Tokugawa Shogunate

  General Description   The Tokugawa period, also known as the Edo period, ran from 1603 to 1868 CE. Sometimes the slightly earlier start date of 1600 is chosen in recognition of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s decisive victory at the Battle of Sekigahara; however, we have selected the 1603 date, which marks his official appointment as shogun. Although the emperor remained the official head of state, the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan. The rise to power of the Tokugawa Shogunate marked an end to the internal strife and warfare that had characterized the preceding century. Tokugawa Ieyasu and his immediate successors set about limiting the power of their rivals and instituting new policies aimed at maintaining stability and centralizing Japan’s government. ^[1]
The ’peak’ of the Tokugawa period corresponds to the years between 1688 and 1704 CE, known as the Genroku period, which saw the development of a distinct urban culture and the proliferation of art, theatre and fiction. ^[2] During the early modern period the Japanese polity consisted of three major islands: Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku. ^[3]
Eventually, economic difficulties and the threat of Western encroachment helped to bring about the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The period came to an end with the resignation of the last Tokugawa shogun in 1867 and the imperial restoration in 1868. ^[4]
Population and political organization
The Tokugawa shogunate built on the work of the generals Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582 CE) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598 CE), who between 1568 and 1590 succeeded in uniting all the daimyō (local military lords) under the command of a military leader into a ’national confederation’. ^[5] Theoretically, the daimyō maintained administrative authority in their own territories, but in practice they were expected to follow the guidance of the shogunate. ^[6] Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successors pursued a policy of ’orthodoxy and stability’, ^[6] aimed at consolidating their own power and limiting the ability of their rivals to amass enough power or wealth to enable them to challenge the shogunate. The success of these policies enabled the Tokugawa family to preside over a period of peace and prosperity and rule Japan for the next 268 years. ^[7] As well as peace, political stability and the centralization of power by the shoguns, the Tokugawa period was characterized by economic prosperity, rising urbanization and the closings of Japan’s borders to the wider world in the 1630s. ^[8]
Theoretically, class was determined by birth and social mobility was prohibited. Influenced by Chinese models, the social order was formalized and essentially frozen in a hierarchy known as shi-nō-kō-shō, ’warrior-peasant-artisan-merchant’. ^[6] Despite the shogunate’s concerted attempts to maintain a strict social orthodoxy, however, the stable and economically prosperous conditions led to a range of social changes, including increasing urbanization and the rise of the merchant class, who (although they were theoretically socially inferior) now held much of the country’s wealth. ^[6] Now that there was no need for the majority of those of samurai rank to be actively engaged in military activities, the warrior class became bureaucratized, a development that went hand-in-hand with a romanticization of the warrior ideal and the codification of proper rules of behaviour. ^[6]
During the Tokugawa period, population censuses were carried out. However, they did not take all members of the population into account and various scholars have therefore used supplementary data to produce what they hope are more accurate estimates. ^[9] Estimates for the beginning of the period (1600 CE) range from around 15 ^[10] to 22 ^[11] million. The population rose to around 30 million by the end of the period. ^{[11] [12]}

[1]: (Henshall 2012, 54) Kenneth Henshall. 2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[2]: (Totman 1993, 280) Conrad Totman. 1993. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[3]: (Totman 1993, 3-4) Conrad Totman. 1993. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[4]: (Deal 2005, 12) William E. Deal. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[5]: (Hall 2008, 1) John Whitney Hall. 2008. ’Introduction’, in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan, edited by Kozo Yamamura, 1-39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[6]: (Henshall 2012, 56) Kenneth Henshall. 2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[7]: (Hall 2008, 6) John Whitney Hall. 2008. ’Introduction’, in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan, edited by Kozo Yamamura, 1-39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[8]: (Hall 2008, 1, 6) John Whitney Hall. 2008. ’Introduction’, in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan, edited by Kozo Yamamura, 1-39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[9]: (Deal 2005, 63) William E. Deal. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[10]: (Farris 2006, 212) William Wayne Farris. 2006. Japan’s Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

[11]: (McEvedy and Jones 1978, 181) Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. London: Penguin Books.

[12]: (Totman 1993, 251) Conrad Totman. 1993. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.