A Policy of Seclusion
 During
the 1200s and most of the 1300s, the
shogunates – the Kamakura (1185-1333) and
the Ashikaga (1336-1573) – preserved order
and kept Japan relatively unified
 However, decentralization became an
increasingly serious problem during the late
1300s and 1400s
 Although,
in theory, the
Ashikaga Shogunate ruled the
entirety of Japan, the country
was breaking down into a
patchwork of independent or
semi-independent feudal
states
 The rulers of these small
states were nobles called
daimyo
 Just as most medieval
European nobles had been
knights, most Japanese daimyo
belonged to the warrior elite
called samurai
 In
1467, the gradual
breakdown of Japan suddenly
turned into a condition of
anarchy and collapse
 A civil conflict called the Onin
War broke out that year and
lasted till 1477
 Disunity continued even after
the conclusion of the war
 For the next hundred years,
Japan experienced the “Era of
Independent Lords”
 Daimyo
fought daimyo constantly,
and each treated his own
territory as if it were an
autonomous state
 Samurai troops, loyal to their
daimyo masters, followed the
code of Bushido, or “way of the
warrior”
 Samurai who left their masters or
whose masters were killed were
known as ronins
 Ronins often served as
mercenaries or became bandits
 The
reunification of Japan was a
process that lasted from 1560 to
1615
 Three men brought about the
unification
 First was the general Oda
Nobunaga, one of the first military
leaders to use gunpowder weapons
in Japan
 He established his rule over eastern
and central Japan
 In 1582, before he could complete
full unification, he was
assassinated
 The
second unifier was Toyotomi
Hideyoshi
 He brought almost all of the country
back together again as a single nation
 However, he failed to create a political
system that could survive after his
death
 A man of humble origins, he could
never assume the title of shogun even
after he became ruler
 He died before his son reached
adulthood
 Soon after, the five men he had
appointed as regents for his son began
to fight each other – and rebel against
their boy ruler
 The
victor and ultimate unifier of Japan
was Tokugawa Ieyasu
 In 1600, Ieyasu defeated his fellow regents
at the battle of Sekigahara
 In 1603, he appointed himself shogun
 From that moment forward, Ieyasu and his
descendants would be the masters of
Japan
 Of course, as all shoguns did, they
technically ruled in the name of the
emperor, who was cloistered and powerless
in the ancient city of Kyoto (formerly
Heian)
 The
new government Ieyasu created
was known as the Tokugawa
Shogunate, and it lasted from 1603 to
1868
 There were fifteen Tokugawa
shoguns, and until near the end, their
grasp on power and control over the
nation was unassailable
 After so many years of war and
chaos, stability, law, and order were
the shogunate’s chief priorities
 Accordingly, the Tokugawa years are
also known as the Great Peace
 Ieyasu
centralized the country
 He established a new capital at the city of
Edo, which is now the modern capital, Tokyo
 Peace came at the price of dictatorship, as
well as increased social stratification
 Japan’s class system became more rigid than
ever before, and until the mid-1700s, it was
almost impossible for a person to move from
one class or profession to another
 The power of the daimyo was reduced, and
ordinary citizens were forbidden to own
weapons
 The
Tokugawa rulers also maintained a
monopoly on gunpowder technology, and
kept the number of guns in Japan as small as
possible
 In
Tokugawa Japan, women lived under
increased restrictions, particularly in the
samurai class, which was guided by
Confucian teachings
 Wives had to obey their husbands or face
death
 They had little authority over property
 In upper-class families, however, women
expressed their literacy through creative
pursuits and displayed social graces as a
reflection of their husband’s rank and status
 In the lower classes, gender relations were
more egalitarian
 However,
as in previous eras, girl children
were less valued, and sometimes either put
to death or sold into prostitution
 The
Tokugawa shoguns also sealed
Japan off from the rest of the world as
much as they could
 They were especially concerned to
restrict the access of Europeans
 There had been Spanish, Portuguese,
and Dutch in Japan during the 1500s:
they traded and converted many
Japanese to Christianity
 Distrusting the new religion, Japan’s
rulers had struck out against
Christianity several times
 Japan’s
rulers persecuted and even crucified
believers
 Hostility to Christianity and fear of foreign
political and economic influence were behind
the Tokugawa’s decision to close off the
country in 1649
 From then until the 1720s, foreign merchants
were allowed entry only into one city, the
port of Nagasaki
 A brief period of openness followed, and
then Japan sealed itself off again until the
1850s
 Despite
the oppressive nature of the
Tokugawa regime, it had many
accomplishments to its credit
 It restored and kept the peace
 The population grew rapidly
 Rice and grain production more than doubled
between 1600 and 1720
 Tokugawa Japan became highly urbanized
(Edo was one of the world’s largest cities),
and the shogunate built an elaborate network
of roads and canals
 Economic growth was impressive: the
Japanese became great producers of
lacquerware, pottery, steel, and quality
weapons
 During
the 1600s and 1700s, one class that
became increasingly wealthy and powerful
was the merchant class (an exception to the
general rule of social rigidity under the
Tokugawa)
 In
Japan, castle architecture
partly imitated that of
Europe
 As in Europe, Japanese
castles were strategically
built on hilltops, constructed
of stone, and featured small
windows, watchtowers, and
massive walls
 Himeji Castle, one of the
most famous of its kind in
Japan, has decorated gables
and roofs that once
underscored the importance
of its noble inhabitants
 In
the field of drama, the formerly
dominant, more restrained, and
classically styled Noh play was now
being eclipsed by kabuki
 Kabuki theater emphasized violence,
physical action (acrobats and
swordplay), and music
 It often depicted urban life in brothels
and dance halls, and shogunate officials
criticized it for its potentially
corrupting effect on their subjects’
morals
 During
the Tokugawa era, wood-block print
came into its own as an artform
 In addition, whereas Chinese artists turned
inward, Japanese art was more and more
influenced by the outside world
 For example, Japanese potters fashioned
their ceramics out of Korean techniques and
designs
 Major reasons for this difference between
Japan and China include the fact that
Japanese urban areas were developing
rapidly, along with their merchant and
artisan classes, and Confucian values carried
less weight there than in China
 The
Tokugawa shoguns remained strong and
dynamic through the mid-1700s
 Afterward, the Tokugawa still kept a tight
grip over Japan, age and inflexibility began
to take their toll on the system
 Gradual decentralization began to set it
 Tokugawa
Japan also isolated itself from the
rest of the world
 By the 1720s, the only country with which
Japan maintained was Korea
 Informal ties were maintained with China,
and the government allowed the Chinese and
the Dutch to trade at the port of Nagasaki
 Over
the course of the late 1700s and early
1800s, Tokugawa Japan partially modernized,
both economically and socially
 Population growth was steady
 Japan, already a society of cities,
experienced even more urban growth
 Kyoto and Osaka were major centers, and
the capital, Edo, had a population of well
over a million
 Agricultural techniques were rationalized or
scientific techniques were applied allowing
fewer people to grow more food
 The reform had the effect of boosting
urbanization
 It
also created the labor force needed to
accelerate yet another trend: protoindustrialization
 Trade, commerce, and manufacturing
became increasingly important
 A national infrastructure – more roads,
canals, and ports – began to emerge
 The merchant class grew in number, wealth,
and influence, becoming the middle class
that any society needs to modernize
 Despite the country’s international isolation,
some Japanese gained an awareness of
scientific and technological knowledge from
the West
 This
partial modernization placed the shogun
and the samurai class in a curious dilemma
 On one hand, such developments benefited
Japan, making it a more prosperous and
more advanced nation
 On the other hand, the spread of new foreign
learning, the movement of people from
countryside to city, and the increased social
and economic clout of the merchant class all
undermined the power of the 5 to 8 percent
of the population that made up the
traditional aristocracy
 Therefore, the regime allowed some
modernization, but not as much as the
country was capable of achieving
 In
particular, members of the
samurai class – whose military
prowess was based on skill with
traditional weapons such as
swords – were anxious to
preserve the state’s monopoly on
the ownership of and ability to
make gunpowder weaponry
 How long the Tokugawa
leadership would have persisted
in this approach is impossible to
say
 But by the early 1850s, outside
forces would change Japan
forever
 IN
1853, American gunships appeared off the
Japanese coast
 Their commander, Commodore Matthew Perry, bore
a request from U.S. President Millard Fillmore,
asking Japan to open its economy to foreign trade
 Although the Americans’ words were friendly, the
threat of naval bombardment lay behind them
 After
some debate, the
shogun agreed to end his
country’s decades-long
isolation
 Over then next five years,
other nations, principally the
powers of Europe, compelled
the Japanese to open up to
them as well
 For a time, it appeared that
Japan might fall victim to the
same kind of Western
economic pressure that was
crippling China
 Painfully
aware of what was happening to
China, certain samurai leaders, particularly
from the southern provinces of Satsuma and
Choshu, urged the shogun to take a hard line
 This “Sat-Cho Alliance” gained a substantial
following at the Edo court and pressed for
the severance of all ties with the West
 Late in the year, antishogun forces asked the
last shogun to resign and restore the emperor
to full authority
 In
January 1868, these forces, led by the SatCho, staged a military uprising and overthrew
the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu
 The young emperor, Meiji, who had just
ascended the throne in 1867, became the
first emperor in nearly a thousand years to
enjoy full imperial powers
 The
Meiji Restoration of 1868 began Japan’s
modern age
 Although the rebellion that had brought the
emperor to power had been largely antiWestern in nature, even the most xenophobic
members of the new Japanese government
realized that, in order to avoid being
dominated by the West, Japan would have to
adopt Western learning, economics, and
military methods
 One of the first things Meiji did, in 1871, was
to abolish feudalism
 Japan began a process of modernization and
industrialization that would profoundly
change the course of its history and world
history