Fall of Tokugawa Shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate was established in 1603 A.D., when Tokugawa Leyasu, its
Founder established the hegemony of his family and its collaterals over a large part of
Japan and exerted indirect control throughout the three great islands of Honshu, Kyushu
and Shikoku. It lasted till 1868 A.D., when the Meiji Restoration took place. 


There has been a debate regarding the nature of the Tokugawa shogunate, i.e., whether it was feudal or not. Most historians, such as Barrington Moore Jr. and others have argued that Tokugawa Japan was a feudal state, which came to an end due to Western influences, leading to modernization. E.H. Norman opines that a society in which political power derived exclusively from control over agricultural produce and the agricultural producer, regardless of the extent of sub-infeudation, might justly be called feudal, even though he disagrees with regard to the impact of the West. However, recently some Western scholars like Andrew Gordon and some Japanese historians such as Asakawa and Fukuda Tokuzo have denied that a state so highly centralized as Tokugawa Japan could be described as feudal.


Fairbank has adopted the terminology of the Japanese social historian, Professor Honjo,
Who spoke of early or 'decentralized feudalism' and late or 'centralized feudalism’ to
describe the nature of the Tokugawa state as 'centralized feudalism'. He says that in
Japan, a centralization of political power occurred in the late 16th century but through the use of a basically feudal pattern. While seemingly a paradox, this seems to be borne out if we examine the structure and character of the polity, economy and society of the time.


At the apex of the hierarchical pyramid was the Emperor (Mikado), a member of the yamato (the sun) family since the 7th century. However, since the 9th century onwards,
He had merely been a figurehead who had reigned but not ruled; a symbol of political legitimacy. Although he was regarded as a descendent of the Sun God and hence an object of worship, the functions of the Emperor were purely ceremonial - he provided a symbol of ideological unity for the feudal order. He was surrounded by court nobility,
the Kuge, who held honorific positions and carried on the court ceremonies,. The imperial court resided in Kyoto, which became the centre of court life.




The real power was in the hands of a dynastic military leader or shogun (bakufu). The political system of the bakufu was called the bakuhan (tent government or military government). The shogunate implied a distinctly separate sent of government from the Emperor and his court, and exercised supreme administrative authority. This office had been hereditary in the Tokugawa family since 1603. Each succeeding heads of the

Tokugawa house had become the emperor’s military deputy and therefore de facto ruler of Japan. They had their capital at Edo (modern Tokyo). 




The Tokugawa created a new and more powerful kind of government than had existed in the past. They built their superstructure of power on twin cornerstones- unassailable armed strength and unquestioned monopoly over the office of the shogun. However their power was centered on the shogun’s own lands, which constituted, in a sense , a super-daimyo domain. The shogun controlled a large part of the land, which grew almost 6,480,000 koku, about a quarter of the agricultural production of the whole country. It was located largely in Kanto, around Kyoto, and along the south coastal region in between, in addition, the shogun directly ruled such important ports and emerging cities as Edo, Kyoto, Osaka and Nagasaki, and owned the most important mines.

The Tokugawas also set out to create institutions that would stabilize political and social conditions and thereby prevent a lapse back into feudal warfare, which had existed for several centuries earlier. Among their officials, the most powerful were the councilors of the state (Roju), called the “elders”, who were responsible for national policy and for supervision of the court and the shogun’s own domain. Next came the members of the junior council, or the “young elders” controlling the samurai of lesser rank, the shogun’s military forces and his household staff. All these, as well as the governors of Kyoto and Osaka, were daimyo or vassals-in-chief. They were assisted by a number of officials of lower rank. The shogun’s retainers or samurai were divided into 2 main categories. The first were some 5000 “bannermen” or senior retainers, the most important of whom held fiefs, although of less than daimyo size. The second were some 17000 lesser retainers called gokenin or “honorable house men”, who received hereditary salaries.


The daimyo were the feudal lords who controlled the remaining three-fourths of land in Japan. Daimyo domains, called hans, fluctuated in numbers from 245 to 295, but averaged around 265. They varied greatly in size from 10,000 koku to 22 great domains of over 200,000 koku. In 1617, the shogun established the principle that upon succession, each and every daimyo would swear a pledge of fealty to the House of Tokugawa, in return for which the shogun would bestow upon the regional lord a patent of investiture that defined his holdings and entitled him to rule. Thus the effective unit of local administration became the daimyo domain.
The shogunate classified the various daimyo into categories in terms of to the lord’s relationship to the Tokugawa family. First came the 23 daimyo family who were of Tokugawa blood known as shimpan or ‘related han’ (“cadet families”).Assured of their absolute loyalty, the shagunate assigned them to the strategically important locations. Next in status came the 150 or so fudai daimyo, “house”, “allied”, or “dependent” lords, who had attained that rank under Tokugawa patronage and who were the descendents of men who had become vassals of leyasu during his rise to power. The shogunate situated them at critical places across the country where they could parry any potential threat against shogunal interests. They also had the right to be appointed to the two councils of state and similar offices. In contrast, the 100 or so tozama (“outside”) daimyo, many with their domains in excess of 100,000 koku, had achieved their status independently.

obligated the daimyo to contribute manpower, material and money to construct and maintain Tokugawa castles and to carry out public works projects, such as building and repairing roads. In 1615, the shogunate issued the “Regulations concerning Warrior Households”. It made daimyo marriages and inheritance subject to shogunal approval. Other decrees specified the exact number of samurai and other troops each lord could maintain. Severe restrictions were also placed on the building of new castles and on the repair of old ones. Moreover, however much freedom the daimyo enjoyed in governing their domains, the shogunate increasingly expected them to rule in a manner consistent with its practices. In 1635, by a second version of the “regulations concerning warrior households”, the regional lords were to “follow the laws of Edo in all things”. A strict passport system restricted their movement, and they had to seek the shogun’s permission to travel. All travelers entering and leaving Edo were scrutinized very strictly at barriers on the roads leading into the city. No daimyo were allowed to make a direct approach to the Emperor’s court at Kyoto. A secret police system and an espionage system was also set up keep a check on the activities of the daimyo.


The most important control measure, however, was the Sankin Kotai system, or the Alternate Attendance System. Although it had been in existence even in the pre Tokugawa period, it was perfected in 1634 by the third shogun, Iemitsu. Under the system the daimyo were compelled to reside alternatively in their domains and at Edo leaving their wives and families behind them in the capital as hostages when they returned to their own hans. In Edo the daimyo had to call on the shogun on at least three days a month and in addition they were summoned to take part in many formal and in the utilitarian sense, meaningless functions at the court. As a result, the top ranks of the feudal class became largely separated from their domains and almost Edo-oriented. It also imposed a huge financial burden on them.

A significant aspect of the control measures was the blocking of all outside contact. In this, as E. H. Norman puts it, “geography was the ally of the exclusionist Japan “. A considerable number of westerns had arrived in Japan during the last half of the 16th century. Dutch began trade with Japan in 1609 and the English in 1613. Initially they were given a hospitable welcome. However, before long, Japan’s rulers became suspicious of these foreigners. They feared that the inflow of foreign ideas and Christianity might disturb the social order. Moreover, they were suspicious of the trade, since they were aware that the daimyo in south- western Japan had used foreign trade as a means to built strength. Also, unrestrained trade could drain the country of its gold & silver reserves. So, to avoid all these threats as well as the danger of political control by the Europeans, either through trade or through the intrigues of Catholic missionaries, the Tokugawas adopted a policy of seclusion or sakoku (‘the closed country’). Between 1633 and 1639, 5 edicts were issued that prohibited Christianity, forbade Japanese travel abroad, banned Portuguese ships from entering Japanese ports and strictly regulated foreign trade. A sixth edict , issued in 1641, confined the Dutch to Dejima, an artificial island constructed in the middle of Nagasaki bay, and effectively authorized only Dutch and Chinese traders to operate Japan, though under strict supervision. Further, a strict ban was maintained on all western books and on Chinese books mentioning Christianity.

However, it must be noted that Japan did not become a closed society. All relations with the outside world were not terminated. Rather, throughout the early modern period, the shogunate continued to receive ambassadorial embassies from Korea and the Ryukyn Islands, and its officials oversaw brisk trade with the Chinese and Dutch merchants .In addition, the daimyo and merchants of Satsuma, Tsushima and Matsumae domains were allowed to trade with the Ryukyu Islands, Korea and territories to the north of Japan, though with some restrictions.
Thus, by the 17th century, the Tokugawa shogunate emerged as the focal point of central governance in Japan. As powerful as the Tokugawa shogunate became, however, they were not autocrats. Moreover, we notice an apparently anomalous use of feudal institutions to create centralized political power. All power was concentrated in the hand of the shogun. But his dictatorship was sought to be sustained by furthering a feudal structure, which would essentially include decentralization. This seemingly contradictory situation is explained by Fairbank as ‘centralized feudalism’. Moreover, as E.H. Norman point, for all its political centralization, the greatest single feudal magnate, the Tokugawa family, depended for its maintenance on the fruits of self-labour, as did the lesser lords or daimyo. Hence, Japan would still be called feudal in a socio-economic sense.
In Japanese feudal society, where the revenue in rice and not direct ownership of land determined power, there were necessarily great differences from European feudalism. For one, we see feudalism only in Tokugawa economy and society. Moreover, there was no system of serfdom. Professor K. Asakawa has shown how the sharing of profits from the land (i.e. shiki, literally ‘offices’) rather than the subdivision of land characterized Japanese feudalism.

Japan’s centralized feudalism, while seeming almost a contradiction in terms from the point of view of the European feudal experience, served well for almost three centuries. However, by the 19th century, the regime faced grave problems. There were social tensions and protests. Financial chaos threatened the stability of the government. At the same time, external pressures began to increase. Established ideas and institutions seemed inadequate to deal with new pressures at home and from outside. Thus, the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate must be seen as conjunction of two forces-the internal crisis of the bakuhan system and the western aggression.
The very success of the Tokugawa system was in the long run responsible for its undoing. Socio-economic realities were moving away from the feudal conditions and the hierarchy imposed from above could not remain stable for long. All classes – the daimyo, the samurai, the merchants and the peasants- were undergoing profound changes. Paradoxically, the roots of revolutionary economic and social change lay in the very control measures, which though effectively maintained the political status quo, but at the same time promoted economic changes that slowly undermined the Tokogawa order.
A money economy, dominant in the towns and already penetrating the villages, had begun to weaken the bonds of feudal loyalty. Centralization of political control and the Sankin kotai system contributed further to the commercialization of the economy. The
daimyo had to undertake substantial expenditure to maintain residences in both Edo and their domains, to finance their annual journeys back and forth to Edo and to support retinue of relatives and retainers permanently living in the city . The largest of the daimyo proceeded to the capital with as many as several thousand retainers, and cost for food, lodging, for hiring boats etc. become immense. As taste grew more luxurious, the procession became occasions for competitive display. By the later part of the Tokogawa period, the typical lord was devoting as much as 70 to 80 % of his normal expenditures to cost connected with the system. In addition, there were outlays to entertain the Shogun, or to cover the costs of marriages, funerals and other ceremonies in Edo, or to keep their castles in good repair and carry out irrigation and land reclamation projects within their own domains. The soaring expenditures tented to exceed their income, which was largely drawn from the land tax levied on the peasants. 


To obtain specie for these expenses, the daimyo began to convert a large portion of the tax collected as rice, into money, by selling it in market centers such as Osaka, where rice broker’s (fudasashi) arranged to have it sold in various urban centers. In the 1620s, one million koku of rice annually passed through Osaka's warehouses, a figure that increased more than four-fold by the 1720s.Subsequent use of specie stimulated the growth of commercial transactions and an increased used of money. The Shogunate further facilitated this by the development of transportation and communication facilities, the standardization of weights and measures and the establishment of a national currency. But daimyo were often at disadvantage when they converted their rice income into money, for they were at the mercy of the astute merchant financiers and the vagaries of the rice market. Over time, the daimyo fell heavily into debt to urban merchants. In return, it translated into social mobility for the chonin, who had been placed at the bottom of the social ladder. Wealthy merchants were adopted into daimyo families either by marriage or adoption. This mutually profitable exchange of economic affluence and social prestige led to the development of a daimyo–chonin alliance.
The samurai were even more hard-pressed than the daimyo. In earlier times, they hadfought in times of war and cultivated land in times of peace. However, the Tokugawaperiod saw a gradual change in the nature of the samurai class. As warfare ceased to be aWay of life, the samurai were sapped of their military ardor and reduced to being aparasitic class, a class of "privileged idlers". The daimyo too tried to retain their independence and stabilize the political system at the domain level by enforcing someControl measures on the samurai, just as the shogun did for the lord. Most samurai were now deprived of their land, alienating them from their roots and making them dependent on the fixed rice-stipends given by the daimyo. They were forced to take up residence in castle towns, essentially limiting them to the task of revenue collection. They were thus converted from a class of military warriors to a class of bureaucratic elite. But the settlement of samurai in the castle towns also created local consumption centers and brought into being a merchant class of considerable size and influence. A market system grew up to supply the wants of the samurai class and, in the long run, came to occupy a  position of great economic importance. At the same time, the growth of a market network around the castle towns fundamentally altered the social order in the countryside.The samurai also began to experience economic distress and so began to produce cash crops or supplement their income by setting up workshops. However, in some measure, the samurai’s sense of growing impoverishment was psychological. The daimyo and shogun paid fixed stipends to their retainers, which were rarely increased since the 17th century. But these gains in their stipends were not sufficient to permit the ordinary samurai family to keep up with the well- to- do merchant and artisans, whose incomes were growing at a more rapid pace. Moreover, the commercial revolution of the Tokugawa period made available a variety of new consumer goods. However, many of these were priced beyond the pockets of many samurai, reinforcing the notion that the warrior families could no longer enjoy a lifestyle appropriate to their elite status. Thus, their discontent sprang from unfulfilled wants, rising expectations and a feeling of being deprived of the fruits of a growing economy. To compound their grievances, their real incomes actually reduced in the early 19th century as the shogun and daimyo cut samurai stipends due to escalating costs. This led to increasing resentment and dissatisfaction among the samurai and increased their dependence on the merchants as well.
The more restless among the samurai gradually gave up their allegiance to their respective daimyo and became the ronin (“wandering men”), or masterless warriors, owing no fealty and professing no fixed occupation. Many of them settled in cities where they studied western languages and science, thus becoming the intellectual barbingers of the opening of Japan to the world. But most of them, filled with hatred for the bakufu whose policies had caused their near-ruin, became the most ardent champions of the Restoration. The sankin kotai system also led to frequent travel to Edo by the daimyo and the samurai. This led to the emergence of the city as some kind of a national capital, a common meeting ground where ideas could be exchanged, and a new mindset was built against the Tokugawa shogunate.
Social discontent within the samurai class was exacerbated by ideological problems that grew out of conflict between the theory and practice of the Tokugawa system. One such problem concerned the appointment of officials in the bureaucracy on the basis of social rank, instead of merit. The most important offices went to the higher ranking samurai and frustration over this situation among young, lower ranking warriors became one of the greatest forces for change by the beginning of the nineteenth centaury. They felt unjustly cut off from positions of power and respect .This latent discontent came to the surface in many of the prominent domains after Perry’s arrival, for the unequal treaties raised fierce emotions and opened up political issues to much wider discussion. Because of their temperament, their involvement in plots and conspiracies and their resort to violence and assassinations, many were known as shishi, “men of spirit”. They were passionately devoted to the imperial cause, which they called the highest loyalty of all.

The shogunate, which depended upon the peasantry for its revenue and the samurai for protection, had a great contempt for the chonin. However, with the replacement of the rice economy by the money economy, they assumed a significant role. This change was made inevitable by the increasing agricultural production and flourishing rural production and commerce in the Tokugawa period, made possible due to the peace and stability of the times, which stimulated the growth of cities and trading centers. Moreover, as hasalready been shown, the daimyo and samurai also came to depend on the chonin. Because of the importance they had acquired to the functioning of the Tokugawa system, even the shogunate became dependent on the mercantile class for their special knowledge in conducting the financial affairs of the system.Thus, there emerged a daimyo -ronin-chonin alliance with a distinct anti-bakuhan character and a common aim to end the Tokugawa regime, whose policies had forced their decline. This amalgamation of classes represented the breakdown of the rigid caste- hierarchy so elaborately erected by the Tokugawas, yet it would be wrong to call it anti-feudal. It represented a concerned political movement directed against the Tokugawa hegemony, but it did not imply any conscious desire to uproot the feudal system. The peasants gave further support to this alliance, though they did not play a direct role in the downfall of the Tokugawas. The role of the peasantry can be studied in the context of the growth of the money economy. Earlier the peasantry had paid taxes only in kind. However in the course of the Tokugawa period, the daimyo began to demand heavier taxation from the peasantry, and also now at least a part of the rice tax had to be aid in cash. This increased the burden on the peasantry. Also, due to the penetration of the money economy, the peasantry realized that they could no longer fulfill their needs of seeds, fertilizers etc. merely by barter. This forced them to turn to the moneylender, keeping their land as surety. In the long-term, the peasantry found itself unable to repay these loans and so had to surrender the land to the moneylender. Thus, though the land theoretically belonged to the lord, the moneylender now became the ‘cultivator’. It also allowed the concentration of land in a few hands. Another cause was the growing disparity of wealth in the villages. Wealthy peasants were frustrated by the fact that the Tokugawa system set strict limits on their social advancement. As the number of landless peasants increased, peasant resistance was seen in two forms- passive and active. The former implied migration to the cities. Active resistance meant revolt- the final resort of peasants made desperate by conditions of life often below subsistence level. As the agrarian crisis became chronic these revolts occurred with even greater frequency, often embracing the peasantry of several districts. Such outbreaks were usually directed against the landlords, the moneylenders, and local officials. Toward the end of the bakufu period, these revolts became endemic and may be said to have weakened the strength of the feudal regime so dangerously that they made possible to a large extent the victory of the political movement directed against the bakufu.Another small but significant class that came into prominence now and played a role in the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate was the kuge. In the pre- Tokugawa period, they had been at the zenith of their political and cultural influence. However the bakufu had reduced them to penury and impotence. They now became active participants in building an anti-bakufu league together with the dissident daimyo, notably the choshu clan - Union of Court and Military (Kobu-Gattai). This League became most active when the Sankin kotai system was relaxed in 1862 and the daimyo could visit Kyoto without restraint. However, as the political struggle became sharper, the union was discarded and lower samurai and ronin came forward as leaders of the Restoration movement.The internal crisis was worsened by the occurrence of natural calamities such as earthquakes, flood, famine and fire, especially in the 1830s. This was accompanied by peasant uprisings. The approximately 400 peasant uprisings and urban riots recorded in the 1830s totaled more than had occurred during the entire 17th century. Rice riots (uchi-kowashi) broke out in cities from time to time, and were often led by ronin or even petty officials. The most notable example was an abortive uprising in Osaka in 1837, led by Oshio Heihachiro. The collapse of centralized authority made the suppression of such revolts difficult and encouraged challenges the authority of the bakufu.The Tokugawa state was facing a financial crisis itself. In some areas, taxes were based on assessments that were a century or more out of date. Growing wealth in the agricultural sector was not taxed in any systematic way. Nor was commerce, the most rapidly expanding part of the economy, taxed in a uniform, consistent manner. In order to deal with the mounting difficulties, reform movements were initiated within the shogunate and many of the domains. There were two main strands of reformist thinking. The first and dominant one was the “fundamentalist” approach, whose main purpose was to restore the “purer” conditions of the early Tokugawa period. Idealizing a purely agrarian economy, this approach sought to suppress the growing power of the merchants and to increase the income of government through land reclamation. The other approach was the “realist” school, which accepted the growing commercialization of the economy and urged the authorities to adjust to it, not deny it. It asked the government to encourage the production of capital wealth and to use its political power to set up state enterprises and monopoly organization. Most reform attempts, the last one being in the early 1840s by Mizuno Tadakuni, leaned toward fundamentalism and achieved only limited success. One reason was that the reforms tended to treat symptoms, not the causes. Moreover the reformers lacked experience and expertise.External aggression added as a catalyst to the internal crisis, bringing about the final collapse of the bakuhan system. In the period from 1853 onwards, Shogunate control began to decrease. This provided a window of opportunity for the western powers to open Japan to foreign trade. This foreign menace, occurring at the time of rising revolt and political discontent, proved to be the decisive factor in demonstrating the incompetence of bakufu rule. The dissatisfied classes became more vocal and linked the slogan of Son-no (Revere the Emperor) to Jo-i (Expel the Barbarian). While the former slogan gave expression to the prevailing sense of distrust of the bakufu, jo-i became the most effective slogan strategically, since it provided a legal cloak to the openly rebellious anti-bakufu movement.Russia was the first to pose problems. Its envoys and traders began appearing on the islands north of Hokkaido in the 1790s, after extending her power in the Pacific, seeking to open trade relations with Japan. They made persistent attempts to open Japan from 1792 onwards, but were unsuccessful. In the meantime, the British, having extended their power into India and Malaysia, had begun to build up a China trade and to probe Japanese coastal waters. They wanted to gain definite treaty rights to guarantee shipping interests in Japan. To the Japanese, however, expanding British power in the Far East represented a distinct thereat. In 1825 , following an armed raid by a British foraging.Party against a small island of Satsuma, the shogunate issued the ‘Order for the Repelling of Foreign Ships’, instructing the daimyo to fire on any unauthorized ship approaching the Japanese coast. But the ordinance was relaxed in 1842, permitting foreign ships to be provisioned on condition that they depart immediately.The crisis came to a head when in July 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the US Navy arrived in Japan. The bakufu was uncertain how to deal with it. Abe Masahiro, the head of the bakufu’s Council of Elders and the effective head of government owing to the incompetence of the shogun, sought to gain consensus by requesting all the daimyo to express their opinions. This unprecedented step amounted to a confession of the bakufu’s weakness. Perry returned in February 1854 and forced Japan to establish relations with the US. A treaty was signed on March 31, 1854 (the so-called Kanagawa Treaty of Friendship), which provided that two ports, Shimoda and Hakodate, would be opened to American ships and limited trade, and that an American consular agent was to be permitted to reside in shimoda.The most-favoured nation clause was also inserted. Soon after, the bakufu concluded similar treaties with Britain, Russia and Holland.The treaties ignited political conflict that destroyed bakufu authority. One result was the increased presence of westerners in Japan, who were regarded with distrust and hostility. Secondly, the injection of forging currency disrupted the monetary system, because the gold –silver ratio was 5:1 in Japan in contrast to the worldwide 15:1, and the value of Japanese coinage was fixed by the shogunate and not dependent on the metallic content of coins in 1860, the bakufu responded to this by reducing the gold content in coins by over 85%. This, combined with heavy foreign demand for consumer goods and efforts to increase armaments, led to inflation. The treaties had a more immediate political impact as well. The abandonment of the policy of exclusion greatly damaged the prestige of the shogunate and infuriated the aristocracy. The tozama clans now took a lead in the anti-bakufu movement. The men who attacked the shogunate cloaked their actions in tradition by calling for a restoration of the Emperor As a first step, in 1867, the daimyos of the Tosa clan demanded the resignation of the Tokugawa shogun.The Satsuma-Choshu alliance in 1866 and the military defeat at the hands of the Choshu daimyo formed the immediate background to downfall of the Tokugawas. Both domains were among the very largest in terms of productive capacity and both had an unusually large numbers of samurai. They were therefore extremely strong domains, and their strength was enhanced by financial solvency. Still another advantage that favored the two outer domains was the fact that commercial development has not progressed so far and as a consequence, class unrest had been less erosive of morale than in places close to the major urban centers. As 1867, drew to an end, contingents of armed rebels from Satsuma and Choshu moved towards Kyoto. On January 3 1868, warriors from Satsuma stormed into the royal compound for an imperial “restoration” .Later that day, a new Emperor Mutsuhito ascended the throne and took the title of ‘Meiji’ or the “Enlightened One”. However, resistance continued till May 1869, when the Tokugawa navy surrendered. Thus, we see that the overthrow of the bakuhan system was achieved through a union of the anti-bakufu forces, led by the lower samurai and the ronin, particularly of the tozama

clans of Satsuma and Choshu, together with the kuge, and backed by the merchants of Osaka and Kyoto. The foreign crisis merely galvanized the forces for change, resulting from the gradual build- up of social and economic problems during the preceding century. The destruction of Tokugawa feudalism from above also made possible the curbing of any insurrectionary attempts by the people, particularly the peasantry and city poor, to extend the anti feudal movement by action from below.