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After the fall of the Azuchi-Momoyama period in 1600, the Edo period was established by Seii Taishogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Originally Tokugawa had been established as one of the five lords appointed by Hideyoshi to maintain control of Japan until his young son, Hideyori was capable of ruling on his own. The death of one of the five lords, Maeda Toshiie in 1599 disrupted the balance of power and when Yokugawa was accussed by another lord of not respecting Hideyoshi’s wishes the Battle of Sekigahara began in 1600. Tokugawa emerged as the undisputed victor and ultimate ruler of Japan and was named the Seii Taishogun by the emperor of Japan. The Edo period would continue for over two hundred and fifty years under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate.
After conquering those who were loyal to Hideyoshi, Ieyasu was left in a position of supreme power and unlimited wealth. He relocated to the more strategically located city of Edo, modern day Tokoyo, where he was better protected from his enemies. This was especially true for the Toyotomi forces who were still a large threat, and even though he was officially considered a retired shogun after 1605, Ieyasu worked until 1615 to make sure that they were eradicated. This happened when the Tokugawa army invaded Osaka and destroyed the remains of the Toyotomi were officially destroyed.
The Edo period ushered in a sense of stability to Japan because it combined the feudal system of government with a larger, more centralized bureaucracy. He also redistributing the land between those daimyo who’d supported him throughout the power struggle, giving them more prominent lands as a representation of their alliegance to him. However, in order to curb their wealth and power, he also required that every daimyo spent every other year in Edo. By doing this it instituted that the land owners had to spend a considerable amount of money and time away from their domain and limited their power base at home.
After the final battle against the Toyotomi family there was an extended period of peace and stability that allowed the samurai to worry about more than the constant war that had plagued Japan during the Muromachi period. All of this free time was used to better educate themselves in the arts, philosophy, and literature of the period.
Persecution against Christianity remained in effect under the Yokugawa family, thereby constricting their ability to introduce western ideals to the Japanese people. To further prevent too much outside influence on Japanese ideals the government formerly banned all foreign books and restricted the trade to China and the port of Nagasaki. In 1633 all foreign travel was also banned, effectively cutting off and isolating the island of Japan. Once the country was cut off from the other influences and not as dependant on outside commerce local economic conditions flourished as trade and agriculture within Japan improved. This stability and balance of the market helped to keep the stability of the country and in its own way aided in the continued isolation of Japan.
However, the ban on literature outside of Japan was lifted eighty-one years later in 1720. This allowed for new schools to be built that combined elements of learning from an influx of ideals from China and parts of Europe, thus introducing a host of new ideals to Japan.
While class systems had all but been abolished during the reign of Hideyoshi, they were reinstituted during the Edo period. Citizens were required to register in one of the four classes and they were not allowed to change their class. The categories that citizens fell into were samurai, peasants, artisans, and merchants. Anyone with a questionable or immoral profession were not even considered in the class system and made up the unofficial fifth caste.
Ultimately this reinstitution of the class system would become a problem when the higher ranking samurai class found themselves financially dependant on the merchant class as their power and wealth grew. Eventually some of the samurai were even forced to take on production and labor intensive jobs for the merchants to pay off their debts or even to merely earn a living as fortunes during this time steeply declined. A population explosion also led to more and more people living in extreme poverty or taking on tenant farmer positions. In 1837 in Osaka the peasants fought back against the government and the merchants that they perceived to be suppressing them. The rebellion was quashed in a day, but the impact of what the peasants had done had a lasting effect on the perception of the government and the crisis feeling that was facing so many of its population.
Toward the end of the Tokugawa regime the country began facing some problems despite how stable they had been in the previous years. As the government found itself facing a monetary crunch they began imposing higher taxes on the Japanese people. This, combined with a conflux of natural disasters and famine across the country, caused the farmers and peasants to riot. The government had been facing a steady decrease of morals and incompetence, and this led to even further problems as the infrastructure of the Tokugawa family began to decline.
Another problem that beset the Tokugawa government’s control was the increasing pressure for Japan to change due to outside forces. Russia, Europe, and the United States, would all eventually seek to establish some form of trade agreement. However, the government held out on offering opportunities for establishing international trading opportunities and ports until 1853 when US Naval commander Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay forcing the bakufu to react to the situation. In 1854 the Treaty of Peace and Amity allowed for the United States to begin trading with the Japanese and offered a promise of good and fair treatment to shipwrecked Americans. Even so, the trading that was conducted was done only on a limited basis. Five years later another act was forced on the government opening even more ports for trade with the United States.
This second treaty with the United States caused some problems within the society as it granted unrestricted or monitored trade at some ports while also allowing foreign peoples to only be beholden to the laws of their own country, releasing them from the bonds of Japanese law. This inconsistency caused some feelings of unrest within Japan’s citizenry and opposition to the treaty arose.
While there were anti-western feelings among the population, many people realized the benefits of western sciences and military advancements. This led to a discrepancy in the country as different groups vied to have their viewpoints heard. In an attempt to keep up with western weapons and defense, a naval training academy was established in Nagasaki in 1855 with Dutch instructors. The following year a military school that embraced western ideas was launched in Edo.
This desire to open Japan up to the rest of the world eventually resulted in the Tokugawa government’s demise due to political demand for the end of the shogunate rule. In 1868 the imperial power of the Emperor Meiji was completely reinstated.
