyoto, and domains were reshuffled between warlords, favoring the ones who supported Ieyasu.
Ieyasu passed on his title to one of his sons as soon as 1605, but continued ruling behind the scenes. With the Siege of Osaka in 1614, he managed to wipe out Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s last descendants, who could qualify to rule, and passed in 1616 in Sunpu (Shizuoka) where he had retired.
Society remodeled
Inspired by Neo-Confucianism thinking, the shogunate set up a new social organization, in a social hierarchy of 4 classes (a system called 身分制 mibunsei):
- Warriors / samurais 士 (shi) at the top, are the ruling class;
- Peasants 農 (nô) at the core of the society thanks to their productive role; and,
- At the lower step of the social ladder, craftsmen工 (kô) and merchants 商 (shô), 2 classes deemed very few or not productive, usually living in the cities.
Nobility and clergy do not belong to any categories and keep a superior position. At the opposite end of the classification are various outcasts and mavericks:
- eta (people working jobs in relation to death: butchers, executioners, undertakers);
- hinin (whose jobs were considered dirty or impure: tanners, ragmen); and,
- prostitutes, comedians, etc.
In 1613, the shogunate banned Christianity, considering it a threat to its established order, and triggered a new period of persecution for the converts, who went into hiding (kakure kirishitan).
Third shogun Iemitsu (born in 1604, in office 1623 – 1651)’s decisions in the 1630s would impact Japan in the long term, with:
- An isolationist policy (鎖国 sakoku): the country closes to contact with foreign powers, especially Spain and Portugal that are proactive Christian proselytizers. Only 4 ports remain opened to international trade, with very restrictive conditions: Nagasaki (Dejima Island), Tsushima (trade with the Korean peninsula), Satsuma (trade with the Ryu-Kyu Kingdom) and Matsumae (trade with the Ainu people).
- The prohibition of leaving the country for the Japanese and entering the country for foreigners (even involuntarily) was a death penalty crime.
- The establishment of the sankin-kotai (参勤交代, "alternate attendance") system: feudal lords must maintain a permanent residence in Edo and live there 1 year every other year for service to the shogun. While back in their domains, they must leave spouses and heirs in Edo. They are also required various contributions to the shogunate, and the travels back and forth between the capital and their domains were costly. Such system was designed to weaken the daimyo lords, both financially, to prevent them from setting up a rebellion, and locally as they could not spend much time in their domains. They were also forbidden to stay in Kyoto or Osaka and to meet the emperor.
The bakufu applied the Confucians principles and regulated Buddhist temples to prevent them from regaining their past influence. Nevertheless, local temples and shrines were used as civil registry, in a way of controlling the population as theoretically nobody was allowed to move out or travel without the proper authorization.
Economic prosperity
The dwindling out of most of conflicts over a long time period, paired with progresses in farming, allowed for economic and cultural developments. Consequently, in the early 18th century, populations of Kyoto and Osaka both amounted up to half a million inhabitants, and Edo (future Tokyo) was the biggest city in the world with nearly 1 million inhabitants. The overall population of the country reached about 33 million inhabitants near 1720 before stagnating several years, partly due to weather conditions that impacted crops.
One of the results of the daimyo lords’ alternate residence in Edo was the development of important terrestrial routes for transporting harvests, goods and people, as well as connecting with the imperial capital Kyoto and the commercial hub of Osaka. That is how the Edo 5 Routes came into being, all starting from Nihombashi:
- Tokaido, hugging the Pacific Coast between Edo and Kyoto;
- Nakasendo, connecting Kyoto through the Japanese Alps;
- Koshu Kaido, that connected one station of the Nakasendo in current Nagano prefecture, via Hachioji and treading to the north of the 5 Lakes area;
- Nikko Kaido, between Edo and the shrine dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu in Nikko; and, lastly,
- Oshu Kaido, that paralleled the Nikko Kaido up to Utsunomiya, then went up to Komine Castle in the Tohoku, an area ruled by the Matsudaira’s, a secondary branch of the Tokugawa’s.
In the meantime, many secondary roads were developed, allowing local crafts (lacquer ware, ceramic, and other applied arts) to be exported to bigger cities. The ports of Edo, Osaka, Tsushima and Nagasaki also grew significantly.
As for Kyoto, thanks to its status of city of residence of the emperor and the Imperial Court, it retained a significant cultural and economic power. Despite having their own residence at the Nijo Castle 🏯, near the Imperial Palace, the shoguns rarely visited Kyoto.
Thanks to its strategic location, Osaka became an essential domestic trade port: the former Naniwa indeed received the rice harvests produced in Western Japan and re-dispatched them to the rest of the country, also in monetary form, through the merchants’ intermediary, and earned the nickname of "Japan’s granary."
City lifestyle
A rich urban culture developed during the Edo period, driven by merchants and samurais. The latter were indeed living in the cities to serve their domain or the shogun, and their assignments quickly shifted from war to administrative duties. They nurtured a co-dependent relationship with the merchants as:
- Their income was fixed and limited as it was based on their domain’s farming production. The merchants’ income varied according to the supply and demand, and they also acted as usurers. When a domain’s revenue was insufficient, daimyo had to borrow money from the merchants to be able to pay their agents in the cities, thus creating a debt situation.
- Merchants and usurers who get considerable revenue tried to climb the social ladder. For this purpose, they relied on marriage arrangements into indebted or impoverished samurai families.
Strong relationships were therefore tied between these 2 classes that ended up sharing the same culture and gathered in the same red-light districts: Yoshiwara in Edo, Shimabara in Kyoto and Shinmachi in Osaka. Secluded from the city, these enclosed places were dedicated to entertainment: Kabuki theater developed there, and they inspired poetry, literature and the first ukiyo-e prints; the most famous courtesans even were trend-setting personalities in their times.
A materialistic and hedonistic culture emerged in Edo and Osaka that displeased the shogunate, which tried to impose its Confucian ideals several times, especially through sumptuary laws to remind each what was their place and the lifestyles that every class in the society was allowed to have. However, these laws proved ineffective as city dwellers used treasures of imagination to bypass them, a phenomenon particularly visible regarding clothing items: the usual and widespread kosode garment was slowly replaced by a refined and luxurious kimono 👘.
Arts and philosophy
The high literacy rate (estimated about 30 % for men and 15 % for women) allows the flourishing of theater and popular literature, and many publishers appeared in Edo, Kyoto and Osaka. They published novels, poetry, travel literature, scientific works and etchings.
The ban on foreign books importation was indeed lifted in 1720 and books, mainly of scientific content (botanic, medicine) were quite popular. They were imported by the Dutch, the only Western merchants allowed to trade with Japan. While they were confined on the artificial island of Dejima (Nagasaki), they arose curiosity among Japanese artists and scholars, and their books and exchanges with them were at the base of the "Dutch studies," Rangaku 蘭学, one of the Japanese intellectual trends.
The cultural goods imported also included reproductions of Western and Chinese artworks, that reinvigorated the already existing painting schools in Japan, with new patterns or themes, and new techniques like perspective. The most distinctive school to emerge was the Rinpa school, providing illustrations for classical literature in a decorative style, using bright colors on golden or silver backgrounds.
Etchings illustrating city life themes appeared at the end of the 17th century and portrayed kabuki actors, courtesans, sumo wrestlers. Then, with the evolution of techniques and tastes, the landscape painting became one of the favorite themes of the ukiyo-e.
The practice of tea ceremony spread from the aristocrats and the warriors elites to the wealthy population of the cities, where many enlightened amateurs thrived and dabbled in various arts: China ink painting, calligraphy, poetry or ceramic. Some of them even became established artists.
The tea ceremony’s spirit is infusing into the nobility and imperial family’s lifestyles, as their private architecture is influenced by the development of the shoin-zukuri style, drawing its inspiration from the tea pavilions’ simplicity, humbleness and "rustic" look.
The Edo period marks the heyday of the art of Japanese gardens: every daimyo must adorn their residence with a stroll garden (kaiyûshiki), encompassing a pond and reproductions of well-known landscapes.
As for religious architecture, there were not much changes in Buddhist temples, but Shinto shrines developed an ornamental style characterized by the abundance of decors and colors, especially in the mausoleums built for the Tokugawa family.
Opposition to the Tokugawa’s and end of their reign
The Tokugawa regime was at its peak in the 18th century, but began to decline from the early 19th century, shaken by the very bases on which it was built:
- The social classes hierarchy is harshly criticized, especially the fact of inheriting a position rather than earning it;
- The dependence to local agriculture: bad weather conditions caused famines, especially in the 1780s and the 1830s, creating food insecurity and inducing peasants unrests.
Confucianism also met with strong rejection as soon as the 17th century, from a part of the Japanese intellectuals, who considered it a foreign ideology, like Buddhism and Chinese classics. Those thinkers belonged to an intellectual current called Kokugaku 国学 ("Japanese" studies) that aimed at restoring the original purity of the "Japanese national character" through the study of Japanese classics and the Shinto religion.
Concomitantly, the first half of the 19th century was marked by several, not always diplomatic, attempts at contact by foreign powers, merchants and whalers that wanted to open trade with Japan or be allowed to call in one of its ports. The growing pressure and the increase of violence in the encounters caused the hardening of the sakoku policy, which was until then implemented with some degree of laxity. The archipelago’s isolation was indeed not absolute and the bakufu tried to avoid the fate of China, defeated during the Opium Wars (starting in 1839).
The one who forced the door to Japan was Commodore Matthew Perry (1794 – 1858) leading an American military expedition: he refused to moor in Nagasaki and sailed with his black ships to the Uraga Bay (nowadays Yokosuka) in July 1853 and threatened to bomb the capital if his demand of opening to international trade was not satisfied.
The end of the bakufu: the Bakumatsu (1853 - 1868)
Perry’s move overturned the political order: the shogun refused to take such a decision on his own and consulted the daimyo lords, looking for an agreement that was never found. He eventually signed the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854, that allowed American ships to call in Shimoda and Hakodate for supply. It paved the ways for the "unequal" treaties signed in 1858 with other foreign powers.
The black ships episode prompted a dozen years of troubles, the Bakumatsu 幕末 ("end of the bakufu"), along with an economic crisis (inflation, agricultural crisis causing peasant uprisings) and a long political crisis, especially regarding the succession of the shogun.
Opposition to the shogunate started to act openly, all the more after emperor Kômei (1831 – 1867) publicly disavowed the decisions regarding the opening of the country. Domains that were historically refractory to the bakufu, Satsuma (Kagoshima), Chôshû (Yamaguchi) and Tosa (Kochi), managed to band up together, rally the imperial flag and lead the fight against the Tokugawa’s. Big foreign powers, Great Britain and France, interfered by supporting respectively the partisans of the emperor and the shogun.
At the end of 1867, after several political assassinations and the pressure of the domains’ armies, shogun Yoshinobu voluntarily stepped down and left the power to young emperor Mutsuhito (1852 - 1912), whose reign between 1868 and 1912 is known as the Meiji Era.