Tokugawa Japan: Section 1--Taming the Daimyo

The Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868)

Guiding Questions:

What challenges did the 3 Unifiers of Japan and the Tokugawa Shogunate face? 

How did they centralize power?

 

Section 1: Taming the Daimyo

Oda Nobunaga’s palace, Azuchi, is unfortunately just a set of ruins today, having been destroyed in the fighting that took place after his assassination. The lower levels of the palace featured art depicting lesser gods and heroes; the higher you went, the more important became the people and gods depicted. Oda’s personal room was at the very top and the only decoration in it was a huge mirror. This highly decorative mirror is one of the three Sacred Treasures of Japan (along with a sword and jewel), brought to Earth by the first emperor, a grandson of the Sun Goddess Amateratsu. The Sacred Treasures have not been available for public viewing for almost 1,000 years, but the Imperial Court still claims to possess them. Oda’s placement of this sacred mirror at the top of his hierarchy of gods, demons and heroes shows that his ambition and narcissism knew no bounds.

How did these ambitions square with the fact that Japan had been ruled by dozens of daimyo (domain lords) for the entire period of the Sengoku? As you can imagine, the daimyo didn’t willingly give up their independence, tax authority or personal armies just because Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi or Tokugawa Ieyasu asked them to. Instead, the Three Unifiers’ military conquests were accompanied by a series of laws and incentives designed to keep the daimyo and their samurai warriors under tight control.

The Alternate Attendance System was the most elaborate of these controls. The Tokugawa shoguns required that all daimyo build multiple homes in Edo (modern day Tokyo) by 1642. Their wives and heirs had to live in those homes permanently as pampered hostages of the shogun. This alone guaranteed that all but the most rebellious daimyo would stay obedient. 

Every other year, the daimyo himself had to live in Edo to attend upon (personally pay homage to) the shogun–hence the name “alternate attendance.” This meant that the daimyo was required to build yet another house in the capital for him to live in during that alternate year. His retainers (servants, advisors, soldiers, etc.) also needed housing. At minimum, therefore, the daimyo had to construct and maintain three fancy, large houses, plus less expensive housing for his retainers in one of the world’s most expensive cities. This alone significantly impacted the daimyo’s financial resources that could have been used to build a power base in his home region.

Daimyo participated in elaborate rituals during their time in Edo. The expenses involved in rituals, gatherings and incredibly expensive and long processions with thousands of retainers across enormous distances to and from Edo every other year consumed about 1/3 of the average daimyo’s annual spending, placing many in serious debt.

The alternate attendance system turned Edo, originally a small castle town, into the largest city in the world by 1720, with 1.1 million inhabitants. It had 1,000 daimyo residence complexes, with at least 250,000 residents who worked for various daimyo and either stayed in Edo permanently or moved back and forth with him to their home region and back. The travel to and from Edo helped stimulate the economy of the whole country. Once every two years, a daimyo had to muster between hundreds or even thousands of his retainers, depending on how important and wealthy he was, for the journey to Edo. The road system was improved for these processions to journey smoothly and with the proper due respect for the traveling daimyo. All traffic was cleared from the road to let the daimyo pass, but for the vast majority of days, those improved roads benefitted everyone else by stimulating trade and travel. 

Even with a good road system by the standards of the 1600s and 1700s, daimyo processions took several days or weeks to get to Edo, depending on how far away their home regions were. In 1601, Tokugawa Ieyasu established a post road system from Osaka, the commercial capital, to Edo, the new political capital. The original old, rickety road was widened to nine meters and smoothly paved with gravel. Every 4 kilometers there were rest stops and distance markers, with trees (some are still there today) planted all along the road to shield travelers from wind and rain. There were 100 rest stops in all, along with post stops, with a regulated number of horses to switch out tired ones to ensure speedy delivery of mail. Private citizens could rent pack horses there too. 

A network of private inns and other services (cooks, entertainers, washers, etc.) developed to take care of ordinary travelers as well as the daimyo and their huge retinues. Thus, the alternate attendance system didn’t just make Edo boom—millions of people living in regions along Japan’s road system benefited economically. Many of these business clusters grew into major cities, especially along the main road to Edo, the famous Tokaido.  

What did the daimyo get in return? Well, for one thing, aside from the requirements of the alternate attendance system and the obligation to donate soldiers to serve in Japan’s increasingly rare wars, daimyo could do as they pleased in their home region. While the Shogunate eventually took away from the daimyo the right to deal with criminal matters, all other legal disputes were settled by the daimyo or his retainers. He was the law, the lord, and the richest man in his home region, endowed with enormous prestige. 

Speaking of prestige, the shoguns made sure that the daimyos’ journey to and from Edo included as much pomp and ceremony as possible. Thousands would gather on the side of the road to watch the processions, which were very elaborate and impressive. All had to bow their heads to touch the ground as the daimyo passed, but they were free to enjoy the rest of the music and ceremony after he was out of sight. When the daimyo arrived at the shogun’s court, he was formally announced and then spent a year at the side of the most powerful man in Japan. The shogun and daimyo would exchange gifts, with the shogun’s always being the most valuable. Shoguns were always careful to treat daimyo with so much courtesy that it was easy to forget that he held every daimyo’s wife and heir as a hostage. 

Finally, Edo had many attractions.. So many forms of entertainment, fine dining, and other pleasures that Edo provided were not available at home. With thousands of people from all over Japan visiting it regularly, the foods, fashions and customs of the country’s diverse regions merged into something new–the culture of the Edo period. This period is famous for its innovations in art, theater (Kabuki), high literacy rates, and rituals like the tea ceremony, which was perfected during this time period. Retainers thus competed for the right to journey to Edo with their daimyo and often brought back new ideas, customs and goods from the far-away capital. This helped to consolidate Japan into one national culture. 

One still has to ask why so many daimyos, whose families had run their domains for over a century of brutal warfare, ultimately chose to submit to the Unifiers. The simplest explanation is that the Tokugawa Shogunate offered daimyo peace and stability, along with a way to mediate their disputes without resorting to war. Everyone in Japan was eager for peace after the trauma of the Sengoku period, and as long as the Shoguns stayed strong, nobody really bucked the system.  

More subtly, by submitting to the same central authority, the daimyo were both elevating the dignity of the Shogun and their own dignity as his main vassals. The shoguns always treated the daimyo with great respect and fanfare, elevating them far above the rest of Japan’s elite groups. In addition, since all the other daimyos had given up hostages and otherwise participated in the alternate attendance system, an individual daimyo could feel safe from his potential rivals, since nobody would break the peace if it meant that his family would die as a result.