TEXT: THE CAMBRIDGE
  HISTORY OF
  JAPAN
  Volume 4
  Early Modern Japan
  Edited by
  JOHN WHITNEY HALL
  JAMES L. MCCLAIN, assistant editor
  CAMBRIDGE
  UNIVERSITY PRESS
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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  Cambridge University Press
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  © Cambridge University Press 1991
  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
  and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
  no reproduction of any part may take place without
  the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
  First published 1991
  6th printing 2006
  Printed in the United States of America
  A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
  (Revised for volume 4)
  The Cambridge history of Japan.
  Includes bibliographical references.
  Contents: v. 4. Early modern Japan /
  edited by John W. Hall - v. 5. The nineteenth century /
  edited by Marius B Jansen - v. 6. The twentieth
  century / edited by Peter Duus.
  1. Japan - History. I. Hall, John Whitny, 1916-
  DS835.C36 
  1990 
  952 
  88-2877
  ISBN-13 978-0-521-22352-2 (v. 1) hardback
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  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  GENERAL EDITORS' PREFACE
  Since the beginning of this century the Cambridge histories have set a
  pattern in the English-reading world for multivolume series contain-
  ing chapters written by specialists under the guidance of volume edi-
  tors. Plans for a Cambridge history of Japan were begun in the 1970s
  and completed in 1978. The task was not to be easy. The details of
  Japanese history are not matters of common knowledge among West-
  ern historians. The cultural mode of Japan differs greatly from that of
  the West, and above all there are the daunting problems of terminol-
  ogy and language. In compensation, however, foreign scholars have
  been assisted by the remarkable achievements of the Japanese scholars
  during the last century in recasting their history in modern conceptual
  and methodological terms.
  History has played a major role in Japanese culture and thought,
  and the Japanese record is long and full. Japan's rulers from ancient
  times have found legitimacy in tradition, both mythic and historic,
  and Japan's thinkers have probed for a national morality and system of
  values in their country's past. The importance of history was also
  emphasized in the continental cultural influences that entered Japan
  from early times. Its expression changed as the Japanese consciousness
  turned to questions of dynastic origin, as it came to reflect Buddhist
  views of time and reality, and as it sought justification for rule by the
  samurai estate. By the eighteenth century the successive need to ex-
  plain the divinity of the government, justify the ruler's place through
  his virtue and compassion, and interpret the flux of political change
  had resulted in the fashioning of a highly subjective fusion of Shinto,
  Buddhist, and Confucian norms.
  In the nineteenth century the Japanese became familiar with West-
  ern forms of historical expression and felt the need to fit their national
  history into patterns of a larger world history. As the modern Japanese
  state took its place among other nations, Japanese history faced the
  task of reconciling a parochial past with a more catholic present. Histo-
  rians familiarized themselves with European accounts of the course of
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  vi 
  GENERAL EDITORS' PREFACE
  civilization and described Japan's nineteenth-century turn from mili-
  tary to civilian bureaucratic rule under monarchical guidance as part of
  a larger, worldwide pattern. Buckle, Guizot, Spencer, and then Marx
  successively provided interpretative schema.
  The twentieth-century ideology of the imperial nation state, how-
  ever, operated to inhibit full play of universalism in historical interpre-
  tation. The growth and ideology of the imperial realm required cau-
  tion on the part of historians, particularly with reference to Japanese
  origins.
  Japan's defeat in World War II brought release from these inhibi-
  tions and for a time replaced them with compulsive denunciation of
  the pretensions of the imperial state. Soon the expansion of higher
  education brought changes in the size and variety of the Japanese
  scholarly world. Historical inquiry was now free to range widely. A
  new opening to the West brought lively interest in historical expres-
  sions in the West, and a historical profession that had become cau-
  tiously and expertly positivist began to rethink its material in terms of
  larger patterns.
  At just this juncture the serious study of Japanese history began in
  the West. Before World War II the only distinguished general survey
  of Japanese history in English was G. B. Sansom's Japan: A Short
  Cultural History, first published in 1931 and still in print. English and
  American students of Japan, many trained in wartime language pro-
  grams, were soon able to travel to Japan for study and participation
  with Japanese scholars in cooperative projects. International confer-
  ences and symposia produced volumes of essays that served as bench-
  marks of intellectual focus and technical advance. Within Japan itself
  an outpouring of historical scholarship, popular publishing, and his-
  torical romance heightened the historical consciousness of a nation
  aware of the dramatic changes to which it was witness.
  In 1978 plans were adopted to produce this series on Japanese his-
  tory as a way of taking stock of what has been learned. The present
  generation of Western historians can draw upon the solid foundations
  of the modern Japanese historical profession. The decision to limit the
  enterprise to six volumes meant that topics such as the history of art
  and literature, aspects of economics and technology and science, and
  the riches of local history would have to be left out. They too have
  been the beneficiaries of vigorous study and publication in Japan and
  in the Western world.
  Multivolume series have appeared many times in Japanese since the
  beginning of the century, but until the 1960s the number of profession-
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  GENERAL EDITORS' PREFACE 
  vii
  ally trained historians of Japan in the Western world was too small to
  sustain such an enterprise. Although that number has grown, the
  general editors have thought it best to draw on Japanese specialists for
  contributions in areas where they retain a clear authority. In such cases
  the act of translation itself involves a form of editorial cooperation that
  requires the skills of a trained historian whose name deserves acknowl-
  edgment.
  The primary objective of the present series is to put before the
  English-reading audience as complete a record of Japanese history as
  possible. But the Japanese case attracts our attention for other reasons
  as well. To some it has seemed that the more we have come to know
  about Japan the more we are drawn to the apparent similarities with
  Western history. The long continuous course of Japan's historical rec-
  ord has tempted historians to look for resemblances between its pat-
  terns of political and social organization and those of the West. The
  rapid emergence of Japan's modern nation state has occupied the atten-
  tion of comparative historians, both Japanese and Western. On the
  other hand, specialists are inclined to point out the dangers of being
  misled by seeming parallels.
  The striking advances in our knowledge of Japan's past will con-
  tinue and accelerate. Western historians of this great and complex
  subject will continue to grapple with it, and they must as Japan's
  world role becomes more prominent. The need for greater and deeper
  understanding of Japan will continue to be evident. Japanese history
  belongs to the world, not only as a right and necessity but also as a
  subject of compelling interest.
  JOHN WHITNEY HALL
  MARIUS B. JANSEN
  MADOKA KANAI
  DENIS TWITCHETT
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CONTENTS
  General editors' preface 
  page v
  List of maps, figures, and tables 
  xiv
  Preface to Volume 4 
  xv
  Chronology 
  xvii
  1 Introduction 
  1
  by JOHN WHITNEY HALL, Department of History,
  Yale University
  Japan's early modern transformation 
  1
  The Oda-Toyotomi institutions of unification 
  6
  The role of local studies 
  9
  The emergence of the samurai class 
  14
  Formation of the early modern village 
  16
  The Edo bakufu in the eighteenth century 
  18
  The political process 
  20
  Patterns of political development 
  22
  Growth and conflict 
  23
  Thought and religion 
  27
  The Edo period: a new field of study 
  30
  A note on the organization of this volume 
  35
  A final word 
  38
  2 The sixteenth-century unification 
  40
  by ASAO NAOHIRO, Faculty of Letters, University of
  Kyoto
  Translated by BERNARD SUSSER
  Political unification 
  40
  The military and economic base 
  53
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  X 
  CONTENTS
  Changes in international relations 
  66
  The power structure of the unified state 
  78
  3 The social and economic consequences of unification 
  96
  by WAKITA OSAMU, Faculty of Letters, Osaka
  University
  Translated by JAMES L. M C C L A I N
  Introduction 
  96
  The Taiko land surveys and the early modern
  peasantry 
  99
  Commerce and the early modern cities 
  no
  The early modern social system 
  121
  Conclusions 
  125
  4 The bakuhan system 
  128
  by J O H N W H I T N E Y H A L L , Department of History,
  Yale University
  The Tokugawa house and its rise to power 
  130
  Formation of the Edo bakufu 
  145
  The bakuhan power structure 
  150
  The Edo shogunate: the authority structure 
  156
  Bakufu organization 
  161
  5 The han 
  183
  by H A R O L D B O L I T H O , Department of East Asian
  Languages and Civilisations, Harvard University
  The han and central control, 1600-1651 
  191
  The han and central control after 1651 
  201
  Han finances 
  213
  Han politics 
  225
  6 The inseparable trinity: Japan's relations with China
  and Korea 
  235
  by JURGIS ELISONAS, Department of East Asian
  Languages and Cultures, Indiana University
  Trade and piracy 
  235
  War and peace 
  265
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CONTENTS 
  XI
  7 Christianity and the daimyo 
  301
  by JURGIS ELISONAS, Department of East Asian
  Languages and Cultures, Indiana University
  The arrival of the Europeans ' 
  302
  The condition of Kyushu 
  304
  Deus or Dainichi? 
  307
  , The search for secure patrons 
  310
  Xavier and Ouchi Yoshitaka 
  312
  Otomo Sorin Yoshishige 
  316
  The beginnings of the Christian mission in the
  Kansai area 
  318
  The symbiosis of daimyo, missionaries, and
  merchants 
  321
  The Jesuit colony of Nagasaki 
  326
  Christian advances in Kyushu 
  331
  The vicissitudes of Bungo 
  335
  The end of Ryuzoji Takanobu 
  343
  The ecclesiastical politics of vice-provincial Coelho 
  347
  The collapse of the Otomo realm 
  353
  Hideyoshi's invasion of Kyushu 
  356
  Hideyoshi's anti-Christian edicts 
  359
  The Christian daimyo and the early Tokugawa
  regime 
  365
  The anti-Christian system of the Tokugawa 
  368
  8 Thought and religion, 1550-1700 
  373
  by BITO MASAHIDE, Faculty of Letters, University of
  Tokyo
  Translated by KATE WILDMAN NAKAI
  Religion 
  378
  Thought 
  395
  9 Politics in the eighteenth century 
  425
  by Tsujl TATSUYA, Faculty of Arts and Sciences,
  Yokohama City University
  Translated by HAROLD BOLITHO
  Tokugawa Tsunayoshi 
  427
  The Shotoku era 
  437
  Tokugawa Yoshimune 
  441
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  Xll 
  CONTENTS
  Kyoho Reforms: the first stage 
  445
  Kyoho Reforms: the second stage 
  449
  The Horeki period 
  456
  The Tanuma period 
  460
  The Kansei Reforms 
  467
  10 The village and agriculture during the Edo period 
  478
  by FURUSHIMA TOSHIO, Faculty of Agriculture,
  University of Tokyo
  Translated by JAMES L. MCCLAIN
  The Sengoku village legacy 
  478
  The social composition of the early modern village 
  486
  Land-tax revenue and government 
  finances 
  492
  Irrigation and land reclamation 
  498
  Agricultural use of forestland 
  502
  Technology and commercial agriculture 
  504
  Cooperative aspects of village society 
  515
  Conclusion 
  517
  11 Commercial change and urban growth in early modern
  Japan 
  . 
  519
  by NAKAI NOBUHIKO, Faculty of Letters, Keib Gijuku
  University and JAMES L. MCCLAIN , Department of
  History, Brown University
  An era of urban growth 
  519
  Cities and commerce in the seventeenth century 
  538
  Cities and commerce in the early eighteenth century 
  568
  Cities and commerce in the late eighteenth century 
  579
  Conclusions 
  590
  12 History and nature in eighteenth-century Tokugawa
  thought 
  596
  by TETSUO NAJITA, Department of History, The
  University of Chicago
  Introduction 
  596
  History 
  601
  Nature 
  621
  History and nature in the late eighteenth century 
  638
  Epilogue 
  656
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CONTENTS 
  Xlll
  13 Tokugawa society: material culture, standard of living,
  and life-styles 
  660
  by SUSAN B. HANLEY, Henry M. Jackson School of
  International Studies, University of Washington
  Housing: samurai, town, and farm 
  665
  The house and life-styles 
  674
  Food, nutrition, and other dietary factors 
  680
  Clothing 
  689
  Implications of changes in the material culture and
  life-styles 
  693
  14 Popular culture 
  706
  by DONALD H. SHIVELY, Department of Oriental
  Languages and East Asiatic Library, University of
  California, Berkeley
  Introduction 
  706
  Education 
  715
  Books and publishing 
  725
  Kyoto the source 
  733
  The society of prostitutes 
  742
  The theater world 
  749
  The chdnin 
  761
  Works cited 
  771
  Glossary-index 
  813
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  MAPS, FIGURES, AND TABLES
  MAPS
  Provinces and regions of early modern Japan 
  page xxvi
  Maritime routes, early modern East Asia 
  xxviii
  4.1 Major daimyo domains and capital cities, mid-
  seventeenth century 
  151
  6.1 Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea 
  274
  11.1 Major cities and transportation routes, eighteenth
  century 
  543
  FIGURES
  4.1 Genealogy of the Tokugawa family 
  132
  4.2 Main offices of the Tokugawa bakufu 
  166
  TABLES
  4.1 Confiscations of daimyo holdings, 1601-1705 
  152
  14.1 Number and rank of prostitutes in Kyoto, Osaka,
  and Edo, c. 1700 
  746
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  PREFACE TO VOLUME 4
  Each volume in this series has its own identity and editorial history.
  Volume 4 derives its special tone from the fact that it relies more
  heavily on contributions prepared by Japanese scholars than do most
  of the other books in the series. In order to handle the problem of
  accurate translation for this multicultural study, an effort has been
  made to select translators from among established American scholars
  who have a sensitivity toward the interests and intent of the Japanese
  author whose essay they were assigned to translate. This method has
  been tested previously in a number of bilingual seminars held on the
  Muromachi, Sengoku, and early Edo periods. The Introduction to
  this volume acknowledges the contributions made by the authors, but
  little is said about the translators. We have been fortunate in attracting
  a number of talented scholars as translators, and I feel the results have
  proven the soundness of our policy.
  One who deserves special mention is James L. McClain who has
  served as assistant editor. Aside from his work as author and translator
  he has prepared the historical chronology and has been invaluable in
  facilitating the production process throughout the entire procedure. I
  am especially grateful to him for negotiating several complicated edito-
  rial issues and in serving as a link with authors on his visits to Japan.
  My retirement in 1983 meant the transfer of editorial work from
  Yale and the setting up of a home office and computer center. Michael
  Cutler, whose natural ability to make the computer friendly was cru-
  cial at this time, compiled the chart of the Tokugawa genealogy; and,
  armed with his own bilingual word processor, he also prepared the list
  of Works Cited. The meticulous care shown by Luke S. Roberts in
  preparing the Glossary-Index proved invaluable.
  Two of the general editors of the Cambridge History of Japan series
  were most generous with their time and editorial help: Kanai Madoka
  whose encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese history was called upon to
  read portions of the manuscript and later the proofs, and Marius
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  Xvi 
  PREFACE TO VOLUME 4
  Jansen whose vision stirred this project from its beginnings and whose
  good natured companionship has made it all worthwhile.
  In this volume Japanese is romanized according to the Hepburn
  system, and Chinese according to the Wade-Giles system. Japanese
  and Chinese personal names follow their native form, with surname
  preceding given name, except in citations of Japanese authors writing
  in English. We wish to thank the Japan Foundation for grants that
  facilitated the production of this series.
  Throughout the unexpectedly long time it has taken to bring this
  volume into being there has been one invaluable assistant who de-
  serves special recognition. My wife Robin has worked closely with me
  as general facilitator and encourager. At a time when she was anticipat-
  ing the leisure of retirement from her own professional duties she has
  patiently endured the invasion of her home by computer equipment
  and the indignity of having to learn to master it for this project.
  JOHN WHITNEY HALL
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CHRONOLOGY
  Era names (nengo) are indicated in bold type; months and days correspond to the
  Japanese lunar calander.
  1532 
  Tenbun era begins on 7/29.
  1534 
  Oda Nobunaga is born; the process of national unification begins.
  1536 
  Toyotomi Hideyoshi is born, perhaps on Tenbun 6/2/6.
  1542 
  Tokugawa Ieyasu is born; Portuguese traders arrive in Japan and introduce
  Western muskets and cannon.
  1549 
  Francis Xavier (1506-52) lands at Kagoshima and initiates the Christian
  mission.
  1555 
  Kdji era begins 10/23.
  1558 
  Eiroku era begins 2/28; Hideyoshi (Kinoshita Tokichiro) enters the service
  of Nobunaga.
  1560 
  Nobunaga gains national prominence by defeating Imagawa Yoshimoto, the
  foremost power in the Kan to region, in the battle of Okehazama.
  1562 
  Nobunaga concludes alliance with Ieyasu.
  1568 
  Nobunaga marches into Kyoto and installs Ashikaga Yoshiaki as shogun;
  Nobunaga issues the rakuichi-rakuza decrees in Kano and abolishes toll
  gates in all provinces.
  1569 
  Nobunaga issues erizeni decrees (Eiroku 12/3); the city of Sakai submits to
  Nobunaga.
  1570 
  Genki era begins 4/23; Nobunaga launches campaign against the True Pure
  Land sect, with warfare to continue for nearly ten years.
  1571 
  Nobunaga destroys Enryakuji, headquarters of the Tendai sect on Mt.
  Hiei.
  1572 
  Nobunaga confines the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki to Nijo Castle, burns
  much of the inner city of Kyoto, and then drives Yoshiaki from Kyoto, in
  effect putting an end to the Ashikaga shogunate.
  1573 
  Tensho era begins 7/28.
  1576 
  Nobunaga moves to Azuchi and begins to construct a new castle.
  1580 
  English trading vessels visit Hirado; Nobunaga orders a cadastral survey for
  Yamato and Harima provinces.
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  XV111 
  CHRONOLOGY
  1582 
  Akechi Mitsuhide betrays Nobunaga; Hideyoshi avenges Nobunaga's death
  by slaying Mitsuhide in the battle of Yamazaki and torches Azuchi Castle;
  Hideyoshi orders a cadastral survey for Yamashiro Province, initiating what
  ultimately will become a nationwide land survey (kenchi).
  1583 
  Hideyoshi enters Osaka Castle.
  1585 
  Hideyoshi is appointed kampaku (imperial regent).
  1587 
  Hideyoshi conquers Kyushu and issues an edict restricting the practice of
  Christianity.
  1588 
  The exiled Ashikaga Yoshiaki resigns the office of shogun, bringing a legal
  end to the Ashikaga shogunate; Hideyoshi initiates a sword hunt in many
  provinces.
  1589 
  Hideyoshi orders the brothels of Kyoto to be brought together in one li-
  censed quarter known as Nijo Yanagimachi.
  1590 
  Hideyoshi completes his military hegemony by defeating the Go-Hojo at
  Odawara; the final resistance in northern Japan ceases by the following year;
  Ieyasu resettles in the Kanto and builds a castle at Edo.
  1591 
  Hideyoshi issues a three-clause order prohibiting changes of status from
  samurai to merchant or from fanner to merchant.
  1592 
  Hideyoshi's armies invade Korea; Bunroku era begins 12/8.
  1594 
  Hideyoshi constructs a grand palace at Momoyama and a castle at Fushimi.
  1596 
  Keicho era begins 10/27; Hideyoshi's field generals arrange a truce with the
  Chinese that fails to meet Hideyoshi's military objectives.
  1597 
  Hideyoshi orders the death of twenty-six Christians in Nagasaki (Keicho 1/
  11); Hideyoshi moves to Osaka Castle (Keicho 1/11); Hideyoshi orders the
  second invasion of Korea (Keicho 2/1); Ashikaga Yoshiaki dies.
  1598 
  Hideyoshi dies, and the Japanese invasion armies are recalled from Korea.
  1600 
  The first Dutch ship arrives in Japan; Ieyasu grants an audience to Will
  Adams at Osaka; Ieyasu asserts military hegemony with a victory in the
  battle of Sekigahara.
  1603 
  Ieyasu is appointed shogun; Okuni, a priestess of Izumo Shrine, performs
  kabuki dances in Kyoto; the bridge at Nihonbashi is constructed in Edo.
  1604 
  The Confucian scholar Hayashi Razan is employed by Ieyasu; he later
  founds a private school in Edo.
  1605 
  Ieyasu retires as shogun and the post passes to his son Hidetada; Ieyasu takes
  the title of retired shogun (pgosho) and names the family castle at Sumpu as
  his official residence; Hayashi Razan has his first audience with Ieyasu.
  1607 
  Envoys from Korea arrive in Edo, their first visit to Japan since Hideyoshi's
  invasions.
  1609 
  The Dutch East India Company receives permission from the shogunate to
  trade at Nagasaki.
  1612 
  The shogunate issues prohibitions against Christianity.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CHRONOLOGY 
  XIX
  1614 
  The shogunate expels 148 Christians from Japan; Ieyasu launches his winter
  campaign against Hideyori at Osaka Castle.
  1615 
  The summer campaign culminates with the fall of Osaka Castle and the
  death of Hideyori; the shogunate issues its "one province, one castle" edict
  and the Bake shohatto (ordinances pertaining to warrior houses); Genna era
  begins 7/13.
  1616 
  Ieyasu dies and his remains are interred first at Mt. Kuno in Shizuoka and
  later at Nikko; all foreign ships, except Chinese, are restricted to Nagasaki
  and Hirado.
  1617 
  The shogunate authorizes the establishment of a licensed quarter at
  Yoshiwara; the first kabuki theaters are licensed in Kyoto.
  1618 
  The shogunate issues injunctions against those who disguise themselves as
  mountain ascetics (yamabushi).
  1619 
  Fujiwara Seika, regarded as the founder of early modern Japanese Neo-
  Confucianism, dies; Christians in Kyoto are executed.
  1621 
  The shogunate issues edicts against overseas travel, the construction of ships
  capable of sailing to foreign countries, and the exportation of weapons.
  1622 
  Fifty-five Christians are executed at Nagasaki; a period of intense persecu-
  tion begins.
  1623 
  Hidetada retires as shogun and is succeeded by Iemitsu; the English close
  their shops at Hirado and leave Japan.
  1624 
  Kan'ei era begins 2/30; Saruwaka (Nakamura) Kanzaburd forms a kabuki
  troupe in Edo.
  1628 
  "Women's kabuki" (onna kabuki) becomes popular in Edo.
  1629 
  The Buke shohatto is amended and reissued; the shogunate bans women
  from the kabuki stage; Hayashi Razan publishes his Shunkansho, an exposi-
  tion of the tenets of Neo-Confucianism.
  1630 
  Ieyasu's great-granddaughter is enthroned as the empress Meisho.
  1631 
  The Shimmachi licensed quarter opens in Osaka.
  1633 
  Shamisen are first used in kabuki performances.
  1635 
  The shogunate restricts foreign ships and foreign trade to Nagasaki and
  prohibits overseas Japanese from returning home (commonly referred to as
  the sakoku laws); the sankin kotai system of alternate residence is institution-
  alized as lozama daimyo are ordered to participate in the system.
  1636 
  A barrier guard post (sekisho) is established at Hakone to protect Edo from
  the West.
  1637 
  The Shimabara Rebellion begins, continuing into the next year. Ieyasu's
  spirit is deified as Tosho.-dai-gongen at Nikko.
  1638 
  The shogunate issues its most severe edicts against Christianity; the phe-
  nomenon of Ise pilgrimages sweeps the nation during the summer.
  1639 
  The shogunate prohibits Portuguese ships from calling at Japanese ports.
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  XX 
  CHRONOLOGY
  1640 
  The shogunate establishes an anti-Christian inquisition (shumon aratame
  yaku); brothels in Kyoto are transferred to a new location, Shimabara.
  1641 
  The Dutch trading posts are transferred from Hirado to Deshima at
  Nagasaki.
  1642 
  The fudai daimyo are instructed to participate in the alternate residence
  system.
  1644 
  Shoho era begins 12/16.
  1645 
  Takuan Soho, a leading figure in the Zen reform movement, dies.
  1648 
  The shogunate issues a legal code regulating the lives of commoners in Edo;
  Keian era begins on 2/15; two months later codes concerning urban life and
  commerce are issued in Osaka.
  1649 
  The shogunate issues the Keian furegaki, impressing on the peasants the
  necessity of diligence and frugality.
  1651 
  Ietsuna succeeds Iemitsu; the shogunate uncovers a plot by Yui Shosetsu.
  1652 
  "Young men's kabuki" (wakashu) is banned in Edo; J66 era begins 9/18.
  1655 
  Meireki era begins 4/13; the Confucian scholar Yamazaki Ansai opens a
  private school in Kyoto.
  1656 
  Illicit bath houses become popular in Edo.
  1657 
  A great fire destroys large portions of Edo; a new licensed quarter, the Shin
  Yoshiwara, is established near Asakusa; the daimyo of Mito, Tokugawa Mitsu-
  kuni, begins compilation of the Dai Nihonshi (The history of great Japan).
  1658 
  Manji era beings 7/23.
  1661 
  Kambun era begins 4/25; Kimpira j'oruri enters period of great popularity in
  Edo.
  1662 
  The Takeda theater is established in Osaka.
  1663 
  The Buke shohatto is revised to prohibit warriors from committing suicide
  upon the death of their lord; fireworks are banned in Edo.
  1665 
  Asai Ryoi publishes his Ukiyo monogatari (A tale of the floating world); the
  shogunate issues regulations governing temples and priests {skoshujiin hand).
  1666 
  The twenty-volume illustrated lexicon Kimmo zui (Illustrations and defini-
  tions to train the untutored) appears.
  1672 
  Under the direction of Kawamura Zuiken, preparations are completed for
  the western and eastern coastal shipping circuits.
  1673 
  Empo era begins 9/21; the Mitsui family opens its textile store, the
  Echigoya, in Edo.
  1679 
  The shogunate executes the masterless samurai Hirai Gompachi, who had
  taken refuge in the Yoshiwara licensed quarter and robbed townspeople.
  1680 
  Tsunayoshi is appointed shogun; he asserts his authority by dismissing Grand
  Councilor Sakai Tadakiyo and confiscating part or all of the domains of forty-
  six daimyo, beginning with Matsudaira Mitsunaga of Takada in 1681; a re-
  vised and expanded edition, containing more than thirty thousand entries, of
  the fifteenth-century dictionary Setsuyo shu is published in Edo.
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  CHRONOLOGY 
  XXI
  1681 
  Tenna era begins on 9/29.
  1682 
  Kinoshita Jun'an becomes Confucian adviser to the shogunate; Yamazaki
  Ansai, prominent Neo-Confucian scholar and founder of the Suiga school of
  Shinto, dies; Ihara Saikaku publishes his first book, Koshoku ichidai otoko
  (The life of an amorous man).
  1684 
  Joky6 era begins 2/21; codes regulating the publishing business are promul-
  gated in Edo.
  1685 
  A guide to Kyoto, Kyo habutae, appears, listing 241 master teachers offering
  private instruction in forty-seven specialties.
  1686 
  A protective association (kabunakama) is formed by cotton cloth wholesalers
  in Edo; regulations concerning trade with Korea are issued; Saikaku pub-
  lishes Koshoku ichidai onna (The life of an amorous woman) and Koshoku
  gonin onna (Five women who loved love); Chikamatsu Monzaemon writes
  Kagekiyo (Victorious).
  1688 
  Saikaku publishes Nihon eitaigura (The eternal storehouse of Japan);
  Genroku era begins on 9/30; Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu becomes grand chamber-
  lain for the shogun Tsunayoshi; the shogunate limits to seventy the number
  of Chinese ships visiting Nagasaki each year.
  1689 
  Basho departs on his journey along "Narrow Roads to Distant Places."
  1690 
  Ukiyo-zoshi literature reaches new hights of popularity; the wood-block
  print artist Torii Kiyomori begins to draw actors, producing his first poster
  for the Ichimura-za; the school founded by Hayashi Razan is named as the
  shogunate's official school.
  1693 
  The shogunate completes a census of Edo, recording a chonin population of
  more than 353,000.
  1694 
  The Group of Ten Wholesale Associations is formed in Edo; Basho dies.
  1696 
  Miyazaki Antei writes Nogyo zensho (The complete agriculturalist) barely
  one year before his death.
  1698 
  Tsunayoshi orders his first debasement of currency.
  1702 
  The forty-seven ronin carry out their celebrated vendetta.
  1703 
  Chikamatsu's Sonezaki shinju (The love suicides of Sonezaki) is first per-
  formed; more than twenty domains have by now established schools for
  educating samurai.
  1704 
  Ichikawa Danjuro, first head of the Ichikawa kabuki troupe, dies; Hoei era
  begins 3/13.
  1705 
  Thousands across Japan join in okagemairi pilgrimages to Ise; the shogunate
  confiscates the wealth of Yodoya Saburoemon.
  1711 
  Shotoku era begins 4/25.
  1712 
  Arai Hakuseki completes his influential history, the Tokushiyoron.
  1714 
  Kaibara Ekken dies, a prolific writer on such topics as ethics for common-
  ers, education for women, natural history, and Neo-Confucian metaphysics
  and cosmology.
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  XX11 
  CHRONOLOGY
  1715 
  Nagasaki trade limited to thirty ships annually for the Chinese, two for the
  Dutch; Arai Hakuseki writes his Seiyo kibun (A report on the Occident).
  1716 
  Yoshimune becomes shogun and launches the first major reform of the
  shogunate; Kyoho era begins 6/22.
  1719 
  Nishikawa Joken completes his Ckdnin bukuro (A bagful of advice for
  merchants).
  1720 
  Yoshimune allows Chinese translations of Western books into Japan.
  1721 
  Nishikawa Joken writes his Hyakusho bukuro (A bagful of advice for farm-
  ers), encouraging literacy among farmers.
  1723 
  The shogunate prohibits depictions of double love suicides in publications or
  on stage in Osaka; the shogunate introduces the tashidaka system of augment-
  ing stipends in order to facilitate the promotion of capable officials; a protec-
  tive association of book dealers is formed in Osaka; censorship of new publi-
  cations is carried out.
  1724 
  Oil, rice, and other commodity dealers are instructed to form closed associa-
  tions in Edo; the shogunate issues the Kyoho-do horitsurui, a collection of
  legal precedents and instructions.
  1726 
  Edo wholesalers dealing in fifteen different products, including rice and cook-
  ing oils, are required to submit account books and price lists to the shogunate.
  1727 
  Nakagawa Seizaburo and other Osaka merchants join to open the Dojima
  rice market; Ogyu Sorai publishes Seidan (Political essays).
  1728 
  Trade in rice futures is permitted in Osaka; Kada Azumamaro petitions the
  shogunate to establish a "school of national learning."
  1729 
  Dazai Shundai completes his Keizairoku, a widely read work on political
  economy.
  1730 
  The City Office in Edo issues regulations concerning the establishment of
  fire-fighting services.
  1732 
  Famine conditions prevail in Kinki and portions of southern and western
  Japan.
  1733 
  Chonin residents in Edo and other major cities attack the shops of rice
  merchants to protest high rice and commodity prices, the first instance of
  violent demonstrations by commoners in Edo.
  1735 
  Several daimyo abolish licensed quarters in their castle towns.
  1736 
  Gembun era begins 4/28.
  1737 
  Kamo Mabuchi arrives in Edo to promote the study of ancient Japanese texts
  such as the Man'yoshu.
  1738 
  The evolution of popular protest into a major factor in domestic politics is
  exemplified by the rioting of 84,000 farmers in Iwakitaira and the interven-
  tion of troops from thirteen daimyo domains to crush a protest near the
  Ikuno silver mines.
  1741 
  Kampd era begins 2/27.
  1742 
  The shogunate compiles the Kujikata osadamegaki, a codification of its legal
  codes and procedures.
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  CHRONOLOGY 
  XX111
  1744 
  Enkyd era begins 2/21; the Kyoto merchant Ishida Baigan, who founded the
  commoner teaching known as Shingaku, 
  dies.
  1745 
  Aoki Konyo issues a Dutch-Japanese dictionary.
  1748 
  Kan'en era begins 7/12; the first performance of the eleven-act puppet play
  Kanadehon 
  chushingura (A copybook of the treasury of loyal retainers) de-
  picts the classic act of samurai revenge, the 1702 vendetta of the forty-seven
  ronin.
  1751 
  Horeki era begins 10/27.
  1760 
  Ieshige resigns and his son Ieharu becomes the tenth Tokugawa shogun.
  1763 
  A merchant association handling Korean ginseng is founded in the Kanda
  district of Edo.
  1764 
  Meiwa era begins 6/2.
  1769 
  Tanuma Okitsugu begins his rise to prominence under the patronage of
  Ieharu.
  1770 
  Licensing procedures are put into place for oil producers in Osaka and
  surrounding areas.
  1772 
  An'ei era begins 11/16; the shogunate issues the nanryo nishugin coin in an
  effort to increase the amount of currency in circulation.
  1777 
  Russian authorities approach the authorities of Matsumae domain in
  Hokkaido with a request for trade.
  1781 
  Temmei era begins 4/2.
  1783 
  Mt. Asama erupts, and much of the agricultural land in the Kanto is severely
  damaged.
  1786 
  The shogun Ieharu dies; Tanuma and several of his assistants are dismissed
  from office.
  1788 
  Matsudaira Sadanobu is appointed as chief senior councilor for the shogun
  Ienari and initiates the Kansei Reforms; Otsuki Gentaku publishes his
  Rangaku kaitei (Explanation of Dutch studies).
  1789 
  Kansei era begins 1/25.
  1790 
  Sadanobu initiates the so-called prohibitions against unorthodox teachings.
  1791 
  The Sumitomo family opens the Besshi copper mines.
  1792 
  Adam Laksman, a lieutenant in the Russian navy, arrives in Nemuro with
  instructions from Catherine the Great to seek the repatriation of Russian
  castaways and the opening of diplomatic and commercial relations; the sho-
  gunate orders coastal defenses improved.
  1793 
  Matsudaira Sadanobu is stripped of his position as senior councilor.
  1794 
  The shogunate's bibliographer Hanawa Hokiichi completes the Gunsho ruiju
  (Classified documents).
  1798 
  The scholar Honda Toshiaki publishes his Keisei hisaku (Secret proposals on
  political economy), calling for the creation of a national merchant marine.
  1801 
  Kyowa era begins 2/5.
  1804 
  Bunka era begins 2/11.
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  XXIV 
  CHRONOLOGY
  1809 
  Compilation of the Tokugawajikki (Veritable records of the Tokugawa house)
  begins.
  1811 
  The shogunate establishes an office to translate works from the West.
  1818 
  Bunsei era begins 4/22.
  1830 
  Tempo era begins 12/10.
  1837 
  Oshio Heihachiro leads riots in Osaka; several domains launch reform pro-
  grams.
  1841 
  Mizuno Tadakuni abolishes protective associations, begins the shogunate's
  Tempo Reforms.
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  MAPS
  Early modern Japan
  Maritime routes, early modern East Asia
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  XXVI 
  MAPS 
  MAPS 
  XXV11 
  Provinces and regions of early modern Japan. 
  PRpviMCES 
  REGIONS 
  I 
  z. 
  & 
  4-5 
  6 
  7 
  S 
  9 
  I O 
  II 
  IZ_ 
  13 
  14-
  IS 
  17 
  IS 
  19 
  CHIKUG,0 
  6IZ-EM 
  KAWACHi 
  IZLUMI 
  M,1<AWA 
  SA^AM,' 
  5HIMOSA. 
  SAN'IN 
  SANYO 
  «Jea a/" 
  Japan 
  ^TSUSHIMA, 
  SHINANO
   
  x 
  \ M l M O \ 
  A v v v 
  SHIMA 
  S A T S U N A ) 
  S\YU5HHJ 
  dTANEQASHIMA 
  Pacific 
  Ocean 
  I-ZJU 
  y 
  \ i s e \ 
  x y o 
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  xxvm
  MAPS
  HONSHU
  Pac/ic Oc
  Maritime routes, early modern East Asia.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  CHAPTER 1
  INTRODUCTION
  JAPAN'S EARLY MODERN TRANSFORMATION
  In 1543 some Portuguese traders in a Chinese junk came ashore on the
  island of Tanegashima south of Kagoshima, the headquarters city of
  the Satsuma domain of southernmost Kyushu. This first, and presum-
  ably accidental, encounter between Europeans and Japanese proved to
  be an epochal event, for from the Portuguese the Japanese learned
  about Western firearms. Within three decades the Japanese civil war
  that had been growing in intensity among the regional military lords,
  or daimyo, was being fought with the new technology. In 1549 another
  Chinese vessel, this time purposefully, set on Japanese soil at Kago-
  shima the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the
  Society of Jesus. This marked the start of a vigorous effort by Jesuit
  missionaries to bring Christianity to Japan. For another hundred years
  Japan lay open to both traders and missionaries from the West. And
  conversely Japan became known to the world beyond its doors.1
  From a strictly Japanese perspective, the century or so from the
  middle of the sixteenth century is distinguished by what can be called
  the "daimyo phenomenon," that is, the rise of local military lords who
  first carved out their own domains and then began to war among
  themselves for national hegemony. Between 1568 and 1590 two power-
  ful lords, Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-
  98), managed to unite all daimyo under a single military command,
  binding them together into a national confederation. The most impor-
  tant political development of these years was without question the
  achievement of military consolidation that led in 1603 to the establish-
  ment of a new shogunate, based in Edo. The shogunate itself, the
  government of the Tokugawa hegemony, gave form to the "Great
  Peace" that was to last until well into the nineteenth century.
  1 The use of the term "Christian century" has been applied to this era by Western scholars, but I
  have avoided using it in this introduction because of its possible overemphasis on the foreign
  factor. The best-known general work on this subject in English is C. H. Boxer's The Christian
  Century in Japan, iS49~l6so (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951).
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  2 
  INTRODUCTION
  Japan's sixteenth-century unification, as it was both observed by
  Europeans and influenced by the introduction of Western arms, has
  naturally suggested to historians various points of comparison between
  European and Japanese historical institutions. In fact, European visi-
  tors of the time found many similarities between the Europe they
  knew and the Japan they visited.2 Will Adams (1564-1620), for one,
  who landed in Japan in 1600, found life there quite amenable. Japan to
  him was a country of law and order governed as well or better than any
  he had seen in his travels. Since his time, historians, both Western and
  Japanese, have given thought to whether Japan and Western Europe
  were basically comparable in the mid-sixteenth century. Was there in
  fact a universal process of historical development in which two soci-
  eties, though on the opposite sides of the globe, could be seen to react
  to similar stimuli in comparable ways? The first generation of modern
  Japanese and Western historians to confront this question readily
  made the intellectual jump and put Japan on the same line of historical
  evolution as parts of Europe. The pioneer historian of medieval Japa-
  nese history, Asakawa Kan'ichi, typified this positivistic approach. As
  a member of the Yale University faculty from 1905 to 1946, he spent
  much of his scholarly life in search of a definition of feudalism that
  could be applied to both Europe and Japan.3
  Historians today are more cautious about suggesting that a tangible
  continuum might underlie two such distant but seemingly similar
  societies. Yet they continue to be intrigued by questions of possible
  comparability in the Japanese case.4 We think of early modern West-
  ern Europe in political terms as an age of the "absolute monarchs,"
  starting with the heads of the Italian city-states, the monarchies of
  Spain and Portugal, and finally England under the Tudors and France
  under the Bourbons. Underlying these state organizations were certain
  common features of government and social structure. First there was a
  notable centralization and expansion of power in the hands of the
  monarchy, and this tended to be gained at the expense of the landed
  aristocracy and the church. Characteristic of these states was the
  2 A conveniently arranged anthology of excerpts from the writings of European visitors to Japan
  is available in Michael Cooper, comp. and ed., They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European
  Reports on Japan, 1543-1640 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965).
  3 Kan'ichi Asakawa's most pertinent articles on the subject of feudaliam in Japan have been
  gathered in Land and Society in Medieval Japan (Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of
  Science, 1965).
  4 See the discussion of feudalism in Japan in Joseph R. Strayer, "The Tokugawa Period and
  Japanese Feudalism," and John W. Hall, "Feudalism in Japan - A Reassessment," in John W.
  Hall and Marius B. Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional History of Early Modern Japan
  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968).
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  JAPAN'S EARLY MODERN TRANSFORMATION 
  3
  growth of centralized fiscal, police, and military organizations and the
  increasing bureaucratization of administration. There were certain at-
  tendant social changes, particularly what is commonly described as the
  "breakdown" of feudal social class divisions, and the "rise" of the
  commercial and service classes. Often this process was furthered by an
  alliance between the monarchy and commercial wealth against the
  landed aristocracy and the clergy. And finally, common to all, was the
  growing acceptance of the practice of representation in government.
  The establishment of diets or parliaments was the truest test of
  postfeudal society.
  Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries underwent
  several similar political and social changes. The country achieved a
  new degree of political unity. The Tokugawa hegemony gave rise to a
  highly centralized power structure, capable of exerting nationwide
  enforcement over military and fiscal institutions. Yet centralization did
  not go as far as it had in Europe. Daimyo were permitted to retain
  their own armies and also a considerable amount of administrative
  autonomy.
  However, in contrast with Europe, Edo military government did not
  nurture an independent and politically powerful commercial class.
  There was no parliamentary representation of the "Third Estate."
  Rather, the samurai were frozen in place as the "ruling class" and
  reinforced at the expense of the merchant class. Although internal
  events in Japan showed certain patterns that invited comparison with
  Western Europe, the methodology for making such comparisons has
  not been convincingly developed. To be sure, there have been numer-
  ous attempts at one-on-one comparison based on the premise that the
  unification of Japan under the Tokugawa hegemony was comparable
  to the appearance of the monarchal states of Europe. Specifically,
  Marxist theory has been used to equate changes in sixteenth-century
  Japan with the presumed universal passage of society from feudalism
  to the absolute state.3
  The effort to explain Japanese history using concepts of change
  derived from a reading of European history has its advocates as well as
  its critics. This point is touched on in several chapters in this volume,
  especially that by Wakita Osamu. As more is discovered about the
  political and social institutions of the late sixteenth century in Japan,
  5 For a discussion of the controversy over concepts of periodization, see John Whitney Hall,
  Keiji Nagahara, and Kozo Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa: Political Consolidation
  and Economic Growth, 1500-1650 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 11-
  14-
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  4 
  INTRODUCTION
  the more complex the problem of comparison across cultural bound-
  aries appears to be. It is important to note that the vocabulary of
  historical explanation that has evolved among historians working
  strictly in documents primary to Japan is perfectly capable of identify-
  ing and analyzing the Japanese case on its own terms.
  The traditional landmarks of Japanese historical periodization help
  identify the primary boundary-setting events of the period. We start
  with the Onin-Bummei War of 1467 to 1477 that marked the begin-
  ning of the final downward slide of the Muromachi shogunate. Accord-
  ing to traditional historiography, the period from the Onin War to
  1568 - the year in which Oda Nobunaga occupied Kyoto and thereby
  initiated the period of military consolidation - is referred to as the
  Sengoku period, the Age of the Country at War. Between this date and
  1582, when Nobunaga was killed by one of his own generals, tradi-
  tional historiography has applied the label Azuchi, the name of
  Nobunaga's imposing castle on Lake Biwa. The period from Nobu-
  naga's death to 1598, during which Hideyoshi completed the unifica-
  tion of the daimyo, is given the name Momqyama, from the location of
  Hideyoshi's castle built between Osaka and Kyoto. The victory of
  Tokugawa Ieyasu's forces against the Toyotomi faction at the battle of
  Sekigahara in 1600 marked the beginning of the Tokugawa hegemony.
  Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) received appointment as shogun in
  1603, but his status was not fully consummated until 1615, when he
  occupied Osaka Castle and destroyed the remnants of the Toyotomi
  house and its supporters. The Tokugawa, or Edo, period was to last
  until 1868.
  We have already noted that for purposes of distribution and cover-
  age of subject matter, the temporal scope of this the fourth volume of
  our series is roughly from 1550 to 1800. The years covered do not
  conform to any single traditional historical era but, rather, include
  both the Azuchi and Momoyama periods and the first two centuries of
  the Edo, or Tokugawa, period. This time span is justified on the
  grounds that it covers the birth and the ultimate maturation of the
  form of political organization referred to by modern Japanese histori-
  ans as bakuhan, namely, the structure of government in which the
  shogunate (bakufu) ruled the country through a subordinate coalition
  of daimyo, whose domains were referred to as han. Although histori-
  ans have commonly treated the Azuchi-Momoyama and the Edo peri-
  ods as distinct entities, more recently they have come to recognize that
  the origin of the Tokugawa hegemony and the formation of Edo polity
  cannot be explained without reference to the fundamental institutional
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  JAPAN'S EARLY MODERN TRANSFORMATION 
  5
  changes that occurred under Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
  Hence, we now commonly link the earlier age as a preamble to the
  longer Edo period.6
  There is, of course, no intent to deny the separate identities of the
  Azuchi-Momoyama and Edo periods as meaningful units of historical
  periodization, especially from the point of view of the cultural histo-
  rian. Similarly, Azuchi-Momoyama still stands for half a century of
  massive military consolidation and political and social transformation,
  as the leading regional warlords created the compact domains that
  were eventually hammered together into a national coalition in 1590
  by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
  Most of the events of this era have been described with superlatives
  and absolutes. Unification was not simply a matter of conquest by one
  all-powerful daimyo. Rather, unification was companion to a more
  universal development, namely, the establishment of the warrior estate
  (the bushi or samurai) as the primary ruling authority in the country.
  Gathered into the castle towns that served as headquarters for the
  more than two hundred daimyo, the samurai enforced a rigorous ad-
  ministration over disarmed peasant and merchant classes. Despite the
  weight of military rule, the general national mood was one of openness
  to social change and to the outside world. Japanese adventurers en-
  gaged in commerce and piracy along the China mainland and into the
  waters of Indochina and the Philippines. Conversely, when Japan's
  shores were first visited by European traders and missionaries, they
  were warmly welcomed. We have noted already that Japan learned of
  firearms and Christianity from the West. The first had an immediate
  bearing on the nature of domestic warfare, hastening appreciably the
  process of military consolidation. The spread of Christianity was basi-
  cally divisive in its impact, giving rise to deep suspicions and tensions
  among Japanese of all classes. This ultimately became a contributory
  factor that led the authorities to close Japan's doors to all Europeans
  except the Dutch, adopting the so-called sakoku, or seclusion, policy.
  But that was not until 1639 and was the work of the more conservative
  Tokugawa shogunate.
  More characteristic of the ages of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were the
  private figures of the first two unifiers themselves. Nobunaga appears
  as the ruthless destroyer, wholly determined to eliminate all obstacles
  6 For recent studies of this transition era, see George Elison and Bardwell L. Smith, eds.,
  Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
  Press, 1981). Pages 245 to 279 of this volume comprise an extensive bibliography of works in
  Western languages.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  6 
  INTRODUCTION
  to his national unification. On the other hand, Hideyoshi is remem-
  bered as the creator of institutions that became the building blocks for
  the subsequent Tokugawa hegemony. Yet for all of this, he remains the
  colorful military upstart, indulging in flamboyant social displays, erect-
  ing gilded monuments to the emperor (tennd) or to himself. His most
  grandiose exploit was the controversial invasion of Korea in 1592-8.
  The Edo period that followed also projected its own historical
  image exemplified in the figure of Ieyasu, the only one of the unifiers
  who succeeded in establishing a hegemony that survived his own
  death. National unity was institutionalized to safeguard a lasting
  peace. The major decisions made by Ieyasu and his first two succes-
  sors as shogun were taken in the name of consolidation and stability.
  This was evident in the efforts to shape the bakufu as a national
  instrument of political control. Christianity was interdicted, and for-
  eign contacts were brought under strict regulation. The stamp of
  sakoku that colored the Edo bakufu's relations with the outside world
  was a reversal of the previous mood of openness. But it should not be
  thought that all the policies of the Edo shogunate were negative in
  their intent. Indeed, it was under the Tokugawa that Japan success-
  fully made the transition from military to civil government, some-
  thing that Hideyoshi had had little time to consider. Moreover, it was
  Tokugawa policy that permitted or even encouraged the growth of a
  new urban class, the chonin, and the urban cultural environment that
  it nurtured. In the area of foreign affairs, the Tokugawa shogunate
  was to continue to keep its eyes on the outside world indirectly
  through the Chinese, the Koreans, and the Dutch, who were given
  restricted access to Japan.
  THE ODA-TOYOTOMI INSTITUTIONS OF UNIFICATION
  The reason that historians today place such emphasis on the factors of
  continuity between the Oda-Toyotomi age and the succeeding Edo
  period comes from a new appreciation of the institutional changes that
  took place between the last half of the sixteenth century and the first
  half of the seventeenth. Earlier writers were not oblivious to this
  point, but as more has been discovered about the domestic changes of
  the last half of the sixteenth century, it has become clear that Japan
  experienced in those years a major transformation in social and politi-
  cal organization, military and economic capacity, and cultural style.
  Moreover, this transformation was more than a by-product of the
  unification movement or a reflection of the personal leadership of the
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  INSTITUTIONS OF UNIFICATION 
  7
  three unifiers. Of late, historians have looked for explanations of the
  forces of change in two broad areas: the evolving relationships be-
  tween the peasantry and the land, and between the samurai and the
  sources of their political power. Both approaches are concerned at
  bottom with the phenomenon of hei-no-bunri, the process whereby the
  samurai class was moved into the daimyo's newly formed headquarter
  towns, leaving a disarmed peasantry confined to the villages in the
  countryside.
  A new look at the agrarian foundations of sixteenth-century Japan
  was initiated in the 1950s by Araki Moriaki in his study of the massive
  cadastral survey (the so-called Taiko kenchi) conducted by Hideyoshi.7
  It was Araki's claim that the survey marked a major watershed in
  national organization. By giving rise to a farming class of small inde-
  pendent farm families under the direct control of regional military
  lords, it gave shape for the first time in Japan to what Araki claims to
  be a true serf class. As a consequence, Japan entered a state of feudal-
  ism, in Araki's terms.
  Araki's work created a stir in Japanese historical circles that has not
  yet subsided. But whether or not one agrees with his conceptual prem-
  ises, historians in general have acknowledged that what happened to
  Japan in the wake of the sixteenth-century cadastral surveys was of
  fundamental historical importance. The kenchi was instrumental in
  drawing a clear line between the samurai and the hyakushd (peasantry).
  Moreover, it gave rise to the kokudaka system of land management and
  taxation. This remarkable practice converted large numbers of samu-
  rai into absentee fief holders possessing proprietary rights of taxation,
  but not of free disposal, on their lands held in fief. It affirmed the
  existence of the self-regulated village unit (mura) and the cultivators'
  rights of occupancy.
  At the other end of the political spectrum, formation of the Toku-
  gawa hegemony has been studied in terms of the relationship between
  the bakufu as the central government and the han as units of local rule.
  Before our own time, historians had placed their attention chiefly on
  the bakufu as the central government - a regime they saw as the will-
  ful creation of the Tokugawa house. The growing interest in the study
  of daimyo domains that began in the late 1930s, however, led to the
  practice of referring to the government structure of the Tokugawa
  7 This spectacular accomplishment by the military aristocracy of the sixteenth century was not
  fully appreciated until the 1950s. With the appearance of Araki Moriaki's Bakuhan taisei
  shakai no seiritsu to kozo (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1959), the nationwide land survey
  became a major focus of attention for Japanese historians.
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  8 
  INTRODUCTION
  period as a combined bakuhan system.8 Thus they gave the han a
  position of equal standing with the bakufu.
  The present consensus among historians is that government organi-
  zation during the Edo period was the consequence of the evolution of
  two political systems: the shogunal system of national control and the
  daimyo system of local control. Both of these aspects of government
  were necessary and mutually dependent. In other words, the hege-
  monic power ultimately acquired by the shogun rested significantly on
  the ability of the daimyo who made up the shogun's vassal band to
  assert effective command over their provincial domains. These in fact
  accounted for no less than three-quarters of the national land base. The
  shogun, although in possession of the remaining one-quarter, was not
  prepared to abolish the daimyo and take on the administration of the
  entire country through a private officer corps. The shogun's govern-
  ment was essentially an expanded version of han government. Many
  features of Tokugawa administration, including its policy of propri-
  etary authority, derived from precedents established when Ieyasu him-
  self was still a daimyo in the province of Mikawa.
  The current emphasis on the bakuhan and kokudaka systems as ex-
  planatory concepts for the Edo period has eased the controversy over
  interpretation in the Marxist sense of whether Edo Japan should be
  considered a feudal society. As shown in the chapter by Wakita Osamu,
  so distinctive are the bakuhan and kokudaka systems, so difficult to
  compare with other historical models, particularly European, that the
  use of feudalism as an explanatory device has become less attractive.
  Having made this point, however, it must be admitted that scholars
  are still divided over matters of periodization. A persistent issue is how
  to interpret the term kinsei. Japanese historians customarily apply this
  term to the Edo period as a whole, now generally adding to it the last
  three decades of the sixteenth century. Having done this, they assume
  that in terms of social organization, the Edo period was still essentially
  feudal. This approach is reflected in the work of Western scholars who
  have used such phrases as "late feudalism" or "centralized feudalism"
  as labels to translate kinsei. But since the 1960s, Western historians
  have used the term "early modern" as the preferred translation. What
  this reveals, as Wakita Osamu notes in his chapter in this volume, is
  that between the two bodies of scholars, the Japanese tend to think of
  8 Two pioneer historians who opened up the study of the han in the bakuhan context, and their
  primary works, are Ito Tasaburo, "Bakuhan taisei ron," in Shin Nihonshi koza (Tokyo: Chuo
  koronsha, 1947); and Nakamura Kichiji, Bakuhan taisei ron (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha,
  1972).
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  THE ROLE OF LOCAL STUDIES 
  9
  the Edo period as being more feudal than modern, whereas the West-
  ern historians think of the same era as more modern than feudal.9
  THE ROLE OF LOCAL STUDIES
  Today's interpretations of the Edo period have changed not simply as a
  result of shifts in theoretical approach but also as a result of new re-
  search methods and interests. Since the 1940s there has been a vast
  change in the kinds of documents being worked on by Japanese histori-
  ans, part of an ever-deepening probe into the basic raw materials of the
  past. The boom in han studies came as a result of, and a stimulus to, the
  gathering and sorting of large quantities of han archival materials, much
  of it still kept in old domain capitals.10 Local history and village studies
  were strengthened through the use of documents, such as cadastral
  registers, tax records, legal briefs on water and land ownership dis-
  putes, village headmen's diaries, and the remarkable religious affilia-
  tion registers preserved at the village level. Materials of this type con-
  trast with those used by scholars in the 1930s. The latter, as exemplified
  in the great printed collections produced by economic historians like
  Honjo Eijiro and Takimoto Seiichi, were in many cases one level re-
  moved from what we would call primary, being mainly contemporary
  historical accounts, scholarly memoranda, laws, and injunctions. Inevi-
  tably such materials carried either a conservative establishment-
  oriented bias or the reverse, an antiestablishment, polemical bias.11
  The explosive growth of primary materials now available from the
  Edo period has given today's historians the means of posing and an-
  swering an increasing number of fundamental questions, especially in
  the field of institutional history. Moreover, the historian finds in such
  materials an abundant vocabulary with which to explain these data. At
  the base of the marching and countermarching of vast armies and the
  violent competition for land and status that the Japanese have called
  Sengoku was the drive toward hegemony, unification, and the achieve-
  ment of political stability. The sixteenth-century buildup of effective
  daimyo power fed the aspiration of provincial lords to reach beyond
  regional control toward national supremacy. Real power of command
  gave substance to dreams of national conquest, and these in turn
  9 See Chapter 3 in this volume.
  10 For an example of the materials contained in the archives of one daimyo house, see my
  "Materials for the Study of Local History in Japan: Pre-Meiji Daimyo Records," reprinted in
  Hall and Jansen, eds., Studies, pp. 143-68.
  11 See Ono Takeo, comp., Kinsei jikata keizai shiryo, 10 vols. (Tokyo: 1931); and Takimoto
  Seiichi, ed., Nihon keizai taken, 54 vols. (Tokyo: Keimei shuppansha, 1928-30).
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  10 
  INTRODUCTION
  evoked new expressions of legitimacy. Hideyoshi, the first to bring all
  daimyo under single command, became in his own words "first within
  the realm," tenka-bito. The Ashikaga shoguns of the medieval period,
  for all the noble status they had acquired, were obliged to share politi-
  cal power with other court families, other members of the military
  aristocracy, and the religious orders. Theirs was a national command
  limited by the fragmentation of sovereignty and by the precedents and
  structures of the court-centered institutions of governance.
  The creation of a unified national organization based on the exercise
  of hegemonic military power was not brought about by the assertion of
  new monarchal powers by forces at the center of the political arena.
  No member of the Ashikaga house, for instance, fought his way to
  become "king." Rather, unification resulted from the emergence of
  increasingly stronger and larger units of local military lordships, begin-
  ning with the small-scale village-level proprietors called variously
  kunishii or kokujin (men of the provinces) and then step by step to the
  formation of the regional lordships of daimyo size. These in turn
  became the building blocks of a national unity. At the heart of the local
  military power structure was the lord-vassal relationship among mem-
  bers of the samurai class. Although the shape of shogunal authority
  changed relatively little during the Muromachi period, the emerging
  daimyo domains underwent fundamental changes, especially in the
  strength and spread of the lord-vassal relationship that lay at the
  center of military house organization. From their early appearance as
  small military lordships in the Muromachi age, the incipient daimyo
  domains underwent a long process of evolution, changing shape in
  response to the different political environments that enveloped them.
  Modern historians have claimed to be able to identify four different
  types, or stages, of daimyo development, to which they have assigned
  the names shugo, sengoku, shokuho, and kinsei, each exhibiting progres-
  sively greater strength of control from the center.12
  Daimyo rule exhibited many regional differences at the start. Hayami
  Akira makes a case for the existence of three regional zones of economic
  development: (i) the developed central Kinai region surrounding the
  capital city; (2) the middle fringe area surrounding Kinai, particularly
  the provinces of Omi and Mikawa; and (3) the Kantd, or eastern prov-
  inces.13 It was the middle fringe area that, being able to profit from
  12 See my "Foundations of the Modern Japanese Daimyo," republished in Hall and Jansen,
  eds., Studies, pp. 65-77.
  13 Shoda Ken'ichiro and Hayami Akira, Nihon keizaishi, vol. 4 of Keizaigakko zenshu (Tokyo:
  Sekai shoin, 1965), pp. 57-58.
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  THE ROLE OF LOCAL STUDIES 
  II
  innovations developed in the two other zones, was the launching
  ground for each of the unifiers. Within their own domains, daimyo
  worked to extend central control over their vassals. By the middle of the
  seventeenth century most daimyo had reduced their retainers from
  independent fief holders to highly dependent stipendiaries. The ability
  to exert this degree of command was facilitated by the new nationwide
  land survey that provided the daimyo with the means to make an in-
  formed calculation of the land and manpower resources of the domain.
  By the same token, this gave to the national hegemon reasonably trust-
  worthy evidence on the size and resources of the domains of the daimyo
  under his command. In particular it provided the groundwork for the
  assignment of military services (gun'yaku).1*
  One of the most pervasive features that identified Edo period gov-
  ernment was the domain's tremendous increase in size and effective-
  ness as a power-holding structure. This fact is so obvious that it is easy
  to overlook. During the Sengoku period there was a dramatic increase
  in both the size of the units of local control and the density and
  effectiveness of the means of exercising that control. These two factors
  were, of course, interrelated. Under the Muromachi bakufu, authority
  over the land and its cultivators had been fragmented into scattered
  proprietorships held at various levels of completeness. Shugo ap-
  pointed by the Ashikaga shoguns over provincewide jurisdictions did
  not govern anything like unified domains. During the fifteenth and
  sixteenth centuries, proprietary rights (ryoshuken) were acquired in
  increasing amounts by members of the provincial military aristocracy.
  The concentration of proprietary tenures in the hands of the provincial
  military lords became widespread during the first half of the sixteenth
  century. But it did not become universal until Hideyoshi's unification
  of the daimyo and his acquisition of all superior proprietary rights to
  registered land as national military overlord. It was not until Hide-
  yoshi's military conquest was completed in 1591 that the military
  hegemon became the supreme proprietor as well. This meant that all
  daimyo, at some time in the past, had surrendered their lands to
  Hideyoshi and subsequently had received them back as fiefs (ryochi or
  chigyo-chi) after swearing allegiance to him.
  What was the nature of the land rights defined by these terms? The
  era of civil wars had been a struggle for proprietory control of land by
  14 A leader in the recent interest that Japanese historians have directed toward the practice of
  assigning military duty (gun'yaku) is Sasaki Junnosuke. See his "Gun'yaku ron no mon-
  daiten," pt. I, in Toyoda Takeshi et al., eds., Bakuhan taisei, vol. 7 of Ronshu Nihon rekishi
  (Tokyo: Yuseido shuppan, 1973), pp. 62-79.
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  12 
  INTRODUCTION
  the samurai class, and an effort to protect rights of cultivation by the
  farming class. The bushi, who until this point had been widely dis-
  persed as land managers in estates whose superior proprietory author-
  ity was held by court nobles, religious institutions, and other military
  houses, were now differentiated by decree as a class given a monopoly
  over the exercise of higher civil and military administration. It was this
  condition, in which government above the level of agricultural village
  and urban ward self-administration had become the sole prerogative of
  the military aristocracy, that distinguished Japanese society of the Edo
  period. And because the size of the warrior class remained roughly the
  same as it had been at the end of the era of military consolidation,
  Japan was burdened with a heavy load of hereditary fighters and ad-
  ministrators during the centuries of peace that followed.
  Shogun and daimyo, leaders of the bushi assemblage, were not
  unmindful of the burden created by the size of the bushi estate. The
  three unifiers vigorously cultivated new forms of justification and le-
  gitimation for themselves and for the samurai as a body. During the
  years of active fighting, the aspiring unifiers matched their military
  exploits with the acquisition of lands and official titles that served to
  justify their acts of military aggression. Hideyoshi, as national hege-
  mon, came to rely heavily on the symbolic support of the Kyoto court.
  Referring to their status as kogi, the unifiers took the high moral stand
  that acknowledged the responsibility of superior government to serve
  the needs of the common people. Ikeda Mitsumasa, daimyo of Bizen,
  could write in 1652 that the common people were placed under the
  care of the samurai officialdom. "The shogun receives authority over
  the people of Japan as a trust from heaven. The daimyo receives
  authority over the people of the province as a trust from the shogun.
  The daimyo's councilors and retainers should aid the daimyo in bring-
  ing peace and harmony to the people."15
  Asao Naohiro, in his contribution to this volume, explains how
  concepts like tenka and kogi, or the evocation of Confucian precepts of
  benevolent rule, set the contours of the larger polity within which
  shogun and daimyo claimed rightful places. Not since the eighth-
  century adoption of the Chinese institutions of imperial government
  had Japan been ruled under as comprehensive a system of laws and
  administrative procedures, and historians have been quick to expand
  15 Ikeda Mitsumasa, in Ishii Ryosuke, ed., Hamposhu vol. i, doc. 335 (Horeishu, sec. 36). An
  English translation may be found in John Whitney Hall, Government and Local Power soo to
  /700: A Study Based on Bizen Province (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966),
  p. 403.
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  THE ROLE OF LOCAL STUDIES 
  13
  on its significance. When Hideyoshi spoke of himself as tenka, he was
  laying claim to a position of absolute authority over the land. Should
  later historians call his regime a "monarchy," a "despotism," or an
  "absolutism"?
  Recent attempts to answer such questions and to comprehend the
  larger structure within which the bakuhan system took its place has led
  to the use of the concept oikokka, or state. Wakita Osamu is one of the
  few Japanese historians to expand on this theme in English. As he put
  it, "The central question now asked is not how the creation of central
  power evolved from a medieval base but how the central powers that
  emerged came to possess what we can regard as the powers of state.'"6
  Historians have been inclined to take the easy route in answer: that is,
  to credit the great regional lords with the motivation and the drive to
  establish a central power by personal ability alone. But the drive to-
  ward military hegemony was due as much to the existence of precondi-
  tions that led in that direction as it was to the personal charisma of the
  individual unifiers.
  The course by which the daimyo were brought under unified com-
  mand, though basically a struggle for power among members of the
  warrior aristocracy, involved other contestants as well. Most of these
  other groups were at cross purposes to the interests of the military
  aristocracy. Such were the various types of ikki - local uprisings or
  compacts organized for collective action.17 Ikki were organized by
  groups of peasants or by communities of adherents to religious sects in
  protest against the harsh rule exerted by military proprietors in the
  provinces. Ikki could be formed among village samurai who banded
  together to resist territorial encroachments from larger neighboring
  daiymo. Among these groups, the militant communities of Ikko and
  Nichiren sect adherents gave the most trouble to the daimyo. In fact,
  each of the unifiers at the start of his rise to power had to combat
  militant religious communities that had put down roots in the villages
  and newly emerging urban societies within their domains. There they
  offered powerful resistance to the expanding daimyo authority. But
  the ikki were best organized for purposes of defense and resistance.
  They had little staying power. In the long run, therefore, they gave
  way to the daimyo, who were better able to organize local administra-
  16 Osamu Wakita, "The Emergence of the State in Sixteenth Century Japan," Journal of Japa-
  nese Studies 8 (Summer 1982): 343-67.
  17 For an overview of the various types of ikki that took place during the fifteenth and sixteenth
  centuries, see David L. Davis, "Ikki in Late Medieval Japan," in John W. Hall and Jeffrey P.
  Mass, eds., Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-
  sity Press, 1974), pp. 226-47.
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  14 
  INTRODUCTION
  tion and to set up the mechanisms for the management of land and
  local communities and for the exploitation of the wealth and military
  resources of a given area.
  THE EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI CLASS
  Ultimately the daimyo system won out over its competitors in the
  countryside, but not without certain conspicuous consequences. The
  movement of nearly the entire body of rural samurai into castle towns
  that served as daimyo headquarters was occasioned in part by the
  attraction that service under the daimyo could offer to the samurai
  class. But it is equally true that withdrawal of the samurai from the
  countryside was motivated by defensive considerations as well. In the
  provinces, small-sized military proprietors found that submission to
  the armies of larger regional hegemons could be the lesser of evils.
  They preferred to accept the command of a rising military lord rather
  than face possible destruction at the hands of a militant popular reli-
  gious uprising. The so-called sword hunts, katanagari, that were car-
  ried out at various times - first by individual daimyo and later under
  the command of Hideyoshi - was evidence of the fear that members of
  the samurai class who still lived in the village environment had of the
  possibility of losing out to militant mass attacks.
  Fear of resistance from below helps explain why neither Nobunaga
  nor Hideyoshi, in the course of his national conquest, did not simply
  abolish all daimyo as they were defeated, and add their vacated territo-
  ries to his own granary lands. The answer is evident in the nature of
  the warfare in which the unifiers were engaged. The victories won
  over their rivals were achieved not by a single all-powerful army but
  by mixed forces drawn from the unifier's daimyo followers, many of
  them only recently acquired. As a general practice, contingents from
  the most recently defeated daimyo were placed in the vanguard in the
  next battle, thus obliging them to prove their loyalty. The armed
  forces that won the hegemony for the unifiers, from first to last,
  consisted of contingents drawn from a coalition of daimyo. Rather
  than destroy the daimyo, the unifiers found themselves heavily reliant
  on them, for both military support and field administration. Hide-
  yoshi, in particular, made every effort to win over opposing daimyo by
  compromise rather than a fight to the finish. This mutual dependence
  was to remain an integral part of the bakuhan system throughout the
  Edo period.
  The bakuhan system was the result of processes that had been under
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  THE EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI CLASS 
  15
  way well before the appearance of the Tokugawa shogunate. Further-
  more, the processes continued to undergo change well beyond the first
  shogun's lifetime. But how far beyond? On what basis are we to judge
  when a given institution has reached its stable form? I to Tasaburo and
  Nakamura Kichiji, historians who first developed the concept of the
  bakuhan system, early on directed special attention to a common prac-
  tice that they believed served as an indicator of just such an institu-
  tional change.18 This is the method by which samurai retainers of
  daimyo received their financial support.
  Typical of daimyo domains of the early sixteenth century was the
  large percentage of enfeoffed vassals (chigyo-tori) among the daimyo's
  vassal band, and the relatively small amount of the daimyo's private
  holdings (less than 25 percent in some cases). This condition reflected
  the fact that the daimyo had won control over the lesser lordships only
  recently. In fact, during the Sengoku period the typical domain was
  literally a coalition of individual fief holders over whom the daimyo
  had only an uncertain hold.19 But the daimyo's central authority in-
  creased steadily. The form this ultimately took was one in which all
  retainers had been deprived of their proprietory rights and were paid
  out of the daimyo's granary. Whereas in earlier times the daimyo's
  men exercised direct proprietary authority over the inhabitants of
  their fief lands, by the end of the seventeenth century most of the
  retainers of the shogun and daimyo had become officers possessing
  only those powers delegated by the daimyo's superior authority. The
  evolution from fief to stipend and from personal to bureaucratic au-
  thority was one of the crucial subcurrents that marked the passage of
  Japanese society into the Edo age. But this did not happen automati-
  cally or uniformly. At no time was the transformation from fief to
  stipend complete in all respects and in all parts of Japan. In fact, there
  were certain areas in which the Edo ideal was never fulfilled.
  Enfeoffed samurai remained on the land in a number of areas,
  mostly in the long-established domains like Satsuma, Aizu, and
  Sendai that were located in the frontier regions of the Japanese islands
  farthest from the traditional centers of military and political power.
  But on closer examination, even in these cases a good measure of the
  rural samurai's rights over land and its cultivators had been absorbed
  18 An early statement by ltd Tasaburo on the bakuhan system is found in his "Bakuhan taisei
  ron." The same series contains Nakamura Kichiji's "Hoken jidai koki sosetsu." Both articles
  reflect the changes in historical interpretation that appeared in Japan following the end of
  World War II.
  19 This is seen clearly in the map showing the distribution of fiefs in Bizen province under the
  command of the Ukita house. See Hall, Government and Local Power, p. 314.
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  l6 
  INTRODUCTION
  into the daimyo's superior authority. In many parts of the country,
  what appeared to be a retention of functional fiefs was actually a
  fiction. Because possession of fief land was considered more presti-
  gious than the receipt of granary rights, retainers were often given
  certificates of enfeoffment but in actual practice were treated like
  stipendiaries. Centralization of the han around the daimyo's granaries
  had become the normal expectation by the beginning of the Edo pe-
  riod, and the adoption of the rice stipend could be considered a mark
  of institutional maturity.20
  FORMATION OF THE EARLY MODERN VILLAGE
  Much of the same pattern of development was evident in the case of
  the village, or mura. Here the specific changes that marked the conver-
  sion of the medieval agricultural community into the mature adminis-
  trative mura must be defined in terms of specific land rights held by
  the cultivator class and the manner in which samurai government
  interacted with village administration. The land survey became the
  foundation on which rested both the mura and the legal structure by
  which the samurai class related to the peasantry and the peasantry
  related to the land. The key elements in this connection were the
  formation of a legally defined farming class (the hyakusho), the designa-
  tion of village officials such as the headmen (nanushi, shoya), and the
  placement of the daimyo's regional field administrators (daikan or
  koribugyo). The status of hyakusho, who in simplest terms can be
  thought of as taxpaying villagers, was very much the product of the
  land survey. Up to the middle of the sixteenth century the line be-
  tween the village head and the estate land-steward was not clearly
  drawn. Village samurai were able to participate in both worlds. The
  eventual form of this relationship was one in which both the village
  internal administration and the control mechanism descending from
  the daimyo had been effectively bureaucratized.
  Before that could happen, however, two practices held over from
  the Oda-Toyotomi years had to be eradicated. On the one hand, a
  number of legal rights over land and its workers, including setting the
  annual tax rate, continued to be held by the former village samurai,
  even though they had taken up residence in the daimyo's castle town.
  20 For a recent analysis of the formation of what he has called the "mature daimyo domain," see
  Junnosuke Sasaki, with Ronald P. Toby, "The Changing Rationale of Daimyo Control in the
  Emergence of the Bakuhan State," in Hall, Nagahara, and Yamamura, eds., Japan Before
  Tokugawa, pp. 286-91.
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  THE EARLY MODERN VILLAGE 
  17
  On the other hand, various economic and social privileges that the
  village samurai held during periods of widespread warfare remained in
  the hands of former village samurai, even though they had reduced
  their political and legal status to that of hyakusho. It was common
  practice that village landholders of this type would be able to monopo-
  lize village offices like that of headman, especially in the early years of
  Tokugawa rule. But it was to the interest of both the military hegemon
  and the daimyo that private powers exercised arbitrarily on a heredi-
  tary basis should be discontinued in favor of administrative authority
  based on legal precedent. The battle between impersonal bureaucratic
  government and rule by private influence was fought at all levels of
  government. Under the Tokugawa bakufu, the principle of administra-
  tion according to precept and precedent was never enforced abso-
  lutely: hereditary privilege and status inevitably remained a part of the
  political process. But it was not considered a desirable condition,
  especially at the lower levels.
  Studies of the two fundamental institutions - bakuhan government
  and kokudaka land management - have opened important new vistas
  into the nature of the structural legacies of the Oda-Toyotomi years.
  One of the most significant consequences of the reforms adopted by
  the unifiers was the manner in which society became divided into the
  separate classes of samurai, hyakusho, chonin, and a number of
  subclasses. From the early years of the sixteenth century, a growing
  volume of legislation, especially from the large regional daimyo, began
  to reflect a conscious effort to define and separate the several classes or
  estates. The enforcement of the Taiko land survey, the sword hunts,
  and the census surveys, though motivated primarily by political and
  economic objectives, had a fundamental impact on social organization
  and behavior. Today we debate whether the elaborate system of class
  separation reflected the actual dynamics of the time or whether they
  were imposed arbitrarily from above. Were they in fact basically repres-
  sive, serving primarily the interests of the military aristocracy? In-
  deed, scholars who view the Hideyoshi settlement as imposing on
  Japan a revitalized feudal despotism are of such an opinion.21
  But the social legislation of the time can be viewed in another light.
  As Asao Naohiro points out in this volume, in the course of the drive
  toward unification, Nobunaga "promoted policies that released society
  from the restrictions that had fettered the daily lives of the medieval
  21 The prime advocate of this thesis in English is E. H. Norman. See his "Late Feudal Society,"
  in John W. Dower, ed., Origins of the Modem Japanese State: Selected Writings ofE. H. Norman
  (New York: Random House, 1975), pp. 321-51.
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  18 
  INTRODUCTION
  populace."22 Bito Masahide directs his attention to the concept of
  yaku, or function, that applies to the entire society, defining the expec-
  tations that society had for each class, subclass, and group.23 By Toku-
  gawa times this had led to what can be called "rule by status," a
  condition in which individuals, as long as they remained in their
  proper place and performed their given roles, were treated impartially
  under the law and according to precedent.24 Granted, seventeenth-
  century social theory did not subscribe to concepts of individual rights
  or political representation; yet the bakufu, han, and mura govern-
  ments did provide for dispute resolution and arbitration. Bito Masa-
  hide points out that the ie system of family organization offered a
  mechanism that protected the individual from arbitrary demands from
  outside the system.
  THE EDO BAKUFU IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  Our analysis so far has explored the institutional legacies of the Oda-
  Toyotomi era to the Edo period. As we pursue this inquiry farther into
  the Edo period, we encounter conditions of a different sort. Eighteenth-
  century Japan confronted problems that were the consequences of the
  decisions made during the latter half of the sixteenth century, such as
  the necessary adjustments to civil rule, the side effects of political cen-
  tralization, the separation of classes, urbanization, economic growth,
  and technological change - all problems that put new pressure on the
  bakuhan system as a whole.
  When in the late 1940s Western historians directed their attention
  to the evolution of political life under the bakuhan system, the most
  common explanation of why the Edo bakufu took the shape it did
  was that it reflected the power of the military aristocracy. George B.
  Sansom's often-quoted characterization of Tokugawa government as
  an "extension into times of peace of the supreme command in times
  of war. It was not based upon any theory of the state" expresses
  neatly the popular conception of the Edo government as a military
  absolutism that sought to survive through the exercise of autocratic
  power.25
  Postwar literature on the Tokugawa government's exercise of power
  22 See Chapter 2.
  23 This is discussed in English in Masahide Bito, "Society and Social Thought in the Tokugawa
  Period," in Japan Foundation Newsletter 9 (June-September 1981): 4-6.
  24 Quite similar to Bito's yaku thesis is the concept of status, or mibun. See my "Rule by Status
  in Tokugawa Japan," Journal of Japanese Studies 1 (Autumn 1974): 38-49.
  25 G. B. Sansom, Japan, a Short Cultural History (New York: Appleton Century, 1943), p. 455.
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  THE BAKUFU IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  19
  has, to varying degrees, borrowed from Marxist and Weberian theories
  of types of authority. Western writers, among them Edwin O. Rei-
  schauer and E. H. Norman, identified the cohesive ingredient in Edo
  period political organization as the bond between lord and vassal. The
  image of "centralized feudalism" is used to account for the effective-
  ness of Tokugawa rule. Absolute and arbitrary power, they believe,
  became their own justification.26
  But it was obvious that reliance on military power alone had its
  limitations. Shogun and daimyo were engaged in a nationwide effort
  to routinize administrative procedures and to codify basic legal pre-
  cepts. The first task at hand was the necessary conversion from mili-
  tary to civil government. During the 1930s, Kurita Mototsugu devel-
  oped the classic explanation of how this process benefited from the
  spread of Confucian philosophy.27 The concept of "benevolent rule"
  (bunji-seiji), according to Kurita, had helped humanize military gov-
  ernment. The conversion of the samurai class into urban-based admin-
  istrators, as promoted in the first clause of the "Buke shohatto" (ordi-
  nances pertaining to the warrior class), was matched by a strenuous
  enforcement of laws against possession of arms by others than the
  samurai. And once peace was attained, the bakufu took elaborate
  means to curtail and regulate the size and armament of the standing
  forces permitted to the daimyo. Improvements in military technology
  were largely discontinued under a conscious policy that played down
  the use of firearms.28
  From the 1940s, and culminating in Kitajima Masamoto's analysis
  of the Edo power structure, the most vigorous school of interpretation
  concentrated on the study of the administrative devices by which
  shogun and daimyo exercised their rule.29 The key ingredients in such
  a polity were, of course, the possession of hegemonic military power
  and the acquisition of legitimacy as a public authority. As Asao
  Naohiro explains in his chapter, the sources of legitimacy other than
  military strength were the symbolism of proximity to the tenno (em-
  peror) and the actual creation of a political and social order that could
  claim to be dedicated to the good of the people, in other words, the
  acquisition of the status of kogi.
  26 Edwin O. Reischauer, Japan. The Story of a Nation (New York: Knopf, 1970).
  27 Kurita Mototsugu, Edojidai shi (Tokyo: Kokushi koza kankokai, 1934), pp. 85-108, con-
  tains a summary of his treatment of the subject.
  28 For descriptions of bakufu and daimyo military organizations, see Conrad Tot man, Politics in
  the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1600-1843 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp.
  43-63.
  29 Kitajima Masamoto, Edo bakufu no kemyoku kozo (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964).
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  20 
  INTRODUCTION
  THE POLITICAL PROCESS
  One characteristic of the Edo age is that the long stretch of domestic
  peace and the structural continuities within the bakufu and han enforce-
  ment agencies meant that there were few easily identifiable period-
  defining events. The Edo period, therefore, has left to the viewer much
  of the task of giving it meaningful shape. And because historians differ
  widely in their sense of the relative importance of events, the periodiza-
  tion of the Edo era remains a matter of controversy.
  But implicit in much of the work on the Edo period by specialists in
  the field is the reliance on what is essentially a dynastic approach to
  periodization. Although careful to avoid the appearance of reliance on
  the great-man approach to causation, they have found useful the tradi-
  tional chronology based on the sequence of individual shoguns, if only
  as a convention. For this reason it seems desirable for this general
  introduction to the political history of the Edo period to set down an
  outline of the Tokugawa "dynasty." (In what follows, the years in
  office of the successive shoguns are shown in parentheses.)
  1. Ieyasu (1603-5), Hidetada (1605-23), Iemitsu (1623-51). The first
  three shoguns are generally linked together as the founders of the
  bakufu and the framers of basic political institutions and policies.
  2. Ietsuna (1651-80). The fourth shogun, being a minor when he was
  named shogun, was obliged to rely on advisers assigned from
  among the high-ranking members of the Tokugawa vassal band.
  This was the first appearance of a pattern of bakufu politics in
  which members of the fudai daimyo, that is, the hereditary house
  daimyo, exerted superior influence on bakufu policy through the
  Senior Council.
  3. Tsunayoshi (1680-1709). The fifth shogun was the first to be se-
  lected from among several possible candidates. Iemitsu's fourth
  son, Tsunayoshi had served as a daimyo as the adopted head of the
  Tatebayashi house and thus had developed his own ideas regarding
  shogunal policy before assuming that office. Although a patron of
  Confucian political philosophy, his reputation was tarnished by
  some of his extreme policies, exemplified by his ordinances protect-
  ing animals, notably dogs. He was the first shogun to use the office
  of grand chamberlain (sobayonin) as a means of bypassing the Se-
  nior Council, thus earning the resentment of many entrenched
  fudai daimyo.
  4. Ienobu (1709-12) and Ietsugu (1713-16). The sixth and seventh
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  THE POLITICAL PROCESS 
  21
  shoguns were not in good health, and both died after only a few
  years in office. Bakufu policy depended on shogunal advisers, and,
  again, they were drawn from the "inner" staff close to the individ-
  ual shoguns rather than from the Senior Council. Ienobu's adviser
  was the remarkable Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki (1657^1725),
  who was instrumental in rationalizing several aspects of bakufu
  policy, including finance and trade.
  5. Yoshimune (1716-45). The eighth shogun was selected from the
  Kii branch of the Tokugawa house. Having served as a daimyo for
  some ten years, he came to the office of the shogunate with a
  reputation as a strong administrator. Upon his transfer to Edo
  Castle he undertook the first major "revision" of the bakufu sys-
  tem: the so-called Kyoho Reforms. Proclaimed as a "return to
  Ieyasu's legacy," it sought to expand the bakufu's finances, clean
  up corruption in the land-tax system, and improve morale among
  lesser vassals of the shogun by bettering their financial status.
  6. Ieshige (1745-60) and Ieharu (1760-86). Both the ninth and tenth
  shoguns had physical problems and were less than vigorous admin-
  istrators. The combination of weak shoguns and advisers who were
  personal favorites created conditions that contemporaries criticized
  as leading to corruption in government. Ieharu's favorite, Tanuma
  Okitsugu (1719-88), was to go down in history as the archetypical
  corrupt influence in shogunal government. Although modern histo-
  rians are less critical of Tanuma, his contemporaries attacked him
  for his policies that benefited the shogunate at the expense of the
  daimyo's interests.
  7. Ienari (1787-1837). The eleventh shogun's rule was divided into
  two parts. It began when the shogun was still a minor. During his
  early years he served as legitimizer for the reform-minded Matsu-
  daira Sadanobu (1758-1829) who mounted what has been called
  the "Kansei Reforms" dedicated to cleaning up what he believed to
  be the evil influences of Tanuma. In 1817, however, Ienari found
  himself free of influence from conservative members of the bakufu
  senior officialdom. There followed a period of conspicuous spend-
  ing under Grand Chamberlain Mizuno Tadaakira.
  8. Ieyoshi (1837-53). As an individual the twelfth shogun seemed an
  ordinary person without strong expectations for bakufu policy. He
  nonetheless gave his support to Senior Councilor Mizuno Tada-
  kuni's (1794-1851) extreme program of bakufu reform - the so-
  called Tempo Reform. The results were disastrous and led to fur-
  ther weakening of the Tokugawa hegemony.
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  22 
  INTRODUCTION
  9. Iesada (1853-8), Iemochi (1858-66), and Keiki (Yoshinobu, 1866-
  7). The last three shoguns were largely overwhelmed by events
  following the arrival of the Perry expedition and the demands by the
  Western powers that Japan open its ports to foreign trade. The story
  of how the bakuhan system performed in the face of this foreign crisis
  is discussed in the fifth volume of the Cambridge History of Japan.
  PATTERNS OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
  The preceding outline of Tokugawa dynastic succession provides a
  backdrop on which historians have plotted the events that they have
  found most significant. This in turn has depended on the questions
  that individual scholars have asked. Historians, both premodern and
  modern, have been concerned with issues that relate to the success or
  failure of the bakuhan system. Traditional interpretations, reflecting
  the opinions of Confucian-trained scholars, long put their emphasis on
  the character of individual shoguns and their advisers. Conditions of
  crisis presumably were brought on by the failure of those in high
  places to maintain discipline, to guard against the progressive deterio-
  ration of the capacity to command. What were the signs that presum-
  ably brought on times of crisis? These, as understood by the Japanese
  of that time, can best be discovered by analyzing the reform move-
  ments that periodically broke through the surface of the Tokugawa
  political calm.
  As we noted, the Edo bakufu experienced three major attempts at
  reform. These were Shogun Yoshimune's reform of the Kyoho era
  (1716-35), the reform pushed by Matsudaira Sadanobu in the Kansei
  era (1789-99), and that of Mizuno Tadakuni during the Tempo era
  (1830-44).3° Each of these reforms aimed at specific targets: the ex-
  travagance of shoguns like Tsunayoshi and Ienari, the corruption of
  advisers like Tanuma Okitsugu, or the failure to control the commer-
  cial sector and maintain an acceptable level in the price of rice. In
  other words, the problems were mainly economic and social, but they
  were seen as failures of political leadership.
  The practice of attaching primary significance to the individual ac-
  tors on the bakufu stage has not been abandoned, but scholars today
  have taken care to base their explanations of political events on general
  concepts of political authority combined with a thorough familiarity
  30 Honjo Eijiro, ed., Kinsei Nihon no san dai kaikaku, vol. 4 of Keizai shiwa sosho (Tokyo:
  Ryuginsha, 1949).
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  GROWTH AND CONFLICT 
  23
  with documents that deal directly with the events under study. This has
  led to a number of new types of historical inquiry, among them the
  careful study of the motivations of the central actors through the use of
  new levels of documentation, and the application of social scientific
  hypotheses in the fields of economic, social, and demographic analysis.
  An outstanding example of this approach is found in the work of
  Tsuji Tatsuya.31 We owe to him the opening up of the middle years of
  Edo bakufu political history. This has touched importantly on our
  assessment of the politics of the shogunates of Tsunayoshi and
  Yoshimune and the advisory roles of Arai Hakusaki, Tanuma Okit-
  sugu, and Matsudaira Sadanobu. Tsuji concludes that when all of the
  expressions of Confucian moral judgment are stripped away, the policy
  objectives of Tsunayoshi and Yoshimune were not so different from
  each other. Nor does there seem to be so great a difference among the
  basic economic policies of the various leaders. Obviously the tensions
  and disputes that built up between the holders of power - that is, the
  bakufu, shogun, daimyo, as against the commoner merchants and
  farmers - had political origins. More significant has been the discov-
  ery of the gradual professionalization of offices in the bakufu bureau-
  cracy, particularly in the Finance Office. Rather than seeing high-level
  bakufu policy as the work of ideologues striking out blindly, it appears
  that there was increasing input from experienced administrators at the
  level just below that of the Senior Council. The same pattern was
  duplicated in many of the daimyo domains; in fact, many daimyo were
  far in advance of the shogunate in their use of mercantilist fiscal policy.
  GROWTH AND CONFLICT
  The simple fact that the Tokugawa hegemony lasted for over two and a
  half centuries evokes our admiration. What was the secret of bakufu
  success as peacekeeper of the nation? We think immediately of the
  balance of power within the political structure - the remarkable net-
  work of checks and balances at almost every level. From the start of
  the Tokugawa regime, there had been a competition for power be-
  tween the central interests of the bakufu, as these were being defined
  by the shogun, and those of the daimyo. These were not by any means
  identical. Much of the animosity that the upper level of the shogun's
  house daimyo directed at the influence of shogunal favorites was moti-
  vated by the realization that a Tanuma represented the interests of the
  31 Tsuji Tatsuya, Kyoho kaikaku no kenkyu (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1963).
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  24 
  INTRODUCTION
  bakufu against those of the house daimyo. Harold Bolitho analyzed the
  policy controversies within the bakufu and concluded that men like
  Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Arai Hakuseki, and Tanuma Okitsugu pro-
  jected negative images because they were advocating policies that ap-
  peared to be to the disadvantage of the house daimyo.32 Why these
  tensions did not break into the open is a reflection of the comparatively
  crisis-free condition of the great Tokugawa peace. It reveals as well the
  high degree of accommodation - the capacity to satisfy basic needs -
  that resulted from the relatively low intensity of domestic tension and
  the strong pressures applied to avoid open confrontation.
  From the 1920s, Marxist theory had had a strong influence on
  Japanese interpretations of Edo history. Up to the 1950s, in fact,
  the dominant view of the state of the peasantry under the bakuhan
  system was fundamentally Marxist and hence class oriented. Accord-
  ing to this view, the daimyo, conceived of as "feudal lords," en-
  forced a harsh exploitive policy from above, whereas at the village
  level, "parasitic" landlords joined with samurai administrators to
  squeeze out whatever surplus might remain after payment of annual
  land dues. Thus, it was explained, conditions inevitably worsened
  as time passed, forcing the peasantry to use protest and mass dem-
  onstration to express their grievances.33
  The phenomenon of rural and urban popular protest has occupied
  an important place in the effort of modern historians to understand
  Edo society. As already noted, the story of the enforcement of samurai
  rule over the agrarian populace told of many types of popular resis-
  tance to higher authority in the name of local self-interest. A common
  practice was the organization of autonomous groups, or ikki, and we
  have seen that the movement toward consolidation of local power
  under the daimyo required the forcible elimination of ikki communi-
  ties that sought to retain their independence. The consolidation of rule
  by the bushi estate under the Tokugawa shogunate resulted in a gen-
  eral quieting of the rural population under the mura system. But the
  causes of rural unrest were not fully eliminated. Moreover, because the
  system of rural administration incorporated few opportunities for the
  legal presentation of grievances, the practice of mass protest was often
  the only method of self-expression available.
  32 Harold Bolitho, Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan (New Haven,
  Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 169-85, 190-205.
  33 Traditional historiography backed by Marxist theory has painted a harsh image of the peasant
  under the bakuhan system. For a description of the controversy over the condition of the Edo
  period peasantry, see my "E. H. Norman on Tokugawa Japan," in Journal of Japanese Studies
  3 (Summer 1977): 365-74-
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  GROWTH AND CONFLICT 
  25
  Studies of Edo society since the introduction of Marxist historiogra-
  phy have adopted the evidence of popular protest as an index to the
  intensity of class struggle. Among the early Japanese scholars in this
  field were Ono Takeo and Kokusho Iwao, who began gathering first-
  hand accounts of peasant disturbances and took the first steps in
  analyzing and classifying the many types of such occurrences.34 Hugh
  Borton's pioneering study of Edo peasant uprisings reflects this ap-
  proach. The most recent effort to record an inventory of rural protest
  is the work of Aoki Koji, who identified over 6,889 occurrences.35
  What was the significance of these occurrences? The major issues
  that attract the attention of historians of the Edo period concern the
  manner in which the uprisings exposed the nature of the social prob-
  lems of that time. Among these incidents were large-scale peasant
  uprisings and mass demonstrations that required the use of govern-
  ment troops to control. But many, in the opinion of some observers,
  were hardly more than the equivalent of "union collective bargain-
  ing."36 Clearly, Japan did not experience unrest so severe as to bring
  about the overthrow of either rural administration or the central gov-
  ernment. Thus the Japanese narrative is concerned with the formation
  of class identity within an acknowledged national historical frame.
  Contradictory views of Edo society still divide the scholarly world,
  both in Japan and the West. But the early simplistic assumptions that
  the inhabitants of Edo rural society were from beginning to end moti-
  vated by fear and hatred have given way to a more realistic analysis in
  the works of scholars like Sasaki Junnosuke, who place their main
  emphasis on the spiritual foundations of village solidarity.37
  Equally positive in their interpretation of the economic foundations
  of Edo society are modern economic historians. This group bases its
  argument on evidence of an agricultural and commercial revolution
  encouraged by what to them appears to be a remarkable surge of
  economic growth.38 The effort to quantify this eighteenth-century eco-
  nomic growth has focused on the pattern of population growth. Na-
  34 Kokusho Iwao, Hyakusho ikki no kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1928).
  35 Hugh Borton, "Peasant Uprisings in Japan of the Tokugawa Period," Transactions of the
  Asiatic Society of Japan, 2nd series, vol. 16 (1938), pp. 1-219; Aoki Koji, Hyakusho ikki sogo
  nempyo (Tokyo: Sanichi shobo, 1971).
  36 Irwin Scheiner, "Benevolent Lords and Honorable Peasants: Rebellion and Peasant Con-
  sciousness in Tokugawa Japan," in Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, eds., Japanese Thought
  in the Tokugawa Period - Methods and Metaphors (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
  1978), p. 60.
  37 Sasaki, "The Changing Rationale."
  38 The thesis that Japan underwent an agricultural revolution under the Edo bakufu rule is
  vigorously stated in Kozo Yamamura, "Returns on Unification: Economic Growth in Japan,
  1550-1650," in Hall, Nagahara, and Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, p. 329 or 7-372.
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  26 
  INTRODUCTION
  tional demographic figures are sketchy for the early years of the pe-
  riod. But it is thought that both population and the size of the land
  base probably doubled within the first century of Tokugawa rule. The
  remarkable fact is that the overall population appears to have remained
  at roughly the same man-land ratio throughout the Edo period. Bear
  in mind that this was the very time when China was experiencing a
  fantastic explosion of its own population. How were the Japanese able
  to keep their population growth under control? Was there a conscious
  effort to do so? Village family records exist in abundance, in the form
  of annual temple registers whose main purpose was to screen out
  Christian believers. These documents have provided demographic his-
  torians with the documentary base from which they can demonstrate
  that population growth was consciously curtailed using a wide variety
  of methods: late marriages, restrictions on length of childbearing for
  women, abortion, infanticide, and the like.39 But there are also those
  who believe that the failure of the population to grow was due primar-
  ily to the ill effects of the feudal system.40
  Not yet fully factored into our analysis is the effect of the city on the
  process of economic growth. Urban growth was spectacular. The city
  headquarters of bakufu and daimyo establishments were witness to the
  almost total urbanization of the samurai class and to the creation of a
  new class, the urban service class, or chonin. Other than the studies of
  the great cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo, the analysis of urbanization
  as a general theme began with the castle town phenomenon. One of
  the most revealing insights into Edo life has come from recent studies
  of han structure and the accompanying development of the han castle
  town.4'
  A further question that still has not been answered satisfactorily is
  whether the Tokugawa "Great Peace" resulted in a general improve-
  ment in the quality of life for all classes. That it indeed did so for the
  upper levels of the three primary classes is irrefutable. But what of
  the less fortunate? Certainly, as Furushima Toshio makes clear, the
  Japanese of the seventeenth century made great advances in agricul-
  39 For an assessment of the living standard in the most economically advanced area of Japan, see
  Susan B. Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial
  Japan, 1600-1868 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 17-25.
  40 See Norman, "Late Feudal Society," p. 324.
  41 Among the growing number of studies of the Edo period han in English, see James L.
  McClain, Kanazawa, a Seventeenth Century Castle Town (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
  Press, 1982). Also Madoka Kanai, "Fukui, Domain of a Tokugawa Collateral Daimyo: Its
  Tradition and Transition," in Ardath Burks, ed., The Modemizers, Overseas Students, Foreign
  Employees and Meiji Japan, (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 33-65. An early
  synthetic study of the castle town can be found in John Whitney Hall, "The Castle Town and
  Japan's Modern Urbanization," in Hall and Jansen, eds., Studies.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION 
  27
  tural technology, manufacturing, civil engineering, and transpor-
  tation. These achievements invite comparison with contemporary
  developments in China and Europe. And although it may not be
  demonstrated that the Japanese led the way in the invention of new
  technologies, they were clearly far advanced in the adaptation of
  known technologies and especially the social systems that ensured
  their most effective application. Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea,
  though politically misguided, exemplifies both of these factors. His
  mobilization of two invasion armadas of over 140,000 men each is a
  truly remarkable achievement. Recent studies of Japan's involvement
  in foreign trade revealed the surprising fact that Japan led the world
  in the export of silver during the seventeenth century.42 In the follow-
  ing pages, Professors Nakai, McClain, Furushima, and Hanley write
  cautiously about a possible general improvement. They cite at the
  same time evidence of extreme conditions of hardship that affected
  certain regions and certain levels of society that remained trouble-
  some throughout the Edo period.
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION
  The cultural implications of the separation of classes, the cessation of
  active warfare, and the reasonable distribution of economic means
  were made evident in many ways. Class separation made for the paral-
  lel but separate growth of arts and letters and patterns of patronage
  according to social class capability or preference. The new cities be-
  came not only points of economic concentration but also environments
  in which all levels and classes of society could maintain their separate
  identities. Samurai participated in higher learning and patronized the
  "genteel" arts, building lavishly decorated residences and mausole-
  ums. Despite the scattering of daimyo headquarters over the entire
  extent of the Japanese islands, the alternate attendance (sankin-kotai)
  system that required daimyo to reside in Edo in alternate years became
  a powerful force drawing the upper samurai class together culturally.
  The system required daimyo to spend enormous sums to maintain
  their establishment in Edo. Meanwhile the urban-based chonin were
  spreading out across the land. The creative centers of urban culture
  began in Kyoto and Osaka but soon moved to Edo as well. It was
  especially in these large urban environments that samurai and chonin
  42 Hayami Akira, "Tokugawa Nihon seiritsu no sekaishi - Philip II to Toyotomi Hideyoshi,"
  Mitagakkai zasshi 77 (February 1985): 50-61.
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  28 
  INTRODUCTION
  intermingled to create the new urban style of life, as Donald Shively
  demonstrates in his chapter.
  During the battles for unification, one of the most troublesome
  problems faced by the three unifiers was the control of religious bod-
  ies. Daimyo who sought to participate in the unification movement
  first had to eliminate the armed Buddhist communities in their home
  territories before they were free to mobilize their military resources to
  meet challenges from outside their boundaries. By the time of the
  establishment of the Edo shogunate, the great monastic fortresses and
  the armed Ikko and Nichiren communities had been brought under
  control.43 Christianity had also gone through a cycle of toleration that
  later turned to persecution. Government control of religion was sym-
  bolized by the requirement that all Japanese adopt a temple of registry
  (dannadera) and submit to the enforcement of the annual religious
  scrutiny conducted at the temple.44
  It is generally assumed that this double policy of the elimination of
  militant religious groups and the enforcement of temple registry liter-
  ally swept away the religious content of life for the Japanese people. To
  the contrary, Bito Masahide suggests that various combinations of
  Buddhism, fused with Shinto, spread widely among the common peo-
  ple, giving rise to what he calls a "national" or "people's" religion.
  Medieval religion had offered the prospect of individual salvation. The
  new religious practices spoke directly to the living, "offering the
  means of sustaining life in the real world." The result was, according
  to Bito, an "affirmation of reality."45
  The addition of Confucian and native historical studies to the reper-
  tory of the samurai led to the most active outpouring of Japanese
  scholarship before modern times. By the Edo period Japanese society
  had clearly reached a new level of cultural sophistication. Prewar stud-
  ies of this aspect of Edo life had gone a long way to identify the
  primary thinkers and writers of the day. But their works were not
  appreciated fully by students outside Japan. Since World War II West-
  ern scholars have acquired the necessary tools with which to make
  their own inquiries into the thought world of Tokugawa Japan. Much
  of this recent scholarship has sought to play down the importance of
  43 For the story of Nobunaga's suppression of the military powers of the Buddhist monasteries,
  see Neil McMullin, Buddhism and the Stale in Sixteenth Century Japan (Princeton, N.J.:
  Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 100-61.
  44 The office of religious scrutiny was established by the bakufu in 1640. See McMullin,
  Buddhism and the State, pp. 245ff. Also see George Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of
  Christianity in Early Modem Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973).
  45 See Chapter 8.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION 
  29
  Confucianism as the official ideology of the Edo samurai establish-
  ment. A concrete measure of the influence of the Confucian scholar on
  the Japanese thought world can be found in the status of the Confucian
  adviser in samurai government. Although shoguns and daimyo patron-
  ized Confucianists in their governments, such advisers, known as
  jusha, were clearly subordinate to the primary interests of samurai
  government.46
  Although much of the work of Western historians of Edo Japan has
  been devoted to the study of political and social institutions, there has
  been of late a remarkable upsurge of interest in the intellectual founda-
  tions of Edo society and culture. It began with the work of Robert N.
  Bellah, who in his Tokugawa Religion sought to apply the concepts of
  Max Weber to Edo society.47 More recently this interest has been
  reflected in the work of the continuing seminar on Tokugawa intellec-
  tual history. The purpose of the first conference volume, edited by
  Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, was to demonstrate that the Toku-
  gawa era should be regarded as one of Japan's great creative ages.
  They also observed that Japan's eighteenth-century value system was
  as relevant a legacy for modern Japan as were the principles adopted
  from the West.48 Symbolic of the new look of the Edo era was the
  magnificent museum display, The Great Japan Exhibition: Art of the
  Edo Period 1600-1868, held in London in 1981.49 Once the shadows of
  feudalism and militarism are withdrawn, we have on view a cultural
  display of magnificent proportions and vigor. We are only now realiz-
  ing how much post-Edo Japan depended on the cultural norms of the
  Edo period.
  What of the role of Christianity in the century from 1530 to 1630?
  By the 1620s the foreign religion had become a thorn in the side of
  unification politics. The cycle from acceptance to prohibition was
  played out in the atmosphere of diminishing trade relations in the East
  Asian area. Adoption of the seclusion policy, though it restrained the
  natural urge of the Japanese to take to the sea for trade, did not turn
  off all foreign contact. Most recently, scholars have looked upon the
  46 John Whitney Hall, "The Confucian Teacher in Tokugawa Japan," in David S. Nivison and
  Arthur F. Wright, eds., Confucianism in Action (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
  '959)- This is the main theme of the volume of essays entitled Confucianism and Tokugawa
  Culture, ed. Peter Nosco (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).
  47 Robert N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-IndustrialJapan (Glencoe, 111.: Free
  Press, 1957).
  48 Najita and Scheiner, eds., Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period.
  49 For the catalog of this exhibition, see William Watson, ed., The Great Japan Exhibition: Art of
  the Edo Period 1600-1868 (New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1981).
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  30 
  INTRODUCTION
  "Christian century" less simplistically and negatively. In fact, Japan
  did maintain a highly regulated contact with the outside world
  through Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, and, of course, Nagasaki. The
  factor of isolation (sakoku) in Tokugawa history has been subjected to
  rethinking by scholars in the 1970s, but considerable controversy still
  surrounds the question of how closed Japan really was, the motives
  that led the Tokugawa government to reduce the scope of Japan's
  relations with the outside world, and the consequences of closure on
  Japan's long-term development.50
  On reflection, it is possible to turn the concept of sakoku around and
  come to different conclusions. Relative isolation from foreign con-
  tacts, particularly Western, for some two centuries did indeed force
  the Japanese back on their own resources. But this was not a prelude
  to general stagnation. The Japanese homeland was of a sufficient size
  and diversity and its inhabitants sufficiently vigorous that they were
  able to pursue an energetic development without having to depend on
  outside stimulus.
  By comparison with European societies under similar circum-
  stances, one is struck by the lack of effort on the part of central
  authority, the bakufu, to increase its powers after the mid-seventeenth
  century. The balance between daimyo landholdings and those of the
  shogun remained little changed. And no other general effort to create a
  monarchic sovereignty was attempted. On the other hand, under the
  influence of the alternate attendance regulations, the samurai as a class
  was fused into a single cultural homogeneity. The cultural styles of the
  great urban centers became standard for the other major cities of the
  entire country. By 1800, then, we can see that the many special fea-
  tures of the Azuchi-Momoyama legacy had been fulfilled and Japan
  was beginning to encounter new conditions that were to lead the coun-
  try into its modern revolution.
  THE EDO PERIOD: A NEW FIELD OF STUDY
  The preceding pages have argued that the field defined for this volume
  has emerged as a combination of the research and writing of scholars
  both Japanese and Western. Although the greater volume of scholar-
  50 A more skeptical approach to sakoku has acquired a number of supporters, beginning with
  Asao Naohiro's Sakoku (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975). He emphasizes its use by the Tokugawa
  shogun, whose claims of political legitimacy were enhanced by their control of foreign rela-
  tions. These conditions have been explained in detail by Ronald P. Toby in his Slate and
  Diplomacy in Early Modem Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (Princeton,
  N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).
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  A NEW FIELD OF STUDY 
  31
  ship has come from the work of Japanese historians, the contributions
  of Western writers is noticeable in several subfields, especially in mat-
  ters of methodology and interpretation. Of special concern for non-
  Japanese scholars is the problem of transforming Japanese historical
  reality in a manner that is easily and accurately understandable to the
  English-reading audience.
  Since the 1940s, studies of the Edo age have generated several cycles
  of interpretation and emphasis, both inside and outside Japan. The
  fact that these cycles have not been identical shows that scholarship on
  each side of the Pacific has responded to different influences and
  situations. The reader has already been introduced to the major cycli-
  cal phases that have distinguished the postwar evolution of Edo histori-
  ography. We now must look more closely at the development of the
  Edo period as a field of study.
  In taking up the evolution of the field of Edo history from the
  Japanese side, we need to go back at least to the 1920s, to a time when
  the first generation of works that still remain useful to us today made
  their appearance. It was during the 1920s that Japanese historians
  followed a number of historical approaches, giving rise to several dis-
  tinct interpretative schools. Such were the political historians like
  Kuroita Katsumi, the cultural historians like Nishida Naojiro, the
  early economic historians like Honjo Eijiro, and the legal and social
  historians like Takigawa Masajiro.51
  The beginning of Marxist historical interpretation is identified with
  Hani Goro and Hattori Shiso, whose major concerns were the Meiji
  Restoration and the spread of capitalism in Japan; for them the Edo
  period served as preparation for Japan's rapid modernization. During
  the war years all historical writing that did not carry the nationalist
  spirit was pushed underground. But following Japan's defeat in 1945,
  with the withdrawal of restrictions on freedom of expression, Marxist
  historiography quickly became the dominant conceptual methodology.
  The work most commonly cited as having led the way in the applica-
  tion of Marxist methodology to the analysis of medieval history was
  Ishimoda Sho's Chuseiteki sekai no keisei (The structure of medieval
  society) (1946). Interpretations of Japanese history based on theories
  of class identity and interaction spread quickly to affect all aspects of
  historical analysis. These branches of Japanese scholarship were well
  represented in new journals that first made their appearance in the
  51 A bibliographical analysis of the work of these and other prewar Japanese historians can be
  found in John W. Hall, Japanese History: A Guide to Japanese Reference and Research Materials
  (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1954), esp. pp. 75-85.
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  32 
  INTRODUCTION
  1930s. These were Shakai keizai shigaku (Journal of the social and
  economic history society), and Rekishigaku kenkyu (Journal of histori-
  cal studies), which began publishing in 1932. The latter journal was
  obliged to take a low profile during the war-gripped 1940s, but it
  rapidly came into its own following the war's end. The most compre-
  hensive view of postwar historical scholarship in Japan can be found in
  the Iwanami series on Japanese history (Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi).
  These collections of scholarly articles by the leading Japanese special-
  ists appeared in two series following the war.52
  From the Iwanami series one gains a clear understanding that the
  main theme that has dominated the efforts of Japanese historians has
  been the solution to the question of how political power was achieved
  and conserved. Their primary concern has been to explain the "power
  structure" at particular moments in Japanese history, to comprehend
  the exercise of power, its legitimation, and its passage from one group
  to another.
  Another major thrust of Japanese scholarship has dealt with the
  structure of society, that is, the composition of classes and the relation-
  ship of social groups to government and to the levers of power. The
  common approach of these scholars can best be described as institu-
  tional history, namely, the study of structure. And it is here that
  Western historians find themselves most closely in communication
  with their Japanese counterparts.
  Turning to the development of the field on the Western side, the
  obvious point to make at the outset is the surprising newness of the
  field. At the conclusion of the war there were scarcely a handful of
  historians who could claim professional training in Edo period history.
  Before 1945 the field could be defined in terms of G. B. Sansom's
  Japan, a Short Cultural History, E. H. Norman's Japan's Emergence As
  a Modern State, Hugh Borton's "Peasant Uprisings in Japan of the
  Tokugawa Period," and Kan'ichi Asakawa's work on Japanese feudal-
  ism.53 This was hardly a substantial legacy, even if we add to this list a
  few of the well-produced English-language translations of the works of
  some of the outstanding Japanese historians, such as Honjo Eijiro's
  The Social and Economic History of Japan and Tsuchiya Takao's Eco-
  nomic History of Japan.54
  52 A prewar series appeared in eighteen cases between 1933 and 1935. The first postwar series
  was published in twenty-three volumes between 1962 and 1964. Series 3 came out in twenty-
  six volumes between 1975 and 1977.
  53 Kan'ichi Asakawa, trans, and ed., The Documents of Iriki (Tokyo: Japan Society for the
  Promotion of Science, 1955).
  54 Published by the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1937 and 1943.
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  A NEW FIELD OF STUDY 
  33
  World War II had a profound effect on the development of the field
  of premodern Japanese history in the West. The war with Japan called
  for the training of military personnel in the United States and Great
  Britain to use the Japanese language. It also aroused in Western minds
  a profound realization of the lack of general knowledge that the world
  outside Japan had of Japan. The result in the United States was the
  "area studies" movement that affected all fields of international stud-
  ies. This movement was to have a major influence through the stimu-
  lus it gave to private foundations and government agencies to come to
  the support of the academic study of foreign areas and peoples. The
  field of Japanese studies in general reacted rapidly to this stimulus.
  Facilities for the academic study of Japanese language improved dra-
  matically, as did the numbers of programs of specialized training in the
  field. It was at this point that the first generation of scholarly research
  monographs, most of them the edited versions of doctoral disserta-
  tions, came onto the scene. Overnight the field became a self-
  generating phenomenon.
  The major contributions to Edo historiography have been, and con-
  tinue to be, the work of individual scholars. But it is easiest to obtain a
  general overview of the state of the field by referring to several antholo-
  gies and conference symposia that have marked the publication record
  of the field. The first and the most elaborate of these research projects
  was the Conference on Modern Japan, a project organized under the
  Association for Asian Studies, which, beginning in the late 1950s,
  published a total of six volumes. Although the major theme of these
  conferences dealt with modernization, several contributions touched
  on aspects of the Edo period and the way in which premodern institu-
  tions laid the groundwork for modern change.55
  It was characteristic of this approach to Japanese history, however,
  that it subordinated the Edo period to the modernization process. This
  is apparent in an anthology of articles under the title Studies in the
  Institutional History of Early Modern Japan, edited by John W. Hall and
  Marius B. Jansen.56 By declaring that the Tokugawa period should be
  called Japan's "early modern" age, this volume challenged the com-
  mon practice of assuming that Japan during the Edo period was still
  fundamentally feudal. During the 1960s and 1970s the main concern
  of Western scholars of the Edo period was directed toward explaining
  Japan's rapid modernization. Outstanding examples are R. P. Dore's
  55 Most useful in this respect is the first volume, Marius B. Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese
  Altitudes Toward Modernization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965).
  56 Hall and Jansen, eds., Studies.
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  34 
  INTRODUCTION
  Education in Tokugawa Japan (1965), T. C. Smith's The Agrarian Ori-
  gins of Modern Japan (1959), and S. B. Hanley's and Kozo Yama-
  mura's Economic and Demographic Changes in Preindustrial Japan
  (1977). It would appear that Western scholars were more inclined to
  look forward rather than backward in their explanations of social
  change.
  The time was approaching, however, when the Edo period would be
  looked at from the other end of the evolutionary process, namely, from
  the sixteenth century. Heretofore the sixteenth century had been one
  of the least understood chapters in Japanese history. Recognizing this
  as a time of fundamental political and social change, historians never-
  theless had difficulty in assigning meaning to these changes or to their
  results. The personal qualities of the great unifiers were obviously not
  sufficient to serve as sole causes. Despite their leadership, and that of
  many powerful daimyo, the momentum of class behavior patterns
  provided the structure within which these changes were made. But
  from where did the primary motive power come? An interpretative
  breakthrough came in the 1950s, as a result of the work of Japanese
  historians on fundamental questions of land control, political author-
  ity, and social organization. This, as already noted, was the work
  of such scholars as Ito Tasaburo, Nakamura Kichiji, and Toyoda
  Takeshi, who with others identified the importance of such phenom-
  ena as the nationwide cadastral survey, the kokudaka system, the pro-
  cess of class separation, and the han and mura and other such entities.
  These elements of Japanese rural life of the sixteenth and seventeenth
  centuries were not yet permanent features of Western historical writ-
  ing, although the contents of the anthology compiled by Hall and
  Jansen show the beginnings of an adoption of these institutions as
  explanatory devices. The recognition that more attention needed to be
  placed on medieval Japanese institutions stimulated the organization
  of two multinational conferences. These were the Conference on
  Muromachi Japan and the Conference on Sengoku Japan. These gath-
  erings were significant because they brought together the leading spe-
  cialists in Japan and the West to bring up-to-date the knowledge about
  two relatively neglected periods of Japanese history. Because the con-
  ference procedures were conducted in Japanese and the resulting sym-
  posium volumes appeared in Japanese and English, they did a great
  deal to increase the volume of what was known about the Muromachi
  and Sengoku periods by historians outside Japan.
  The approach to Edo history taken in these symposia was largely
  what we would term institutional. There were other conferences that
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  THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS VOLUME 
  35
  dealt with aspects of Tokugawa history from different points of analy-
  sis. Among these, the ones on intellectual history were especially sig-
  nificant. Especially influential has been the continuing seminar on
  Tokugawa intellectual history, out of which have emerged volumes
  such as Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period: Methods and Meta-
  phors (1968).57
  Yet another development that has brought the historical world of
  Japan and the West closer together resulted from the founding of the
  Journal of Japanese Studies in 1970. A feature of this journal has been
  the effort to publish the work of leading Japanese historians in English
  translation, or to publish the results of collaborative enterprises. A
  noteworthy example of this objective was the conference that pro-
  duced the article "Terms and Concepts in Japanese Medieval History:
  An Inquiry into the Problems of Translation."58
  In the final analysis, of course, it is the work of individual scholars
  that make up any field of historical concentration. This is especially
  true for a field that has been in existence for so short a time. At the
  outset of the postwar era of scholarship, it would have been difficult to
  identify the existence of a field in which works in English by non-
  Japanese specialists were in sufficient supply and quality to constitute
  a legitimate field. But by the 1960s this condition began to change, as a
  large number of works by Western scholars trained to use Japanese
  primary materials began to make their presence felt.
  A NOTE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS VOLUME
  The primary objectives of this the fourth volume of our history of
  Japan is to lay out, as concisely and professionally as possible, the
  history of Japan from roughly 1550 to 1800. Naturally the presentation
  has been selective, depending as it must on the availability of contribu-
  tors and the existence of prior stocks of scholarship on essential sub-
  jects. The division of the time span into "chapters" that could be
  assigned to specialists was the work of the senior editors. Probably the
  most delicate problem the editors confronted was to strike a balance in
  the distribution of assignments between Japanese and non-Japanese
  writers. Because most of the readers of this collection will not have
  prior knowledge about the authors, it has seemed appropriate to add a
  brief note about them and their major contributions to the overall
  57 Edited by Tetsuo Majita and Irwin Scheiner (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1978).
  58 John W. Hall, Journal of Japanese Studies 9 (Winter 1983): 1-32.
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  36 
  INTRODUCTION
  content of the volume. These will be taken up in the order in which
  they appear in the volume.
  Chapter 2: Asao Naohiro is a leading specialist on medieval Japanese
  history, known especially for his contributions to the Iwanami Histori-
  cal Series. Recently he has been studying the nature of the political
  legitimacy acquired by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. In his chapter for
  this volume, Asao has made the important observation that political
  authority could not have stood on military might alone but must have
  rested as well on the projection of an image of the ruler's concern for
  the general welfare.
  Chapter 3: Wakita Osamu made his scholarly reputation through his
  studies of the social and economic history of the Oda-Toyotomi era.
  One of his most noteworthy achievements was the several articles
  published in English translation, in the Journal of Japanese Studies. Of
  special importance is his "The Emergence of the State in Sixteenth
  Century Japan" (1982). Wakita has been one of the few Japanese histo-
  rians to discuss directly the difference between Japanese and Western
  scholarly concepts of feudalism and modernization.
  Chapter 4: John Whitney Hall has written on the Muromachi and
  Edo periods in a number of contexts, although his main interest has
  been the establishment of the daimyo domain, using the materials of
  the Ikeda house, the daimyo of Okayama (Bizen), as a case study. He
  has sought to analyze the evolution of military rule as it moved increas-
  ingly from military hegemony to the rule of principle (kogi).
  Chapter 5: Harold Bolitho has written extensively on the inner poli-
  tics of the Edo bakufu, particularly the relationship between the
  daimyo and the shogun. He was one of the first to point out the
  potential conflicts of interest between shogun and daimyo over bakufu
  policy. He also raised the highly pertinent question of why the shogun
  added so little to his powers of rulership following the consolidation of
  bakufu power in the latter half of the seventeenth century.
  Chapters 6 and 7: Jurgis Elisonas, who has hitherto published as
  George Elison, is best known for his study of the Christian missionary
  effort of the seventeenth century. His telling of the Christian episode is
  a skillful presentation of the story from the Japanese side. His descrip-
  tion of the establishment of the "Church domain" of Nagasaki breaks
  new ground. Particularly noteworthy is his handling of Hideyoshi's
  Korean invasion in Chapter 6.
  Chapter 8: Bito Masahide is an extremely versatile specialist in Edo
  period thought and religion. His special talent, well illustrated in his
  contribution to this volume, is his ability to link social organizations
  with religious and ideological beliefs. Most recently he has pursued
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  THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS VOLUME 
  37
  the concept of yaku, or function, as a controlling principle for individ-
  ual performance. The concept of ie, with which he begins his chapter,
  goes to the heart of the question of individual rights in a Confucian
  context. Bito also offers new ideas about a theory of religiosity in the
  seventeenth century. His use of the concept of "national" or "popular"
  religion is an important addition to our current image of the religious
  life of the common people of the Edo era.
  Chapter 9: Tsuji Tatsuya is a foremost political historian of eighteenth-
  century Japan. His major contributions to our understanding of bakufu
  policy issues are his interpretations of the shogun Tsunayoshi, the Con-
  fucian adviser Arai Hakuseki, the shogun Yoshimune, and the shogunal
  favorite Tanuma Okitsugu. In the main he has sought to redress the
  more spectacular positive hyperboles as they affected someone like
  Yoshimune, or the biased criticisms of men like Tanuma. What emerges
  from his approach to the inner workings of the bakufu is a greater sense
  of professionalism among the bakufu and daimyo officials and the
  growth of realism in the policy-setting organs of the bakufu.
  Chapter 10: Furushima Toshio was one of the first of the great social
  historians to emerge after World War II. His studies deal with the field
  of agricultural development, technological change, and village organi-
  zation and politics. The piece he was asked to write for this volume
  sums up much of his lengthy career in scholarship. It is interesting to
  reflect on this essay and to observe how his views have changed in the
  course of some four decades. Most notable has been a more positive
  approach to rural society based on new studies by him and his col-
  leagues of Edo period agricultural technology. Though not neglecting
  to show the evidence of social and economic hardship, Furushima is
  more positive in his descriptions of improvements in agricultural tools
  and various other devices that helped increase the efficiency of overall
  production.
  Chapter 11: Nakai Nobuhiko is an important social historian of
  urbanization during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In design-
  ing this chapter it became apparent that the subject of the castle towns
  deserved expanded coverage. James McClain, his translator, had just
  published his study of Kanazawa, the castle town of the Maeda do-
  main. Thus it seemed logical to invite McClain to share the authorship
  of this chapter and to add a significant amount of new material on the
  castle town.
  James McClain has written on Japanese local government, in addi-
  tion to the study of Kanazawa. The main thrust of his work is to
  demonstrate the amount of merchant initiative that contributed to the
  establishment of the castle town.
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  38 
  INTRODUCTION
  Chapter 12: Tetsuo Najita, although specializing in the political his-
  tory of modern Japan, has been turning increasingly to the study of
  Tokugawa intellectual history. His primary objective is to explain the
  relevance of Confucian social and political thought to the life experi-
  ence of the Edo period Japanese. His most significant work in this vein
  is his study of the Kaitokudo Merchant Academy of Osaka. For the
  volume at hand he has written an analysis of certain aspects of Confu-
  cian thought that served the Edo samurai society in the eighteenth
  century.
  Chapter 13: Susan B. Hanley is a demographer who has specialized in
  Edo period population trends. As a further dimension of her work she
  has taken up the study of the quality of life in Edo period Japan. In her
  chapter for this volume she offers a meticulous analysis of premodern
  Japanese culture as it contributes to our assessment of Edo period liveli-
  hood. One of Hanley's objectives was to devise an anthropological sys-
  tem that permits comparative judgments across cultural boundaries.
  Chapter 14: Donald H. Shively, one of the early postwar scholars
  specializing in Edo period popular culture, is best known for his study
  of the kabuki play The Love Suicide at Amijima. Shively's chapter
  describes the popular culture of the Edo period as concentrated in the
  merchant class. Especially noteworthy is the evidence he cites on the
  remarkable spread of literacy among the urban commoner families
  and, later, the upper levels of the rural villagers.
  A FINAL WORD
  The image of the Sengoku-Edo era that emerges from the essays in
  this volume is quite different from that most commonly held by the
  writers active before World War II. That image was predominantly
  negative, depicting Japanese of the Edo period as suffering under a
  rigid and harshly enforced social class system, a policy of national
  isolation, and a ruthlessly enforced suppression of Christianity. Gov-
  ernment was described as an oppressive military autocracy. The stan-
  dard indictment of the Edo government was that it was not only
  feudal, but what could be described as a "centralized feudalism,"
  oppressive in the extreme, especially in its treatment of the nonprivi-
  leged populace.
  This standard, and basically negative view, came into question fol-
  lowing the war, largely in the writings of historians, some of whom
  appear as contributors to this volume. This new look - if indeed we
  can give it such a distinction - rested on two important revisionist
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  A FINAL WORD 
  39
  lines of inquiry. One was the insight it gave into the institutional
  structure of the country and of the inner balances between the author-
  ity system and the needs of the people as a whole. The other came out
  of new studies of the thought world of the Edo period. The revelations
  that Japan was not just living out an unchanging destiny under inflexi-
  ble social and economic restraints, but that in fact basic and creative
  changes were taking place throughout the Tokugawa shogunate, were
  of critical importance. Especially significant have been the studies
  demonstrating that Edo period thinkers were able to discover funda-
  mental values and patterns of behavior that anticipated the demands
  Japan would face in the mid-nineteenth century. The telling of that
  story belongs to the volume that follows.
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  CHAPTER 2
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
  UNIFICATION
  POLITICAL UNIFICATION
  The rise ofOda Nobunaga
  The prominent details of Oda Nobunaga's rise to power have been
  well established by historians.1 We know him as the son of a samurai
  from Owari and as a man who possessed enough unbridled ambition
  to slay several of his own kin in a struggle for control of the Oda
  family holdings. The same raw nerve - and military tactical genius -
  was equally evident in 1560 when his small band of followers de-
  feated the considerably larger forces of Imagawa Yoshimoto, the mili-
  tary governor of Suruga who was crossing Nobunaga's land in what
  became a vain attempt to reach Kyoto and seize the symbols of
  national authority.
  This victory at Okehazama in 1560 established Nobunaga as the
  foremost daimyo within Owari, and he soon moved beyond these
  narrow boundaries. First, he concluded an alliance with Matsudaira
  Motoyasu (the future Tokugawa Ieyasu) of Mikawa Province, who had
  been released as an Imagawa hostage after the defeat at Nobunaga's
  hands. Then Nobunaga attacked the Saito of Mino; with their even-
  tual defeat in 1567 he took control of Mino and the balance of Owari
  and moved his headquarters to Gifu Castle. From this time he began to
  use the seal inscribed with the slogan "the realm subjected to military
  1 There are several standard studies in Japanese that discuss the political history of the early
  modern period. Asao Naohiro, "Shogun kenryoku no soshutsu," pts. 1-3, Rekishi hyoron 241
  (August 1970): 70-8; 266 (August 1972): 46-59; and 293 (September 1974): 20-36; Wakita
  Osamu, Oda seiken no kiso kozo (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1975); Okuno Takahiro,
  "Oda seiken no kihon rosen," Kokushigaku 100 (November 1976): 29-58; Katsumata Shizuo,
  "Rakuichiba to rakuichi-rei," in "Chusei no mado" dojin, ed., Ronshu chusei no mado (Tokyo:
  Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1977), pp. 87-110, reprinted in Katsumata Shizuo, Sengokuhd seiritsu
  shiron (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1979), pp. 61-85. Since the 1960s a number of excellent
  studies in English have appeared. Access to these is facilitated by Bardwell L. Smith's "Japa-
  nese Society and Culture in the Momoyama Era: A Bibliographic Essay," in George Elison and
  Bardwell L. Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century
  (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981).
  4O
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  POLITICAL UNIFICATION 
  41
  power" {tenka fubu), showing his intention to unite all of Japan by
  military power.
  Nobunaga was fortunate to have been born in Owari, for the acquisi-
  tion of hegemony in this key area rewarded him with several advan-
  tages in his quest for national power. First, Owari was near the Kinai
  region, which at that time was not only the political heartland of Japan
  but was also blessed with the highest level of agricultural productivity
  and was closely linked to the Kinai through the constantly expanding
  commerce and manufacture of the time. Further, although the tradi-
  tional authorities such as the Muromachi bakufu, as well as the court
  and the great shrines and temples, were deeply rooted in the Kinai,
  their influence in Owari was comparatively weak. Consequently, condi-
  tions were favorable for newly emergent daimyo, merchants, and oth-
  ers to expand their spheres of influence. In addition, Owari was fa-
  vored with the fertile fields of great river basins such as the Kiso River
  delta. Historically advanced features of this region include the early
  development of flood prevention technology and the spread of commu-
  nal organizations for constructing riparian works. The most advanced
  self-governing farming villages of the time had been formed in the
  province of Omi, located between the Kinai and the Owari-Mino
  region, which was also the home of highly skilled craftsmen, as well as
  the freight carriers and merchants who dominated the transportation
  routes feeding into the three highways (Tokaido, Tosando, and
  Hokurikudo) and who carried on an active trade on both land and sea.
  Under these conditions the political situation in Kyoto was rapidly
  conveyed to the Mino-Owari region.
  The end of the Muromachi bakufu
  In the ninth month of 1568 Nobunaga entered Kyoto at the head of
  some fifty thousand troops drawn from Mino, Owari, and neighboring
  provinces, thus raising the curtain on a new scene in Japan's history.
  Nobunaga had two causes to justify his entry into Kyoto, even though
  he was only one of many daimyo who could advance the same claims.
  The first was a plea for assistance from Ashikaga Yoshiaki, claimant to
  the post of shogun then held by the puppet Yoshihide. The second was
  a three-article request from Emperor Ogimachi asking, among other
  things, that Nobunaga repair the imperial palace.
  Yoshiaki made several requests to Nobunaga from the time of the
  transfer of the Oda family headquarters to Gifu in 1567. These in-
  cluded a contribution for Crown Prince Kotohito's coming-of-age cere-
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  42 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  mony, the return of imperial estates located in Owari and Mino, and
  repairs to the imperial palace. The third item could not be carried out
  unless Nobunaga were to come to Kyoto, and thus Nobunaga and
  Yoshiaki, both aiming at Kyoto, joined hands. Yoshiaki was invited to
  Gifu and obtained the military force that he required. Nobunaga, on
  the other hand, installed Yoshiaki as shogun and consequently was
  able to assume the mantle of one who had conquered rebel enemies of
  the state and could enter Kyoto under the pretext of fulfilling the
  emperor's requests.
  Once in Kyoto, Nobunaga swiftly asserted military control over
  the Kinai area and then advanced into the neighboring provinces of
  Tamba, Tajima, and Ise. The puppet shogun Yoshihide had fled, and
  so Nobunaga was able to install Yoshiaki as the fifteenth Ashikaga
  shogun and build for him a fortified residence in Kyoto. Nobunaga
  then took over the civil administration of Kyoto, and he dispatched
  administrators (daikari) to Sakai, Otsu, Kusatsu, and other cities,
  thereby bringing them under his direct control. For the imperial
  court, Nobunaga carried out the emperor's three requests, including
  the repair and restoration of the Naishidokoro, Shishinden, Seiryo-
  den, and other palace buildings in which governmental affairs had
  been carried out in classical times. To the citizens of Kyoto he ad-
  vanced rice loans and designated the interest as income for the impe-
  rial family. He also adopted a policy of guaranteeing the current
  landholdings (tochigyo) of the court nobility (kuge) and the shrines
  and temples located in the capital area. Nobunaga's troops, being
  orderly at first, received a warm welcome from all, high and low,
  who were weary of the long years of strife and the dissolution of
  social order.
  Was Nobunaga then the restorer of the medieval order? Did he
  appear to his contemporaries as the savior of the Muromachi political
  system? Not at all, as Yoshiaki was soon to discover. When he was
  appointed shogun, Yoshiaki suggested that Nobunaga become deputy
  shogun (kanrei), but Nobunaga refused. He would not become Yoshi-
  aki's vassal. In 1569 Nobunaga went so far as to issue regulations
  concerning those who served the shogun and the judicial proceedings
  that were conducted in the residence that he had constructed for
  Yoshiaki. This was the first time that a mere warrior had issued regula-
  tions to govern the actions of the shogunal house and had then forced
  the shogun to accede to them. By the end of this year Nobunaga and
  Yoshiaki had come into open conflict. The court, much concerned
  about this development, used its good offices to effect a reconciliation.
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  POLITICAL UNIFICATION 
  43
  But a memorandum written at that time makes clear that Nobunaga
  had seized the real political and military power of the realm (tenka) and
  that he wished to limit the shogun's authority to little more than that
  of an attendant at court rituals.2
  Yoshiaki could not accept such treatment and, trusting to the author-
  ity vested in the shogun, called on all daimyo in the country to form an
  anti-Nobunaga league. Takeda Shingen of Kai, Asakura Yoshikage of
  Echizen, Asai Nagamasa of Omi, and also the Honganji, the headquar-
  ters of the Ikko sect located in Ishiyama (Osaka), responded to his call.
  Between 1570 and 1573 Nobunaga continued the struggle against
  these enemies in neighboring provinces while being menaced at his
  base in the Kinai by the militants of the Ikko confederation. By virtue
  of his tactical genius and good luck, he was able to subjugate these
  enemies one after the other; the Asakura and Asai were destroyed
  militarily, and Takeda Shingen died from natural causes in the midst
  of the campaign.
  After establishing Yoshiaki in Kyoto, Nobunaga had given him the
  formal trappings of respect, despite his machinations. Yoshiaki natu-
  rally had no military power of his own and so posed no direct military
  threat. But the shogun could stimulate and organize opposition that
  came from others. In 1573, therefore, Nobunaga finally drove the
  shogun out of Kyoto. He now obtained his desire to have the court
  issue a new era name, Tensho, the era of Heavenly Righteousness. The
  Muromachi bakufu, which had lasted for more than 230 years since
  the time of Ashikaga Takauji, thus came to an end, and this meant in
  turn the destruction of the Muromachi political system that had been
  structured with the bakufu at its center.
  Ascendancy over the religious powers
  The kind of institutional structure that Nobunaga envisaged as a re-
  placement for the old Muromachi bakufu is lost to historians, as
  Nobunaga was killed before he could achieve a national military hege-
  mony, a precondition to more sweeping and permanent institutional
  change. Surely Nobunaga was determined to achieve such a hege-
  mony, for he threw his full force first at the monks at Enryakuji and
  then at the Ikko sect's adherents in Echizen and at Ishiyama Honganji.
  He was bold in his purpose, ruthless in his execution: "There are so
  2 The struggle between Nobunaga and Yoshiaki is treated in detail in George Elison, "The Cross
  and the Sword: Patterns of Momoyama History," in Elison and Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists,
  & Commoners, pp. 245-79.
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  44 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  many corpses in Fuchu that there is no room for more," he claimed
  after leading more than thirty thousand troops into Echizen.3
  Yet in the destruction of the past, one can glimpse something of the
  new future that Nobunaga hoped to construct. His new castle at
  Azuchi, for instance, symbolized his conception of a new national
  (tenka) unity. This became his center of government, and it was from
  this base that Nobunaga ordered the preparation of a cadastral survey
  in the form of land and tax statements (sashidashi) from Yamato and
  Izumi provinces. It was also from Azuchi that he arbitrated the famous
  dispute between the monks of the Pure Land and the Lotus (Nichiren)
  sects, reducing by his decision the sect to an existence "graciously
  permitted" by his own magnanimity as the secular leader of the lay
  world. Nobunaga drew another public picture of his superiority over
  religious sects when he compelled various Buddhist temples to move
  their headquarters to the foot of Azuchi Castle. Just as graphic was the
  art that decorated the seven floors of the castle: paintings of T'ang
  Confucians, wizards, wise men, the Buddha's Ten Great Disciples,
  dragons, phoenixes, demons,- and rulers and great men of East Asia
  such as the Three Emperors, the Five Sovereigns, and the Ten Accom-
  plished Disciples of Confucius. Nobunaga, the master of this keep,
  presented himself as the greatest of the great, standing above all the
  leading figures of the physical and spiritual world.4
  Nobunaga preached to the people that he, as the most powerful
  figure of authority in Japan, would guarantee them peaceful lives, and
  he sought to drag the medieval peasantry, who out of the poverty and
  insecurity of their daily lives had had to count on salvation in a future
  existence, into a new society that offered a stable secular life full of
  promise. To accomplish this he promoted policies that released society
  from the restrictions that had long fettered the daily lives of the medi-
  eval populace. These policies included the introduction of Western
  medicine, the construction of castle towns filled with a new entrepre-
  neurial spirit, the establishment of free markets (rakuichi, rakuza), and
  the destruction of toll barriers (sekisho).
  But the rapidity of these changes gave rise to disharmony within his
  own ranks, and this became his undoing. His confrontation with the
  3 Okuno Takahiro, ed., Oda Nobunaga monjo no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1970),
  vol. 2, p. 62 (doc. 533).
  4 Asao Naohiro, "Shogun kenryoku no soshutsu," pt. 2, and Tsuji Zennosuke, ed., Nihon
  bukkyoshi, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1953, reprinted 1970), pp. 47-9. A careful study in
  English of the meaning of the paintings at Azuchi can be found in Carolyn Wheelwright, "A
  Visualization of Eitoku's Lost Paintings at Azuchi Castle," in Elison and Smith, eds., War-
  lords, Artisits, & Commoners, pp. 87-111.
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  POLITICAL UNIFICATION 
  45
  Ikko sect taught him that the continued existence of the warrior class
  was imperiled unless he could transform the relatively autonomous
  groups of warriors, whose means of survival were derived from their
  own private domains (shiryo), into bands of retainers whose members
  were cut off from their fiefs and could be moved at their lord's will.
  Nobunaga commenced this transformation of his followers from fief
  holders to stipendiary retainers, but his actions must have seemed to
  be nothing more than the cruel and merciless deeds of a despot.
  After subduing the temples and shrines that had held much actual
  power in the Kinai, and the peasant federations (ikki) allied with those
  institutions, Nobunaga then for the first time turned to the pacifica-
  tion of the east; in 1581 he entered Shinano and Kai provinces. Having
  destroyed the Takeda, he advanced into a portion of the Kanto. In
  1582 he turned to the west and was on the verge of a decisive battle
  with the Mori, the leaders of the provinces at the western end of
  Japan's main island. On his way to join in the attack on the Mori, he
  stopped off at the Honndji in Kyoto. There he was attacked and
  murdered by his vassal Akechi Mitsuhide. Nobunaga's life thus ended
  when he was only forty-nine, with the unification of Japan only half
  accomplished.
  The unification of Japan by Toyotomi Hideyoshi
  At the time of Nobunaga's death, Hideyoshi, the general who was to
  succeed Nobunaga, was engaged at the front in Bitchu Province.
  Hideyoshi was from a farming family in the Aichi district of Owari.5
  His father had served Oda Nobuhide as a foot soldier but is said to
  have returned to his fields after having been wounded in battle.
  Hideyoshi himself left home when he was sixteen and traveled through
  Owari, Mikawa, and Totomi provinces looking for a master to serve. A
  number of episodes from this period have been handed down, relating
  how Hideyoshi supported himself on his travels by buying needles to
  sew cotton thread with the cash given to him by his stepfather and
  then exchanging the needles for food and straw sandals, or how he at
  one time joined a band of peasant warriors (nobushi) - episodes that
  are meant to suggest that Hideyoshi came from the low social station
  of bound servants (nuhi) and that he was open to new trends in com-
  merce and manufacturing.
  5 The first full biography of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in English is Mary Elizabeth Berry's Hideyoshi
  (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).
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  46 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  Whatever his exact origins, Hideyoshi entered the service of a rural
  samurai of Totomi but before long deserted him for Nobunaga. The
  tale of how he began as Nobunaga's sandal bearer, gradually rising in
  the ranks as his intelligence and abilities were recognized and finally
  emerging as one of Nobunaga's influential generals, is a success story
  well known to almost every Japanese. When Nobunaga built his castle
  at Gifu, Hideyoshi had adopted the name Kinoshita Tokichiro and
  had attained sufficient rank to be given a small but strategically impor-
  tant castle.
  Talent on the battlefield earned Hideyoshi additional promotions,
  and by the early 1580s, he had become one of Nobunaga's leading
  generals. Thus, when news of Nobunaga's death reached him, Hide-
  yoshi moved quickly to grasp Nobunaga's legacy. Returning rapidly to
  the Kinai, he avenged Nobunaga's murder by destroying Akechi
  Mitsuhide, whose preparations for defense wer? not yet complete. The
  critical battle took place at Yamazaki in Settsu Province. In the follow-
  ing year (1583), Hideyoshi defeated Shibata Katsuie, a leading con-
  tender for Nobunaga's mantle, at the battle of Shizugatake in Omi.
  With his position as Nobunaga's successor now established, he built a
  castle in Osaka to serve as his headquarters. But there were still com-
  petitors for national leadership among the great daimyo.
  Nobunaga's ally Tokugawa Ieyasu had joined Nobunaga's second
  son Nobuo (Nobukatsu) and checked Hideyoshi's advance to the east
  at the battles of Komaki and Nagakute in Owari, but in military terms
  the results were indecisive. Consequently, Hideyoshi sought to gain
  ascendance over Ieyasu by political means. He continued the task,
  which Nobunaga had left unfinished, of mopping up the ikki in the
  Kinai and neighboring provinces. He also gave permission for the
  Enryakuji and the Honganji (temples), which had been destroyed by
  Nobunaga, to rebuild as religious institutions divorced from political
  power.
  As one means of acquiring legitimacy, Hideyoshi approached the
  court on his own initiative and received promotions in court rank. In
  1585 he had himself adopted by Konoe Sakihisa, who could boast of
  the most exalted lineage within the Fujiwara line, the family that had
  monopolized the position of imperial regent (kampaku), the highest
  post in the imperial court system save that of the emperor. No previ-
  ous example exists of a person other than a Fujiwara being appointed
  to this post. Endowed now with the Fujiwara surname, Hideyoshi
  had himself so appointed. Further, in 1586, he married his sister to
  Tokugawa Ieyasu, sent his mother to him as a hostage, and sum-
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  POLITICAL UNIFICATION 
  47
  moned Ieyasu to Osaka Castle to offer to Hideyoshi a pledge of
  allegiance. At the same time Emperor Ogimachi abdicated, and
  Hideyoshi had the sixteen-year-old Go-Y6zei installed as his succes-
  sor. It was as though Go-Yozei were "Hideyoshi's emperor." Hideyo-
  shi now dominated the imperial authority and, as grand minister of
  state (daijodaijin) at the junior first court rank, was clearly superior
  in terms of the imperial court system to Ieyasu, who had achieved
  only junior third court rank.
  Hideyoshi took this opportunity to change his name yet again: He
  petitioned the court and established the surname Toyotomi. His rea-
  soning was that just as each existing name had its respective progeni-
  tor, it was only proper that he, who had risen so high from so low a
  starting point, should be permitted to found a new family name.
  Finally Hideyoshi built the Jurakutei Palace in Kyoto as his adminis-
  trative headquarters. There in 1588 he invited Go-Y6zei for a grand
  reception. By this act he displayed his status in accordance with prece-
  dents set by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and Yoshimasa. But Hideyoshi
  added a new element to the interplay between the military and court
  aristocracies. On this occasion twenty-nine daimyo, including Ieyasu,
  attended and gave thanks to Hideyoshi for giving them the privilege of
  attending court as high court nobles (kugyo). They swore to protect the
  holdings of the emperor and the nobility, and they pledged absolute
  obedience to the imperial regent, Hideyoshi.6
  Even Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the shogun in name only who had fled to
  Bingo-no-tomo after his expulsion by Nobunaga, was pardoned at this
  time. He returned to Kyoto, entered holy orders with the name
  Shozan, and was granted ten thousand koku. Because there was no
  longer any shogun, Hideyoshi was the leader of the warrior bands in
  name as well as in fact. The Toyotomi regime took its final shape with
  the imperial progress to the Jurakutei. This act symbolized the fact
  that under Hideyoshi the daimyo class had taken control of the coun-
  try from the imperial court. That Hideyoshi, a former farmer, should
  have brought this about was an epochal event in Japanese history.
  "Peace" was the slogan that Hideyoshi carried with him as he uni-
  fied the country. He followed Nobunaga in destroying the fortresses in
  the areas that he conquered, but he explained that such a policy was
  6 Asao Naoshiro, "Toyotomi seiken ron," Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, 2nd (kinsei i) (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1963), pp. 159-210; Niki Seiichiro, "Taiko kenchi to Chosen shuppei,"
  Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, 3nd series (kinsei 1) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 81-116;
  and Fujiki Hisashi, Toyotomi heivia rei to sengoku shakai (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai,
  1985). This event is well covered in English in George Elison, "Hideyoshi, the Bountiful
  Minister," in Elison and Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, & Commoners, pp. 236-44.
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  48 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  for the purpose of "bringing peace to the provinces for fifty years."7
  When this slogan was applied to the daimyo in areas that had not yet
  come under Hideyoshi's control, it served to inhibit them from die-
  hard resistance. In other words, the projection of a national order in
  which individual daimyo could be given secure positions served to
  weaken the determination of daimyo to resist Hideyoshi. From an
  early stage Hideyoshi had declared that his main political concern was
  in "redistributing holdings" (kuniwake, chigyowake). This meant put-
  ting a stop to the struggles of the daimyo and warrior bands through-
  out the country, who were trying to secure or expand their territories
  by military means, and instead doing so "peacefully" under Hideyo-
  shi's control. Now imperial regent and grand minister of state, Hideyo-
  shi dictated this to all the daimyo in Japan fom his position as the
  leader of the military estate.
  At the time when Hideyoshi succeeded to Nobunaga's still-
  incomplete hegemony, various bands of warriors, large and small, were
  competing with one another in many parts of Japan to establish control
  over their territories, but gradually there began to appear in each region
  a powerful daimyo who united that area under his own military power.
  Chief among these were Date Masamune of Mutsu Province, Hojo
  Ujimasa in the Kanto, Uesugi Kagekatsu in Hokuriku, Tokugawa
  Ieyasu in Tokai, Mori Terumoto in Chugoku, Chosokabe Motochika in
  Shikoku, and Shimazu Yoshihisa in Kyushu. Among them the Toku-
  gawa and the Uesugi had had the opportunity to learn firsthand the
  control and centralizing policies employed by Nobunaga and Hideyo-
  shi. The Mori and the Chosokabe had been engaged in hostilities with
  Hideyoshi's forces and had come to respect their power; they submitted
  to Hideyoshi early in his regime. However, those daimyo who lived far
  from the scene of Hideyoshi's activities and whose attention was taken
  up by the unification of their own regions had not yet felt the full
  strength of Hideyoshi's power. They refused to take seriously orders
  from a man who, though bearing the title of imperial regent, had risen
  from low birth and about whom many unfavorable rumors circulated.
  First among such daimyo were the Shimazu, a military family with a
  proud tradition extending back to the Kamakura period, who were
  seeking to unify Kyushu. When in 1587 Shimazu ignored Hideyoshi's
  order to submit peacefully, Hideyoshi displayed the imperial mandate
  to maintain peace and labeled the Shimazu as enemy of the imperial
  7 Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nihon shiryo, series n , vol. 4 (Tokyo, 1902-), p.
  817.
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  POLITICAL UNIFICATION 
  49
  realm. He then sent an order to thirty-two provinces to raise troops by
  provincial units. He set out for Kyushu, defeated the Shimazu in
  battle, and made them submit to him. But the Shimazu were not
  totally destroyed; rather, they were reduced in territory but were still
  recognized as the daimyo of the two provinces of Satsuma and Osumi.
  The Hojo family of the Kanto stood out as another major power who
  refused to accept Hideyoshi's overlordship. At first it seemed as if they
  would submit to Hideyoshi through the mediation of Tokugawa
  Ieyasu, but then they violated the regulations regarding the distribu-
  tion of holdings made by the Toyotomi regime and encroached on
  other domains. Hideyoshi announced their transgressions to the na-
  tion and gathered a huge army of 150,000 troops with which he ad-
  vanced to the Kanto, laid siege to the Hojo headquarters at Odawara
  Castle in Sagami, and destroyed it. During this campaign Date
  Masamune came to Hideyoshi's camp and swore allegiance to him.
  Hideyoshi then led his army as far as Aizu in Mutsu, placing daimyo
  and distributing territories not only in the Kanto but also in the north-
  ern provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, the last area of Japan to be con-
  quered. With this, the pacification of the entire country was complete.
  Hideyoshi ordered that the wives and children of the daimyo who
  submitted to him must live in Kyoto as hostages, while the daimyo
  themselves were made to serve him in Kyoto with a fixed number of
  their troops. This method of ensuring the loyalty of vassals to their lord
  was commonly practiced within daimyo domains as well. Daimyo, in
  other words, frequently required the wives and children of their chief
  retainers to take up residence in the daimyo's castle, and the retainers
  themselves also had to serve there in turn. The practice of taking hos-
  tages and requiring attendance spread over the now-united country.
  Military service in the form of attendance (sankin gun'yaku) was re-
  quired of the daimyo, and powerful daimyo such as the Tokugawa and
  Shimazu were granted holdings to maintain a residence in Kyoto (zai-
  Kyo makanai ryo) in or near the Kinai to offset living expenses.
  Hideyoshi's "peace" extended not only to the daimyo but also to
  every social class, including farmers and fishermen. It was imple-
  mented by his sword hunt edict and his ban on piracy, both issued and
  carried out in 1588.8 The sword hunt edict ordered the confiscation of
  all weapons held by farmers, including long swords, short swords,
  bows, spears, and firearms. The ordinance stipulated that the confis-
  cated weapons would be used to make the nails and clamps for the
  8 Berry, Hideyoshi, pp. 102-3,133-4-
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  50 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  Hall of the Great Buddha at the Hokoji, which Hideyoshi was then
  building in Kyoto. It was explained that this meant that the fanners
  would be saved not only in this life but in the hereafter as well: If the
  farmers would take up their farming implements and devote them-
  selves to cultivating the fields, the prosperity of their children and
  grandchildren for generations would be assured. The second edict
  strictly forbade piracy and directed the domain holders to make a
  survey of shipmasters, fishermen, and others in each province who
  made their living from the sea and to put them under their control.
  These two edicts put an end to activities by confederations of farm-
  ers and fishermen against the domain proprietors. Their significance
  in this respect was well understood at the time. One step beyond
  Nobunaga's suppression of the ikki, their aim was to institutionalize
  the results of this suppression into a social system. Seen in the light of
  subsequent history, they served as a final contribution to the tendency
  of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to abandon the
  practice of solving disputes among the various groups by recourse to
  arms.
  The social system o/heino bunri
  Hideyoshi's cadastral surveys followed his conquests. These surveys
  were much more thorough than those conducted by either Nobunaga
  or any of the daimyo up to that time, and we know them as "Taiko's
  cadastral surveys" (Taiko kencht) from the title Taiko that Hideyoshi
  took when he retired from the post of imperial regent. Until Hide-
  yoshi's surveys began in 1584, the medieval standard of land measure-
  ment, in which one tan equaled 360 bu, was employed, and land area
  was expressed in units labeled as "large" (240 bu), "middle" (180 bu),
  and "small" (120 bu). Hideyoshi then introduced the tan-se-bu sys-
  tem, with one tan equal to 300 bu, one se equal to 30 bu, and one bu
  being one square ken in area. This method of land measurement has
  lasted to modern times, although in the Edo period the length of the
  ken was shortened slightly. The Taiko kenchi, as will be revealed in
  several subsequent chapters in this volume, aside from introducing a
  more effective method of land measurement and taxation, became the
  foundation for one of the greatest transformations of the land system
  in Japanese history.
  Hideyoshi also adopted throughout his domain the kokudaka sys-
  tem, a method of assessing the yield (taka) of each parcel of land in
  terms of a quantity of rice (expressed in koku units). The land so
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  POLITICAL UNIFICATION 
  51
  measured included not only paddy and dry fields but also residential
  land and sometimes even undeveloped fields, mountains, forests, and
  marshland. In the process, the various volume measures (masu) that
  until that time had varied according to region, proprietary lord, or
  purpose (receiving versus paying out) also were unified, and the
  "Kyoto measure" (Kyo-masu) was adopted as the national standard.
  Of course, some regional differences were visible in the survey pro-
  cedures and results. In the Kinai and neighboring provinces, which
  had come under Hideyoshi's control from an early date, the land
  surveys were conducted repeatedly. In contrast, in backward regions
  of low productivity such as Kyushu or the northern provinces, it was
  impossible to take measurements according to the established stan-
  dards. There were cases, therefore, in which the former tenurial rec-
  ords were merely recalculated and converted to fit the new cadastral
  registers. Despite various discrepancies, the survey made it possible to
  know the "proprietary amount" (rydchidaka) of the entire country. In
  fact a unified cadastral survey on a national scale was carried out in
  1591, just one year after unification,"and there is evidence that this was
  updated in 1593-4. From these measures it appeared that the total
  kokudaka of the entire country amounted to approximately 18 million
  koku.
  The cadastral survey recorded various kinds of information for each
  parcel of land: the name of the person who held the rights of cultiva-
  tion to that land, the area, assessed productive capacity (kokudaka),
  and quality, ranked as superior, medium, or inferior paddy or dry
  field. This information was compiled in a cadastral register for each
  village. In medieval times it was common for several persons to hold
  overlapping rights to a given parcel of arable land, but Hideyoshi's
  cadastral surveys established the principle of "one cultivator per parcel
  of land." The Toyotomi regime refused to acknowledge the existence
  of a landlord-tenant relationship within the peasant class and did not
  recognize the existence of any intermediate level of exploitation be-
  tween the domain lords and the actual cultivators of the soil.
  Consequently, the farmers registered in the cadastral surveys as the
  direct cultivators would logically have been the ones obliged to pay
  taxes, but the realities of the system made the village the unit of
  taxation and the agency responsible for submitting the payment of
  taxes. The annual grain tax (nengu) was levied as a percentage of the
  assessed productive capacity. The Toyotomi regime determined the
  standard rate as "two to the lord, one to the farmer," and indeed, tax
  documents show that taxes were in fact collected in approximately this
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  52 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  ratio. The amount of tax that each villager had to pay was determined
  within the village in proportion to the amount of kokudaka he held. If
  a farmer could not pay the amount of taxes he owed, the village paid
  for him, according to the principle of collective responsibility.
  Farmers were liable for corvee duty (yaku) in addition to land taxes.
  The term yaku originally referred to the use of a person's labor, and it
  took many forms, extending back to ancient times. By the sixteenth
  century, the word was used to mean not only military service (gun'yaku)
  and the usual corvee but also service to a domain lord offered in ex-
  change for specific rights. Labor services were levied by the court or
  shogunate, by the daimyo, or by individual fief holders. The labor
  requirement was frequently commuted to a payment in cash or in kind,
  such as rice or other products.
  It is thought that in large Sengoku domains each daimyo made the
  province (the kuni) the unit of his rule and had the right in time of war
  to require military service from the farmers in his domain. But the
  lord's authority did not extend to the labor services that each of his
  vassals levied on the farmers who lived on the vassals' fiefs (chigyochi).
  Thus the interests of the daimyo and his vassals were frequently in
  conflict. The Toyotomi regime's policy was to take the right to extract
  labor services away from the vassals and to reserve for the national
  military hegemon and the daimyo the right to levy all labor services.
  Hideyoshi's cadastral surveys also brought about a major change in
  the form of fiefs assigned to samurai retainers. The survey imposed the
  requirement that there could be only one proprietor entitled to collect
  the taxes from a given parcel of land. That proprietor, however, was
  not a law unto himself. As a member of a daimyo's band of retainers,
  he had been granted a fief. But his proprietory authority was based on
  the laws of his superior. In other words, the entire warrior class had by
  now been organized into daimyo units, and although fief holders could
  collect taxes by virtue of their warrior status, this status could now be
  obtained only by subordinating themselves to a daimyo's superior
  authority. For example, during the cadastral survey in the Shimazu
  domain, Hideyoshi ordered that the indigenous military proprietors be
  cut off from their holdings and moved elsewhere. This transfer of
  vassals within a daimyo's domain was conducted in the name of "fair-
  ness" in the distribution of fiefs; there even were cases in which
  daimyo assigned fiefs by lot.
  Further, during the course of national unification Hideyoshi began
  to transfer daimyo, together with their bands of retainers, to new
  domains, and in this process the vassals were often deprived of several
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  53
  of their former rights to hold fiefs. There were many such cases in
  which daimyo from provinces such as Mino, Owari, and Omi were
  relocated to the northern provinces, the Kanto, or Kyushu. This
  broad principle of withdrawal of proprietary rights over fief land held
  by the members of the warrior class below the rank of daimyo consti-
  tuted one of the chief objectives of the cadastral surveys as well. Until
  this time the vassals had been the holders (shoyusha) of proprietary
  rights over their own fiefs. However, farmers became the registered
  holders (hoyusha) of the land as a result of the cadastral surveys, and in
  this way private ownership of land was forbidden to members of the
  warrior class. Although vassals were in fact granted fiefs whose geo-
  graphic contours contained specifically designated villages, they were
  enjoined from cultivating the land in those villages themselves or mak-
  ing any other use of it, even land that for one reason or another had no
  designated productivity or that was not being lived on or cultivated by
  any farmer. Their proprietory rights were thus reduced to the author-
  ity to collect as a form of taxes (nengu) a portion of the wealth pro-
  duced on the land.
  In sum, Hideyoshi's cadastral surveys had a profound influence on
  Japanese society. The warriors were deprived of fiefs but won the right
  to collect taxes. The farmers, on the other hand, were bound to the
  land and were obliged to pay those taxes in return for a guarantee of
  their right to cultivate the soil. The warriors, in another contrast,
  carried swords as members of the lord's standing army, and they were
  stationed in the castle towns where they became bureaucrat-warriors
  and a major consuming class. The farmers, meanwhile, lived in the
  villages where they had to devote themselves strictly to farming. As
  the ruled, the farmers were stripped of weapons, and they became the
  producers of the food and many other items consumed by samurai. As
  this engineered situation congealed into a social system, the overthrow
  of superior by inferior, which characterized the previous age, was
  systematically brought to a halt, and a new society was formed, identi-
  fied by the strict definition and separation of the warrior and peasant
  classes.
  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE
  Military strength and organization
  The strength of Nobunaga's armies is usually attributed to his compa-
  nies of musketeers (teppotat), composed chiefly of foot soldiers (ashi-
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  54 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  garu). The term ashigaru means literally "a person who advances on
  foot." Its currency testified to the tendency from the fourteenth cen-
  tury for battles between masses of foot soldiers gradually to assume
  more importance than did individual combat between mounted samu-
  rai. By the sixteenth century, ashigaru had become trained infantry-
  men organized into spear, bow, and musket corps. Nobunaga placed
  particular importance on the musket corps and used them effectively.
  For instance, at the critical battle of Nagashino in Mikawa (1575),
  Nobunaga's musketeers, separated into three ranks firing in rotation,
  defeated, indeed slaughtered, Takeda's mounted warriors. This defeat
  of the warrior elite by the lowest stratum of that professional class
  signaled a revolution in the accepted style of combat.
  Another outstanding feature of Nobunaga's army was its mobility.
  He showed at the battle of Okehazama that he could assemble an
  effective military force at the necessary time and place with a speed
  that his opponents could not even imagine. Nobunaga's superior mili-
  tary capacity was not a matter of accident or luck; it was well planned.
  To facilitate the rapid movement of large forces, he widened and re-
  paired the main strategic roads, such as those between Gifu and
  Kyoto, and Kyoto and Azuchi; built pontoon bridges across rivers;
  and constructed large hundred-oar galleys to transport troops and
  military gear across Lake Biwa. This made possible the employment
  of a union of ashigaru infantry battalions with the corps of mounted
  samurai of higher status. And usually Nobunaga was in the lead,
  whether at the front in a battle or, having decided that the odds were
  against him, in a swift retreat.
  Nobunaga's military genius was also apparent in his ability to come
  up with new strategies that defied tradition. During his siege of the
  Honganji fortress of Osaka, Nobunaga suffered casualties inflicted by
  the naval forces of the Mori, who were aiding the Honganji. To coun-
  ter this, Nobunaga ordered the Kuki family (daimyo of Shima Prov-
  ince) to construct seven vessels armored with large iron plates, the first
  armored ships built in Japan. Armed with cannon and muskets, these
  ships annihilated the Mori fleet, which was composed of conventional
  small-scale wooden ships.
  Mass troop movements required a variety of ancillary units, such as
  transport and engineering corps, to support soldiers engaged in actual
  combat. As a result, warfare increasingly demanded the mobilization
  of a domain's total resources. Unlike Nobunaga, Hideyoshi hardly
  ever took the lead in battle, but he inherited Nobunaga's legacy with
  regard to the conduct of warfare and greatly expanded it. The unique
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  55
  features of warfare as waged by Hideyoshi could already be seen when
  he served as Nobunaga's general in the struggle against the Mori at the
  sieges of Tottori Castle in Inaba Province in 1581 and of Takamatsu
  Castle in 1582. At Tottori he dug moats around the castle, ringed it
  with watchtowers, and brought the defenders to the verge of starva-
  tion. At Takamatsu, Hideyoshi took advantage of rivers swollen by the
  heavy rains of the rainy season. He constructed earthen dikes seven
  meters high, twenty meters wide at the base, ten meters wide at the
  top, and three kilometers in length and diverted the rivers to flood the
  castle. Cut off from supplies and aid, the defenders were forced to
  surrender. Hideyoshi ordered the defeated castellans to commit ritual
  suicide but spared their retainers. On other occasions, he mobilized
  miners to dig tunnels to undermine castles. In all such projects
  Hideyoshi employed superior methods of manpower mobilization, di-
  viding up the work into sections or stages and allotting them to the
  generals and daimyo under his command, with labor supplied by
  impressed bands of retainers and the peasantry.
  Hideyoshi ordered such massive mobilizations everywhere as he
  unified the country. During the siege of the Hojo's Odawara Castle,
  for instance, he not only built fortifications but also constructed shops
  for entertainers and merchants so as to help the besieging troops pass
  the hours while they waited for battle. The preparations for the inva-
  sions of Korea were awesome in their dimensions. Hideyoshi estab-
  lished his headquarters at Nagoya Castle and soon gathered a huge
  army of 200,000 troops at what had been an impoverished fishing
  village, transforming it into a large castle city. The labor was mobilized
  on a similarly large scale to construct Osaka Castle, Jurakutei Palace,
  and other projects. Similar mobilizations were used after unification to
  construct dikes and riparian works as the daimyo settled down to
  improving living conditions for the populace.
  For the campaign against the Hojo, Hideyoshi appointed Natsuka
  Masaie as his magistrate in charge of procurement. The previous prac-
  tice in time of war had been for each band of warriors to come to camp
  carting its own provisions from the home domain. But Natsuka com-
  missioned a fleet of ships to transport 200,000 koku of rice and fodder
  for twenty thousand horses to supply the entire invading army, and he
  spent ten thousand pieces of gold to buy supplies. Thus Hideyoshi
  made his armies dependent on his own officers for most of their sup-
  plies of food and ammunition, and this assured him the ability to
  assemble promptly in one place large-scale military forces. For this
  reason alone the Toyotomi regime came to rely to an unprecedented
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  56 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  degree on the merchants and shipping agents who contracted to under-
  take these tasks.
  Army organization in Nobunaga's time adhered to patterns em-
  ployed throughout the Sengoku period. At the nucleus of an army was
  a band of direct retainers, in this instance, called "horse guards"
  (umamawari). Nobunaga's army also consisted of smaller armies led by
  generals with a strong sense of independence. By Hideyoshi's time,
  control of territory by the daimyo had progressed to the extent that the
  main unit of military service assessment was the province or domain
  that the daimyo ruled. Then, as Hideyoshi's cadastral surveys were
  carried out more thoroughly, assessment of military service came to be
  based more and more on assessed yields of fief land, with an obligation
  of so many men per one hundred koku.
  The first nationwide military service plan based on the kokudaka
  system was implemented in 1592 in preparation for the invasion of the
  continent. It was done in a systematic manner: For every one hundred
  koku the Kyushu daimyo were obliged to provide five men; the
  daimyo of Shikoku and Chugoku, four. Daimyo of provinces in the
  Kinki region and to the east were assessed a lighter levy, in part
  because their provinces were farther from the Nagoya headquarters
  and in part to compensate for the fact that two years before, they had
  shouldered a heavy burden during the campaign against the Hojo.
  The Toyotomi regime's practice of linking military service to fief
  output as determined by the cadastral surveys was still beset by several
  internal problems. It was not a permanent system but had been set up
  to meet certain immediate contingencies - the unification campaigns
  and the invasion of the continent. Because accommodations were
  made for previous military service and physical distance from the
  scene of battle, it fell short of being the completely standardized sys-
  tem of military service later instituted by the Tokugawa shogunate, in
  which levies were precisely determined by a domain's total kokudaka
  rating. Moreover, domains granted by Hideyoshi to many daimyo
  often contained holdings that were exempt from military services
  (muyakubun). For example, the domain grant to Miyabe Keijun in
  1589, awarded in anticipation of the campaign against the Hojo, desig-
  nated ten thousand koku from his domain of more than fifty thousand
  koku as exempt from the military service levy. Miyake was expected to
  supply two thousand men as part of the military levy against the
  remaining forty thousand koku. The exempt portion was directly de-
  scended from what had been the daimyo's "original domain" (honryo),
  which was "confirmed as an [original] fief" (ando chigyo). The portion
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  57
  on which military service was assessed was gift land awarded by the
  lord and was thus treated as a "boon fief" (kyuon chigyo).9
  The Toyotomi regime instituted several measures that touched off
  an evolution of lord-general relations. After national unification had
  been completed, for instance, Hideyoshi began to require military
  service in the form of attendance even on what previously had been
  "exempt lands." Almost all of the fiefs of daimyo established by
  Hideyoshi were subsumed into the military service system in this way,
  and the same formula was applied in settlement with powerful daimyo
  such as the Mori, Shimazu, Kobayakawa, and Tokugawa. Still, the
  total disappearance of fief grants with a portion exempt from military
  service had to await the establishment of the Tokugawa regime.
  Commerce, manufacturing, and the growth of cities
  Nobunaga's abolition of toll barriers (sekisho) and his expansion of the
  road system aided both the military and the merchant class that was
  taking shape in major cities. The merchants also benefited because the
  region that first came under Nobunaga's control, with the provinces of
  Mino, Ise, and Omi at the center, formed a ring of vital nodes in what
  was emerging as a national distribution network that linked the outly-
  ing provinces with the Kinai. Nobunaga also abolished the special
  privileges of the markets (ichi) and guilds (za) in the main cities in
  some areas, permitting what were called "free markets" (rakuichi) and
  "free guilds" (rakuza). He guaranteed the merchants' freedom to
  travel and to conduct business without interference. When the mer-
  chants came under his direct control, Nobunaga exempted them from
  the various imposts that had been exacted from them by different
  types of proprietary authorities such as court nobles, temples, shrines,
  and other warriors. These imposts included market taxes, business
  taxes, urban residential taxes, property taxes, and a variety of assess-
  ments that had to be given as "offerings of appreciation" in return for
  permission to conduct business.
  While Nobunaga sought to free merchants from such burdensome
  exactions, he also tried to concentrate commercial activity in the newly
  emerging castle towns. His ordinance for the governance of the castle
  town of Azuchi reflected these urban policies.10 Illustrative of the
  9 Cited in Asao, "Toyotomi seiken ron," p. 183. English translations of these documents can be
  found in David John Lu, comp., Sources of Japanese History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974),
  vol. 1, pp. 186-90.
  10 Okuno, ed., Oda Nobunga monjo no kenkyu, vol. 2, pp. 300-4 (doc. 722). For a translation in
  English see Lu, Sources, pp. 184-5.
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  58 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  effort to draw commercial activity into Azuchi was Nobunaga's order
  to redirect the Nakasendo highway, a main trunk route, so that it ran
  through the city. At the same time he stipulated that merchants had to
  pass through Azuchi and also to stay overnight. New regulations gov-
  erning the punishment of criminals and the collection of debts pro-
  vided a better environment for the growth of commerce. On the other
  hand, Nobunaga guaranteed and confirmed the privileges of the guilds
  composed of merchants and artisans who lived in Kyoto, Sakai, and
  the other cities and towns in the Kinai region, the center of traditional
  commerce and craft manufacture. His intention was to use these
  guilds to gain control of commerce and craft manufacture, which had
  been dominated by their organizations.
  Nobunaga's policies toward the guilds might seem inconsistent, as
  he abolished some and confirmed the rights of others. But this was
  done with a purpose. Rather than maintaining a system that relied on
  the extraction of small-scale cash income from individual merchants in
  the form of dues, and realizing that the territorial expansion of his
  authority required that the cities as a whole function as mechanisms
  for the conversion into cash of vast quantities of taxes collected in
  kind, he sought to make the cities the supply nodes for military equip-
  ment, firearms, ammunition, and the consumer goods needed for the
  daily lives of his retainers.
  Accordingly, market and guild privileges that might have hindered
  these objectives were abolished, whereas guilds, such as those for
  imported items and the handicraft products of the economically ad-
  vanced regions and those that handled rice and oil - products vital to
  the stability of daily life within the domains - were protected and their
  rights confirmed. This trend toward economic expansion necessarily
  gave rise to the construction and enlargement of cities and towns. The
  building of the castle town at Azuchi is a dramatic example of this.
  There Nobunaga built houses for his retainers and made them live in
  the castle town. He even went so far, on occasion, as to enforce this
  policy by burning to the ground the rural dwellings of those retainers
  who did not obey his orders to move to Azuchi.
  The policies adopted by Nobunaga to utilize commerce and craft
  manufacture and to build towns and cities were promoted on an even
  larger scale by Hideyoshi. It is well known that Nobunaga depended
  on Imai Sokyu of Sakai to manufacture firearms and provide gunpow-
  der. Under the Toyotomi regime, Sen-no-Rikyu, Konishi Ryusa,
  Kamiya Sotan, Shimai Soshitsu, and other leading merchants from
  Sakai, Kyoto, Hakata, and elsewhere were linked to the regime in a
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  59
  variety of ways. Sen-no-Rikyu, for example, served as a financial
  adviser to the Toyotomi family from an early stage, and Konishi
  Ryusa and others became fiscal administrators. Merchants partici-
  pated actively in distributing the produce of the granary lands under
  Hideyoshi's direct control throughout the country, in developing and
  managing mines, in transporting troops, and in constructing castles
  and castle towns. The shipping route on the Yodo River between
  Kyoto and Osaka, the land freight route between Kyoto and Otsu,
  and its extension east across Lake Biwa formed the economic arteries
  that fed supplies to the Toyotomi regime. Consequently, the regime
  put these under its direct control and levied transport taxes on their
  use.
  Policies affecting the guilds also became more fully defined under
  Hideyoshi. From about 1584 the guilds patronized by court nobles,
  temples, and shrines were abolished, and the right to collect guild
  fees was denied. Craft guilds affiliated with temples and shrines,
  such as those for carpenters, smiths, tatami makers, and roof tile
  makers, were abolished in rapid succession. These prohibitions sev-
  ered guild ties with the court nobles and the temples and shrines.
  This practice was carried out in the daimyo domains as well, but it
  should not be supposed that the guilds themselves were abolished
  completely. Instead, the antiguild policy was directed mainly against
  those organizations that were dominated by the medieval proprietory
  class. This strengthened control of commerce and craft manufacture
  by the daimyo (and, by extension, by the Toyotomi regime that stood
  above them) and facilitated their direct control over their domain
  economies.
  Commerce and craft manufacture now came to be concentrated in
  the more open environment of the castle towns. There it could be
  mobilized for town construction projects or to supply goods to the
  bands of retainers. The Toyotomi regime itself was constantly engaged
  in urban construction: the castle and city of Osaka, the Jurakutei
  Palace and the reconstruction of Kyoto, the castle and castle town at
  Nagoya in Kyushu, and the castle and surrounding town at Fushimi
  are prominent examples. All these were carefully planned projects
  with several common characteristics. The typical castle town included
  an administrative headquarters surrounded by the residences of the
  daimyo and his attendant retainers, a sector for the townspeople, and
  frequently a zone where temples and shrines could be concentrated.
  Labor and construction materials such as stone and lumber were requi-
  sitioned from daimyo throughout Japan, and merchants were required
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  60 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  to contribute capital. Daimyo retainer bands participated in the con-
  struction work alongside farmers."
  This construction took place not only in central Japan but also in the
  provinces - Hideyoshi's stepbrother Hidenaga built Koriyama; his
  nephew Hidetsugu constructed Omi Hachiman; and Hideyoshi him-
  self rebuilt Hakata in Chikuzen after he subjugated Kyushu. Daimyo
  could boast of equally proud achievements, as when - to cite but a few
  examples - the Mori oversaw the construction and growth of Hiro-
  shima, and the Maeda and Date lords did likewise at Kanazawa and
  Sendai. The Gamo family built a new castle town each time it was
  transferred: at Hino in Omi, Matsuzaka in Ise, and Wakamatsu (Aizu)
  in Mutsu. The Japanese archipelago was caught up in an unprece-
  dented urban construction boom that lasted into the middle of the
  seventeenth century. In keeping with the evolution in the function of
  cities, there was also a marked change in the conditions for the loca-
  tion of daimyo castles. Previously, castles had been located on hilltops
  for strategic reasons, but they were now being built at key transporta-
  tion nodes on plains or near harbors, the main concerns being the
  political and economic dimensions of territorial rule. As a result, cas-
  tles and cities tended to coalesce spatially.12
  Once the city was founded, the daimyo and his band of retainers, as
  well as merchants and artisans, congregated from the towns, markets,
  and villages throughout the domain. Commerce and handicraft indus-
  try were removed from the farming villages and relocated in the new
  cities, systematically creating a separation in status between the towns-
  people and the farmers. In conjunction with the separation of the
  warriors and peasants (heino bunri), the formation of such cities gave
  shape to the warrior-farmer-artisan-merchant (shi-no-ko-sho) status
  system that prevailed throughout the Tokugawa period.
  The minting of coins and the monopoly of international trade
  In sixteenth-century Japan, the production of gold and particularly
  silver grew so significantly that it left a mark on world economic
  11 A case study of the construction of Osaka Castle under the Tokugawa regime appears in
  William E. Hauser, "Osaka Castle and Tokugawa Authority in Western Japan," in Jeffrey P.
  Mass and William B. Hauser, eds., The Bakufu in Japanese History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
  University Press, 1985), pp. 153-72.
  12 For an early study in English of the sixteenth-century castle town in Japan, see John Whitney
  Hall, "The Castle Town and Japan's Modern Urbanization," in John W. Hall and Marius B.
  Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional History of Early Modem Japan (Princeton, N.J.:
  Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 169-88.
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  6l
  history. Indeed, Japan may have accounted for as much as one-third of
  the world's silver output at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning
  of the seventeenth century. This expanded production began in the
  1530s and had an important impact on the form and content of trade in
  East Asia. The Oda and Toyotomi regimes were quick to respond to
  this situation.
  In the third month of 1569, only a year after he had entered Kyoto,
  Nobunaga established official exchange rates for gold, silver, and cop-
  per coins (ten ryo of gold were to equal fifteen copper kammon, and ten
  ryo of silver were to equal two kammon) and laid down rules for trading
  in gold and silver; for example, imported items such as raw silk,
  medicines, damask, and tea bowls had to be traded in gold and silver.
  This establishment of official exchange rates was a completely new
  policy; nothing similar had been attempted by the Muromachi sho-
  gunate.13 It was also the predecessor of the triple coinage system that
  would prevail through the Tokugawa period to the 1870s. Nobunaga
  placed Imai Sokyu in charge of operating the Ikuno silver mine (in
  Tajima), which was under Nobunaga's direct control, and it is re-
  corded that he had Goto Tokujo strike gold coins, although none of
  these coins has survived.
  In 1588, Hideyoshi commissioned the Goto family to mint dban gold
  coins, which were followed by the koban and ichibuban. Further, he
  assigned twenty silver refiners to Daikoku (Yuasa) Joze of Sakai to
  mint silver coins. In return for these privileges, the Goto's gold guild
  paid fees to the regime of 1,000 pieces of gold per year, and the silver
  guild (jdzeza or ginza) paid 10,000 pieces of silver. All the gold and
  silver mines in the nation, including the Sado gold mine and the Iwami
  silver mine, were placed under Hideyoshi's direct control; the amount
  of fees he received from these in 1598 came to more than 3,397 pieces
  of gold and 79,415 pieces of silver.14
  This striking and issuance of gold and silver coins was an epoch-
  making event in Japan's monetary history. It is well known that the
  ancient Japanese imperial state was modeled on the Chinese system as
  exemplified by the Tang dynasty. In the eighth century, twelve types
  of copper coins and one variety of silver coin were minted in Japan.
  13 See Asao Naohiro, " 'Kinsei' no hajimari - Higashi Ajiya no keizai hendo to sankasei,"
  Geppo 8; Kodama Kota, ed., Azuchi Momoyama jidai, vol. 8 of Zusetsu Nihon bunkashi taikei
  (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1966), pp. 1-3.
  14 The sources are "Nihon fuzei" (Naikaku Bunko) and the "Keicho sannen zono mokuroku,"
  in Nonaka Jun, comp., Dai Nihon sozeishi (Tokyo: Choyokai, 1926-27), vol. 2, pp. 585-91).
  One detailed analysis of these documents is contained in Yamaguchi Keiji, Bakuhansei
  seirilsushi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Azekura shobd, 1974), pp. 47-116.
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  62 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  After that time, no coins were issued, and in medieval times, Japan
  relied entirely on imported Sung, Yuan, and Ming coins. Later, with
  the growth of trade in the late medieval period, the striking and circula-
  tion of private coins of inferior quality, both domestic and foreign,
  became a problem, which the shogunate and individual daimyo at-
  tempted to resolve through the frequent issue of "coinage selection
  regulations" (erizeni rei), edicts designed to regulate the kinds of coins
  in circulation and the exchange rates among them. Although these
  were not very effective, they can be seen as serving to accelerate the
  process by which Japan's coinage became independent of the Chinese
  economic sphere. The completion of this process came under the
  Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the seventeenth century, when
  not only many varieties of gold and silver coins but also vast quantities
  of copper and brass coins were minted and issued.
  The rapid increase in the production of gold and particularly silver
  involved Japan perforce in world commerce and transformed the struc-
  ture of trade in East Asia. The Muromachi shogunate's trade with
  China had taken the standard form of sending tribute to the Ming
  emperor. But this ended in the 1540s, and with the decline of the Ming
  empire and its antimaritime policies, the East Asian seas witnessed the
  expansion of private trade. The Portuguese, the first Europeans to
  appear on the scene, served as intermediaries in a triangular trade
  among Japan, China, and other Asian countries. They established
  their base at Macao, which had been ceded to them by the Ming as a
  reward for suppressing piracy, and carried on trade between Japan and
  China by exchanging Japanese silver for Chinese raw silk, which was
  in great demand in Japan, where it was processed into textiles of
  extraordinary quality.
  This official trade was conducted via the "Great Ship" commanded
  by a Portuguese captain-major who wielded military, administrative,
  and economic powers in the name of the king of Portugal. The
  Macao-Nagasaki route became from 1570 an indispensable part of the
  long sea journey from Goa. A portion of the profits of this trade was
  allotted to the Society of Jesus as funds for proselytizing. Nagasaki,
  the headquarters for this trade in Japan, together with the neighboring
  area of Mogi, was ceded in 1580 to the Jesuits by the lord of the region,
  Omura Sumitada, and his son Yoshisaki. The Society of Jesus then
  held all rights pertaining to possession of land, administration, and
  judicial matters there and also received the anchorage fees levied on
  Portuguese ships.
  Hideyoshi learned of this when he went to Kyushu in 1587 and
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  63
  immediately issued an edict expelling the missionaries. In the follow-
  ing year he revealed his intention to take control of all trade by confis-
  cating Nagasaki and by appointing Nabeshima Naoshige, daimyo of
  Hizen, as his administrative representative. To exert his control over
  trade there, Hideyoshi in 1588 sent Konishi Ryusa to Nagasaki with a
  large quantity of silver and instructions to buy up all of the raw silk
  brought by the Portuguese vessel, and the next year he sent Ishida
  Mitsunari, magistrate of Sakai, to purchase the entire stock of raw silk
  carried by a Portuguese ship that had landed in the Shimazu domain.
  In 1594 Toyotomi Hidetsugu was ordered to send thirteen thousand
  koku of rice from lands under Hideyoshi's direct control to the Iwami
  silver mine, there to have it exchanged for silver to be forwarded to
  Nagasaki to buy up the lead carried by a Portuguese ship. It is also
  clear that Hideyoshi planned to monopolize the purchase of the gold,
  mercury, and Luzon jars that came by ship from Manila. The raw silk
  and other goods were resold to domestic merchants, with the price
  difference remaining as profit in the coffers of the Toyotomi house.
  The details of this trade are not entirely known, but it has been
  established that Hideyoshi's wife Kita-no-mandokoro (Nei) held the
  right to sell raw silk to the citizens of Kyoto.15
  Hideyoshi issued an edict forbidding piracy in 1588, making an
  effort to seize and control all seafarers in Japan. Concurrently the
  daimyo, particularly those in Kyushu, were ordered to suppress pi-
  racy and private trade, an initiative that complemented the regime's
  policy of monopolizing foreign trade. As a result, the Toyotomi re-
  gime established in principle a system of official trade managed by
  the state and seized both economic profits and military goods, a high
  proportion of which (particularly lead and gunpowder) at that time
  had to be imported.
  Expansion of landholdings under direct control
  The source of the economic power that sustained the Toyotomi regime's
  rule over the entire nation was the huge amount of land under its direct
  control (chokkatsu-ryo or kurairi-chi, literally "granary lands"). Oda
  Nobunaga's domain was limited to the Kinai and neighboring prov-
  inces, and almost all of the land under his direct control consisted of
  territory formerly administered by the Muromachi shogunate. It must
  15 "Kinoshita monjo," in Sanyo shimbunsha, ed., Nene to Kinoshita-ke monjo (Okayatna: Sanyo
  shimbunsha, 1982), pp. 126-7.
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  64 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  be noted that he endeavored to seize cities such as Sakai, Kyoto, and
  Otsu and that he was greatly concerned about securing mines such as
  the Ikuno silver mine. But Nobunaga was not able to achieve stable
  territorial control. The Toyotomi regime, however, succeeded in ex-
  panding the holdings under its direct control while confiscating and
  redistributing fiefs in the course of national unification. Near the end of
  the Toyotomi regime (in 1598), it had.direct holdings valued at
  2,223,641 koku, or about 12.2 percent of the total national land base of
  18,509,143 koku.16 Although this figure does not match the 4,120,000
  koku (16.5 percent of the nation's total) held by the Tokugawa sho-
  gunate at its peak in the first half of the eighteenth century, it does
  represent a concentration of holdings whose size had no precedent in
  Japanese history up to that time.
  The geographic distribution of land under Hideyoshi's direct con-
  trol had two centers: The first was made up of the three provinces of
  Settsu, Kawachi, and Izumi, where he held approximately 60 percent
  of the total kokudaka, as well as the two remaining provinces of the
  Kinai region, Yamashiro and Yamato, and the five provinces of Omi,
  Echizen, Tamba, Harima, and Awaji, where he directly controlled
  lands whose output came to 20 to 40 percent of the total productivity.17
  In all, more than half of all the land held by Hideyoshi was located in
  these provinces. The other core area under his control was in northern
  Kyushu and centered on Chikuzen and Bungo provinces. He brought
  under his direct control more than 55 percent of Chikuzen's kokudaka
  and more than 40 percent of Bungo's. The first center, needless to say,
  was the Toyotomi regime's home territory and base; the second served
  as the mustering point for the invasions of the continent and as a
  source of military stores. The remaining lands under direct control
  were located mainly in the Chubu region, the Toyotomi family's origi-
  nal home province of Owari, and along the shores of the Inland Sea
  between Osaka and Kyushu. In addition, also placed under direct
  control were the mines and major cities throughout Japan.
  Originally, the chief purpose of placing land under direct propri-
  etary control was to ensure a supply of commissariat rice (hydrdmat) for
  the standing army, in order to maintain the bands of retainers who had
  been cut away from their holdings. By obliging the rural samurai to
  16 See Asao, "Toyotorai seiken ron," pp. i85ff; and Yamaguchi, Bakuhansei seiritsu shi, pp.
  47-116.
  17 These provinces formed a link connecting transportation to the east, using the Tokaido and
  Tosando and the Sea of Japan shipping routes, with transportation to the west via the
  San'indo and Sanyodo and Inland Sea shipping routes.
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  THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC BASE 
  65
  give up their village residences and to move into the lord's castle
  headquarters, the daimyo had placed his samurai retainers in a posi-
  tion in which they could be called to arms at any moment. Hideyoshi
  entrusted strategically important castles to generals who had been in
  his service since their youth, and he established his granary lands in
  the areas immediately around these castles. During the wars of unifica-
  tion, castles frequently served as granaries. Land under direct control
  was located so as to protect the castles, which in turn served to guard
  that land.
  In areas that were pacified and came under stable control as national
  unification drew closer to realization, Buddhist priests, merchants,
  and others were appointed as administrators to make use of their finan-
  cial skills and local influence. A form of control over broad areas of
  lands under direct daimyo influence that required almost no military
  force was ultimately established. According to a 1591 administrator's
  account book kept by the Shomyoji (temple) in Omi Province, the
  temple showed an annual outlay of 9,860 koku from its granary land.
  Of this, most was used for new grants or fief increments from the
  Toyotomi regime to daimyo, vassals, temples, Buddhist monks, and so
  forth. The lands under direct control came in this way to function less
  as a source of commissariat rice and more as a temporary reserve of
  land for the reallocation of fiefs during the course of unification. Then,
  toward the end of the regime, two other functions gradually assumed
  more importance. First, land held under direct control served as a
  source of stipendiary rice (fuchimai) for low-ranking vassals who had
  no landed fiefs. Second, it was used to meet the expenses of castle
  construction and public works undertaken by the Toyotomi regime.
  Hideyoshi also managed to make his continuing presence felt in
  even the peripheral areas of Japan, by requiring daimyo to set aside
  within their domain a portion of land that would technically be under
  Hideyoshi's direct proprietary control but that would be administered
  on his behalf by the daimyo. For example, in 1595 Satake Yoshinobu
  of Hitachi was granted a domain of 545,800 koku, of which 10,000
  koku was designated as land remaining under Hideyoshi's direct con-
  trol. This land corresponded to an area of paddy that comprised
  Satake's original fief Qionryo) and functioned as a commissariat rice
  granary for the eastern provinces. It presumably fed a fund that the
  Toyotomi regime could draw on to accumulate special products of the
  domains (in this case, gold).18
  18 See Yamaguchi, Bakuhansei seiritsushi, pp. 7iff.
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  66 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  To take another example, land under Hideyoshi's direct control was
  established in the domain of the Akita family of Dewa that amounted
  to one-third of the domain territory. According to the account books
  submitted every three years by the daimyo, this land was used to
  supply the central government with lumber for use in building ships
  and castles. Granary lands placed in distant daimyo domains had yet a
  third function. Subject to periodic inspection by officials sent out from
  the central government, they provided the excuse for administrative
  oversight and also the opportunity to convey to daimyo in distant
  regions, whose fiscal policies were comparatively backward, the more
  advanced techniques of the capital.
  CHANGES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
  Seizure of the right to conduct diplomacy
  The unification of Japan by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi required the
  binding together of the many separate political entities that consti-
  tuted Japan's domestic body politic. It also drew the two unifiers into
  involvement in the affairs of the world outside Japan. Foreign relations
  was an integral part of the domestic order. As of 1530, international
  relations in East Asia took place within a structure dominated by Ming
  China, and Japan was considered a part of this order. The shogun
  Ashikaga Yoshimitsu had been invested as "king of Japan" by the
  second Ming emperor Chu Yun-wen (r. 1398-1402). Yoshimitsu, em-
  ploying this title, sent ambassadors to China and Korea. Formal diplo-
  matic relations were opened from this time in which the Korean kings,
  who had also been invested by the Chinese, treated the Ashikaga
  shoguns as the "kings of Japan" on a level equal to themselves. The
  Ming emperor was at the apex of this structure, and only those who
  had been recognized by him as "king" had the right to conduct foreign
  relations and to engage in trade. The Ashikaga shoguns who followed
  after Yoshimitsu did not obtain this investiture and even avoided using
  the title "king of Japan" in their correspondence, because there had
  been in Japan since ancient times a strong feeling of superiority to
  Korea. But the basis of foreign relations remained unchanged in the
  eyes of the Ming government; relations between Japan and China
  continued mainly as trade in the form of tribute until the end of the
  Muromachi shogunate; and in addition, Japan and Korea exchanged
  more than sixty official diplomatic missions.
  The system by which the Muromachi shogunate ruled Japan was
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  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
  67
  not suited to the unitary diplomatic relations of the kind conceived by
  the Ming emperors. Instead, diplomacy took a pluralistic form in
  which daimyo such as the Hosokawa and Ouchi came to share in the
  China trade with the shogun, and the actual enterprise of sending the
  tribute ships was entrusted to merchants of Sakai and other cities.
  These conditions did not conform to Ming requirements. But the
  Korean government accommodated these realities by granting the spe-
  cial status of ruler or chieftain (kyoshu) to daimyo or other participants
  in this trade, according them treatment second only to that given to a
  "king."19 Although the Koreans eagerly sought trade with Japan, they
  were even more interested in obtaining Japanese cooperation in sup-
  pressing the so-called Japanese pirates.
  The decline of the Ming empire accelerated the trend toward plural-
  istic relations and brought about a transformation in the pattern of
  relations among the medium-sized and small states and peoples on the
  Chinese periphery. The formal relationships among the kings and the
  system of official diplomatic relations authorized by the state began to
  crumble, and illicit trade and private diplomacy made their appear-
  ance. The suspension of the Japan-China tally trade after the final
  voyage in 1547 marked the end of the old system. Overseas, the emer-
  gence of the Ryukyus as a trading country from the fifteenth to the
  sixteenth centuries, and its multifaceted activities in the East China
  Sea, represented the transition from the old system to the new.
  The Oda and Toyotomi regimes appeared in the midst of these
  developments. The changes that were taking place in Japan were one
  aspect of the decline of the world order centered on the Ming empire.
  The Muromachi shogunate, which was linked to that order, collapsed
  and was replaced by the new political order founded by Nobunaga and
  Hideyoshi. Given these circumstances, the task of pacifying the nation
  and uniting the daimyo and merchants made it inevitable that Japan's
  new national leadership would intervene in, and eventually reorga-
  nize, the pluralisitic international relations and private trade estab-
  lished by the daimyo and the merchants. Further, the decline of Ming
  power encouraged the new Japanese rulers to form a new international
  order more suitable to their specific needs.
  In addition, a new element appeared in East Asia at this time, first,
  the Portuguese and then the other European powers. Establishing a
  new state in place of the Muromachi shogunate burdened Hideyoshi
  19 Tanaka Takeo, Chusei taigai kankei shi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1975); Arano
  Yasunori, "Taikun gaiko taisei no kakuritsu," in Kato Eiichi and Yamada Tadao, eds.,
  Sakoku, vol. 2 of Koza Nikon kinsei shi (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1981), pp. 117-221.
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  68 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  with two problems simultaneously: What role should this state assume
  in the changing East Asian world? What conception of authority and
  the international order should inform its diplomatic relations with
  other countries?
  At each stage of national unification, Hideyoshi seized and rede-
  fined the rights to conduct diplomacy that had been fragmented under
  the old system. In 1587, after the pacification of Kyushu, for instance,
  Hideyoshi confirmed the lord of Tsushima, So Yoshishige, in his pro-
  prietorship of that island and made him solely responsible for relations
  with Korea. The So had established their authority in a unique form,
  using Tsushima's geographic and political situation to assume what
  amounted to a monopoly on relations with Korea, and they retained
  specialists who had acquired the techniques and knowledge required
  to exercise diplomacy. Hideyoshi brought under his own control diplo-
  matic relations with Korea, by forming a lord-vassal relationship with
  So Yoshishige. Then Hideyoshi decided to attack Korea because the
  Korean king had not sent tribute to him, the unifier of Japan. But
  Yoshishige persuaded Hideyoshi to postpone the attack, by promising
  to persuade the Korean king to send tribute. What Yoshishige did in
  fact was to invite the Koreans to send an envoy. When the Korean
  ambassadors came to Japan in 1590, Hideyoshi granted them an audi-
  ence at Jurakutei. As a reward for his success in bringing this about,
  Yoshishige was promoted to chamberlain (jiju) at the junior fourth
  rank lower grade and was granted the Hashiba name, a surname that
  Hideyoshi had once used.
  The Shimazu of Satsuma attained a similar position with respect to
  the Ryukyus. The kingdom of the Ryukyus had once held an indepen-
  dent status in East Asian diplomatic relations and trade. But this was
  now being eroded by Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese traders, and
  the Ryukyus were eventually reduced to conducting intermediary
  trade between China and Japan. This took the form of tribute trade
  with China to obtain goods that were then sold to Japan. Hideyoshi
  attempted to regulate this trade by using the Shimazu as intermediar-
  ies to negotiate with the king of the Ryukyus. He was particularly
  anxious to have an envoy sent to congratulate him on his unification of
  the country, an act that would acknowledge the Ryukyus' recognition
  of Japanese sovereignty. Before this objective was fully realized, how-
  ever, the Japanese invasions of Korea began. Hideyoshi assigned the
  Ryukyus to the Shimazu and ordered them as his rear vassals to cooper-
  ate with the Korean invasion. Although this order was not carried out,
  Hideyoshi gained control of Japan's relations with the Ryukyus by
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  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
  69
  confirming the exclusive position of the Shimazu family over diplo-
  matic relations with the Ryukyus and by placing the Shimazu under
  his own control.
  Hideyoshi's diplomatic concerns moved in still other directions. In
  1590, Kakizaki Yoshihiro, lord of Matsumae in Hokkaido, came to
  Kyoto and submitted to Hideyoshi, who brought him under his over-
  lordship by acknowledging Yoshihiro's right to rule his territory as
  daimyo and by having him appointed to a court post and the rank of
  junior fifth rank lower grade. Most of Hokkaido in this period was
  under the control of two Ainu communities, and the Kakizaki domain
  constituted only a small area in the southern part of the island.
  Yoshihiro had established his authority by unifying the small commer-
  cial towns that had grown up to trade with the Ainu. When in 1592
  Yoshihiro joined the forces assembled in northern Kyushu for the
  attack on Korea, Hideyoshi recognized Yoshihiro's right to oversee the
  seamen, merchants, and others on Japanese commercial ships that
  sought trade with the Ainu and to prohibit them from treating the
  Ainu unfairly. Yoshihiro's right to collect a customs tax from these
  ships was also acknowledged. This meant not only that Yoshihiro's
  previously acquired interests were confirmed but also that his right to
  supervise and control the commercial dealings between the Ainu and
  the Japanese was recognized. In this way Hideyoshi gained control
  over the diplomatic channels to the Ainu.
  When in 1587 Hideyoshi traveled to Kyushu in his campaign
  against the Shimazu, he was surprised to find Nagasaki and Mogi in
  the possession of the Society of Jesus. He therefore confiscated the
  church's domain the following year and put Nagasaki under his own
  control, appointing the nearby daimyo Nabeshima Naoshige as his
  local representative. But this was merely for administrative purposes;
  Hideyoshi himself took direct charge of diplomatic relations with the
  countries of Europe.
  In his diplomatic initiatives, Hideyoshi appointed as his assistants
  Buddhist monks from the Kyoto Gozan (the leading Rinzai Zen tem-
  ples in the capital), who had previously conducted the diplomatic
  correspondence for the Muromachi shogunate. Monks such as Seisho
  Jotai and Gempo Reisan conducted diplomatic negotiations with
  China and Korea from about 1591, and they drafted Hideyoshi's let-
  ters to the viceroy of the Indies (Portuguese Goa), to the governor
  general of the Philippines (Spain), and to Takasagun (Taiwan). In this
  way Hideyoshi brought the right to handle Japan's foreign relations
  into his own hands at the same time that he was completing domestic
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  7O 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  unification. This involvement in fashioning a new international as well
  as domestic order ultimately pushed Hideyoshi into yet another mas-
  sive use of military power.
  The invasions of Korea
  In the ninth month of 1591 Hideyoshi issued orders to all the daimyo
  of Japan to muster troops for the invasion of Korea.20 The Korean
  ambassadors who had come to Jurakutei the previous year had
  brought their king's message offering congratulations on Hideyoshi's
  unification of Japan and seeking to cultivate good neighborly relations.
  That was completely different from what Hideyoshi had desired,
  namely, the payment of tribute so as to suggest Korea's subordination
  to Japan. Nonetheless, Hideyoshi expressed admiration for the "trib-
  ute" presented by the Koreans and ordered them to grant passage to
  the army he planned to send against China. The Korean envoys pro-
  tested, but to no avail. The So family, afraid of losing their special
  status in Japanese-Korean relations, made great efforts to persuade
  the Koreans to provide passage for Hideyoshi's army, but their argu-
  ments were not successful either. Misunderstandings and discrepan-
  cies on both sides remained unresolved, and so the two sides moved
  toward catastrophe.
  Hideyoshi's plan to invade the continent was linked with the task of
  completing his unification. An incident that took place in 1585 helps
  explain Hideyoshi's conception of the unified state that he hoped to
  create. In that year Hideyoshi delivered a reprimand to Kato Mitsu-
  yasu, a retainer who had been in Hideyoshi's service since his youth.
  Kato had claimed that he found it impossible to support his own
  vassals on the income drawn just from the relatively small domain that
  Hideyoshi had granted to him. Consequently Kato requested that he
  be allowed to assign fiefs to these vassals from that portion of his
  domain that had been reserved for Hideyoshi's direct control. Greatly
  20 The mainstream of postwar research on the invasion of Korea sees the cause of the invasion in
  the Toyotomi regime's internal contradictions; that is, Hideyoshi launched the invasions to
  complete domestic unification, suppressing the daimyo's desire to increase the size of their
  domains. The source for this view is the "Iyo Komatsu Hitotsuyanagi monjo" (copy in Tokyo
  daigaku shiryo hensanjo). Some research on the activities of the Japanese army in Korea has
  appeared recently, but the full story has not yet been told. Further, Fujiki Hisashi, in his
  Toyotomi heiwa-rei, revived the interpretation that the purpose of the invasion was the renewal
  of licensed trade with the Ming. See also the treatment of the invasion of Korea in Chapter 6
  of this volume.
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  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
  71
  angered, Hideyoshi repeated what he thought was obvious to all: that
  such lands were intended to provide commissariat rice and other sup-
  plies for the wars of unification, and he labeled Kato's request as
  outrageous, claiming that Kato's proposal was akin to invading the
  domains held by neighboring daimyo. Hideyoshi even went so far as to
  accuse Kato of harboring a desire for national upheaval and left unsaid
  the implication that Kato dreamed of replacing Hideyoshi as national
  hegemon. "Peace" was Hideyoshi's slogan for unification, and he
  would stop the daimyo from fighting among themselves and have
  them establish their territories through peaceful procedures under the
  auspices of his regime. Hideyoshi realized only too well that Kato's
  request might lead to the dissolution of his own base. Hideyoshi then
  went on to recount how he had promoted Kato from a lowly thirty-
  koku status to a daimyo holding of more than twenty thousand koku,
  saying, "for his [Kato's] sake, Hideyoshi would go so far as to subju-
  gate not only Japan but also China."21
  Independent military initiatives by the daimyo to expand their do-
  mains at one another's expense would collide directly with Hideyoshi's
  aim of unification. Hideyoshi felt that he could achieve domestic peace
  and unity and bring to an end the daimyo's struggles among them-
  selves, by redirecting their tremendous energy for independent action
  toward the conquest of the continent. He referred to this plan at each
  successive stage of the unification process: He emphasized it strongly
  in the 1586 mobilization order for the Kyushu campaign and men-
  tioned it in the 1588 orders for cessation of hostilities sent to daimyo in
  the Kanto and northern Japan. It was finally realized in the mobiliza-
  tion order of 1591. The fact that this mobilization took place after
  national unification had been achieved indicates that the contradic-
  tions submerged in the peaceful unity made an invasion of the conti-
  nent a necessity and strongly suggests a close linkage between the two
  events.
  In 1592 a great army of more than 158,000 troops assembled at a
  base established at Nagoya in Kyushu and crossed to Korea. Their
  destination was China. The Japanese forces landed at Pusan in the
  fourth month, took the fortresses at Pusan and Donglae, and occupied
  Seoul by the second day of the fifth month. After regrouping there
  they moved north: Konishi Yukinaga occupied P'yongyang; Kato
  Kiyomasa moved toward the east coast and captured Hamhung, then
  21 "Iyo Komatsu Hitotsuyanagi monjo"; Iwasawa Yoshihiko, "Hideyoshi no Kara-iri ni kansuru
  monjo," Nihon rekishi 163 (January 1962): 73-5, was the first to introduce this source.
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  72 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  continued north to Hoeryong, seized two Korean princes, and ad-
  vanced as far as the Tumen River basin. Meanwhile, the other generals
  moved into the areas to which they had been assigned, so that the
  Japanese armies completed their invasion of the entire Korean penin-
  sula. They surrounded the main cities in Korea's eight provinces and
  issued decrees to the populace: Those who obeyed were spared, but
  those who resisted were annihilated. This was like the process of
  pacification that had taken place in Japan. Then each army prepared
  for the invasion of China by collecting taxes and amassing military
  stores. Two reasons for Japan's victories at the beginning of hostilities
  were that the Japanese troops were seasoned by domestic warfare and
  they were organized around powerful companies of musketeers.
  In the seventh month, a Ming army crossed the Yalu River at the
  request of the Koreans and engaged Japanese troops twice in P'yong-
  yang Province; in the second battle the Japanese were defeated and
  withdrew to Seoul. The Korean army took heart at the withdrawal of
  the Japanese armies, and local "righteous armies" (guerrilla bands
  known as uiguri) harassed the Japanese everywhere. The Chinese
  troops under Li Ju-sung attacked Seoul but were defeated in the battle
  of Pyokchegwan and fled to P'yongyang. A truce was then declared
  between the Japanese and Chinese forces, and a long period of peace
  negotiations, lasting four years, began in 1592.
  Hideyoshi presented seven conditions for peace, including the fol-
  lowing: A daughter of the Ming emperor was to become a consort of
  the Japanese emperor; official licensed trade with China was to be
  resumed; ministers of China and Japan were to exchange oaths; four
  provinces of Korea were to be ceded to Japan; and a Korean prince
  and ministers were to be sent to Japan as hostages. On the other hand,
  the Chinese saw trade to be the main problem complicating the negotia-
  tions, because for the Chinese to recognize trade, an investiture from
  the emperor was required; this in turn hinged on the Japanese submis-
  sion to China of a petition to surrender and seek friendship. Hence,
  the Chinese continued to view the world in terms of a civilized China
  surrounded by barbarian states. Once again, the persons responsible
  for carrying out the negotiations for each country, Konishi Yukinaga
  and Shen Wei-ching, deceived Hideyoshi in order to achieve a peace
  settlement. The result was a promise for the withdrawal of Japanese
  forces, approval of Hideyoshi's investiture as "king" of Japan, and
  friendship with Korea. The Korean royal family, which had fled north
  as the Japanese armies advanced, also agreed to send envoys when the
  Ming ambassadors brought the investiture to Japan.
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  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
  73
  The Chinese and Korean embassies arrived in Japan in 1596 and
  were given an audience by Hideyoshi at Osaka Castle. Hideyoshi was
  then presented with the instructions and patents from the Ming em-
  peror, investing him as the king of Japan, and he also received a golden
  seal and official garb. He was greatly pleased, and he entertained the
  envoys at a banquet and reception. Hideyoshi, however, was under the
  mistaken impression that the Chinese had yielded to his demands. The
  truth soon came out, however, exposed by Kato Kiyomasa and others
  who were at odds with Konishi Yukinaga over the manner in which
  the war in Korea was being conducted. Hideyoshi realized that his
  demands had been deliberately twisted and manipulated in order to
  provide for a Chinese diplomatic victory, and he thereby became en-
  raged and ordered a second invasion. The Chinese and Korean delega-
  tions were expelled, and peace negotiations were summarily broken
  off.
  The second invasion began early in 1597 when more than 140,000
  troops sailed to Korea. This time the objective was to win acceptance
  of the conditions for peace that Hideyoshi had laid down during the
  peace negotiations, and so emphasis was placed on obtaining the ces-
  sion of Korea's three southern provinces and gathering as many hos-
  tages as possible. The Koreans again sought help from China, and a
  joint army of Chinese and Korean troops fought the Japanese along
  with the local guerrillas. The Japanese forces were thus unable to
  commandeer as many supplies as they had intended from the Korean
  farming villages, which had been devastated by successive years of
  warfare.
  Faced with fierce resistance by the civilian population and the men-
  ace to their supply routes by the Korean navy under Yi Sun-sin, the
  Japanese were gradually pushed back to the Pusan coastal area. No
  longer able to maneuver freely, the leaders of the Japanese army be-
  came intensely weary of the war and proposed reopening peace talks
  with the Chinese. But in the eighth month of 1598, Hideyoshi died
  suddenly, at the age of sixty-three. Tokugawa Ieyasu and others among
  the Five Elders kept Hideyoshi's death secret while they arranged for
  the withdrawal of the entire Japanese army. The Japanese forces re-
  turned home in rapid succession, and with this the invasions of Korea,
  which had lasted for over seven years, came to an end without the
  Toyotomi regime itself or any of the daimyo or their vassals gaining
  any rewards or a single inch of territory.
  Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea had a number of results. The mobili-
  zation of a huge army by the Ming dynasty exacerbated already-
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  74 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  existing financial difficulties and hastened its collapse. Korea was dev-
  astated, especially the southern provinces, which were the country's
  agricultural heartland, and the country would not recover for several
  generations. In Japan, the impetus for outward expansion that sus-
  tained the domestic unification drive ended in failure. The decline of
  the Toyotomi regime that was already in evidence was surely hastened.
  New conceptions of the state and the world
  Hideyoshi sent troops to Korea just as if he were extending to the field
  of conquest the domestic warfare by which he unified Japan. But he
  failed. Did Hideyoshi grasp any distinction between "domestic" and
  "foreign"? I would argue that he did and that by establishing a unified
  Japanese state, he created a new way for the Japanese to perceive of
  foreign countries and the world.
  In the course of his tumultuous political career, the first time that
  Hideyoshi was made conscious of an actual, as opposed to an abstract,
  foreign presence in Japan came in 1587 during the Kyushu campaign.
  On that occasion he issued an edict expelling the Christian missionar-
  ies, the first article of which stated: "Although Japan is the land of the
  gods (shinkoku), there are persons who come here from a Christian
  country to expound wicked teachings. This is a very evil thing and
  must not be allowed."22
  Here Hideyoshi conceived of Japan as the "land of the gods," in
  contrast with a "Christian country." In the 1540s a few Portuguese
  became the first Europeans to arrive in Japan when they drifted ashore
  at Tanegashima aboard a Chinese pirate ship, and in 1549 Francis
  Xavier of the Society of Jesus landed in Kagoshima to bring Christian-
  ity to Japan. At this time the worldview of the medieval Japanese was
  largely a Buddhist one that perceived of the world as composed of
  three entities: Japan (Honcho), China (Shintan), and India (Tenjiku).
  Japan, as "a small country on the periphery of the Buddhist world,"
  asserted its political and cultural identity by advancing the claim of
  being the land of the gods. Europeans came from an outside world
  completely beyond what could be imagined by the medieval Japanese.
  22 This is my own interpretation. On the medieval philosophy of shinkoku, see Kuroda Toshio,
  "Chusei kokka to shinkoku shiso," in his Nihon chusei no kokka to shukyo (Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1975), pp. 253-330; and Murai Shosuke, "Chusei Nihon no kokusai ishiki ni tsuite,"
  in Minshu no seikatsu, bunka to henkaku shutai (Rekishigaku kenkyukai 1982 nendo taikai
  hokoku) (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1982), pp. 57-67. The source has been published in Kyoto
  daigaku bungakubu kokushi kenkyushitsu, ed. Hirado Matsuura-ke shiryo (Kyoto, 1951), pp.
  115-16.
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  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
  75
  Thus Christianity was thought at first to be a sect of Buddhism. And
  because these Europeans had brought with them a powerful new
  weapon, namely, firearms, they instantly transformed the worldview
  of Japan's rulers. Hideyoshi's use of the expression "Christian coun-
  try" for Europe demonstrated that he did recognize the existence of an
  area in the world that had its own characteristic culture different from
  that of either Tenjiku or Shin tan. He responded to this culture by
  placing it in an intellectual category that contrasted it with the concept
  of the land of the gods.
  Hideyoshi felt that the activities of the Christian country that he
  witnessed in Kyushu were potentially dangerous to Japan. The mis-
  sionaries did not merely convert the populace but ruthlessly destroyed
  Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, claiming they were institutions
  of idol worship. The Christian daimyo Omura Sumitada and his son
  Yoshisaki had even ceded Nagasaki, an excellent natural harbor in
  their domain, to the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits were given practi-
  cally a free rein: They administered the town, dispensed justice,
  owned land, and collected anchorage fees from Portuguese ships. How-
  ever, they were not granted the right to collect a tax on trade from
  ships entering the harbor.
  Hideyoshi surely was aware of the parallels with an earlier example
  of ecclesiastical challenge to secular authority: the Ikko ikki that
  Nobunaga had had such great difficulty in suppressing. The Ikko
  believers, too, had destroyed Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in
  an attempt to promote a "single-minded, exclusive practice" (ikko
  senju), built towns within temple compounds that were relatively inde-
  pendent of secular authority, and pitted themselves militarily against
  daimyo authority.
  Hideyoshi was convinced, on the basis of his experience, that such
  "heresies" would present obstacles to national unification. The Society
  of Jesus, moreover, was identified as being a foreign lord. Because
  Hideyoshi was attempting to unite the lords of Japan under his own
  authority, he could not tolerate the existence of a separate authority
  that was not integrated into that system of unity. On 1587/6/19 he
  ordered that trade and foreign travel be permitted only so long as they
  did not disturb the practices of Buddhism, but he instructed the mis-
  sionaries to leave Japan within twenty days.
  The identity of the new state that Hideyoshi built was based on the
  land of the gods concept and was enhanced by an additional element,
  the notion of an inherent conflict between a strong Japan and China
  dominated by effete aristocrats and Buddhist clergy. This was illus-
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  76 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  trated by Hideyoshi's instructions for the invasion of the continent in
  1592: "With only five hundred or a thousand men I succeeded in
  uniting Japan, a country of warriors and furious internecine struggles.
  Since so many of you are in the vanguard against 'the long-sleeved
  country of the Great Ming,' I am confident of the outcome. Subjugate
  it speedily."23
  Two concepts, "Japan, a country of warriors and furious internecine
  struggles," and "the long-sleeved country of the Great Ming," were
  used in opposition to each other. The term "long-sleeved" referred to
  aristocrats and Buddhist clergy; when used by warriors, it expressed
  contempt. Hideyoshi, who had united the Japan's warrior bands and
  built a state composed of a national coalition of daimyo, was keenly
  aware of that state as a nation of warriors. His disdain for the "long
  sleeves" was particularly strong, perhaps because his regime itself had
  had to derive its legitimacy from his adopting the title of imperial
  regent. Although the leaders of the Kamakura and the Muromachi
  shogunates had been drawn from warrior bands, they were unable
  ultimately to free themselves from the organizational principles advo-
  cated by the "long sleeves." Hideyoshi ruled Japan through the mili-
  tary power that had unified the daimyo. This military power then
  became the basis of a new state structure that put an end to the nobles'
  control of the state. In his terms, both the Ming empire and the
  Muromachi shogunate were "long-sleeved" administrations.
  Under the sixteenth-century unifiers, the land of the gods had be-
  come a state organized around the daimyo. Opposition to this new
  state was seen to come from the "long sleeves" of both Japan and
  China. Moreover, with the Ming empire in a state of collapse and
  Europeans arriving in Japan in ever-increasing numbers, the new cen-
  ter of authority for a secure international order was not to be "long-
  sleeved" China but, rather, the militarily powerful "country of war-
  riors and furious internecine struggles": Japan. Hideyoshi thought
  that because he had pacified both the land and sea and had made travel
  safe at home and abroad, the Chinese should dispatch a mission to
  thank him. Obviously, he was applying knowledge gained from his
  narrow domestic experience in a simpleminded fashion to complex
  international problems. He had, as well, a haughty, insular view of the
  outside world. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that he made an
  23 Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nihon komonjo, Iewake 8, Mdri-ke monjo, vol. 3, pp.
  164-8 (doc. 904). Asao Nashiro, "Sakokusei no seiritsu," in Rekishigaku kenkyukai and
  Nihonshi kenkyukai, eds., Bakuhansei shakai, vol. 4 of Koza Nihonshi (Tokyo: Tokyo
  diagaku shuppankai, 1970), pp. 59-74.
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  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
  77
  effort to develop a new conception of state that would displace the
  international order based on China, then in a state of decline.
  In 1591 the Jesuit visitator Alexandra Valignano, returning to Japan
  from a trip in which he had taken four young Japanese samurai from
  Kyushu to Europe, brought to Hideyoshi a letter from the Portuguese
  viceroy of the Indies (Goa). In his reply to the viceroy, Hideyoshi
  revealed still more of his idea of Japan's world status. He himself, he
  wrote, had united by force of arms the more than sixty provinces of
  Japan that had suffered years of disorder. He had stabilized public
  affairs so that even foreign nations sent tribute to him. Moreover, he
  suggested that he was planning to conquer the great Ming empire in an
  effort to wield his authority beyond Japan's borders. He continued by
  saying that Japan was the land of the gods (kami) and that the gods of
  Japan were the origin of all things. Worship of the kami was equivalent
  in Japan to Buddhism in India and Confucianism in China. Finally, he
  had forbidden the Christian missionaries, who remained unaware of
  these teachings, from coming to Japan, although he promised to guar-
  antee the safety on land and sea of those who would come seeking
  friendship and trade.24
  In a letter to the governor general of the Philippines sent in that
  same year, Hideyoshi omitted the passage about the land of the gods
  but emphasized the mysterious quality of his authority, by describing
  the omens that appeared at his birth. He mentioned Korea and the
  Ryukyus as countries that rendered tribute, and he threatened to
  attack the Philippines immediately if tribute were not forthcoming.
  He sent a letter of the same import to Taiwan (Takasagun) in 1593,
  revealing more details of his miraculous birth, such as how the rays of
  the sun filled the room when his mother and father conceived him. He
  likened himself to a child of the sun: The sun causes everything to
  grow, he said, adding that it also had the power to wither everything.
  The letter went on to say that he had already launched an attack on
  Korea, that the Chinese ambassador had come to surrender, and that
  the Europeans (namban) and the Ryukyus were sending tribute. This
  claim about tribute was not true in either case; in essence, Hideyoshi
  was trying to extend the military power by which he had united Japan
  to be the central principle of a new regional order.
  The former international order from the Chinese viewpoint was
  based on a dichotomy between China and the barbarians. In this sys-
  24 Hideyoshi's letter to the viceroy of the Indies (Goa) in English translation appears in Ryusaku
  Tsunoda, W. Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New
  York: Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 316-18.
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  78 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  tern China was the land of culture, rites, and etiquette, and the barbari-
  ans were the foreign countries beyond this realm. Hideyoshi put for-
  ward a Japanese version of the Chinese-barbarian concept, placing the
  militarily powerful "country of warriors and furious internecine strug-
  gles" at the center and then arranging the neighboring countries
  around it. It is simple to point out how devoid this concept was of
  substance, as seen from outside Japan. But to the unifier of the Japa-
  nese state, the claim of international hegemony was not farfetched.
  Indeed, one can even find some basis for Hideyoshi's claim. From
  his time Korea and the Ryukyus were consistently ranked as tribute-
  bearing countries. This pattern was continued in the Edo period,
  when both countries were defined as "emissarial countries" (tsushin-
  koku) that sent envoys to the shogun, with the So and Shimazu daimyo
  serving as the respective intermediaries. The Ainu suffered military
  suppression at the hand of the Matsumae and were set on a course of
  assimilation with Japan in the Edo period. Despite the fall of the Ming
  dynasty, China continued to hold its place as an entity with a unique
  culture. India (Tenjiku) disappeared from the three-realm Buddhist
  world view formerly held by the Japanese. Europe, as the Christian
  country with a culture different from either China's or Japan's, came
  to occupy a prominent place in the Japanese worldview, evidence of
  which can be seen in Hideyoshi's direct seizure of diplomatic relations
  with Portugal and Spain, and the relationship between the Tokugawa
  shogunate and the Netherlands, which later monopolized Europe's
  diplomatic relations with Japan. In the Edo period the Netherlands
  and China were given roughly equal status as "trading countries."
  THE POWER STRUCTURE OF THE UNIFIED STATE
  The transcendental authority of the "men of the realm"
  The state created by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was
  basically a military hegemony imposed on the heads of all warrior
  bands of daimyo who had staked out their own local territorial claims.
  One important feature of the history of this state structure is that it
  was imposed from above by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, instead of being
  formed through a process in which the daimyo, as a result of pro-
  tracted warfare, would have accepted mutually from below the rule of a
  superior authority after having attained control over their own territo-
  ries. Why was the state not formed by the mutual consent of a coali-
  tion of independent daimyo?
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  79
  With the policy of strict separation of the samurai and peasant
  classes, the daimyo cut off their bands of retainers from private fiefs in
  the countryside and reconstituted them as a well-defined warrior class
  that administered the various landholdings that made up the domain
  and that carried out legislative, judicial, fiscal, and other functions
  under the lord's direction. This policy was implemented from above by
  Hideyoshi, to whom the daimyo had sworn allegience. By accepting
  this scheme, the daimyo were able to safeguard their own positions and
  achieve greater control over their own domains. Only by entering into
  lord-vassal relationships with Nobunaga and Hideyoshi could the
  daimyo ensure their own positions as proprietary lords. The social and
  economic functions necessary for everyday existence, including agricul-
  ture, handicraft production, and commerce and distribution, were left
  entirely to farmers, merchants, artisans, and others of the ruled popula-
  tions and were not open to warrior participation. In institutional terms,
  the rights of rule and administration were lodged in the hands of the
  legally defined warrior status, but the day-to-day administration in
  each town or village was for the most part entrusted to functionaries
  within the ruled statuses of farmers, artisans, and merchants.
  The ruled classes of late medieval Japan were clustered in villages
  (mura) and town wards (machi). Customarily, villages would combine
  to form autonomous groups, that is, self-governing village associations
  (sosori). These self-governing village associations were particularly
  prominent in the economically advanced regions, such as the Kinai
  and surrounding provinces, and especially within the domains of the
  religious proprietary lordships, including the Ikko ikki and also tem-
  ples such as Kofukuji, Negoroji, and Enryakuji.
  The self-governing village associations sometimes formed district-
  wide alliances (gunchuso) or even provincewide associations (sogoku
  ikki). The province and the district (kori) were local administrative
  units of the ancient state, but their boundaries no longer conformed to
  the contours of sixteenth-century political realities. Rather, the an-
  cient units served as a basis for the formation of autonomous groups.
  As a monk of the Ikko sect of Omi Province aptly recorded, these
  alliances geographically symbolized their abhorrence of ties to the
  private lord-vassal system maintained by individual warrior lords
  and, at the same time, demonstrated their preference for the jurisdic-
  tion of the court, aristocracy, and religious institutions of Kyoto.25
  25 Hompukuji atogaki, in Kawahara Kasuo and Inoue Toshio, eds., Renrtyo, Ikko ikki, vol. 17 of
  Nikon shiso laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972), pp. 185-236; citation from p. 230.
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  80 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  The farmers, artisans, and merchants insisted that they were not a
  part of any warrior's band of private followers but, rather, "people"
  (i.e., citizens) of the provinces and districts. They saw that compared
  with the rule of military proprietors, the rule of the nobility was more
  lenient and would intrude less on their autonomy. The slogan of one
  peasant alliance (tsuchi ikki) in Harima Province, "There shall be no
  samurai in the province," shows this clearly.26 Moreover, religious ikki
  crossed district or provincial borders to spread insurrection over wide
  areas, threatening the daimyo's control over their territories. For exam-
  ple, the Ikko ikki under the leadership of the Honganji (temple) waged
  warfare as a union of believers drawn from more than a dozen prov-
  inces. Nobunaga felt keenly the threat posed by this Ikko ikki, and for
  that reason he resorted to a strategy of total annihilation. But Nobu-
  naga also realized that a government could not continue to exist
  through such a destructive policy alone. The alternative that he and
  his successors chose was to become "men of the realm" (tenka bito) and
  as such to establish their own authority and legitimacy in terms more
  acceptable to the people of Japan.
  The term "men of the realm" was a sobriquet used by contemporar-
  ies to refer to Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu; it meant "the de facto
  ruler of the realm." The concept of realm {tenka) came from China. In
  ancient Japan, the portion of the Japanese archipelago ruled by the
  emperor was regarded as the entire world, and so the term tenka was
  frequently used in a political sense to designate the universality of the
  authority ruling that area. With the advent of the military regimes in
  the Kamakura period, Minamoto no Yoritomo, the Hojo regents, and
  the subsequent Ashikaga shoguns were often called "masters of the
  realm" (tenka no shujin), meaning that they held the right to rule
  universally.
  But it was Oda Nobunaga who used the term "realm" (tenka) most
  effectively. By his time it had acquired four concentric layers of mean-
  ing: (i) Japan and the people who lived there; (2) Kyoto and its
  environs, the locus of the regime that ruled the nation; (3) the regime
  itself; and (4) the individual rulers of the regime. Nobunaga used the
  term in the first sense to criticize the shogun: "The realm," he stated,
  "is reprimanding Ashikaga Yoshiaki." He then overthrew him. In this
  instance Nobunaga claimed to represent public opinion. But at the
  same time he continued to maintain that he had been entrusted with
  26 "Sakkaiki," the diary of Nakayama Sadachika, entry for 1429/1/29 (unpublished; manuscript
  copies in Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo and Kyoto daigaku).
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  8l
  the government of the realm and ascribed the third and fourth mean-
  ings to himself. Nobunaga was at once the representative of the realm
  (a ruled object) and the realm itself (the principal of the realm). As the
  personification of the realm, he felt called upon to replace the old
  social order. Because Nobunaga was killed halfway on his path to
  unification, he could not be called a "man of the realm," but he was
  nonetheless the first to develop and apply the mode of action associ-
  ated with a man of the realm in actual politics.
  Beyond using the notion of tenka as justification to dispatch the
  Ashikaga shogun, Nobunaga's method of dealing with the religious
  powers, his conception of Azuchi Castle, and his interventions in the
  retainer bands of his subordinate daimyo all are clearly permeated
  with the mode of action of the men of the realm, who rose above the
  various autonomous groups and brought them under their control. Of
  particular importance was Nobunaga's attitude toward the emperor
  and the court. When he entered Kyoto in 1568, he fulfilled the em-
  peror's three requests and, in one sense, restored the emperor and
  court nobility, who were on the verge of being deprived of their in-
  come, to their rightful positions in the ancient, Kyoto-based hierarchy.
  But Nobunaga did not have in mind a resurrection of the ancient court
  system. Rather, he aimed at creating a state structure based on the
  hegemonial power of a man of the realm.
  After driving out Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the court bestowed high noble
  rank on Nobunaga, and he advanced rapidly in rank and office until
  1578, when he was named to the senior second court rank and was
  appointed minister of the right (udaijin) and great commander of the
  imperial bodyguards of the right (udaisho). But in the same year he
  resigned his posts and held none thereafter for the rest of his life,
  remaining at the senior second rank with the honorary title of former
  minister of the right. Nobunaga refused to be bound by the traditions
  and restrictions of the court system, which he would have had to
  accept if he had taken office; instead, he sought to put himself into a
  position that permitted more freedom. But he did have his eldest son,
  Nobutada, serve in court ranks and offices. This pattern was repeated
  by Nobunaga's successors: Hideyoshi became Taiko (retired imperial
  regent), and Ieyasu became Ogosho (retired shogun or shogun's fa-
  ther). Bearing these honorary titles, they conducted themselves as the
  ones with the greatest actual power, setting themselves the task of
  forming a unified state.
  In 1581 a court messenger came to Nobunaga to request that he
  accept appointment as minister of the left (a more prestigious post
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  82 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  than minister of the right). Nobunaga replied that he wished the em-
  peror Ogimachi to abdicate and that he would in time provide the
  funds for an accession ceremony for Imperial Prince Kotohito, whose
  coming of age ceremony Nobunaga had also underwritten. Only then
  would Nobunaga accept the post. While the construction of Azuchi
  Castle was under way, Nobunaga also built a residence for himself in
  Kyoto that served as his point of contact with the ceremonies of the
  imperial court system that were useful in supporting his claims to
  legitimacy. But in 1579 he gave this residence, called the Nijo gosho, to
  Prince Kotohito. Here a group of nobles surrounding the twenty-
  seven-year-old prince worked full time, and a great deal of court busi-
  ness was conducted here rather than at the court of Emperor Ogi-
  machi, who was then in his late sixties. People called Ogimachi's
  residence "the upper palace" from its location north of Prince Koto-
  hito's Nijo gosho, which was then termed "the lower palace," thereby
  recognizing the functional division of court government. There is little
  doubt that Nobunaga planned sooner or later to install Prince Koto-
  hito as "Nobunaga's emperor."
  In 1582, upon Nobunaga's triumphal return from pacifying the
  eastern provinces, the court sent another messenger with the offer to
  appoint Nobunaga to the post of shogun, linked traditionally to the
  conquest of the Kanto. An imperial council at that time even dis-
  cussed appointing him grand minister of state or imperial regent, the
  highest offices among the nobility's official posts, an indication that
  the court was thinking seriously of treating Nobunaga as the highest-
  ranking person in the imperial court system, save only the emperor
  himself.
  But on this occasion, too, Nobunaga declined the offer. One month
  later Nobunaga died in Akechi Mitsuhide's rebellion, without reveal-
  ing his motives for refusing the appointment. But it can be assumed
  that the complexity of asserting claims to political hegemony by work-
  ing through the old imperial court system was distasteful to him.
  First, he would have had to tie his political future to the will of the
  emperor, whose subject and subordinate he would always remain.
  Second, he would have had to convince the general populace that he
  did in fact dominate the emperor and court nobility, despite his out-
  ward dependence on the emperor. And in turn, this might mean that
  Nobunaga would have had to conspire to install a new emperor and
  high nobility who would be receptive to maintaining the fictive aspects
  of the dependency-dominance relationship. In the end, this was not a
  road to power that Nobunaga chose to tread, and so it fell to Hideyoshi
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  83
  to put this plan into practice, with the enthronement of Emperor Go-
  Yozei and Hideyoshi's own appointment as grand minister of state.
  By establishing their authority as men of the realm, Nobunaga and
  Hideyoshi also opened up the possibility for the daimyo lords under
  them to fashion a concept of public authority that they could employ
  to govern the people below them. Within their domains the daimyo
  ruled with the legitimacy of state authority and not simply as private
  entities that used force to compel obedience. Through Hideyoshi, the
  daimyo were even given rank in the court system. As a result, their
  jurisdiction over their own territories was recognized as official, their
  position as public lords confirmed. Now, for the first time the daimyo
  could use concepts of state and public authority to maintain their
  claims to hold proprietary lordships, and with time they were able to
  confront the general populace of the provinces and districts as autono-
  mous public persons.
  There was no single means for a daimyo to obtain court rank:
  Petitions to the emperor could be made through members of the impe-
  rial family, the nobility, or a prominent military family. Hideyoshi set
  out to control the warriors' access to court rank, and he succeeded in
  building an ingenious structure that would induce the emperor and
  court to work his will while still preserving the respect due them. The
  most effective answer to Hideyoshi's need was to claim the authority
  of the men of the realm to establish "one's own emperor" from whom
  to receive court rank and high office. Once this public gesture was
  made, the final step was to return his posts and honors to the emperor
  and adopt the guise of "the master of the nation," free from the
  shackles of historical precedent. Thus the emperor was made the basis
  of a new state structure. He, of course, held the highest authority
  within it but possessed little actual power. This allowed Hideyoshi to
  show that the authority of the men of the realm and the daimyo was
  the legitimate public authority of the imperial court system.
  In comparing the concept of the land of the gods with notions of
  legitimacy in China, an important historical fact becomes apparent. In
  China the dynasties frequently changed, whereas in Japan the imperial
  house reigned in an unbroken line. But now in the crucible of change
  that was late-sixteenth-century Japan, the actual guardian deities of
  the land of the gods were no longer the spiritual kami but, rather, the
  men of the realm who had assumed that responsibility. Then, to com-
  plete the historical circle, these men were themselves deified. After his
  death Hideyoshi was given the divine name of Toyokuni daimyojin by
  the court, just as Ieyasu was to be given the name Tosho daigongen
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  84 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  after his death. Both were thus worshiped as deities. According to the
  missionary Luis Frois, Nobunaga even had himself worshiped as a
  deity at Azuchi a few weeks before his death. In premodern Japan
  those who had died with hatred in their hearts were worshiped as
  deities to pacify their spirits, but the men of the realm were the only
  commoner statesmen to be recognized as Shinto deities.
  From shogun and imperial regent to the authority of the retired
  imperial regent
  The men of the realm, whose lives spanned the creation of the new
  state, faced numerous obstacles and difficulties in legitimizing their
  authority. Hideyoshi, born into a farming family, underwent particu-
  larly great hardships, but it appears that early in his life he dreamed of
  becoming shogun some day. His lord, Nobunaga, had been asked to
  accept appointment as shogun by an exceptional decision of the impe-
  rial court; consequently, it was only natural that Hideyoshi, who self-
  consciously played the part of Nobunaga's successor, would choose
  that course.27 Indeed, there are indications that soon after Hideyoshi
  had consolidated his hold over central Japan in the mid-1580s, he
  began negotiations with Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the nominal shogun who
  had fled from Nobunaga. Hideyoshi purportedly offered to let Yoshi-
  aki return to Kyoto, in return for which Hideyoshi would become
  Yoshiaki's adopted heir and future shogun. Had this plan succeeded,
  Hideyoshi would have obtained painlessly the title of unifier of the
  daimyo. But it is widely believed that this proposal was rejected by the
  proud Yoshiaki. Hideyoshi then made plans to "conquer the east,"
  that is, the eight Kanto provinces. Doubtless he had recalled the
  traditional connection between the subjugation of the eastern prov-
  inces and appointment to the post of sei-i tai-shogun. But Ieyasu stood
  in his way, and in the end Hideyoshi chose the path that led to his
  becoming imperial regent.
  But here too, Hideyoshi encountered strong resistance because of
  his lowly birth. The Shimazu, daimyo of Satsuma, even went so far as
  to ignore Imperial Regent Hideyoshi's orders for a cessation of hostili-
  ties in 1586, after Otomo Sorin, another Kyushu daimyo, had re-
  quested Hideyoshi's help in his long struggle against the Shimazu.
  27 It had been thought that only members of the Minamoto lineage could become sei-i tai-
  shogun. Nobunaga's family had no relationship to either the Minamoto or the Taira, but he
  claimed to be a Taira in that he had overthrown the Ashikaga house that claimed descent from
  the Minamoto.
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  The Shimazu defied both "the low fellow with no antecedents" and the
  court, which had appointed such a person to the post of imperial
  regent. Hideyoshi consequently had to confront such resistance with
  military force. He needed to show those around him that even though
  he was serving as imperial regent, he still held military power befitting
  the leader of the great warrior alliance. For this reason, he continued
  to lead armed forces during the course of national unification. Even in
  times of peace he made military "progresses" (godoza) to each region
  of the country, behaving in a way completely different from the style
  expected of the imperial regent and grand minister of state.28 Interest-
  ingly, Hideyoshi offered a new interpretation of the post of imperial
  regent: In his view it was an office "that must conquer the realm."29
  For Hideyoshi the invasions of the continent, too, were compelled in
  part by his need to assert authority.
  Although Hideyoshi's difficulties in gaining legitimacy were multi-
  plied by the lowness of his birth, his life followed a path that those who
  would be men of the realm had to tread. Men of the realm could not
  stop with just the unification of the daimyo but had to use their
  authority to unite and rule all of Japan's land and people. The chief
  difficulty confronting them was to find a way to accomplish both of
  these tasks at one stroke. Throughout medieval times the feudal fief
  system had developed chiefly under the shogunate, which was an
  office in the imperial court system. On the other hand, not only the
  shogun but also the emperor, nobles, and other court families formed
  relationships with warriors by appointing them to court rank and
  office. These two circumstances merged to form Japan's unique feudal
  fief system: Fiefs were based on the kokudaka system enforced by the
  military elite, and court rank played a role in the legitimization of the
  warrior status.
  No contradictions between the imperial and military-based system
  of authority appeared on the surface as long as Hideyoshi held the
  posts of imperial regent and grand minister of state and at the same
  time stood at the apex of the hierarchy of military proprietary lords.
  But in 1591 when he handed over the office of imperial regent to his
  nephew and adopted son Hidetsugu and began to rule as the retired
  imperial regent, the structural fault lines inherent in this arrangement
  28 The term godoza was used to mean an aristocrat's removal of his residential base to another
  place, or a general's taking the field.
  29 See "Komai nikki," the diary of Hidetsugu's vassal Komai Shigekatsu, entry for 1594/4/13,
  in Kondo Keizo, ed., Kaitei shiseki shuran, vol. 25 (Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, reprint, 1967-9),
  p. 560. See also Asao, "Toyotomi seiken ron," p. 208.
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  86 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  gradually broke through to the surface. There was tension between the
  powers of the court system, of which Hidetsugu was the center, and
  the powers held and symbolized by Hideyoshi as the man of the realm,
  the true holder of actual military power. To cite one example, the edict
  ordering a census issued in Hidetsugu's name in 1592 was a call for a
  national count of households and individuals to provide a statistical
  base for requisitioning military laborers for the Korean campaigns.30
  But at that time, camp laborers (jimpu) and sailors (kako) already were
  being mobilized in each daimyo domain under orders from Hideyoshi.
  In general, Hideyoshi's orders to the daimyo drew their legitimacy
  from Hideyoshi's private authority, his position as head of the warrior
  estate. But edicts such as the national census order were different from
  this - they applied to the nation as a whole and thus had to be
  grounded in Hidetsugu's public authority as derived from his position
  as imperial regent. Similarly, decrees that were national in scope, such
  as regulations on post horses (temma), and official documents granting
  the bearer permission to pass through toll barriers (kasho) exceeded
  the authority of individual lords and consequently were issued in
  Hidetsugu's name. Moreover, in matters relating to the court system,
  such as the ceremony for appointing daimyo to court rank or the
  punishment of nobles, the required procedure was that Hideyoshi's
  wishes be communicated to Hidetsugu, who would carry them out in
  his capacity as imperial regent.
  It is true that Hideyoshi was the one who had arranged for
  Hidetsugu to become imperial regent, but once the appointment was
  made, Hidetsugu stood at the apex of the court system and was subject
  to the strong influence of the automatic laws of motion that governed
  the operation of the court institutions based on that framework.
  Hideyoshi did not have the capability to bypass these precedents and
  rule on the basis of his own prestige. The resulting situation gave rise
  to the formation within the regime of two groups, the "taiko (Hide-
  yoshi's) group" and the "kampaku (Hidetsugu's) group," whose poli-
  cies might be in opposition.
  The friction between these two factions intensified from 1594, the
  immediate cause probably being the birth of Hideyoshi's natural son
  Hideyori. Hideyoshi had had no children by his wife, Kita-no-
  30 Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nikon komonjo, Iewaki 9, Kikkawa ke monjo, vol. 2,
  pp. 137-9 (doc. 975). Miki Seiichiro has shown that 1591, the date usually given for the
  census order, is incorrect. "Hitobarai-rei to megutte," in Nagoya daigaku bungakubu
  kokushi kenkyushitsu, ed., Nagoya daigaku Nihonshi ronshu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan,
  1975), vol. 2, pp. 97-136.
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  S7
  mandokoro (Nei), and his beloved son Tsurumatsu, born to his concu-
  bine Yodo-dono (Chacha), died in 1591 at the age of two. Thus he
  chose Hidetsugu, his nephew, as his successor. But when Yodo-dono
  gave birth to their second child, there then were two persons qualified
  to succeed Hideyoshi to the headship of the Toyotomi house. This
  second child created another nucleus around which those who differed
  over any of a variety of political and military problems might rally.
  In 1594 Hideyoshi's magistrates conducted a new cadastral survey
  in Owari Province, Hidetsugu's domain, and carried out an on-the-
  spot inspection of his civil government, fiscal affairs, and procedures
  for collecting taxes from the lands under his direct administrative
  control. This type of inspection was also conducted on the lands held
  directly by Toyotomi Hideyasu, Hidetsugu's younger brother and lord
  of Koriyama Castle in Yamato Province, as well as on the estate of the
  recently deceased Gamo Ujisato, a longtime associate of Hideyoshi
  who had been placed in the critical location of Aizu in northern Japan.
  In each case this constituted interference with the rights of individual
  daimyo, prompted by the presumed incompleteness of the cadastral
  surveys that had been submitted previously. That such an intervention
  could be directed against the imperial regent, Hidetsugu, demon-
  strated to all that two reins of authority existed and that Hideyoshi
  believed his to be of higher purity.
  In the seventh month of 1595, when the first invasion of Korea had
  reached an impasse and peace negotiations were under way, Hidetsugu
  was interrogated by Hideyoshi's magistrates on suspicion of treason.
  Ultimately, he was divested of his offices of imperial regent and minis-
  ter of the left, and banished to Mt. Koya where he was ordered to take
  his own life. The leading retainers of his kampaku group were later
  arrested: Some were sentenced to death, and others were banished.
  Hidetsugu's wife, concubines, and children, numbering more than
  thirty persons, all were beheaded. Several great daimyo were also
  implicated, some of whom were ordered into domiciliary confinement
  for a time. All the magistrates and daimyo submitted one after another
  oaths of loyalty to Hideyoshi, signed in blood. The first to present
  theirs were Hideyoshi's magistrates Ishida Mitsunari and Mashita
  Nagamori, who had carried out Hidetsugu's punishment. Other influ-
  ential daimyo who submitted oaths included Tokugawa Ieyasu, Maeda
  Toshiie, Ukita Hideie, Mori Terumoto, and Kobayakawa Takakage.
  It was after this incident that a set of regulations and an accompany-
  ing supplement were issued on 1595/8/3 over the signatures of Toku-
  gawa Ieyasu, Ukita Hideie, Uesugi Kagekatsu, Maeda Toshiie, Mori
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  88 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  Terumoto, and Kobayakawa Takakage.31 The regulations sought
  chiefly to control the warrior lords by requiring permission for the
  daimyo's marriages, urging peaceful solutions to disputes, requiring
  investigations of falsehoods and accusations, and establishing rules to
  designate those permitted to use palanquins. The purpose of these
  regulations was to bring the warrior lords under the aegis of the
  Toyotomi regime and to make the daimyo themselves conscious of
  their public role.
  Supplementary regulations defined the regime's relationships with
  the nobility, temples, and shrines, by ordering that nobles and monzeki
  (temples whose abbots were taken from the imperial family or high
  nobility) remain faithful to the traditions of their own houses and serve
  the public interest (kogi). Moreover, the monks and priests of temples
  and shrines were required to obey the laws governing them, to repair
  and rebuild their religious establishments, and to be diligent in their
  studies and the conduct of religious services. With respect to land-tax
  procedures, it was decreed that the "produce of the entire realm" was
  to be taxed on the basis of formal "inspections" (ketni). Military lords
  were instructed to take two-thirds of the harvest and leave the farmers
  one-third. The Toyotomi regime had established this two-to-one ratio
  as the official tax rate in 1586, but this official recognition that one-
  third was to be allotted to the farmers as "a right to hold the realm" is
  an extremely important fact when considering the character of the
  Toyotomi state. The regulations also limited the number of concubines
  that warriors could keep and, in general, established fief size as the
  standard for governing warrior behavior. There were new regulations
  on clothing and family crests, and of special importance were the
  regulations concerning judicial proceedings. A group of ten persons
  was established to deal with litigation. Tokugawa Ieyasu and the other
  "elders" would deal with direct appeals to the retired imperial regent;
  depending on the circumstances, they could bring the matter to his
  attention. In this way the regime set up its own internal machinery for
  processing litigation, however inadequate it may have been.
  Thus Hideyoshi's regime was more successful in asserting its con-
  trol over other power contenders, especially on the local level, than
  any previous regime in Japan's history. He created fixed rules for the
  unique organs of authority and internal organization that carried out
  31 On the texts of these regulations, see Miki Seiichiro, "On'okite, on'okite tsuika o megutte,"
  in Bito Masahide, sensei kanreki kinenkai, ed., Nihon kinsei shi ronso (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kobunkan, 1984), pp. 81-111. English translations can be found in Berry, Hideyoshi, pp.
  144-5.
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  89
  his wishes. These in turn were based on obedience to the "taiko's laws
  and edicts," which he deemed superior to those of the imperial court.
  Hideyoshi's system also had its own weaknesses. The relationship
  between the two administrative organs, the Five Elders and the Five
  Magistrates, had not been defined with respect to the formation and
  execution of the intentions of the retired imperial regent's authority.
  Among the Five Elders were formidable daimyo such as Ieyasu, Hideyo-
  shi's leading rival, but they also included Ukita Hideie, who would not
  have been able to maintain such a large domain had he not had
  Hideyoshi's support. Maeda Toshiie, a former peer of Hideyoshi's, was
  a member, as were Mori Terumoto, Kobayakawa Takakage, and Uesugi
  Kagekatsu, who had joined Hideyoshi's alliance at an early stage in the
  unification enterprise. All the elders had received their court ranks and
  offices by virtue of Hideyoshi's political power. In other words, the
  imperial court institution was influencing the very selection and ap-
  pointment of the Five Elders. On the other hand, all the Five Magis-
  trates, with the exception of Maeda Gen'i, who was responsible for the
  administration of Kyoto, were daimyo of middling size who had been in
  Hideyoshi's service since their youth and were his direct retainers.
  There thus were two routes linking Hideyoshi with the daimyo,
  through the Five Elders and through the Five Magistrates, and not
  unexpectedly this was a frequent source of conflict. When Hideyoshi
  died in 1598, his testament was sent to both groups, entrusting them
  with Hideyori's future. It is telling that the one addressed to the elders
  used the polite address "Group of Five" but that the one to the magis-
  trates used the more familiar "five persons," suitable for retainers.
  Thus it was no accident that two years later, at the battle of Seki-
  gahara, the actual leaders of the two opposing sides were the strongest
  of the Five Elders, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the most prominent of the
  Five Magistrates, Ishida Mitsunari.
  The structure o/kogi authority
  The authority of the newly established unified state referred to itself as
  the kogi, to show that it was a public authority that was subordinate to
  neither the imperial court system nor the will of the daimyo. Kogi was a
  comparatively new term that had gradually gained currency in Japan
  from the middle of the medieval period. The origins of the word are
  uncertain, but it seems to have two lines of descent. First, it referred to
  the rites and ceremom'es of the court, and second, it referred to the
  consensus of a meeting of representatives of all the subordinate temples
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  90 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  and monks in a headquarters Buddhist temple or monastery. The
  former gradually came to indicate the constitutional order of the impe-
  rial court system, and its relationship to the system of titles and ranks.
  The latter was used to express the issues common to diverse autono-
  mous groups such as villages, towns, and individual proprietary lords.
  These two meanings coalesced in the late Muromachi period. In the
  capital and its environs, the term was used to signify "the shogun" or
  "the shogun's authority"; in the provinces, Sengoku daimyo such as the
  Mori or the Hojo frequently used the title in reference to themselves and
  also called others by this term. In any case, it was used to refer to warrior
  authority because that authority had gradually united the various politi-
  cally autonomous groups. The use of this term in reference to ruling
  authorities implied that they expected the lords to perform the public
  function of maintaining the general security of daily life.
  Underlying this, as the "Seikyosho" explains, was the widespread
  conception that the "samurai's great law (daiho) and kdgi" consisted of
  the formalities and etiquette observed whenever a regional warrior
  band received an emperor's personal edict (rinji), a retired emperor's
  directive (inzen), a letter of instruction (from a high-ranking noble)
  (mikyojo), or a transmittal of an order (hosho).32 That is, a document
  from the emperor or shogun approving an appointment to office or a
  promotion was received from the messenger in a clean, decorated hall
  by the entire household in full formal dress. Those attending the
  ceremony were seated in order of rank: lineages and houses, parents
  and children, direct and branch lines, clergy and laity, and so on.
  Attendance by members of warrior bands when their leader (toryo) was
  the recipient of an official document meant that their position and
  standing as warriors in their particular areas had been recognized
  officially. Their union was based on their common interests as the
  warrior class that lived in a given region. The main element of their
  common interest was control of the people in their domains. By nature
  this military proprietary class was highly exclusive because its cohe-
  sion was based on a system of individual relationships between lord
  and vassal. For them, this was the sole public order through which
  their position and standing could be recognized. By attending this
  ceremony and taking part in this group activity, they became members
  of an official ruling group. In this way, warrior lords were able for the
  first time to confront as rulers the people (farmers) on their lands.
  32 "Sekyosho," in Zoku gunsho ruiju, rev. 3rd ed. (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruijo kanseikai, 1984),
  3270 (zatsubu), pp. 249-92.
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
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  Sengoku daimyo such as the Mori and the Hojo established their
  own regional authority as the kogi of the "provinces" that they ruled,
  and they consolidated the warrior bands of those areas as members of
  their own "houses" as "housemen" (kachu). In other words, an
  enfeoffed warrior who enrolled in the houseband of the most promi-
  nent local daimyo became a member of the "kogi family," and he
  thereby was recognized as the proprietor of his fief. On the other
  hand, a warrior who was expelled from a Sengoku daimyo's "house-
  band" lost his status as both proprietor and warrior.
  Let us now apply the concept of kogi to the unification process. Oda
  Nobunaga could be called the kogi only from 1579, fully six years after
  he had driven out Ashikaga Yoshiaki. In that year he set out to unite
  the realm as the master of the completed Azuchi Castle, placing Prince
  Kotohito in the Nijo Palace in Kyoto. In this way he united the two
  senses of kogi and established a sense of authority endowed with both
  the name and the reality of kogi. Until then, the shogun Yoshiaki,
  although in exile and shogun in name only, was called the kogi by
  himself and others. At the same time Nobunaga, although he did not
  become shogun, was called the kogi as well. Just how did this happen?
  Clearly there had been a change in the substance of kogi. The new
  conception of kogi was formed by preserving the form of the first of its
  original two meanings while emphasizing the second as its actual sub-
  stance. When Nobunaga established his own authority, he based it on
  the claim that he acted on the basis of a public consensus of the realm.
  He consistently asserted that he overthrew the old authority and estab-
  lished a new one not for his own benefit but for the common good.
  The destruction of the Ikko ikki, he claimed, was for the sake of the
  nation, as were his rebukes of daimyo who were concerned only with
  what would benefit their own domains and who did not cooperate in
  the unification enterprise. In his own view, Nobunaga's expulsion of
  the shogun from Kyoto was also done for the sake of the nation. These
  claims did not end merely with pious platitudes. The desires of the
  autonomous popular groups in the countryside could not be ignored;
  people were weary of the long years of warfare and were demanding a
  tranquil and orderly daily life. Nobunaga used the power of official
  recognition and direct intervention against his daimyo vassals, in the
  disposition of lands within their domains, in their methods of granting
  fiefs, and in the way they engaged their vassals to maintain a policy
  that favored the common good.
  Historically, superior warrior authorities, beginning with the Kama-
  kura and the Muromachi shogunates, had been able to intervene in the
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  92 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  problems (suits, disputes) that arose among the military lords under
  their command, but they had been unable to intervene in the internal
  problems of a vassal lord's domain. This was true also of the relation-
  ship between the shugo and the local warriors (kokujin) in the Muro-
  machi period, a weakness that even the Sengoku daimyo were unable
  to overcome. For this reason, Nobunaga's intervention may be consid-
  ered revolutionary, as it came at a time when the daimyo, by
  privatizing their holdings and making them the objects of their per-
  sonal rule, had lost all claim to be acting for the sake of the nation.
  Here lies the logic behind not placing the daimyo under the authority
  of the Kyoto court system but creating a new public authority.
  Nobunaga exemplified the way that military lords should behave un-
  der the principles of Bushido (the normative code of behavior for
  warriors).
  Nobunaga exempted the peasants from the corvee labor that they
  had been obliged to perform for their proprietary lords and drew them
  under his aegis as the one who wielded kogi authority. Instead, the
  corvee was levied in "provincial" or domain units. The notion that a
  fief holder's use of the workers on his land for his own purposes was "a
  private [antisocial] matter," and that coveting people's labor, which
  properly belonged to the kogi, was evil, gradually gained currency.
  Toyotomi Hideyoshi took up where Nobunaga had left off, carrying
  out his cadastral survey, severing the bonds that linked the individual
  vassals to the land and its workers, and institutionalizing a strict separa-
  tion of the warrior and peasant classes. Within the new legal order, the
  daimyo became the unit of warrior rule, and the farming village be-
  came the unit of peasant control. Hideyoshi denied private possession
  (shoyu) of land by individual vassals and rejected their private control
  over the peasantry. The principle was established that only he who
  exercised kogi, and thereby took into account the interests of all the
  people of a region, could rule legitimately.
  This concept of "public" or "official" proprietorship was estab-
  lished in several propositions in 1587 and 1588. The 1587 edict on
  Christianity asserts that "grants in fief of provinces or districts to
  vassals are temporary." That is, the fief was viewed not as a permanent
  private tenure (shiryo) but rather as something that had been merely
  entrusted to the vassal.33 It further states: "Vassals may be moved
  33 On the texts of this edict, see Anno Masayuki, " 'Kirishitan kinrei' no kenkyu," in Bito, ed.,
  Nikon kinseishi ronso, vol. I, pp. 39-79. An English translation can be found in George
  Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan (Cambridge, Mass.:
  Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 117-18.
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  93
  from one place to another, but farmers may not be moved." In other
  words, although fiefs could be transferred by reassignment to a differ-
  ent samurai holder, the people were bound to the land and could not
  be moved. These represented the tenurial principles of the early mod-
  ern period. It was also stipulated that warriors could not become
  Christians without permission of the one who exercised kogi.
  This body of regulations later gradually broadened in scope and
  reached its final form in the Tokugawa shogunate's Buke shohatto
  (Laws for military households) of the 1620s and 1630s.34 By this time
  the daimyo had lost many freedoms: They could not marry freely,
  rebuild their castles as they liked, or enter into alliances with one
  another. As members of a nationally constructed kogi order, they had
  to bear the responsibility for maintaining public peace and order in the
  realm.
  In the late 1580s Hideyoshi ordered the daimyo of the nation to
  cease fighting and to come to Kyoto and formally submit to him. From
  his position as the realm's hegemonic authority he sought to unite and
  organize the daimyo of all provinces. The imperial visit to the
  Jurakutei in 1588 was the finishing touch to unification. He invited
  Emperor Go-Y6zei to his residence, and under the emperor's aegis
  Hideyoshi as imperial regent seized at one stroke the right to petition
  for imperial approval of official ranks for the assembled daimyo. He
  made the daimyo pledge their gratitude for their promotions in rank
  and swear absolute obedience to the imperial regent. It was in actuality
  an investiture ceremony on a national scale, establishing the public
  authority {kogi) of the realm.
  After the hegemonic authority of the realm had been established,
  the next step was to use this power to promote the acceptance of the
  daimyo's territorial authority. The case of Shimazu Yoshihisa, daimyo
  of Satsuma, is illustrative. Yoshihisa was having trouble maintaining
  control of his family and vassals, and so in 1592 Hideyoshi set about
  reviving Yoshihisa's authority, using his status of kogi of the realm. He
  seized the fiefs of rebellious retainers and added them to Yoshihisa's
  granary lands. He also reclaimed the holdings that Yoshihisa and his
  family had sold, and he conducted land surveys on the holdings of
  temples and shrines in Satsuma, confiscating undocumented holdings
  and placing them under Yoshihisa's direct control. These measures
  were designed to strengthen Shimazu Yoshihisa's authority within his
  34 English translation is in Tsunoda, de Bary, and Keene, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition, pp.
  335-8-
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  94 
  THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION
  domain, but they also changed the nature of Yoshihisa's proprietary
  authority. Whereas previously, the lands were his to sell in times of
  financial distress, now the entire territory had become the kogi's hold-
  ing and no longer could be disposed of at the whim of a daimyo.
  The unification of the daimyo and the establishment of the warriors'
  proprietary authority in the early modern period shows that the
  daimyo had also come to share public authority, performing a number
  of recognized public functions. However, just as the meanings con-
  tained in the term kogi are neither simple nor clear, the terms "public
  authority" and "public functions" as used here possess meanings and
  contents determined historically, which are different from their mod-
  ern meanings. I conclude this chapter by enumerating the unique
  characteristics of kogi authority.
  First, kogi authority was absolute. Formed as the authority of the
  men of the realm, it extended gradually from the individual men of the
  realm to mean authority as a whole; kogi may at times be characterized
  as transcendent. Thus when Tokugawa Ieyasu set about establishing
  his own authority after Hideyoshi's death, he had difficulty in freeing
  himself and the other daimyo from the framework of the taiko's laws
  and edicts. In the end, he was obliged to destroy the framework itself
  by defeating the Toyotomi family by force of arms and then establish-
  ing the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate.
  Second, kogi was a legal norm. The law by which the shogun con-
  trolled the daimyo and the daimyo their retainers had already ap-
  peared in Hideyoshi's regulations and supplement (of 1595-8), but
  the first article of the Buke shohatto, which states, "The study of
  literary texts and the practices of the military arts must be cultivated
  diligently," is memorable. It enumerated the qualifications by which
  the daimyo could take possession of the state and act as its public
  authority. The moral and normative character of Tokugawa law has
  been pointed out frequently, but until now it has been explained as
  resulting from the influence of Confucian thought. There is some
  truth in this, but it is not the full explanation. Emphasis on literary
  and military training came from the belief that to be accepted as the
  legitimate ruling authority, the warrior bands must control their self-
  ishness and employ their capacities for the good of the realm.
  This sentiment in turn gave rise to the third characteristic. That is,
  kogi was a mechanism applicable to authority in the context of the
  lord-vassal relationship, specifically to the relationship between sho-
  gun and daimyo and that between the daimyo and their retainers. But
  kogi did not recognize the existence of lord-vassal relationships be-
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  THE POWER STRUCTURE 
  95
  tween daimyo or between retainers. There were differences in family
  status and kokudaka size among daimyo and among retainers, but
  before their respective lords, whether the shogun or the daimyo, they
  were equal, and the free development of superior-inferior relation-
  ships among them was suppressed. The lord-vassal relationships be-
  tween the shogun and the daimyo and between the daimyo and the
  retainers were public, and any other conditions of subordination were
  deemed private and were forbidden.
  Finally, kogi authority had a group character: The warrior of early
  modern times was recognized as being of the warrior class only when
  he was a member of the kogi group. Individual warriors did not pos-
  sess their own land and live on it independently; their income from a
  fief or stipend, under conditions created by Hideyoshi and continued
  by the Tokugawa, was guaranteed by their belonging to the kogi
  group. The strict separation of the warrior and peasant estate was a
  precondition for this. Conversely, a warrior was a warrior by virtue of
  his conducting public service as a member of the kogi; this was also the
  source of the logic by which the warriors were able to collect taxes
  (nengu) and monopolize government. If a warrior were given to willful-
  ness, he would be punished as one who had departed from the group's
  rationale. The unification of Japan in the sixteenth century had given
  risen to such a public authority.
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  CHAPTER 3
  THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  INTRODUCTION
  Japan underwent a major transformation in its social organization and
  economic capacity during the latter half of the sixteenth century. These
  changes were of such enormous historical significance that historians
  see them as marking Japan's transition from its medieval (chusei) to its
  early modern (kinsei) age. The first currents of this transmutation radi-
  ated throughout Japan during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
  centuries, and the impulses manifested themselves in the appearance of
  self-administering towns such as Sakai and relatively autonomous, self-
  governing rural communities, commonly referred to as soson. These
  communities were the ultimate products of social movements that ear-
  lier had begun to shake the foundations of the medieval, shoen-based
  political and economic order. Central to this process was the appearance
  of organized peasant protest, increasingly common in the Kinai region
  and its environs in the late medieval period, and the emergence through-
  out large portions of Japan of local associations, or ikki, that were
  formed for military purposes and reasons of self-defense. Examples of
  such leagues include the so-called tsuchi ikki, peasant organizations
  formed to resist economic demands made by proprietory lords, a phe-
  nomenon especially common in the Kyoto area from the fifteenth
  through the sixteenth centuries; the kuni ikki, larger federations com-
  posed chiefly of warriors who hoped to carve out spheres of autonomous
  control; and the Ikko ikki, confederations associated with the Honganji
  branch of the True Pure Land sect (Jodo Shinshu).
  Under these unsettled conditions, the aristocratic houses and temple
  headquarters that had held the highest level of proprietary rights over
  private estates (shoeri) were displaced by local bushi proprietors who
  had fought their way to power during the Sengoku period. These
  warriors eventually pushed aside the Muromachi shogunate, opening
  the way for the appearance of the three hegemonic leaders, Oda
  Nobunaga (1539-82), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-98), and Tokugawa
  96
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  INTRODUCTION 
  97
  Ieyasu (1542-1616), who forged the military unification of Japan dur-
  ing the latter half of the sixteenth century. The elaboration during the
  seventeenth century of a strong, unified political structure based on an
  unchallengable military hegemony also unleashed new forces that gen-
  erated their own enormous consequences, ushering in what Japanese
  historians commonly call the kinsei period, or what Western historians
  refer to more often as the early modern age.
  Historians have expounded a number of interpretations to account
  conceptually for how the two processes, the one social and economic
  and the other military and political, worked together to produce the
  kinsei society. Among the most influential of these interpretations has
  been Nakamura Kichiji's refeudalization thesis, presented in the
  1930s.1 Nakamura focused on the relationships between warrior lords
  and their retainers, both in the medieval and Tokugawa periods, and
  he concluded that the kinsei age witnessed the reformulation under the
  Tokugawa shogunate of the essential components of medieval feudal-
  ism in a more politically stable and highly organized form.
  In the decades following World War II, Araki Moriaki challenged
  this idea with his theory of a "revolution into feudalism."2 Working
  with documents that presented an opportunity to analyze the structure
  of familial-based agricultural household units, Araki argued that the
  medieval shoen system owed its existence to what he termed the "patri-
  archal slave system" (kafuchoteki doreisei). But, he claimed, Tokugawa
  society was organized differently and was characterized by the appear-
  ance during the seventeenth century of an agricultural system depen-
  dent on labor supplied by the Japanese equivalent of serfs (nodo). This
  shift from a slave to a serf system, Araki contended, meant that true
  feudalism first appeared in Japan only during the age of the Tokugawa
  shogunate.
  More recently a third interpretation that has shaped the contours of
  scholarly debate has been offered by Miyagawa Mitsuru.3 Like Araki,
  Miyagawa found his scholarly inspiration in village sources, and he
  agreed that medieval society was characterized by a serf system and
  that feudalism prevailed in Japan during the Tokugawa period. But
  Tokugawa society, he believed, relied not on true serfs but, rather, on
  what he called reino, a class of partially dependent, partially indepen-
  dent, small-scale serflike families. Consequently, to distinguish Miya-
  1 Nakamura Kichiji, Bakuhan taisei ton (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1972).
  2 Araki Moriaki, Bakuhan taisei shakai no seiritsu to kozo (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1959).
  3 Miyagawa Mitsuru, Taiko kenchi ran, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1957-63).
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  98 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  gawa's concept of historical change from that of Araki, we may refer to
  his ideas as a theory of "evolutionary feudalism."
  American scholarship, of course, has been influenced by the theo-
  ries developed by Japanese researchers.4 Yet it is important to note also
  that Western historians who work on Japan have independently con-
  structed their own frameworks of analysis and that these in turn have
  had their own impact on Japanese scholarship. One particularly promi-
  nent and powerful idea has been to use the term "early modern" to
  refer to the kinsei period, thus avoiding the Marxist categories of
  analysis favored by many Japanese and, at the same time, drawing
  attention away from the period's feudal aspects and toward those long-
  term trends related to the emergence of the modern Japanese state and
  economy after 1868.5
  This chapter will look closely at the events of the late sixteenth
  century, the pivotal transitional years that separated the chusei from
  the kinsei epoch. From the evidence that will be presented, it should
  become obvious that many continuities linked the two ages. But it
  should be equally evident that enormous changes surged through the
  transition years and that the evidentiary scales tilt more to the side of
  dissimilarity than similarity. The social and economic trends observed
  in the late medieval period did not extend, undisturbed, into the kinsei
  period, nor did Tokugawa society merely represent a reconstruction of
  medieval conditions. Indeed, the medieval and the Tokugawa systems
  are so dissimilar that they should be conceived of as entirely different
  societal types, and emphasis should be placed on the distinct character-
  istics of each epoch. Such an understanding requires a clear evaluation
  of how the early modern society was molded in the cauldron of change
  during the late sixteenth century.6
  4 See, for instance, Edwin O. Reischauer's reliance on the concept of refeudalization in his
  Japan: The Story of a Nation, 3rd ed. (New York: Knopf, 1981), pp. 78-86.
  5 See, for instance, John Whitney Hall, "Feudalism in Japan - A Reassessment," in John W.
  Hall and Marius B. Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional History of Early Modem Japan
  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968). Some of the most promising research on
  the major questions concerning the transition from the medieval to the Tokugawa period is
  contained in John W. Hall, Keiji Nagahara, and Kozo Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Toku-
  gawa: Political Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500-1630 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
  University Press, 1981); and George Elison and Bardwell L. Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, &
  Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981).
  6 For an introduction to the institutional changes of the late sixteenth century, see the following
  by Wakita Osamu, Kinsei hokensei seiritsu shiron (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1977);
  "The Kokudaka System: A Device for Reunification," Journal of Japanese Studies 1 (Spring
  1975); "The Emergence of the State in Sixteenth Century Japan: From Oda to Tokugawa,"
  Journal of Japanese Studies 8 (Summer 1982): 343-67; and (with James L. McClain), "The
  Commercial and Urban Policies of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi" in Hall et al.,
  eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, pp. 224-47.
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  LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY 
  99
  THE TAIKO LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN
  PEASANTRY
  The expansion of the productive capacity of agriculture was the key-
  stone supporting the economic foundations of Japan's early modern
  society. Agricultural productivity had been increasing even during the
  fourteenth century, especially in the Kinai region around the ancient
  imperial capital of Kyoto. Initially, the prime movers behind this expan-
  sion were the major proprietors, who financed large-scale land develop-
  ment projects, and influential peasants, who were active on a smaller,
  more local scale. In the capital area the redevelopment of fields devas-
  tated by warfare and neglected during the fifteenth century boosted
  overall yields. The opening up of entirely new fields also was common
  in the Kinai environs. On this expanding land base, technological ad-
  vances increased productivity, as did the spread of certain agricultural
  innovations such as double cropping. A commercial economy also be-
  gan to develop, as evident in the growth of towns and periodic local
  markets. Elements of this commercial economy soon began to penetrate
  the rural villages. Documents from Tara shoen in Wakasa, for instance,
  reveal how farmers commuted almost daily to the nearby port town of
  Obama to sell their produce. Another index of commercial growth was
  the increased payment of the annual land tax in cash rather than pro-
  duce. Although this sort of economic development was at first the work
  of rural entrepreneurs, eventually the proprietary lords also attempted
  to promote commerce in their country estates.7
  The spread of the commercial economy into agricultural villages
  had various consequences. Some village landlords {kajishi jinushi)
  withdrew from the active management of fields and lived on the land
  rents that they collected from the peasants, and other landlords kept
  a labor force of subordinate personnel in a serflike condition. The
  more commercialized economy benefited some cultivators, but it
  caused others to fall into economic ruin, and many fled to nearby
  cities and port towns, where they became day laborers, menials, or
  beggars.8 But on the whole, the trend was toward greater security for
  7 For additional details concerning economic developments, see Kozo Yamamura, "Returns on
  Reunification: Economic Growth in Japan 1550-1650," in Hall et al., eds., Japan Before
  Tokugawa, pp. 327-72.
  8 For further details, see Wakita Haruko, "Muromachi-ki no keizai hatten" in Koza Nihon
  rekishi, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1976), as well as the article by Keiji Nagahara (with
  Kozo Yamamura), "The Sengoku Daimyo and the Kandaka System"; and Gin'ya Sasaki (with
  William B. Hauser), "Sengoku Daimyo Rule and Commerce," in Hall et al., eds., Japan
  Before Tokugawa, pp. 27-63 and 125-48, respectively.
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  100 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  the peasant landholder. For instance, the designated portions to in-
  come (shiki) that were based on one's function within the shorn sys-
  tem, such as the landholder, peasant, and cultivator portions, became
  legally defined entitlements. The peasants' rights to possess land also
  were strengthened. The end result of these developments was that
  ordinary farmers gained a great deal of influence within their village
  communities and then went on to form confederations in order to
  secure a greater degree of control over the political and economic
  spheres of local life.
  During the sixteenth century, two forces appeared to be in competi-
  tion: the expanding autonomy of village communities, allied in ikki
  organizations, and the opposing desire of military lords to establish
  secure domains. These conflicting goals were resolved under the early
  modern political order by adopting certain fundamental institutions
  such as the nationwide cadastral survey, the separation of the warrior
  and farming classes, and the kokudaka system of land-tax manage-
  ment. The land policies begun by the Sengoku daimyo were co-opted
  and carried out on a broader, more national scale by Oda Nobunaga.
  But the perfection of early modern rural administration was not
  achieved in his lifetime, and the institutional structure of rural admin-
  istration took final shape only under the Hideyoshi and Tokugawa
  regimes.
  The main objective of both the Sengoku diamyo as regional over-
  lords and Oda Nobunaga as the emerging national hegemon was to
  gain systematic control over the productive capacities of the country-
  side. In the middle of the sixteenth century, landholding, tax collect-
  ing, and military service recruitment systems varied greatly from loca-
  tion to location. What the lords most required was information on land
  area, productive capacities, and the distribution of manpower. Such
  information could be had in one of two ways, by either direct or
  indirect measurement.9
  The complete details of Oda Nobunaga's land policies in his home
  provinces of Owari and Mino have never been fully revealed, but in
  those regions that he occupied later, Nobunaga ordered new cadastral
  surveys. Usually he tried to appoint his own representatives to con-
  9 In Japan, one line of interpretation sees Oda Nobunaga's administration as representing the
  more completely unified authority characteristic of the early modern period and views the
  Sengoku daimyo as similar to early modern daimyo. The argument presented here identifies
  Nobunaga as more of a transitional figure with greater access to the elements of centralized
  political authority than the Muromachi shogunate had, but still weaker than the Tokugawa
  shoguns. For more details on current research, see Nagahara Keiji, ed.,Sengoku-ki no kentyoku
  to shakai (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1976).
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  LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY IOI
  duct them, but where that was not feasible, he required local lords to
  submit their own land and tax reports, called sashidashi. However
  compiled, the registers listed landholdings and the amounts of annual
  tax customarily collected.10 Under Nobunaga, direct land surveys were
  conducted in Ise, Echizen, Harima, Settsu, and Tango provinces, and
  the land-tax submission reports were collected in Omi, Yamashiro,
  Yamato, and Izumi. Because the cadastral surveys were direct on-site
  investigations, they included as much detail as the overlord deemed
  necessary. Although the land-tax reports were submitted by individual
  proprietors, who in turn relied on records supplied by village commu-
  nities, they too contained a considerable amount of detail. Some extant
  sashidashi from the Yamato region in the 1580s, as well as one from
  Kofukuji, show that the surveys were based on actual plot-by-plot
  field inspections by the proprietor and listed precisely the area of the
  fields, the tax imports, and the cultivators' names.11
  The cadastral registers and land-tax submissions became the docu-
  mentary foundations on which Oda Nobunaga based his claim to supe-
  rior powers of control over provincewide units. The nature of his
  authority was basically identical to the administrative and proprietary
  powers that the Sengoku daimyo exercised within their holdings. In
  other words, they had fashioned what were legally called "complete
  proprietorships" (ichien chigyo or isshiki shihai). This meant that
  within their domains, the daimyo, as proprietary lords, held the right
  to assign fiefs, command military forces, and exercise police and judi-
  cial authority. Of course, Nobunaga's political administration pursued
  a more complete expression of these powers, in time asserting a rudi-
  mentary central authority over the individual Sengoku daimyo that
  was much stronger than that of the preceding Muromachi shogunate.
  Oda Nobunaga was able to impose his claims to this superior author-
  ity while at the same time assigning provincial lands as fiefs to the
  more important members of his houseband, such as Shibata Katsuie
  10 Those persons who discovered unregistered fields or who developed new paddy had to
  conduct a survey or submit a sashidashi report. Because Owari and Mino constituted the
  central core of Nogunaga's holdings, he was particularly anxious to impose his authority over
  outlying areas within those provinces, but even at present, we have discovered no complete
  set of land survey records for this region.
  11 The cadastral surveys were carried out on a province-by-province basis, and the surveyed
  land was granted to proprietors (ryoshu) as fiefs (chigyo). In other words, the Oda administra-
  tion could lay claim to the rights to control land, possess land, and distribute it as fiefs. The
  sashidashi were reports submitted by individual proprietors and, consequently, served as
  confirmations of fief grants. In these cases, too, the Oda administration claimed superior
  rights, but the sashidashi were different from the cadastral surveys in terms of thoroughness.
  This was probably because the sashidashi reports came from areas where the proprietary
  rights were claimed by temples and aristocrats.
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  102 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  and Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi. Nobunaga authorized these re-
  tainers to exercise proprietary rights, especially the collection of dues
  and labor services. But there still were regional procedural differences.
  Within any one unit of control, the means of measuring productive
  capacity (taka) had been standardized, but as yet no one method was
  applied uniformly across all of Japan. For instance, in the five prov-
  inces around Kyoto - Yamashiro, Yamato, Settsu, Kawachi, and
  Izumi - as well as in Omi, Echizen, Harima, and Tamba, grain was
  measured in terms of koku. However the kandaka system, in which
  dues and imposts were expressed in units of cash, was used in Owari,
  Mino, and Ise. Both systems indicated the actual amount of tax due in
  goods and services from the land. In practice, the annual rents col-
  lected under the kandaka system included some payments in grain,
  and portions of the so-called kokudaka imposts could also be paid in
  cash.
  Despite Nobunaga's effort to exercise total control over the land
  base, the fact that he was obliged to accept sashidashi submissions
  showed that he was still far from achieving this goal. Moreover, the
  grant of a fief to a retainer (kashin) often merely reconfirmed existing
  rights that the retainer already claimed over those units of land. Fiefs
  were also granted in which temples and Kyoto-based proprietors con-
  tinued to exercise their old shoen-derived prerogatives. Consequently,
  despite surface changes, the old patterns of land possession often con-
  tinued to prevail. In the same way, although Nobunaga imposed the
  burdens of the tax and corvee levies on the peasants, he also recog-
  nized the landlord-tenant relationships that already existed in peasant
  society. Thus in several documented cases he affirmed that the myoshu,
  the man who held the plot of land and was responsible for paying the
  dues levied against it to the overlord, could continue to receive his
  customary profits and the traditional set of miscellaneous dues (ko-
  mononari) imposed on the families living on his holdings.
  Following the death of Nobunaga in 1582, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
  imposed his own hegemony over the country. At the outset of his
  takeover, the pattern of land rights remained as they had been under
  Nobunaga, a complicated mix of claims by local military proprietors.
  The kokudaka system, a product of the cadastral survey ordered by
  Toyotomi Hideyoshi and known as the Taiko kenchi, cut across this
  welter of competing claims and both simplified and clarified rights of
  land possession. Hideyoshi was able to carry out a nationwide survey
  because he had assembled more military power than Oda Nobunaga
  had and thus could extend stronger claims of national legitimacy. In
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  LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY IO3
  particular, Hideyoshi was able to justify his action on the basis of
  having received from the emperor the famous injunction: "You shall
  exercise administrative functions over the more than sixty provinces of
  Japan in accordance with what is best for the land and the people."12
  Thus, Hideyoshi's survey might appropriately be called a "public
  survey over the entire realm" (tenka no kenchi). As such, it literally
  remade the land relationships that had existed up to that time.
  The early modern form of landed enfeoffment rested on new princi-
  ples of land possession as denned by this Taiko cadastral survey. At the
  highest level, all proprietary rights became securely lodged in the
  hands of the national hegemon. Now all bushi, and even temples and
  Kyoto-based aristocrats, could hold territory only as grants-held-in-
  trust (azukarimono) confirmed by the vermilion seal of Hideyoshi.
  Moreover, certain rights and responsibilities concerning these hold-
  ings could be reassigned to lower elements in the power structure. A
  clause in the famous "Bateren expulsion decree" that Hideyoshi issued
  in 1587 banning Christianity and ordering the Jesuits to leave Japan
  within twenty days inadvertently confirmed this practice by stating:
  "Fiefs granted to vassals belong ultimately to the state, that is, to the
  provinces and districts, and each vassal holds the land in trust for the
  present only. Each vassal must obey the laws of the realm {tenka)."11
  This use of the concept of land held in trust for the overlord became
  the basis for the new centralization of power. The rights to collect the
  grain tax and corvee levies and to exercise judicial judgment, which
  had been divided under the shoen system, were now pulled together
  and held by a single authority.
  To conduct the Taiko survey, inspectors (bugyo) were dispatched to
  the provinces where they were ordered to investigate each parcel of
  land in each village. This practice of relying solely on officials dis-
  patched by the governing authority was a fuller declaration of the
  powers of overlordship than Nobunaga had been able to develop.
  Hideyoshi's intentions in this regard were revealed initially in 1582,
  when he carried out surveys in Yamashiro without first receiving
  sashidashi reports. This new trend became more evident in the 1584
  cadastral survey documents for some portions of Omi and then be-
  came the normal method of conducting cadastral surveys from the end
  of the decade of the 1580s.
  12 "Shimazu-ke monjo," no. 345 in DaiNihon komonjo: Shimazu ke monjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tokyo
  daigaku shuppankai, 1942), p. 342.
  13 See the "Matsuura-ke monjo." A reproduction of the document is contained in the lezusukai
  Nihon nempyo, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Yush6do shoten, 1969), located in the Matsuura Museum.
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  104 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  Data compiled in the cadasters reveal a wealth of information about
  land rights at the local level. The following is an entry from the survey
  register for Fukita village in Ota district (gun) of Settsu Province. As
  other documents of this type, it lists the location (or name) of the field,
  an assessment of its overall quality, use, area, and expected yield
  (kokumon), as well as the person in whose name the field is registered:
  Field name/location: 
  Kaito
  Quality (superior, average, poor): 
  Superior
  Use (paddy, dryfields, house lot): 
  Paddy
  Area: 
  I tan (993 sq. m)
  Yield: 
  1 koku 5 to (approx. 7.5 bushels)
  Registered to: 
  Yohei
  As this document shows, the Taiko survey relied on the kokudaka
  system, which in turn rested on a new concept oitaka as being equiva-
  lent to yield (kokumori). Each plot recorded in the register was as-
  signed a figure that represented an assessment of the field's potential
  yield. The total yield for all fields within a village was known as the
  village's kokudaka, and this, expressed in units of rice, served as the
  base on which the taxes and dues were computed. Even land that was
  not given over to rice production, such as dry fields and house plots,
  was assigned a computed, theoretical yield expressed in measures of
  rice. Under the shoen system, several different kinds of crops other
  than rice were grown, and these were delivered separately as taxes.
  The kokudaka system was designed to simplify this procedure by re-
  ducing tax collection to a single calculation.
  Why did Hideyoshi and the daimyo decide to collect taxes in an
  agricultural commodity such as rice? The answer lies in the effort of
  Hideyoshi and his vassal daimyo to gain firmer control over their
  domains' resources and productive output. Because these domains
  were composed of many different kinds of land whose productive
  capacities varied enormously, the overlords needed some universal
  standard that would allow them to impose uniform tax rates. For some
  Sengoku daimyo, the kandaka system, which required that taxes be
  paid in cash, served this purpose. But in reality the kandaka system
  was difficult to manage because it was feasible only for those daimyo
  who were able to regulate the minting and circulation of coins and
  thereby to exercise some control over the marketplace and the conver-
  sion into cash of rice and other products.
  The Toyotomi regime, however, was attempting to extend its juris-
  diction over the entire country and, in this process, found it impossi-
  ble to maintain sufficient control over coinage nationwide. The
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  LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY 105
  Toyotomi administration did issue in 1588 the gold coins known as
  tensho oban, as well as some silver coins, but these were not intended
  for practical, everyday use on a mass scale. Nor did the Muromachi
  shogunate or the Sengoku daimyo enjoy any success with the ordi-
  nances known as erizeni-rei, which were issued during the sixteenth
  century in an effort to cope with the problems caused by the circula-
  tion of coins of differing purities. It was impossible to use the kandaka
  system on a countrywide scale as long as these kinds of difficulties
  with coinage continued to exist. On the other hand, rice was a staple of
  the Japanese people and was grown nearly everywhere. Rice had other
  advantages as well: It was a commercial product that could be readily
  converted into cash, and it could easily be stored. Consequently, the
  Toyotomi administration adopted the kokudaka system, with dues cal-
  culated and paid in rice.
  In one sense, the rice collected under the kokudaka system was
  essentially a land rent paid in produce. The daimyo proprietary lords
  could use this rice both for their own consumption needs and as
  military provisions. Rice was also a major commercial product, and
  the daimyo could expect to sell a certain portion of their tax receipts on
  the open market. The fact that Hideyoshi kept records on the market
  value - expressed in denominations of gold and silver coins - of the
  rice he collected from his own direct holdings shows that he clearly
  recognized the commercial value of this crop.14 By collecting the land
  tax in rice, the daimyo were able to control a very important commer-
  cial product and thereby dominate the markets through its sale. On
  the other hand, the peasants were now being systematically cut off
  from the most easily marketed product that they themselves grew, and
  thus they could not improve their living standards by selling their own
  surpluses commercially.
  The taka, or assessment figure in the registration documents, ex-
  pressed the normative production of rice on a plot of land, a theoretical
  figure based on the area, type, and quality of the plot.15 Some histori-
  ans believe that this figure reflected fairly accurately the actual yield,
  but, in fact, the two were often very different. Whereas the taka was
  14 The market price for a koku of rice in both gold and silver is recorded in the "Toyotomi-ke
  kuramai san'yojo." From this we know that the price of rice in Tsuruga and Akita was ten ryo
  of gold for 240 koku of rice, whereas in Kyoto j ust 30 koku of rice cost that much. This price
  differential was due to political intervention. Several copies of this document exist. See my
  Kinsei hoken shakai no keizai kozo (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1963), pp. 23-36.
  15 Having classified the land as paddy, dry field, and house lot, it was customary, if a "superior"-
  grade paddy had a theoretical yield of 1.5 koku (per tan), to assign a computed yield of 1.2
  koku (per tan) to the dry fields and house lots.
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  106 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  calculated with reference to the productive capacity and yield, it was
  also set in accordance with the historical background of each region
  and with the character of the proprietor and his fiscal requirements.'6
  To arrive at an assessment figure, survey teams inspected fields and
  assigned a grade of superior, average, or poor to each plot according to
  the overall conditions within the village, the type of grain (rice or some
  specialty crop) that was being grown, and the location of the field and
  village in respect to transportation routes. Finally, the entire range of
  cultivated lands within a village was assigned a quality rating of supe-
  rior, average, or poor, and this too played a part in calculating the
  computed yield of each individual plot.
  The annual tax demand on a village was calculated as a percentage
  of the total assessments for all land within that village. As a general
  rule, when setting the tax rate, the Toyotomi administration would
  select a sample set of villages, inspect the actual productive output of
  the fields in those villages, and then declare a local tax that would
  amount to approximately two-thirds of the anticipated yield. Of
  course, the actual harvest in any given year might vary considerably
  from the assessment figure listed in the cadastral record. But inspec-
  tion teams could not possibly visit each village every year to ascertain
  any discrepancy. Thus adjustments could be made by referring to the
  annual inspection of the sample set of villages.17
  This method of tax assessment differed significantly from the prac-
  tices of the medieval period. Most importantly, it permitted the propri-
  etary lords to set the rate each year after taking into account the actual
  harvest conditions. This could work to the advantage of either the
  cultivator or the proprietor. The Toyotomi administration generally
  set the land tax at two-thirds of the actual yield, which left only one-
  third in the hands of the peasants. This was a much larger proportion
  of the farmer's income than generally had been collected during the
  medieval period. Within a shoen, tax rates had tended to be perma-
  nently fixed, and thus the surpluses resulting from any increases in
  productivity stayed in the countryside. The new system imposed by
  the Toyotomi regime ended this and permitted the overlords to lay
  claim to any surplus production. By Hideyoshi's time, the samurai
  16 Nakamura, Bakuhan laisei ton; Matsushita Shiro, Bakuhansei shakai to kokudakasei (Tokyo:
  Hanawa shobo, 1984); and Omori Eiko, "Daimyo kaieki to bakuhan kankei," in the 1978
  special edition of Rekukigaku kenkyu entitled Sekaishi ninshiki ni okeru minzoku to kokka.
  (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, November 1978).
  17 Previously, historians believed that the takamori was the yield of all village fields, that the
  nengu rate was calculated after a land survey, and that this rate was applied to the takamori
  recorded on the survey register.
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  LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY 107
  government apparently felt that farmers could survive on this lesser
  amount, and several notorious sayings became current, such as "farm-
  ers should be taxed at a rate that keeps them suspended between life
  and death," an apt expression of the essential character of daimyo rule
  during the early modern period.
  But certain other conditions, it must be noted, acted to reduce the
  actual amount of taxes extracted from the villages. The kokudaka sys-
  tem made levies in terms of rice, which meant that when commercial
  crops such as cotton started to be cultivated on a wide scale from the
  middle of the seventeenth century, it was difficult to incorporate this
  activity into the kokudaka system. During the Tokugawa period, peas-
  ant protests and a variety of other factors also prompted many daimyo to
  reduce the imposts on their holdings. For example, the actual rate paid
  by households that grew cotton in the economically advanced area
  around Osaka in the middle of the seventeenth century had fallen to
  about 10 percent of the average household's total income. Historians
  now believe that, on the average, daimyo collected only about 30 per-
  cent of the crop in most areas, although, occasionally a tax rate as high as
  80 percent of the base assessment was demanded in some domains. In
  other words, over the course of the early modern period the assessment
  figure became increasingly arbitrary, serving only as a base figure on
  which the actual tax demand would be negotiated.
  The Taiko survey defined not only the proprietor's claims to the
  produce of the land but also strengthened the farmer's rights to more
  secure possession of the land. As Hideyoshi's magistrate Ishida
  Mitsunari (1560-1600) noted, those peasants whose names were re-
  corded next to plots on the survey register were recognized as having
  claims of possession to those parcels. These procedures have given rise
  to problems of historical interpretation. One important question is how
  to understand the fact that only one name appears on the survey docu-
  ments for each plot of land. In the medieval period several different
  persons - the landlord, or the man in whose name the field was regis-
  tered (myoshyu), the peasant (hyakusho), and the cultivator (sakunin) -
  each claimed certain specified rights over a given parcel of land. It is not
  clear which of these various levels of possession was recognized in the
  Taiko survey. Nonetheless, it is certain that the person recorded on the
  Taiko survey register was legally assumed to be of peasant status
  {hyakusho mibun). In other words, even if that person had once claimed
  the prerogatives of a local proprietor and had been a member of the
  bushi class, he now was assumed to be the cultivator and so was held
  responsible for the dues assessed on his holdings.
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  108 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  There still exist uncertainties regarding the social composition of
  the village community that resulted from the enforcement of the Taiko
  survey. It is doubtful that Hideyoshi and the daimyo were attempting
  to create a single, undifferentiated society of peasants, for even after
  the survey, there obviously remained a stratum of wealthy and influen-
  tial farmers, just as there were landless peasants and other villagers
  who were heavily dependent on the registered cultivators. In fact, two
  types of dependent persons resided in the villages. One category lived
  as slavelike members of large patriarchal families, and in a legal sense,
  these persons remained unfree even after the cadastral survey was
  enforced. The other group, however, bore names and were recorded
  on survey documents as peasants, although they were still considered
  to be dependent on landowning patrons (oyakata) in the village. De-
  pendent cultivators of this type, generally referred to as hikan when
  listed on the cadastral register, possessed formally recognized rights as
  peasants while still being classified as dependents of a patron to whom
  they owed service. Their inclusion in survey documents meant only
  that they had become "taxable registrants," (naukebyakusho), but not
  full-fledged landholding farmers. In this sense, the cadastral surveys
  did not constitute a systematic attempt to fashion a coherent policy
  that would create a single class of small, independent cultivators.18
  Viewed in this light, the purpose of Toyotomi policy concerning land
  relationships in local areas was to respect superior proprietary rights to
  the land while at the same time assigning more secure rights of posses-
  sion to the peasantry.
  Because the cadastral survey called into question all land claims and
  even jeopardized the rights of some persons, resistance to the survey
  could be strong. In Omi and Yamashiro provinces, it is recorded that
  "more than half the peasants fled."19 Villagers erupted in violence in a
  famous incident in Higo, and in 1590 in Dewa, in the north of Japan,
  whole villages rose up in widespread revolt and killed the survey
  officials. Not unexpectedly, the survey teams often negotiated a com-
  promise with local leaders. In some instances, officials exempted cer-
  tain paddies from the survey and declared that such parcels would not
  be subject to the annual levy. In some other places, house plots were
  18 One contradictory example comes from documents concerning the survey on Omi Province
  in 1590, which appears to have recognized the land possession rights of this kind of depen-
  dent personnel. Miyakawa Mitsuru also claimed that the lower peasants were made indepen-
  dent by the Taiko land survey, but he was generalizing from only a few, isolated examples.
  Miyakawa, Taiko kenchi ron, vol. 2.
  19 From a document in the "Katagiri monjo," as cited in Miyakawa, Taiko kenchi ron, vol. 3, p.
  388.
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  LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY 
  IOQ
  not included in the land-tax base, and the peasants were also granted
  exemptions from corvee levies. Yet Hideyoshi could also be ruthless.
  He wanted to send the survey teams everywhere, even to "the deepest
  recesses of the mountains and as far to the sea as men might row"
  iyama wa oku, umi wa rokai no tsuzuki soro made). In 1584 Hideyoshi
  threatened to crucify peasants who hid fields, and in 1590 he angrily
  instructed Asano Nagamasa (1547-1611) - the person responsible for
  conducting the survey in Dewa - to put entire villages to the sword if
  they joined the revolt in that region, a threat made partially good by
  the forces of Uesugi Kagekatsu (1555-1623), who moved in troops to
  support Asano.
  Because of the difficulty of making informed judgments concerning
  land rights in the confusion of almost constant warfare, survey inspec-
  tors commonly awarded the rights of possession to those peasants who
  had paid the land tax in previous years and to those who were actually
  tilling the fields at the time of the survey. These rights of possession
  became increasingly strong and secure under the Edo shogunate. Both
  shogun and daimyo added regulations governing the division and sale
  of land, the best known being the shogunate's "prohibition against the
  permanent alienation of land" in 1643 and the decree limiting the
  division of land in 1673. The first of these was nearly unenforceable
  from the start, however, and was relaxed in 1695 before being totally
  abandoned in 1723. The same problems with enforcement occurred
  when governments placed restrictions on the cultivation of certain
  kinds of commercial crops, and the restraints against growing tobacco
  that were issued at the end of the seventeenth century were the last
  major limitations of this sort. Similarly, although formal restrictions
  were placed on the use and conveyance of land, in fact as long as a
  farmer continued to pay the annual imposts and did not commit any
  crimes, his rights of possession were secure, and he could generally
  buy, sell, and will land.
  The requirements of the kokudaka system greatly influenced the
  economic development of the village community in the years after the
  Taiko survey. Because of the greater importance assigned to rice, its
  cultivation spread even into the most remote reaches of the northern
  Tohoku region. Moreover, because even dry fields and house plots
  were assigned a theoretical output expressed in units of rice when
  computing the tax base, the actual percentage of the rice crop collected
  was greater than the simple tax rate would indicate. Consequently,
  peasants were obliged to cultivate rice more intensively than they
  might otherwise have chosen. As mentioned, the collection of the
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  110 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  annual tax in rice acted to limit the peasants' participation in the
  commercial economy. But this limitation was not absolute. As Nakai
  and McClain point out in Chapter 11 in this volume, the daimyo often
  vigorously promoted a commercialized economy within their domains.
  Thus the development of commercial products was to some extent
  inevitable, and in the latter half of the seventeenth century, peasants
  around the Osaka area began to grow cotton on their fields and actu-
  ally had to buy rice on the open market in order to pay their land-tax
  obligations.
  In turn, the spread of the commercial economy influenced the way
  in which farm families organized their labor. The most common type
  of farm household contained members of the direct family line, and
  these families typically owned about two and a half acres of land (one
  cho), an amount that they could farm with family labor. The second
  major type of farm unit was managed by wealthier farmers who used
  bound servants and other dependent personnel as tenants (kosaku), in
  order to cultivate some of the land. During the latter half of the
  seventeenth century, these bound personnel disappeared, to be re-
  placed as the chief form of farm labor by contract servants (nenki-
  hdkdniri) and day laborers (hiyatoi). The dependent tenants (hikan) also
  gradually acquired independence, and many of them migrated to ur-
  ban centers. Ultimately, the style of small-scale management that re-
  lied on family labor became the principal mode of production. This
  made for a labor-intensive style of agricultural management, one that
  also led to the increased cultivation of crops for sale to urban markets.
  COMMERCE AND THE EARLY MODERN CITIES
  Commerce and urban centers grew together during the sixteenth cen-
  tury. At this time Kyoto was still Japan's most important political city,
  as well as a center of a superlative tradition of craft and artisan produc-
  tion. Strung out like satellites around Kyoto were smaller commercial
  towns such as Sakai, Oyamazaki, Tennoji, and Hiranogo. Taken to-
  gether these cities constituted what might be termed a capital market-
  ing area. Here could be found the commerce and craft production that
  formed the heart of the national economy. Merchants in these cities
  also engaged in foreign trade with China and Korea. Such activities
  made Kyoto into Japan's most important node of trade and commerce
  in the Sengoku period.
  Outside this central area, the countryside was dotted with communi-
  ties that hosted periodic markets (rokusai-ichi). These markets were
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  COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES 
  III
  most often found in embryonic castle towns or commercial areas
  around branch castles such as Yamaguchi, Odawara, and Sumpu
  (Shizuoka), but even settlements such as Hakata and Nagasaki became
  sites for periodic markets. Wherever located, the markets stimulated
  the development of a commodity trade that then began to penetrate
  the peasant village economy. The periodic markets were also con-
  nected with the central markets around Kyoto. The outlying communi-
  ties sent their specialty products to the capital marketing area and, in
  turn, bought up manufactured products such as armor and textiles.
  One consequence of this development was the emergence of what
  many historians refer to as urban self-government in such commer-
  cially based towns as Sakai and Oyamazaki. Many of these towns
  owned their economic existence to their place in the Kyoto-centered
  marketing structure. Oyamazaki, for instance, was located on the bor-
  der between Yamashiro and Settsu provinces, a strategically important
  point, and from the tenth century many different powers contested for
  control over this area so that they could construct warehouses and
  other commercial facilities there. Because there were so many contend-
  ers for proprietary control and because proprietary rights in the area
  were so confused, no single outside lord or institution could achieve
  undisputed control of Oyamazaki. Consequently, several local, influen-
  tial persons - who also nominally served as priests of Iwashimizu
  Hachiman Shrine - carried out their administrative functions on a
  self-governing basis. Their economic base was the processing and sale
  of lamp and cooking oil, and they had the right to buy raw materials
  and to sell the refined oil in Kyoto.
  Many jinaimachi, or temple towns, also enjoyed the prerogatives of
  self-government. In communities that were considered to lie within
  the precincts of temples associated with the True Pure Land and
  Nichiren sects, the ultimate political authority remained with the tem-
  ple administrators, as was the case with Ishiyama Honganji and Imai
  in Yamato. This contrasts with the patterns in other temple towns,
  such as Tondabayashi, Daigazuka, and Kaizuka, where the residents
  themselves exercised political authority. In the last case, temples of the
  True Pure Land sect were the proprietors of record, but in reality local
  men of influence, usually referred to as elders (toshiyori) carried out all
  administrative functions. The sphere of self-administration included
  the rights to arrest criminals and adjudicate crimes, to verify the cover-
  age of debt cancellation edicts, and to negotiate contracts for rents and
  taxes levied on the town as a whole. Private possession of land was also
  recognized, and the towns maintained their own defenses. Of special
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  112 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  interest are the records showing that towns like Sakai, Amagasaki, and
  Tsukaguchi were given guarantees of neutrality by military command-
  ers, even in times of warfare. Despite its overwhelming importance as
  a commercial and shipping center, for instance, Sakai was not attacked
  by opposing forces, and peace was guaranteed by all sides.
  This medieval proprietary order underwent a basic transformation
  at the start of the early modern period. But the changes came slowly.
  The Oda regime sponsored many policies that were essentially similar
  to those of the Sengoku daimyo, assuming a cautious, prudent attitude
  toward the religious and aristocratic establishment in Kyoto. How-
  ever, in his home territories of Owari and Mino, Nobunaga adopted
  more innovative policies, one designed to enhance his domination of
  cities. For example, as part of an attempt to assert greater control over
  trade and commerce within his holdings in the provinces of Owari and
  Mino, Nobunaga appointed Ito Sojuro to the post of shonin tsukasa, a
  position entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing commercial
  activity,. In the castle towns of Kano (present-day Gifu) and Azuchi,
  Nobunaga pursued a similar goal of encouraging economic activity and
  concentrating it in the urban centers by granting special privileges to
  castle town merchants and by requiring merchants and artisans to live
  together in specified areas according to occupation. Furthermore,
  Nobunaga ordered the abolition of toll barriers (sekisho) in order to
  promote commerce. His "free market" declaration (rakuichi-rei) issued
  for Kano, together with limited exemptions from land taxes and
  corvee levies, provided incentives for merchants and artisans to move
  there and set up business establishments. In order to build up his new
  headquarters at Azuchi, Nobunaga announced many special policies:
  The town was declared an open, free market, and existing monopolis-
  tic guilds were prohibited; merchants in the castle town were declared
  exempt from debt moratorium edicts, house taxes, and corvee levies;
  outside merchants traveling along the Nakasendo highway were re-
  quired to stop in Azuchi and conduct some business; and merchants in
  the castle town were granted exclusive monopolies on buying and
  selling horses within the Oda domain. Nobunaga granted these special
  privileges to the merchants in his castle towns because, as their over-
  lord, he expected to receive a percentage of the proceeds generated by
  their commercial activities. Moreover, Nobunaga was particularly in-
  terested in attracting to Omi those merchants and artisans who were
  involved in the construction trades or who were otherwise important
  from a military point of view, such as swordsmiths, tatami makers,
  sawyers, stonecutters, and carpenters. Nobunaga tapped their talents
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  COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES 
  113
  by imposing on them a kuniyaku, a corvee levied for domain-related
  construction projects, while exempting them from other kinds of
  corvee imposts.
  In Kinai and the capital environs, however, Nobunaga was unable
  to implement to the same degree the policies he had adopted in his
  home provinces. The chief obstacle was his inability to do away with
  the special rights and interests of the aristocrats and historically power-
  ful religious institutions. For instance, in Kyoto these groups were
  continuing to assert their proprietary claims to land and to exercise
  local policing and judicial rights. Thus Nobunaga was obliged to recog-
  nize the special status of the merchants in self-administered cities like
  Sakai and Hiranogo, which had come under the patronage of privi-
  leged nobles and temples in Kyoto. During attacks on the Ishiyama
  Honganji, Nobunaga received aid from the Nichiren sect, a return on
  his promise to approve construction of a new temple town at Choenji
  in Amagasaki. He even went so far as to guarantee the town's immu-
  nity from military attack. Later, Araki Murashige, military governor
  of Settsu Province and a direct retainer of Oda Nobunaga, conferred
  on the new town the right to investigate and prosecute criminals, a
  significant grant of self-governing powers.
  The same kind of limitations on Nobunaga's powers can be seen in
  his dealings with the rights and interests of medieval merchant organi-
  zations. Even after Nobunaga entered Kyoto and gained military con-
  trol of the Kinai region, the activities of the guild (za) organizations
  remained undiminished. These organizations were accustomed to pay-
  ing a kind of licensing fee to aristocratic establishments and religious
  organizations in exchange for patronage and protection. Nobunaga did
  not touch these. Rather, he reconfirmed the status quo arrangements,
  as is evident in his actions toward the Tatebe oil guild. Interestingly
  enough, no documents yield conclusive evidence to show that Nobu-
  naga destroyed the rights of that guild, although there are several
  extant documents in which he affirmed the rights of closed merchant
  associations.20 These include the acknowledgment to a group at Katata
  port in Omi of its right to oversee shipping on Lake Biwa and to assess
  port taxes, as well as the confirmation of the rights of an organization
  in Echizen that specialized in textiles and another in Sakai that traded
  20 The only document stating that Nobunaga abolished the oil guild is the "Rikyu Hachimangu
  monjo" of Oyamazaki. And although we know of a decree from the shogun Ashikaga
  Yoshiaki that granted rights to the oil guild, there is no document that abolished those
  privileges. "Rikyu Hachimangu monjo," no. 313 in Oyamazaki-machi choshi hensan iinkai,
  ed., Oyamazaki choshi, shityohen (Kyoto: Oyamazaki-machi, 1981), p. 723.
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  114 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  in horses. Nobunaga recognized and guaranteed the historic rights of
  these closed associations and, except for castle towns, did not attempt
  to impose a "free markets, free guilds" policy.
  Nobunaga's recognition of the ancient rights of these guilds was a
  compromise. Althought some historians have argued that his policies
  masked a deeper intent to eventually abolish the guilds, it is more
  plausible that he permitted guilds to continue to function because he
  could meet his own supply and trade requirements by relying on these
  existing merchant organizations. Because the guilds were able to ship
  goods long distances, even through areas controlled by his enemies, it
  made sense for Nobunaga to co-opt for his official needs those guilds
  and transportation associations (nakatna) that specialized in the long-
  distance transportation of goods such as the Katata group, the
  Kashosen group on the Yodo River, and the Shashaku group in Toba.
  Controversy surrounds Nobunaga's policies toward transport barri-
  ers. In medieval Japan, proprietors in most regions established toll
  barriers, or checkpoints, called sekisho, where they collected fees on
  goods transported through those areas. In the tenth month of 1568,
  Oda Nobunaga, claiming that he represented public authority (tenka)
  and that he was acting in the best interests of all the people, abolished
  the toll barriers within his holdings, which at that time officially in-
  cluded just the two provinces of Owari and Mino, although informa-
  tion contained in documents in the "Shincho koki" show his intention
  to extend the measure into the southeastern portions of Omi and the
  Kinai as well.21 Moreover, he also abolished toll barriers in territories
  that he occupied later, such as Ise and Echizen, thus advancing a
  policy of encouraging unrestricted trade.
  However, Nobunaga's toll barrier policy did not proceed beyond
  certain self-imposed limitations. He did not, for example, abolish the
  imperial checkpoints at the seven entrances to Kyoto. Rather, he recon-
  firmed them after his grand entrance into the city. He also confirmed
  similar rights on behalf of the Muromachi shogun. Even as late as
  1582, the year of Nobunaga's death, tolls were still being collected on
  the shogunate's behalf under the direction of the Yamashina family,
  the officials in charge. The transitional and somewhat ambivalent na-
  ture of Nobunaga's policy is further reflected in his handling of mer-
  chant transport associations. The four famous merchant houses of
  Omi, under his patronage, retained the exclusive right to ship goods
  along the two routes that lead from Omi through Happu and Chigusa
  21 See the "Nobunaga koki," ms copy, Oyamazaki Toshokan.
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  COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES 
  115
  to Ise, whereas other, ordinary merchants had to pay tolls collected
  along the way, a clear restraint on the free conduct of trade. Clearly,
  though Nobunaga adopted new commercial and urban policies that
  reflected the desires of the warrior class, he did not aim to promote
  conditions of general free trade throughout all of Japan.
  Oda Nobunaga also had a mixed record in dealing with the indepen-
  dence of temple towns. Immediately after his arrival in Kyoto, he
  began to challenge militarily the towns of Sakai and Hiranogo. In
  time, these communities submitted to him and lost their rights to
  autonomous self-governance. Yet Nobunaga was never able to impose
  his will completely over Kyoto and most of the temple towns in the
  capital region. In Kyoto, for instance, Nobunaga achieved some ad-
  ministrative powers by asserting the right to appoint representatives
  (shoshidai), but at the same time, he still had to acknowledge the
  landownership rights of the vested order and their partial powers to
  investigate and prosecute criminals. Beyond this, Nobunaga also recon-
  firmed the vested interests of the proprietary classes in those temple
  towns that were not antagonistic toward him, as in the examples of
  Tondabayashi and Tonda."
  Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued these policies concerning guilds for
  one or two years. In the ninth month of 1585, for example, Hashiba
  Hidekatsu (1568-85), who was holding down the Settsu region on be-
  half of Hideyoshi, issued the following seven-article agreement that re-
  confirmed the existing special rights of the area's self-governing towns:
  1. No guilds and no corv6e levies.
  2. No forcible property seizure or attachment for debt restitution.
  3. Administration by city elders.
  4. Exemption from military service levies.
  5. Cessation of unreasonable demands.
  6. Exemption from debt moratorium decrees.
  7. No samurai residences in the city.23
  However, from the mid-15 80s Hideyoshi began to enforce ordi-
  nances against guilds and self-governing urban communities, and he
  also initiated his nationwide cadastral survey. Ultimately these mea-
  sures would bring Japan's cities more fully under the influence of the
  military lords and also would promote the formation of new types of
  22 "Shimizu-ke monjo," in Takatsuki shishi hensan iinkai, ed., Takaisuki shiski (Takatsuki:
  Takatsuki-shi, 1973), vol. 4, pp. 548, 584.
  23 "Shimizu-ke monjo." Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hidekatsu was the fourth son of Nobunaga and
  the adopted son of Hideyoshi.
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  Il6 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  economic and protective organizations among merchants and artisans.
  Clearly, Hideyoshi was more successful than Nobunaga had been in
  asserting his authority over urban areas. One reason for this success
  was that Hideyoshi articulated his urban policy with other policy initia-
  tives. Important in this context was his cadastral survey, which had an
  adverse impact on self-governing towns, as the survey recognized all
  land as coming under the administrative authority of the national
  overlord. Land survey documents remain for the area incorporated as
  the modern-day Osaka metropolitan prefecture, except for the old city
  areas of Osaka and Sakai. These records reveal that temple towns like
  Tondabayashi and Tonda were legally redefined as villages, which
  meant that they lost their old special urban privileges. Consequently,
  all governing rights, including the power to apprehend and punish
  criminals, were assigned to the military lords who received these areas
  as parts of their fiefs.
  Hideyoshi had a particularly difficult time coping with Kyoto, where
  the authority of court nobles and religious institutions was so firmly
  rooted in history. Hideyoshi carried out a cadastral survey in Kyoto but
  confronted serious political problems when he tried to curtail the rights
  and interests of these noble and religious proprietors. Finally, following
  a land survey in 1591, Hideyoshi was able to persuade some noble
  families and religious institutions in central Kyoto to give up their
  holdings and accept substitute land in villages surrounding the city of
  Kyoto.24 Hideyoshi then went on to rearrange the layout of the city's
  residential wards, construct an earthen wall around the city, create a
  special ward for temples, and grant exemptions from corvee and prop-
  erty taxes - all measures of his newly acquired powers.
  Hideyoshi also imposed his control over commercial institutions
  and marketing structures. One major policy initiative came in the
  ninth month of 1585, when Hideyoshi issued his famous injunction
  that "the various fees levied by noble families, warriors, and common
  merchants are to cease, and guilds are to be abolished," a measure that
  effectively erased from existence the business taxes, tolls, and other
  miscellaneous imposts that the Kyoto nobility, warriors, and powerful
  merchants had traditionally collected from merchants and artisans.25
  Hideyoshi also put his seal on a letter severely criticizing the Suzuki
  family, a member of the court nobility, for levying imposts on the
  24 Ono Kdji, "Kyoto no kinsei toshika," Shakai keizai shigaku 10 (October 1940): 1-32.
  25 The quotation is from the "Hideyoshi jiki." Additional details can be found in the "Kanemi
  kyoki" and "Kobayakawa-ke monjo" in Shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nihon komojo urwake
  (Tokyo: Tokyo teikoku daigaku, 1929), vol. 11, p. 2 and pp. 401-3.
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  COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES 
  117
  trading of cattle, and his agent Asano Nagayoshi reprimanded mer-
  chant leaders in the town of Imazu in Omi for collecting a fee for each
  traveler and piece of baggage that passed through that post town.26
  The decree to abolish guilds, however, did not bring in its wake
  complete freedom of commerce. Hideyoshi's intentions were much
  more complex, for tied into his promotion of commerce was the desire
  to terminate the domination of trade by court nobles and religious
  institutions and to assert his own direct lines of authority over mer-
  chants. Thus Hideyoshi could tolerate, and even encourage, certain
  closed business associations if this were in his own immediate interest.
  Hideyoshi also permitted a few merchants to dominate the rice market
  in Kyoto. Warehousing documents of the Toyotomi family dated 1598,
  for example, record that imposts were still being levied against guilds
  in Sakai, an indication that the Toyotomi regime allowed some guilds
  to continue to exist so as to tap them for business taxes.27 Then, from
  1594, Hideyoshi had his nephew and adopted son Hidetsugu (1568-
  95), who had succeeded him as regent (Jkampaku), require these men
  to submit monthly reports concerning the prices and the marketing of
  rice.28
  Particularly revealing was Hideyoshi's policy toward certain trans-
  portation guilds. He abolished the rights of the merchant association
  that controlled shipping on Lake Biwa, only to turn around and autho-
  rize the establishment of the "One Hundred Ship Association" at
  Otsu, as well as another shipping association on the Yodo River.
  Hideyoshi guaranteed exclusive monopolies to these groups, but in
  exchange, he issued codes of operating procedures, dictated official
  prices, levied business fees, and reserved the right to commandeer the
  ships for official business. Allied daimyo engaged in the same expedi-
  ences. For example, Hashiba Hidenaga (1541-91), Hideyoshi's step-
  brother, abolished all guilds and corvee levies in the towns of Nara and
  Koriyama in his home domain of Yamato. But just three months later,
  he exempted the iron, fish, and salt guilds from that order.29
  The historical significance of the 1585 decree abolishing guilds had
  many ramifications. First, it deprived the Kyoto-based court families
  26 For the Suzuki case, see doc. 463 in "Kobayakawa-ke raonjo," in Dai Nihon komonjo iewake,
  vol. 11, p. 2, pp. 401-3. The Asano document is contained in "Kawarabayashi monjo" in
  Shiga-ken, ed., Shiga kenshi (Tokyo: Sanshusha, 1928), vol. 5, p. 376.
  27 "Keicho sannen Toyotomi-ke zono mokuroku," in Dai Nihon sozeishi, vol. 2 (Tokyo:
  Choyokai, 1927), pp. 585-91.
  28 See the entry for Bunroku 3/3/21 in the "Komai nikki," in Kaitei shiseki shuran, vol. 25
  (Tokyo: Kondo shuppanbu, 1902), pp. 549-50.
  29 See the entry for Tensho 15/1/16 in the "Taken'in nikki," in Taken'in nikki, vol. 4 (Tokyo:
  Kadokawa shoten, 1967), p. 61.
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  Il8 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  and central religious institutions of their supervisory powers over the
  activities of merchant and artisans, and it transferred that control to
  the hands of the warrior class. Merchants and artisans thus were freed
  from the domination of medieval guild organizations, but they were
  made more subject to the emerging forms of daimyo authority. Conse-
  quently, the decree did not literally free trade and commerce from all
  restrictions. Although Hideyoshi eliminated many of the monopolistic
  privileges of the medieval guild associations, the artisans and mer-
  chants themselves came under new restraints devised by the rising
  military aristocracy, who ultimately proved hostile to the development
  of the independent, self-governing aspects of cities and of merchant
  and artisan activities.
  The coalescence of political control over cities and commerce was
  clearly revealed in the castle towns that appeared during the late six-
  teenth and early seventeenth centuries. Above all, these castle towns
  became residential centers for the military class of proprietors, the
  daimyo and their retainers, and the merchant and artisan classes that
  supported economic development. Because the castle towns served as
  domain military headquarters, the daimyo lords were concerned about
  their ability to regulate affairs in these urban centers. One measure of
  this is the care that daimyo took to plan the layout of these new cities.
  The central focus for most castle towns was a keep that itself was
  encircled with moats and canals that protected the daimyo, his chief
  administrative officers, and the residences of his top military and
  administrative personnel. Next came a belt of merchant residences,
  and finally temples and the residences of low-ranking warriors were
  situated on the outskirts of the cities near natural barriers like rivers or
  foothills, forming outer defense perimeters.
  This type of urban plan showed a sensitivity to the dictates of the
  emerging status system. The daimyo lived at the center of his domain
  world, as befitted his status. Living within the safety of the moats
  were his chief lieutenants, protected by his lordship both symbolically
  and physically. The merchants resided in undefended parts of the city,
  and the outcast (semmiri) subcommunities were located on the outer
  fringes of the cities, typically near rivers that often flooded. Merchants
  and artisans did not "own" the land in the modern, legal sense of that
  term but, rather, merely had the right of usufruct over their plots.
  Clearly this type of urban layout reflected the needs of Japan's new
  rulers. When compared with the earlier temple towns, it shows how
  daimyo had strengthened their claims to political control over the land
  and the activities of the merchants and artisans.
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  COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES 
  119
  It is also useful to observe how urban administrative structures were
  changed to accommodate the ascension of daimyo power. The corpo-
  rate organizations (kyddotai) of the old temple towns, which had been
  formed by merchants to protect their own interests, were now placed
  at the very bottom of the administrative structure. Daimyo assumed
  legislative, judicial, and military prerogatives, and the merchant resi-
  dents who had previously served as community leaders were converted
  into functionaries in the daimyo's administration, executing decisions
  made by the daimyo and inner samurai elite. The most important
  merchant offices were now those of the city elders and ward representa-
  tives, who carried out such administrative duties as conducting census
  reports, investigating crimes, collecting taxes, and transmitting the
  lord's laws to the urban residents.30
  The daimyo also entrusted to the merchants and artisans responsibil-
  ity for constructing and maintaining streets, bridges, and sewage ca-
  nals in their sections of the city. For instance, of the more than one
  hundred bridges in Osaka that were called "public bridges," the sho-
  gunate actually built and maintained only twelve. In addition, as a
  general principle, merchants and artisans had to resolve commercial
  and debt disputes among themselves, with the city elders and ward
  representatives attempting to negotiate settlements based on tech-
  niques of reconciliation.
  The early modern marketing structure took shape around this kind
  of urban nucleus. There was both a central marketing structure and a
  set of domain markets. Within each domain market, the daimyo ma-
  nipulated the tax system in order to lay claim to rice and other local
  products. He then sold these to merchants in the domain, particularly
  in the castle town, and used the proceeds to buy military equipment
  and everyday necessities. Moreover, peasants also purchased in the
  local urban centers items that they could not produce themselves, such
  as salt and certain farm implements. Consequently the castle town
  became home to a variety of merchants and artisans who had previ-
  ously resided in villages and country towns: swordsmiths, armorers,
  carpenters, plasterers, dyers, weavers, transportation agents, and mer-
  chants who dealt in perishables and textiles. This indicated a growing
  functional separation of village and city, and despite the continuing
  trade between the two in those goods that were part of the lord's tax
  system, there were strong restraints on the peasants' participation in
  the commercial economy.
  30 Wakita Osamu, "Kinsei toshi no kensetsu to gosho," in Nihon rekishi, vol. 9 (1975).
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  120 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  The internal economies of most domains were not self-sufficient.
  Moreover, not all rice and specialty products were consumed within
  the domain, thus leaving a surplus that could be shipped to markets
  outside the domain. The apex of the central marketing area included
  the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, Sakai, and Nara in the Kinai region. In
  1634, Kyoto probably still had a population of more than 410,000, and
  Osaka was home to perhaps nearly the same number of people.31 Edo
  quickly became a major consumption center as well, and it too eventu-
  ally became an integral part of the central marketing area.
  This national marketing structure was supported by the growth of
  local, domain economies, and these in turn could not have come into
  existence without the adoption of the kokudaka system and the prac-
  tice of collecting local specialty products. For fiscal reasons, the
  daimyo had to develop the capability to market certain goods in the
  central markets, while at the same time maintaining control over their
  own domain marketing structures. Thus, they kept themselves in-
  formed about rice prices in the central markets and then maintained
  rice prices within their domains at a higher level. They also created
  their own independent currency systems, as well as uniform standards
  of weights and measures.
  This domestic marketing system underwent important modifica-
  tions during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Much of this
  was a consequence of shogunal policy initiatives, particularly the im-
  plementation of measures that led to an extraordinary degree of na-
  tional seclusion (sakoku). During the 1640s the Edo shogunate issued a
  series of ordinances that prohibited the possession of oceangoing
  ships, thus throwing the country into relative trade isolation. Indeed,
  scholars are still troubled by the question of how a policy of national
  closure could be adopted without disastrous results to the national
  economy. But the measures did not lead to a complete cessation of
  trade itself, nor were they so intended. The ongoing growth of domain
  market economies certainly stimulated commercial expansion, and the
  lower demand for imports of critical military supplies such as lead and
  leather brought on by the onset of the "Great Tokugawa Peace" meant,
  in any case, that Japan was becoming less dependent on foreign trade.
  Japan also gained increasing self-sufficiency in the production of raw
  silk thread, which for many years had been the main import item from
  China. Finally, there was a decline in the output of gold, silver, and
  copper, Japan's chief items of export. Viewed from the standpoint of
  31 Wakita Osamu, "Kinsei shoki no toshi keizai," Nihonshi kenkyu 200 (April 11, 1979): 52-75.
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  THE EARLY MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM 
  121
  market relations, Japan had never been deeply involved in foreign
  trade, and the closure policy was adopted largely for political reasons,
  chiefly as an anti-Christian measure.32
  THE EARLY MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM
  All of the issues we have discussed - the Taiko cadastral survey, the
  decision to encourage migration to the castle towns, and the separation
  of warrior and peasant - combined to produce a new social order at
  the beginning of the early modern period. At the apex of this new
  structure was the bushi class, secure in its position of military and
  political dominance and concentrated in the castle towns. The reloca-
  tion of the bushi from the countryside into urban centers took many
  decades to complete. In the medieval period, the warriors possessed
  personal fiefs (honryo), and they tended to stay in these home areas,
  where they put down strong roots, living with their families and their
  own bands of retainers. As part of his effort to consolidate military
  control over the country, Toyotomi Hideyoshi adopted policies that
  severed, or at least weakened, this bond between the warrior and his
  fief. The key move here was Hideyoshi's efforts to compel increasing
  numbers of warriors to take up residence in the newly emerging castle
  towns. He also used rather frequently the practice of transferring
  daimyo from one domain to another, and this required the daimyo and
  the entire vassal band of fief holders to relocate.
  Such pressures to break the personal tie to specific holdings were
  applied at different levels, even into the early decades of the Edo
  period. The Shimazu family of Satsuma, for instance, had been histori-
  cally prominent from the Kamakura period and was never transferred
  to a new domain, even by the Tokugawa shoguns. Consequently, the
  so-called rural samurai, or goshi, system, remained intact in that area
  of southern Japan. Yet, even though these local samurai continued to
  hold fiefs after the Taiko cadastral survey, they were instructed to
  "order [their] affairs and be prepared to transfer to new fiefs."33 The
  Tokugawa shogunate continued the policy of transferring daimyo, so
  much so that the philosopher Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) compared the
  life of the samurai with that of travelers, "always living in inns."34
  The policy of separating the warriors from the peasantry also had a
  32 Wakita, "Kinsei toshi no kensetsu to gosho."
  33 "Haseba-ke monjo" in Miyagawa, Taiko kenchi ran, vol. 3, p. 326.
  34 See Ogyu Sorai's "Seidan," in Yoshikawa Kojiro and Maruyama Masao, eds., Ogyu Sorai,
  vol. 36 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973), p. 295.
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  122 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  significant impact on the shape of early modern society. Although
  many bushi continued to be granted a fief of record even after an
  extensive round of cadastral surveys in the early seventeenth century,
  they now had no permanent home village, no ancestral base to which
  they could return if they became "masterless samurai" (roniri). More-
  over, the samurai now had no claims to landed property, a condition
  that transformed the lord-retainer relationship. In the medieval pe-
  riod, the bushi lived in the villages as proprietors, and the warriors
  and peasants lived together communally, cooperating in the cultivation
  of fields, the construction of irrigation facilities, and the celebration of
  festivals. Of course, status differences intruded between the peasants
  and warriors, but these had been overshadowed by the deep, personal
  relationships that bound them together. However, in the early modern
  period, only the peasants lived in the villages. The village had become
  the peasant's possession, and proprietary landholding was no longer
  vested in individual samurai.
  The policy of separating warriors and peasants was designed to
  ensure better control over the bushi while still providing a means of
  governing the peasantry. When the daimyo's vassal retainers lived in
  villages as minor proprietors, they were self-reliant and often disre-
  garded the higher authority of their daimyo masters, who feared acts
  of betrayal and perfidy. These rural bushi were also sensitive to the
  pressures from the peasantry, and, although most bushi had relatives
  and tenants in the villages, they were clearly in the rural minority.
  Consequently, in kuni ikki and Ikko ikki, village-based retainers fre-
  quently allied with the peasants. The Honganji sect often served as the
  nucleus for this kind of confederation. To cite a concrete example,
  when a large-scale tsuchi ikki occurred in 1465, the shogunate, fearing
  that its own direct retainers might go over to the side of the farmers,
  compelled the protesters to assemble in the capital.35 By doing this,
  the shogunate strengthened its own position and prevented the rural
  federation of its rivals. Confronted with these circumstances, the pol-
  icy of separating peasant from warrior took on a special meaning and
  can be seen as one step toward severing the connection between bushi
  and peasant power.
  Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his successors also implemented measures
  to entice merchants and artisans to live in their cities. Especially impor-
  tant was the granting of tax exemptions to those who moved into the
  35 See "Toji monjo," in Dai Nihon komonjo, Toji monjo, vol. 6 (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku
  shuppankai, 1959), pp. 363-71.
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  THE EARLY MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM 
  123
  castle towns. One goal of the daimyo was to build up their own eco-
  nomic base, but they also used this policy as a political tool for main-
  taining the economic distinctions between city and peasant village.
  The early modern daimyo continued to place heavy tax obligations on
  the peasantry, while granting special privileges to the cities. This prac-
  tice apparently did induce large numbers to migrate to the cities.36
  Another special characteristic of the early modern social order was
  the forced imposition of the status system (mibun-sei) on the popula-
  tion. Of course, status distinctions had existed in the medieval period,
  but during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the shogun
  and daimyo sought new ways to bring about a more complete separa-
  tion of peasant from warrior and peasant from merchant. Usually the
  early modern status system is seen as being fourfold, consisting of
  warrior, peasant, merchant, and artisan statuses. Conceptually, how-
  ever, divisions can also be drawn between warrior-proprietor, peasant,
  and townsperson, with various outcast categories such as eta and hinin
  existing outside the specified status groups.
  The daimyo enforced these distinctions in several ways. For exam-
  ple, the legal system was based on status considerations, and separate
  legal codes were issued for each status group. Bushi carried two
  swords and used surnames, but peasants, townspeople, and outcasts
  had neither. Marriage between members of different status groups,
  particularly between warriors and the ruled status groups, or with
  outcasts, was strictly prohibited.37
  Status groups were also separated spatially according to occupation:
  The bushi, merchants, and artisans lived in cities, and the peasants
  lived in villages. Some outcast subcommunities were also located in
  peasant villages, but administratively they were treated as separate,
  detached "branch villages" and could not participate in the selection of
  village officials such as the headmen or elders. Within most castle
  towns, separately defined areas were created for warriors, townspeo-
  ple, temples, and outcasts, as well as for "pleasure quarters" of
  theaters and houses of prostitution (yukaku). Urban outcast communi-
  ties were subordinate to urban administrative associations, but they
  were typically located on the outskirts of the city, on land of very poor
  quality.38 Furthermore, pleasure quarters, such as the Yoshiwara in
  36 See Wakita, Kinsei hokensei seiritsu shiron, chap. 3.
  37 There were ways of bypassing this, such as Che so-called practice of adopting daughters. But
  if the woman was of eta status, and this was later discovered, she would be divorced and
  punished.
  38 For more details of outcast subcommunities, see Buraku mondai kenkyujo, ed.,Burakushi no
  kenkyu: zenkindai-hen (Kyoto: Buraku mondai kenkyujo shuppanbu, 1978).
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  124 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  Edo, Shimabara in Kyoto, and Shinmachi in Osaka, were confined to
  certain geographically defined areas. Status distinctions tended to be-
  come blurred in these areas - customers were not usually queried at
  the entry gates - and if there were rights or disputes, the government
  did not usually intervene but, rather, let the people settle the issues
  themselves.
  The social distinctions and class separation also became the basis for
  determining the distribution and use of residential land. The bushi,
  peasants, and townspeople each had different claims to land. The
  enfeoffed members of the bushi class held plots of land bestowed by
  the overlord, and consequently, they could not sell or otherwise con-
  vey their holdings. Of course, the majority of the bushi received sti-
  pends and hence had no claims to the land at all. In contrast with this,
  peasants in the early modern period were given certain rights to the
  use of land. In a technical sense, these might be called "tillage rights"
  or "user rights," although in actual practice they amounted to a close
  equivalent to what we would style ownership rights. As we noted,
  townspeople could own houses and use land.
  Fiscal obligations also varied according to status. Peasants were
  assessed the nengu, the annual land tax, as well as corvee. Most daimyo
  extracted various services from merchants and artisans. Chartered mer-
  chants and artisans usually had to pay a service tax in goods of their
  own specialty, and ordinary townspeople were assessed a tax in cash to
  pay for the construction and maintenace of the castle. Outcasts, on the
  other hand, were charged with such duties as keeping up the castle
  grounds, tanning hides, cleaning prisons, and carrying out the punish-
  ment of criminals.
  The changing social conditions also had an impact on the lord-
  retainer relationship. Within the bushi class as a whole, the delegation
  of powers of governance from the shogun to the various daimyo then
  down through the lower elements of the bushi class was based on
  feudalistic practices. The basic principles of this relationship between
  lord and vassal - ideals of loyalty, service, and obligation - had pene-
  trated the consciousness of the bushi during the medieval period. In
  the early modern period, these older practices became intertwined
  with more abstract notions of centralized state authority, as expressed
  in concepts such as kogi, or a public authority, a term that daimyo
  began to use from the late sixteenth century. The shift toward the
  more abstract conceptualization of power tended to put more authority
  into the hands of the daimyo. This contrasted with relationships be-
  tween lord and master that had existed during Nobunaga's regime,
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  CONCLUSIONS 
  125
  which, despite Nobunaga's own despotic character, were based on
  mutual consent and agreement. The customary practice at that time
  was to decide such matters as military service requirements through
  joint discussions, without contracting a written agreement. By the
  early modern period, on the other hand, military service requirements
  were generally related to fief size, indicating that the master enjoyed
  more authority over his followers and that his authority was defined in
  more abstract and universal terms.
  The specific characteristics of the early modern social system were
  also closely associated with the requirements of the commercial econ-
  omy. It is well known that after the social structure assumed final
  form, the bushi scorned commerce and left the management of the
  economy to those who were skilled at it. However, while the system
  was taking shape, the bushi proved to be financial experts. Indeed,
  Nobunaga used the symbol of the eiraku coin in his flag design.
  Toyotomi Hideyoshi devised brilliant fiscal policies, and he was
  known "to be parsimonious with his calculations on the abacus." This
  concern with precision in fiscal matters was not prompted by greed
  but reflected Hideyoshi's great need for revenues for warfare and
  construction projects. Hideyoshi further showed his fiscal acumen
  when he specified on the fief inventories sent to the Satake and
  Shimazu daimyo the portion of the holdings that should be adminis-
  tered directly by the daimyo and the portion that should be assigned as
  retainers' fiefs. Concerning the peasantry, his decision to collect as
  land tax two-thirds of what they grew was deliberately calculated to
  keep them at the far edge of existence. Another example of Hide-
  yoshi's fiscal skill is seen in his manipulation of rice prices in order to
  acquire that grain for consumption in his home base in Kinai and for
  use in the Korean invasion attempts.
  CONCLUSIONS
  Japan's early modern society had a clear influence on its modern devel-
  opment. To discuss these in detail would be beyond the scope of this
  essay, but we can make several general observations. First, although
  the early modern sociopolitical structure can be considered feudal, it
  was different from that of the medieval period. For this reason, the
  transition to a modern state was not a gradual process that took place in
  installments but, rather, became possible only with the revolutionary
  upheaval of the Meiji Restoration. One important reason for this was
  the nature of the governing powers held by the shogun and daimyo, of
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  126 
  CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION
  which the military, despotic authority of the bushi was an essential
  component. But more than anything else, it was the bakuhan system
  supported by the kokudaka fief system that characterized bushi rule
  under the Edo shogunate. The system's decentralized feudalistic na-
  ture is seen in the way the country was governed. The basic right to
  possess proprietary holdings (ryoyukeri) did not change, nor did it move
  into the hands of merchants and artisans. Thus it required a sudden,
  abrupt upheaval for such power to be transferred from shogun to em-
  peror and for the domains to be abolished and replaced by prefectures.
  Having said this, however, we also should observe that the Meiji
  Restoration and the subsequent elimination of the feudal proprietors
  grew out of certain developments in the early modern period, such as
  the emergence of the fief system and the formulation of abstract con-
  cepts of state authority. Clearly, during the Edo period, individual
  independence was weakened because of the continuing feudalistic
  master-subject relationships and the spread of Bushido, with its em-
  phasis on selfless devotion. The self-governing powers of cities and
  villages, along with the commercial guilds, were suppressed by the
  daimyo, and the early modern family system, which also permitted
  few individual freedoms, was incorporated into the Meiji civil code,
  both events having a pervasive influence on modern Japan. The early
  modern status system was inflexible and was not changed until the
  equality of classes was decreed following the Meiji Restoration. Even
  after that, the emperor system (tenno-sei) and the peerage system were
  established, and despite the so-called abolition of classes, the outcasts
  have continued to the present day to be subject to cruel forms of
  discrimination. Nonetheless, despite the suffering of so many under
  the status system, the Meiji period laws calling for class equality had
  some success. In particular they served to stimulate and concentrate
  the energies of the new nation's citizenry. The absorption of these
  energies, especially into the bureaucracy and the military, was one
  reason for Japan's "successful" modernization.
  The kokudaka system guaranteed that the economic policies of sho-
  gun and daimyo would maintain their vitality. The primary problem
  confronting the system was the need to cope with the growth of a
  commercial economy. Although most of the daimyo's economic poli-
  cies were poorly designed, several large domains managed successful
  economies during the late Tokugawa period. Within the shogunate
  and many individual domains, there also emerged skillful economic
  managers. On the other hand, a high level of cultural development,
  including education, was necessary for the accomplishments of the
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  CONCLUSIONS 
  127
  modern period. In this sense, the standards of sixteenth-century Japan
  had been very high, and the early modern social order only hindered
  development.
  As is well known, the Edo period peasantry suffered from extreme
  poverty. Although they had secure rights of possession that were later
  converted into a modern form of ownership rights, the land reform of
  the early modern period also meant that the peasantry continued to be
  saddled with major burdens, and as capitalism developed, so too did
  landlordism. The chonin (townsmen) participated in the economy and,
  to some extent, were able to accumulate commercial capital. However,
  entrepreneurship and the spirit of enterprise were weak, and the direc-
  tion of commercial development was easily molded by the state and the
  bureaucracy. This was the system's major defect. These are some of
  the points that emerge from looking at modernization from the stand-
  point of early modern society. At the very least, the Edo period had a
  distinctive character that clearly influenced modern Japan.
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  CHAPTER 4
  THE BAKUHAN 
  SYSTEM
  The political structure established by the Tokugawa house in the early
  years of the seventeenth century is now commonly referred to as the
  bakuhan system (bakuhan taisei). This term, coined by modern Japa-
  nese historians, recognizes the fact that under the Edo bakufu, or
  shogunate, government organization was the result of the final matura-
  tion of the institutions of shogunal rule at the national level and of
  daimyo rule at the local level.1 Although Tokugawa Ieyasu became
  shogun in 1603, it was not until the years of the dynasty's third sho-
  gun, Iemitsu, that the Edo bakufu reached its stable form, that is, not
  until the 1630 and 1640s. And it took another several decades before
  the han, or daimyo domains, completed their evolution as units of
  local governance.2 Scholars now agree, however, that most of the insti-
  tutional components of the bakuhan system had made their initial
  appearance under the first two of the "three great unifiers," Oda
  Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
  This chapter will trace the formation and the evolution of the
  bakuhan structure of government from the middle of the sixteenth
  century to the end of the eighteenth century. Because the following
  chapters will treat separately the daimyo domains as units of local
  administration, the primary emphasis of this chapter will be the Edo
  shogunate and the nationwide aspects of the bakuhan system. As noted
  in the introduction to this volume, historians increasingly identify the
  broader dimensions of shogunal rule by using the concept of kokka
  (nation or state) to replace taisei (system), thus coining the expression
  1 The use of the term bakuhan is essentially a post-World War II phenomenon, although the
  pioneers in this field had begun to conceive of Edo government as a dyarchy by the late
  1930s. See Ito Tasaburo, "Bakuhan taisei ron," in Shin Nihonshi koza (Tokyo: Chuo
  koronsha, 1947); and Nakamura Kichiji, Nihon hokensei saihenseishi (Tokyo: Mikasa shobo,
  1940).
  2 The new interest in the daimyo domain was also led by the two scholars cited in footnote 1.
  After the war the field was introduced by Fujino Tamotsu, in his Bakuhan taiseishi no kenkyu
  (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1961); and by Kanai Madoka, Hansei (Tokyo: Shinbundo,
  1962). Harold Bolitho describes in greater detail the emergence of the han studies field in
  Chapter 5 in this volume.
  128
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  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM 
  129
  bakuhansei-kokka (the bakuhan state).3 Though not explicitly adopting
  this usage, this chapter will treat the Edo shogunate as a total national
  polity, not simply as a narrowly defined political system.
  The political and social institutions that underlay the bakuhan polity
  had their origins in the "unification movement" of the last half of the
  sixteenth century, especially in the great feats of military consolidation
  and social engineering achieved by Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the last
  two decades of the century.4 Although neither Nobunaga nor Hide-
  yoshi became shogun, they succeeded in advancing to absolute propor-
  tions the capacity to rule over the daimyo and other political bodies
  that comprised the Japanese nation. In the parlance of the day they
  succeeded in winning the tenka (the realm) and serving as its kogi (its
  ruling authority).5 At the same time however, the daimyo enhanced
  their own powers of private control over their local domains (their
  kokka in a limited local sense), borrowing support from the very cen-
  tral authority that sought to constrain them. The most significant
  feature of the resulting national polity was that unification was carried
  only so far. The daimyo domains, though giving up a portion of their
  hard-won autonomy, managed to survive as part of the system.6
  Tokugawa Ieyasu and his immediate successors brought to its fullest
  development the bakufu system of rule under a military hegemon. But
  despite the preponderance of military power that the Tokugawa sho-
  guns held, their legal status was not qualitatively different from that of
  the fifteenth-century Muromachi shoguns. On the other hand, the
  powers exercised by the daimyo within their domains had expanded
  tremendously since the time of the Muromachi military governors, the
  shugo daimyo. In fact it was probably in the han that the machinery of
  centralized bureaucratic administration proceeded the farthest. In
  many instances the Edo shogunate based its governing practices on
  3 See the treatment of this approach to Japanese political history by Sasaki Junnosuke in
  "Bakuhansei kokka ron," in Araki Moriaki et al., comps., Taikei Nihon kokka shi (kinsei 3)
  (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1975).
  4 For a recent overview in English of Hideyoshi's social policies, see Bernard Susser, "The
  Toyotomi Regime and the Daimyo," in Jeffrey P. Mass and William B. Hauser, eds., The
  Bakufu in Japanese History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985), pp. 128-52.
  For greater detail, see Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
  sity Press, 1982).
  5 A penetrating treatment of these terms appears in Chapter 2 in this volume. For the early
  use of these terms by the large regional daimyo of the sixteenth century, see Shizuo
  Katsumata, with Martin Collcutt, "The Development of Sengoku Law," in John Whitney
  Hall, Keiji Nagahara and Kozo Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa: Political Consolida-
  tion and Economic Growth, 1500-1650 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981),
  pp. 119-24.
  6 The previously cited symposium by Mass and Hauser on bakufu rule is a pioneer effort to
  analyze the evolution of military government in historical-structural terms.
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  130 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  techniques adopted from times when the head of the Tokugawa line
  was simply one of many daimyo competing for local supremacy in
  central Japan. In analyzing the creation of the Edo bakufu, then, we
  must deal with two separate but interrelated strands of institutional
  development. And it is this that is suggested by the term bakuhan.
  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE AND ITS RISE TO POWER
  The story of the rise of the Tokugawa family to become the foremost
  military house of Japan follows a pattern common among a whole class
  of active regional military families who competed for local dominion
  during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.7 The stages of growth,
  from local estate manager (jito) to small independent military lord
  (kunishu), to minor regional overlord (daimyo), and then to the status
  of major regional hegemon were typical of the day. As of the 1550s,
  there were daimyo leaders in almost every region of Japan poised to
  contest the national tenka. Why Ieyasu rather than another of his peers
  managed to gain the prize, rested, no doubt, on his native ability and
  on such unpredictable factors as the length of his life (he lived to be
  seventy-three), his ability to father capable sons (he had eleven), and
  the location of his original power base. The Mikawa-Owari region was
  clearly one of the more favorable locations from which to take and hold
  the imperial capital. It was the starting point for all three of the
  unifiers.
  The Tokugawa house genealogy as officially adopted by Ieyasu in
  1600 claimed descent from the most prestigious of military lineages,
  the Seiwa Genji, through the branch line begun by Nitta Yoshishige
  (1135-1202). The originator of the Nitta line took his name from the
  locality in the province of Kozuke to which he was first assigned as
  estate manager. In the generations that followed, the Nitta line
  branched, giving rise to numerous sublines, each of which followed
  the custom of adopting the name of its residential base as its identify-
  ing surname. One such branch took the name Tokugawa from the
  village of that name in the Nitta district of Kozuke. Eight generations
  later the head of this Tokugawa family is presumed to have left
  Kozuke and established himself as the adoptive head of the Matsu-
  7 Among the large number of narrative histories on the rise of the Tokugawa house, I have relied
  on Tsuji Tatsuya's Edo kaifu, vol. 4 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Chud koronsha, 1966); and
  Kitajima Masamoto, Edo bakufu, vol. 16 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975). An
  outstanding scholarly analysis of the establishment of the Tokugawa hegemony can be found in
  the work of Kitajima Masamoto, notably his Edo bakufu no kenryoku kozo (Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1964).
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
  131
  daira family, chiefs of a village bearing the same name in neighboring
  Mikawa Province. According to the official genealogy, Ieyasu was the
  ninth head of this Matsudaira line, and it was he who in 1566 peti-
  tioned the Kyoto court to recognize a change of surname to Tokugawa.
  See Figure 4.1.
  There are numerous questions about the authenticity of the official
  Tokugawa family descent chart, particularly in the Kozuke years. In
  premodern society, pedigree played an essential role in the establish-
  ment of a family's political status. Descent from noble lineage,
  whether or not supported by authentic documentation, was commonly
  claimed by local members of the provincial warrior aristocracy. When
  such families reached national importance, the need to prove genealogi-
  cal correctness became critical. In Ieyasu's own case, not only did he
  change his surname, he also for a time kept two descent charts, thus
  keeping open a choice of two pedigrees, one tied to the Fujiwara (the
  foremost court family) and the other to the Minamoto (one of the
  primary military lineages). His decision to settle for the Minamoto was
  taken in the wake of his victory at Sekigahara in 1600, when the
  possibility of becoming shogun seemed within his grasp.
  Whether the Kozuke years recorded in the official genealogy are to
  be taken seriously is not of great consequence. In fact, most recent
  studies of the Tokugawa house begin with the Mikawa years, starting
  roughly from the middle of the fifteenth century. Only then do the
  sources permit a reasonably reliable account. We begin, then, at a time
  in Japanese history when the old order that had been maintained by
  the Muromachi shoguns and their provincial agents, the shugo daimyo,
  was being challenged. A new generation of provincial military lords
  was on the rise. These Sengoku daimyo, as they have been called, built
  up tightly knit housebands of increasing size and military effective-
  ness. The strength of these organizations lay in the closeness of the
  lord-vassal relationships that held the housebands together. Other
  than the steady increase in the size of these organizations, the most
  visible index of the growth of these new organizations could be seen in
  the nature of their military establishments.
  Village samurai were distinguished from common cultivators by
  their possession of proprietary lordships and residences protected by
  rudimentary moats and earthen embankments. As fighting became
  more technologically advanced, these local warrior families took to
  building small fortifications, usually on the ridges of nearby hills, in
  which the local chief and his band of followers could take shelter and
  hold off predators. During the sixteenth century these little "hill cas-
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  Matsudaira Hirotada
  (1526-49)
  Tokugawa I eyasu
  (1543-1616)
  (r. 1603-5)
  T
  Hidetada
  (1574-1632)
  (r. 1605-23)
  letsugu
  (1709-16)
  (r. 1713-16)
  Figure 4.1 Genealogy of the Tokugawa family. The fifteen shogun are
  enclosed in rectangles; heads of the three successor houses (gosanke), in
  circles; heads of the three lords lines {gosankyo), in diamonds. Fathers are
  connected to actual sons by solid lines, to adopted sons by dashed lines.
  (Based on Tokushi soran, Nihonshi soran, and Encyclopedia of Japan.)
  I
  Matsudaira
  Yorishige
  (1622-95)
  Yoritoyo
  (1680-1735)
  Ienari
  (1773-1841)
  (r. 1787-1837)
  12
  13
  Ieyoshi
  (1793-1853)
  (r. 1837-53)
  Nariyori
  (1801-?)
  Iesada
  (1824-58)
  (r. 1853-58)
  14 Iemochi
  (1846-66)
  (r. 1858-66)
  Yorifusa
  1(1603-1661)]
  (MITO)
  Mitsukuni
  (1628-70)
  Tsunaeda
  (1655-1718)
  Munetaka
  (1705-30)
  I
  Munemoto
  (1728-66)
  I
  Harumori
  (1751-1805)
  I
  Harutoshi
  (1773-1816)
  I
  Nariaki
  (1800-1860)
  I
  15 Yoshinobu
  (1837-1913)
  (r. 1866-7)
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
  133
  ties" proliferated throughout the country. In Mikawa we can trace the
  establishment of the Matsudaira branch families by noting the appear-
  ance of numerous hilltop forts above the valleys of the Yahagi River
  and its upper tributaries. The village of Matsudaira was itself on the
  Asuke River some distance above its confluence with the Yahagi. The
  first two Matsudaira generations were confined to this mountainous
  environment, but the third chief, Nobumitsu (P-I488) greatly ex-
  panded the family's reach, pushing into the middle plain of Mikawa
  and occupying the castle of Anjo in 1471.
  For roughly fifty years the Matsudaira based themselves at Anjo.
  But its location to the west and south of Matsudaira village made it
  hard to hold, particularly in the face of the growing power of the Oda
  establishment to the west in Owari Province. In 1524 the family chief
  Kiyoyasu (1511-35) consolidated his position by pulling back to the
  east of the Yahagi river, adopting the castle of Okazaki as his headquar-
  ters. This castle was to serve the Matsudaira on and off until Ieyasu's
  time. Okazaki was well placed for purposes of military defense and
  economic growth, and by the 1550s the family had asserted itself over
  several districts covering roughly the interior one-third of Mikawa
  Province.8
  The Matsudaira were not yet in a position to stand on their own.
  Historically they existed, as did others in this area, within a regional
  power structure built around the Imagawa house, whose heads were
  military governors (shugo) of Suruga, and at times of Mikawa and
  Totomi as well. As a vassal of the Imagawa, the Matsudaira aspired to
  the vice-governorship of Mikawa. But they were hard pressed by the
  head of the Oda house who, as vice-governor of Owari, was actively
  pushing beyond its provincial borders. During the 1550s the Matsu-
  daira household split over whether to realign themselves toward the
  Oda. The move to Okazaki Castle was an implicit decision to continue
  to look toward the east and the Imagawa. But Kiyoyasu was killed in
  1535 by one of his own men over this issue, and when his successor
  Hirotada (1526-49) (Ieyasu's father) acknowledged the Imagawa over-
  lordship, a faction of the Matsudaira leadership broke off and joined
  the Oda. As a child Ieyasu was a victim of these unsettled circum-
  stances. From age six to fourteen he was kept as a hostage first by the
  Oda and then by the Imagawa. Technically he had inherited the family
  headship following Hirotada's death in 1549. But Okazaki was occu-
  8 The Okazaki years are thoroughly covered in the documentary history published by Okazaki
  City: Shibata Akimasa, ed., Tokugawa Ieyasu to sono shut, 3 vols. (Okazaki shi: Okazaki
  shiyakusho, 1926).
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  134 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  pied by Imagawa officers. It was only in 1556 that Ieyasu was able to
  return to Okazaki as head of the Matsudaira main line.
  Ieyasu found the Matsudaira houseband in disarray. On top of this,
  between 1556 and 1559 he was constantly in the field fighting at the
  behest of his overlord, Imagawa Yoshimoto (1519-60). Nevertheless,
  he did what he could to repair the damage done to the houseband
  during the years of internal dissension, thereby strengthening the
  bonds between himself and the numerous cadet houses and several
  classes of house vassals.
  The Tokai years
  By the middle of the sixteenth century, the temptation to contest for
  national overlordship was becoming increasingly seductive to some of
  the more powerful daimyo. Imagawa Yoshimoto was one of the first to
  make the attempt. But when in 1560 he led an army of some 25,000
  men across Mikawa on his way to the capital to gain legitimacy from
  the emperor, his army was decisively defeated, and he himself was
  killed by a greatly inferior force under the command of Oda Nobu-
  naga. Yoshimoto's death released Ieyasu from his bond to the Imagawa
  house. As a sign, he adopted the given name Ieyasu at this time. (It
  had been Motoyasu, the "Moto," of couse, having come from Ima-
  gawa Yoshimoto.) Nobunaga was now clearly the coming power in the
  area, and Ieyasu lost little time in entering into a formal alliance with
  him.
  Thus began a new chapter in the evolution of the Matsudaira
  house.9 Using Okazaki as his central castle and protected on his west-
  ern flank by Nobunaga, Ieyasu began to press eastward at the expense
  of the now-weakened Imagawa of Totomi and the still-powerful
  Takeda in Suruga. By 1565 he had succeeded in placing his men in the
  key castles of Mikawa. In other words, Mikawa was safely his. Sym-
  bolic of his new sense of confidence, in 1566 he petitioned the court to
  have his surname changed to Tokugawa, leaving the name Matsudaira
  attached to the principal cadet families and also available for use as an
  honorary "gift name" with which Ieyasu could reward daimyo who
  became his allies. Along with official recognition of his change of
  surname, Ieyasu received appointment to the now largely honorary
  title of governor of Mikawa and to the fourth court rank junior grade.
  9 The map of the Matsudaira house's castle holdings in Mikawa Province printed in Kitajima,
  Kenryoku kozo, p. 7, reveals the close relationship of the Matsudaira house to the province's
  physical configuration - hills and rivers.
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
  135
  By such means Ieyasu began to acquire recognition as a member of the
  military aristocracy.
  During the next few years Ieyasu beat into shape the kind of
  houseband and enfeoffment pattern required of a successful daimyo.
  Whereas the Matsudaira chieftains up to this point had relied heavily on
  kinsmen as their main supports in battle and administration, Ieyasu
  adopted the practice of converting even heads of collateral houses into
  dependent hereditary vassals (fudat), thus gaining a firmer grip over his
  senior military commanders. At the same time he enlarged his vassal
  band, particularly at the lower levels, by incorporating into his fighting
  forces large numbers of rural samurai. These he assigned to the com-
  mand of his enfeoffed vassals to form new and expanded military units.
  At yet another level he worked to stabilize the relationship between his
  samurai retainers and the land-cultivating peasantry. As other daimyo
  were doing at this time, Ieyasu began a systematic survey of the land of
  his domain. He also confronted the troublesome issue posed in Mikawa
  by the militant and politically independent Ikko religious communities,
  eventually bringing them around to his support.
  Nobunaga and Ieyasu worked closely together during the next few
  years. Ieyasu's hold on Mikawa protected Nobunaga's advance on
  Kyoto in 1568, whereas the Oda presence in Owari gave Ieyasu the
  freedom to concentrate on his eastern front. By 1570 the Tokugawa
  chief had taken all of Totomi from the Imagawa and had moved his
  castle headquarters to Hamamatsu, a port town in Totomi. Ieyasu now
  began with Nobunaga's help an all-out effort to destroy the Takeda of
  Suruga and Kai. It turned out to be a lengthy operation. Not until
  1582 were the Takeda finally defeated and Ieyasu could receive investi-
  ture of Suruga from Nobunaga.
  By this time Ieyasu had acquired control over all or parts of the five
  provinces of Mikawa, Suruga, Totomi, Kai, and Shinano. These all
  being in the Tokaido circuit, Ieyasu was commonly referred to as "lord
  of five Tokai provinces." He stood among the dozen or so largest
  daimyo of the land, and he was already gaining a reputation for having
  one of the most effective administrative and military organizations in
  the country.
  Nobunaga's assassination in 1582 by Akechi Mitsuhide threw the
  existing power structure into momentary confusion. Ieyasu himself, a
  likely figure to come to the defense of the Nobunaga legacy, was
  caught without his following in the port city of Sakai. He thus was
  forced to make his way to Okazaki in secret. Before he could gain full
  command of his forces for a possible military move, Hideyoshi had
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  I36 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  already killed Akechi and was in the process of winning over the Oda
  coalition. Ieyasu had been outmaneuvered, and he realized it. But he
  also knew that it was not politically wise to give in too precipitously to
  Hideyoshi's takeover.
  Over the next several years Ieyasu worked off the formal obligations
  of his oath of allegiance to Nobunaga by taking up the cause of
  Nobunaga's second son Nobukatsu (1558-1630) against Hideyoshi.
  This involved him in some actual tests of strength with Hideyoshi. In
  1589, Ieyasu invaded Toyotomi territory in Owari, winning a limited
  engagement at Nagakute. But his forces fought to a stalemate at
  Komaki. Although these at the time seemed to be minor engagements,
  in retrospect it is clear that they constituted something of a turning
  point. Militarily they instilled in each man a respect for the other.
  Modern historians have suggested that this was Ieyasu's first "political
  war," one that he shrewdly ended by agreeing, for political effect, to a
  formal compact of submission with Hideyoshi. Obviously Hideyoshi
  also found it expedient not to push to the limit. The agreement was
  consummated in 1586 by Ieyasu's formal visit of submission to Hide-
  yoshi at Osaka Castle.10 Ieyasu's second son was given to Hideyoshi for
  adoption; one of Hideyoshi's sisters was given in marriage to Ieyasu;
  and for a period Hideyoshi's mother was kept as a hostage in Ieyasu's
  household. At the time these exchanges were being negotiated, Ieyasu
  moved his castle headquarters farther to the east at Sumpu.
  From 1586 to Hideyoshi's death in 1598, Ieyasu served as a willing
  ally. Having stood his own in battle against Hideyoshi, he was treated
  with respect and caution by the latter. As a consequence he was able to
  avoid depleting his own military resources by fighting Hideyoshi's
  battles. While Hideyoshi was sending gigantic armies into Shikoku
  and Kyushu to carry his conquest into western and southern Japan,
  Ieyasu managed to stay in the east expanding his holdings, improving
  his military capacity, and perfecting his administrative machinery. He
  also greatly enlarged his castle at Sumpu, to which he gathered large
  bodies of retainers and merchant and service personnel. It was during
  these same years that he carried forward the systematic survey of
  cultivated land, now definitely adopting the method preferred by
  Hideyoshi that stressed payment of the annual land tax in rice. The
  survey became the base on which an effective system of material extrac-
  tion was built and the recruitment of military manpower from both
  samurai and peasants was standardized.
  10 Tsuji, Edo kaifu, pp. 43-50.
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
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  By J589, after the subjugation of Kyushu, the only major daimyo
  holdouts requiring Hideyoshi's attention were the Hojo of the Kanto
  and the Date, Gamo, Tsugaru, and others in the far north. Hideyoshi
  attempted to win over the Hojo by using Ieyasu as a go-between.
  Ieyasu had previously given his daughter in marriage to Hojo Ujinao
  (1562-92). But unlike the daimyo of Shikoku and Kyushu, Ujinao
  refused to capitulate. Hideyoshi prepared for battle. This time Ieyasu
  was obliged to assist Hideyoshi in the attack on Odawara Castle, the
  headquarters of the great Hojo domain that included the six Kanto
  provinces of Izu, Sagami, Musashi, Shimosa, Kazusa, and Awa. In the
  investment, Ieyasu took the initiative, leading an army of some thirty
  thousand men in six divisions. The Hojo held out for some three
  months, but the end was inevitable. Odawara Castle surrendered in
  the summer of 1590. Before this the Date and other daimyo to the
  north sought out Hideyoshi's camp and quickly pledged their alle-
  giance. Hideyoshi had pacified the realm. All daimyo were now his
  vassals, and he could claim to be the chief of the military estate (buke
  no toryo).
  The early Kanto years
  Following the Hojo surrender, Hideyoshi ordered Ieyasu to move out
  of his home Tokai provinces and to occupy the domain vacated by the
  Hojo." The assignment was on the surface an advancement. Posses-
  sion of six of eight Kanto provinces made Ieyasu's holdings the largest
  in the land, larger in fact than Hideyoshi's. But the transfer moved
  Ieyasu farther from the center of political affairs, and it uprooted him
  and his followers from the areas where their historic roots were deep-
  est and most secure. The move thus came as a shock to Ieyasu's senior
  vassals, who saw it as tantamount to exile.
  The rapidity with which Ieyasu accomplished the Kanto transfer is
  amazing. Literally thousands of families had to pick up their entire
  households and equipment and find new houses in unfamiliar terri-
  tory. And this had to be done with great expedition. Ieyasu received
  Hideyoshi's formal command on the thirteenth day of the seventh
  month. He had had some prior warning dating back to the fourth
  month and hence had been able to make some advance plans." He
  entered the small castle of Edo, his new headquarters, by the first of
  11 Kitajima, Kenryoku kozo, pp. i89ff.
  12 Kitajima, Kenryoku kozo, p. 190; and Kitajima, Edo bakufu, pp. 132ft.
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  138 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  the eighth month. This was the official completion of his move, al-
  though it took nearly a year longer to settle in. Just as rapidly,
  Hideyoshi filled the castles given up by Ieyasu in the Tokai provinces
  with his own trusted vassals.
  The transfer into the Kanto was a major turning point in the Toku-
  gawa fortunes, with results that were in many ways unanticipated, at
  least by Hideyoshi. The move out of the ancestral Mikawa homeland
  was bound to break the long-established ties of command among
  Ieyasu's vassal band, the lower village samurai, and the peasantry,
  thereby forcing Ieyasu to establish a network of command over an
  unfamiliar base.
  There is some evidence that Hideyoshi expected the village samurai
  of the Kanto to give Ieyasu a difficult time. But Ieyasu's earlier experi-
  ence in handling territories obtained by conquest - Kai Province won
  from Takeda was a good example - proved critical in the Kanto.
  Rather than displace the rural samurai and even some enfeoffed vassals
  left behind by the Hojo, Ieyasu used them as best he could, recogniz-
  ing the status they had held under the Hojo and using them as rural
  intendants or recruiting them into his and his retainers' vassal bonds.
  For all the difficulties that attended the transfer, possession of the
  Kanto - the historic homeland of the bushi class - provided Ieyasu
  with what was to prove the ideal base from which to win the national
  hegemony. Moreover, from the point of view of institutional develop-
  ment, the major difference between the domain structure of the
  daimyo of the Sengoku era and those of the Edo era was visible in the
  greater degree to which the latter had reduced the independence of
  their vassals. During the Sengoku era most bushi remained in the
  countryside living off their hereditary landholdings. This was true
  even for the high-ranking military officers with personal fiefs and even
  castles. Although independent enfeoffment meant that the daimyo
  overlord was less burdened by the need to provide shelter and mainte-
  nance for these members of his vassal band, he was at a disadvantage
  when it came to asserting his authority over them. The so-called
  Sengoku daimyo was lord of a decentralized domain made up of a
  patchwork of daimyo demesne and vassal fiefs. The daimyo of the
  seventeenth century had drawn their housemen, down to a fairly low
  level, away from their fiefs, thereby making them dependent on sti-
  pends paid out of the daimyo's granaries.13 This condition is seen by
  13 This practice distinguishes the possession of a land fief (chigyo-chi) from the rice stipend
  (horoku). See Kanai, Hansei, pp. 38-43.
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
  139
  some scholars as indicative of the degree to which daimyo achieved the
  ultimate Edo period norm in sociopolitical evolution. Moreover it is
  apparent that in those parts of Japan where either the daimyo or the
  rural samurai, or both, had remained in place for several generations,
  daimyo authority over houseband vassals was harder to achieve.
  "Daimyo absolutism," as the capacity to exact domainwide compli-
  ance with directives from the castle headquarters has been called,
  flourished best where the private tie between the daimyo's houseband
  and the peasantry - in other words, the jizamurai system - had been
  completely destroyed.14 The resulting structure was one in which the
  samurai had been drawn into the daimyo's castle headquarters and the
  peasantry had been placed under an impersonal field administration
  controlled from the central castle. There was thus a hidden advantage
  for Ieyasu in the forced transfer to the Kanto, for it obliged him to
  reorganize from scratch the relationship of his vassal band to the
  peasantry. The domain transfer was an experience that nearly all the
  daimyo who made the transition into the Edo period were to encounter
  at least once. One could say that it was almost a precondition for a
  successful transition into the bakuhan era.
  Possession of the Kanto made Ieyasu lord of the largest domain in
  the country, well over twice the size of his Tokai holdings. There is no
  accurate record of the total productive base of Ieyasu's Tokai domain,
  but it is possible to get a general idea by extrapolation from the hold-
  ings of the daimyo who were placed in the territory vacated by Ieyasu
  in 1590. These add up to just over i million koku.15 The extent of the
  Kanto domain taken over from the Ho jo is also not precisely known
  because of the complexity of the transfer and the fact that different
  methods of calculation were used at the time. In gross terms, however,
  the total was in the neighborhood of 2.5 million to 3.0 million koku.
  The task of administering and defending this greatly expanded terri-
  tory meant that Ieyasu had either to delegate more authority to officers
  of his field administration or to expand his military and administrative
  personnel. He chose the latter method, relying on the services of both
  old and newly enrolled vassals. He, of course, took with him as many
  as possible of his own housemen. But he was still shorthanded and had
  to adopt into his service numerous samurai who had been left behind
  14 For an analysis of the evolution of the "mature" han in terms of the progressive withdrawal of
  the samurai from their land fiefs, see Junnosuke Sasaki, with Ronald P. Toby, "The Changing
  Rationale of Daimyo Control in the Emergence of the Bakuhan State," in Hall, Nagahara,
  and Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, pp. 271-94.
  15 Nakamura Kichiji, Tokugawa, p. m .
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  140 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  by the Hojo or who had been cast adrift in other provinces by the
  fortunes of war.16
  As a master plan for his new domain, Ieyasu adopted Edo as his
  capital and distributed his retainers around Edo according to certain
  guidelines. Lands directly held by the head of the Tokugawa house as
  granary lands (kurairi-chi or goryo, later tenryo) were located close to
  Edo; small fief holders were placed not more than a single night's
  stopover away from Edo; and holders of large domains were placed at
  a greater distance from the center. These last were, for the most part,
  set out as castle holders and were situated with an eye to strategic
  location.
  Ieyasu put the actual task of fief assignment into the hands of a team
  of officers with experience in land-tax administration. The team was
  under the supervision of Sakakibara Yasumasa (1548-1606), the first
  among his daimyo-class retainers and shortly to occupy the castle of
  Tatebayashi. The transition team worked quickly and effectively. It set
  aside lands with a total assessed value of roughly one million koku (the
  new standard unit of land assessment based on assessed rice produc-
  tion) for Ieyasu's private granary land. This, being about 39 percent of
  the total, was considerably more than the Hojo chief had held. Gra-
  nary land was placed under the administration of Ina Tadatsugu
  (1550-161 o) and a group of subordinate land stewards. The latter
  were drawn in large part from personnel who remained in their ances-
  tral villages and who had previously served the Takeda, Imagawa, or
  Hojo. They were selected for their familiarity with the area.
  The remaining territory was divided among Ieyasu's enfeoffed vas-
  sals. Of these, thirty-eight were assigned holdings of from 10,000 to
  120,000 koku. This meant that they were of daimyo size and function,
  but they were not considered daimyo because they were rear vassals in
  the eyes of the national overlord. All together, this group held about 1
  million koku. Thirty-two retainers holding from 2,000 to 5,000 koku
  accounted for another 142,000 koku, and several hundred lesser
  housemen each enfeoffed at less than 2,000 koku took up the remain-
  ing 426,000 koku. The initial fief distribution was carried out on the
  basis of the cadastral records obtained from the Hojo. Because the
  Hojo had retained the old monetary payment system of calculation
  (kandaka), the Tokugawa soon initiated a round of new surveys using
  16 For a more limited example of vassal band organization by accretion, see my "The Ikeda
  House and Its Retainers in Bizen," in John W. Hall and Marius B. Jansen, eds., Studies in the
  Institutional History of Early Modern Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
  1968) pp. 79-88. Also see Tsuji, Edo kaifu, pp. 54-6.
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
  141
  the rice-tax system.17 It would take the next several decades for the
  Tokugawa to convert their Kanto holdings to the specifications of
  Hideyoshi's survey system (Taiko kenchi). Aside from the assignment
  of his military followers, Ieyasu was occupied with a mass of logistical
  problems. He faced the construction of a suitable castle, the draining
  of swampy land for urban construction, the drawing of fresh water
  into the city, and the improvement of port facilities.
  Hideyoshi's last years
  In the eight years from the fall of Odawara to the time of his death in
  1598, Hideyoshi worked energetically, though rather erratically, to
  institutionalize his military power into a national government. Despite
  his domestic military successes, Hideyoshi still felt the need to demon-
  strate his powers of command over his vassal daimyo, even by compel-
  ling them to engage in foreign invasions. This would appear to be his
  main reason for the conquest of China that he attempted in 1590.18
  When the invasion ended in failure, many of the participating daimyo
  had been measurably weakened. And because the invasion was still in
  progress when Hideyoshi died, the fact that several important daimyo
  were out of the country at the time contributed to the political confu-
  sion that followed the hegemon's death.
  Meanwhile Ieyasu, and a number of daimyo whose domains were
  located at great distances from the takeoff point for the invasion of
  Korea, had been spared a debilitating involvement in the venture.
  Ieyasu sent only a token backup force to northern Kyushu in 1592,
  and this did not see action. Ieyasu cleverly took the opportunity to
  expand and strengthen his Edo Castle and carry out military and civil
  administrative programs. Thus at the time of Hideyoshi's death in
  1598, Ieyasu enjoyed a much more secure and powerful position than
  he had when he first acquired the Kanto provinces.
  Although remarkably successful as a military leader, Hideyoshi
  proved less capable as a political organizer. Having beaten the daimyo
  into submission, he had difficulty in devising a governmental frame-
  work that would institutionalize his charismatic overlordship. What
  he eventually did was to graft his military power onto the social pres-
  17 The earlier kandaka system of tax management, calculated in terms of monetary currency, is
  explained in Keiji Nagahara, with Kozo Yamamura, "The Sengoku Daimyo and the Kandaka
  System," in Hall, Nagahara, and Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, pp. 27-63.
  18 The thesis that Hideyoshi used the invasion of Korea to safeguard his legitimacy is developed
  in Chapter 2 in this volume.
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  142 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  tige of the high nobility, legitimizing himself through the title of
  kampaku and by his close proximity to the throne.19
  It was not until Hideyoshi realized that he was near the end of his
  life and that he was putting the fate of his succession on Hideyori
  (1593-1615), a child of five, that he tried to devise a formal system for
  delegating political authority. The task of safeguarding Toyotomi rule,
  he placed in the hands of a board of five regents (go-tairo). They were
  selected from among the most powerful of Hideyoshi's allies: namely,
  Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was to remain in Fushimi Castle as chief pol-
  icymaker and head of the board; Maeda Toshiie (1538-99), who was
  assigned to Osaka Castle as guardian to Hideyori; Mori Terumoto
  (1553-1625); Kobayakawa Takakage (1533-97) (later succeeded by
  Uesegi Kagekatsu); and Ukita Hideie (1573-1655). The more adminis-
  trative aspects of government became the responsibility of a board of
  five commissioners (go-bugyo): Asano Nagamasa (1544-1611), Maeda
  Gen'i (1539-1602), Ishida Mitsunari (1560-1600), Mashita Nagamori
  (1545-1615), and Natsuka Masaie (?-i6oo). All five had served for
  many years as members of Hideyoshi's house administration.
  This arrangement did create a central authority of sorts, able to
  make and carry out national policy in the immediate aftermath of
  Hideyoshi's death, as it did in calling off the Korean campaign. But
  the structure was inherently unstable, and once Hideyoshi passed
  from the scene it began to fall apart. The members of the two boards
  were too involved in their own domestic problems, so that one by one
  they abandoned the capital area on grounds of urgent business. The
  death of Maeda Toshiie in 1599 made Ieyasu by far the most experi-
  enced and powerful among the regents, and when on his own initiative
  he moved into the position in Osaka Castle vacated by Maeda Toshiie,
  he was recognized as the obvious tenka-dono (lord of the realm).
  Winning the tenka
  Ieyasu's path from here to the acquisition of recognized national
  leadership was not easily traversed. There were a number of power-
  ful daimyo heads of large daimyo leagues, located mainly in western
  Japan, who were not ready to accept a takeover by Ieyasu without a
  struggle. There were also a number of lesser daimyo whose entire
  careers had been spent in the service of Hideyoshi and whose for-
  tunes were thereby tied to a continuation of the Toyotomi polity.
  19 See footnote 4.
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  THE TOKUGAWA HOUSE 
  143
  This group consisted of house daimyo, like the five magistrates, and
  Hideyoshi's close field generals like Kato Kiyomasa, Kuroda Naga-
  masa, and Fukushima Masanori. Their center of activity was Osaka
  Castle. But their cause lacked a single charismatic leader who could
  keep them united, and it soon became apparent that major differ-
  ences of opinion divided the so-called administrative {bugyo) group
  from the generals.
  Ieyasu did not openly declare his ambition to succeed Hideyoshi to
  national hegemony, but increasingly he began to act the part. For
  instance, he entered into marriage alliances with other daimyo on his
  own authority. In early 1600, after Maeda Toshiie's death, he moved
  from Fushimi into the western enclosure of Osaka Castle. The numer-
  ous letters he directed to his fellow daimyo at this time were couched
  in statesmanlike terms of concern for the maintenance of peace.20
  When Uesugi Kagekatsu (1555-1623), who had joined the ranks of
  the regents after Maeda Toshiie's death, was reported to be mobilizing
  troops in his domain centered on Aizu, a location that threatened the
  Tokugawa rear, Ieyasu expressed alarm and called for a counter-
  mobilization, ordering nearby daimyo to prepare a move again Aizu.
  By now Ieyasu was issuing orders as though he had full national
  authority, and he was being courted by daimyo members of the
  Toyotomi coalition who began to offer him pledges of support, even
  sending hostages as a safeguard for the future. Among these were
  members of the Toyotomi "generals" group and others like the Ikeda
  (of Bizen) and the Yamanouchi (of Totomi). By the summer of 1600,
  the country divided increasingly between those who saw an advantage
  to supporting the Osaka group based on Hideyori's potential as a
  symbol of national unity and those who saw Ieyasu as the inevitable
  hegemon of the future. The Osaka faction had among its most power-
  ful supporters the Ukita, Chosokabe, Mori, Konishi, Nabeshima, and
  Shimazu, daimyo whose lands were mainly in provinces west of Osaka
  and out of Ieyasu's immediate reach. The supporters who clustered
  around Ieyasu were mainly based in the east.
  Ishida Mitsunari, the prime mover of the western faction, de-
  nounced Ieyasu's move against Aizu as a usurpation of national author-
  ity and called for punitive action. He assembled a large military force
  and began to march toward the Kanto. Ieyasu, having anticipated this
  move, left the Aizu operation to others, notably Date Masamune and
  20 Ieyasu's correspondence is conveniently arranged by Kuwata Tadachika in Tokugawa Ieyasu,
  sono tegami to ningen (Tokyo: Shin jimbutsu oraisha, 1971).
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  144 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  Yuki Hideyasu, and quickly prepared to meet the threat from Osaka.
  As he led his army out of the Kantd, all the daimyo along the way
  opened their castles to him, detaching forces to join the mobilization.
  On the fifteenth day of the ninth month (October 21, 1600), the
  combined armies of the two factions met in battle at Sekigahara. It is
  estimated that the eastern league committed some seventy thousand
  men to the engagement. The western league fielded some eighty thou-
  sand men, but they were poorly positioned and of uncertain reliability.
  Only about half of them went into action. The battle was in doubt
  throughout the morning, but the defection of Kobayakawa turned the
  tide. Victory went to the eastern coalition.
  Ieyasu used the victory at Sekigahara to assert his national authority
  over the military estate and to make drastic changes in the composition
  and placement of the daimyo and their holdings throughout Japan.21
  In the immediate aftermath of the battle, eighty-seven daimyo who
  had opposed Ieyasu were defeated and their lands confiscated. The
  lands of three others were drastically reduced in size. All together, a
  total of 6,221,690 koku were taken from Ieyasu's daimyo opponents.
  Another 1.35 million koku were taken from the Toyotomi house and
  made available for reallocation to other daimyo or for inclusion in
  Ieyasu's personal holdings. Even greater changes were brought about
  by the transfer of forty-three daimyo from one location to another and
  the creation of new daimyo. The authority to invest new daimyo rested
  on Ieyasu's claim to hegemony over the warrior estate. Prior to the
  battle Ieyasu counted among his cadet branch heads and hereditary
  housemen forty whose holdings were of 10,000 koku or more. He was
  now able to set these men out as full-fledged daimyo under his own
  patent. All were given domain increases. Another twenty members of
  his houseband who, as of 1600, held fiefs of less than 10,000 koku were
  raised to daimyo status. Finally, he granted daimyo status to eight rear
  vassals who had distinguished themselves in Ieyasu's eyes.
  All these confiscations, reassignments, and new creations added up
  to the greatest transfer of landholding in Japanese history. As a result,
  the balance of power was heavily tilted in Ieyasu's favor. But it was not
  by any means secure or properly legitimized. In the immediate after-
  math of Sekigahara, as the troops of the eastern coalition poured into
  Osaka, Ieyasu undoubtedly had the military capacity to take over
  Osaka Castle, at the time defended by Mori Terumoto on behalf of
  21 The most recent and detailed treatment of the Sekigahara settlement is found in the work of
  Fujino Tamotsu, especially Bakuhan taisei shi no kenkyu, p. 150.
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  FORMATION OF THE EDO BAKUFU 
  145
  Toyotomi Hideyori and his mother Lady Yodo. But Ieyasu was a
  sworn trustee of the Toyotomi polity, and many of his most powerful
  supporters in the recent confrontation still had strong emotional ties to
  Hideyoshi. Ieyasu was also sobered by the fact that he had few trust-
  worthy allies in the western provinces. Hideyori, though suffering a
  loss of nearly two-thirds of the domain left by his father, was therefore
  allowed to retain Osaka Castle and a 650,000-koku domain in the
  surrounding provinces of Settsu, Kawachi, and Izumi. Although re-
  duced to the status of daimyo in the world of the military hegemon, in
  the eyes of the court, Hideyori merited high rank as heir to Hideyoshi,
  who had retired with the high rank of Taiko. It was clear to all that the
  Tokugawa reality and the Toyotomi memory could not coexist for
  long, but Ieyasu, hoping to avoid a war that would reopen the question
  of the ultimate loyalty of the military houses, felt constrained to put
  off the final confrontation until 1614-15.
  FORMATION OF THE EDO BAKUFU
  In 1602, the Shimazu house of southern Kyushu acknowledged
  Ieyasu's overlordship, thus completing the Sekigahara settlement. A
  year later Ieyasu was installed as sei-i tai-shdgun by Emperor Go-Y6zei.
  In anticipation of this appointment that would legitimize him as chief
  of the warrior estate (buke no toryo), Ieyasu had put together a geneal-
  ogy that showed his descent from the Minamoto line. Concurrently
  with his new appointment he received the traditional designations
  Genji no choja (chief of the Minamoto lineage), Junna, Shogaku ryoin
  betid (rector of the Junna and Shogaku colleges), second court rank,
  and udaijin (minister of the right). These grandiloquent titles did not
  in themselves add new political or military weight to Ieyasu, but as
  tokens of legitimacy, they all were important. And their importance
  was underlined by the fact that Hideyori, although only ten years of
  age, received the title of inner minister {naidaijin) at the same time.
  Osaka Castle, because of Hideyori's high court rank, held certain
  powers of appointment and recommendation to the court that paral-
  leled those of Ieyasu. Obviously Hideyori was the darling of the court
  and was being used as a means of court involvement in warrior politi-
  cal affairs. The closer the center of warrior officers came to Kyoto, the
  deeper this involvement became.
  In 1605, Ieyasu turned over the office of shogun to his son
  Hidetada. Adopting the style of ogosho (retired shogun), he established
  himself in the subsidiary castle of Sumpu where he surrounded him-
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  I46 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  self with advisers of his own selection.22 Hidetada was inducted as
  shogun at the Tokugawa residence in Kyoto. Entering Kyoto at the
  head of more than 100,000 men he used the occasion to impress on the
  country the power of his house. The great bulk of these troops were
  provided by the daimyo of eastern Japan who thereby reiterated their
  loyalty to the shogun.
  Ieyasu's move was no retirement, no effort to ease the pressures of
  official life. Rather, it was a way of making the Tokugawa succession
  more secure, both by setting a precedent of direct succession and by
  making sure that the next shogun was safely in place before Ieyasu's
  death, thus frustrating any effort to promote Hideyori as an alternative
  head of state. Most important to the future of the bakufu, it gave
  Ieyasu a free hand to develop basic strategy and policy. At Sumpu,
  Ieyasu assembled what has been called a private "brain trust" to assist
  him in devising policy. Among these were the Tendai priest Tenkai
  (1536-1643), who served as Ieyasu's spiritual adviser and was instru-
  mental in having the first shogun's grave established at Nikko; Haya-
  shi Razan, the Confucian scholar who assisted Ieyasu in drafting the
  legal codes; Ina Tadatsugu, a specialist on local administration; Goto
  Mitsutsugu, founder of the Silver Mint (Ginza) and adviser on cur-
  rency policy; and even the English navigator, William Adams.
  There was much to be done. The administrative organs of shogunal
  government were yet to be adequately designed. The organization and
  assignment of the bakufu officials were not complete. The relocation
  of daimyo for political and strategic purposes would require many
  more years and many more moves and confiscations before the Toku-
  gawa house could feel secure. There were numerous problems of over-
  all political control of such groups as the emperor and his court, the
  temples and shrines, the peasants and merchants, and the foreign
  intruders from Europe and China.
  But what most pressed on Ieyasu's mind was the threat of Toyotomi
  Hideyori and Osaka Castle. The problem became more acute each
  year as Hideyori came ever closer to maturity. There was already talk
  in the court circles of his being ready for appointment as kampaku.2i
  And there were those in Kyoto who saw no harm in creating a dual
  head of state, one military and the other civil. In 1611 Ieyasu's greatest
  fears were confirmed when he arranged to meet Hideyori at Nijo
  22 Naohiro Asao, with Marius B. Jansen, "Shogun and Tenno," in Hall, Nagahara, and
  Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, pp. 259-60.
  23 The Hideyori threat to Ieyasu is analyzed in Harold Bolitho, Treasures Among Men: The Fudai
  Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 3-6.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  FORMATION OF THE EDO BAKUFU 
  147
  Castle in Kyoto. Ieyasu's nervousness was reflected in his demand
  shortly thereafter, on the occasion of celebrations in honor of Emperor
  Go-Mizuno-6's accession, that all daimyo swear a special oath of alle-
  giance to him as the head of the military estate.
  But Ieyasu knew full well that such an oath was not a solution. And
  so he resorted to a number of strategems to weaken the Osaka faction.
  One was to encourage them to exhaust the huge bullion supply stored
  in Osaka Castle to build temple monuments in Hideyoshi's memory.
  But in the end it took military action. Over a contrived issue in the
  winter of 1614, Ieyasu launched an attack on Osaka Castle. Although
  Hideyori failed to recruit a single active daimyo to his cause, Osaka
  Castle filled with ex-daimyo defeated at Sekigahara and masterless
  warriors set adrift by the destruction of so many daimyo housebands.
  An estimated ninety thousand defenders, many of them Christian,
  managed to hold off a force estimated at twice that number under
  Tokugawa command. Despite the use of newly acquired firearms by
  the attacking force, Osaka Castle proved impregnable. The first siege
  failed at a heavy cost in lives, and Ieyasu realized that a continuation of
  the assault using the same strategy could lead to humiliating defeat.
  Clearly, he had come to the most critical juncture of his career: An
  obvious victory by the Osaka faction would likely turn against him a
  large number of daimyo who had once been pledged to Hideyoshi but
  who joined the Tokugawa between 1598 and 1600. In this extremity
  Ieyasu called for a political compromise and a military truce, one
  provision of which called for the elimination of parts of the moats and
  defenses surrounding the castle. Hideyori, or rather his mother Lady
  Yodo, agreed to the truce only to realize too late that the Tokugawa
  work gangs brought in to fill in moats had gone too far. Once the
  castle's defenses had been seriously weakened, Ieyasu renewed his
  attack in May of 1615. In this so-called summer campaign, he was
  successful. Osaka Castle was entered and burned. Hideyori and his
  mother committed suicide. At long last the Toyotomi memory had
  been destroyed.
  Hidetada and Iemitsu
  Barely a year after the destruction of the Osaka faction, Ieyasu died.
  But he left for his successors a firm foundation on which to base an
  enduring political order. He had achieved what neither Nobunaga nor
  Hideyoshi had been able to do, the creation of a structure of political
  allegiances that could transcend the person of the hegemon, making
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  148 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  the office of shogun the permanent object of national loyalty and
  obedience. This obviously was Ieyasu's main intent when he resigned
  the office of shogun. During the "Ogosho era" he was able to take a
  number of important steps toward the institutionalization of the post
  of shogun. Toward the Kyoto court he exploited every occasion to
  impose his authority. A particularly sensitive issue was control over
  the award of court titles to members of the.bushi class. In 1613, on the
  occasion of a court intrigue involving Hideyori, Ieyasu had promul-
  gated a code of regulations, the Kuge shohatto, directed toward the
  nobility and restricting their involvement in political affairs. Docu-
  ments of this sort were reworked and resubmitted after the victory at
  Osaka. The result was the Kinchu narabini kuge shohatto, a set of
  regulations that applied to the emperor and the Kyoto nobles, restrict-
  ing them to the traditional arts and ceremonials and limiting their
  appointment authority. It effectively screened the civil nobility from
  the military aristocracy and their government.
  Toward the daimyo Ieyasu had directed numerous regulations and
  demands for pledges of loyalty. The first such command following the
  victory at Osaka was the order limiting each daimyo to a single castle
  (ikkoku ichijo ret), an action that signaled the start of a new order of
  peace in which warfare among the daimyo was not to be counte-
  nanced. A few months later, the Buke shohatto (Laws for military
  households) was issued in a new and extended form.
  Despite all that Ieyasu had achieved, the two shoguns who followed
  him did not have an easy time, for it was they who were given the task
  of consolidating the relations among shogun, emperor, and daimyo. As
  Asao Naohiro has pointed out, neither Hidetada nor Iemitsu received
  automatic recognition as national hegemon.24 Whereas Ieyasu was ac-
  cepted as chief of the military estate on the basis of his military suc-
  cesses, his successors did not have the opportunities to enhance their
  charisma through military exploits. Hidetada did see action in the
  Osaka investments, but under his father's command. Following
  Ieyasu's death he thus felt the need to pursue several lines to back up
  his claim to leadership of the bushi class. First, he made conspicuous
  display of the shogun's authority to act in matters of high national
  policy. His strict enforcement of prohibitions against Christianity and
  his early steps toward the regulation of foreign trade were calculated to
  gain general recognition for the shogun as the political head of state. In
  24 The problem of legitimation faced by Ieyasu's successors as shogun is discussed by Asao,
  "Shogun and Tenno," pp. 265-90.
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  FORMATION OF THE EDO BAKUFU 
  149
  both instances Hidetada could claim to be the "protector" of the Japa-
  nese homeland against foreign enemies.
  Second, the Tokugawa shoguns, as had Nobunaga and Hideyoshi,
  used the emperor for political effect. On the one hand, posing as patrons
  of the emperor, the shogun expended or requisitioned conspicuous
  financial resources to build palaces and residences for members of the
  court. On the other hand, he did everything to make the emperor the
  shogun's private legitimizer. This was accomplished in part by the
  enforcement of regulations limiting the court's contact with members of
  the warrior elite and by deepening relations between the Tokugawa
  house and the court, ultimately through intermarriage. In 1620 Hide-
  tada's daughter was married to Emperor Go-Mizuno-6. A daughter of
  this union born in 1623 took the throne as Meisho in 1629. This was the
  first time since the eighth century that a woman had been named em-
  press, a clear demonstration that the Tokugawa house had succeeded in
  acquiring supreme status in both the military and noble hierarchies.
  We are reminded of the close relationship that existed between the
  shogun and the imperial institution under the Ashikaga house. But the
  location of the Edo bakufu in the Kanto, some three hundred miles to
  the east, meant that the Tokugawa relationship was more institutional
  than personal. Much greater emphasis was placed on control. The Edo
  bakufu's presence in Kyoto was exhibited in the massive Nijo Castle,
  home of the shogun's deputy, the Kyoto shoshidai. Furthermore, the
  provisions that squeezed the more than three hundred aristocratic
  families into the palace enclosure igyoen) in Kyoto exemplified the
  restraints that the shogun was capable of imposing.25
  The crowning touch to the effort to legitimize the Tokugawa house
  was the successful deification of Ieyasu as Tosho daigongen (Great
  shining deity of the east). Under the third shogun, Iemitsu, a shrine to
  Ieyasu was established at Nikko. In time, daimyo, presumably on
  their own initiative, set up in their home territories scaled-down ver-
  sions of the Nikko shrine where they could hold services in memory of
  Ieyasu. The Nikko Toshogu received from the emperor the same rank
  as the imperial shrine at Ise. The periodic grand progresses to Nikko
  called by later shoguns served to direct national attention to Ieyasu's
  special place in history.26
  25 For a map of the kuge quarters in Kyoto, see my "Kyoto As Historical Background," in John
  W. Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass, eds., Medieval Japan, Essays in Institutional History (New Haven,
  Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 33-8.
  26 Willem Jan Boot, "The Deification of Tokugawa Ieyasu," a research report in Japan Founda-
  tion Newsletter 14, no. 5 (1987): 10-13.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  I5O 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  THE BAKUHAN POWER STRUCTURE
  In the final analysis it was the shogunate's capacity to govern the daimyo
  that gave stability to the bakuhan state. In turn, this capacity rested on
  the maintenance of a favorable balance of power. The concept of balance
  implies differences in degree of attachment or of reliability under sho-
  gunal command among several categories of daimyo, particularly be-
  tween the "house" daimyo (fudai) and the "outside" daimyo (tozama).
  At the time of Ieyasu's death, the balance could not yet be considered
  secure from the Tokugawa point of view, and the process of rearrange-
  ment continued for the rest of the seventeenth century. (See Map 4.1.)
  Whereas changes in the composition and location of daimyo were a
  natural outcome of victory or defeat in battle, in times of peace other
  justifications had to be given for making such changes. By keeping the
  relationship between daimyo and shogun a precarious one and by mak-
  ing the daimyo accountable to bakufu regulations and codes of conduct,
  the shogun was given numerous opportunities to transfer, reduce in
  size, or disinherit any daimyo. Transfers, of course, were not necessar-
  ily ordered for punitive reasons; they most often were ordered as a sign
  of favor from the shogun, usually involving assignment to a larger
  domain in a strategically more important location. Reductions and sei-
  zures were the result of disciplinary action by the shogun. Using the
  provisions of the Buke shohatto, the shogun could penalize a daimyo for
  failing to produce a natural heir, for making repairs on his castle without
  obtaining permission, for making unauthorized marriage alliances, and
  many other seemingly minor acts that violated the code.
  Fujino Tamotsu calculated the total figures for confiscations of
  daimyo holdings for each shogun of the Edo regime.27 The figures for
  the first five shoguns are shown in Table 4.1. Not counting the Sekiga-
  hara settlement, a total of some 13.2 million koku (equivalent to one-
  half of the country's total taxable land base) changed hands under the
  first five Tokugawa shoguns. These lands were reassigned to other
  daimyo or added to the shogun's demesne. In the process, a large
  number of outside daimyo were eliminated, among them such notable
  participants in the Tokugawa rise to power as Kato Kiyomasa (1562-
  1611) and Fukushima Masanori (1561-1624), while the number of
  house daimyo increased in numbers. All told, under these shoguns
  some 200 daimyo had been destroyed; 172 had been newly created;
  200 had received increases in holdings; and 280 had their domains
  27 Fujino Tamotsu, "On'ei roku - haizetsu roku," in his Bakusei to hansei (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kobunkan, 79), pp. 42-3.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  (r> 100,000), HIKOSAXJ
  (T)20S-,000), AK.ITA
  NAN\BU (Tj 200,000), HORJOl^A,
  SA.KAI 
  CF; 170,000), .SHONAI
  DWTE (Tj 625 . SOO), SENi>A,(
  UESOQI Cr; iS't.ooo), YouezA^A
  HOSHlrJA , M.AT3UDAIRA 
  (SjZSO.OOO),/1
  'VA, M.IT° (<S;7SO, OOOl.HITO
  <AG)A. fT : I, O 2 i , 700), )<AMAZAWA
  •"'* , OWARJ 
  CS;SI9,50o),NA(50rA
  ™^^..^A , ECWIZ.EM 
  f S j a z c O O O ) ^
  II 
  (Fi Z5O,OOO),HII<pNE
  l 
  X A K ! B R A
  16 HACHISUKA (T,-251 ,?00),TOKvUSHIMA.
  17 YW^AMOUCHI, TOSA. 
  (T;242 ,000'), <5CHl
  18 IK.BDA, INA6A.-HOK.I fr , 360, OOO) .ToTTOR
  19 IIC^DA 
  BIZ£M 
  CT3I5200XO<AYA
  20
  Z\
  222 <yR$n\ CT^zo.ooJ.Fu^oC
  23 ARJMA 
  fT,2ICl,OOO))K.URJJI\e
  2+ HOSOKAWA (T; 540,000) <ui*AKT
  25 kJABESHlKA , HIZ1EN (T ;3S7,O0O),SAS,A,
  ^ U , 
  T S M . 
  (T;770.SOO')
  27 SS (T; 100,000) ,
  Map 4.1 Major daimyo domains and capital cities, mid-seventeenth century. The information on daimyo domains is listed
  in the following order: daimyo house name, province, status (T tozama, F fudai, S shimpan), domain size in koku, and
  capital city.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  41
  38
  46
  28
  45
  198
  (28/i3)
  (23/15)
  (28/18)
  (16/12)
  (17/28)
  (112/86)
  3,594,640
  3,605,420
  3,580,100
  728,000
  1,702,982
  (13,211,142)
  152 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  TABLE 4 . I
  Confiscations ofdaimyo holdings, 1601-1705
  Daimyo 
  Amounts
  Shogun 
  (No.) (lozamalfudai) confiscated (koku)
  Ieyasu (1601-16)
  Hidetaka(l6i6-3i)
  Iemitsu (1632-50)
  Ietsuna (1651-79)
  Tsunayoshi(1680-1705)
  Total
  transferred. By the time of Tsunayoshi's death in 1709 the purposeful
  reassignment of daimyo had been carried out in sufficient favor of the
  shogunate that the rate of attainder fell off dramatically.
  The structure of power over which the Tokugawa shogun ultimately
  presided was conceived as a balance among several classes of daimyo
  and the interests of the shogun. The elements of this balance need
  further clarification. To begin, at the top of the hierarchy were the
  collateral houses, the so-called shimpan (or ichimon or kamon). These
  eventually numbered 23. The house or hereditary daimyo, or fudai, by
  the end of the eighteenth century numbered 145. The remnants of the
  daimyo who had been brought into being by either Nobunaga or
  Hideyoshi, the so-called outside lords (tozama), numbered 98. The
  Tokugawa house itself constituted the single largest power bloc. In
  1722 the shogun's enfeoffed bannermen (hatamoto) numbered as many
  as 5,200 individuals, while his stipended housemen (gokenin) num-
  bered an estimated 17,399. The latter were sustained on stipends
  derived from the shogun's granary lands. In addition there were
  nonofficer-grade foot soldiers (ashigaru) and clerks (ddshin) in the un-
  counted thousands. At the end of the first century after the founding
  of the Edo shogunate, the division of taxable landholdings among
  these several groups was calculated as follows:28
  Imperial house land 
  141,151 koku
  Shogun's granary land (lenryo) 
  4,213,171 koku
  Shogun's bannermen {hatamoto) 
  2,606,545 koku
  Shogun's house daimyo (fudai) and collateral
  daimyo (shimpan) 
  9,325,300 koku
  Outside lords (tozama) 
  9,834,700 koku
  28 A convenient listing of the 243 daimyo existing in 1698 is reproduced in Kanai, Hansei, pp.
  60-73. I n English, see a similar list in Conrad Totman, Politics in the Tokugawa Bakufu 1600-
  1843 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 264-8.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  THE BAKUHAN POWER STRUCTURE 
  153
  Domainal productive capacity, as expressed in koku, was the first
  and most easily demonstrated measure of the relative strength of the
  several classes of daimyo.29 Other factors such as geographical distri-
  bution and control of strategic and economically valuable locations
  were taken into account as well. The shogun's granary lands were
  located in forty-seven of the sixty-eight provinces, accounting for
  roughly a sixth of the country's productive base. If we add to this the
  bannermen's holdings, the percentage rises to close to a quarter.
  These holdings were heavily concentrated in the Kanto and the Tokai
  provinces, but they also extended into central and western Japan. The
  actual distribution of tenryo by region shows 1.026 million koku in the
  Kanto, 687,000 in the capital area, 688,000 in the Tokai provinces,
  1.353 million in the region north of the Kanto, 412,000 in western
  Honshu and Shikoku, and 176,000 in Kyushu.30 As European visitors
  to Japan in the seventeenth century commented, it was possible to
  travel from Osaka to Edo without having to leave bakufu territory.
  Not only was the tenryo well located to serve the tax need of the
  bakufu, it also contained most of the important urban centers, such as
  Edo, Osaka, Sakai, Kyoto, Fushimi, Nara, and Nagasaki. The sho-
  gun had also gained possession of the country's active silver and cop-
  per mines. The bakufu, through its authority over the tenryo and the
  fief lands of the bannermen, was directly in control of a commanding
  section of the country, whether measured in terms of land, manpower,
  commercial capacity, or institutional importance. But however large
  the shogun's direct holdings, government under the Tokugawa house
  remained a coalition between shogun and daimyo, as the term
  bakuhan reminds us.
  To understand the several types of daimyo, their relationship to the
  shogun, and the significance of their geographic distribution, we need
  first to look back to origins.31 There were, first, the self-made daimyo,
  those who had come into existence before the appearance of Oda
  Nobunaga. Among these were the Shimazu of southern Kyushu and
  the Nabeshima of northern Kyushu, the Mori of western Honshu, and
  the Satake, Date, Nambu, Mogami, and Uesegi in the provinces north
  of Edo. These long-established houses had managed to survive the
  wars of consolidation, in many cases holding on to their original do-
  29 Harold Bolitho has cautioned that kokudaka figures were not a sure sign of daimyo power, nor
  should one expect that these figures would hold constant throughout the era. See Chapter 5 in
  this volume.
  30 Kitajima, Kenryoku kdzo, p. 332.
  31 The difficulty that scholars have in classifying daimyo types is well explained in Chapter 5 in
  this volume.
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  154 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  mains and gaining acceptance as tozama from each of the unifiers,
  including the Tokugawa shogun. For the most part, their domains
  were of considerable size but were located on the fringes of the Japa-
  nese islands. Next were the daimyo who owed their existence to Oda
  Nobunaga. Only a few of these survived, among them the Maeda of
  Kaga, the Ikeda of Bizen, the Yamanouchi of Tosa, and the Kuroda of
  Buzen. Next came the daimyo created by Hideyoshi. Again, precious
  few of these survived Sekigahara. Among them were some of the
  "generals" groups such as Kato Kiyomasa of Higo, who had managed
  to cast his lot with Ieyasu before Sekigahara.
  In the middle of the seventeenth century, the vast majority of
  daimyo lines had been created by the heads of the Tokugawa house.
  The Tokugawa daimyo, as noted earlier, were divided first into the
  collaterals (ichimon) and the house or hereditary daimyo (fudai).
  Ieyasu, in contrast with Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, fathered a large
  number of capable offspring; moreover, he lived long enough to see to
  the survival of more than enough cadet branches to safeguard the
  Tokugawa line. The collaterals were used in two particular ways: first,
  to protect the Tokugawa family from failure to provide an heir and,
  second, to hold strategically important locations. Among the collat-
  erals, three lines established by direct descent from Ieyasu were given
  the privilege of bearing the Tokugawa surname. Ieyasu's ninth son was
  assigned the Owari domain (619,500 koku) centering on Nagoya. His
  tenth son was given the Kii domain (555,000 koku) in Wakayama, and
  his eleventh son was placed in the province of Hitachi (250,000 koku).
  These three Tokugawa branches, collectively known as the three
  houses (sanke), were available for shogunal succession should the main
  line started by Hidetada fail to produce an heir. In fact, this did
  happen following the death of Ietsugu, the seventh shogun, and
  Yoshimune was brought in from the Kii branch of the house to serve as
  the eighth shogun.
  Strictly for the purpose of safeguarding the succession, three addi-
  tional collateral lines were established in the mid-eighteenth century,
  two by Yoshimune and one by his son Ieshige. These were the
  Hitotsubashi, Tayasu, and Shimizu families, collectively called the
  three lords (san kyo). Not strictly daimyo, they had no domains but
  were assigned residential quarters in Edo Castle and received stipends
  of 100,000 koku each from the shogun's treasury. These three houses
  in time played important roles in shogunal politics, as is shown by the
  fact that both the eleventh and fifteenth shoguns came from the
  Hitotsubashi line.
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  THE BAKUHAN POWER STRUCTURE 
  155
  There were other collaterals and simulated cadet houses. Under the
  first three shoguns, various favored sons were given the Matsudaira
  surname and provided with suitable domains. Such were the Matsu-
  daira houses of Aizu and Echizen. All in all, the Tokugawa house was
  remarkably successful in safeguarding its succession, thereby avoiding
  debilitating succession quarrels or the possibility of takeover by a
  subordinate house exercising power through a puppet shogun.
  Fudai daimyo held status within the shogun's houseband in early
  protocol according to the time and place of the first enrollment in the
  houseband. The oldest of these lines can be traced back to the Okazaki
  Castle or the Sumpu Castle years, although the majority were products
  of later stages in the rise of the Tokugawa house. From the standpoint
  of power politics, of course, size and location were more significant.
  At the end of the Edo era, of the 145 house daimyo, 14 held domains
  of 100,000 koku or more; 36 had domains assessed between 50,000 and
  99,000 koku; 64 between 11,000 and 49,000 koku; and 31 held the
  minimum of 10,000 koku.
  The majority of the fudai were placed in the Kan to close to Edo.
  This was true particularly for those at the lower levels of the koku
  scale. The larger among the fudai, however, were placed at strategi-
  cally important spots across the country. The Okudaira of Utsunomiya
  (77,000 koku) for instance, were located to provide additional protec-
  tion to Edo from one of the city's northern approaches. The Ii were
  given the critically important domain of Hikone (350,000 koku) that
  stood guard at the approach to Kyoto from the east. On the other side
  of the capital, the domain of Himeji (150,000 koku) was considered
  guardian of the western approach. First held by the Ikeda house
  (tozama), it was eventually placed in the hands of the Sakai house
  (fudai).
  Farther to the west, house daimyo were placed at Matsue, Tsuyama,
  and Fukuyama. On Shikoku, daimyo bearing the Matsudaira surname
  held Takamatsu and Matsuyama on the island's two northern corners.
  On Kyushu, however, the Tokugawa were not well represented. The
  Ogasawara at Kokura (150,000 koku) and the Okubo of Karatsu
  (60,000 koku) were the prime daimyo representatives of the shogun,
  and the port of Nagasaki, held in rotation by bakufu-appointed gover-
  nors, served as the shogunate's main bureaucratic center for the con-
  trol of foreign trade.
  Why, given the number of daimyo destroyed by the shogun in the
  years after Sekigahara, did not Ieyasu and his successors simply pre-
  empt domains at will and assign their own men to them at their own
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  156 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  discretion? To some extent, this is what was done on a small scale by
  the expansion of the shogun's granary lands. But the scale was modest.
  The fact is that the Tokugawa shoguns, from the first to the last,
  considered the daimyo a necessary element of national administration.
  That is, the daimyo were not thought of as enemies of effective govern-
  ment but, rather, as necessities. Throughout the formative period of
  the Edo shogunate, the effort was to find capable and reliable daimyo,
  not to destroy them. Clearly, daimyo could not be artificially fabri-
  cated. Experience in the handling of men and lands at one level was a
  prerequisite for advancement to a higher level. For example, a small
  fief holder, say a bannerman of 1,000 koku, could not be raised to
  daimyo status in a single move. Among the house daimyo, those who
  after the move into the Kanto had received domains of 100,000 koku
  were later advanced into the i5O,ooo-&ofca range but no higher, and
  those in the 30,000 range were held below the 100,000 range. A sense
  of proportion was clearly involved.
  THE EDO SHOGUNATE: THE AUTHORITY STRUCTURE
  By taking the office of shogun as his prime means of legitimation
  Tokugawa Ieyasu followed the precedent established by the two previ-
  ous shogunates. As shogun, he claimed recognition as chief of the
  bushi estate and, as the emperor's delegate, the rights and responsibili-
  ties of national governance. In describing the Edo regime in its early
  phases, historians until recently have dwelt on the factor of rights and
  perquisites, almost to the exclusion of responsibilities. But the exis-
  tence of an implicit compact on the part of the shogun to serve as
  guardian of the state (the tenka) and protector of its people was ac-
  knowledged by the shoguns themselves, particularly with regard to
  matters involving foreign relations, as in the cases of the spread of
  Christianity in the mid-seventeenth century and of foreign intrusion in
  the mid-nineteenth century. It was this publicly acknowledged respon-
  sibility, and right, to conduct foreign relations that most clearly distin-
  guished the Edo bakufu's status in the hierarchy of national affairs.
  In domestic affairs the most important of the shogun's rights and
  responsibilities derived from his position as the ultimate proprietor of
  the country's taxable land. This right was comprehensive and applied
  to all proprietary holding of land, whether by members of the court
  nobility or of the religious orders. The corresponding responsibility
  was the shogun's duty to provide good government, a task that he
  shared with the daimyo. Under the Edo polity, the proprietary posses-
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  EDO SHOGUNATE: AUTHORITY STRUCTURE 
  157
  sion of land was legally possible only when certified by the shogun's
  seal. This was particularly significant in the case of the daimyo, all of
  whom were the shogun's sworn vassals who held their domains as
  personal grants from him.
  As supreme proprietary overlord, the shogun assumed the right to
  regulate all lesser proprietors, be they courtier, priest, or warrior aristo-
  crat. This regulatory authority was spelled out in a series of codes
  (hatto) directed toward each of these groups. Note has already been
  taken of the orders covering the court and the daimyo; a closer look
  needs to be taken of the latter.32 Ieyasu had anticipated this document
  in the three-clause oath of allegiance he had demanded of all daimyo in
  1611 and 1612. Its provisions called for obedience to bakufu laws and
  agreement not to harbor disloyal or criminal samurai. The Buke
  shohatto in its first extended form of thirteen clauses was issued in
  1615 following the Tokugawa victory at Osaka. It began with what was
  to become a trademark of the Edo shogunate's political philosophy for
  a military government functioning in an era of peace: "The study of
  letters and the practice of military arts, including archery and horse-
  manship, must be cultivated diligently." There followed admonitions
  against unruly conduct, luxurious living, and failure to abide by dress
  regulations. But the heart of the code was concerned with matters of
  control. Daimyo must not harbor antibakufu criminals in their do-
  mains. They must not repair or enlarge their castles without permis-
  sion from the bakufu. They must gain shogunal approval before con-
  tracting a marriage. And they must report suspicious activities in
  neighboring domains.
  From the time of Ieyasu the Buke shohatto was read before the
  assembled daimyo at the inauguration of each new shogun. Iemitsu,
  the third shogun, made the most changes in its content, increasing the
  provisions to twenty-one with the addition of prohibitions against
  private trade barriers, against ships of more than a five hundred-&0&«
  burden, and against the propagation of Christianity. This version clari-
  fied as well the provisions of alternate attendance (sankin-kotai) and
  reiterated the decree that all laws emanating from Edo be obeyed as
  the law of the land.33
  Unquestionably the most effective mechanism developed by the
  32 Translation of this and other Tokugawa bakufu laws can be found in Ryusaku Tsunoda,
  William Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New
  York: Columbia University Press, 1958).
  33 Toshio G. Tsukahira, Feudal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kotai System (Cam-
  bridge, Mass.: Harvard East Asia Research Center, 1966).
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  158 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  Tokugawa shoguns was the alternative attendance requirement. At
  first applied selectively to tozama daimyo, it was made mandatory for
  all daimyo, including fudai, by Iemitsu in 1642. This extension of the
  common practice among the bushi commanders of taking hostages to
  ensure the loyalty of vassals and military allies obliged all daimyo to
  establish residences in the environs of Edo Castle so as to be available
  to pay regular attendance on the shogun. In their Edo residences,
  daimyo were required to domicile their wives, children, and a certain
  number of chief retainers, together with the necessary staff to maintain
  the official residences. Daimyo were permitted to return to their home
  domains in alternate years (in some instances, in alternate half-years)
  but were required to leave their wives and children and ranking retain-
  ers in Edo as hostages.
  As a method of assisting shogunal authority, this practice continu-
  ally affirmed Edo's political centrality. By means of alternate atten-
  dance, the shogun was able continuously to assemble the daimyo in
  Edo Castle for rituals and other gatherings. Communication between
  the bakufu and the daimyo was thereby made immediate and personal.
  Aside from these considerable advantages to the bakufu, there were
  other, perhaps unintended, side effects of alternate attendance. The
  maintenance of dual residences, at home and in Edo, and the expenses
  of frequent travel between them imposed a massive drain on the
  daimyo's treasury, especially for the lords in western Japan. By the end
  of the eighteenth century for many daimyo, alternate attendance was
  costing a third or more of their annual income, and as a result many
  were in serious debt to merchant financiers.
  It should be recognized that the provisions of the Buke shohatto and
  other similar codes were couched in generalities so that enforcement
  could be at the whim of the enforcer. The first three shoguns, as we
  have seen, frequently used presumed violations of the code to justify
  their numerous attainders. In the early years, the bakufu kept the
  daimyo under constant scrutiny through such agents as the itinerant
  inspectors (junkenshi), created in 1633 to conduct periodic inquiries
  into daimyo domains. Their eyes were focused particularly on political
  conditions, the enforcement of anti-Christian edicts, and the state of
  daimyo military forces. Another type of bakufu official, the provincial
  inspectors (kuni metsuke) were used to watch over critical periods in a
  domain's existence, such as when succession passed into the hands of a
  minor. The bakufu also required the daimyo to submit a great variety
  of reports. Maps of the domain (kuni ezu) gave visual evidence of the
  location and kokudaka figures of the taxpaying villages. Population
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  EDO SHOGUNATE: AUTHORITY STRUCTURE 
  159
  registers compiled as a by-product of the annual religious inquiry
  (shumon aratame) were made available to the bakufu's inspector gen-
  eral (ometsuke). And periodic reports on judicial actions taken by
  daimyo had to be submitted to bakufu scrutiny.34
  Although the daimyo gave up critical portions of their political
  autonomy to the bakufu, in actual practice they were left with consider-
  able freedom in the administration of their domains. The bakufu did
  not tax them directly, on the principle that the daimyo's responsibili-
  ties to maintain order in their domains and to share in the regime's
  military defense constituted a sufficient contribution to the common
  good. The maintenance of a domain military force was, for a daimyo,
  both a right and a responsibility. The rules governing the performance
  of military service (gun'yaku) had both positive and negative implica-
  tions.35 The bakufu found itself caught between the desire to reduce
  daimyo military capacity so as to lessen the likelihood of rebellion, and
  the necessity, for purposes of defense and the maintenance of domestic
  peace, to keep a certain level of military force in readiness. The 1615
  order restricting "one castle to a province" denied the daimyo the
  maintenance of more than one military establishment. The 1649 regu-
  lation on military service (Gun'yaku ninzuwari) set standard figures on
  the size of armed forces permitted to, or required of, daimyo according
  to their domain size. A IOO,OOO-£O£M domain, for instance, was made
  accountable for 2,155 men, of which 170 were mounted, 350 carried
  firearms, 30 carried bows, 150 were spearmen, and 20 were trained in
  signal flags. A samurai with an enfeoffment of 200 koku was account-
  able for 5 men: himself with a horse, a horse leader, a spear bearer, an
  armor bearer, and a porter.
  Although the bakufu tended to discourage the expansion of daimyo
  military establishments, daimyo were obliged to contribute heavily to
  the bakufu program of castle building. On the theory that construc-
  tion for the bakufu was a public service, daimyo were obliged to
  contribute manpower, material, and funds for the construction and
  rebuilding of a series of shogunal castle and residences, palaces for the
  court nobility, and various public works projects. Daimyo were re-
  quired to build or expand castles at Edo, Nijo (Kyoto), Hikone,
  Sumpu, Nagoya, and Osaka. Work on Edo Castle continued into the
  34 The annual religious investigation registers required of all Japanese beginning in the 1630s, as a
  means of stamping out Christianity, have been used by modern demographers to reconstruct
  Edo population history. See Susan B. Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic
  Change in Japan 1600-1868 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977).
  35 The 1649 regulations for military service are published in Shihosho, Tokugawa kinrei ko, 6
  vols. (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1931-2), vol. 1, p. 129.
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  160 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  1630s and required the efforts of daimyo from all parts of the country,
  as far distant as the Mori of Choshu and the Date of Sendai.36
  Like every centralizing government, the Edo shogunate pursued the
  objective of standardizing weights and measurements and unifying the
  currency. The latter goal was facilitated by the shogun's acquisition of
  the country's major gold, silver, and copper mines. As one after another
  major city fell within its area of authority, the bakufu was able to exer-
  cise a powerful influence on the country's commercial life. The bakufu
  also succeeded in regulating foreign trade by channeling it through
  chosen instruments at Nagasaki, Tsushima, and Kagoshima. Thus step
  by step in the course of its efforts to govern the cities and villages under
  its direct administration, the bakufu established policies that set the
  national norm. The so-called Regulations of Keian (Keian ofuregaki)
  issued to the agricultural population of the shogunal demesne in 1646
  and the 1655 Regulations for Edo (Edo machiju sadame) took their
  place among the principal legal documents of the age.
  The dominance of military authority over the great monastic orders
  had been largely achieved by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
  Until that time, monasteries held independent proprietary rights to
  extensive territories, and religious communities had built castles and
  recruited large bodies of armed men for their defense. Under the Edo
  bakufu, the religious bodies were further reduced in their landhold-
  ings, and the priesthood was regulated under the provisions of the
  1655 Shoshu jiin hatto. The popular Honganji sect was divided into
  two branches, east and west, to reduce the sect's influence. But al-
  though the Buddhist orders were denied political influence and were
  greatly reduced in income, they were given a new and secure place in
  the Tokugawa order as the agents of anti-Christian policy. Under the
  tera-uke, or temple register, system, all Japanese were obliged to adopt
  a family temple of registry (dannadera). These temples in turn were
  given the task of making annual inquiries into the religious belief of
  their parishioners. The practice of religious inspection (shumon ara-
  tame) was then institutionalized by the creation in 1640 of a bakufu
  office for that purpose.37
  Finally, the shogun as national overlord exercised the right and
  responsibility to settle disputes and hear cases involving daimyo and
  other elements of the Tokugawa order. Whereas previously such dis-
  36 See the example of Osaka Castle in William B. Hauser, "Osaka Castle and Tokugawa Author-
  ity in Western Japan," in Mass and Hauser, eds., The Bakufu, pp. 153-88.
  37 George Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan (Cambridge,
  Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 195.
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
  l6l
  putes had been settled by direct military action, under the Edo
  bakufu, as spelled out in the Buke shohatto, the bakufu was to provide
  the mechanisms for settlement. A supreme court (hydjosho) staffed by
  daimyo and bannermen members of the shogun's upper administra-
  tion was established in Edo Castle in 1722.
  The commonly given description of the power structure that sup-
  ported the Edo bakufu inevitably leaves the impression that the Toku-
  gawa shogunate was all-powerful. If this indeed had been true, it
  would raise the question of how such a structure could have collapsed
  so suddenly after 1853. The truth is that many of the elements of
  power in the seventeenth century failed to retain their meaning in the
  nineteenth. Why did the Tokugawa house not follow the pattern, for
  instance, of the nearly contemporaneous Tudor monarchy in England
  and work toward a greater centralization of power?38 There were, of
  course, some uncontrollable factors of decline. Mines of precious met-
  als were unexpectedly exhausted. Epidemics, droughts, and famines
  debilitated whole regions and required the bakufu's material assis-
  tance. Economic conditions worsened for the entire samurai class.
  Unlike the European monarchs, however, the shogunate, once a
  stable power structure had been achieved, did little to extend the
  powers of the central government and instead allowed many of these
  powers to decay. Not only was there no effort made to do away with
  the daimyo, but the many restrictions that proved so essential in the
  early years were softened or even abandoned. The 1651 decision to
  allow "deathbed adoptions" eliminated one of the most effective weap-
  ons the shogun had in finding reasons to dispossess daimyo.
  By virtue of its dependence on a balance of power between shogun
  and daimyo, the bakuhan system was particularly vulnerable to the
  effect of time once the central authority abandoned its aggressive effort
  to build up its strength at the expense of the daimyo. When control
  regulations became routine, when the surveillance of the daimyo by
  bakufu inspectors was carried out halfheartedly, as economic problems
  affected the samurai class, and as the bakufu's finances deteriorated,
  the central authority was weakened disproportionately.
  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION
  The organs of shogunal administration evolved from the Tokugawa
  house organization as the Tokugawa family worked its way from the
  38 Bolitho, Treasures, p. 18.
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  162 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  status of village samurai to head of a major regional daimyo coalition
  and finally to national hegemon. Early patterns of military and civil
  organization were carried over into the institutions of national gover-
  nance, expanded, refined, or modified to handle changing require-
  ments. Military and administrative service remained the expected
  "return" for the "favor" granted by the shogun as overlord. The
  consequences of this evolutionary process are most clearly seen in
  the manner in which the shogun staffed his military forces and ad-
  ministrative offices. For although Tokugawa authority extended over
  the entire country, the bakufu itself was manned only by the house-
  band, that is, the house daimyo, the bannermen, and the direct
  retainers or housemen. This was the inner group of dependent per-
  sonnel under the shogun's direct command. The outside lords and
  even the cadet and collateral daimyo were treated as allies existing
  outside this circle.
  An early view of the Matsudaira (Tokugawa) house organization
  comes into focus during the latter years of its Okazaki phase. By this
  time, the Matsudaira chief had pulled together a houseband consisting
  of related families (most of them bearing the Matsudaira surname),
  local gentry (kunishu) who had been reduced to vassalage, and sti-
  pended housemen (Jkenin). Already the practice was developing whereby
  the chief, as daimyo, was relying increasingly on direct military subor-
  dinates, fudai and kenin, rather than members of his kinship group, to
  carry the burden of enforcement and defense. Whereas many daimyo
  continued to rely heavily on senior collaterals and hereditary vassals
  with a long history of association with the daimyo's house, the
  Matsudaira policy, at least under Ieyasu, was more flexible and respon-
  sive to the needs of the chief. As head of the Matsudaira (Tokugawa)
  main line, Ieyasu had persistently kept his options open and relied
  when possible on nonkin vassals and on direct retainers of the hatamoto
  and gokenin variety, on the assumption that they would be more respon-
  sive to his command. The problem with kinsmen was that because they
  were eligible for family succession, they were potential rivals to the
  existing family head. Thus, when possible, kin branch heads were
  reduced to military vassalage. This practice was facilitated by the con-
  stant move and expansion of the locus of the Tokugawa domain. For
  example, the Tokugawa houseband that started with a preponderance
  of members from Mikawa Province was enlarged by recruits from
  Suruga, Totomi, Kai, and Shinano, as Ieyasu added these provinces to
  his control.
  A document of 1567 is useful for its insight into the military and
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
  163
  civil organization of the Tokugawa domain.39 For command purposes
  the Tokugawa houseband was organized on two separate levels: at the
  top between the daimyo and his direct vassal commanders, and below
  that between the commanders and their own military bands or units
  (kumi). For military purposes the majority of the daimyo's vassals were
  assigned to two divisions under separate leaders. In one, Sakai
  Tadatsugu was placed over eighteen vassal commanders (seven bearing
  the Matsudaira surname). In the other Ishikawa Kazumasa took the
  lead of thirteen vassal commanders (three of them Matsudaira). In
  addition there were five commanders of bannermen companies and
  two commanders of rearguard companies. Units under ten vassal com-
  manders were designated keepers of the castle (gorusui shu), and fifteen
  headed units of foot soldiers (ashigaru). Other officers were placed in
  charge of flags and communications, ships, packhorses, and supplies.
  The civil affairs of the domain were assigned to the so-called three
  magistrates (san bugyo), to which Ieyasu appointed his trusted retain-
  ers, Osuga Yasutaka, Uemura Masakatsu, and Koriki Kiyoyasa. Un-
  der them were three chief intendants (daikan gashira) charged with
  collecting land taxes, and a variety of officers responsible for curren-
  cies, weights and measures, the kitchen, the secretariat, documents,
  and the like. Among special service personnel there were attendant
  priests and physicians. The establishment of a bureaucracy with nu-
  merous functionally specific offices had already begun to take shape.
  And supporting this were personnel organized into three categories of
  karo (elders), bugyo (functional unit heads), and daikan (intendants).
  As this houseband organization expanded into the Kanto in 1590 and
  then across the entire nation after 1600, the basic composition of the
  inner command structure did not change. The Tokugawa bakufu re-
  mained essentially an expanded houseband in which the chieftain (now
  the shogun) governed through his hereditary vassals and other types of
  direct retainers. But in addition there were now two new groups of
  daimyo located outside the houseband that had to be accommodated.
  These were the cadet or collateral houses and the tozama allies. Neither
  of these groups of daimyo routinely held office in the bakufu.
  The central bureaucracy
  The massive bureaucracy that eventually took shape under the Toku-
  gawa shoguns was not yet fully organized at the time Ieyasu became
  39 Fujino, Bakuhan taisei, p. 29.
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  164 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  shogun.40 Many offices and administrative procedures we think of as
  having been part of the bakufu practice from the start actually were not
  adopted until well into the second half of the century. At the time of
  Ieyasu's death, a number of basic problems in the transition of gover-
  nance from charismatic leadership to bureaucratic routine had yet to be
  solved. Most critical was the continuing disagreement over the locus of
  policymaking authority, whether it should reside with the shogun alone
  or in council with the chief advisory positions in the bakufu.41
  Tokugawa Ieyasu had been fairly successful in defending himself
  and his immediate successors against interference from the collaterals.
  As it turned out, it was the leading members of the house daimyo who
  gave the shoguns the most trouble. The neat table of organization
  charts of the Edo bakufu, which list upwards of four hundred posts in
  chain-of-command order, mask the problems of competition for con-
  trol of policy and enforcement authority that plagued Edo bakufu
  politics. While Ieyasu was still alive, it would have been hard to imag-
  ine that differences of policy would develop between the shogun and
  the house daimyo, whose interests as a whole were represented by the
  rojit (senior councilors). Historically, shogun and fudai had worked
  together to win the tenka, with the bakufu being simply the mecha-
  nism through which the shogun activated the daimyo and governed
  the country. But as time passed, the fudai found their private interests
  as daimyo diverging from those of the Tokugawa house. As a result,
  control over bakufu policy became a prize sought by a number of
  special interests, including the shogun, the collateral daimyo, and the
  house daimyo.
  The first three shoguns managed to assert their political leadership
  by controlling a circle of personal favorites whom they placed in high
  advisory posts such as the Senior Council. Ieyasu's use of his own
  "brain trust" is well documented. Hidetada's reliance on Doi Toshi-
  katsu (1573-1644), his youthful companion, and Iemitsu's reliance on
  Hotta Masamori (1608-51) exemplify the ability of strong shoguns to
  govern through chosen instruments. But later shoguns found it increas-
  ingly difficult to have their own way in making appointments to high
  office. Each shogun thereafter was obliged to fight for his own iden-
  tity, in a number of different ways with varying degrees of success.
  40 There are numerous versions of the Edo bakufu's table of organization. A complete and
  informative one is "Edo bakufu," in Kokushi daijiten henshu iinkai, comp., Kokushi daijiten
  (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1980), vol. 2, pp. 331-6.
  41 Harold Bolitho has clarified the nature of the tensions between the wishes of ihe fudai daimyo
  and the interests of the shogun. See his chapter "Fudai Daimyo and Bakufu Policy: 1600-
  1857," in his Treasures, pp. I54ff.
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
  165
  Iemitsu's successor as shogun, Ietsuna, being but ten years old and
  physically weak, was quickly captured by the senior fudai houses.
  Later shoguns found it expedient to rely on more easily controlled
  "inner officers" such as the chamberlains. Tsunayoshi, the fifth sho-
  gun, who came to the office as a mature man, began his tenure by
  dismissing the distinguished Tairo Sakai Tadakiyo. It was rumored
  that Sakai had plotted to install a courtier as a figurehead shogun, in
  order to gain control of bakufu policy. Tsunayoshi was thus the first to
  use successfully the inner office route to bypass the senior fudai.
  The shogun in theory was a despot, accountable to none but the
  emperor. (See Figure 4.2.) The emperor in turn represented the "will
  of Heaven" that placed on the shogun the responsibility to ensure the
  well-being of the people. A child or an incapacitated shogun could be
  guided by a regent, and on occasion collateral members of the Toku-
  gawa house could intervene in situations affecting the well-being of the
  extended Tokugawa lineage. A case in point would be the choice of an
  heir to the shogun. Informal or irregular involvement by members of
  the three houses and other Tokugawa collaterals was made possible by
  the fact that the daimyo of this category sat together in the shogun's
  palace on ceremonial occasions. But in legal terms there was no higher
  authority between the shogun and "shogunal policy."
  In making policy, the head of the Tokugawa house followed the
  common daimyo practice of recognizing certain senior vassals as "el-
  ders." Ieyasu and Hidetada used such terms as toshiyori and shukuro to
  designate members of a senior advisory council. Under Iemitsu the
  term kahan no retsu (seal bearer) was applied to senior daimyo with
  powers to represent the shogun's authority. This practice was eventu-
  ally formalized by the creation of two advisory boards of retainers. A
  group of four to six senior councilors (rdju) constituting a high adminis-
  trative council was brought into place in stages beginning in 1623.
  Staffed by high-level fudai daimyo, the Senior Council was given au-
  thority over matters of national scope, including supervision of the
  Kyoto court, the daimyo of all classes, religious bodies, foreign affairs,
  defense, taxation, currency, and other matters of major importance. A
  second board or council of three to five junior councilors (waka-
  doshiyori) was formalized in 1633 to handle the more domestic aspects
  of shogunal rule. Composed of fudai daimyo of lesser rank, it had
  jurisdiction over the bannermen and housemen, their assignment to
  office and promotion in rank. The Junior Council also was charged
  with the peacetime training and assignment of guard units, the pro-
  curement of military supplies, and other such military matters.
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  166
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  Shogun
  \ !
  The Great Corridor
  The Antechamber
  Regent
  (hosa; koken; etc.)
  —Great Councilor (i)
  (tairo)
  —Senior Councilors (4—5)
  (roju)
  — Secretaries (about 60)
  (yuhitsu)
  —Chamberlains (6-7)
  (sobashu)
  —Masters of Court Ceremony (16-26)
  (koke)
  —Councilors for the Three Lords
  (Tayasu-fcaro, Hitotsubashi-Aaro, Shimizu-fcaro)
  — Keepers of Edo Castle (5)
  (rusui)
  — Captains of the Great Guards (12)
  (oban gashira)
  — Inspectors General (4-5)
  (ometsuke)
  — Edo City Magistrates (2)
  (Edo machi bugyo)
  — Superintendents of Finance (4)
  (kanjo bugyo)
  — Deputies
  (3 gundai; 40-50 daikan)
  — Superintendents of the Treasury (4)
  (kane bugyo)
  — Superintendents of Cereal Stores (2)
  (kura bugyo)
  — Gold Monopoly
  (kinza)
  — Silver Monopoly
  (ginza)
  — Copper Monopoly
  (doza)
  — Cinnabar Monopoly
  (shuza)
  — Comptrollers of Finance (4)
  (kanjo gimmiyaku)
  — Kanto Deputy (1)
  (Kanto gundai)
  — Superintendents of Works (2)
  (sakuji bugyo)
  — Superintendents of Public Works (2)
  (fushin bugyo)
  — Kyoto City Magistrates (2)
  (Kyoto machi bugyo)
  Figure 4.2 Main offices of the Tokugawa bakufu. [Source: John W.
  Hall, Tanuma Okitsugu: Forerunner of Modem Japan (Cambridge,
  Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955), pp. 28-9.]
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION
  I6 7
  —Osaka City Magistrates (2)
  (Osaka machi bugyo)
  —Magistrates of Nagasaki (2-4), Uraga (1-2), etc.
  (Nagasaki bugyo, Uraga bugyo)
  —Grand Chamberlain (l)
  (sobayonin)
  —Junior Councilors (4-5)
  (wakadoshiyori)
  —Captains of the Body Guard (6)
  (shoimban gashira)
  —Captains of the Inner Guards (6)
  (koshbgumiban gashira)
  —Captains of the New Guards (6)
  (shimban gashira)
  —Superintendents of Construction and Repair
  (kobushin bugyo)
  —Chiefs of the Pages (6)
  (koshd-todori)
  —Chiefs of the Attendants (3)
  (konando-todori)
  —Inspectors
  (metsuke)
  —Chiefs of the Castle Accountants (2)
  (nando gashira)
  Attendant Physicans
  (ishi)
  —Attendant Confucianists
  (jusha)
  — Superintendents of the Kitchen (3-5)
  (zen bugyo)
  —Masters of Shogunal Ceremony (20 or more)
  (sojaban)
  — Superintendents of Temples and Shrines (4)
  (jisha bugyo)
  — Kyoto Deputy (1)
  (Kyoto-shoshidat)
  — Keeper of Osaka Castle (1)
  (Osaka-jodai)
  I
  I
  I—Supreme Court of Justice
  (hydjosho)
  Regular duty:
  Superintendents of Temples and Shrines
  Edo City Magistrates
  Superintendents of Finance
  Irregular duty:
  A Senior Councilor
  The Grand Chamberlain
  Other Magistrates and Superintendents when residing in Edo
  Assisted by:
  Comptrollers of Finance
  Inspectors General and others
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  168 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  The composition of the two councils, particularly the Senior Coun-
  cil, reflected at any given time the existing balance of influence within
  the bakufu, between the shogun and his primary vassals, and among
  the house daimyo. The position of great councilor (tairo) was less
  clearly denned. Presumably the name implied an advisory role over
  the senior councilors. But the post was not routinely filled, and its
  political significance is not at all clear. In the long Tokugawa history,
  only Ii Naosuke, who in 1858 was the last to be appointed grand
  councilor, used his position to affect bakufu policy. And for this he was
  promptly assassinated.
  Aside from the councilors, several other offices reported directly to
  the shogun. The post of grand chamberlain, established in 1681, was
  an outgrowth of the office of sobashu, or chamberlain. The chamber-
  lains waited on the shogun under the direction of the roju. By placing
  the grand chamberlain directly under the shogun, the post acquired
  great potential influence. When occupied by a shogun's favorite, it
  could be used as a means of circumventing the Senior Council. The
  most flagrant example of this was the case of Tanuma Okitsugu, who
  served under Ieharu as both senior councilor and grand chamberlain.
  Also reporting to the shogun were the twenty or more masters of
  shogunal ceremony (sdjabari), who functioned as protocol officers,
  establishing the shogun's schedule, mediating between shogun and
  daimyo, and organizing the pageantry that attended the shogun's cere-
  monial routine. Another position concerned with shogunal ritual was
  that of koke (master of court ceremony). This post was held in heredi-
  tary succession by the heads of certain families who had monopolized
  the technical details of dealing with the Kyoto court since the time of
  the Muromachi shogunate. They were of low rank but commanded
  high prestige because of their historical association with the court.
  They reported to the Senior Council.
  Of the offices under direct shogunal command, the position of super-
  intendent of temples and shrines (jisha bugyo), customarily assigned to
  four individuals, had as their main duties the regulation of religious
  orders and their landholdings. They also were responsible for main-
  taining law and order in the shogun's lands lying outside the Kanto.
  The office was frequently held jointly with that of the sojaban. Two
  positions of particular significance outside Edo were the Kyoto deputy
  (Kyoto shoshidai) and the keeper of Osaka Castle (Osaka jodai). The
  former was charged with overseeing the affairs of the Kyoto court and
  the court nobility. The latter was the senior military officer in central
  Japan, with special responsibility to maintain the military strength of
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
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  Osaka Castle as the primary bakufu military presence west of the
  Kanto.
  Edo Castle served as headquarters for the bakufu administration.
  Here was located the business office (yobeya) close by the shogun's
  daytime apartments. And it was here that the two bodies of councilors
  attended to the business of government. Under the Senior Council
  some officials, such as the secretaries (yuhitsu), the chamberlains
  (sobashu), and the superintendents of works (sakuji bugyo), saw to the
  maintenance of the shogun's public posture as head of state. Others,
  like the keepers of Edo Castle (rusui), the captains of the great guards
  ipban gashira), and the inspectors general (ometsuke), were chiefly su-
  pervisory and defensive in nature. A group of officials who have not
  been well understood were the metsuke (inspectors). Described as
  "spies" by the early Western observers of Japan in the nineteenth
  century, and also as "censors" by China hands, they performed police
  and enforcement duties at numerous levels. Most metsuke served un-
  der the Junior Council and hence did not form a hierarchy of political
  control in concert with the inspector general.
  The land base and its management
  In real terms, once the necessities of military readiness had been taken
  care of, the most important administrative offices under the Senior
  Council were the superintendents of finance (kanjo bugyo) and the
  magistrates of major cities (machi bugyo). The former were doubly
  important because their authority covered both the collection of
  bakufu taxes and the civil administration of the villages that comprised
  the shogun's direct landholdings. The shogunal lands were adminis-
  tered much as they had been when Ieyasu was still a daimyo in the
  Tokai region, that is, by a network of rural intendants (called gundai
  or daikan).42 When Ieyasu moved into the Kanto, he established the
  office of the superintendent of the Kanto (Kanto sobugyd) to oversee a
  number of chief intendants (daikan gashira). After the battle of
  Sekigahara, as the Tokugawa acquired more and more houseland in all
  parts of Japan, the intendant system was expanded, along with various
  makeshift arrangements for administering distant holdings. For in-
  stance, the Kyoto deputy, the keeper of Osaka Castle, and the keeper
  of Sumpu Castle administered the shogunal land in their vicinities.
  But the most commonly used expedient was to assign distant lands to
  42 Kitajima, Kenryoku kozo, pp. 2l4ff.
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  I7O 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  nearby daimyo as trust lands (azukari dokoro). The daimyo so desig-
  nated were responsible for administering and collecting taxes on be-
  half of the bakufu. In the middle of the eighteenth century, between
  13 and 18 percent of the tenryo was administered in this way. Trust
  arrangements were not assigned in the Kanto, but in the northern
  provinces they amounted to more than 387,000 koku.
  The various temporary arrangements by which the first two sho-
  guns managed their fiscal affairs were finally consolidated in 1642 by
  the creation of the office of the superintendent of finance (kanjo
  gashira).43 The office was placed under the Senior Council to coordi-
  nate bakufu fiscal administration. At the same time, changes were
  made both in the type of official named to the intendancies and in their
  life-style. As he moved into unfamiliar Kanto territory, Ieyasu had
  found it expedient to appoint village samurai who had experience in
  village administation under the Hojo and other eastern daimyo. Many
  of these officials had been able to aggrandize themselves after the
  Tokugawa takeover. Some had built fortified residences (jinya) and
  exercised personal, hence undesirable, command over the villages in
  their territories. The early practice of permitting intendants to deduct
  their office stipends from the annual tax payment to the bakufu was
  particularly open to abuse.
  Corruption in rural tax collection and the lack of uniformity in the
  handling of rural administration prompted the bakufu to carry out
  reforms in this area. Gradually, administrative procedures were system-
  atized under the Finance Office. At the same time the great rural
  families, like the Ina who had monopolized the posts of chief inten-
  dant, were replaced by low-ranking bannermen with stipends that
  averaged only 100 to 150 koku. Whereas in 1681 there had been as
  many as ninety-nine intendants, by 1734 t n e number had fallen to
  about forty-six. Thereafter, throughout the Edo era the number sel-
  dom rose above fifty. In the course of their duties daikan personally
  moved between Edo and official residences or headquarters (dai-
  kansho) located in the territory they administered. These headquarters
  were supplied with offices, prisons, and modest defenses and, of
  course, granaries.
  Surely the most remarkable feature of the bakufu intendancy system
  was that so much territory could be administered by such a small
  number of officials. In essence some fifty low-level bannermen were
  assigned to administer land rated - if we subtract the trust lands from
  43 Ibid., p. 347.
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
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  the overall total - at over 3.4 million koku. This made for an average
  of 70,000 koku per intendant, the same as a fair-sized daimyo domain.
  Daikan were given an extremely limited staff and no armed forces to
  speak of. Bakufu regulations carefully prescribed the authorized staff
  of clerks, guards, and porters at around thirty individuals for each
  daikansho. The intendant, in addition to his regular stipend, received
  an allowance in cash as well as maintenance allowances of bales of rice
  (fiichi mai) for the staff. But these were also too limited to serve the
  purpose adequately.
  That so small a staff could administer so large a domain can be
  explained in terms of what can be called the "power content" of the
  bakuhan system. Villages in the tenryo were never out of range of well-
  armed daimyo castle headquarters, and in emergencies, intendants
  could call for assistance from neighboring daimyo. The relative quies-
  cence of the rural population reflects as well the effectiveness of the
  mura system in which each village was taxed as a unit and in which the
  village headman was used as a bridge between samurai authority and
  farmer self-administration.
  There is considerable debate over whether rural communities under
  the bakuhan system were kept as relatively tranquil as it appears they
  were, by the coercive power of samurai government or by the rela-
  tively benign nature of the mura system of rural administration.44 The
  remarkable fact remains that in gross terms the income from the
  bakufu granary lands, although showing minor ups and downs, re-
  mained roughly the same throughout the last hundred years of the
  bakufu's existence. This can be interpreted in contradictory ways: for
  instance as a sign of weakness or lethargy on the part of the bakufu tax
  collectors, who failed to exact more taxes, or in the reverse as a sign of
  the debilitating oppression of samurai rule. But the mura system must
  surely be given credit for creating a rural environment that was not
  totally coercive and extractive. With the removal of the samurai class
  from the countryside, the mura, or village, as the basic unit of rural
  society and administration, defined a world that was essentially of the
  peasant's own making. Shogunal and daimyo authority touched this
  world through the village headman who no longer retained samurai
  status or authority.
  The village as a unit of rural administration was the result of a
  lengthy evolution of agrarian society to free itself from the direct
  44 In Western scholarship the classic controversy is between the Marxist approach, represented
  by E. H. Norman in his Japan's Emergence As a Modem State, and the more recent work of
  neoclassicist economic historians such as Kozo Yamamura.
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  172 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  control of the rural samurai.45 Thus as the daimyo of the Sengoku era
  carried out their new land surveys and drew the samurai away from
  their fiefs, they brought into being village communities that had bar-
  gained with the daimyo to provide an agreed-upon annual tax payment
  in exchange for varying degrees of village self-management. Mura
  were composed of registered taxpaying farmers (hyakusho), their ten-
  ants, and dependent workers. Self-management was provided by an
  administrative staff composed of villagers and subject to a certain
  amount of village selection. Each mura had its headman .(nanushi or
  shoya), and a villagers' representative (hyakusho dai). Village families
  had to form neighborhood groups (goningumi) for purposes of mutual
  assistance but also to serve as units of mutual responsibility and vicari-
  ous enforcement of regulations.
  To say that this arrangement amounted to village self-administration
  and that this favored the villagers as a whole may seem too easy a
  judgment. Throughout the Edo era the village community remained
  divided between families of wealth and those of economic depen-
  dence.46 At the start of the seventeenth century many of the villagers
  designated as hyakusho in the Taiko land surveys had been rustic
  samurai (jizamurai) before they had faced the option of joining as
  samurai the local daimyo in his castle town or remaining in the village
  and losing their samurai status. Within the village, moreover, ex-
  samurai were able to retain a degree of special influence, owing to the
  dominant role their families had once played. Such families tended to
  monopolize the office of headman, and most often had extensive land-
  holdings. The kind of "extralegal" influence exerted by such wealthy
  villagers, however, was considered undesirable by both shogun and
  daimyo, so that samurai government sought to convert village head-
  men as much as possible into simple officeholders performing adminis-
  trative functions for higher authority. It worked also to regularize rural
  administration.
  As will be described in a later chapter, the bakufu's first noteworthy
  effort to reform local administration occurred after 1680 when the
  shogun Tsunayoshi instructed Hotta Masatoshi, at the time a member
  of the Senior Council, to look into the problem of tenryo administra-
  tion. The result was the discovery of wide areas of mismanagement,
  45 This subject is well covered in Chapter 10 in this volume. On the course of village evolution
  as a political entity, see Keiji Nagahara, with Kozo Yamamura, "Village Communities and
  Daimyo Power," in John Whitney Hall and Takeshi Toyoda, eds. Japan in the Muromachi Age
  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 107-23.
  46 Thomas C. Smith, "The Japanese Village in the Seventeenth Century," in Hall and Jansen,
  eds., Studies, pp. 263-82.
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
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  which led to the dismissal of some thirty-five intendants over the
  course of several years. Within their domains, daimyo found similar
  problems. There were two potential trouble spots. The first was the
  tendency of the enfeoffed vassals to press villagers arbitrarily, particu-
  larly over matters of taxation and labor service. The second was the
  possible high-handed treatment of village members by headmen and
  senior headmen. Both shogun and daimyo sought to convert the rem-
  nants of the local jizamurai system into the more prevalent stipendiary
  system and to bring the village headmen into strict fiscal accountabil-
  ity. The abolition by the bakufu of the post of ojoya, or village group
  headmen, in 1712 is an example of this effort.
  Although the intendancy system, by which the inhabitants of the
  shogun's granary lands were administered, appeared to be seriously
  understaffed, it cannot be said that there was any lack of regulatory
  effort. And because bakufu policies were expected to set the national
  standard, bakufu regulations took on special importance. Out of the
  flood of bakufu pronouncements, the 1643 (Kan'ei) edict carried the
  often-repeated prohibition against the "permanent sale of cultivated
  land" (dembata eitai baibai no kinshi). The one dating from 1649 (Keian
  ofuregaki) is of particular interest for its moralistic and condescending
  tone. It begins with an exhortation to rise early and work industriously.
  It then advises against luxurious living and prohibits the drinking of
  sake and tea and the smoking of tobacco. But military government was
  not totally restrictive. The 1649 edict contained the remarkable provi-
  sion that if a farmer found the local intendant's administration unbear-
  able, so long as his taxes were paid up, he could move to another
  district.47
  Bakufu finances
  The bakufu's Finance Office did more than regulate granary lands; it
  was charged with collecting revenue from all sources, rural as well as
  commercial, and with outlay. Under its authority were the central and
  regional granaries and treasuries. Its personnel handled the payment
  of stipends to housemen and some of the bannermen, the issuing of
  currency, and, increasingly, the setting of fiscal policy. Finance Office
  personnel underwent several dramatic changes during the first century
  of bakufu history. This was evident in its size, which went from a
  47 This document can be found in English translation in David John Lu, comp., Sources of
  Japanese History, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974, vol. 1, pp. 209-10.
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  174 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  handful of nonspecialist bannermen to well over a hundred officials,
  among whom many were highly experienced in financial affairs. Spe-
  cialization also was evident in the separation of the superintendants
  themselves into those having either financial (katte) or judicial (kuji)
  duties. As part of Tsunayoshi's cleanup of the bakufu finances, a
  separate office of financial comptrollers (kanjo gimmiyaku) was created
  in 1682 to serve as a check on the activities of the Finance Office. The
  comptrollers were of relatively low rank; the office was classed at five
  hundred koku and carried an office stipend of three hundred hyd. But
  because they were placed directly under the Senior Council, the comp-
  trollers could report any negative findings directly to a higher author-
  ity. By the time of Yoshimune, the practice had come into use of giving
  one of the senior councilors the duty of financial oversight.48
  An overall accounting for the finances of the Edo bakufu is not
  easily made. Not only were the sources of income hard to identify
  fully, but the items of expenditure also were not systematically re-
  corded. For over a hundred years, it would seem, no nationwide rec-
  ord of income and expenditures was kept. Nor was there a clear differ-
  ence between the private finances of the Tokugawa house and the
  bakufu's public fiscal affairs. In practice, regional separation between
  the Kan to and the Kansai remained strong. This situation improved
  somewhat after 1716 when, under the influence of the shogunal ad-
  viser Arai Hakuseki, uniform financial accounting mechanisms were
  adopted and eventually an annual budget was drawn up.49
  From the start the Tokugawa bakufu suffered from certain obvious
  systemic problems. First, even though the shogunate assumed nation-
  wide political and military obligations, it restricted its base of fiscal
  and personnel operations to the shogun's personal houseband. Sec-
  ond, in its basic policy, it held to the general principle that the affairs
  of government were properly handled as a normal function of the
  members of the samurai class, whose lands and stipends presumably
  provided them with sufficient income to perform the tasks to which
  they were assigned. In theory, therefore, all the bakufu had to do was
  to deliver to the bannermen and housemen the stipends due their
  rank. But it became evident that the hereditary stipends received by
  bannermen and housemen were not sufficient to sustain them when
  48 The history of the establishment of the Finance Office in the bakufu is analyzed by Ono
  Mizuo in Kitajima Masamoto, ed., Bakuhansei kokka seiritsu katei no kenkyu (Tokyo:
  Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), pp. 126-57.
  49 Arai Hakuseki's autobiographical diary, Oritaku shiba no ki, was translated by Joyce Ackroyd
  as Told Round a Brushwood Fire: The Autobiography of Arai Hakuseki (Princeton, N. J.: Prince-
  ton University Press, 1979).
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
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  they were assigned to bureaucratically demanding jobs. And so a
  compromise was made.50 For certain offices, special "office funds"
  (yakuryo) were added, beginning in 1655. Later, the practice of tempo-
  rarily enhancing the officeholder's base stipend during his tenure, a
  practice known as tashidaka, was adopted, thereby making it possible
  to assign to an office an individual whose base salary was below that of
  the office to which he was named. These added expenditures for office
  and salary support were just one of many categories that required
  funding beyond normal expectations.
  The most important source of bakufu income was, of course, gra-
  nary land. This had swelled to over 4 million koku by the end of the
  seventeenth century and occasionally rose to over 4.5 million in the
  ensuing years. From these holdings the bakufu received between 1.4
  million and 1.6 million koku in taxes annually. There were other
  sources of income, however, such as the numerous miscellaneous reve-
  nues from commercial business, export and import dues, transport
  taxes, and frontage taxes collected in the major cities. The bakufu also
  received income from the monopoly of certain commodities such as
  silk thread imported from China at Nagasaki. The shogun's control of
  the currency also yielded important revenues, first, as new coins were
  minted from ore produced from the shogun's mines and, after 1698,
  when the bakufu resorted to debasing the circulating coins. Because of
  the lack of documentation, it is difficult to get an overall picture of
  bakufu finances, but some sense of the complexity of the conditions
  faced by the bakufu can be gained from Furushima Toshio's Chapter
  10 in this volume.51
  The overall financial and economic health of the Edo bakufu within
  the bakuhan system should be viewed in evolutionary terms.52 Under
  the early shoguns, finances were not a problem: The numerous
  daimyo attainders allowed the confiscation of land and goods. The
  high productivity of the bakufu mines fed the large stores of bullion
  that accumulated in Osaka, Edo, and Sumpu storehouses. At his death
  Ieyasu left some 1.9 million ryo of gold, well over the entire annual
  budget by 1840. This permitted a distribution of inheritance to the
  Owari and Kii collaterals of 30,000 ryo each and 15,000 ryo to Mito.
  Hidetada left to Iemitsu a 3.2 million-ryo reserve, permitting a distribu-
  50 Kitajima, Kemyoku kozo, pp. 474-9.
  51 Furushima Toshio is one of the primary scholars working in this field; see his Kinsei keizaishi
  no kiso katei - nengu shudauu to kyodotai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1978). Chapter 10 in this
  volume reflects his findings in the larger work.
  52 See the tightly reasoned survey of bakufu finances in Ono Mizuo, "Kanjosho," in Kokushi
  daijilen, vol. 3, pp. 834-6.
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  176 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  tion of 32,000 ryo in gifts to daimyo. Under Iemitsu the bakufu con-
  fronted numerous special expenses such as the building of the Nikko
  mausoleum, the giving of largess to the merchants of Edo and Kyoto
  when the shogun made his progress to Kyoto, and the suppression of
  the Shimabara Rebellion. Moreover, these were years when the bakufu
  could still call on the daimyo to pick up the expense of castle construc-
  tion, the building of residences in Edo and Kyoto, and many other
  symbols of conspicuous display.
  But after the third shogun died, the flow of special financial support
  began to move in other directions. Beginning with the great Edo fire of
  1657, we find the bakufu providing loans and gifts of money to help
  the rebuilding of daimyo and samurai residences. Fires and periodic
  natural calamities, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of Mt.
  Fuji and Mt. Asama, required costly rehabilitation. Fiscal deficits
  began to appear in 1678. And from this time on, maintaining solvency
  was a running battle. The discovery of the expedient of currency
  debasement was the single most useful device for balancing the bakufu
  budget, and it was used frequently.
  Recognition of fiscal realities grew in three stages in the bakufu
  leadership. First came the realization that corruption was a problem
  and required immediate and drastic action. Second came the effort to
  identify special problems for specific remedial action, illustrated by
  Arai Hakuseki's efforts to reform bakufu policy toward foreign trade.
  Third, we come to the time of shogun Yoshimune, who attempted to
  work out an overall, comprehensive fiscal, or economic, policy for the
  country. He recognized that such a policy would have to include
  within its purview the country's growing commercial dimension.
  Urban administration
  From the middle of the eighteenth century a significant portion of
  bakufu income was derived from taxes on urban property, fees on com-
  mercial and transport activities, and other nonagricultural sources. To
  understand this development we must turn to the urban sector of the
  Edo government. The standard pattern of city administration was
  through the bakufu-appointed city magistrate (machi bugyo), who for
  large cities like Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto would be daimyo or bannermen
  of some size and importance.
  The typical city under the bakuhan system was the castle town, like
  Edo, which had grown up in response to the needs of a daimyo as he
  organized his domains during the warfare of the sixteenth century- As
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
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  the regional hegemons built fortresses of great size and drew garrison
  troops around them, new cities developed that became the domiciles
  for nearly the entire samurai class. These in turn drew large numbers
  of service personnel: merchants, artisans, and professional groups of
  all types.53
  The bakufu set the model for urban administration, as most of the
  largest cities were held under its direct control. Edo, Osaka, Kyoto,
  Sumpu, Nagasaki, and Otsu, the most important of the tenryo cities,
  were each quite different in history and function, but the general
  pattern of administration was similiar. Bakufu administration over the
  nonsamurai residents was vested in the city magistrate, who main-
  tained an office (bugyosho) to which were attached a staff of clerks and
  enforcement officers (yoriki, doshin). In both Edo and Osaka it became
  necessary to divide the office into two, on opposite sides of the city.
  And it was always customary to name two magistrates who rotated on
  duty on alternate months. Below the magistrates the urban popula-
  tion, referred to as chonin, was organized much as the rural populace
  was, under a system of local management. The basic unit was the ward
  (machi or cho) headed by ward heads (machidoshiyori). Urban house-
  holders were required to form mutual responsibility groups (gonin-
  gumi), as did villagers. Osaka was further divided into districts com-
  posed of several wards, and these were headed by elders (sodoshiyori).
  Thus there were several layers of chonin administrators between samu-
  rai officialdom and the city dwellers themselves.
  In the formative years of the bakuhan system, daimyo and shogun
  adopted a positive attitude toward the mercantile community, offering
  merchants and other service groups attractive conditions in order to
  lure them to their castle headquarters. Although later the chonin be-
  came subject to a variety of excise taxes, license fees, and compulsory
  loans (both forced and secured), they were never as systematically and
  heavily taxed as were the agriculturalists. Samurai government placed
  merchants under various restraints, but it also relied on the mercantile
  community to bridge the gap between the urban-based samurai and
  the rural commoners who produced food and other goods. Urbaniza-
  tion and the spread of money economy created conditions that enabled
  merchants and manufacturers to become essential to the well-being of
  the warrior class. But the Edo period samurai government had diffi-
  53 The study of castle towns has grown in proportion to the study of daimyo domains. Chapter
  11, by Nakai Nobuhiko and James L. McClain, in this volume provides a good overview of
  Edo period urbanization. McClain also has written a thorough survey of Kanazawa as a castle
  town.
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  178 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  culty working out institutionally a satisfactory relationship between
  the two segments of the society.
  The first three Tokugawa shoguns articulated the shogunate's basic
  policies toward the commercial sector. Special service, or contract,
  merchants (gqyo shoniri) - among them the houses charged with pro-
  curing precious metals and minting them into currency - were given
  new charters. Restrictions were placed on foreign trade to the advan-
  tage of chartered merchants who monopolized foreign imports of silk
  on behalf of the bakufu. The bakufu also issued generic laws and
  regulations (furegaki) that established the national structure within
  which the commercial economy could operate. The regulations of
  1615 that dealt with such matters as the disputes between commercial
  litigants or problems of family inheritance were typical of the effort of
  the samurai government to pass on to each class the management of its
  own internal affairs. But the destinies of the samurai and the chonin
  were closely linked, and when the bakufu finally woke up to the
  deterioration of its fiscal condition, the problems it faced were deeply
  embedded in the underlying economy. The financial expedients under-
  taken by the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, the shogunal adviser Arai
  Hakuseki, and the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, such as price fixing,
  currency debasement, and restraints on exports of precious metals, all
  reflect the effort to deal with ill-understood economic problems that
  were truly national in scale. Whereas military and political issues had
  been the primary concerns that had dictated policy choices until now,
  the bakufu by the time of Tsunayoshi was faced with real fiscal prob-
  lems that required economically informed solutions. The debate over
  whether or not to carry out currency debasement discussed in Chapter
  9 of this volume is an obvious case in point.
  The junior councilors and military organization
  The point is often made that bakuhan civil government was nothing
  more than the application to peacetime conditions of an administrative
  system developed by the daimyo during years of constant warfare.
  This should not be construed to mean that civil administration from
  top to bottom was handled as a sideline by officials whose normal
  functions were military service. During the Sengoku wars, the daimyo
  had obviously accentuated the military side of their houseband
  buildup. But the civil administration of the towns and villages within
  their domains was given due attention. Ieyasu's appointment, during
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
  179
  his Okazaki years, of commissioners for civil administration is illustra-
  tive. During the years of heavy warfare, members of a daimyo's vassal
  band were obliged to function in both military and civil positions.
  When peaceful conditions were assured, these two types of service
  tended to become separate in practice as the qualification for office
  became more specialized.
  As we noted, the Tokugawa houseband consisted of three major
  segments: the house daimyo, the bannermen, and the housemen.
  Whereas the senior councilors handled the affairs of the shogun's
  daimyo-rank vassals, the junior councilors were made responsible for
  carrying out functions appropriate to the other two classes of shogunal
  officials. These were military guard duty and service to the person of
  the shogun and his household. The office was occupied by four to five
  daimyo of minor rank.
  On paper, a wartime muster of the shogun's armed forces would
  draw on all levels of support. Army units would be led by the senior
  councilors, the junior councilors, and the several daimyo. Under the
  command of the senior councilors were the keepers of Edo Castle, the
  members of the twelve great guards (obari), the inspector general, and
  the necessary signal officers and civil engineers. Under the command
  of the junior councilors were ten body guard (shoimbari) units, ten
  inner guard (koshogumibari) groups, eight units of the new guard
  (shimban), as well as numerous specialized units trained for communi-
  cation, firearms, naval warfare, and the like.
  In peacetime these specialized units were expected to hold them-
  selves in functioning order. The guard groups remained as castle
  guards, shogunal body guards, and military attendants when the sho-
  gun traveled outside Edo Castle. Despite the tedium of guard duty,
  membership in them was considered more desirable than were civil
  administrative positions. The more domestic of the positions under
  the purview of the junior council were in such services as construction
  and repair (kobushin), shogunal pages (kosho), shogunal attendants
  (konando), inspectors (tnetsuke), physicians (ishi), Confucian scholars
  (jusha), the kitchen (zen bugyo), women's apartments (ooku), and the
  like. It should be kept in mind that this list of functions applied to
  more than just the Edo headquarters; that is, the bakufu establish-
  ment was grounded in numerous subsidiary castles, like Sumpu,
  Osaka, and Kyoto, and administrative positions, like the Kyoto dep-
  uty (Kyoto shoshidai), and each of these commands had detachments
  of military guards and service units assigned by Edo.
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  l8o 
  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  Selection for office and administrative procedures
  It was frequently observed by foreign visitors to Japan in the mid-
  nineteenth century that the samurai government was greatly over-
  staffed. This was the result of carrying over into peacetime the undi-
  minished rosters of shogun and daimyo vassal bands and attached
  service personnel that had grown to inflated proportions during the
  warfare of the last half of the sixteenth century. But the financial
  burden that this decision placed on the samurai government in the
  nineteenth century was not understood at the time. Nor should we
  imagine that the bureaucratic system was totally defenseless against
  the pressures created by the hereditary retention of stipends by so
  many members of an underused aristocracy.54
  The samurai's practice of enrolling in the service rosters of the
  daimyo and shogun was relatively open and fluid when war was being
  waged. Assignment to office or to military service unit most frequently
  was tied to battlefield performance, and rewards for courage or loyal
  service were easily paid in the currency of captured fief land. But once
  military action had ended, the basis of assignment and promotion in
  rank or office had to be systematized and ultimately institutionalized.
  Criticism has been directed toward the hereditary nature of samurai
  officeholding, especially that toward the end of the Tokugawa regime.
  It is true that the samurai families appeared to remain, by hereditary
  right, on the bakufu and daimyo rolls. But what about the holding of
  office? Appointment to office throughout the bakuhan society rested
  on the concept of family status (mibun or kakaku). The status of a
  given house could be expressed in terms of military or bureaucratic
  rank and in size of income measured in koku of rice. Thus what any
  house inherited was rank and not office.55
  Positions within the bureaucracy were graded according to the occu-
  pant's rank and salary. For any given office, there were obviously
  many qualified individuals. And for each samurai of a given status
  there were numerous positions for which he was qualified. Accord-
  ingly, the matching of status to office rested on the basic philosophy
  behind the assignment to office and the requirements of the office.
  54 The application of these principles of status inheritance is clearly brought out in the case of a
  daimyo domain such as the Bizen han. See Hall, "The Ikeda House and Its Retainers in
  Bizen," pp. 87-8.
  55 Recruitment procedures were well developed in both the bakufu and the han. For an example
  of the latter, see John Whitney Hall, "The Nature of Traditional Society: Japan," in Robert
  E. Ward and Dank wart A. Rustow, eds., Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Prince-
  ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 14-41.
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  BAKUFU ORGANIZATION 
  l8l
  Because it was assumed that size of income reflected the individual's
  stature and administrative experience, it required a person of an appro-
  priate income to fulfill the requirements of a given position. This
  minimum income requirement for office was termed yakudaka, and
  for a few, such requirements were as follows: senior councilor (25,000
  koku), chamberlain (5,000 koku), inspector general or Edo city magis-
  trate (5,000 koku), and page (500 koku).
  But before long, as bannermen and housemen incurred their own
  financial problems, the minimum income requirement became increas-
  ingly meaningless. Thus beginning in 1665, captains of the great guard
  were given an office expense allowance (yakuryo) of two thousand hyd
  (bales of rice) to take care of office costs. Eventually this practice was
  applied to nearly all bakufu offices. A few examples: inspector general
  (one thousand ryo), head of the Finance Office (seven hundred ryo),
  and inspector (five hundred ryo). A further innovation in office com-
  pensation was the practice begun by Yoshimune of offering compensa-
  tory salary increases to individuals whose basic house income was
  below the minimum income requirement for a given post. Called
  tashidaka, a bannerman with a two thousand-Aso&u stipend, for exam-
  ple, could receive a temporary salary enhancement of one thousand
  koku so as to qualify for appointment to a post listed at three thousand
  koku. Although these measures were cumbersome in practice, they
  helped, to some degree, open up the bakufu bureaucracy to talent
  from below.
  Within a system so strongly colored by hereditary constraints, how
  were the talents of potential officeholders recognized, and how were
  appointments made from the pool of eligibles? Here another common
  bureaucratic technique was relied on, namely, the use of the personnel
  group, or kumi. Samurai were enrolled in the service registers of sho-
  gun or daimyo at a given rank and assigned to a given personnel
  group, before being assigned to a post. As a member of a kumi he came
  under the supervision of the kumi head (kumigashira), who served as
  personnel officer for the group, assisted in advancing the careers of
  men under his supervision, and preparing and presenting to a higher
  authority the petitions for promotion or transfer. The personnel group
  head was different from the administrative or military command supe-
  rior, and this separation of the command and status systems made for a
  more impartial handling of bureaucratic personnel matters.
  Finally, we should note that many of the positions in the bakufu
  bureaucracy were filled by more than one person, which reflects the
  common practice of multiple authority, or responsibility, and alterna-
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  THE BAKUHAN SYSTEM
  tion of duty. In the service of both the shogun and the daimyo, espe-
  cially in sensitive assignments, two or more individuals alternated in
  office, usually on a monthly rotation basis. This practice served to
  protect the political process from being dominated by any single individ-
  ual, for multiple appointment meant that important policy decisions
  would have to be made collectively by all officials, whether or not on
  duty. On the other hand, duty rotation meant that minor issues were
  often allowed to remain undecided, in the hope that they would be
  handled by the next duty officer. These practices worked against rapid
  and decisive bureaucratic action. Just as in the practice of retaining the
  daimyo in a centralizable political organization, the retention of these
  conservative administrative practices militated against a number of
  "modern" tendencies in samurai government during the Edo period.
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  CHAPTER 5
  THE HAN
  The han, or daimyo domains, covered some three-quarters of the
  total area of the Japanese islands. They presided over most of Japan's
  wealth and garnered most of its taxes. Under their control came the
  greater part of Japan's military forces, as at least three-quarters of the
  samurai class were in their service. For the majority of the common
  people, the only form of government they knew was provided by
  their han. Its borders, seldom if ever passed, formed the edge of their
  known world, and its officials were the only ones they could ever
  expect to see. The han gave the majority of Japanese their roads,
  their bridges, their laws, and their order. When villages quarreled
  over water supply or rights to forage in the mountains, it was the han
  that stepped in to separate them. When crops failed, the han doled
  out rations. Should a river burst its banks, then the responsibility for
  relief and restoration fell to the han.1
  This is not to say that those who lived in the han were not conscious
  of higher forms of authority. Above the han was the Tokugawa bakufu,
  presided over by a shogun from whom every daimyo, or han chief,
  derived his legitimacy. One step beyond that again stood the emperor
  and his court, powerless in fact but nevertheless the symbolic fount of
  all authority, even that of the bakufu itself. Yet to most people living in
  the han - the farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, servants, day laborers,
  and fishermen - shogun and emperor would have been little more
  than abstractions, dimly perceived and of no immediate relevance.
  The samurai class, being both educated and traveled to an extent
  denied other sections of society, would have known of these more
  exalted bodies - would perhaps have had some degree of personal
  contact with one or other of them at some time - but for most of them,
  too, their han was paramount. It was the han that met their needs,
  both material and ideological, satisfying the one with stipends and the
  i Throughout this chapter the term han will denote not only an area of land but also its military,
  administrative, and fiscal superstructure. This is in accordance with Japanese usage.
  I83
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  184 
  THE HAN
  other with an opportunity to serve. The stipends may have been far
  from large, and the service often as much a socially acceptable counter-
  feit as anything of real substance, but nontheless it defined, as nothing
  else could, the place of this privileged and shamefully underemployed
  class within the community. By whatever yardstick, therefore, the han
  formed an integral part of Japanese life.
  Nobody in Tokugawa Japan could have doubted the importance of
  the han, just as nobody would seriously contest it now. But such was
  not always the case. For more than seventy years after the han were
  abolished in 1871, they and their function in Tokugawa society were
  substantially ignored. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
  centuries, Japanese scholars - servants themselves of strong central
  government - took their own preoccupations with state power and
  imperial loyalty with them when they studied the Edo period, only
  rarely looking beyond the bakufu, its individual leaders, and what
  their attitude toward the imperial court in Kyoto might have been.
  Insofar as the han were considered at all, it was through their associa-
  tion with individual daimyo - Tokugawa Mitsukuni of Mito, for exam-
  ple, or Hoshina Masayuki of Aizu - statesmen whose devotion to the
  imperial house or to Confucian morality seemed exemplary enough to
  warrant attention. Of the considerable role played by the han them-
  selves in the social, economic, cultural, and institutional life of their
  time, little notice was taken.2
  Only after World War II did attention shift significantly in the
  direction of han studies, largely through the leadership of ltd Tasa-
  buro, a historian at the University of Tokyo. Even before the war Ito's
  research on a number of individual han - Mito, Kii, Nakamura, and
  Tsushima among them - had delineated a whole new field for histori-
  cal research. Then, in 1956, with the publication of his Bakuhan taisei
  (The bakuhan system), he brought han studies to academic promi-
  nence. As the title of his book suggests, the han were now to be
  recognized as entities distinct from, and in a sense comparable to, the
  Tokugawa bakufu with which they shared responsibility for governing
  Japan. At the same time Ito Tasaburo, and the group of like-minded
  scholars he gathered around him - Taniguchi Sumio, Kobayashi Seiji,
  Kanai Madoka, and Fujino Tamotsu, among others - have between
  them, individually and as members of the Hanseishi kenkyukai (Soci-
  2 See, for example, the old standard works on Tokugawa history: Yoshida Togo, Tokugawa
  seikyo ko, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1894); Ikeda Koen, Tokugawa jidai shi (Tokyo: Waseda
  daigaku shuppanbu, 1909); and Kurita Mototsugu, Sogo Nihonshi gaisetsu ge (Tokyo:
  Chubunkan, 1943).
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  THE HAN 
  185
  ety for the study of han administrative history), managed to keep han
  studies at the forefront of Japanese historical research ever since.
  To some extent, the readiness with which academic attention had
  moved away from the Tokugawa bakufu, the central government, and
  toward the han, which together constituted so much of Tokugawa
  Japan's local government, may well have reflected a postwar aversion
  to the old themes of prewar Japan: central power and loyalty to the
  emperor. To this extent it perhaps also reflected a new freedom of
  choice in the Japanese academic world. But it is also certain that other
  factors played a part - the realization, for example, of the existence in
  former castle towns of an immense volume of untouched documentary
  material, such as ledgers, diaries, memoranda, and tax records. For
  scholars, the temptation of these dormant riches was irresistible, par-
  ticularly once the overall theoretical framework for han studies had
  been hammered out at historical conferences, notably at the 1957
  meeting of the Shakai keizaishi gakkai (Society for the study of social
  and economic history). Also, in a variety of ways, Japanese historians
  were growing familiar with Western scholarship, itself becoming at-
  tuned to local history. One of the most seminal encounters took place
  in Okayama early in the 1950s, through the cooperative efforts of John
  Whitney Hall, then at the University of Michigan, and the Okayama
  historian Taniguchi Sumio.3
  Over the past twenty-five years there has been little short of a han
  studies explosion, reflected in the volume of publications devoted to
  the subject.4 The han have been restored to their rightful place in the
  history of the Tokugawa period. Paradoxically, however, this does not
  make them any easier to write about, for the overwhelming trend has
  been toward the dissection of individual han, rather than toward syn-
  thesis, and because no two han were precisely the same, the more
  minute and penetrating the dissection, the more remote the likelihood
  of convincing synthesis.5 At almost any given time during the Toku-
  gawa period there would have been as many as 260 han coexisting;
  3 Part of the results of this collaboration are to be found in John Whitney Hall, Government and
  Local Power in Japan, soo to 1700: A Study Based on Bizen Province (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
  ton University Press, 1966); and Taniguchi Sumio, Okayama hansei shi no kenkyu (Tokyo:
  Hanawa shobo, 1964).
  4 It would be tedious to list the major works in each genre and absolutely impossible to list them
  all. The eight-volume Monogatari han shi, and its seven-volume successor, Dai ni ki monogatari
  han shi, both edited by Kodama Kota and Kitajima Masamoto and published by Jimbutsu
  oraisha, Tokyo, in 1964-5 and 1966, respectively, contain some of the best work intended for
  the general reader.
  5 How does one begin to encompass the experience of han so different in size as Sendai, which
  covered 1,018 villages, and Tannan, which covered a mere 23?
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  186 
  THE HAN
  further, some 540 are known to have existed, however briefly.6 It is
  therefore difficult to find generalizations capable of embracing the
  entire han experience. To do so would require a retreat to the barest
  essentials: that a han was a fief with a minimum productivity of ten
  thousand koku of rice per year and that it was consigned by the shogun
  into the custody of a vassal, who thereby merited the title of daimyo.
  This much can safely be said (although not without some qualifica-
  tion, as not every fief over ten thousand koku was a han), but not much
  else, and even that tells us remarkably little. Once past this basic
  definition, historians have usually found it necessary to divide the han
  into different groups, using for the purpose any one of a number of
  yardsticks.
  One of these, which concentrated on the figure of the daimyo rather
  than on the domain itself, divided the han into three categories on the
  basis of the daimyo's political relationship to the shogun, namely,
  tozama daimyo, fudai daimyo, and kamon daimyo. The tozama, whose
  families had been substantial local magnates before the political ascen-
  dancy of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1600, were automatically assumed to be
  at best neutral, and at worst hostile, to Tokugawa leadership. The
  fudai, the second category, were men who, having been Tokugawa
  vassals, were rewarded for their service by promotion to the status of
  daimyo. As the tozama were assumed to be either neutral or hostile, so
  the fudai were assumed automatically to be loyal and supportive. The
  third group, the kamon daimyo, sometimes linked with the fudai, were
  members of the manifold branches of the Tokugawa family, whether
  they bore the Tokugawa surname (as with the daimyo of Owari, Kii,
  and Mito) or the earlier Matsudaira surname (as with the daimyo of
  Takamatsu and Kuwana). Such a categorization had one clear advan-
  tage, as there was for the most part a general agreement on which
  daimyo fell into which category, despite a few cases of uncertainty.7
  There was also an apparent thread of logic to it, given that senior
  positions in the central bakufu bureaucracy were allocated to fudai
  daimyo, but never (or hardly ever) to tozama.
  In practice, however, this classification, plausible enough in the
  abstract, was not necessarily a reliable determinant of enduring politi-
  cal complexion. The differences of 1600 do not seem to have persisted
  into the Tokugawa period for very long. By the early eighteenth cen-
  tury, as Ogyu Sorai noted in his Seidan, "the distinction between the
  6 Fujii Sadafumi and Hayashi Rikurd, eds., Han shijiten (Tokyo: Akita shoten, 1976).
  7 Harold Bolitho, Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan (New Haven,
  Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 47, n. 7.
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  THE HAN 
  187
  fudai and tozama daimyo is now merely a matter of name . . . both
  fudai and tozama are closely related, and, having been reared in Edo,
  both regard the city as their home."8 The bakufu, for its part too, did
  not appear to have discriminated among han because of the ancestry of
  their respective daimyo. This was certainly the case when it offered
  help to daimyo in difficulties or demanded some measure of assistance
  from them in its turn, but even on purely formal occasions, when one
  might have expected due attention to be given to old comrades or their
  descendants, the bakufu was scrupulously impartial. Precedence at
  such times was invariably given to the daimyo with the largest han, or
  in the case of daimyo of equal standing, to whoever had succeeded first
  to his title.9
  The fudai-tozama distinction, though still occasionally used, has
  largely been discarded as a working concept by modern historians,
  who have discovered that it is no longer possible to assume that the
  attitude of any daimyo toward national political issues owed anything
  to the allegiance of his ancestors; indeed, more significantly, it is no
  longer possible to assume that any given group of vassals would neces-
  sarily be influenced by what their daimyo thought.10 Like any organi-
  zation of human beings, the han were full of conflicting interests and
  opinions, and among them the daimyo's voice was not always decisive.
  The postwar growth of han studies, together with the interest in
  social and economic history that, if it did not precipitate, then cer-
  tainly accompanied it, has produced new insight into the origin and
  development of the han. Recent studies concentrate on the han itself,
  rather than the individual daimyo or his ancestry, and they take into
  account a whole range of phenomena that earlier approaches conspired
  to ignore, such as the internal social and political structure of the han
  or its size and location. Looked at historically or developmentally, the
  han can be divided into two groups: those tracing their foundation
  back to 1580 and earlier and those established thereafter.
  Typically, in han formed before 1580 - that is, at a time when civil
  war was still very much a fact of life - few daimyo could exert more
  than a conditional control over their vassals. The sixteenth century
  was the golden age of the old-style samurai, the jizamurai, as they are
  often called: men who lived out in the countryside, on fiefs with which
  8 Quoted in J. R. McEwan, The Political Writings ofOgyu Sorai (Cambridge, England: Cam-
  bridge University Press, 1962), pp. 75-76.
  9 Bolitho, Treasures, chap. 3; for precedence, Hoseishi gakkai, ed., Tokugawa kinreiko (here-
  after cited as TKRK), n vols. (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1958-61), vol. 4, p. 315.
  10 For a differing view, see Conrad Totman, Politics in the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1600-1843 (Cam-
  bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), chap. 8.
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  THE HAN
  they had long associations and over which they exercised a substantial
  degree of independent control, dispensing rough and ready justice,
  gathering taxes, and mobilizing the inhabitants for the tasks of both
  war and peace. Such men presented their daimyo with a constant
  dilemma. He needed their support, for they and those over whom they
  presided accounted for a major part of his military strength, but he
  could seldom command it absolutely. Instead, he usually had to bar-
  gain for it, offering guarantees of one sort or another designed to
  strengthen the samurai's independence at the cost of his own central
  power. Certainly he could not afford to give offense, for once dis-
  pleased the jizamurai were always free, in an age of civil war, to take
  their allegiance elsewhere. They could in fact do rather more than
  that, that is, gather support of their own to overthrow the daimyo,
  installing themselves in his stead. Some of medieval Japan's most
  noted families - among them the Akamatsu, once lords of three prov-
  inces, and the Ouchi, who at their height commanded seven - were
  destroyed in precisely this way. It was, after all, the age of gekokujo,
  when the lesser had often been known to vanquish the greater.
  Any daimyo house, to navigate these shoals into the safety of the
  Tokugawa period, had therefore almost inevitably been obliged to
  jettison many claims to authority on the way. Quite often, in such hart,
  the jizamurai were to survive - their existence confirmed in some forty
  han as late as 169011 - residing in their own fiefs, taxing them, and
  governing them just as their ancestors had done. As a formal token of
  submission they might pay occasional visits to their daimyo's castle
  town, as the daimyo in his turn visited Edo, but their main concern
  was with the villages from which they derived their income.
  Later daimyo, those created by the great generals of the late six-
  teenth century - Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, or Tokugawa
  Ieyasu - or by later Tokugawa shoguns, tended to be spared these
  problems. For one thing, they and their men were accustomed to
  being moved about the country in obedience to the strategic interests
  of their overlord, so they had long since shrugged off much of the
  invisible luggage - loyalties, affections, expectations - of the past.
  Further, the age of gekokujo was over. Not only were alternative em-
  ployers diminishing, but also few samurai would take up arms against
  a daimyo if that also meant pitting oneself against a Nobunaga, a
  11 Hidemura Senzo, Kuwabata Ko, and Fujii Joji, "Hansei no seiritsu," in vol. 10 of Iwanami
  koza Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), p. 66, claim thirty-eight such han;
  Fujino Tamotsu, Daimyo: sono ryogoku keiei (Tokyo: Jimbutsu oraisha, 1964), p. 61, claims
  forty-two.
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  Hideyoshi, or an Ieyasu. By the circumstances of their creation, there-
  fore, the later daimyo were able to command bands of vassals that
  were much more streamlined and much more amenable to central
  direction, in fact - to use the terminology of most postwar scholars,
  for whom such things signify a shift away from feudalism - more
  "modern."
  In contrast with their longer-established brothers, these daimyo
  were able to build up their han along completely new lines, bringing
  their vassals into permanent residence in the samurai quarters of the
  castle towns, paying them stipends, and integrating them into the
  political, economic, administrative, and cultural life of the han. For
  the most part, in the newer han, this transformation was accomplished
  with remarkably little ill feeling. The samurai themselves, having long
  since left their native villages, no longer had any traditional local
  authority to lose, and they were therefore often surprisingly amenable
  to such a move, sometimes to the point of initiating it themselves.
  In 1625, after only seven years in their new han at Nagaoka, senior
  vassals of the Makino family had begun to petition for permission to
  surrender their fiefs (from which, as they noted, "the income can be
  small in some years, because parts of the domain are subject to fre-
  quent droughts or floods") and to be given stipends instead. They
  knew precisely what terms they wanted: "48 percent of our enfeoff-
  ment in rice, fodder for our horses, straw, and money to pay our
  servants."12 This request for stipends rather than fiefs underlines an-
  other extension of the problem created by the changing relationship of
  the samurai to the workers of their village fiefs. Former jizamurai,
  when moved into the daimyo's castle headquarters, at first were per-
  mitted to retain certain portions of their customary powers over the
  workers on these lands. But increasingly, after the middle of the
  seventeeth century, the han chief absorbed the right to govern the
  peasantry.
  At first glance, this might seem no more than a classification of han
  along purely administrative lines, with the newer han distinguished by
  their centralized and bureaucratic nature and the older ones by the
  lack of it. In fact, however, it correlates with a number of other
  important phenomena. As long as the samurai continued to reside in
  the villages, as they did in Tosa, Satsuma, and Echizen, then anything
  other than subsistence farming was discouraged. Once the samurai
  12 Imaizumi Shozo, Nagaoka no rekishi, 6 vols. (Sanjo: Yashima Shuppan, 1968-9), vol. 1, pp.
  220-1.
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  THE HAN
  were safely out of the way, however, the villagers were free to explore a
  range of attractive commercial activities: cash cropping, certainly, but
  also tax evasion, unreported land reclamation, small-scale processing,
  usury, and land purchases. The small minority of han retaining the
  jizamurai system (roughly 17 percent of all han at the end of the
  seventeeth century),13 therefore, were on the whole among the most
  commercially backward parts of Tokugawa Japan. Their farmers were,
  at the same time, the most biddable, displaying far less overt evidence
  of discontent than those in other, more commercially advanced areas.
  On the whole they were spared the strains that all too often accompa-
  nied commercial agriculture, such as the polarization between rich and
  poor and between landlords and agricultural laborers, which became
  so much part of the late Tokugawa countryside.14
  Another useful categorization of the han of the Tokugawa period is
  that put forward by Ito Tasaburo, who suggested that they be divided
  into three types, large, middling, and small.15 As Ito saw it, large han
  were those believed capable of producing upwards of 200,000 koku of
  rice annually, that is, a matter of 26 han in 1614 and 20 in 1732, some
  120 years later. Middling domains were those assessed at an annual
  productivity of from 50,000 to 200,000 koku, or 48 han at the begin-
  ning of the seventeenth century, and 78 in the early eighteenth. Any-
  thing else, from 50,000 koku down to the exiguous 10,000 koku, could
  be considered small, leaving us with 117 such han in 1614 and 161 in
  I732.16
  This particular taxonomy, already familiar to many through the work
  of Charles Perrault, is especially convincing, as it was its size, more than
  anything else, that determined the range of possibilities and responsi-
  bilities of any given han. Large han, wherever situated, whenever estab-
  lished, and whatever the original political affiliation of their daimyo,
  were likely to have greater military authority, more regional influence,
  and greater economic diversity than small ones. Their responsibilities,
  too, whether to larger numbers of samurai or peasants, were correspond-
  ingly more onerous. This in turn predisposed them to a rather higher
  degree of assertiveness than would have been the case with smaller han,
  just as it gave them a greater propensity for faction squabbles, for the
  stakes were so much higher. Small han, by contrast, had little control
  13 Kanai Madoka, Hansei (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1962), p. 42.
  14 Thomas C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modem Japan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univer-
  sity Press, 1959), chaps. 11, 12.
  15 Kanai, Hansei, p. 33.
  16 Daimyo numbers have been calculated from Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Tokushi
  biyo (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1966), pp. 475-94.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL, 16OO-1651 
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  over their destiny. Lacking economic flexibility, they had none of the
  recuperative powers of their larger neighbors and were far more at the
  mercy of events; without a significant force of samurai, too, there were
  obvious limits to their political independence or effectiveness.
  In the following examination of the han, although I have kept such
  classifications in mind, I have elected to follow none of them. Instead,
  despite the acknowledged difficulty of producing persuasive general-
  izations, I have tried to do just that. In the attempt I have been forced
  to pass over many of the elements that made one han different from
  another, and I can therefore legitimately be accused of leaching out
  much of the colorful variety from a subject that is nothing if not
  varied. What I have tried to do, however, has been to focus on those
  issues with which all han were concerned to a greater or lesser degree -
  their relationship with the central government, their internal eco-
  nomic and political health - in the hope that the picture I present, if
  not exhaustive, will at least have the virtue of relative clarity.
  THE HAN AND CENTRAL CONTROL, 16OO-165I
  No consideration of the han can hope to avoid the issue of their rela-
  tions with the Edo bakufu. True, many han were already in existence
  well before the bakufu was established in 1603; for that matter, almost
  all of them, in one form or another, were to survive its fall, lingering
  on uneasily into the Meiji world. Yet ultimately the role of the han was
  defined by the bakufu, for it was the Tokugawa government that
  confirmed their existence and prescribed the extent of their responsi-
  bilities and the limits of their jurisdiction. Certainly they could not
  have existed in the form they did without the framework that the
  bakufu provided. Once that was taken away, they did not linger very
  long.
  This interdependence was recognized right from the beginning of
  the Tokugawa period, for there is every indication that Tokugawa
  Ieyasu, the founder of the dynasty, was committed to the han as an
  institution. Of course, this did not prevent him from dealing severely
  with individual daimyo. Accordingly, immediately after his victory at
  Sekigahara in 1600, he set out to make sure that those who had fought
  against him were given cause to regret their poor judgment. Eighty-
  eight daimyo - among them some of Japan's more powerful provincial
  families, like the Ukita of Bizen, the Chosogabe of Tosa, the Konishi,
  and the Masuda - were destroyed. Others lost large tracts of land, the
  Mori of Hiroshima being reduced to two of the eight provinces they
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  192 
  THE HAN
  had once held and the Uesugi of Aizu losing three-quarters of their
  vast northeastern holdings. The Satake, too, were reduced from over
  half a million koku to a domain at Akita half that size.17 But none of
  this could have been considered unusually severe. It was standard
  treatment for vanquished opponents, and nobody going into battle at
  Sekigahara in 1600 would have done so in ignorance of the likely
  consequences of defeat.
  Certainly there was no reason to believe that these summary punish-
  ments threatened the institution of the han itself, whether in principle
  or practice. Without daimyo cooperation and the resources of their
  han, there would have been no Tokugawa victory at Sekigahara, so all
  who had assisted the victor could look forward with confidence to a
  reward. This, too, was part of Sengoku convention. Nor were they
  disappointed. Yamanouchi Kazutoyo, for example, who had declared
  for the Tokugawa side on the eve of Sekigahara, was given the old
  Chosogabe domain on the Pacific coast of Shikoku, an area three times
  the size of his former holdings. Kuroda Nagamasa, too, was given a
  han at Fukuoka more than double the size of the one he left. More
  than that, however, a whole host of new han were created and placed in
  the care of Tokugawa vassals, sixty-eight of whom became daimyo in
  the two years immediately after Sekigahara, bringing with them into
  the Japanese political arena a whole new set of names: the Ii, the Sakai,
  the Mizuno, and the multitudinous branches of the Matsudaira fam-
  ily.18 Without exception, the han of these new daimyo were consider-
  ably smaller than those they replaced, and they were, moreover, so
  distributed as to make it plain that they had a watching brief over less
  obviously dependable neighbors. But they were han, for all that, and
  as the deliberate creations of the country's single most important politi-
  cal figure, it would have been safe to conclude that the han institution
  itself had a secure future in the government of Japan.
  What needed to be defined was the terms on which they would
  participate, and there could be no doubt of the Tokugawa intention on
  the score. It was intended that the bakufu would be paramount, and
  its first move in this campaign was to demand tokens of submission.
  Some of these were purely practical: to fund a spate of castle building
  by obliging the han to provide men, money, and materials toward the
  construction of a series of fortifications, among them the Nijo Castle in
  Kyoto, the bakufu's own fortress in Edo, and provincial castles in
  17 Fujino Tamotsu, (Shintei) Bakuhan taisei shi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1975),
  app., pp. 36-8.
  18 Ibid., app. pp. 46-4.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL, 16OO-165I 
  193
  places like Hikone, Sumpu, Nagoya, Kameyama, and Takada. Other
  tokens of submission were more symbolic but nonetheless impressive
  for that, like the obligation imposed on han leaders to surrender their
  own names and acquire new ones - the Matsudaira surname, for exam-
  ple, originally the name of the Tokugawa house, or, in the case of given
  names, a character from the name of the shogun himself.
  As time went on, particularly after the Tokugawa victory in the
  Osaka campaigns of 1614 and 1615, the bakufu grew increasingly
  assertive in its relations with the han. In 1617, for the first time, the
  principle was established that all han would be distributed by the
  shogun, as head of the bakufu. In that year every daimyo received a
  document signed by the shogun, or bearing his vermilion seal, in
  which the extent of his han - the number and location of the villages
  of which it was composed, together with an estimate of their produc-
  tive capacity - was formally defined. In some cases this was no more
  than reasonable, as many of these han had been conferred on their
  daimyo by the Tokugawa in the first place. Others, however, like the
  pre-1580 han, had evolved independently and owed nothing to Toku-
  gawa favor. The daimyo of these domains, therefore, as they received
  their certificates must have done so with mixed feelings - mixed be-
  cause, although the bakufu was offering them a formal guarantee of
  support, it was also, obliquely, suggesting an alarming possibility,
  namely, that at some future date the guarantee might be withdrawn,
  and their han with it. The importance of this development is obvious.
  It effectively altered the entire basis on which many Japanese daimyo
  had until now kept their domains, substituting for right by prior
  possession and inheritance something much more conditional, namely,
  right by bakufu recognition.
  Two years earlier, in 1615, the daimyo had already been given warn-
  ing of a new attitude. In the summer of that year, Konchiin Suden, the
  Zen priest who customarily assisted Tokugawa Ieyasu in religious and
  foreign policy matters, had read to the assembled daimyo, gathered
  together for the purpose in Fushimi Castle, a document designed to
  set the tone for all future relations between their han and the Edo
  government. This was the Buke shohatto, the Laws governing mili-
  tary houses. In its way it was an ostentatiously traditional document,
  larded with quotations from the Confucian classics, from the Shoku
  Nihongi, and from earlier Japanese legal codes like the Kemmu
  shikimoku, and it was certainly far more modest in tone than were
  later versions, which proved both lengthier and far more explicitly
  ambitious. Nevertheless, this first set of instructions served notice to
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  194 
  T H E 
  HAN
  all han that they were to surrender their independence in certain vital
  areas. That is, they were expressly forbidden to admit within their
  borders any criminals or traitors - fugitives, in other words, from the
  bakufu, as both crime and treason would be defined in Edo. It also
  prohibited new fortifications, or surreptitious repairs to old ones, and
  demanded that daimyo receive official permission before arranging
  marriages for members of their families.19
  To some extent, of course, these instructions would have come as no
  surprise. Indeed, just a month earlier the Ikkoku ichijo-rei had re-
  stricted the han to no more than one fortification. Further, the daimyo
  of Uwajima, Nobeoka, Ushiku, and Odawara had already lost their
  han, the first two for harboring criminals and the others for having
  contracted unauthorized marriages.20 Such concerns, being purely
  negative and defensive, were well within the Sengoku tradition. Yet
  the Buke shohatto also seemed to foreshadow something new. Its thir-
  teenth and final clause urged the daimyo to appoint none but capable
  men as han administrators, thereby sounding a note to which the
  granting of formal certificates of enfeoffment two years later was to
  add resonance. The Tokugawa bakufu was claiming for itself ultimate
  responsibility in han internal affairs. If the han were not well gov-
  erned, was the warning, then they could be forfeited.
  The second version of the Buke shohatto, which appeared under the
  aegis of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third shogun, in 1635, was to define
  beyond all ambiguity the new relationship between the han and the
  central government. The thirteen clauses of the original were now
  expanded to twenty-one.21 Not all were immediately relevant to the
  distribution of power and authority between the han and the bakufu.
  Some indeed touched on matters of rather tangential concern (as had
  the 1615 version), expressing as they did support for filial piety, hostil-
  ity to Christianity, or eagerness to define just who may or may not
  wear certain sorts of clothes or ride in palanquins. The kernel of the
  1635 version, however, made quite explicit the basis on which the
  Tokugawa bakufu expected its relationships with the han to proceed.
  Henceforth, in addition to the previous prohibitions, daimyo were to
  be forbidden a variety of activities once theirs by right.
  They could not interfere with highways traversing their domains,
  nor could they install barriers or create new embargoes. Officially
  designated post towns, together with lands belonging to religious insti-
  19 TKRK, vol. i, pp. 61-2. 
  20 Fujino, Bakuhan, pp. 39, 42.
  21 TKRK, vol. 1, pp. 63-5.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL, 16OO-1651 
  195
  tutions, were also removed from their immediate control. The legal
  authority of the han, too, was inhibited as never before, as they were
  now enjoined to "follow the laws of Edo in all things" and were or-
  dered to leave criminal matters to the adjudication of bakufu officials
  and were forbidden to settle disputes among themselves. This latter
  prohibition was reinforced later that same year by the creation of a
  tribunal, the hydjoshd, in which these and other matters could be
  settled. In two other areas, too, the bakufu was now prepared to
  extend its authority. An instruction issued to the southwestern han in
  1609, to the effect that they were not to build large ships, was now
  made universal, with a blanket prohibition on the construction of any
  vessel with a capacity of more than five hundred koku. Similarly, the
  informal visits of several daimyo to Edo on a regular basis since 1600
  was now - according to the text of the 1635 Buke shohatto - to be
  applied to all, with instructions that they were to alternate their visits,
  changing guard, as it were, in the fourth month of each year. Although
  the text did not make it clear, this applied initially only to tozama
  daimyo,22 but by 1642 all apparently came to be included in what is
  now known as the sankin kdtai system, under which they were obliged
  to alternate a year of residence in their han with a similar period in
  attendance on the shogun in Edo. There were a few exceptions - the
  daimyo of Tsushima, whose domain was the most distant from Edo,
  was required to come only at three-year intervals, whereas those with
  domains in the Kanto - and therefore closest to Edo - worked on a
  six-month schedule. The daimyo of Mito, too, and any daimyo hold-
  ing bakufu office, was expected to spend all his time in Edo.23
  Quite clearly this was an ambitious program of central control, but
  it should be emphasized that like any other laws, the Buke shohatto,
  no matter what its aspirations, needed enforcement to be effective,
  and it was precisely on this point that the Tokugawa bakufu seemed to
  mean what it said. Administrative practice in the first half of the
  seventeenth century was to serve warning to the han, beyond all possi-
  bility of doubt, that the Tokugawa bakufu meant to control them.
  Obviously an efficient inspection system was needed, so in 1633 the
  bakufu, although already in receipt of confidential reports, created a
  group of more than thirty inspectors and charged them with monitor-
  ing those developments in the han most likely to be of interest to the
  22 Asao Naohiro, "Shogun seiji no kenryoku kozo," in Iwanami kdza Nihon rekishi, vol. 10
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), p. 20.
  23 Fujino, Daimyo, pp. 93-4.
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  196 
  THE HAN
  government in Edo.24 To supplement the inspectors' activities, the
  daimyo were required, in 164425 to submit detailed maps - kuniezu -
  of their han to the bakufu; they were of more symbolic than practical
  value, perhaps, but important nonetheless.
  On the basis of its intelligence, whether from formal or informal
  sources, the bakufu was in a position to enforce its will over the han,
  and daimyo soon came to learn that if they ignored it, they did so at
  their peril. After 1615, in fact, their tenure of their han suddenly
  became insecure, conditional on good behavior or, more significantly,
  bakufu pleasure. Over the next thirty-five years, a total of ninety-five
  daimyo lost their han or substantial parts of them. Some of them,
  moreover, had been Tokugawa allies in the past. Fukushima Masa-
  nori, having assisted in the victory at Sekigahara, was deprived of his
  vast holdings at Hiroshima nineteen years later and was packed off to
  retirement in the Shinano mountains, with a modest competence of
  45,000 koku, all his power and prestige gone. Three years later, the
  young Mogami Yoshitoshi, whose han in the northeast was one of the
  six largest and whose father, Iechika, had been one of Tokugawa
  Ieyasu's closest confidants, suffered the same fate. He was given a
  pittance of 10,000 koku (itself reduced by half ten years later) at Omi,
  some three hundred miles away from his old domain. Others, equally
  important, were to disappear in their turn - the Kato of Kumamoto in
  1632, the Horio in 1633, the Gamo finally in 1634, the Kyogoku in
  1637, the Terazawa in 1638, and the Ikoma two years later.
  Outright confiscation was not the only way in which the bakufu was
  to assert its ultimate authority over the han. Over the same thirty-five-
  year period in which 95 han were confiscated, there would be a total of
  250 han transfers, in which daimyo, their families, and their vassals
  (not to mention their vassals' families) were shifted from one part of
  the country to another in obedience to the bakufu's perceived needs. It
  was now apparent that if this continued, no han could ever be regarded
  as being in the permanent possession of any specific daimyo family.
  Never in the history of Japan had so much violence been done to local
  autonomy.
  This was not all, for the years after the fall of Osaka in 1615 were to
  produce fresh demands on the han, demands on such a scale and so
  elaborately conceived as to be literally beyond the experience of any of
  those called upon to shoulder them. One of these was the introduction
  24 For an outline of the duties of this inspectorate, see TKRK, pp. 326-7.
  25 Kitajima Masamoto, Edo bakufu no kenryoku kozo (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964), p. 326.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL, 16OO-165I 
  197
  of a formal military levy, the gun'yaku system, which prescribed just
  what degree of military support each domain was expected to provide
  to the central government. There had been earlier intimations, in 1605
  and again in 1615, but in 1633 the levy was extended to all han with
  100,000 or fewer koku and - by unspoken implication - to all larger
  domains as well.26 Under these scales, the daimyo of, say, a 200,000-
  koku han had to be prepared to contribute 349 horsemen, 700 muske-
  teers, 150 bowmen, 300 pikemen, and 60 standard bearers.27
  In a sense, impositions of this sort, even if not on this scale, were
  only to be expected. The daimyo were, after all, military leaders and
  might have been assumed to wish to maintain as many combat-ready
  troops as possible. They would not, however, have found other imposi-
  tions quite so palatable. As we have already noted, they were obliged
  to contribute to the building or repair of castles, some in domains
  other than their own, and two in particular - Edo and Osaka - that
  belonged to no han but to the bakufu itself. Edo Castle, the residence
  of the Tokugawa shogun and the seat of their government, was built
  entirely from the resources of the Japanese daimyo, almost all of whom
  contributed to the project at one time or another, sixty-eight of them in
  one single year, 1629.28 The same applied to the fortress at Osaka
  which, having been destroyed by Tokugawa forces in 1615, was there-
  after rebuilt between 1620 and 1630 on a far greater scale than before,
  at the expense of sixty-four daimyo.29 Thereafter it served as the focal
  point of bakufu power in western Japan.
  The construction of such magnificent edifices passed far beyond the
  strategic needs of either the nation or the Tokugawa house. So lavishly
  were they built, and so imposing the final result, that they might more
  properly be regarded as statements of symbolic authority by which the
  leaders of each han government had been forced to recognize the
  supremacy of Edo. Certainly such was the intention of other forms of
  han tribute. The elaborate mausoleum erected at Nikko to house part
  of the remains of Tokugawa Ieyasu and to enshrine his memory was
  built at han expense, and it was expected that the daimyo themselves
  would pay homage there from time to time. They did so first in 1617,
  joining a variety of notables - two lion dancers, a man wearing a
  26 TKRK, vol. 1, pp. 89-90; Fujino, Daimyo, p. i n ; Asao, "Shogun seiji," p. 13; Takagi
  Shosaku, "Edo bakufu no seiritsu," in Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 9 ("Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1975), p. 144.
  27 Yamagata-ken, ed., Yamagala-ken shi (Shiryo-hen), (Yamagata: Gannando, 1961), pp. 375-8.
  28 Murai Masuo, Edo-jd (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1964), pp. 58-59.
  29 Kodama Kota, Genroku jidai, vol. 16 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1967), p.
  249.
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  198 
  THE HAN
  goblin mask, thirty-eight children dressed as monkeys - in a proces-
  sion that, paying tribute to Tokugawa rule, can have done little for
  their self-esteem.30 Naturally, too, it was expected that han forces
  would accompany, at their own expense, the shogun on such state
  occasions as formal visits to the ancestral tombs, whether at Nikko or
  closer to hand at the Toeizan in Ueno or, later, the Zojdji at Mita.
  When Tokugawa Hidetada, the second shogun, went down to Kyoto
  in 1617, he did so in the company of "innumerable daimyo."31 So too
  did Iemitsu, the third shogun, seventeen years later, escorted by
  307,000 men (the largest force ever assembled in Japan to that date,
  according to one authority),32 most of whom were provided by the
  han.
  There were other important areas, too, in which well-established
  regional prerogatives were to be eroded during this period, none more
  striking than in the matter of foreign contact. Spiritual contact, in the
  form of Christianity which had gained a substantial foothold in south-
  western Japan, was prohibited "in all provinces and places" with great
  finality, by the 1635 Buke shohatto. More tangible contacts also virtu-
  ally disappeared. Foreign trade, once enjoyed by many southwestern
  han and eyed enviously by others less advantageously sited (Sendai,
  for instance), was closed down in several stages. By 1641 most of it had
  gone, and what remained was either restricted to Nagasaki, under
  tight bakufu supervision or, in the case of the Korean trade, conducted
  through Tsushima with official permission.33
  In all of this the motive was to restrict han independence, to intimi-
  date them by constant threats to their tenure, to sap their financial
  vigor through repeated impositions, to keep them dancing abject atten-
  dance on Tokugawa shogun both living and dead, and to curtail their
  intellectual, commercial, and diplomatic freedom. But that was not
  all. Han autonomy was further compromised by the hostage system,
  introduced in 1622.34 Under this system the daimyo and their chief
  retainers all were obliged to send close relatives - wives, children, and
  even mothers on occasion - into permanent residence in Edo, where
  they could serve as surety for continued good behavior. By 1647 two
  30 Tokugawa jikki, vols. 38-47 of Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei zoho kokushi taikei, 2nd ed.
  (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1964-6), vol. 39, pp. 124-5.
  31 Ibid., vol. 39, p. 132. 
  32 Asao, "Shogun seiji," p. 13.
  33 Hidemura et al., "Hansei no seiritsu," p. 74.
  34 Opinions seem to vary on the date. Takagi, "Edo bakufu," p. 151, sets it at 1622; Kanai,
  Hansei; p. 28, mentions 1634 in this context; Fujino, Daimyo, p. 93, also refers to 1634, but
  only in relation to fudai daimyo.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL, 16OO-165I 
  199
  senior councilors of one large han were between them maintaining
  eight children as hostages in Edo for precisely this purpose.35
  Of course, much of this was not new; the principles underlying
  many Tokugawa control mechanisms were already in common use well
  before 1600. The hostage system, for example, was a familiar phe-
  nomenon during the Sengoku era: Much of Tokugawa Ieyasu's own
  childhood and adolescence had been spent as a hostage, and he had
  later delivered his wife and firstborn son to Oda Nobunaga in the same
  capacity. Others, in their turn, had begun to send hostages to Edo long
  before it was compulsory: Todo Takatora as early as 1596, even before
  Hideyoshi was dead; Maeda Toshinaga and Hori Hideharu before the
  battle of Sekigahara; and a whole host of people afterwards, including
  the most powerful daimyo - Date, Nabeshima, Hosokawa, Mori, and
  Shimazu.36 Nor had the Tokugawa invented the twin control devices of
  fief confiscation and transfer; both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had em-
  ployed these on occasion, just as they had called upon daimyo for
  assistance with their own castles at Azuchi and Fushimi.37
  Equally, Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had led the way in interfering in
  the internal workings of the daimyo domains, compelling the destruc-
  tion of superfluous military fortifications, prohibiting private marriage
  alliances, and, in Hideyoshi's case, establishing a gun'yaku scale of
  sorts. Hideyoshi had also moved to control han external relations,
  ordering the expulsion of Christian priests in 1587 (although he re-
  laxed this from time to time) and, nine years later, the crucifixion of
  twenty-six missionaries and converts. The elements of symbolic
  subjugation - oaths of allegiance, daimyo attendance at state occa-
  sions, grants of names, and so on - were also in common use before
  1600.38
  Yet, if the outlines of Tokugawa policy bore the impress of many
  Sengoku hands (and not just those of its two greatest generals), it must
  also be recognized that the Tokugawa employed that policy on a totally
  unprecedented scale. They controlled far more of the country than
  had either Nobunaga or Hideyoshi; they controlled it for an infinitely
  longer period; and they enforced that control far more rigorously and
  consistently. Effectively they had been given an opportunity to de-
  velop all of these well-known devices into a coherent system of daimyo
  control. Through the combined efforts of the first three shoguns in
  35 TKRK, vol. 4, p. 393. 
  36 Kanai, Hansei, p. 28; Fujino, Daimyo, p. 92.
  37 Fujino, Daimyo, p. 101; Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
  versity Press, 1982), p. 131.
  38 Fora full account of Hideyoshi's policies, see Berry, Hideyoshi, passim.
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  20O 
  THE HAN
  particular - Ieyasu, Hidetada, and Iemitsu - the first half-century of
  Tokugawa rule created a Japan of a very new kind. It is quite clear that
  in the years between the victory at Sekigahara in 1600 and 1651, the
  year in which the third shogun died, the traditional independence of
  the daimyo and their han had been severely compromised. This is not
  to say that it had disappeared entirely. Domain governments were free
  at any time to interfere in the personal lives of the inhabitants of their
  han, certainly to whatever extent was necessary to preserve the peace,
  and even beyond that. They could prevent people of all classes from
  marrying whomever they wished, leaving their villages, traveling out-
  side the domain, eating certain kinds of food, wearing certain kinds of
  clothes, and holding certain sorts of entertainment at weddings, funer-
  als, and New Year. They could also determine whether or not their
  people should be free to watch performances by traveling players. But
  such discretionary power was discretionary only up to a point. It was
  now circumscribed as never before, for the daimyo and his govern-
  ment were no longer absolute masters of their own house. The events
  of the first fifty years of Tokugawa rule had made this plain, first by
  defining the limits of daimyo authority and then by making examples
  of anyone unwise enough to exceed those limits.
  Equally important, it had also been made clear to the daimyo that in
  some areas they were to have no discretionary powers at all. Their
  governments could no longer use domain income exclusively for their
  own needs, could no longer determine their own military require-
  ments, could no longer conduct independent relations with neighbors
  or the world outside, and - given the exigencies of the sankin kotai
  system - could no longer be masters of their own movements. There
  had been, in this first half-century of Tokugawa rule, a complete shift
  in the basis on which daimyo held their domains. They could be
  disenfeoffed or moved at the discretion of the bakufu, for a variety of
  reasons - some valid, others not - but all of them beyond recourse or
  argument. There was no court of appeal against bakufu decisions, save
  the emperor, access to whom had already been blocked. So they were
  now dependent on the bakufu's approval, and many would have come
  to see themselves simply as custodians of their domains, as civil ser-
  vants liable to be promoted, demoted, transferred, or dismissed accord-
  ing to the requirements of the government in Edo. Certainly this
  would have been reinforced to a certain extent by habits engendered
  by both the sankin kotai and hostage systems, which had radically
  changed the orientation of samurai leaders.
  Edo had become the center of the nation. Five out of every six
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  CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER 165I 
  201
  incumbent daimyo in 1690 had been born there,39 and all of them
  could look forward to spending at least half of their working lives
  there. Edo, where their families lived, was now their home, as Ogyu
  Sorai was to observe, not the han of which they were titular leaders.40
  Within a matter of two generations, therefore, an entire provincial
  aristocracy had been uprooted. A period of residence in Edo might
  have represented exile to the first generation of seventeenth-century
  daimyo, but to their grandsons it was a return home, a feeling no
  doubt encouraged by Edo's rapid growth as a cultural, commercial,
  and entertainment center. To many eighteenth-century daimyo, in-
  deed, there seemed little reason to leave it. Sakai Tadazane, daimyo of
  Shonai han, was so little enamored of his remote domain on the Japan
  Sea coast that in 1707 his senior vassals had to beg him to come home.
  Sakai Tadayori, his immediate successor, was apparently no better. He
  provided his Edo residence with a noh stage, after which, as his family
  chronicles note rather forlornly, "he did not visit his domain for a long
  time."41
  THE HAN AND CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER 165I
  At the death of Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1651, anybody involved in han
  government, looking back over the developments of the past fifty
  years, might have been excused a certain pessimism. They had surren-
  dered during that time a great many powers to Edo and seemed likely
  to be called upon to surrender many more. Regional autonomy, one of
  the most abiding features of Japanese history, appeared to be all but at
  an end. Yet, among all the pessimism and despite all the inroads into
  local prerogatives, there were grounds for optimism, for not all of the
  developments of the first fifty years of Tokugawa rule had been nega-
  tive. In many respects, indeed, the han had gained from the Tokugawa
  peace. True, their average size was to fall, from 93,000 koku early in
  the seventeenth century to slightly more than 65,000 koku in the eigh-
  teenth,42 but overall their numbers increased. In 1614 there had been
  only 192 han, but there were 229 fifty years later, 241 in 1688 and, by
  1720, 262, a number that thereafter remained largely unaltered.43 Ob-
  viously the bakufu entertained no implacable malice toward the han,
  39 Calculated from information contained in Kanai Madoka, ed., Dokai koshuki (Tokyo:
  Jimbutsu oraisha, 1967).
  40 See McEwan, The Political Writings of Ogyu Sorai.
  41 Tsuruoka shiyakusho, ed., Tsuruoka-shi shi (Tsuruoka: Tsuruoka-shi, 1962), pp. 323-42.
  42 Calculated from Tokyo daigaku, ed., Tokushi biyo, pp. 475-94.
  43 Kanai, ed., Dokai koshuki, pp. 46-47.
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  202 
  THE 
  HAN
  nor did it wish to increase its own holdings at their expense. Had it
  done so, it would have confiscated more and distributed less. Certainly
  it would not have been at such pains to create new han.
  In many important respects, indeed, the centuries of Tokugawa rule
  provided the han with far more security than they had ever known. To
  begin with, the Tokugawa peace had freed them from their major
  Sengoku fear: each other. Alessandro Valignano, who had had occa-
  sion to observe Sengoku politics closely during no fewer than three
  visits to Japan in the late sixteenth century, noted that "none of the
  lords (or very few of them) are secure in their domains."44 Now, under
  the Tokugawa bakufu, if the han were restrained as never before, they
  were also protected. For more than 250 years no han took up arms
  against another. There were disputes among them, of course, but these
  went to the bakufu for arbitration, and even the smallest han could
  expect protection. Obi han, locked in a border dispute with its giant
  neighbor Satsuma early in the seventeenth century, was able to take its
  case to the bakufu and win. A scant forty years earlier no han of 57,000
  koku would ever have dared contest anything, let alone so vital a
  subject as boundaries, with an opponent more than ten times its size.45
  Tokugawa rule had effectively released all han from the need for
  constant vigilance against each other. Equally, it had done much to
  enhance their internal stability by making it clear that it would counte-
  nance no usurpers from among the han vassals. The right to govern
  each han was entrusted to a particular individual as daimyo, and to
  nobody else, and this right was determined almost entirely by heredi-
  tary succession.
  This new security enabled the emergence of a new kind of han.
  Sengoku strategy had dictated that they be compact geographical
  units, to minimize the dangers attending scattered frontiers, extended
  supply lines, and stretched communications. In the Tokugawa period,
  however, such considerations no longer applied, and certain han were
  therefore able to take advantage of the positive aspects of fragmenta-
  tion and diversification. This did not have much significance for han
  like Sendai, of which only 20,000 out of its total of 612,000 koku were
  held elsewhere.46 For smaller han, however, it was often of great signifi-
  cance: In the early eighteenth century, some 20 percent of the Nakatsu
  domain, in north Kyushu, was held in Hiroshima, a hundred miles
  44 Michael Cooper, They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640
  (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965), p. 46.
  45 Fujii and Hayashi, eds., Han shijiien, p. 521.
  46 Takahashi Tomio, Miyagi-ken no rekishi (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1969), pp. 124-5.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER I 65 I 
  203
  away. Later in the same century, Sakura han, northeast of Edo, held 40
  percent of its fief in Dewa, on the other side of Honshu. At one time,
  too, only 50 percent of Odawara han was in the area of the castle town.
  The remainder was distributed over eleven different counties in six
  different provinces.47 Not one of these tobichi, as such fragments were
  called, could have been defended in a civil war, but that - thanks to
  the Tokugawa bakufu - was no longer an important consideration.
  What was more significant was that han were able to diversify their
  economic bases in this way, winning access to new kinds of agricul-
  tural products or to areas of higher productivity, and insuring them-
  selves to some extent against local crop failure and famine.
  Under the Tokugawa, then, the han were protected to a degree
  unimaginable to their Sengoku predecessors. They were also given
  considerable assistance, for the relationship between the han and the
  bakufu was by no means completely one-sided, with the former giving
  while the latter took. Justifiably or not, the bakufu believed itself to
  carry ultimate responsibility for the well-being of the realm, and if
  from time to time this necessitated making demands of the han, it also
  obliged the bakufu in its turn to respond to their appeals. In such
  cases, bakufu assistance could take the form of gifts, like the distribu-
  tion of rice during a famine in the Echigo area in 1676 or subsidies like
  that announced in 1720, when han under 200,000 koku (and there
  would have been some 180 of these) were invited to apply for help with
  flood control projects.48
  By far the most common type of assistance, however, took the form
  of loans, usually repayable over a fixed period of time. Unavailable
  under normal circumstances, when han customarily made use of the
  great business houses in Kyoto, Edo, and Osaka, these loans were
  reserved for the emergencies of which Tokugawa Japan seemed able to
  produce an inordinate number. Fires, floods, typhoons, earthquakes,
  and volcanic eruptions all were frequent visitors to the han of Toku-
  gawa Japan, but whenever a crop was ruined, a castle damaged, or an
  Edo mansion destroyed, the bakufu could be relied on for aid. In the
  overwhelming calamities, too, there was no doubt that help would be
  given. When a plague of grasshoppers devastated crops in western
  Japan in 1732, loans were immediately made available to the afflicted
  han on a fixed scale - from twenty thousand gold pieces to han with
  47 Kodama and Kitajima, eds., Monogalari han shi, vol. 2, p. 390; Dai ni ki monogatari han shi,
  vol. 7, p. 415; Kimura Motoi and Sugimoto Toshio, eds., Fudai hansei no tenkai toMeiji ishin
  (Tokyo: Bungado ginko kenkyusha, 1963), pp. 29-32.
  48 Yamagata-ken shi (Shiryo-hen), vol. 6, pp. 267-8.
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  204 
  THE HAN
  300,000 koku and over, down to a basic two thousand gold pieces for
  the smallest han.49 Similar loans were made available in 1784 and the
  1830s, during the other great famines of the Tokugawa period.50 Being
  loans, such sums were of course repayable - over a ten-year period in
  the case of those in 1732 - but there are examples of far more indul-
  gent terms: Kokura han did not get around to discharging a debt
  contracted in 1635 until sixty-five years later.5'
  None of this consideration would have been possible had the Toku-
  gawa bakufu been determined to augment its own powers at han ex-
  pense. Had this been the case, one might have anticipated that one of
  the three great famines would provide the bakufu with the necessary
  pretext to step in and assume emergency powers that it could there-
  after forget to relinquish. That it showed no sign of doing so, at least
  not until faced with the crisis of the mid-nineteenth century, seems to
  argue that - as far as the bakufu was concerned - the han were there
  to stay.
  Indeed, the bakufu could not have governed without them. Their
  cooperation was essential, for example, to national defense. The port
  of Nagasaki, where almost all of Tokugawa Japan's defense and diplo-
  macy was concentrated, depended for its protection not on Tokugawa
  resources but on those of neighboring han, several of which were
  charged with permanent responsibility for its safety. Hokkaido, too,
  was an area where the bakufu could not have functioned without the
  cooperation of han like Tsugaru, just across the straits, which was
  ordered to dispatch three thousand men there during the Russian
  scare of 1789, or Shonai, which sent three hundred men to patrol the
  area during another scare twenty years later.52 It was also expected that
  every coastal han would take charge of local coast-guard duties, an
  obligation that gave Nagaoka, for example, a watching brief over
  nearby Sado Island.53
  That these responsibilities were observed is indicated by an inci-
  dent in 1644, when a foreign vessel, presumably Chinese, blundered
  into Karatsu bay and was sunk by a combined fleet provided by five
  adjacent han.54 The han were also needed to keep the peace, for the
  bakufu itself had neither the men nor the mobility to deal with any
  serious insurrection. Certainly the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-8,
  49 Tokugawa jikki, vol. 45, p. 611. 
  50 Ibid., vol. 47, pp. 745-63; vol. 49, p. 282.
  51 Kita-Kyushu, ed.,Buzensosho, 
  22 vols. (Kita- Kyushu, 1962-7), vol. 12, p. 51.
  52 Furuta Ryoichi hakase kanreki kinen-kai, ed., Tohoku shi no shin kenkyu (Sendai, 1963), p.
  288; Tsuruoka-shi shi, p. 371.
  53 Imaizumi, Nagaoka no rekishi, vol. 2, pp. 238-40.
  54 Karatsu-shi shi hensan iinkai, ed., Karatsu-shi shi (Karatsu, Fukuoka, 1962), p. 570.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER I 65 I 
  205
  which was by far the most serious incident to confront the bakufu
  before the mid-nineteenth century, could not have been suppressed
  by Tokugawa forces alone. At the time these numbered no more
  than 20,000, and it took a force of 125,000 men, provided in the
  main by the han of western Japan, to settle the matter.55 Similarly,
  on those occasions when the bakufu ordered the confiscation of a
  han, it relied on the forces of those adjacent to make sure that there
  was no likelihood of resistance, no matter on how small a scale.
  Peasant uprisings, too, usually needed han cooperation before they
  could be put down.
  In addition to these military obligations, every han had an important
  administrative function. In fact, the bakuhan system was firmly based
  on the full cooperation of these two levels of government. Indeed, it
  would have been impossible for the bakufu, with its machinery concen-
  trated in Edo, to have governed a country with such a formidable
  topography as Japan. It was the han that provided the tax collectors,
  magistrates, policemen, and clerks needed for government within
  their own borders. Further, the bakufu's own landholdings, amount-
  ing to 4 million koku and scattered over forty-seven provinces, would
  have been totally ungovernable without regular assistance from nearby
  han. This was obviously the case whenever peasant rebellions broke
  out.
  The bakufu simply did not have - and never seemed anxious to
  acquire - the number of administrators necessary to govern its own
  domain. There were of course several coherent and well-defined ar-
  eas56 where the bakufu kept its own administrators - Nagasaki, Sado,
  Kofu, and Hita among them - but so much bakufu land was strewn
  around the country in smaller pockets that it was often easier to rely on
  local han administrators, assigning bakufu land to their charge as trust
  lands (azukarichi). A total of twenty-six han were to help the bakufu in
  this capacity, providing caretaker services for what were, in some
  cases, quite large tracts of land. Aizu bore the heaviest burden, for in
  addition to its own domain of 230,000 koku it also presided over a
  further 880,000 koku of bakufu territory in adjacent parts of Mutsu,
  Echigo, and Shimotsuke provinces. Others, too, were obliged to carry
  fairly heavy loads - Nakatsu han in north Kyushu, for example, with a
  domain of 80,000 koku, administered almost twice as much bakufu
  55 Asao, "Shogun seiji," pp. 21, 31.
  56 In fact, as many as forty-two of them; see Chihoshi kenkyu kyogikai, ed., Chihoshi kenkyu
  hikkei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), pp. 144-5.
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  206 
  THE HAN
  land in the same province, gathering its taxes, settling its disputes, and
  dealing with its criminals.57
  Clearly, it would have required an immense upheaval to replace the
  han with a totally centralized form of government directed from Edo.
  Equally clearly, at least after a certain time, the Tokugawa bakufu,
  though standing to gain most from such a development, appeared to
  lose interest in the prospect. The death of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the
  third shogun, in 1651, virtually marked the end of any consistent
  assault on han prerogatives and responsibilities. Thereafter, Tokugawa
  authority began to deteriorate and, despite sporadic attempts to revive
  it, never regained its original impetus.
  One by one, the original control mechanisms were allowed to run
  down. The sankin kotai system continued, certainly, but without the
  underpinning of the hostage system, which was abandoned in 1665 in
  ostensible commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Tokugawa
  Ieyasu's death.58 Impositions, too, slackened. Demands for assistance
  with castle building slowed to a halt by the mid-seventeenth'century,
  to be replaced by much more modest calls for help with river work,
  canal construction, guard duty, and repairs to the Imperial Palace in
  Kyoto. True, such demands could occasionally be crippling: Sendai
  being pressed into providing 6,200 laborers for work on the Koishi-
  kawa canal in Edo in 1660, for example, and Satsuma laying out more
  than 300,000 gold pieces in flood control work in Ise, Mino, and
  Owari, more than four hundred miles to the east, in 1754-5. But
  overall, the period after 1651 showed nothing as constant or as debili-
  tating as the preceding fifty years.59 Rather, the bakufu itself came
  increasingly to shoulder the burden it had once imposed on the han,
  paying, for example, for work on the Oi River in 1722,60 a project
  from which it would never derive any benefit.
  The Tokugawa bakufu's inspection scheme, too, lost its early vigor,
  with surprise visits from parties of junkenshi, charged with ferreting
  out any misgovernment, giving way to formal and perfunctory tours,
  all announced well ahead of time (even down to the details of their
  itinerary), all asking predictable questions, and all - inspectors and
  57 For general information on azukarichi, see ibid., p. 146; Shindo Mitsuyuki, "Hansei kaikaku
  no kenkyu; - jokamachi shogyo no kiki o tsujite mita Nakatsu han hoken kozo no hokai
  katei," Keizai-gaku kenkyu 21 (1955): 94-5-
  58 Kanai, Hansei, p. 29; TKRK, vol. 4, p. 302, states that it was discontinued in 1670.
  59 Kitajima Masamoto, ed., Oie sodo (Tokyo: Jimbutsu oraisha, 1965), p. 149; Fujino, Daimyo,
  pp. iO7ff; Yoshizumi Mieko, "Tetsudai bushin ichiran-hyo" Gakushuin daigaku bungaku-bu
  kenkyu nempo 15 (1968): passim.
  60 Tsuji Tatsuya, Tokugawa Yoshimune (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1958), p. 69.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER 165 I 
  207
  inspected alike - hoping earnestly that they might be spared the neces-
  sity of presenting a critical report.61 The kuniezu, detailed domain
  maps demanded of the daimyo in 1644, were required only once more,
  in 1697.62
  As a result of this neglect, han were able to develop in ways of which
  the bakufu was to remain ignorant. Land reclamation, which doubled
  the area of cultivated land in Japan during the Tokugawa period, gave
  almost every han an income considerably in excess of its formal
  enfeoffment, but this was allowed to escape official notice. Had the
  bakufu been so inclined, this vast increase could have served as a
  pretext for a number of legitimate initiatives: It could have increased
  its own domain by confiscating reclaimed land, for example, or cre-
  ated new han, or at the very least it could have incorporated these new
  areas into the formal enfeoffment of each particular han and so pro-
  vided a more realistic basis for future impositions and military levies.
  But land reclamation received little formal recognition. Only once,
  when the Mizuno were transferred from Fukuyama, did the bakufu
  initiate a new survey and bring hidden productivity out into the open.
  This done, the bakufu claimed the newly developed land for itself and
  left what remained to the Mizuno's successors.63
  There is no doubt that as the flow of information to the bakufu
  dried up, so did daimyo become much more secure in the possession
  of their han. Bakufu displeasure, formerly enough to shake the largest
  han, was no longer quite such a problem, simply because Edo official-
  dom no longer knew what it ought to be displeased about. Further,
  such displeasure as it may have felt came to be expressed with far more
  diffidence than had once been the case. After 1651 daimyo came to be
  treated with notable forbearance, receiving, in the main, the lightest of
  reproofs for offenses that would have cost their fathers and grandfa-
  thers dearly. Open dissension among one's vassals, a misdemeanor that
  had cost at least seven daimyo their fiefs in the first fifty years of the
  Tokugawa period, was now usually punished with a reprimand, or at
  most a brief period of house arrest; only the really spectacular cases
  attracted anything more.
  Signs of mental instability, or gross misgovernment, which had once
  invited bakufu displeasure, continued to do so to some extent, but
  clearly the definition had changed. The astonishing affair of Matsudaira
  Sadashige, daimyo of Kuwana, is a case in point. Discovering in 1710
  61 Bolitho, Treasures, pp. 31-3. 
  62 Kitajima, Edo bakufu, p. 326.
  63 Fukuyama-shi shi hensankai, ed., Fukuyama-shi shi, 3 vols. (Fukuyama-shi, 1963-7), vol. 2,
  P- 394-
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  208 
  THE HAN
  that one of his officials had been cheating him, the daimyo proceeded to
  carry out a stupefying number of executions - the guilty man, of
  course, but also eight of his sons (the youngest only two years old), his
  grandson (also two years old), his two brothers, ten of his nephews, his
  octogenarian mother, and several officials. A large number of other
  officials were also banished or dismissed from their posts. So sensa-
  tional a loss of control - foreshadowed twenty years earlier by the per-
  ceptive compilers of the Dokai koshuki, who had warned of his "quick
  temper and hotheadedness" and his "severity with his vassals" - would
  never have been tolerated by the earlier Tokugawa shogun, but by 1710
  it was considered to warrant no more than a transfer from one han to
  another.64
  In 1651, the bakufu offered more evidence of its newfound solici-
  tude for the daimyo, by permitting them the privilege of deathbed
  adoption. Over the preceding fifty years, forty-one daimyo families
  had forfeited both han and status for failing to produce a convincing
  heir, an omission that proved them incapable of providing the military
  and administrative continuity expected of them. Now, after 1651,
  moribund - or even dead - daimyo, after having had their seals af-
  fixed to a petition, could obtain the bakufu's consent to the speedy
  adoption of a successor and so assure a measure of stability. As a
  result, the next two centuries of Tokugawa rule could produce only
  twenty-five attainders under this heading; the bakufu had abandoned
  its main pretext for confiscation.65
  It is not surprising, therefore, that with deathbed adoptions, mal-
  administration, and misbehavior freely countenanced after 1651, dis-
  enfeoffments should have tailed away so dramatically. Between 1616
  and 1651, there had been a total of 95 attainders, an average of just
  under 3 cases per year. The remainder of the Tokugawa period, from
  1652 to 1867, presents a marked contrast, only 118 instances over
  more than two hundred years, or fewer than 1 a year. Indeed, if one
  were to exclude the rule of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, whose incumbency
  as shogun from 1680 to 1709 produced an extraordinarily large num-
  ber of disenfeoffments,66 the total for the remainder of the Tokugawa
  period would fall to 74, or around 1 every three years.
  This new tolerance also lowered the rate of fief transfers, which had
  been such a feature of the first half-century of Tokugawa rule. Such
  movements came virtually to an end after 1651, and only a tiny minor-
  64 Kondo Moku and Hiraoka Jun, eds., Kuwana-shi shi, 2 vols. (Kuwana: Kuwana-shi kyoiku
  iinkai, 1959), vol. 1, pp. i83ff; Kanai, ed., Dokai koshuki, p. 258.
  65 Fujino, Bakuhan, app. pp. 41-5. 
  66 Forty-four, to be precise. Ibid.
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  CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER 1651 
  209
  ity of daimyo were ever moved thereafter. There were some excep-
  tions: The Shirakawa domain changed hands eight times during the
  Tokugawa period, and the Yamagata domain twelve, and the Ogyu
  branch of the Matsudaira family were relocated no fewer than eleven
  times between 1638 and 1764. But the overall statistics leave no room
  for doubt that here, too, daimyo had much less to fear after 1651 than
  they had earlier. Between 1616 and 1651 there were 205 fief transfers,
  at an average rate of something close to 6 per year. The succeeding 215
  years could produce only 306, an average of 1.4 per year, a decline of
  around 80 percent.67
  This development, although one that might have been anticipated
  of a government now well established after an initial period of uncer-
  tainty, did not win total approval. Ogyu Sorai, writing in his Seidan
  early in the eighteenth century, thought it patently obvious that
  "daimyo should be deprived of all their lands when the administration
  of their households is bad, or if there are disturbances in their fiefs,"68
  while several bakufu leaders - Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Tanuma Okit-
  sugu, and Mizuno Tadakuni among them - seemed willing to revive
  some of the old severity.69 Yet it is possible to see why the bakufu,
  seemingly on the very threshold of creating a new and far stronger
  kind of central government for Japan, should have called a halt. It
  owed its foundation to han cooperation. Further, it owed its continued
  existence to shogunal forbearance; certainly, with its own domain of
  four million koku (over six million including hatamoto fiefs), it was far
  more powerful than even the strongest han, but it did not have abso-
  lute predominance. Any combination of han - as the nineteenth cen-
  tury was to reveal - could muster the resources to topple it, so the
  bakufu was forced, even from the beginning, to placate and cosset
  them wherever possible.
  The apparent ease with which the first three shoguns could dictate
  disenfeoffments and fief transfers was deceptive in this respect, for
  whenever they invoked their power, as they well knew, they risked
  offending all daimyo, who saw, behind the threat to others, a threat to
  themselves also. No attainder was ever carried out without some possi-
  bility of rebellion - vassals threatening to defy the order, to barricade
  themselves inside their castles, and the like - which was why nearby
  67 Ibid. 
  68 McEwan, The Political Writings ofOgyu Sorai, pp. 76-77.
  69 Harold Bolitho, "The Dog Shogun," in Wang Gungwu, ed., Self and Biography (Sydney:
  Sydney University Press, 1975); Harold Bolitho, "The Tempo Crisis" in Marius B. Jansen,
  ed., The Nineteenth Century, vol. 5 of The Cambridge History of Japan (Cambridge, England:
  Cambridge University Press, 1989); see also Bolitho, Treasures, pp. 169-79, 190-8; 209-22.
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  210 
  THE HAN
  han were always asked to help enforce such decrees. But even more
  serious was the danger - muted, but there nevertheless - of resistance
  on a wider scale, in which several han might conceivably join forces
  and come to the aid of one of their number. This fear was clearly
  uppermost in Iemitsu's mind when, in 1632, having ordered the attain-
  der of Kato Tadahiro (an event that left Tadahiro's neighbor, Hoso-
  kawa Tadaoki, "dumbfounded"), the shogun felt constrained to offer a
  personal explanation to five of Japan's most powerful daimyo - Date
  Masamune, Maeda Toshitsune, Shimazu Iehisa, Satake Yoshinobu,
  and Uesugi Sadakatsu.70
  Other factors also worked to guarantee the han a large measure of
  security against bakufu encroachment. The hereditary principle, for
  example - important enough at any time in Japanese history - was
  particularly respected in the Tokugawa period, when it provided the
  underpinning for the entire social and political fabric. From the em-
  peror down to the humblest farmer, all Japanese were held to have
  inherited a particular function in society, one that Nature - having
  allocated their positions - had decreed. The will of Heaven was there-
  fore not to be tampered with unless absolutely necessary, especially
  not by shoguns who were themselves beneficiaries of the same process.
  Another explanation may be found in the composition of the bakufu,
  for its chief administrative and decision-making functions were in the
  hands of officials who, daimyo themselves, were already convinced
  both of the desirability of hereditary succession and of the need for han
  to be administered in an atmosphere of stability and security, free from
  outside interference. Only an extraordinary political figure, a shogun
  like Hidetada, Iemitsu, or Tsunayoshi or a senior councillor of the
  caliber of Tanuma Okitsugu or Mizuno Tadakuni, could overrule
  these men in the interests of the central government.71
  This is not to say that after 1651 the han were entirely free from
  bakufu intrusion. Disputes among han continued to be settled by the
  bakufu in Edo, for its position as the nation's legal arbiter never
  changed; their laws, too, in conformity with the 1635 Buke shohatto,
  were in the main modeled on those of the bakufu. Most han, even old-
  established ones, simply found it more convenient to copy Edo laws
  than to formulate their own, and as society - and the legislation
  needed to control it - grew more complex, so this tendency in-
  creased.72 This was no more than reasonable, for bakufu laws, for the
  70 Asao, "Shogun seiji," p. 9. 
  71 Bolitho, Treasures, chap. 5.
  72 Harafuji Hiroshi, "Kaga han kahono seikaku,"Kanazawa daigaku ho-bungaku-bu ronshu (Ho-
  kei hen, 5), 1958. Reprinted in Harafuji Hiroshi, Bakufu to hampo (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1980).
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  CENTRAL CONTROL AFTER 165I 
  211
  most part, did no more than reflect the common concerns of the ruling
  class: concern about Christianity, about fires, about the insubordina-
  tion of the lower orders, about declining samurai morale, and the
  lamentable habit common to all classes of eating, drinking, and dress-
  ing above their station. Such laws could therefore be adopted by any
  han and displayed on its signboards without doing any violence to
  existing attitudes. Equally, the bakufu provided services recognizably
  essential to the nation's commercial health: keeping the major high-
  ways in order, standardizing the distance between their milestones,
  and providing a series of uniform weights and measures. Further, its
  residual powers, even if seldom used, were available on occasion, and
  any han flouting them ran a risk. It was always open to the bakufu to
  intervene in domain affairs, here cautioning a daimyo about his behav-
  ior, there suggesting a possible candidate for adoption or a consort for
  his daughter or, as happened in Shonai in 1811, forcing the retirement
  of several senior vassals.73
  Nevertheless, han were known to ignore bakufu instructions if they
  believed their interests required them to do so. Thanks to the decline
  in disenfeoffments and fief transfers, those interests had been allowed
  to become concentrated on specific fiefs, and daimyo and vassals alike,
  anticipating perpetual tenure, accordingly identified their own inter-
  ests with those of the area assigned to them. Understandably, there-
  fore, they could not be expected to welcome instructions from outside,
  especially if those instructions seemed to run counter to local interests.
  Even in the best of times there was a latent conflict between the han
  and the bakufu, with each able to claim a mandate of a kind - the
  bakufu on the one hand pledged to govern Japan in the general inter-
  est, and the han on the other committed primarily to their own pros-
  perity. Usually this conflict stayed hidden well below the surface of
  Tokugawa life, but on occasion an emergency could thrust the two
  competing mandates into sharp relief. When this happened, the han
  usually had the upper hand, simply because the bakufu had neither
  the strength nor the will to compel total obedience.
  Most commonly, these clashes took place during famines, or indeed
  shortages of any kind, when the bakufu, in the interest of Japan as a
  whole, was obliged to order that supplies be sent where they were most
  needed. Yet obviously, in an atmosphere of shortage, few han had the
  confidence to part with anything they might subsequently need. Re-
  ports of poor harvests in 1660 in Mikawa, Totomi, and Ise prompted a
  73 Tsuruoka-shi shi, pp. 355; 371-4.
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  212 
  THE HAN
  fairly typical reaction elsewhere, with both Aizu and Fukuyama imme-
  diately forbidding the export of any cereals, the former noting that
  although "it does not seem as though our farmers will starve, it is quite
  likely that next year will be very difficult."74 Reports of drought in the
  Kanto and elsewhere eight years later were enough to spur the Aizu
  authorities into another embargo of foodstuffs, this time a comprehen-
  sive one - not merely rice, wheat, and barley but also soy beans, red
  beans, millet, buckwheat, cowpeas, sesame seed oil, and even rad-
  ishes.75 Every subsequent famine produced comparable reactions from
  those domains fortunate enough to have been spared: Obama banning
  the export of cereals and pulse in the mid-eighteenth century, and
  Shonai during the great Tempo famine of the 1830s.76 In such circum-
  stances, every han was really obliged to give priority to its own needs, no
  matter how great the crisis elsewhere, and nothing the bakufu could do
  was likely to change that.
  If the han could put their own interests first in even the severest of
  national emergencies, as they did all too readily, then there was little to
  inhibit a similar approach to lesser issues. The bakufu's attempts to
  control the nation's commercial life, successful to some extent in the
  seventeenth century, were to evoke little sympathy from the han as the
  Tokugawa period moved on and as they too had come to depend on
  commerce to meet mounting expenses. Economic development had
  compelled them all to make the most of such resources as they had or
  else fall behind, so they were hardly likely to obey bakufu directives
  that, no matter how honestly inspired, were likely to work to their
  disadvantage.
  A 1730 order to the han to stop selling their rice in Osaka until
  further notice, for example, was issued with the best possible motives:
  There was a glut there, which was making the price artificially low,
  and so damaging both the morale and the living standards of the entire
  samurai class, almost all of whom had to sell their rice stipends to live.
  Effectively, however, the han, having priorities of their own, ignored
  the command, sending their rice to Osaka as they had always done.
  Circumstances hardly permitted them to do anything else. Such
  clashes persisted throughout the eighteenth century, with the bakufu's
  orders being greeted by han noncooperation, and by the nineteenth
  74 Fukuyama-shi shi, vol. 2, p. 690; Aizu-Wakamatsu-shi shuppan iinkai, ed., 
  Aizu-
  Wakamaisu-shi (Aizu-Wakamatsu: Aizu-Wakamatsu-shi, 1967), vo. 9, p. 41.
  75 Aizu Wakamatsu-shi, pp. 74-75.
  76 Fukui-ken, ed., Fukui-ken shi, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Sanshusha, 1921), vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 92;
  Tsuruoka-shi shi, p. 389.
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  FINANCES 
  213
  century, as the economic crisis of Tokugawa Japan sharpened, this
  blossomed into open defiance and competition.77 Given the chronic
  financial difficulties that were to overwhelm han and bakufu alike, one
  could hardly have expected anything else.
  HAN FINANCES
  Traditionally, the han derived the bulk of their income - in many cases
  up to 80 percent and more78 - from their land tax, calculated as a
  certain proportion (usually 40 to 50 percent, but sometimes as much as
  70 percent)79 of the estimated annual production of any given piece of
  land. It applied to rice paddies, of course, but also to the dry fields
  used to produce almost everything else, from the "miscellaneous cere-
  als" like wheat, barley, and buckwheat, to more overtly commercial
  crops, like cotton, which was replacing hemp as the popular clothing
  material, or tobacco, whose production, initially prohibited, was legal-
  ized after 1667. Housing sites were also usually subject to land tax,
  except in newly created castle towns where the authorities had offered
  tax exemptions in an effort to attract population.80 There was naturally
  a great deal of regional variation in methods of tax collection, but on
  the whole much of the tax on paddy fields was collected in kind,
  whereas that on dry fields was often, and on housing sites presumably
  invariably, collected in cash.81
  There were other, lesser, taxes, known collectively as komononari.
  These had nothing to do with cultivated land but encompassed almost
  every other kind of economic activity - fishing, seaweed gathering,
  mining, timber cutting, charcoal burning, bamboo cutting, rush gath-
  ering, exploiting hot springs, and whatever other opportunities were
  offered by han natural resources. Nor did those engaged in the manu-
  facturing and service industries escape. The net was cast wide, to
  include not only the more prosperous members of the community -
  the local associations of wholesalers, the sake brewers and the pawn-
  brokers, and others of the kind - but also those involved in more
  modest activities, like the makers of bean curd, the hairdressers, the
  thatchers, and the laundrymen, all of whom were obliged to pay a
  registration fee {myogakin) or a percentage of their turnover {unjokin)
  77 Tsuda Hideo, "Kansei kaikaku," in Iwanami kaza Nihon rekishi, vol. 12 (Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1963), p. 257; see also Chapter 9 in this volume, and Bolitho, "The Tempo Crisis."
  78 Hiroshima han is a case in point. See Aono Shunsui, Daimyo to ryomin (Tokyo: Kyoikusha,
  1983). P- 72.
  79 See Suwa han, for example, in Fujii and Hayashi, eds. Han shijiten, p. 246.
  80 Aono, Daimyo, p. 182. 
  81 Fujino, Daimyo, pp. 32-3.
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  214 
  THE HAN
  or, not uncommonly, both.82 Such a daunting list, however, suggests a
  far greater importance for these miscellaneous taxes than they actually
  warranted. True, they tended to increase as economic activity grew
  more diverse, but they were never a significant element in han fi-
  nances. In Hiroshima han in 1719, as against a land-tax revenue
  amounting to almost 80 percent of the total income, these miscella-
  neous taxes produced only a meager 1.5 percent.83 The same might be
  said of the corvee, from which han originally mobilized men for ser-
  vice as porters, carters, messengers, and palanquin bearers in the post
  towns, or as laborers for road building, land reclamation, flood con-
  trol, and repairs to and maintenance of the daimyo's castle. Such
  demands, even when commuted into payment in cash or kind, had no
  more than a marginal impact on han income.84
  These all were traditional forms of revenue. Local rulers had been
  levying land taxes, miscellaneous taxes, and corvee ever since the
  beginning of Japanese history and continued to do so free from any
  interference by the central government. The trouble was that as tradi-
  tional taxes, they failed to keep abreast of changing circumstances,
  and the han were to pay dearly for it. The formal distinction between
  wet and dry field agriculture is a case in point. The latter had never
  been as highly regarded as the former, for rice was the prestige cereal,
  credited with all sorts of benign properties, mystical, as when offered
  to the gods (for no other grain would do), and tonic, as when pressed
  on the sick as a restorative. Land capable of growing this wondrous
  crop, therefore, was far more highly regarded than was any dry field
  and so carried a substantially heavier tax burden. Its taxes, too, as we
  have seen, were largely collected in kind - that is, as bales of rice -
  unlike that on dry fields, for which a vulgar cash settlement was
  considered appropriate. Because the precise sum levied on dry fields
  was based on a notional estimate, rather than on any realistic calcula-
  tion involving crop types and market prices, the taxes they paid were
  not always related to the returns they brought their cultivators.
  Administrators, at least initially, did not readily grasp the fact that a
  light sandy soil, totally unsuited to wet-rice production, might never-
  theless produce a crop of tobacco, for example, capable of fetching a
  high .price at Osaka or Edo. Yet, increasingly, such was the case. The
  rapid growth and diversification of the economy saw more and more
  people moving away from subsistence farming and producing crops
  82 For Kaga, see ibid., pp. 3-5; for Hikone, see Nakamura Naokatsu, ed., Hikone-shi shi, 3
  vols. (Hikone-shi: Hikone shiyakusho, i960), vol. 1, pp. 607-9.
  83 Aono, Daimyo, p. 72. 
  84 Fujino, Daintyd, pp. 115-17.
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  FINANCES 
  215
  for sale - tobacco and cotton, of course, but also indigo, madder,
  rapeseed, and vegetables. In some areas, particularly in central Japan,
  commercial agriculture had become the predominant mode by the
  eighteenth century: Over 60 percent of the arable land of the provinces
  of Settsu and Kawachi was given over to cotton production, which had
  proved so lucrative that farmers were even planting it in their pad-
  dies.85 Agriculture, by becoming more varied, had also grown more
  profitable, but the han (and the bakufu too, for that matter) seemed
  unable to take advantage of it.
  It is tempting to ascribe such administrative lacunae to ignorance,
  inertia, or even to some impermeable precommercial innocence, and
  indeed all of these elements may have played a part in the initial failure
  of the han to react constructively to changes in economic life. But
  there was another important element involved as well. For all their
  authority over the common people - who were, after all, dragooned
  into goningumi, or joint responsibility groups, in which all were held
  hostage for the good behavior of their fellows, and therefore theoreti-
  cally totally responsive to direction - very few han administrations
  were strong enough to do as they pleased. This was particularly so in
  matters of taxation. Any intensification of taxes, whether in their rate,
  their incidence, or even their administration, was likely to be opposed.
  The first stage of such opposition took the form of argument, in which
  one of two lines might be pressed. One approach was to label any
  variation from former practice a departure from precedent and there-
  fore, by definition, a breach of faith. The other was to draw attention
  to nearby han where things were done differently, and rather better.
  Given the complicated map of Tokugawa Japan, where han, portions
  of han, and fragments of bakufu land lay cheek by jowl, it was never
  difficult to point to some neighbor who, under a different administra-
  tion, was receiving more favorable treatment. Because precedent was
  so valued and because there was so much local variation, either of
  these gambits could be effective.86
  If they should fail, then farmers could turn to more emphatic mea-
  sures. They could, for example, desert their farms en masse, as they did
  in Shonai in 1632, when large numbers trooped across the han border
  into Akita rather than submit to a new (and presumably more accurate)
  land survey, or as 3,000 farmers from Takato han did in 1654 in protest
  against administrative "tyranny."87 The next, and graver, step was an
  85 Otsuka shigakkai, ed., (Shimpan) Kyodo shijiten (Tokyo: Asakura shoten, 1969), p. 611.
  86 Aono, Daimyo, p. 219, cites some examples from the Hiroshima area.
  87 Tsuruoka-shi shi, p. 265; Fujii and Hayj-hi, eds., Han shijiten, p. 247.
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  2l6 
  THE 
  HAN
  intimidatory show of solidarity, like that displayed by the 300,000 peas-
  ants who jammed into Hiroshima in 1718 to protest against a new (and
  once again presumably more accurate) survey of their lands, or the
  20,000 farmers in Karatsu who joined together to protest the imposition
  of a new tax on low-lying land, as well as the fact that their normal taxes
  were now being measured out with a far larger measure than usual, and
  a heaped one, at that.88 Such incidents, increasingly spilling over into
  violence, were frequent enough in the seventeenth century, but their
  rate more than doubled in the eighteenth - upwards of a thousand cases
  between 1715 and 1815, as against fewer than five hundred over the
  period 1615 to 1715.89 In almost every case, new taxation initiatives on
  the part of the authorities, han or bakufu, according to location, was at
  the root of the trouble. The more efficiently these governments tried to
  tap the traditional sources of income, the more resistance they encoun-
  tered, and the more effective that resistance was.
  Of course, in all but the very largest demonstrations, the han had
  the military force needed to restore order. They often did so and
  frequently none too gently; it was not unknown for protest leaders to
  be beheaded for their pains, as a warning to future malcontents.9" But
  nevertheless, the relationship between han officals and peasants was a
  particularly delicate one. Any dispute, if mishandled, could well bring
  about such turmoil that the bakufu would be compelled to intervene,
  in which case the daimyo and his officials might not go unscathed.
  Koriki Takanaga lost his domain at Shimabara and Yashiro Tadataka
  his at Hojo in precisely such circumstances.91
  Peasant protest was possible because the bakufu had recognized as
  early as 1603 that peasants, no matter where they lived, had certain
  rights, among them the right to formal complaint and the right to
  desert their fields and move elsewhere, if necessary.92 Subsequently,
  after experiencing difficulties of its own in this regard, the bakufu was
  to regret its magnanimity, but the principle still remained. Once con-
  fronted by a determined peasant opposition, han often found it politic
  to compromise, even to back down, rather than risk a prolonged,
  costly, embarrassing, and potentially damaging dispute. The fact was
  that han needed their peasants and needed them, moreover, to be
  reasonably healthy and moderately content. Few daimyo would have
  88 Aono, Daimyo, p. 220; Karatsu-shi shi, pp. 592-3.
  89 Aoki Koji, Hyakusho ikki no nenji-teki kenkyu (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1966), p. 17.
  90 One of the earliest examples from the Tokugawa period is the beheading in 1608 of twelve
  Choshu peasant leaders. Minegishi Kentaro, "Seiritsu-ki han keizai no kozo," in Furushima
  Toshio, ed., Nihon keizai shi laikei (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppan-kai, 1965), vol. 3, p. 222.
  91 Fujii and Hayashi, eds., Han shijiten, pp. 489, 158. 
  92 TKRK, vol. 5, p. 150.
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  FINANCES 
  217
  disagreed with Ikeda Mitsumasa of Okayama han, who in 1655 spoke
  of his concern that "the peasants should be robust and devote them-
  selves to their agriculture."93 Twenty-odd years later, officials in
  Fukuyama han were warning of exhaustion among the peasantry and
  urging that they be allowed adequate opportunity for relaxation.94
  The traditional framework really offered the han only one way of
  augmenting their income without unduly provoking their peasants,
  and this was land reclamation. If they could increase the area under
  cultivation and make sure that it all paid taxes at the appropriate rate,
  then to that extent han revenues would rise. The prospect was undeni-
  ably attractive, whether achieved by the han itself - perhaps using
  corvee labor - or else by local entrepreneurs working with official
  knowledge and permission. Many han, availing themselves of the op-
  portunity, were able to expand their productive capacity by 30 percent
  and more: The area of cultivated land in Tsugaru han doubled during
  the seventeenth century, and in both Shonai, farther down the Japan
  Sea coast, and Fukuyama, over on the Inland Sea, it increased by at
  least a third.95 Between 1600 and 1720, in fact, the area of cultivated
  land in Japan grew by a colossal 82 percent.96 But reclamation could
  not be extended indefinitely, particularly not within the limits of con-
  temporary technology, and by the early eighteenth century those limits
  appeared to have been reached. The next 150 years could produce an
  increase of no more than 3 percent.97 In any case, few han would have
  had a completely free hand with their reclamation; undoubtedly much
  of it was carried on surreptitiously by peasants who, having cleared or
  drained small plots for themselves, strenuously resisted the visits of
  any inspectors who might have discovered them.98
  It was in the eighteenth century, when reclamation was almost at an
  end, that many han administrators became aware of a new problem.
  Not only was it now virtually impossible for them to increase returns
  from traditional sources, but more disturbing still, their revenues were
  actually shrinking.99 There were several reasons for this. In part it
  came about through the concentration of samurai in castle towns, a
  phenomenon observable in much of Japan by the late seventeenth
  93 Quoted in Aono Daimyo p. 17. 
  94 Ibid., p. 99.
  95 Miyazaki Michio, Aomori-ken no rekishi (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1970), pp. 149-50;
  Tsurvoka-shi shi, p. 296; Aono, Daimyo, p. 80.
  96 Aono, Daimyo, p. 79. 
  97 Ibid.
  98 Miura Toshiaki, "Hamamatsu-han ryoiki no keisei to shukueki joseikin," Chiho-shi kenkyu 79
  (1966): 85.
  99 For some examples, see Fuktyama-shi shi, p. 496; Nagaoka shiyakusho, ed., Nagaoka-shi shi
  (Nagaoka: Nagaoka shiyakusho, 1931), p. 109; Taniguchi Sumio, Okayama han (Tokyo:
  Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1964), pp. 145-6.
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  2l8 
  THE HAN
  century. No matter how greatly this had contributed to the stability
  and coherence of han governments, it had robbed them of their com-
  manding position in the countryside. Village affairs were now left
  almost completely in the care of the headmen, themselves farmers and
  therefore subject to precisely the same pressures as their fellows were.
  Consequently they reacted to their freedom by underreporting yields,
  by neglecting to register freshly cultivated land, and by concealing the
  extent of rural commerce.
  There were other contributing factors as well. In provinces like
  Settsu and Kawachi, the transformation of highly taxed rice paddies
  into more modestly taxed cotton fields inevitably led to reduced reve-
  nues. So too did a steady drift of farming population away from the
  villages and into country towns, castle towns, and the great urban
  centers of Edo and Osaka. I0° For that matter, agriculture was notori-
  ously unpredictable during the Tokugawa period, and most han found
  themselves compelled to reduce or suspend normal taxation from time
  to time to help their farmers cope with disasters of one sort or another.
  In the northeast, where crop failures were common, unseasonable cold
  was usually the problem; elsewhere the agricultural cycle could be
  shattered by anything from floods, typhoons, and mud slides to earth-
  quakes and volcanic eruptions. Whatever the cause, every han sooner
  or later had to recognize genuine hardship and make some sort of
  allowance for it. Even Nagaoka, after three successive years of flood-
  ing in the 1680s, was forced to acknowledge the gravity of the situation
  to the extent of subsidizing rice sales, providing shelter for the home-
  less, and suspending, albeit temporarily, the torture of those who had
  defaulted on their taxes.101
  Naturally, declining incomes made the han far more sensitive to their
  expenses, and these were substantial. Despite the Tokugawa peace, in
  which no armies took the field between 1638 and 1864, every han was
  compelled to maintain a standing army. The bakufu's gun'yaku require-
  ments would admit of nothing else. Paradoxically, it had been far less
  costly for daimyo to maintain armies in the Sengoku period, when
  fighting was more or less constant, than it proved to be in the tranquil-
  lity of the Tokugawa period.
  In the sixteenth century, samurai had been mobilized only when
  necessary and supported themselves by farming the rest of the time.
  Whenever they did fight, they were subject to the full rigors of mili-
  100 Susan B. Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial
  Japan, 1600-1868 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 103-14.
  101 Imaizumi, Nagaoka no rekishi, vol. 2, pp. 122-3.
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  FINANCES 
  219
  tary Darwinism: Only the fittest survived. Under the Tokugawa, how-
  ever, the situation was totally different; the majority of samurai no
  longer farmed but lived permanently on the payroll, whether in castle
  towns or in Edo (where some han were known to keep as many as 30 to
  40 percent of their samurai stationed permanently).102 Further, be-
  cause none of them ever fought, old samurai tended to fade away
  rather than die, never so enfeebled as to be unable to draw their
  stipends at twice-yearly intervals. Yet, no matter how crushing the
  samurai incubus, no han could do much about it. Ogaki actually suc-
  ceeded in ridding itself of 150 samurai in 1680, after having received
  special permission from the bakufu, and in the late eighteenth century,
  Yonezawa, attempting a gentler approach, suggested hopefully that
  the second and third sons of its samurai families might like to find
  alternate employment as farmers,103 but these were the exceptions
  rather than the rule.
  Even by the bakufu's 1649 standardization of gun'yaku obliga-
  tions,104 which called upon even the smallest han to maintain a force of
  235 men, Tokugawa Japan would have been spectacularly well en-
  dowed with samurai. But the fact was that although the bakufu had
  established a minimum figure for each han, it had deliberately re-
  frained from setting a maximum. In the coda to its 1649 instructions,
  it had effectively left open the way for han to employ as many samurai
  as they wished, so long as they all were "loyal." It was not uncommon,
  therefore, for han of comparable endowment to differ wildly from one
  another in samurai numbers. Yonezawa, Takada, and Koriyama all
  had much the same assessed productivity - roughly 150,000 koku -
  but although the last two had no more than two thousand samurai
  each, Yonezawa maintained four times that number.105 More than
  anything else, such discrepancies were due to differing histories. Both
  Takada and Koriyama owed their creation to Tokugawa patronage in
  the seventeenth century, and they were therefore able to employ just as
  many men as required, and no more. Yonezawa, by contrast, had come
  into being by a different route. It was in the hands of the Uesugi, a
  family prominent in eastern Japan since the fourteenth century. They
  had survived to enter the seventeenth century with both lands and
  military machine largely intact but, on being deprived of half of the
  102 Fukuyama-shi shi, pp. 469-70; Kimura and Sugimoto, eds., Fudai hansei, pp. 26-7.
  103 Ogaki shiyakusho, ed., Ogaki-shi shi, 3 vols. (Ogaki, 1930), vol. 1, pp. 415-17; Tsuda,
  "Kansei kaikaku," p. 278.
  104 TKRK, vol. 1, pp. 90-2.
  105 Hanseishi kenkyOkai, ed., Hansei seiritsushi no sogd kenkyu - Yonezawa han (Tokyo: Yoshi-
  kawa kobunkan, 1963), p. 369.
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  22O 
  THE HAN
  former in 1664, still found themselves prevented by old ties of loyalty
  and obligation (and perhaps by fear of repercussions) from shedding
  anything like half their vassals. Many other han - Choshu among
  them - were similarly placed.
  It was all an immense burden. Han did what they could with their
  samurai, training and educating many of them for useful employment
  as civil servants of one sort of another - magistrates, censors, school-
  masters, secretaries, gamekeepers, policemen, foresters, bailiffs - and
  appointing those left over to sonorous and virtually meaningless mili-
  tary positions - guards, lancers, captains of the colors, and buglers (or
  at least blowers of conch shells).
  A glance at the administrative structure of any han shows a bewilder-
  ing range of posts: about 150 of them in Sakura han and almost as
  many in Owari.106 Yet it was all so much window dressing. There was
  simply not enough business to engage the services of such a vast
  number of samurai - probably as many as 350,000 in the service of the
  various han - all of the time. Even with rotation and rostering there
  was not enough useful work to go around, so few could ever hope for
  more than temporary employment. Their status, nevertheless, re-
  mained constant, and so did their right to a basic salary. They served
  merely as a standing army (perhaps lounging army would be more apt
  a description), kept waiting for whatever emergency should arise.
  Ironically, that emergency did not eventuate for over two hundred
  years, and when it did, it found them lamentably unprepared.
  The other major drain on han finances was a by-product of the
  sankin kotai system, under which daimyo were required to take up
  residence in Edo every alternate year. No part of this ritual was ever
  done cheaply. It was unthinkable, for example, that a daimyo should
  sidle unobtrusively into Edo. Instead, he made it his business to set
  out on his journey with as splendid an escort as possible. The daimyo
  gyoretsu, or procession, numbering as many as a thousand men with
  spears and pennants, was one of the most splendid sights Tokugawa
  Japan had to offer. It was also one of the most costly, for it was no easy
  matter to move large numbers of men across Japan. In the case of the
  more distant han, like Karatsu in north Kyushu, for example, when
  the journey needed more than thirty overnight stops, the outlay for
  food and shelter en route was enormous. Every other year Saga han,
  106 Kimura and Sugimoto, Fudai hansei, p. 21; Hayashi Toichi, Owari han no kohoshi no kenkyu
  (Tokyo: Nippon gakujutsu shinkokai, 1962), pp. 153-6.
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  FINANCES 
  221
  Karatsu's near neighbor, customarily spent 20 percent of that year's
  income on the journey alone.107
  Nor did the cost diminish once the daimyo and his retinue had
  reached Edo. "Above all, we must economize when we are in Edo,"
  warned the senior vassals of the daimyo of Karatsu in 1782, and not
  without reason.108 Virtually everything the daimyo and his vassals
  needed for their stay in Edo, from food and fuel to paper and ink,
  had to be bought there at Edo prices, almost always higher than
  those current at home. There were, too, unremitting temptations to
  spend - familiar enough to any urban society, but particularly in-
  tense in a city where samurai from all over Japan competed with one
  another in keeping up appearances. Each daimyo, too, no matter
  how frugal by personal inclination, was caught up in the same con-
  test and was obliged to live in a manner befitting his eminence, real
  or pretended.
  All of them therefore maintained mansions of some elegance, often
  set in notable gardens, traces of which are still to be seen in Tokyo: the
  Korakuen for example, once the property of Mito han, or the
  Rikugien, which belonged to the Yanagisawa of Koriyama. It was
  customary for han to have more than one such residence. The chief
  one, known as the kami-yashiki, functioned as a permanent legation,
  where a staff of officials attended to the han's Edo business and where
  the daimyo was housed during his sankin kotai stays. A secondary
  residence, or naka-yashiki, accommodated the daimyo's heir apparent
  but also provided shelter for the daimyo whenever necessary, as, for
  example, on the many occasions when the official residence had been
  either destroyed by fire or was being rebuilt in readiness for the next.
  It was common, too, for han to have yet another residence, this time a
  shimo-yashiki, or holiday house, in some distant quarter of the city, to
  which the daimyo and his family could repair during the worst of the
  summer heat. As reported in the Edo zusetsu of 1799, there were 265
  official residences and another 734 secondary residences and holiday
  houses scattered around the city.109
  Compared with such massive outlays, the normal run of expenses
  back in the han seems rather meager. It was expected, and indeed
  often explicitly stated, that the han themselves were to be administered
  107 Karatsu-shi shi, p. 617; Sasaki Junnosuke, Daimyo to hyakusho, vol. 15 oiChuo koron Nikon
  no rekishi (Tokyo: Chud koronsha, 1966), p. 156.
  108 Matsuyoshi Sadao, Kanemochi daimyo bimbo daimyo (Tokyo: Jimbutsu oraisha, 1964), p. 69.
  109 Cited in Fujino, Daimyo, p. 95.
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  222 
  THE HAN
  as conservatively as possible, eschewing all expenses not absolutely
  necessary to their primary function of feeding the samurai and main-
  taining the system. Typically, budgets began and ended with the needs
  of the samurai class (stipends and education) and their obligations {han
  defense and alternate attendance). The needs of the remaining 90
  percent of han population figure only occasionally and grudgingly in
  han ledgers, and then only in times of crisis. Under normal circum-
  stances they were left to fend for themselves, their lives, customs, and
  amusements frequently the subject of han regulation, but never its
  object. All they gained in return for their taxes was the attempted
  perpetuation of conditions under which their future contributions to
  han finances might be maximized.
  In any case, no han could really have afforded to do anything more
  for its common people. As it was, with revenues stagnant or declining
  and enormous commitments in Edo and to their samurai, it was more
  and more difficult for the han to balance their budgets. It is hardly
  necessary to go through the dispiriting roll call of those han that
  tottered through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (and
  even part of the seventeenth century) poised precariously on the knife-
  edge between indigence and bankruptcy. It was a state common to
  them all, to a greater or lesser degree, and their responses to it were
  broadly similar. The instinctive reaction to the crisis, when it first
  appeared, was for han governments to accuse the common people of
  living above their station and to call upon them to spend less and
  surrender more. Next came internal economy drives, initially for fixed
  periods (five years being the favored figure), but sooner or later these
  periods became consecutive; one such initiative launched by Kana-
  zawa han in 1779 was still in force twenty years later.110 At such times
  not even the daimyo's own household expenses escaped scrutiny, a fact
  that was sometimes known to drive needy daimyo into the welcoming
  arms of the pawnbrokers. It was in precisely such circumstances that
  Sakai Tadazane of Shonai came to pledge two family heirlooms - a
  noted tea bowl and a painting - for a thousand gold pieces. His succes-
  sor, Tadayori, beset by similar difficulties, did the same with his wife's
  hair ornaments, originally part of her dowry.111
  Overwhelmingly, however, han governments confronted the finan-
  cial crisis with the help of moneylenders, usually the great merchant
  houses of Osaka and Kyoto - the Konoike (who had thirty-one in-
  debted han on their books by the end of the seventeenth century),"2
  n o Ibid., p. 207. 
  i n Tsuruoka-shi shi, pp. 326, 336. 
  112 Fujino, Daimyo, p. 163.
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  FINANCES 
  223
  the Sumitomo, the Masuya, and others - but gradually coming to rely
  on local merchants as well.
  The borrowing had in fact begun very early, particularly in the case
  of han like Sendai, Choshu, Satsuma, Saga, and Tosa, all of which were
  compelled to contribute heavily to the bakufu's castle-building projects
  at the beginning of the seventeenth century."3 By the end of that
  century, however, and long after the heaviest of bakufu impositions had
  been met, every han had gone into debt. Few of them ever emerged, for
  the interest on those debts (usually from 5 to 7 percent per annum)"4
  was to prove beyond the resources of all but the very richest of han.
  Tosa, by 1688, was spending 34 percent of its budget repaying loans;
  Hiroshima, across the Inland Sea, unable to meet even the interest on
  its debt, owed the Konoike house a sum that in 1745 had grown pre-
  cisely ten-fold since 1719; for Okayama, by 1829, payments to money-
  lenders had come to represent the largest single item in its annual
  budget."5 The han had thus built such a superstructure of debt for
  themselves that only the most draconian measures - the unilateral repu-
  diation of all debts, for example"6 - could set them free. Budget defi-
  cits and chronic debts were as much a part of han life as they are of our
  own, and no matter how much contemporaries deplored them, it is
  certain that they, like ourselves, also learned to live with them, at least
  until the cataclysmic events of the mid-nineteenth century.
  There were just two other avenues open to han wishing to enhance
  their finances. In most cases, neither of them proved to be anything
  more than a mild palliative, leaving the superstructure of han debts
  largely untouched. Both of them, however, were of some political
  significance. In following one of them, han governments found them-
  selves at odds with local residents; in following the other, they were to
  erode their relations with their own samurai. Nevertheless, given the
  circumstances in which they found themselves, the han had little alter-
  native but to pursue them both.
  The first was essentially a reaction to the commercial development
  of the Tokugawa period, in which the medieval ideal of individual self-
  sufficiency crumbled under the pressures of commercial farming and
  specialized manufacture. It was not long before the han governments
  responded to the change, with mercantilist policies that encouraged
  local products with protection inside the domain (to stop money from
  113 Ibid., p. 200; Sasaki, Daimyo, pp. 132-3. 
  114 Fujino, Daimyo, p. 164.
  115 Hirao Michio, Tosa han (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1965), pp. 33-34; Aono, Daimyo, p.
  73; Taniguchi, Okayama kansei, p. 160.
  116 Bolitho, "The Tempo Crisis," pp. 32-3.
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  224 
  T H E
  leaving the han) and outside with purposeful marketing (to bring
  money into the han). This attention proved a mixed blessing to local
  producers, however.
  Those who benefited by protection - the ink makers of Aizu, for
  example, freed from competition by a ban on imported ink in 1791 -
  could not have been more pleased.117 Such was not the case, though,
  with producers of more highly prized commodities. As the indigo grow-
  ers of Tokushima, the madder growers of Yonezawa, the lacquer makers
  of Aizu, the potters of Saga, and countless other farmers and craftsmen
  were to discover, few han could resist trying to siphon away the profits.
  The experience of the Karatsu paper-mulberry growers in this regard is
  fairly typical. With their crop subject to compulsory acquisition orders
  by the han and with severe punishment threatened for anyone attempt-
  ing to evade such orders, they were obliged to sell what they grew to
  none but authorized buyers, and at a third of the price obtainable
  outside the domain.'l8 The han, having bought cheaply, intended to sell
  dear elsewhere and to pocket the proceeds. Indeed, quite often in such
  cases, local producers were to be paid in hansatsu, han paper currency,
  worth virtually nothing outside the han borders and little more inside. It
  was a tidy scheme, but it did not often work. Inevitably there was
  resistance. The Karatsu case is no less typical in this respect, for its
  paper-mulberry farmers rioted in 1771, as did cotton farmers in
  Fukuyama in 1752, Matsuyama tea growers in 1741, Oka tobacco grow-
  ers in 1811, and innumerable other farmers and craftsmen and manufac-
  turers at various times during the Tokugawa period.119 So fierce were
  these protests, and so determined and inventive local producers in
  evading official directives, that few han managed to recoup their fi-
  nances as easily as they had originally hoped. Nevertheless, illusion
  though it may have been, it was virtually the last one that most han had,
  and they therefore clung to it all the more tenaciously.
  The remaining possibility for han intent on relieving financial
  pressures was yet another form of borrowing. This time, however,
  rather than from the great merchant houses, which always had to
  be appeased in some way, loans were levied from a captive source -
  the samurai themselves. Such inroads into samurai salaries began
  quite early in the Tokugawa period: as early as 1623 in Choshu,
  1639 in Hiroshima, the 1650s in Fukuyama, and the 1670s in
  117 Aizu-Wakamatsu-shi, 
  vol. 9, p. 238. 
  118 Karalsu-shi shi, p. 621.
  119 Ibid., p. 593; Fukuyama-shi shi, p. 537; Aono, Daimyo, p. 187; Kishida Tsutomu, "Kyushu
  no bunjinga," in Mikami Tsugio, ed., Kyushu no ega to tdgei (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1975), p.
  246.
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  POLITICS 
  225
  Nagaoka.120 Initially samurai were called upon only intermittently to
  give back part of their salaries, usually in reponse to some immedi-
  ate need, as in the case of Nagaoka, where a special levy was made
  to pay for a wedding in the daimyo's family.121 But once the first
  step had been taken and the principle established that samurai could
  be expected to surrender part of their stipends in the general inter-
  est, then it was much easier the next time there was an emergency.
  Ultimately, forced loans from samurai became a constant feature of
  han life. In Shonai han between 1690 and 1797 there were just nine
  years in which all samurai received their full stipends; the rest of the
  time anybody with more than two hundred koku was obliged to part
  with a percentage of it (usually 7 percent). In 1741, nobody received
  any salary at all; instead they were given a daily ration of rice and a
  small amount of copper cash, just enough to see them through the
  immediate crisis and no more. Nor was their experience unusual; at
  Hikone, reduced stipends were so much a matter of course that samu-
  rai had to be notified when they were to be paid in full. In Matsushiro
  han, full stipends were granted only once in 138 years.122
  In all of this the samurai were to prove themselves far more tractable
  than the peasants were. Such security as they had depended entirely
  on their han, so they could be relied on to make whatever sacrifices
  were necessary, even if it meant "temporary" salary reductions that
  were never made good or "loans" that were never repaid. For all of
  them, the alternative - dismissal and the total loss of salary and
  status - was generally far less attractive than genteel poverty. Never-
  theless, their cooperation was far from enthusiastic, and all han were
  to pay for these exactions in two ways. First, poverty produced a
  samurai class far too poorly equipped and demoralized to meet even
  the smallest emergency. Second, in the context of han political life,
  hardship forced samurai of all ranks to take a far keener interest in han
  affairs than they might otherwise have done and so ultimately helped
  bring about a revolution in government.
  HAN POLITICS
  It is not to be thought that the samurai had been totally tamed by the
  conditions of life in Tokugawa Japan. True, many of them had been
  120 Fujino, Daimyo, p. 210; Aono, Daimyo, p. 74; Fukuyama-thi shi, p. 5, Imaizumi, Nagaoka
  no rekishi, vol. I, p. 118.
  121 Nagaoka-shi shi, p. 114.
  122 Tsuruoka-shi shi, pp. 322, 339; Hikone-shi shi, vol. 1, pp. 624-5; Fujino, Daimyo, p. 214.
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  226 
  THE HAN
  removed from their old country estates and brought into residence in
  the new castle towns, but this in itself did not necessarily mean subjec-
  tion. Certainly they were now under constant scrutiny, utterly reliant
  on their salaries, and virtually denied alternative employment. They
  were infinitely more dependent than they had ever been; yet they were
  far from quiescent. Paradoxically, the establishment of the Tokugawa
  peace had created circumstances that not only enabled samurai to
  question their daimyo's prerogative but, on occasion, compelled them
  to do so and so made inevitable a degree of political ferment.
  In theory, of course, no challenge to daimyo authority should have
  been possible. In accepting each daimyo's submission, the Tokugawa
  government guaranteed its support to every one of them in turn. Their
  legal right to govern their han was therefore unassailable. So, too, was
  a certain moral obligation, for Heaven had selected each one of them
  for precisely that position. As Uesugi Harunori, daimyo of Yonezawa,
  expressed it in a piece of calligraphy written on his accession in 1767,
  this obligation was clear: "Father and Mother of the People," the
  inscription read, followed by a poem, "Inheriting the command of this
  domain, I must never forget that I am father and mother to my peo-
  ple."123 There were also practical considerations, as the daimyo, it was
  thought, were the custodians of secret traditions enabling them to rule
  far more effectively than ordinary men could. Such, at least, was
  believed of the daimyo of Saga, alleged in Hagakure to have had a
  number of secret books entrusted to him on his accession.124 For all of
  these reasons, it was the clear duty of the samurai to obey their
  daimyo, even, for some favored samurai in the early seventeenth cen-
  tury, to follow him to the grave in token of their loyalty, devotion, and
  obedience.
  Yet in practice there were difficulties. The daimyo of Tokugawa
  Japan, no less than their Sengoku predecessors, walked a tightrope -
  nearer to the ground, perhaps, and slightly slacker, but still needing to
  be traversed with the utmost care. Many realized how volatile their
  vassals could be, sometimes feeling impelled to warn them, as did the
  daimyo of Shonai in 1648, against "factious, conspiratorial, or obstruc-
  tive behavior" or, as did the young daimyo of Aizu forty years later,
  demanding of his senior vassals a special oath of loyalty, signed in
  123 Naramoto Tatsuya, Hosokawa Morisada, and Murakami Genzo, eds., Edo daimyo hyakke,
  vol. 22 of Taiyo bekkan (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1978), p. 162.
  124 Naramoto Tatsuya, ed., Hagakure, vol. 17 of Nihon no meicho (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha,
  1969), PP- 54-5-
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  POLITICS 
  227
  blood.125 Paradoxically, these difficulties were directly traceable to
  bakufu policies. By compelling daimyo to spend at least half of their
  working lives in Edo under the sankin kotai system, for example, the
  bakufu had effectively obliged them to leave the larger part of normal
  decision making in the hands of those senior vassals permanently
  resident in the han. Daimyo therefore were only intermittently in
  contact with han affairs and even when in residence were inevitably
  tempted to leave decisions to those who were better informed.
  Still more serious was the Tokugawa government's commitment to
  the principle of hereditary succession. This virtually guaranteed the
  appointment of the fit and unfit alike. Not even the demonstrably
  infirm, the palpably dull-witted or the openly uninterested were dis-
  qualified. A confidential appraisal of daimyo in the late seventeenth
  century was able to call attention to those who could never have sur-
  vived in an earlier period: Matsuura Masashi, "who has made friends
  of every merchant and priest in Edo with a liking for kemari";126 Itami
  Katsumasa, "devoted to beautiful women and boys"; Date Mune-
  zumi, "totally obsessed with sex, spending all day in his bedchamber
  while feigning indisposition"; and Hoshina Masayoshi, "ignorant and
  totally lacking in ability."127 By the eighteenth century, Arai Hakuseki
  was able to use the term "daimyo's sons" as a derisive epithet, a
  judgment confirmed 150 years later by Ernest Satow, who met too
  many daimyo to have any great opinion of them.128 Not uncommonly,
  too, the bakufu was prepared to confirm any legitimate heir as
  daimyo, no matter how young he might be - even indeed before he
  could walk. Of the 163 daimyo in 1691 for whom such information is
  available, a total of 85, or more than half, appear to have become
  daimyo before reaching the age of twenty.129
  The regular absence of all daimyo from their han, combined with
  the Tokugawa government's almost total support for hereditary succes-
  sion, was enough to create a power vacuum in many han, but not for
  long. Inevitably it was filled, sometimes by relatives or, increasingly,
  by senior vassals. By 1691 it was obviously accepted that this was
  likely; the same confidential report that spoke so freely of daimyo
  125 Yamagata-ken shi (shiryo-hen), vol. 5, p. 352; Aizu Wakamatsu-shi shi, vol. 9, pp. 106-7.
  126 Kemari, one of Japan's traditional sports was a football game in which a number of players
  cooperated in keeping a deerskin ball in the air for as long as possible.
  127 Kanai, ed., Dokai koshuki, pp. 701, 616, 478, 578.
  128 Miyazaki Michio, ed., Teihon "Oritaku shiba no ki" shakugi (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1964), p.
  575; Sir Ernest Satow, A Diplomat in Japan (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press,
  1968), p. 37-
  129 Calculated from Kanai, ed., Dokai koshuki.
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  228 
  THE HAN
  shortcomings made this clear: "Leaving the government of one's peo-
  ple to senior vassals has both good and bad features," it warned. "It is
  good when the vassal puts loyalty first and follows the right path
  selflessly and unswervingly. But if the vassal is deceitful and harbors
  mischievous designs while counterfeiting loyalty . . . and uses his au-
  thority selfishly and unjustly, then that house will surely fall."130
  Equally, other pressures made sure that vassals were not merely able
  to supplant their daimyo in all but name but indeed were obliged to.
  Political power by itself was perhaps not such a prize, offering at the
  most a massage for the ego, marginally better living conditions, and
  agreeable opportunities for the exercise of patronage. But the alterna-
  tive, as far as samurai were concerned, could be disastrous. If a
  daimyo, selected by no process more discriminating than the accident
  of birth, were to attempt to rule his han personally, then who could say
  what havoc he might let loose? He might be led by flatterers to over-
  turn the traditional samurai hierarchy; he might prove spendthrift; or
  he might bankrupt the han or even, by attracting Tokugawa displea-
  sure, put his own tenure at risk, and with it that of all his samurai as
  well.
  The dangers inherent in daimyo autocracy were just too great to allow
  samurai, dependent as they were on their han and its well-being, the
  luxury of meek obedience. Naturally, they preferred their daimyo to be
  ciphers, like the well-loved Makino Tadataka, who became daimyo of
  Nagaoka at the age of seventeen. Although he died the following year
  and would therefore have had neither the years nor the time to do very
  much, his reputation is nevertheless that of a model ruler: "He was
  careful not to neglect military matters," the chronicles say, "and was
  concerned always for the common people. He instructed his govern-
  ment that old ways should be reformed and abuses corrected, that
  honest men should be promoted and corrupt officials dismissed. . . .
  He knew how to teach his people through the impartial use of severity
  and mercy. Conditions improved immediately, and hardships were
  thankfully forgotten."131 Such a daimyo was no trouble to anyone and
  therefore was always appreciated. Even those marginally more active
  could be controlled with a minimum of effort and within the political
  conventions; the only evidence of struggle would then be confined to
  ripples on the surface - resignations, dismissals, appointments, and
  muted complaints - the last sometimes embodied in appeals to the
  130 Ibid., pp. 587-8. 
  131 Imaizumi, Nagaoka no rekishi, vol. I, pp. 82-3.
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  POLITICS 
  229
  daimyo's good sense and better nature or, should these prove unsuccess-
  ful, in an occasional case of remonstratory suicide.132
  The encomium for the young Makino Tadataka, dead in his nine-
  teenth year, contrasts vividly with the reputations of determined re-
  formers like Mizuno Tadatoki, whose policies in Okazaki han so out-
  raged his senior vassals that they placed him under house arrest and
  forced him to retire.133 This was playing the game hard, but given
  what was at stake, it could scarcely have been otherwise. Throughout
  the Tokugawa period, indeed, a constant succession of oiesodo, spec-
  tacular public disputes, was to mark those occasions when daimyo and
  samurai came into conflict over policy issues or, alternatively, when
  samurai and samurai came into conflict over the daimyo. Some of the
  more celebrated of these disputes offer enough drama - father against
  son (Miyazu han), brother against brother (Tokuno han), uncle against
  nephew (Sendai han), daimyo against vassals (Yonezawa han), vassals
  against daimyo (Kokura han), and vassal against vassal (Suwa han), all
  punctuated with arrests, suicides, executions, assassinations, poison
  plots, and mass walkouts - to satisfy the most jaded kabuki audience.
  Some, indeed, did just that. The famous Sendai incident, heavily
  fictionalized, first appeared on the stage forty years after it erupted
  and thereafter provided the framework for some thirty different
  plays.134 It is not too difficult to see why. The situation- a power
  vacuum in the han brought on by the enforced retirement of the
  daimyo, and his replacement by his two-year-old son - was pure ka-
  buki. So were the leading characters in the struggle that soon ex-
  ploded, a wicked uncle, an even more wicked greatuncle, and a num-
  ber of unscrupulous vassals, all of them whipping up conspiracies,
  murder plots, and formal letters of complaint to the government in
  Edo. The denouement, a meeting of opponents at an inquiry held in
  the residence of a senior bakufu politician, added a touch of Grand
  Guignol, as swords were drawn and four men were cut down, two
  dying instantly and the others receiving mortal wounds.135
  Such disputes were not without their risks. With tempers running
  high, violence was not uncommon. But there were more serious haz-
  ards still. Once one of these incidents became public, it then invited
  bakufu intervention, and this could sometimes take an unpalatable
  132 For an example of a complaint, see Tsuruoka-shi shi, pp. 323-4; for a remonstratory suicide,
  see Karatsu-shi shi, p. 607.
  133 Kitajima Masamoto, "Meikun no higeki," in I to Tasaburo, ed.,Kokumin seikatsu shikenkyu,
  vol. 1 of Seikatsu to seiji (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1957).
  134 Kitajima, ed., Oiesodo, pp. 173-4. 
  135 Ibid., p. 168.
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  230 
  THE HAN
  form, as Edo did not usually approve of troublemakers, and execution
  or exile was not uncommon. Still more serious, the bakufu could
  interpret such events as proof of a han's inability to govern itself and
  issue a confiscation order. This was precisely the way in which the
  Mogami of Yamagata, the Hiraoka of Tokuno, the Matsudaira of
  Echigo, and the Kyogoku of Miyazu came to lose their domains, and
  how Morioka and Koriyama han both came to be split in two. That
  samurai were prepared to take such risks indicates just how seriously
  they viewed their political role. No matter how great the possible
  perils of action, the probable penalties of inaction were often greater
  still.
  Some degree of conflict is inevitable in politics. Without it, indeed,
  what we know as politics would cease to exist. But it must be acknowl-
  edged that certain aspects of han government, by their very secrecy
  and inefficiency, tended to invite disagreement among the overwhelm-
  ing majority of samurai, who being ineligible for high office, were not
  privy to the reasoning of those who were. No han could prevent its
  vassals questioning its policies, although many felt obliged to try from
  time to time, as did Nakatsu, which in 1738 forbade its samurai even
  to discuss any of the new domain laws.136 Nearly a hundred years
  earlier Ikeda Mitsumasa of Okayama had put the position still more
  bluntly, warning that "anyone who interferes in any government busi-
  ness whatsoever is not a samurai; he is a malefactor, even if he is our
  vassal.'"37 Given the rules governing selection for han office through-
  out most of the Tokugawa period, a certain measure of discontent was
  unavoidable, for as with the positions of emperor, shogun, and
  daimyo, those of senior officials in the han had also largely come to be
  filled by reason of birth. In the wars of the Sengoku period it was
  usually the case that no man could hold for very long an office he was
  incapable of filling successfully, but here too, the Tokugawa peace had
  intervened.
  By the middle of the seventeenth century, or even earlier, the samu-
  rai hierarchy in most han had been stabilized. The head of each samu-
  rai family had been allotted a stipend (whether or not he always re-
  ceived it all) that served as an index of his status in the han, and this in
  turn determined his eligibility for positions in the han military and
  administrative hierarchy. The fine calibration to be seen among the
  samurai of Sakura han can serve as a fairly typical example of the
  136 Kuroya Naofusa, Nakatsu-han shi (Tokyo: Hekiun-so, 1940), p. 322.
  137 Taniguchi, Okayama han, p. 55.
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  POLITICS 
  23I
  system here: Of the 152 different kinds of official position, the most
  important advisory posts were limited to the heads of seven families,
  none of which had a stipend of less than 250 koku. To be eligible for
  the office of censor, a stipend of between 70 and 120 koku was needed;
  to be a secretary, it took an income of between thirty and fifty bales of
  rice per year; and to work as an assistant accountant, fourteen to
  sixteen bales.138
  Of course, many of these 152 positions were of little consequence,
  demanding neither particular skill nor particular energy for their per-
  formance. In an age of peace it mattered as little who was captain of
  the colors (anyone with from 150 to 500 koku) as it did who was chosen
  to beat drums and gongs (anyone with 3 koku and ten bales). Neither
  was likely to be called upon for anything other than ceremonial duties.
  But it mattered very much who filled the key advisory and administra-
  tive posts, for here was where the important decisions had to be made.
  Sakura han, by allowing seven men to monopolize these positions, was
  effectively turning its back on the talents and energies of the other two
  thousand-odd members of its vassal band. It was hardly alone, how-
  ever. All han did so, even the larger ones. Saga drew on the heads of
  eighteen samurai families when filling its most important positions,
  and Owari fifty. The largest han found their top advisers and adminis-
  trators from among as many as eighty families, but given the total pool
  of samurai (roughly thirty thousand in the case of Sendai), we may
  doubt that even they had so much as begun to exploit the reservoir of
  samurai talent.139
  There is no doubt that in the long run the han suffered by filling
  demanding positions with those who were eligible rather than suit-
  able, for senior vassal families were subject to precisely the same
  genetic limitations as were their daimyo. There was just no guarantee
  that any group of seven men (or even seventy) could produce enough
  inspired (or even competent) officials to oversee the increasingly com-
  plex business of han government. Indeed, the members of such fami-
  lies were prepared to admit as much, preferring to base their author-
  ity on grounds other than mere talent: "Although it is desirable that
  senior councilors be capable and mature," one of them was to ob-
  serve, "nevertheless men like ourselves, who come from lines of
  hereditary senior councilors, must themselves become senior council-
  138 Kimura and Sugimoto, Fudai hansei, pp. 21-3.
  139 Fujino Tamotsu, "Hansei kakuritsu-ki no shomondai - seihoku Kyushu sho han (Hirado,
  Omura, Saga kaku han o chushin to shite)," in Shakai keizai shigaku 24 (1958): 259;
  Kodama and Kitajima, eds., Monogalan han shi, vol. 4, p. 132, vol. 2, pp. 68-69.
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  232 
  THE HAN
  ors, even should they be young and untalented. . . . Those families
  that have traditionally held the office of senior councilor are familiar
  with the domain laws and so pass on their knowledge to their chil-
  dren and grandchildren. They can also note down memoranda and
  bequeath them to their children, so that no matter how many genera-
  tions pass, our ancient laws will be maintained."140 This was a recipe
  for conservatism, and on the whole the record of han governments
  during the Tokugawa period does no more than confirm a general
  impression of stagnation.
  It was not impossible for daimyo to interfere with this charmed
  circle of hereditary advisors, and many did so, sometimes by introduc-
  ing a system of temporary salaries, or tashidaka, by which men might
  be promoted to positions for which they were otherwise ineligible, or
  sometimes by showering rewards on favorites. Mizuno Katsusada of
  Fukuyama did this in the mid-seventeenth century, raising Inekuma
  Saemon from a stipend of one hundred koku to something fifteen times
  that amount, thereby giving him a status equivalent to that of senior
  councilor. Such favorites always encountered the implacable hostility
  of the hereditary councilor class, and their appearance was usually the
  signal for an outbreak of tension within the domain. The very least
  such men could expect would be charges of corruption (for how could
  an outsider be promoted if not dishonestly?) or selfishness (for why
  would he wish to be if not for his own benefit?) Occasionally, as in the
  case of Inekuma Saemon, it ended in suicide on the death of the
  daimyo protector.I41
  In the last resort, the grip of hereditary senior councilors could be
  loosened only by a crisis grave enough to warrant extraordinary mea-
  sures. Even then it was not easy. An immediate emergency, like a flood
  or famine or a particularly severe financial crisis, might confer tempo-
  rary authority on an outsider with special skills, who would set about
  rebuilding the dikes, or take charge of famine relief, or slash expendi-
  tures, but once the crisis itself had dissipated, then so too would the
  hierarchical hiccup it had occasioned. Such at least was the case
  through the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth centuries.
  When the chronic financial problems of han governments began to
  bite, however, this situation changed, for reduced salaries, though
  they affected all samurai, particularly hurt the poorest among them.
  Not unnaturally, they began to lash out. In some cases, like the mass
  desertion of samurai from Kokura in 1814 after yet another salary
  140 Imaizumi, Nagaoka no rekiski, vol. I, p. 172. 
  141 Fukuyama-shi shi, p. 53.
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  POLITICS 
  233
  reduction, their target was the han itself. In others it was the daimyo,
  one of whom, the daimyo of Oka han, was taken publicly to task for
  his personal extravagance in 1812, by one of his lower samurai, a poet
  and painter called Tanomura Chikuden. More generally, however, the
  discontent of the poorer samurai found its target among their richer
  and more prominent fellows, the members of the traditional councilor
  class. Increasingly it was seen as inequitable that there should be so
  great a discrepancy between the salaries of these baka karo, or "idiot
  councilors," as they came to be called, and their lesser brethren.142
  That discrepancy was certainly glaring enough. In Nakatsu, 78.2 per-
  cent of all expenditure on salaries went to a mere 15.5 percent of
  samurai.143 More important, in the context of han government, it
  seemed increasingly unwise to leave policy in the hands of men who in
  the course of two hundred years had shown themselves incapable of
  adapting to changing circumstances.
  The nineteenth century, therefore, ushered in a revolution -
  sometimes only half-formed and imperfectly articulated, but a revolu-
  tion nevertheless - in the governments of many han. The situation
  was too grave to be ignored, for to the standard economic worries was
  added a frightening confluence of new concerns: concern with mount-
  ing unrest in the countryside, where the peasantry was rioting on an
  unprecedented scale; concern with a growing alien interest in Japan's
  corner of the Pacific; concern therefore that han and bakufu alike
  would need to spend far more in their defense than ever before -
  money, moreover, that none of them had; concern that with a flagging
  government in Edo the nation might once more be plunged into tur-
  moil; and concern too, paradoxically, that if the Tokugawa bakufu
  were to restore its authority it would be at han expense.144 A crisis of
  such magnitude could not be solved by half-measures. When it was
  finally confronted, in the last three decades of Tokugawa rule, it was
  by a new kind of samurai administrator, one caring little for hereditary
  privilege, as he had climbed from the lower rungs of the samurai
  ladder, and caring still less for the conventions of han government, of
  which (as neither his father nor grandfather was capable of instructing
  him) he was mercifully ignorant. The revolution in government such
  men brought to their han in the nineteenth century - characterized by
  new commercial initiatives, by the creation of peasant militia, by the
  rationalization of samurai stipends, by independent diplomatic activ-
  142 Kishida, "Kyushu no bunjinga," p. 246; Ando Hideo, ed., Chiritsubo-Kawai Tsugunosuke
  nikki, vol. 257 of Toyo Bunko (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1974), p. 304.
  143 Shindo, "Hansei kaikaku," pp. 117-19. 
  144 Bolitho, "The Tempo Crisis."
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  234 
  T H E
  ity, by participation in an internecine race for arms - was perhaps a
  natural reaction to Japan's problems. Natural or not, however, it ulti-
  mately destroyed the bakufu and with it, after three short years, the
  han themselves.
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  CHAPTER 6
  THE INSEPARABLE TRINITY:
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH
  CHINA AND KOREA
  Krieg, Handel und Piraterie,
  Dreieinig sind sie, nicht zu trennen
  War, trade, and piracy
  Are an inseparable trinity
  (Goethe, Faust, II, 5:3)
  TRADE AND PIRACY
  The Sinocentric tributary system
  The international order that ideally spanned East Asia when Japan was
  in the later Middle Ages of its history (1392-1573) may be described
  as a tributary system, one in which outlying states were bound with
  real or fictional ties of allegiance to the "Central Country," China.
  Underlying that system was a culturalist theory, developed by Chinese
  Confucians, which held that China was a universal empire whose sover-
  eignty had to be acknowledged by the "barbarian" rulers on its periph-
  ery if they wanted the benefits of commerce with it. In return for their
  homage, the Chinese emperor granted them the status of his royal
  vassals, the privilege of diplomatic relations, and the boon of access to
  Chinese civilization. They sent him tribute. He, in turn, bestowed
  gifts upon them out of his bounty.
  As far as the Chinese of the Ming period (1368-1644) were con-
  cerned, Japan had entered such a tributary relationship with China
  long ago, during the time of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 220).
  Their scholars could catalog a long list of Japanese "tribute-bearing
  missions" stretching back at least to A.D. 57. To be sure, in more
  recent times that relationship had been disturbed by war and piracy,
  but it was confirmed and regulated once again at the beginning of the
  fifteenth century, on the initiative of the Japanese ruler Ashikaga
  Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun of the Muromachi bakufu,
  who retained his control over Japan's foreign affairs even after for-
  mally retiring from the shogunate in 1395.
  235
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  236 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Yoshimitsu was an ardent seeker of monarchal distinction and just
  as avid an amateur of Chinese luxury goods. Between 1401 and 1405,
  he sponsored four embassies to China in pursuit of both those objec-
  tives. As a result, he was invested with the title "King of Japan" by the
  Ming emperors Chien-wen (r. 1398-1402) and Yung-lo (r. 1402-24),
  acknowledged his status as their subject, and entered an agreement
  that permitted the Japanese to send periodic missions with tribute to
  China. These missions were legitimated with visas issued in the form
  of tallies (Chinese: k'an-ho; Japanese: kango) by the Chinese court, and
  the trade that was part and parcel of such embassies is therefore called
  the "tally trade." Yoshimitsu's eager acceptance of the Chinese norms
  of international relations opened the door to commerce, which the
  Japanese pursued under cover of obeisance.
  The Japanese were assigned Ningpo in Chekiang Province as their
  port of entry into China. From there, a substantial part of their
  embassy - sometimes more than three hundred persons - would pro-
  ceed to the Ming capital, which from 1421 was Peking. There they
  presented their tribute, according to a prescribed list of goods, which
  included sulfur and such products of Japanese artisanship as swords,
  suits of armor, gilt fans, and painted screens; the chief envoy was
  received in audience by the Ming emperor; and the embassy was then
  dismissed with gifts for the "King of Japan" (i.e., the shogun), includ-
  ing sumptuous silken fabrics, porcelain and other precious objets
  d'art, as well as large sums of copper cash.
  The Ming government made official purchases from the cargoes of
  the Japanese ships and also allowed the Japanese envoys and their
  accompaniment of merchants to carry on private trade with licensed
  Chinese brokers. Ships were sent not only by the shogunate itself but
  also by religious institutions and regional notables. In the fleet of nine
  sail that reached China in 1453, for instance, there were vessels char-
  tered by the powerful Ouchi family of Yamaguchi in western Honshu,
  the equally prominent Otomo family of Bungo in northern Kyushu,
  the great Zen monastery Tenryuji of Kyoto, as well as the Shinto and
  Buddhist temple complex of Tonomine in Yamato Province. The grow-
  ing volume of imports from Japan, as demonstrated by this large fleet,
  evidently alarmed the Chinese authorities, for they limited the size of
  subsequent missions to three ships. Having transacted its business,
  such a "tribute-bearing mission" sailed back to Japan richly laden with
  Chinese merchandise. For almost a century and a half - from 1404,
  when the first official tally mission departed for China, to 1549, when
  the seventeenth and last returned to Japan - this arrangement pro-
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  237
  vided the framework for largely peaceful (if not entirely incident-free)
  relations between the two countries.
  It must be emphasized that the tally trade was the only form of
  commerce permitted the Japanese by the Chinese authorities. Indeed,
  it was the sole legal channel for the direct exchange of commodities
  between Japan and China. The Ming empire from 1371 repeatedly
  issued decrees that prohibited Chinese from voyaging overseas for
  private purposes and thereby rigidly circumscribed the opportunities
  for foreign trade. The denial of free access to the sea was originally
  intended to protect the newly founded empire's security against yet-
  unpacified rebels who had their bases on the littoral of China. In time,
  however, it became the shibboleth of a state whose governmental insti-
  tutions were designed to foster and exploit agriculture, not commerce,
  and whose public ideology, Confucianism, distrusted and even con-
  demned the profit motive behind trade. The Ming regime sought to
  keep its people from venturing abroad; it restricted and regulated
  foreigners' entry into China; and it undertook these measures in the
  name of security, ideological purity, and the control of trade. It
  thereby constructed the model of an isolationist policy for East Asia.
  In its own way, Japan was destined to follow that model: The means
  and motives of what the Chinese of the Ming period called hai-chin (J:
  kaikin), or maritime prohibitions, were analogous to those of the Toku-
  gawa period's sakoku directives.
  The isolationism to which the Ming regime became habituated is a
  genuine paradox, because that same regime between 1405 and 1433
  conducted maritime exploration on a scale unprecedented in the
  world's history, sending seven fleets with scores of naval vessels and
  tens of thousands of men to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and as
  far away as the east coast of Africa. Once having shown the flag in
  faraway lands, tied more "barbarian" rulers (if only loosely and tempo-
  rarily) to the Chinese tributary system, and brought back shiploads of
  exotica for the court's self-gratulation, the fleets were adjudged super-
  fluous and were disbanded. Exploration was not followed by coloniza-
  tion; trade did not follow the flag. Instead, the regime's attention was
  redirected inward. Abandoning the quest for distant oceans, the Ming
  empire did not rule the waves even of the China Sea.
  Its maritime prohibitions were, moreover, ineffective. In its anticom-
  mercial bias, the regime failed to react positively to the fact that the
  growth of handicraft and processing industries in places on or near the
  seacoast of South China - from the silk and cotton manufactures of
  Soochow and the Yangtze Delta to the iron-utensil production of
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  238 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Canton - had stimulated mercantile activities that spilled over into
  large-scale maritime trade. That trade remained illegal. The mer-
  chants, however, ignored the government's ban. The gentry of the
  littoral invested in the trade. The very officials charged with enforcing
  the maritime prohibitions as often as not connived at the traffic. As a
  result, by the end of the fifteenth century the trade directed overseas
  by Chinese merchants exceeded by far the volume of goods carried to
  and from China in the bottoms of the various official "tribute-bearing
  missions." The government's efforts to enforce its laws merely encour-
  aged the contrabandists to arm themselves, thus turning merchants
  into outlaws.
  On the Japanese side, too, efforts to regulate commerce with China
  were doomed by a breakdown of authority. Here the smooth function-
  ing of the tally trade postulated an order kept, if not by the "King of
  Japan" directly, then by his deputies and provincial constables. By the
  beginning of the sixteenth century, however, the Ashikaga shoguns
  had been reduced to utter powerlessness by the internal strife that had
  swept Japan ever since the Onin War of 1467-77. Control over the
  official trade with China had long since slipped out of their hands and
  become a bone of contention between two of their principal vassals,
  the Hosokawa and Ouchi families.
  These two parties exported their quarrel to China itself in 1523,
  when they sent rival embassies to Ningpo. There Hosokawa agents
  bribed the superintendent of merchant shipping and obtained prece-
  dence for their mission, thereby infuriating the delegation of the
  Ouchi. The Ouchi men vented their rage by killing the Hosokawa
  side's chief envoy, the priest Ranko Zuisa, and rampaging through the
  streets of Ningpo. Having burned and looted their way to the harbor,
  the Ouchi delegation sailed away in commandeered vessels, carrying
  with them a kidnapped garrison officer, and fought off a Chinese
  pursuit squadron, killing its commander.1
  In the aftermath of this riot, which exposed the Chinese officials'
  corruption no less than the Japanese voyagers' penchant for violence,
  the Ming authorities further tightened the procedures governing the
  tally trade. In the event, only two more missions, those dispatched by
  the Ouchi in 1540 and 1549, were to be accepted by the Chinese,
  although the Japanese sent several others. By the middle of the six-
  teenth century, political conditions in Japan had become so chaotic
  1 Mingshih, chiian 322: "Lieh-chuan 210, wai-kuo 3, Jih-pen," vol. 27 (Peking: Chung-hua shu-
  ehii, 1974), pp. 8348-9. Nihon shiryo shusei hensankai, ed., Chugoku, Chosen no shiseki ni
  okeru Nihon shiryo shusei: Seishi no bu (Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1975), pp. 290-1.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  239
  that there was indeed good reason to question the legitimacy of embas-
  sies arriving from that country. Moreover, the entire setting of trade
  and diplomatic relations between Japan and China was being trans-
  formed dramatically with the appearance of the Portuguese and the
  resurgence of the pirates known as wakd (Ch: wo-k'ou, Korean:
  waegu), or "J aP a n e s e brigands," in East Asian waters. The wakd were
  anything but a new phenomenon. Rather, they were a scourge that had
  afflicted Korea intermittently for centuries.
  The early tide of the wako
  The Chinese-character compound wakd, referring to invaders from
  Japan, first occurs on a Korean stele erected in A.D. 414. By the
  sixteenth century, seafaring as defined by Goethe's Mephistopheles -
  "War, trade, and piracy / Are an inseparable trinity" - was a time-
  honored tradition in the Japanese archipelago. This is not the place to
  trace the origins of that tradition or to explore all of the regions where
  it developed. Two benchmarks, however, should be recorded. The
  first is the rebellion of Fujiwara no Sumitomo in the 930s. Sumitomo,
  an official ordered to suppress the pirates of Iyo Province in Shikoku,
  instead joined them, fomenting a disturbance that swept across the
  Bungo Strait and the Inland Sea to keep much of western Japan in a
  state of turmoil until he was tracked down and killed in 941. The other
  benchmark is in the 1220s, when the Matsuura-to first became notori-
  ous as a "band of villains"who sailed abroad to "destroy people's
  dwellings and plunder their property."2 The Matsuura-to was a group
  of petty military families with eleventh-century roots in the Matsuura
  region of northern Hizen Province in Kyushu, and the object of their
  piratical raids was Korea. The myriad coves and islands of the Inland
  Sea would remain important bases of piracy - or, as the case may be,
  of maritime enterprise and naval endeavor - into the sixteenth century
  and beyond. So would the lairs of the Matsuura-to from Sasebo,
  Hirado, and the Goto Islands to Yobuko, Iki, and Tsushima.
  The flurry of piratical activity directed against Korea in the 1220s
  died down abruptly after the Kamakura shogunate's commissioner in
  Kyushu (Chinzei bugyd), Muto Sukeyori, had ninety suspected brig-
  ands decapitated before the eyes of a Korean envoy in 1227. For more
  than a century thereafter, wakd raids to Korea were few and far be-
  2 Fujiwara Teika, Meigetsuki, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1911), pp. 544-5; entries for
  Karoku 2 (1226). 10.16-17.
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  24O 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  tween. To start with, the Koreans had been forced into a high state of
  vigilance and military preparedness by the aggressive designs of an
  emergent imperial power, the Mongols, who invaded Korea in force
  six times between 1231 and 1258 before they finally managed to sub-
  due the country and put it under their complete domination. On the
  Japanese side, the shogunate evidently was able to keep seafaring
  military groups under control throughout the rest of the Kamakura
  period (1185-1333). They were mobilized against the threat of a Mon-
  gol invasion of Japan, which had to be reckoned with even after the
  Mongols had been repelled twice, in 1274 and 1281.
  By the middle of the fourteenth century, however, the Kamakura
  shogunate had fallen; the Mongol empire was disintegrating; and its
  client, the Koryo dynasty (918-1392) of Korea, was likewise on the
  edge of a crisis. Japan was in the throes of a widespread conflict
  engendered by a dynastic schism in its imperial house. In Kyushu as
  elsewhere, supporters of the so-called Southern Court contended with
  adherents of the Northern Court and its principal backer, the Muro-
  machi bakufu. There was, in short, no authority strong enough to
  keep down the predatory hunger of the sea wolves.
  The wako resumed their activities in earnest in 1350, and for the
  next half-century engulfed Korea with a veritable tide of spoliation.3
  Worst was the decade between 1376 and 1385, when the wave crested
  with no fewer than 174 recorded instances of pirate raids. Some of
  these raids amounted to miniature Japanese invasions of Korea. Bands
  of as many as three thousand intruders, far from being satisfied with
  ravaging the coasts, penetrated deep into the country's interior before
  withdrawing again to their ships. The entire southern half of the
  Korean peninsula was subjected to this rapine: The raiders repeatedly
  despoiled the environs of Kaesong, the Koryo dynasty's capital city,
  and on occasion reached as far north as the mouth of the Taedong
  River and the general area of P'yongyang. These Japanese marauders,
  who pillaged granaries and waylaid revenue shipments of grain, were
  at the same time slavers, who carried people away with them into
  servitude and held them to ransom. Their depredations seriously hurt
  Korea's society and economy, put a severe strain on the resources of
  the Koryo dynasty, and greatly contributed to its downfall. The pirati-
  3 See the chronological table prepared by Tanaka Takeo in Wako: umi no rekishi, vol. 66 of
  Kyoikusha rekishi shinsho "Nihonshi" (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1982), pp. 200-1. The estimate of
  174 wako raids on Korea between 1376 and 1385 is a conservative figure. The count of 228 (or
  even 346) incidents can be found in a similar chart set out by Tamura Hiroyuki in Chusei
  Nitcho boeki no kenkyu (Kyoto: Sanwa shobo, 1967), pp. 36-7. The number 346 is given in the
  chart presented by Yi Hyong-sok, Imjin Chilian sa, vol. 1 (Seoul: Ch'ungmuhoe, 1975), p. 49.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  24I
  cal tide of the wako overflowed into China. Some of their bands roved
  across the Yellow Sea from Korea to the Shantung peninsula. Others
  struck farther south, at Kiangsu and the coastal provinces south of the
  Yangtze Delta: Chekiang, Fukien, and Kwangtung.
  Both China and Korea demanded that Japanese authorities put an
  end to the piracy. No sooner had the Hung-wu emperor (r. 1368-98)
  conquered the Yiian dynasty of the Mongols and established the Ming
  empire in China - in 1369 and 1370, the second and the third years of
  his reign - than he sent envoys to Prince Kanenaga (1329-83), the
  Southern Court's "generalissimo for the subjugation of the west"
  (seisei daishogun) in Kyushu; he warned the Japanese that he would
  send forces to "capture and exterminate your bandits, head straight
  for your country, and put your king in bonds" unless the wako raids
  were stopped, and urged Japan to submit to the suzerainty of Ming.4
  Kanenaga treated the first of these embassies rudely, killing five of its
  members, but responded deferentially to the second: In 1371, he sent
  his own envoys to China, where (according to Chinese records) they
  rendered obeisance in the expected manner and took receipt of the
  symbols of vassalage for their master. Actually, there is some doubt
  that Kanenaga would have assumed such a grave diplomatic responsi-
  bility. But it is clear that, his grand title notwithstanding, he was by
  that time hard put to it just to maintain himself in Kyushu and quite
  unable to deliver on any promises to stamp out the pirates.
  In contrast with the Chinese, the Koreans sought redress not from
  the Southern Court and its agents but from the Muromachi bakufu, its
  opponent. A Koryo embassy was received in 1367 by Shogun Ashi-
  kaga Yoshiakira (1330-67) (r. 1359-67) in Kyoto but was told, ingenu-
  ously enough, that Kyoto could do nothing abut the lawless actions of
  the inhabitants of Shikoku and Kyushu, areas over which the bakufu
  as yet had no control.5 The Koreans next sought the cooperation of the
  shogunal deputy (tandai) in Kyushu, Imagawa Ryoshun, to whom
  they sent the first of repeated embassies in 1377. Ryoshun had been
  successful in the contest against Prince Kanenaga and the Southern
  Court's other champions in Kyushu, but he had not managed to gain
  4 Ming Vai-tsu shih-lu, pt. 39, f. 3, entry for Hung-wu 2 (1369).2.[6]: Ming shih-lu, vol. 2
  (Taipei: Chung-yang yen-chiu-yuan li-shih yu-yen yen-chiu-so, 1962), p. 787; Nihon shiryo
  shusei hensankai, ed., Chugoku, Chosen no shiseki ni okeru Nihon shiryo shusei: Min jitsuroku no
  bu, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1975), pp. 1-2.
  5 Goto Tanji and Okami Masao, eds., Taiheiki, vol. 3, in vol. 36 of Nihon koten bungaku taikei
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1962), p. 451. The historicity of ihis account is examined in detail by
  Nakamura Hidetaka, Nissen kankeishi no kenkyu, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1965),
  pp. 203-6.
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  242 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  the ascendancy over the maritime area of Matsuura and the island
  provinces of Iki and Tsushima, the principal nests of the pirates who
  plagued Korea. Hence the wakd stayed out of control.
  The Chinese fortified their seacoasts. The Koreans in 1389 and again
  in 1419 attacked the pirate bases on Tsushima but were forced to with-
  draw without inflicting much damage. A major precondition for solving
  the wakd problem was, however, met in 1392, when the conflict be-
  tween the Southern and Northern courts was finally resolved under the
  auspices of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who thereby brought the
  Muromachi bakufu to the height of its authority. Coincidentally, 1392
  was also the year when the new Yi dynasty displaced Koryo in Korea.
  Under the new political circumstances, diplomacy had a better chance
  of prevailing. The results of Yoshimitsu's diplomatic initiative toward
  the Ming empire - his investiture as "King of Japan" and the inception
  of a regulated trade with China - have already been noted. In 1404,
  Yoshimitsu sent an embassy to Korea under that new title, "King of
  Japan," that is, as one vassal of the Ming to another, his coequal. In
  sum, through Yoshimitsu's management of foreign affairs, Japan was
  integrated into the East Asian international order.
  To be sure, that by itself did not put down the wakd. They went on
  raiding China in force at least until 1419. In that year, a large pirate fleet
  of more than thirty sail assembled in Tsushima and headed north along
  Korea's Yellow Sea coast. Kept under constant observation, it was
  finally ambushed and smashed off Wang-hai-kuo in Liaotung by the
  provincial military commander, Liu Jung, who is said to have taken
  anywhere between seven hundred and fifteen hundred heads.6 After
  that, the wakd steered clear of Liaotung, although they hit other areas of
  China sporadically. They had become more of a nuisance than a threat
  and would remain so until their massive new surge of the 1550s. In the
  case of Korea, too, it was not simply high-level diplomacy and the
  radiance of the bakufu's institutional or Ashikaga Yoshimitsu's personal
  prestige that stopped the wakd. Rather, it was action by regional not-
  ables of western Japan, whom the Koreans lured with appeals to their
  self-interest and conciliated by making concessions.
  Korean efforts to deal with the wako
  The gist of the Koreans' plan was to try transforming the robber
  barons of western Japan into instruments for controlling the wakd. As
  6 Mingshih, vol. 27, p. 8346;Seishino bu, vol. I, p. 288. Cf. Nakamura,Nissenkankeishi.vol. 1,
  pp. 309-10.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
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  King Sejong (r. 1418-50) of Korea concluded after hearing the report
  of Pak S6-saeng, his ambassador to the court of Ashikaga Yoshinori
  (1394-1441) (r. 1429-41) in 1429, dealing with the Japanese shogun
  was necessary for ceremonial reasons but apt to prove ineffective if the
  purpose was the suppression of piracy.7 Much more, Pak reported,
  could be expected from a direct approach to the real masters of the
  shores and islands that harbored the wako.
  Among the most important of these were the great shugo daimyo
  family of the Ouchi, lords over seafaring groups based both in the
  Inland Sea (e.g., at Kamado and Yashirojima; now Kaminoseki and
  Oshima, Yamaguchi Prefecture) and in Kyushu (at Shikanoshima;
  now part of the city of Fukuoka); the Otomo family, who held the
  military governorship (shugoshiki) of Bungo Province and were power-
  ful rivals of the Ouchi for the control of northern Kyushu; the
  Munakata, barons of Chikuzen Province and patrons of the seafarers
  of Oshima (now an offshore part of Fukuoka Prefecture); and the
  petty barons who constituted the membership of the Matsuura-to.
  Winning the favor of this last group would be tantamount to pacifying
  the most active pirate bands, those from the in- and offshore region
  between the Goto Islands and Iki that had its geographical center at
  Hirado. Courting the Ouchi was politic, not least because they could
  seal off the narrow straits at Akamagaseki (now Shimonoseki) and
  thereby bottle up the rovers of the Inland Sea. Above all, it was
  necessary to cultivate the goodwill of the So family, the preeminent
  power on Tsushima, for it was Tsushima, as Pak S6-saeng observed
  correctly, where all Japanese pirates mustered before attacking Korea,
  at its closest point less than thirty nautical miles away.
  As regards Tsushima, Iki, and Matsuura, Kang Kwon-son (another
  Korean envoy, who visited Iki in 1444) capped Pak's appraisal with
  the following pithy analysis:8
  In these regions, the people's dwellings are miserable; land is tight and,
  moreover, utterly barren, so that they do not pursue agriculture and can
  scarcely escape starvation; thus they engage in banditry, being of a wicked
  and violent cast. . . . But if we attend on them with courtesy and nourish
  7 Sejong Changhdn Taewang sillok, pt. 46, ff. 13V-16 and 16V-17V, entries for Sejong 11.12.[3]
  and [9] (December 28, 1429 and January 3, 1430): Choson wangjo sillok, vol. 3 (Seoul: Kuksa
  p'yonch'an wiwdnhoe, 1955), pp. 207-9; Nihon shiryo shusei hensankai, ed., Chugoku,
  Chosen no shiseki ni okeru Nihon shiryo shusei: Richo jitsuroku no bu, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kokusho
  kankokai, 1976), pp. 259-63. Hereafter brackets indicate that the date has been converted
  from its original citation in the sexagesimal citation; parentheses indicate conversion to West-
  ern calendar.
  8 Sejong Changhdn Taewang sillok, pt. 104, f. 8, entry for Sejong 26 (1444).4. [30]: Chosdn wangjo
  sillok, vol. 4, p. 552; Richo jitsuroku no bu, vol. 2, (1977), p. 459.
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  244 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  them with generosity, even more so than in previous days, then the pirates
  will all submit.
  The Koreans went to great lengths to appease those who held the
  pirates in leash. From around 1396, only a few years after coming to
  power, the Yi dynasty adopted the policy of granting official Korean
  titles, with appropriate stipends, to wako chiefs who were willing to
  surrender.9 Such appointments to titular office were used not only to
  buy off actual aggressors but also to reward residents of Japan who
  assisted in repatriating Korean captives of the wako, furnished infor-
  mation on the pirates' plans, or were helpful in other ways. Another
  device used by the Korean court to coax the picaroons into peaceful
  partnership was the issuance of copper seals (K: toso, J: tosho) as a sign
  of most favored status to Japanese perceived as being influential in
  maritime affairs. This practice dates back at least to 1418, but many of
  the recipients of the seals were members of the Matsuura-to who were
  granted this distinction in the 1440s and 1450s, perhaps as a result of
  Kang Kwon-son's recommendations. Japanese holders of Korean ti-
  tles and the bearers of toso had legal access to Korea, which they could
  use for the purpose of trade.
  From the 1420s, the Koreans began to develop an elaborate system
  of allotting the number of ships that could be licensed each year for
  trade by individual Japanese. The most advantaged in that regard, as
  in others, was the Koreans' nearest and most strategically placed neigh-
  bor, So, the overlord of Tsushima. According to an agreement con-
  cluded in 1443 (sometimes called the Kakitsu treaty, after the Japanese
  era name for the years 1441 to 1444), the head of the So family was
  permitted to sponsor fifty regular vessels a year, with the proviso of
  sending other ships on special missions, and was granted the sizable
  yearly stipend of two hundred koku (about 361 hectoliters) of rice and
  legumes from the Korean fisc; other members of the So family also
  received various privileges. The So were also delegated the task of
  verifying the bona fides of all Korea-bound Japanese vessels, which
  were required to stop at a checkpoint in Tsushima and obtain a permit
  (K: munin, J: bun'in) before proceeding to their destinations. This was
  a highly remunerative arrangement for the So, who not only levied
  transit duties on the cargoes but also charged each ship's master a fee
  for the indispensable munin. Few captains could have willfully by-
  passed the Tsushima checkpoint; for regardless of who sponsored the
  9 A chronology of the successive steps in the development of Japanese-Korean relations from
  1392 to 1868 is found in Nakamura, Nissen kankeishi, vol. 3 (1969), pp. 241-4.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  245
  voyage, any Japanese ship found in Korean waters without a permit
  from the So was automatically suspect.
  In short, the Koreans paid with privileges and direct emoluments for
  the services of the So in policing the Japanese traffic. Logically enough,
  in view of this inspector's role, So Shigemoto (1419-67) was in 1461 at
  his own request appointed governor of Tsushima by the Korean court.
  Not surprisingly, this appointment in partibus later fed the Korean
  misconception that the island was a dependency of their country. In
  actuality, the head of the So family used the political and economic
  advantages he derived from his special relationship with Korea to con-
  solidate his authority over Tsushima. To be sure, there were benefits for
  the Koreans, too, not just for the So: As the fifteenth century wore on,
  piracy did fade away, even if it did not totally disappear.
  Japanese-Korean relations under the Kakitsu treaty
  The framework of Japanese-Korean relations that was erected by the
  Kakitsu treaty of 1443 and stood for a century and a half until de-
  stroyed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi's aggression was on the whole an or-
  derly structure. That structure was based on formal agreements be-
  tween the Korean court and the So family of Tsushima. The So fell out
  of grace with the Koreans once or twice but were readmitted to favor
  and privilege because it was recognized that they were invaluable
  mediators. Moreover, their self-interest dictated cooperation with the
  Koreans. Hence, by applying levers on the So, the Koreans could
  hope to moderate, if not perfectly regulate, the level of the Japanese
  commercial influx into their country. And that, indeed, was a vital
  consideration for the Yi dynasty. At first, the new and still-insecure
  dynasty had been eager to appease the Japanese in its anxiety to see
  piracy replaced by peaceful commerce, but its initial permissive atti-
  tude toward the Japanese traders in Korea and fishermen off its shores
  was not meant to last and was replaced by the desire to constrict their
  activities. Overall, the Yi dynasty's policy toward Japan in the fif-
  teenth and sixteenth centuries was marked by efforts to limit the
  traffic from Japan in order to reduce the expense of diplomatic inter-
  course, diminish the drain of resources caused by the Japanese trade,
  and keep under control the sometimes-unruly Japanese community in
  Korea. For all that, the policy was not rigid but retained the capacity
  for compromise and the accommodation of Japanese interests.
  In the course of the fifteenth century, the Koreans restricted the
  number of Japanese envoys permitted to come as far as their capital
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  246 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  city, Seoul, the number of Japanese ships allowed each year to carry on
  trade, and the number of places where those ships could call. For all
  these limitations, however, at the century's end, some two hundred
  sail a year - ships sponsored by the Ashikaga shogun, by daimyo such
  as the Ouchi and a whole list of other grandees, by holders of toso, and
  by bearers of Korean titles - continued to have access to Korea. That
  access was restricted to the "Three Ports" (K: samp'o, J: sampo) of
  Pusan, Naeip'o (now part of the city of Chinhae), and Yomp'o (now
  part of the city of Ulsan) in the southeastern corner of the peninsula,
  and the Japanese were officially permitted to maintain no more than
  sixty residential households in these three trading stations.
  A census conducted in 1494 revealed, however, that the trading
  factories had developed into fairly substantial Japanese enclaves within
  Korea: There were 525 households (almost nine times the permitted
  total) and 3,205 permanent foreign residents, who maintained four-
  teen Buddhist temples on Korean soil, farmed rice fields in the vicin-
  ity of the harbors, and exploited the nearby fisheries.10 The inevitable
  conflicts with the natives over fishing rights occasionally led to Japa-
  nese attacks on Korean officials. Moreover, Japanese fishermen,
  whether from the Three Ports or from Tsushima and beyond, were not
  unknown to metamorphose into pirates, depending on the catch to be
  had. It was also clear that the Three Ports were bases for smuggling.
  The resident Japanese escaped Korean taxation, but the So family
  collected taxes from their settlements through its own delegates
  (daikan).
  This type of Japanese presence in the country surely raised ques-
  tions of the erosion of Korean sovereignty. But the major problem was
  economic. Along with dyestuffs, spices, and Pharmaceuticals from
  Southeast Asia, which were transshipped through the island kingdom
  of Ryukyu and the flourishing entrepot of Hakata (now Fukuoka) in
  Kyushu, the Japanese brought to Korea large amounts of copper, lead,
  and sulfur, products of their own country. They took back from Korea
  various luxury items, artistic objects, and Buddhist scriptures. Above
  all, however, they wanted Korean textile goods. In the fifteenth cen-
  tury's last decades, it appeared more and more that an insatiable Japa-
  nese demand for Korean cotton cloth was depleting the country's
  supply of a precious manufactured product, which was also used as a
  medium of exchange. (The cultivation of cotton in Japan itself was
  10 A chart showing the numbers of Japanese residents in the "Three Ports" from 1436 to 1494
  can be found in Nakamura, vol. 1, p. 643.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  247
  barely beginning as the century turned.) The Korean government did
  not consider this a favorable balance of trade.
  Each year, great sums were drained off from Korea through the
  entertainment of the numerous Japanese merchants who were in the
  country theoretically on official missions. Because trade was carried on
  under the label of diplomatic relations, the hosts were responsible for
  covering their visitors' living expenses during their stay and for provid-
  ing supplies for the voyage home.11 In 1485, the Korean court tried to
  solve this problem by permitting the bypass of official channels for the
  disposal of goods and sanctioning private trade between Korean and
  Japanese merchants in the Three Ports. In 1495, this measure was
  rescinded, the cure having been found worse than the ailment. But the
  network of the direct contacts between merchants, once established,
  could not so easily be unraveled. The prohibition of private trade and
  the reinstitution of a government monopoly merely amplified the pres-
  sures for an increase in the volume of commerce.
  That this state of affairs could not be permitted to continue was the
  conclusion reached in the councils of King Chungjong (r. 1506-44) of
  Korea early in his reign. By way of remedy, it was decided to start
  applying strictly the rules that had been set down in the past to govern
  the relationship between Korea and Japan. The Korean court's resolve
  stiffened in the face of several provocative incidents that occurred
  between 1506 and 1509: at least three major cases of piracy, including
  an armed assault carried out by Korean-speaking Japanese on Kadok
  Island, halfway between Naeip'o and Pusan; arson by Japanese resi-
  dents of Naeip'o; and demonstratively arrogant if not violent behavior
  by members of a Japanese embassy in Seoul itself.
  Early in 1510, the Korean court therefore sent the lord of Tsushima,
  So Morinobu (later known as So Yoshimori, 1476-1521), a message
  demanding the suppression of piracy and the determined pursuit of
  the perpetrators of all those illegal activities that poisoned relations
  between the two countries.12 Unless the Koreans obtained satisfaction,
  the message warned, all Japanese residents of the Three Ports, except
  for the officially permitted sixty households, would be expelled. The
  11 A good idea of the expenses incurred by the Koreans in official entertainments may be
  obtained from the rules governing the treatment of Japanese guests that are recorded in the
  geographic work Haedong chegukki (Account of the countries east of the sea) compiled in
  1472 by the noted statesman Sin Suk-ju (1417-75); see the facsimile edition, Chosenshi
  henshukai, ed., Kaiw shokokuki, vol. 2 of Chosen shiryo sokan (Keijo: Chosen sotokufu,
  !933)>ff- 111-26V.
  12 Chungjong Taewang tillok, io:43v-44, entry for Chungjong 5 (i5io).2.[i3]: Chos&n wangjo
  sillok, vol. 14 (1956), pp. 409-10; Richo jitsuroku no bu, vol. 5 (1981), pp. 1449-50.
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  248 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  So were furthermore cautioned to check carefully before issuing per-
  mits to Japanese traders bound for Korea and to make sure that the
  toso they presented as credentials were still valid and did not, in fact,
  belong to dead souls. In the meantime, Korean officials charged with
  supervising the Three Ports had begun to enforce rigidly the regula-
  tions meant to govern life there. Some of the measures they undertook
  departed from precedent. In response to these new and unaccustomed
  rigors, the Japanese rioted.
  The rioters could claim that they had been provoked by an overly
  zealous Korean officer, who had caused the deaths of four Japanese in
  a squabble over fishing rights. Their actions, however, were not spon-
  taneous but planned with the connivance of the So of Tsushima, who
  agreed to come to their assistance. The incident began on May 11,
  1510 (Chungjong 5 - Eisho 7.4.4), when the Japanese residents of
  Naeip'o and Pusan assaulted and captured their Korean magistrates'
  offices. On the same day, a fleet sent by the So attacked Koje Island off
  Pusan. After having ransacked the environs of the Three Ports and
  pillaged various localities on Koje, the Japanese gathered their forces
  at Naeip'o with the apparent intention of keeping the place occupied
  until they had intimidated the Korean government into backing down,
  abandoning its rigorism, and letting them have their own way in Ko-
  rea. But they were mistaken if they thought they could bring the
  Koreans to terms. Although the news of this insurrection by foreign-
  ers backed from abroad terrified some Seoul officials, the govern-
  ment's armed forces reacted effectively to the Japanese threat. Thus
  the "disturbance of the Three Ports" was brought to a speedy conclu-
  sion fifteen days after its outbreak, when the Koreans attacked and
  recaptured Naeip'o, taking 295 heads. The remaining Japanese fled in
  their ships for Tsushima. Needless to say, in the wake of this incident
  the Korean government severed its relations with the So.
  That those relations should have been resumed as soon as they
  were - in 1512, after Tsushima had asked the shogun and the Ouchi to
  intercede - testifies to the accommodative nature of Korean policy
  and to the perceived indispensability of the So. To be sure, under the
  new agreement the privileges of the So were trimmed, the three ports
  of entry reduced to one (Naeip'o), and the rights of permanent resi-
  dence and the exploitation of fisheries by Japanese eliminated, but the
  basic framework of Japanese-Korean relations stayed intact. For all
  the new restrictions, more than sixty Japanese ships a year were still
  permitted access to Korea. Moreover, the Japanese for a time sue-
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  249
  ceeded in expanding that access: For example, in 1521 Pusan was
  reinstated as a port of call, and in 1523 the head of the So family was
  granted the right to add five annual trading vessels to the twenty-five
  permitted by the agreement of 1512.
  Their proclivities toward piracy, however, set the Japanese back
  again. A raid carried out by twenty or more wako ships on Saryang
  Island off the southern coast of Kyongsang Province in 1544 caused
  relations between the two countries to be severely curtailed for three
  years. The so-called Tenbun treaty of 1547 restored an ordered com-
  merce but again restricted Japanese access to one port (this time Pusan)
  and reduced the So to twenty-five vessels each year. Until the last
  decade of the sixteenth century, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of
  Korea destroyed their prospects, the So of Tsushima did not abandon
  hope of remedying the conditions that governed Japanese commerce
  with Korea, retrieving their lost privileges, and regaining the status
  they held before 1510. Paradoxically, their hopes were raised as a result
  of yet another pirate incident, the 1555 wako raid on Tallyang and other
  areas of the South Cholla coast, Korea's southwestern corner. This raid
  by more than seventy pirate ships from the Goto Islands and the rest of
  the Matsuura region apparently reminded the Koreans of the usefulness
  of the So. In any event, by 1557 the So were back up to thirty annual
  vessels, and by 1567 the Koreans had agreed to restore some of the
  privileges that had been withdrawn from the holders of toso. The wako
  no longer bothered Korea. And there matters rested until Korea came
  within the compass of Hideyoshi's aggressive designs.
  The second tide of brigandage
  To be sure, it was not so much action by the So that kept the pirates
  from bothering Korea after 1555. As it happens, the marauders' atten-
  tion had already been diverted elsewhere, toward more profitable tar-
  gets. Even the Tallyang raid, for all its large scale, was actually no
  more than an aberrant eddy within the great tide of brigandage that
  swept East Asian waters in the 1550s and 1560s. This resurgent tide
  did not, however, flow toward Korea but swirled about the coasts of
  China. It threatened at first to submerge Kiangsu and Chekiang and
  then shifted to beat on the shores of Fukien. The intensity of this new
  wave of pillage may be gauged from a telling set of figures: In more
  than a century, from 1440 to 1550, Chinese sources recorded only 25
  wako raids, but they mentioned no fewer than 467 separate incidents
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  250 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  in the single decade between 1551 and 1560 and added another 75 for
  the ten years from 1561 to 1570, when the tide began to ebb.'3
  In contrast with the previous type of wako, however, the pirate
  bands of the middle sixteenth century no longer consisted preponder-
  antly of Japanese. Although wako, or "Japanese brigands," remained
  the common label by which they were identified, most of these bandits
  were in fact, if not in name, Chinese. Moreover, although Japanese are
  listed among the leadership of some of their groups, the masterminds
  of the far-flung activities of this new type of wako were unscrupulous
  Chinese adventurers. The Tallyang raid, for instance, was just one of
  the notorious exploits of the Chinese buccaneer Wang Chih, who at the
  time had his headquarters in Japan, in that old wako lair, Hirado, and
  availed himself of a comfortable base of operations in the Goto Islands.
  Wang Chih and his congeners - such as Teng Wen-chun, whose base
  was Yobuko in that same Matsuura region, and Ch'en Tung, who had
  close connections with the prominent daimyo family of southern
  Kyushu, the Shimazu - were part of a syndrome that was more com-
  plex than the wako plague that had afflicted Korea and threatened
  China in previous times.
  What were the causes of this new wave of piracy? Contemporary
  Chinese sources put the onus for the resurgence of the wako on Chi-
  nese merchant adventurers, their greed, and their perverse incitation
  of the Japanese to plunder China. That celebrated "bible of wako
  studies," Ch'ou-hai fu-pien (A maritime survey: collected plans,
  1562), asserts, for instance: "Maritime brigandage originated when
  rogues from the seacoast of China, seeking profits, broke the prohibi-
  tions [of overseas trade]. First they took up with the Western Barbari-
  ans and then extended their activities to Japan, which they made the
  very base and heartland of their banditry.'"4 In other words, the
  appearance of the Portuguese (who are meant here by "Western Bar-
  barians") gave a great boost to the officially proscribed but actually
  uncontrollable private overseas trade of China. The private commer-
  cial networks spread to include Japan just at the time when the official
  tally trade, inadequate to start with, was petering out. At first, the
  13 See the chronological chart set out by Tanaka in Wako: umi no rekishi, pp. 203-7. For a
  detailed descriptive chronology, see Ch'en Mou-heng, Ming-tai wo-k'ou k'ao-liieh (Peking:
  Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1957), chap. 3, pp. 47-128.
  14 Ch'ou-hai fu-pien, comp. Cheng Jo-tseng, ed. Shao Fang, under the auspices of Hu Tsung-
  hsien, governor of Chekiang (revised by Hu Tsung-hsien's descendants Hu Wei-chi, Hu
  Teng, Hu Ming-kang, and Hu Chieh-ch'ing; prefaces by Mao K'un, 1562, and Hu Ssu-shen,
  1624; copy in the Toyoshi Collection, Library of the Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University),
  pt. n , f. 6.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  251
  entrepots of the illicit trade were on or just off the coast of China, but
  the Ming government's countermeasures eventually forced the traders
  to seek safer bases as far away as Japan and to enlist the aid or at least
  the acquiescence of Japanese regional rulers and maritime barons in
  their schemes.
  The Portuguese first intruded into China's commercial sphere in the
  second decade of the sixteenth century. In 1511, they conquered the
  Malayan sultanate of Malacca, a place much frequented by Chinese
  overseas merchants, and by 1513 their own merchants were visiting
  the China coast. They sought official relations with China through
  Canton from 1517, but five years later they were forcibly driven away
  from that area as a result of the piratical behavior of the captain of
  their 1519 embassy, Simao de Andrade. Thereupon (until in 1554 they
  finally gained official toleration of their trade in Canton), they engaged
  in a thoroughly illicit but highly lucrative trade, not at major ports but
  at island anchorages on the coast of South China. There they ex-
  changed spices, ivory, aromatic woods, and other products of their
  South and Southeast Asian trading colonies, for Chinese silks and
  porcelains. Needless to say, these anchorages were not haphazardly
  chosen. Rather, they were the strategically located offshore bases of
  the Chinese smuggling bosses, who often operated with the collusion
  of the coastal officialdom.
  The most notorious of these contrabandists' nests, called Liampoo
  by the Portuguese, was Shuang-hsii-kang in the Chusan Islands off
  Ningpo, which became important from 1526 onward. In its heyday,
  the middle 1540s, Shuang-hsii-kang was run by the Hsu brothers,
  whose theater of operations extended from Malacca to Kyo-domari
  (now part of the city of Sendai, Kagoshima Prefecture) in Japan. Their
  chief lieutenant, Wang Chih, traveled to Japan to bring back with him
  more recruits for the illicit trade. The Portuguese, according to the
  Tractado (1569-70) of the well-informed Dominican friar Gaspar da
  Cruz, "were so firmly settled" in Liampoo "and with such freedom,
  that nothing was lacking them save having a gallows and [municipal
  whipping post]." One would scarcely expect this place, populated by
  Portuguese freebooters and their Lascar crews, Chinese smugglers and
  their Japanese partners, to have been a well-ordered, peaceful munici-
  pality. Indeed, we are told by da Cruz that "the Chinas who accompa-
  nied the Portugals, and some Portugals with them, came to disorder
  themselves in such a manner that they began to make great thefts and
  robberies, and killed some of the people." At length, the flagrancy
  with which its laws were being flouted moved the Ming government to
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  appoint the hardheaded Chu Wan as governor of Chekiang Province,
  with the clear mandate to eliminate Shuang-hsu and other coastal sore
  spots in his own province as well as in Fukien and northern Kwan-
  tung. From the official Ming standpoint, the traders who gathered at
  such anchorages were either outlaws guilty of high treason or barbar-
  ian brigands. When Chu Wan was ordered "to drive the pirates from
  all the coast," da Cruz notes, "all the merchants . . . were included in
  this number of pirates."15
  Chu Wan did his job energetically. In 1548 he destroyed Shuang-hsii
  (where his troops captured at least two Japanese alive) and scattered its
  denizens to the four winds. The next year, he successfully blockaded
  the coast of Fukien, where his catch included two junks carrying some
  thirty Portuguese; some of these captives he summarily executed.
  Because some of the most influential members of the Fukien gentry
  were among the heaviest investors in the illicit overseas trade, it is not
  surprising that after this thorough sweep, Chu Wan should have been
  traduced, disgraced, and driven to suicide. Perhaps more surprisingly,
  his successes against the contrabandists are often cited as the proxi-
  mate cause of the regeneration of the wako. Indeed, it is held that
  deprived of their accustomed bases, the overseas traders had little
  choice but to transform themselves into bands of armed rovers.
  According to this school of thought, when the Ming government
  cracked down on their illegal activities, the Chinese entrepreneurs
  enlisted Japanese swashbucklers, known far and wide to be "tough
  and ferocious" types, into "safeguarding and abetting" their schemes,
  by force of arms if need be.16 The armed clashes that resulted between
  the smugglers assisted by their Japanese strong-arm men and the
  troops mobilized by the Chinese authorities generated widespread dis-
  turbances along the littoral of the South China Sea. Some of the Chi-
  nese coastal populace turned to banditry, making common cause with
  the intruders in preference to being raped and looted by troops who
  had been quartered on them ostensibly to guard them against the
  wako.11 Bands of Chinese robbers with no connection with the sea
  15 Padre Frey Gaspar da Cruz OP, Tractado em que se cdtam muito por esteso as cousas da China
  (title page: 1569; colophon: Euora em casa de Andre de Burgos impressor (1570); copy in the
  Lilly Library, Indiana University), chap. 23, unfoliated; C. R. Boxer, trans, and ed., "Trea-
  tise in which the things of China are related at great length," in South China in the Sixteenth
  Century, Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, vol. 106 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1953), pp. 192-3.
  16 Ch'ou-hai tu-pien, pt. 11, f. 5v.
  17 Chang Shih-ch'e, the president of the Board of War, used strong terms in arguing against the
  practice of saddling the population with levies from distant provinces: "This is their nature -
  swinish greed and wolflike brutality. They practice extortion and robbery by broad daylight;
  by night they pollute the women. Should anyone resist, then out comes the sword and that
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  253
  went about in the guise of Japanese in order to capitalize on the terror
  universally inspired by the name of wako. And local officials, intent on
  minimizing the extent of popular discontent in their jurisdictions,
  labeled all armed disorders, regardless of their cause, as outrages per-
  petrated by the wako, thereby cravenly libeling the Japanese in order
  to mask their own malfeasance. Thus the reality was camouflaged at
  the time, and the false image has persisted in history. That much
  would appear to be the consensus at least of the Japanese historians
  who have recently written on this subject.
  By and large, Japanese scholars do their best to minimize the num-
  ber of Japanese participants in wako bands. Moreover, insofar as they
  do admit the involvement of their sixteenth-century countrymen in
  these Chinese adventures, they tend to be charitable toward the seafar-
  ers, whose motivation (they claim) has been misunderstood and true
  nature misrepresented. One widely sold text suggests, for instance,
  that the wako phenomenon was, in effect, a plea for free trade against
  protectionism and that the Japanese who ventured to China in armed
  groups were forced to go under arms as a measure of self-defense in the
  insecure conditions under which they conducted commerce.18 An-
  other author, who clearly admires the pugnacity of the wako, in appar-
  ent seriousness puts them in the "forefront of the people's liberation
  war" in China.19 Yet another has meticulously combed Chinese sources
  to show that in them, terms such as chen-wo (J: shinwa, "real Japa-
  nese") and ts'ung-wo (J: juwa, "follower of Japanese"), which imply
  that Japanese had the chief part in the wako raids, are outweighed by
  kou-wo (J: kowa, "inciters" or "seducers of Japanese") and similar
  terms, which show that the initiative was Chinese.20
  Such scholars frequently quote the passage from the official history
  Ming shih, which in referring to the brigands in the great raid of 1555
  states that "about three of ten were real Japanese, and seven of ten
  person's dead; they don't give murder another thought! Hence the proverb says, 'Cross, if
  you must, a Japanese bandit's path, but never a garrison soldier's.' Run into a Japanese, and
  there's still a chance you'll get away. But meet a soldier, and you're done for." Ch'ou-hai t"u-
  pien, pt. 11, f. 66v.
  18 Iwami Hiroshi and Taniguchi Kikuo, Dento Chugoku no kansei, vol. 4 of Chugoku no rekishi,
  vol. 4 of Shinsho Tcyoshi, Kodansha gendai shinsho, no. 454 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1982, 4th
  printing), p. 91.
  19 Yobuko Jotaro, Wako shiko (Tokyo: Shin jimbutsu orai-sha, 1971), p. 272. Alternatively
  Yobuko speaks of the wako as a "Japanese-Ming allied army [Nichimin rengogun]"; see p. 280.
  20 Ishihara Michihiro, Wako, vol. 7 of Nikon rekishi sosho (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1964),
  pp. 71-5, 233-4. Ishihara has also strained all possible references to the quality of mercy
  among the wako out of the sources; see his "Wako no onjo ni tsuite," Nihon rekishi 166 (April
  1962): 38-45.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  were persons who subordinated themselves to the Japanese."21 Or they
  seek support from other Chinese sources, such as the passage in Ch'ou-
  hai fu-pien that maintains, "If today's pirates mobilized, they would
  number several tens of thousands. They all pretend to be Japanese. To
  be sure, those who actually come from Japan amount to no less than
  several thousand, but all the rest are Chinese subjects, scoundrels who
  attach themselves to the invaders."22 Many such passages may be
  found, making it possible to assert that the proportion of Japanese
  among the brigands who pillaged the coastal regions of China in the
  1550s was no greater than one in ten.
  As easily found, however, are other accounts that indicate that the
  Japanese contribution to the exploits of the wako was anything but
  insubstantial. The chief picaroons - the likes of Wang Chih, Hsu Hai,
  and Yeh Ming, alias Ma Yeh - may have been Chinese (although there
  is an argument that the characters Ma Yeh really represent a rebus for
  the Japanese name Aso), but knowledgeable Chinese sources also con-
  tain a veritable rogues' gallery of pirate captains with indisputably
  Japanese names and an extensive gazetteer of their nesting places in
  the Japanese archipelago. When Jih-pen i-chien (A mirror of Japan, c.
  1564) states, for instance, that Sukegoro of Tanegashima, Kamon the
  Pilot of Satsuma, Hikogoro of Hyuga, and Hosoya of Izumi (the name
  smacks of a Sakai merchant) in 1556 at the behest of Hsu Hai orga-
  nized a band of fifty thousand to sixty thousand pirates who set sail in
  one thousand vessels to pillage Kwangtung but suffered severe damage
  in a storm and hit South Chihli instead, we may assume that the
  numbers are exaggerated. But we have no reason to question the
  essential accuracy of the story of massive Japanese participation in this
  pirate fleet. Any reader of Jih-pen i-chien will conclude that its author,
  Cheng Shun-kung, was well informed - as well he might have been,
  for he had gone to Japan in that very year of 1556 as an official envoy
  charged with gathering intelligence on the wako and enlisting the aid
  of the daimyo of Bungo, Otomo Sorin, in their suppression. Cheng's
  "Mirror" reflects the observations of a half-year's stay in the country.
  Hence it is particularly interesting to see him first take a swipe at
  Chinese "exile drifters" who lurk in Japan and lure its inhabitants to
  cross the seas and plunder China but then draw the categorical conclu-
  sion: "From Kii on these barbarians' eastern seacoast to the south and
  west, through the San'yo and the San'in regions to Wakasa and the
  barbarians' west, there is no place where the people have not been
  21 Ming shift, vol. 27, p . 8353; Seishino 
  bu, vol. i , p . 2 9 5 . 
  22 Ch'ou-kait'u-pien,pt. 
  I I , f. I.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
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  incited to join in the raids. They may call themselves merchants but
  are in actuality brigands."23
  The "trade called bafan"
  The term often used for these Japanese rovers in the contemporary
  lingua franca of the seas was bahan, or bafan in the Portuguese tran-
  scription. One encounters it written with a variety of Chinese charac-
  ters, most often with the two that form the name of Hachiman (Ch:
  pa-fan), a deity of war whose cult was widespread in Japan. Presum-
  ably, the pirate vessels flew pennants bearing Hachiman's name, and
  the corsairs by extension came to be known by it. But this seems too
  facile an explanation and no longer enjoys the confidence of scholars.
  Of the several Chinese-character compounds that Cheng Shun-kung
  lists and glosses for the term, the most evocative is p'o-fan, "tattered
  sails," the bandits being called so because they are "nasty like sails that
  break." But whatever the term's derivation, its meaning is clear. Exten-
  sively practiced in such Japanese regions as Satsuma, "the trade called
  bafan . . . is to go make prizes and rob the maritime localities and
  settlements of China with many vessels armed for that purpose."24
  According to Ch'ou-hai fu-pien, Satsuma, Higo, and Nagato were
  the Japanese provinces that were the most prolific breeding grounds of
  pirates; next came Osumi, Chikuzen, Chikugo, Hakata (a city singled
  out for mention among provinces), Hyuga, Settsu, Harima, and the
  island of Tanegashima; natives of Buzen, Bungo, and Izumi also took
  part in the raids on occasion, notably so among them the traders who
  found themselves in Satsuma on business when the opportunity of
  joining an expedition to China presented itself. (Curiously enough, the
  only province of Kyushu that is not included on this roll of names is
  Hizen, the home of the Matsuura-to and the base of Wang Chih.
  Perhaps "Higo" was a slip of the pen for its neighbor province, or
  possibly the identity of Hizen as a stronghold and refuge of the wako
  was so well known that it was sometimes assumed as a given in such
  lists. To be sure, there is no lack of mentions of this province else-
  23 Cheng Shun-kung, Jih-pen i-chien (Mikajiri Yutaka, ed., Nikon ikkan) (Kyoto, privately
  mimeographed, 1937; copy in the Library of the Faculty of Law, Kyoto University), pp. 132-
  8,474. Also see the maps and descriptions of routes from the south of Kyushu to Kyoto, pp.
  424-58.
  24 On p'o-fan, see ibid., p. 108. On bafan, see Padre Luis Frois SJ, Historia dejapam, pt. 1,
  chap. 6, ed. Josef Wicki SJ (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, 1976), vol. 1, p. 46;
  Matsuda Kiichi and Kawasaki Momota, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi (Tokyo: Chuo kdronsha,
  1978), vol. 6, p. 72.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  where. Jih-pen i-chien, for instance, names the Hizen ports Hirado and
  Arima as veritable sumps of pirates.)
  After noting that it was the poor people of these places who pro-
  vided the bulk of the pirate crews, Ch'ou-hai fu-pien singles out the
  general lack of authority in Japan as the critical factor in the rise of
  piracy. Unlike in China, there was no central government in that
  country. Nobody listened to the orders of the "lord of Yamashiro,"
  that is, the Ashikaga shogun in Kyoto. Of the three great military
  houses that had in the past maintained a measure of control over pirate
  areas even as they champed at one another, the Ouchi of Yamaguchi
  had recently fallen; the Amako of Izumo were in a state of collapse;
  and only the Otomo of Bungo were left. Such authority as the Otomo
  had did not extend past the borders of six provinces in Kyushu, and
  naturally enough, the remainder of the island's nine provinces -
  Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga - ranked among the most notorious of
  the abiding places of the wako. Then what were the prospects of
  seeking remedy in Japan? "To expect that country to keep the various
  barbarians in check is absolutely impossible."25
  Indeed, in 1562, when Ch'ou-hai fu-pien was compiled, no ready
  solution to the acute problem of authority was visible in Japan. In
  particular, Kyushu - the area of greatest concern to us - was in a state
  of turmoil. The Chinese "bible of wako studies" was up to date in
  reporting on the six provinces of the lord of Bungo: Otomo Sorin had
  by 1559 accumulated six military governorships (shugoshiki) in Kyu-
  shu and had even obtained the title of Kyushu tandai, the shogunal
  deputy in the island. But these distinctions granted by the Muromachi
  bakufu conveyed prestige, not power. At best, Sorin exercised a tenu-
  ous hegemony over northern Kyushu, where he had many challengers
  and few trustworthy friends. The other three of Kyushu's military
  governorships — over those notorious provinces of Satsuma, Osumi,
  and Hyuga - had been, since the 1190s intermittently and since the
  1390s constantly, in the hands of the Shimazu family.
  This shugo family, however, had a history of violent internal quar-
  rels. As a result, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, even its
  hold on Satsuma was shaky, and its ability to control affairs in the
  larger area of southern Kyushu was weak. In 1508, Shimazu Tadamasa
  committed suicide in despair or disgust at the seditiousness of his
  faithless relatives and overbearing liegemen. In the next eighteen
  years, four lords followed one another in quick succession, and the
  25 Ch'ou-hai fu-pien, pt. 2, f. 22rv.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  257
  house's main line was tested severely as it tried to maintain itself in the
  face of the revolts of other branches of the Shimazu, the fluctuating
  loyalties of vassals, and the perpetual attempts of petty local lords
  (kokujin) to assert themselves. The problem of authority was not fully
  resolved, even through the strenuous efforts of the famed "restorer" of
  the family's fortunes, Shimazu Takahisa (1514-71), who became shugo
  in 1526 and for the next forty years - until he passed on the office to
  his son Yoshihisa (1533-1611) - fought tenaciously to subject the recal-
  citrant barons to fealty. Throughout those years, southern Kyushu was
  a cockpit of contention.
  It was not until Yoshihisa's day that the head of the Shimazu family
  managed to consolidate his dominion over southern Kyushu and estab-
  lish himself as a Sengoku daimyo who would brook no opposition. In
  1569, Yoshihisa subdued Hishikari Takaaki, a powerful baron of north-
  ern Satsuma; in 1570, the rebellious Irikiin and Togo families of
  Satsuma were reduced to submission; in 1574, Kimotsuki Kanesuke
  and Ijichi Shigeoki, magnates of Osumi whose families had been a law
  unto themselves for generations, surrendered to their Shimazu over-
  lord; and by 1578, the Shimazu had destroyed the great house of Ito,
  lords of a major portion of Hyuga, and were ready to engage the
  Otomo in a contest for the ascendancy over all of Kyushu. Thus the
  Shimazu daimyo showed that he had the power to overawe the refrac-
  tory. At the time of the great wako raids on China in the 1550s,
  however, this development still lay in the future. The Shimazu had not
  yet managed to suppress the independence of various contending fac-
  tions. The authority of the daimyo had not yet been imposed over all
  of the farming and fishing population. Disordered circumstances still
  prevailed in southern Kyushu.
  Does not the history of this regional pell-mell help explain why
  Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga had such a reputation as rookeries of
  pirates? That reputation reached as far as Malacca, where the Jesuit
  Luis Frois, the future chronicler of the Roman Catholic mission in
  Japan, recorded on December 1, 1555, the news brought by Portu-
  guese ships from China about the "very great conflicts and strife be-
  tween China and Japan, and how a great armada had made ready at
  Cangoxima [Kagoshima, the central place of Satsuma] and had devas-
  tated many Chinese localities that were on the sea, as well as a very
  populous city, where the Japanese wrought great destruction."26
  26 Irmao Luis Frois SJ to the Padres and Irmaos SJ in Goa, dated Malaqua, December I, 1555,
  Josef Wicki SJ, ed., Documenia Indica, vol. 3, Monumenia Missionum Societatis Iesu 6, Monu-
  menia Historica Societatis Iesu 74 (Rome: Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, 1954), p. 319.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Hangchow, which was attacked in June or July 1555, may be the large
  city meant here, but it is difficult to say, as that year's pirate band,
  organized by Hsii Hai with a following that reputedly consisted of
  Japanese from Izumi, Satsuma, Hizen, Higo, Settsu, and Tsushima,
  terrorized the entire populous area between Chiangyin on the Yangtze
  and Hangchow, striking inland as far as Soochow.27 A stray group of
  sixty or seventy from this band penetrated as far as Nanking in the late
  summer, but could the news of this shocking event have traveled so
  fast that it reached the ears of Frois's informants before they sailed? In
  any event, unless we believe that those Portuguese informants - who
  were surely expert in the ways of the seafaring demimonde of the
  China Sea - were fooled by the Chinese goverment's propaganda and
  suborned into libeling the Japanese, we have no grounds to assume
  that the "great armada" of the pirates did not in fact have its origins or
  at least fit out in the Satsuma region.
  Frois himself was at this time still a distant and unprejudiced ob-
  server. Later on, in Historia de Japam, he would reserve some of his
  most rancorous passages for Satsuma, the sworn enemy of his hero
  "King Francisco of Bungo," that is, Otomo Sorin. When, for instance,
  he calls Satsuma such a miserable place that it had, of old, no claim to
  fame whatever but was despised by all and ignored by the central
  government, Frois is exaggerating. But it no longer sounds purely
  hyperbolical when he adds that the province was so poor that its
  people were driven to seek sustenance by plundering China, even at a
  terrible risk to their lives. In most years, the greater part of those who
  went there - Frois says - remained there. Others were lost on the sea
  in their small and fragile craft.28
  Owing to the lack of contemporary Japanese sources, it is impossi-
  ble to document an involvement of the Shimazu in the "trade called
  bafan," a trade that was without a doubt practiced widely in the three
  provinces under their nominal jurisdiction. Chinese sources, however,
  actually attribute membership in this daimyo family to two of the
  archest buccaneers. Ch'en Tung, who led the bahan fleet from Hizen,
  Chikuzen, Bungo, Izumi, Hakata, and Kii that attacked the Shanghai
  area in 1555, is described as "the younger brother of the lord of
  Satsuma, the chief of his secretariat." Naturally, "many of his follow-
  ers were Satsuma men." And Hsii Hai's right-hand man, the ferocious
  27 See Ch'ou-hai t'u-pien, pt. 8, ff. 27-28. Also see Ming shih, vol. 27, pp. 8352-3; Seishi no bu,
  vol. i, pp. 294-5.
  28 Frois, Historia, pt. 2 [B], chap. 40, ed. Wicki, vol. 4 (1983), pp. 292-3; Matsuda and
  Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 8, pp. 168-9.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
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  Shingoro, "whose venom infected the entire region of Wu, whose
  intent was to swallow up all of Chekiang, and who was on the lurk for
  Nanking," is called "the younger brother of the ruler of Osumi."
  This attribution of brotherhood with the mighty may rest on noth-
  ing more than the empty vaunting of the individuals in question or of
  their captors. In any event, their identities cannot be determined.
  Ch'en Tung may be the Chinese nom de guerre of a Japanese pirate,
  the garbled transcription of a Japanese name, or a rebus. Shingoro is as
  good a Japanese name as any, but the name by itself is in neither case a
  sure prognostic of nationality. The "lord of Satsuma" and "ruler of
  Osumi," Shimazu Takahisa, had two younger brothers, Tadamasa (d.
  1561) and Naohisa, also called Matagoro. The latter, whose domain
  was in the Kawanabe district of Satsuma that juts into the east China
  Sea (the general area of what are now Bonotsu-cho and the city of
  Makurazaki, Kagoshima Prefecture), is a shadowy figure reputed to
  have been the patron of pirates; the date of his death is unclear.
  Somewhat disappointingly, there is evidence that Naohisa was still
  alive in 1571, whereas the heads of Shingoro and Ch'en Tung are
  known to have been delivered to Peking in 1556, along with those of
  Hsu Hai and Ma Yen.29 Who the other Japanese captains and confeder-
  ates of the bahan trade were - the picturesquely named Urumi ("Red-
  Brown") Taro, Keiten ("The Sky's the Limit") Shinshiro, and Hakata
  Sukezaemon among them - likewise cannot be determined. Appar-
  ently, they did not seek notoriety in their native land.
  "When they return to their islands from plundering," states Ch'ou-
  hai fu-pien, "they say they have come back from trading. They will
  not speak of those who were captured or killed by our troops, keeping
  it a secret. Even the neighbors do not know, or [if they know], they
  think it honorable."30 The reluctance of the perpetrators to publicize
  their part in plundering expeditions is understandable, although it is
  difficult to fathom how they could have kept it a secret in places such
  as Satsuma and Hirado. The "famed pirate and cruel killer of the sort
  that go to rob China" does make his appearance once or twice in Jesuit
  reports of deathbed conversions to Christianity.31 In any event, al-
  29 On Ch'en Tung, see Ch'ou-hai fu-pien, pt. 8, f. 28v. On Shingoro, see ibid., pt. 9, ff. 22-23;
  and Afingshih, chuan 205: "Lieh-chuan 205, Hu Tsung-hsien," vol. 18, p. 5412; Seishi no bu,
  vol. 1, p. 205. On Shimazu Naohisa, see Ota Akira, Senhi kakei daijiten, vol. 2 (Tokyo:
  Kadokawa shoten, 1963), p. 2874.
  30 Ch'ou-hai fu-pien, pt. 2, f. 35V.
  31 For example, Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 47 (Arima, 1563), and chap, m (Hirado, 1576),
  ed. Wield, vol. 1, p. 330, and vol. 2 (1981), pp. 469-71; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 7, p. 17 and vol. 10 (1979), pp. 72-4.
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  260 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  though it must be reemphasized that contemporary Japanese sources
  on the wako are next to nonexistent, it must also be stressed that their
  lack is not a convincing argument for the absence of Japanese from the
  bahan raids. Rather, it is beyond dispute that the pirate chiefs of the
  1550s, whatever their nationality, had safe bases and powerful patrons
  in Japan and that they drew much of their fighting manpower from
  that island country. The best example is Wang Chih - also known as
  Captain Wu-feng (Goho Senshu) and even styled Hui Wang, the King
  of Hui - who lived like a true sea king in Hirado, surrounded himself
  with luxury and a train of Japanese myrmidons, maintained cordial
  relations with not only the local petty eminence, Matsuura Takanobu
  (1529-99), but also with such great names as Otomo Sorin and Ouchi
  Yoshitaka, and sent bands of pirate-traders off to seek their and his
  fortunes in China.
  The "trade called bafan" of the 1550s was the culmination of a long
  seafaring tradition in Japan. The political conditions of that confused
  time of Japanese history - at the climax of the Sengoku period (1467-
  1573)5 before unification- permitted the existence of armed groups
  that ventured overseas seeking gain. Although plunder was not their
  sole objective, what they could not get by peaceful trade they obtained
  by pillage.
  What were the wako after? According to Chinese sources, the Japa-
  nese above all sought raw silk (which fetched ten times its Chinese
  price in Japan), floss silk, cotton cloth ("because they do not have
  cotton wool"), pongee thread, brocade, red thread, quicksilver (ten
  times the Chinese price), needles, iron chains, iron pots, porcelain, old
  copper coins ("the Japanese do not mint their own but use old Chinese
  coins exclusively"), old paintings, old calligraphy, old books, pharma-
  ceuticals, carpets, horse blankets, facial powder, bamboo ware, lac-
  quer ware, and vinegar.32 This, of course, looks like an ordinary shop-
  ping list, but it does not tell the whole story. It would appear that the
  sixteenth-century wako, like their fourteenth-century predecessors,
  not only sought general merchandise but also engaged in slavery.
  Cheng Shun-kung reported the story of some two hundred or three
  hundred Chinese slaves kept by Japanese families in the vicinity of
  Takasu in Satsuma (actually, in Osumi; now part of the city of
  Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture). And the Jesuit Luis de Almeida
  wrote in 1562 of his efforts to safeguard the honor of a shipload of
  women he saw in the harbor of Tomari in the Kawanabe district of
  32 Ch'ou-hai tu-pien, pt. 2, ff. 32-33V.
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  26l
  Satsuma (now Bonotsu-cho): They had been bought by some of his
  Portuguese compatriots from "the Japanese who seize them in war in
  China and then sell them." Almeida made sure that they were well
  protected on their voyage thence.33
  By 1562, however, the peak of the bahan raids on China had passed.
  The greatest of the pirate bands were broken up in the late 1550s by
  the successful counteraction of the Ming authorities. In 1556, the
  governor of Chekiang, Hu Tsung-hsien, through a clever intrigue,
  first incited Hsu Hai to deliver Ch'en Tung and Ma Yeh into his
  hands, and then he destroyed Hsu Hai. This coup meant that three of
  the pirate chiefs having the closest connections with Japan had been
  eliminated at one blow. In 1557, Hu scored his greatest success when
  he lured Wang Chih, the godfather of organized wako activity, back to
  China with the promise of a pardon for his past crimes and misdemean-
  ors and a relaxation of the maritime prohibitions, with the effect of
  permitting trade with the Japanese - conditions that delighted not
  only Wang and his confederates but also his commerce-minded Japa-
  nese friend, Otomo Sorin.34 The promises of Hu Tsung-hsien turned
  out to be dross, and Wang Chih was beheaded at the end of 1559 or the
  beginning of 1560.
  The capture and execution of the captain of all captains of the bahan
  trade presaged the end of the wako. Buccaneers such as Hung Tse-
  chen, a former lieutenant of Wang Chih, continued to replenish their
  strength in Japan, and the wako remained active for several more
  decades, but they had lost much of their sting. The focus of their
  activity shifted from the Yangtze Delta and Chekiang to the coasts of
  Fukien and Kwangtung, and given the increasing distance from Ja-
  pan, the intensity of Japanese participation diminished. And then in
  1567, the wind was taken out of the bahan sails when the Ming govern-
  ment finally - after two centuries - took its maritime prohibitions off
  the books. Mainland Chinese were permitted to travel overseas, and a
  prospering trade began with the Southeast Asian countries, removing
  some of the pressure that had initially led to the rise of the wako.
  Because of the depredations associated with the Japanese, however,
  33 Jih-pen i-chien, p. 136. Irmao Luis Dalmeida SJ to Irmaos SJ, dated Vocoxiura [Yokoseura in
  Hizen], October 25, 1562, Cartas qve os Padres e Irmaos da Companhia de Iesus escreuerao dos
  Reynos de Iapao & China aos da mesma Companhia da India, & Europa, des do anno de IS49-
  ali 0 de 1580. (Em Euora por Manoel de Lyra. Anno de M.D.XCVIII.), vol. 1, f. 106.
  Compare the slightly different version in Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 33, ed. Wicki, vol. i, p.
  215; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 6, p. 270.
  34 Hsu Hsueh-chu (died c. 1617), Chia-ching Tung-nan p'ing-vto tung-lu (Nanking: Kuo-hsueh
  t'u-shu-kuan, 1932 facsimile reprint). On Wang's capture, the debate on his fate, and his
  execution, see also Ch'ou-hai tu-pien, pt. 5, ff. 31 v-32 & 34V-35V, and pt. 9, ff. 24-9.
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  262 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Japan officially remained off limits to the Chinese traders, and vice
  versa. But that continuing ban served the interests of the Portuguese,
  who established a highly profitable carrying trade between China and
  Japan. The raw silk that the Japanese sought so dearly thus came to
  Japan from China in Portuguese bottoms.
  From pirate bands into navies
  What happened to the Japanese pirates?35 This question is intimately
  connected with the problem of the reestablishment of authority
  throughout the Japanese body politic during the second half of the
  sixteenth century. The pirates did not disappear; they were put under
  control. In the process of unification, the maritime armed bands
  (kaizokushu) lost their independent character and were transformed
  into navies (suiguri) that served the major daimyo and then the national
  hegemon. In a few notable instances - the Kuki of the Kii peninsula
  and the Kurushima of the Inland Sea, not to mention the Matsuura of
  Hizen - their leaders themselves became daimyo whose families sur-
  vived the Edo period as peers of the Japanese empire.
  Pirates were recruited from a maritime populace that lived accord-
  ing to the principle enunciated by that expert on seafaring, Mephis-
  topheles: "All that counts is a ready grip: / You catch a fish, you catch
  a ship."36 In the Middle Ages, enterprising fishermen of this type were
  occasionally employed as guards of vessels transporting rents from
  landed estates (shoeri) in outlying provinces to their proprietors in the
  Kyoto-Nara region, but they were not above attacking and plunder-
  ing such shipments themselves. In some cases, their bosses established
  checkpoints at dominant spots on the waterways, where cargoes were
  controlled and fees had to be paid before a ship could proceed; in
  others, they simply exacted protection money from those who wanted
  to ensure an unmolested passage for themselves. Needless to say, they
  also took part in the bahan trade. Some of the locally prominent
  captains who headed groups of fishermen and on occasion used them
  for armed robbery came to exercise a dominant influence over similar
  seafaring entrepreneurs of a wider area. These newly risen maritime
  barons could easily sell their services as naval auxiliaries to one or the
  35 A concise essay on this question is Utagawa Takehisa, "Chusei kaizokushu no shumatsu,"
  Nihon rekishi 333 (February 1976): 22-39.
  36 "Da fordert nur ein rascher Griff, / Man fangt den Fisch, man fangt ein Schiff." Goethe,
  Faust, 11,5:3(11, 178-11,179).
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  TRADE AND PIRACY 
  263
  other of the contending forces in a country that was rent by constant
  warfare.
  Such a one was Murakami Takeyoshi (1533-1604), who ruled his
  fleets from an elaborate fortress located on the island of Noshima in
  Iyo Province (now Miyakubo-cho, Ehime Prefecture), at one of the
  narrowest but busiest straits of the Inland Sea. As the wars of unifica-
  tion entered a critical phase in the late 1570s with the beginning of the
  campaigns of Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) against the powerful Mori
  family of western Honshu, both sides bid for Murakami's services
  with promises of rich enfeoffments and great prerogatives. As late as
  1586, when the unification regime of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (i537?-98)
  had already made substantial inroads into the area all around Mura-
  kami's marine microcosm, the voice of this "greatest corsair of all
  Japan" evidently still sufficed either to raise or to assuage the terrors of
  a crossing of the Inland Sea. Indeed, we learn that the people of "the
  shores and seacoasts of other provinces each year pay him a tribute for
  fear of being destroyed" by him and his pirates, who "continually go
  out on raids."37 Obviously, such a buccaneer's continued indepen-
  dence was incompatible with the aims of national unification, as was
  that of others like him. They were brought into line.
  As Sengoku daimyo sought to extend their sway over regional do-
  mains, they tried to subordinate maritime armed bands to themselves
  by absorbing the chief corsairs into the body of their own vassals, if
  not to strengthen their military forces by adding a navy, then to secure
  the routes of commerce in and about their domains by eliminating
  piracy. When more and more daimyo became integrated into a grand
  structure of fealty as the process of unification advanced under
  Hideyoshi, it became possible for the hegemon to plan the elimination
  of all private arms-bearing nationwide. In 1588, Hideyoshi issued his
  famous "sword hunt" edict, in which "the farmers of the various
  provinces" were "strictly forbidden to keep swords, short swords,
  spears, firearms, and other types of military weapons." If they were
  permitted such "unnecessary implements," the document added, then
  they would be tempted to "evade their taxes" or even "plot uprisings"
  (ikki, perhaps the worst word in the vocabulary of the feudal ruler).
  Far less known, but as significant an illustration of the thoroughgoing
  effort of Hideyoshi's regime to reduce the capacity for violence or
  armed resistance on the part of any social group in Japan, is the other
  37 Frois, Historia, pt. 2 [B], chap. 33, ed. Wicki, vol. 4, p. 248; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 5, p. 198.
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  264 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  edict that he issued on the very same day, a prohibition of piracy. If the
  former document decreed a sword hunt, then the latter ordered a
  dragnet through which must pass "the sea captains and fishermen of
  the provinces and the seashores, and all those who go in ships to the
  sea." They were to be subjected to an "immediate investigation" by
  the local representatives of their daimyo and made to "subscribe to
  written oaths that henceforth they shall not engage in the slightest
  piratical activity," for "pirate vessels are strictly prohibited on the seas
  of the various provinces." If, hereafter, the recipient of a fief were to
  prove so negligent that pirates should happen to be discovered in a
  place under his jurisdiction, then that fief "shall be confiscated in
  perpetuity."38
  It has been argued that although Hideyoshi's sword hunt edict "may
  not have been class legislation in intent, it had the broadest social
  impact in practice, for it helped to underline the social distinction
  between samurai, whose profession it was to handle weapons, and
  farmers, whose job it was to till the soil and cultivate the mulberry."39
  Mutatis mutandis, much the same may be said about the decree concern-
  ing piracy; surely it is no accident that the two were issued together.
  The social distinction between samurai and farmers - hei-no bunri - is
  often talked about. It may be time that the term for the separation
  between the warrior's and the fisherman's status - hei-gyo bunri -
  came into wider usage. In the Sengoku period, neither distinction was
  strict, but under Hideyoshi both became so. Unfortunately, the new
  definition of their status did not mean, for either farmers or fisher-
  men, a total exemption from military service.
  Just as peasants were mobilized as laborers (jimbu) and bearers
  (bumaru) in military camps and campaigns, so ordinary fishermen
  were drafted into service as sailors on naval vessels or transports. This
  fact and its consequences are dramatically illustrated in a document
  issued by Hideyoshi in 1593, which contains "strict orders" to round
  up "all the mariners from the age of fifteen up to the age of sixty that
  are left on the seashores of your domain," because the "sea captains
  38 The two edicts, both dated Tansho 16 (1588).7.8 and issued over Hideyoshi's vermilion seal,
  were meant to have a universal application; hence they have no particular addressee. For the
  prohibition of piracy, see Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed.,DaiNihon komonjo, iewake 11:
  Kobayakawa-ke monjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1979), no. 502, pp. 478-9.
  For the sword hunt edict, see ibid., no. 503, pp. 479-81.
  39 John Whitney Hall, "Japan's Sixteenth-Century Revolution," in George Elison and Bardwell
  L. Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu:
  University of Hawaii Press, 1981), p. 15. On the applicability to fishermen, see Miki
  Seiichiro, Teppo to sono jidai, vol. 108 of Kyoikusha rekishi shinsho "Nihonshi" (Tokyo:
  Kyoikusha, 1981), pp. 175-7-
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  265
  and mariners [sendo kako]" drafted the previous year had been so
  "sorely afflicted" that "the greater half of them died."40 The service on
  which they had suffered such terrible losses was Hideyoshi's war of
  aggression in Korea.
  WAR AND PEACE
  The background of Japanese aggression in Korea
  To the Koreans, Hideyoshi's invasion of their country meant the
  second coming of the bahan plague and the biggest wako raid of all.
  In contrast, the Japanese participants who wrote accounts of the
  invasion - men of varied backgrounds, from the appropriately named
  Yoshino Jingozaemon, a samurai of Matsuura, to Shukuro Shungaku,
  a Zen monk in the retinue of the general Kikkawa Hiroie (1561-
  1625) - invariably invoked the myth of a primordial conquest of
  Korea by Japan's empress Jingu as a historical precedent that justi-
  fied their venture.4'
  Hideyoshi himself claimed a sanction that was even more grand: In
  broadcasting his plans to extend his dominion overseas, he asserted
  that the will to conquer had been bestowed on him by Heaven.42 To
  the king of Korea, he wrote in 1590 that he was conceived when the
  wheel of the sun entered his mother's womb in a dream, a sure sign
  that the glory of his name should pervade the Four Seas, just as the
  sun illuminates the universe. Indeed, he had no purpose but to spread
  his fame throughout the Three Countries of Japan, China, and Korea.
  Now that he had pacified and prospered Japan and demonstrated his
  invincibility there, he would invade China to introduce Japanese cus-
  toms and values to that country, and he wanted the Koreans to lead the
  way.43
  Hideyoshi's ambassadors did their best to soften the rude force of
  his demand, by insinuating that the last phrase required the Korean
  40 Hideyoshi to the home-province resident lieutenants (rusui) of Hashiba Kikkawa Jiju
  [Kikkawa Hiroie], dated [Bunroku 2O2.5, in Dai Nihon komonjo, ieiaake 9: Kikkawa-ke
  monjo, vol. I, no. 783, pp. 750-1.
  41 Yoshino Jingozaemon oboegaki, in Zoku gunsho ruiju, XX-2 (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruiju
  kanseikai, 1923), 591:378; Shukuro kd, ibid, XIII-2 (1926), 356:1003.
  42 Kampaku of Japan to Lesser Ryukyu (i.e., the Philippine Islands), dated Tensho 19
  (1591)9.15, Murakami Naojiro, ed., Ikoku ofuku shokanshu, Zotei ikoku nikki sho (Tokyo:
  Sunnansha, 1929), p. 29.
  43 Kampaku of Japan to King of Korea, dated Tensho 18 (1590). 11.-, Zoku zenrin kokuhoki, in
  Zoku gunsho ruiju, XXX-i (1925), 881:404. Curiously enough, Wang Chih was another who
  was conceived when a "great star" entered his mother's womb in a dream; see Ch'ou-hai fu-
  pien, pt. 9, f. 24.
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  266 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  government to do no more than clear the road to China for the Japa-
  nese (that is, grant them transit rights through Korea) or - milder
  yet - to smooth the path for a resumption of Japanese relations with
  China. But the Koreans would be neither fooled nor intimidated.
  They refused on principle to become party to an assault on the country
  that was their suzerain. To be sure, although they expressed them-
  selves in terms of filial respect when they spoke of their duty to China,
  they also had a healthy fear of this parent; yet they trusted China to
  come to the aid of Korea, if need be.44 Korea, in short, was comfort-
  able with the international order of East Asia headed by China and
  sought security from it. Hideyoshi, however, wanted to overthrow that
  system. If Korea did not cooperate with him - and by the middle of
  1591 it had clearly indicated that it would not - then it would have to
  suffer the consequences.
  The notion of a continental invasion was not a thought that came to
  Hideyoshi suddenly. Indeed, in view of the prevalent image of
  Hideyoshi as a megalomaniac, which is based in large part on his
  foreign aggression, it is interesting to note that the idea was first
  broached not by him but by his predecessor. It was Oda Nobunaga
  who proclaimed in 1582 his intention to subdue China by force of arms
  once he had made himself "absolute master of all the sixty and six
  reigns of Japan."45 In other words, a vision of the conquest of China
  was the common conceit of the two great unifiers, and both saw it as
  an extension of the conquests through which Japan was being sub-
  jected to their regime. For Nobunaga, the vision came to nothing
  when he was assassinated with less than half his Japanese objective in
  his grasp. For Hideyoshi, it grew less fanciful and more concrete as the
  process of Japan's unification advanced under his direction.
  Significantly enough, the earliest-known documentary evidence of
  Hideyoshi's bellicose intentions toward the continent comes from
  1585, that triumphal year when his armies were victorious in three
  different regions of Japan, when he won the appointment to the lofty
  44 The arrival of Hideyoshi's letter in Korea, the efforts of his envoys, the priest Keitetsu Genso
  and So Yoshitoshi, the daimyo of Tsushima, to explain away the main issue, and the Korean
  court's reactions to these diplomatic proceedings are described in detail in Sdnjo SogyOng
  Taewang sujong sillok, pt. 25, ff. 2-17V, entries for the third to sixth months of Sonjo 24
  (1591): Chosdn wangjo sillok, vol. 25 (1957), pp. 601-8. The response sent by the Korean
  court to Hideyoshi may be found in f. 141% p. 607. See also Chosen Sotokufu Chosenshi
  henshukai, ed., Chosenshi, 4th series, vol. 9 (Keijo: Chosen insatsu kabushiki kaisha, 1937),
  pp. 410—20.
  45 Frois to General SJ, dated Cochinoccu (Kuchinotsu in Hizen), November 5, 1582, Cartas qve
  os Padres, vol. 2, f. 63V. Also in Frois, Historia, pt. 2, chap. 40, ed. Wicki, vol. 3 (1982), p.
  336; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 5 (1978), p. 138.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  267
  aristocratic post of kampaku (imperial regent), and when the prospect
  of a country unified under his aegis first appeared as a real possibility.
  We find the mention in a letter in which the idea of a conquest of all
  Japan is coupled with that of China.46 In 1586, as he planned the
  subjugation of the Shimazu and the pacification of Kyushu, Hideyoshi
  repeatedly referred to China and Korea as though to invade them were
  a course of action that would follow naturally from an occupation of
  southwestern Japan.47
  By April 1587, when Hideyoshi departed Osaka on his Kyushu
  campaign, the scope of his ambitions had apparently increased along
  with their notoriety: There was talk of a "grand design" on his part to
  proceed onward and "slash his way" into Korea, China, and South
  Barbary (presumably somewhere in the region of the Indies or even
  farther, where pepper and the Portuguese came from).48 That Hide-
  yoshi, whose knowledge of world geography cannot have been great,
  indeed harbored a far-flung design that included even India would
  later become evident from his own words, but the immediate after-
  math of the conquest of Kyushu was not yet the time to embark on a
  foreign venture. A great external exploit that would crown and safe-
  guard his internal accomplishments was what Hideyoshi envisioned,
  but it had to be postponed while there were still important matters to
  be taken care of at home. The east and the north of Japan were as yet
  unconquered.
  Accordingly, the machinery for the invasion of the mainland was not
  set in motion until 1591, when the provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, the
  46 Hideyoshi to Hitotsuyanagi Ichinosuke (Sueyasu), dated [Tensho 13.19.3. See Iwasawa
  Yoshihiko, "Hideyoshi no Kara-iri ni kansuru monjo," in Nihon rekishi 163 (January 1962):
  73-75- According to Chosen seibatsuki, a history of the Korean invasion by the Neo-
  Confucian scholar Hori Kyoan (1585-1642), Hideyoshi on the occasion of his departure for
  the Chugoku front against the Mori in 1577 asked Nobunaga for the explicit permission to
  extend his conquests as far as Korea and China. Hideyoshi supposedly was concerned lest,
  without such orders, he be accused of bahan activity. Nobunaga laughed and then approved
  all of his campaign plans. This work, however, is not a primary source, and the anecdote
  cannot be accepted without question. See Nakamura, Nissen kankeishi, vol. 2 (1969), pp.
  256-7.
  47 See, for example, Hideyoshi's vermilion-seal letters to Mori Uma no Kami (Terumoto), dated
  [Tensho 14.] 4.10, and to Ankokuji (Ekei), Kuroda Kageyu (Yoshitaka), and Miyagi Uhyoe
  Nyudo (Tomoyori), dated [Tensho 14.] 8.5, in Dai Nihon komonjo, lewake 8: Mdri-ke monjo,
  vol. 3, nos. 949-50, pp. 227-31. Also see Frois's accounts of the Jesuit Vice-Provincial
  Gaspar Coelho's audience with Hideyoshi on May 4, 1586, when Hideyoshi asked the Jesuits
  to negotiate for him the charter of two well-equipped and well-officered Portuguese ships for
  his planned invasion of Korea and China: Frois to Alexandra Valignano SJ, dated Ximo-
  noxequi, October 17, 1586, Cartas qve os Padres, vol. 2, ff. 175V-7V; and Frois, Historia, pt. 2
  (B), chap. 31, ed. Wicki, vol. 4, pp. 227-35; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu
  Nihonshi, vol. 1 (1978, 4th printing), pp. 202-18.
  48 Takeuchi Rizo, ed., Tamon'in nikki, vol. 4, in Zoho zoku shiryo taisei (Kyoto: Rinsen shoten,
  1978), p. 68; entry for Tensho 15.3.3.
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  268 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  northernmost reaches of Honshu, were finally subdued - all of Japan
  thereby becoming subject to Hideyoshi's authority - and the task of
  unification was completed. In the eighth month of that year, as his
  nephew and deputy Hashiba Hidetsugu (1568-95, soon to become the
  imperial regent of Japan) was reducing to fealty the last of the northern
  barons, Hideyoshi took two grave steps: First, he issued the famous
  edict that prohibited the change of status from samurai to townsman
  or farmer and forbade farmers to abandon their calling for a trade or
  for job work. Thereby Hideyoshi enacted the basic definition of a
  domestic social order that would last 280 years. Second, he set the date
  for the invasion of the mainland (to be the first day of the third month
  of the following year) and ordered the preparation of a headquarters
  and staging area at Nagoya in the Matsuura region of Hizen Province,
  at the point of Kyushu nearest to the mainland.49
  It is clear that one of Hideyoshi's principal aims in invading the
  mainland was to demonstrate the unassailable power of Japan's na-
  tional hegemon. But he wished to attain this goal not only externally,
  at the expense of the Koreans and Chinese; surely as important in his
  plans were the internal targets, the daimyo of Japan and the people of
  their domains. The object was to bend them to the unifier's will
  through the mobilization of their resources for the invasion, and they
  were put to tremendous exertions even before the first Japanese soldier
  crossed the strait of Tsushima to the continent. First, Hideyoshi's
  headquarters for the invasion, a huge two-ring fortress, had to be
  constructed from the ground up at Nagoya. This was accomplished in
  little more than six months by an enormous labor force rounded up by
  the lords of Kyushu. Having erected the elaborately ramparted and
  lavishly decorated castle, the peers of the Japanese realm were ordered
  to build their own residences in its vicinity, and a sizable castle town
  grew up around it. To this nonesuch in Kyushu, Hideyoshi traveled in
  style through twenty luxurious way stations prepared at his behest by
  daimyo along the route from Kyoto. These all were expensive and
  burdensome undertakings, and it was not Hideyoshi but the daimyo
  and their populations who shouldered the costs and the burdens.
  According to the Jesuit chronicler Frois, the daimyo groaned at
  these impositions no less than at the thought that in taking ship for
  49 Ota Gyuichi, who knew Hidetsugu, wrote his name as Hidetsugi, but historians have not
  followed his example. The edict prohibiting the change of status, dated Tensho 19.8.21, is
  found in many sources, such as Mori-ke monjo, vol. 3, no. 935, pp. 216-17. An early
  statement regarding concrete preparations for the invasion of China is the letter from Ishida
  Moku Masazumi to Sagara Kunai no Daibu (Nagatsune), dated [Tensho 19.] 8.23, in Dai
  Nihon komonjo, iewake 5: Sagara-ke monjo, vol. 2, no. 699, pp. 117-18.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  269
  Korea, they would be going to their deaths. There were rumors that a
  rebellion would surely spring up and put an early end to Hideyoshi's
  plans, but none among the daimyo wanted to bell the cat: They all
  were terror stricken and rendered incapable of conspiracy by the ty-
  rant. Even as he intimidated and fleeced the Japanese lords, Hideyoshi
  sought to console them with expectations of rewards in Korea and
  China. For instance, he apparently promised three Chinese provinces
  to the "Christian daimyo" Dom Protasio Arima (Harunobu, the lord
  of Arima in Hizen, 1567-1612). It is likely that, as Frois states, the
  recipients of such assurances of future favor, profuse though they may
  have been with expressions of gratitude to Hideyoshi's face, in actual-
  ity wished nothing more than to hold on to their pieces of their native
  land and were scared stiff of their master's talk of a transfer to such
  distant if dilated dominions.50 To be sure, there were also those like
  the lord of Saga in Hizen, Nabeshima Naoshige (i538-1618), who
  actively solicited reinvestment with a fief in China on the not-
  unreasonable grounds that his native province had close traditional
  ties with that country - "because a great many of the people of the
  Hizen seacoast have been over there on bahan business and are quite
  used and attached to China."51
  Japanese historians have variously sought to explain the reasons for
  Hideyoshi's overseas venture. Their opinions range from that ex-
  pressed by Tanaka Yoshinari, who wrote in 1905 that it was a type of
  manifest destiny - a "tidal force" - that drove the Japanese to expand
  overseas, to the more dyspeptic notion of Suzuki Ryoichi, who sug-
  gested in the early 1950s that the invasion of the mainland proceeded
  naturally from Hideyoshi's tyrannical character and that, in his urge to
  become an absolute ruler, he first used the daimyo to quash popular
  energies within Japan and then directed their aggressive impulses to-
  ward the neighboring country.52 Suzuki's interpretation should at least
  be amended to allow for Hideyoshi's, that spectacular parvenu's, extra-
  50 See Frois, Historia, pt. 3, chap. 51, ed. Wicki, vol. 5 (1984; note that the running headline of
  this volume, "Segunda pane," conflicts with its half-title, p. 1, "Terceira Pane da Historia de
  Japam"), pp. 382-6; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 2 (1977), pp.
  160-6. Cf. Tamon'in nikki, vol. 4, pp. 337, 339-40, entries for Tensho 20 (i592).2.28 and
  3.15. A rebellion did occur in 1592, but it was abortive. The ringleader, Umekita Kunikane,
  a vassal of the Shimazu, was killed before he could accomplish anything. His wife was burned
  before the assembled grandees in a garden of Nagoya Castle, "pour encourager les autres."
  The episode caused a delay in the dispatch of Satsuma troops to Korea.
  51 Kato Kiyomasa to Natsuka Masaie and Mashita Nagamori, Tensho 20.6.24; quoted exten-
  sively by Nakamura, Nissen kankei shi, vol. 2, p. 262.
  52 The major interpretations are synopsized by Kitajima Manji, Chosen nichinichiki, Korai nikki:
  Hideyoshi no Chosen shintyaku to sono rekishiteki kokuhatsu (Nikki, kiroku niyoru Nihon rekishi
  sosho, kinsei 4) (Tokyo: Soshiete, 1982), pp. 17-19.
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  ordinarily ardent desire for distinction, for this was "a social climber
  whose ambition knew no limits."53
  In this context, it is interesting to speculate on the true significance
  of the dispositions that Hideyoshi was inspired to make, in the flush of
  his invasion's early success, regarding his future new order in Asia. In
  the notorious twenty-five-article vermilion-seal letter he sent on
  Tensho 20 (I592).5.i8 to the imperial regent Hidetsugu (the nephew
  and adopted son he had installed as kampaku in Kyoto not five months
  previously), Hideyoshi - if only on paper - moved the reigning Japa-
  nese emperor to the Chinese capital (allotting ten provinces in its
  vicinity to his support), assigned the rank of Emperor of Japan to
  either one of two imperial princes (one of them, Hachijo Toshihito,
  adopted by Hideyoshi as his own son), designated three of his other
  adopted sons as the candidates to rule over Korea, appointed Hidet-
  sugi to the post of kampaku of China (promising him a hundred-
  province appanage near Peking), and put forward the names of two
  adopted sons as the possible successors to that dignity in Japan.54 But
  where would that leave the paterfamilias, the man who thus disposed
  over reigns, regencies, and realms with the greatest of ease? He
  himself - we learn from a letter sent by his secretary on the same day
  to two of the ladies of Hideyoshi's entourage - would first go to Pe-
  king, but then he proposed to take up residence in Ningpo, "the
  anchorage of the Japanese"; later on, he expected to conquer India.55
  What was the necessity for all these complicated moves and reassign-
  ments of positions? And what role did the conqueror of Korea, China,
  and India (not to speak of the lesser countries such as Ryukyu, Tai-
  wan, and the Philippines, all of which Hideyoshi also threatened with
  doom unless they submitted) consider worthy of himself after the final
  victory? Surely the maker of emperors and kings must have envisioned
  a dignity transcending all others. It is tempting to assume that the
  upstart Hideyoshi, foreseeing in the subjugation of Asia the trium-
  phant climax of his career, planned the ultimate legitimation for him-
  53 I have discussed the aristocratization of this lowborn hegemon in "Hideyoshi, the Bountiful
  Minister," in Elison and Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, & Commoners, pp. 223-44; quotation
  from p. 233.
  54 Hideyoshi to Kampaku (Hidetsugu), dated Tensho 20.5.18, in Kitajima, Chosen nichinichiki,
  pp. 67-70. It is difficult to tell what Hideyoshi meant by the term "province" (J: kuni or
  koku, Ch: kuo). If it refers to something of approximately the same size as the Japanese
  province, of which there were 68 in Hideyoshi's time, then the closest Chinese equivalent is
  the "district" (Ch: hsien, J: ken), of which there were 1,171 in the Ming period.
  55 Yama(naka) Kichi(nai) (Nagatoshi) to Ohigashisama and Okyakujinsama (Dona Madalena),
  dated [Tensho 20.J5.18, in Tokutomi Iichiro, Toyowmi-shi jidai, cho-hen: Chosen no eki, pt. 1,
  vol. 7 oiKinsei Nihon kokumin shi (Tokyo: Min'yusha, 1935), pp. 453-60.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  self as a sort of universal monarch. What he actually had in mind,
  however, we shall never know, because his conquests did not get past
  the first obstacle, Korea.
  Hideyoshi's plans were conceived in supreme confidence and the
  most abysmal want of knowledge of the conditions that the Japanese
  armies would confront on the mainland. Not so much megalomania as
  ignorance moved the entire enterprise. No systematic effort had been
  made to gather intelligence on the countries it was proposed to sweep
  into the maw (if there were Japanese books on Korea comparable to
  Haedong chegukki or on China analogous to Ch'ou-hai fu-pien, they
  have not survived). Indeed, Hideyoshi's hazy knowledge of interna-
  tional relations for a good while made him suffer under the delusion
  that Korea was subject to Tsushima, hence causing him to insist that
  the king of Korea should come to Japan in order to pay obeisance.56
  Hideyoshi invaded Korea because it lay next to China, thinking that
  he could conquer China easily and that then all of the known world
  would fall into his lap. What he expected to do with it - beyond,
  undoubtedly, subjecting it to a round of cadastral surveys, sword
  hunts, and castle demolitions, the proven measures of Japanese
  unification - is unclear. Or is the true nature of his plans revealed in
  the unguarded language of the following wildly mixed metaphor? "To
  take by force this virgin of a country, Ming, will be [as easy] as for a
  mountain to crush an egg." India and South Barbary were next on the
  list.57
  The invasion and the first Japanese offensive
  According to the order of battle determined by Hideyoshi on Tenshd
  20.3.13, the Japanese expeditionary army was composed of 158,800
  men in nine divisions.58 Two of these divisions, 21,500 men drawn
  from the provinces of Bizen, Mino, and Tango, were to be held in
  reserve on the islands of Iki and Tsushima; designated to make the
  56 See Nakamura, Nissen kanhei shi, vol. 2, pp. 248-9; and Kitajima, Chosen nichinichiki, pp.
  25-6, both citing Kyushu godoza no ki (1587) by Omura Yuko.
  57 Hideyoshi to Hashiba Aki no Saisho [Mori Terumoto], dated Tensho 20.6.3, Mori-ke monjo,
  vol. 3, no. 903, p. 163. In another vermilion-seal letter addressed on the same day to Mori
  Terumoto, Hideyoshi calls Ming "the country of long sleeves," the samurai's standard trope
  for effeminacy or genteel ineffectuality; see ibid., no. 904, p. 167.
  58 See the chart set out by Kitajima, Chosen nichinichiki, p. 36, on the basis of the order of battle
  detailed in Hideyoshi's memorandum to Hashiba Aki no Saisho, Mori-ke monjo, vol. 3, no.
  885, pp. 143-8, and synopsized with the addition of naval assignments, ibid., no. 886, pp.
  149-50; both documents dated Tensho 20.3.13. A total of 137,300 men may be calculated in
  another order of battle; ibid., no. 904, pp. 164-8, dated Tenshd 20.6.3.
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  272 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  assault on Korea were contingents from Kyushu, Shikoku, and the
  Chugoku region. Almost all of the daimyo of western Japan were
  destined to make the crossing. Some 27,000 of Hideyoshi's own troops
  garrisoned his headquarters, Nagoya; more than 70,000 levies who
  had been marched to Kyushu by the eastern daimyo were disposed in
  encampments around the wider periphery of that castle. Another
  100,000 men from the Kinai and Tokai regions are said to have been
  concentrated around Kyoto. In other words, the mobilization for
  Hideyoshi's Korean venture encompassed the entire country of Japan,
  whether or not the troops were directly involved in operations on the
  continent. For obvious logistical reasons, however, most heavily af-
  fected by the mobilization were the populations of the Kyushu daimyo
  and the maritime lords - the former pirate chieftains - of the Inland
  Sea and the Kii peninsula. These had to furnish five men for each 100
  koku (180 hectoliters) of rice that the particular domain was estimated
  under the kokudaka system to produce in rice yearly. Other domains
  were burdened relatively less.
  It should be noted that the armies mobilized by Hideyoshi in this
  way were not composed entirely or even principally of members of a
  warlike caste, professional soldiers, and trained fighting men, that is,
  of samurai. A daimyo's quota was filled for the most part by ordi-
  nary farmers and fishermen impressed into service. For instance, in
  the contingent of 705 men led in the first wave of the invasion by
  Goto Sumiharu (d. 1595), lord of the Goto Islands in the Matsuura
  region, there were 27 mounted warriors, 40 dismounted men-at-
  arms, 120 foot soldiers (ashigaru), and 38 soldiers who served their
  officers as batmen (kobito). These 225, all that can be accommodated
  under the label "samurai," even if one stretches the term, were out-
  numbered by the 480 others identified as laborers (200) or master
  seamen and common sailors (280). Whether the last group, in par-
  ticular, deserves to be called innocent islanders who were shanghaied
  into the invasion fleet is subject to doubt, given the past history of
  the Goto Islands as a notorious lair of the wako; moreover, it would
  be rash to generalize on the basis of this example alone. The muster
  rolls of other daimyo do, however, suggest that no more than half of
  those on the strength of a contingent drafted for service in Korea
  were fighting men; the rest did construction and transport duties.
  Even if the mariners were glad to carry on the piratical tradition of
  their wako forbears, there is no reason to assume that the navvies
  and the bearers followed along enthusiastically in the train of the
  invasion armies. On the contrary, there is ample evidence of abscond-
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  273
  ing and other forms of passive resistance by peasants who despaired
  of ever coming back to their native farmlands once they heeded the
  call to the war of aggression.59
  The invasion began on Tensho 20.4.12 (May 23, 1592) when the
  first division of the Japanese expeditionary force landed in Pusan. This
  division was composed of the contingents of Dom Agostinho Konishi
  (Yukinaga, daimyo of Uto in Higo, I556?-I6OO), Dom Dario So
  (Yoshitoshi, daimyo of Tsushima, 1568-1615), Dom Sancho Omura
  (Yoshiaki, daimyo of Omura in Hizen, 1568-1616), Dom Protasio
  Arima, Matsuura Shigenobu (daimyo of Hirado in Hizen, 1549-
  1614), and Goto Sumiharu. The prominent presence of "Christian
  daimyo" - not really odd, as they were concentrated in western
  Japan - gives at least this stage of the undertaking the air of a bizarre
  crusade. The Japanese again demanded free passage through Korea;
  the Koreans refused, choosing resistance over dishonor; and the hos-
  tilities commenced. Pusan fell the next day. (See Map 6.1.)
  From Pusan, the Japanese forces advanced with startling speed
  northward up the peninsula. They were barely impeded by the totally
  unprepared Korean army. Many Korean commanders abandoned
  their posts, and others were overwhelmed by the Japanese, whose
  musketry inspired terror in the defenders. Eighteen days after the
  Japanese landing at Pusan, the king of Korea fled his capital, Seoul,
  for P'yongyang. A mere three weeks from the start of the invasion, on
  5.3 (June 12), Seoul fell to the force led by Konishi and to the division
  made up of the units of Kato Kiyomasa (daimyo of Kumamoto, 1562-
  1611), Nabeshima Naoshige, and Sagara Nagatsune (daimyo of Hito-
  yoshi in Higo, 1574-1636). By 6.15 (July 23), Konishi's force had
  occupied P'yongyang, again causing the king of Korea to flee. It was
  destined, however, to get no farther than P'yongyang, remaining there
  until the beginning of 1593, when it was defeated and forced to with-
  draw by a Chinese army sent to the relief of Korea. In the meantime,
  the second division of Japanese troops, which had advanced jointly
  with Konishi's force from Seoul, split off from it at Ansong in
  Hwanghae Province and proceeded to the northeast. Its exploits there
  deserve our attention, as they illustrate nicely the policies and predica-
  ments of the Japanese occupation army in Korea.
  Having departed Ansong on 1592.6.10, the army of some twenty
  59 See Miki Seiichird, "Chosen no eki ni okeru gun'yaku taikei ni tsuite" (1966), in Fujiki
  Hisashi and Kitajima Manji, eds., Shokuho seiken, vol. 6 of Ronshu Nihon rekishi (Tokyo:
  Yuseido, 1974), pp. 306-23; and cf. Fujiki Hisashi, Oda-Toyotomi seiken, vol. 15 of Nihon no
  rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975), pp. 325-7, 341-9.
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  274 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  MMM RourE5 OF FIRST
  SITE
  j I5g.2_
  Map 6.1 Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  275
  thousand led by Kato Kiyomasa and Nabeshima Naoshige traversed
  eastern Hwanghae and after a week's march entered Hamgyong Prov-
  ince, its objective. It took the Japanese little more than two months to
  subdue the populated portions of this huge and mountainous territory,
  the northeastern quarter of Korea, which stretched from south of the
  thirty-ninth parallel all the way to the forty-third, where it touches the
  Tumen River. In the process, Kato captured two Korean princes of
  the blood royal: Fleeing to the northernmost extremity of their coun-
  try, the two had the ill luck or bad judgment to seek refuge in a penal
  colony, Hoeryong on the Tumen, where the political exiles lost no time
  in putting them and their retinue in chains and delivering them into
  the hands of the Japanese.60
  Having scored this success, Kato permitted himself the luxury of an
  expedition across the Tumen into Manchuria, for no apparent purpose
  except to test the mettle of his troops against the Jiirched tribesmen
  who roamed there. Nabeshima in the meantime kept himself busy in
  the rearward area of Hamgyong Province regimenting the populace,
  requisitioning supplies, and registering the land's capacity to be taxed.
  Still extant are the assessment rolls (sashidashi) of six districts, com-
  piled for Nabeshima over the signatures of local Korean officials who
  vowed accuracy on pain of "having all our heads cut off." True to their
  master's orders that they treat their conquered areas "according to
  Japanese rules" (Nihon okime no gotoku), the generals of Hideyoshi's
  occupation forces in Korea taxed the peasants, confiscated their weap-
  ons, coerced them by taking hostages, and ruthlessly put down recalci-
  trants as though they were subjecting yet another Japanese province to
  his regime of unification through the methods of the Taiko kenchi.61
  Thus they took up in Hamgyong in 1592 where they had left off in
  Mutsu and Dewa in 1591.
  On returning from his Manchurian expedition to his headquarters
  at Anbyon, Kato boasted that he had pacified the whole province,
  from north to south, in such a way.that there was not the slightest
  opposition to the regimen laid down by him. Taxes and dues were
  being paid; in other provinces, where a slack hand was kept, distur-
  bances might occur, but there need be no fear about Hamgyong, Kato
  60 Shimokawa Heidayu, comp., Kiyomasa Korai nojin oboegaki, vol. 4 oiZokuzoku gunsho ruiju
  (Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1907), p. 299.
  61 On the Japanese military administration and the tax rolls in Hamgyong, see Kitajima, Chosen
  nichinichiki, pp. 97-107. Hideyoshi's orders of 1592.6.3 can be found in several collections of
  documents, for example, that addressed to Hashiba Kobayakawa Jiju (Kobayakawa Taka-
  kage), in Dai Nihon komonjo, iewake 11: Kobayakawa-ke monjo, vol. 1, no. 323, p. 292.
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  276 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  maintained.62 But his bluster was misplaced. What Kato evidently did
  not know at the time of writing this report to Hideyoshi's headquar-
  ters at Nagoya was that a successful revolt had already broken out
  against the Korean collaborators whom he had left in charge of the
  province's northern reaches. A Japanese punitive force attacked the
  guerrillas but was defeated and bottled up in the fort of Kilchu for the
  winter. Indeed, as the people of southern Hamgyong also rose against
  the rule of Nabeshima, killing the rural administrators who served him
  and then taking to the hills, it became apparent that the Japanese
  controlled no more of the province than the string of forts that they
  garrisoned along the coastal highway. In the Japanese sources, these
  revolts are described as Tojin ikki. Tojin being a term with an opprobri-
  ous connotation, the phrase might be translated as "Chinamen's upris-
  ings." Naturally enough, those who came to conquer in the name of
  Jingu Kogo could not worry themselves about such tenuous details as
  calling the Korean people by their proper name, Koreans.
  The early signs of a stalemate
  It is noteworthy that the Japanese field staff in Seoul - Ishida Mitsu-
  nari (1560-1600) and others detailed by Hideyoshi to coordinate opera-
  tions in Korea - should have sent Kato instructions to withdraw from
  Hamgyong even before Konishi's defeat at P'yongyang made the Japa-
  nese position in northern Korea untenable. Kato and his troops were
  more urgently needed in the southern part of the peninsula, and in
  particular in Kyongsang, the gateway province, where the Japanese
  hold was far from secure. There Korean guerrillas swarmed about the
  Japanese lines of communication. They threatened the main route of
  supply between Pusan and Seoul, and by year's end they had repelled
  all attempts by Hosokawa Tadaoki (daimyo of Miyazu in Tango, 1563-
  1646) to dislodge them from their stronghold at Chinju. Kyongsang
  Province, to be sure, had been a hotbed of resistance against the Japa-
  nese from the beginning of the invasion, but it was by no means unique.
  Popular uprisings and the mobilization of irregular troops, typically
  led by members of the local gentry, took place sooner or later in every
  province of Korea that the aggressors entered. Irregular troops con-
  tained the penetration of the army of Kobayakawa Takakage (daimyo
  of Najima in Chikuzen, 1533-97) into Cholla Province in the seventh
  62 Kato Kiyomasa to Ki(noshita) Hansuke, dated [Tensho 20.] 9.20; Kitajima, Chosen nichi-
  nichiki, pp. 117-19.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  month of 1592 and cleared the province of invaders two months later.
  Guerrillas and militia harried the divisions led by Mori Yoshinari
  (daimyo of Kokura, d. 1611) and Shimazu Yoshihiro (daimyo of Ku-
  rino in Osumi, 1535-1619) as they crisscrossed Kangwon Province.
  By the end of the eighth month, these Japanese forces were confined to
  garrisoning the towns that screened the approaches to Seoul along
  Kangwon's western border - Wonju, Ch'unch'on, Kumhwa, and
  Ch'orwon - and had abandoned the effort to dominate the rest of the
  province. In Hwanghae Province, Dom Damiao Kuroda (Nagamasa,
  daimyo of Nakatsu in Buzen, 1568-1623) began his occupation with
  bravado, calling on the absconding peasants to return to farming or be
  killed, and compiling the inevitable taxation rolls. After he failed to
  take the strategic town of Yonan from guerrilla forces, however,
  Kuroda was by the beginning of the ninth month compelled to concen-
  trate his troops in the southeastern corner of the province in order to
  protect the highway between Seoul and P'yongyang. For the Japanese,
  the days of easy victories were over. Everywhere, Hideyoshi's armies
  bogged down.
  By the beginning of the new year Bunroku 2 (or, by the Chinese
  calendar which also applied to Korea, Wan-li 21), the Japanese had yet
  to suffer a major defeat on land, but they had been put on the defen-
  sive, almost without realizing it, by a pesky and persistent Korean
  resistance. Korean regular troops, unused to war, were no match for
  the Japanese soldiers, who had been made expert in their craft in the
  battles of unification. Korean guerrillas were beaten time and again
  when they could be cornered into a fight. And yet the Japanese failed
  to obtain a free hand in Korea. The areas they thought they had
  conquered refused to stay pacified; they held no more than corridors
  through a hostile countryside. Along those corridors, the Japanese did
  not dare to venture in bands of less than three hundred; north of
  Seoul, at least five hundred were needed for safety.63
  Adding to their difficulties on land were the reverses the Japanese
  suffered at sea. Unlike the army, the Korean navy proved itself supe-
  rior to the Japanese in the quality of its armament and leadership. The
  Japanese with their mixture of light raiding craft inherited from the
  bahan trade and the lubberly men-of-war called atake-bune could not
  match the more solid and also more maneuverable Korean vessels. In
  particular, the celebrated "turtle ships" (kobuk son) gave them trouble.
  63 Frois, Hisioria, pt. 3, chap. 75, ed. Wicki, vol. 5, p. 571; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 2, p. 261.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  These were not ironclads, as is commonly asserted, but stoutly built
  wooden ships that had convex decks spiked with sharp pieces of metal
  to discourage boarding; they were armed with upward of fourteen
  cannon. There were never more than a few of them (ultimately per-
  haps as many as five), but they constituted the core of a formidable
  striking force that repeatedly surprised and beat the Japanese. Under
  the inspired tactical leadership of Naval Commander Yi Sun-sin, the
  Korean fleet fought a series of ten victorious engagements along the
  southern coast between Sach'on and Pusan in the summer and early
  fall of 1592. These Korean victories forced the Japanese to reduce the
  scope of their naval operations to a passive defense of the sea-lane
  between Kyushu, Tsushima, and Pusan. The Japanese fleet was kept
  out of the Yellow Sea and thus was unable to establish communications
  with the land forces that had advanced north as far as P'yongyang, let
  alone supply them.
  Supplies to the forward armies of the invaders therefore had to be
  carried on the backs of men or horses, along insecure roads, two-thirds
  of the way up the Korean peninsula. This logistical necessity severely
  taxed the organizational ability of the Japanese warlords and increased
  their manpower needs: They either had to impress more of the elusive
  Koreans into work gangs or transport more of the equally reluctant
  Japanese laborers across the sea. At first, the Japanese were confident
  that they could live off the land, especially as huge amounts of rice and
  other cereals stored in Korean government granaries had fallen into
  their hands. According to the chief state councilor of Korea, Yu Song-
  nyong, they captured over 100,000 Korean soft (more than 767,000 U.S.
  bushels, or 270,000 hectoliters) of tax grains in P'yongyang alone.64 But
  this cornucopia eventually had to run empty. Putting the peasants back
  to work in the fields and then requisitioning the product of their work
  from them became, accordingly, urgent tasks for the Japanese occupa-
  tion forces. Whatever success the quartermasters had at these tasks
  evidently did not suffice to keep all their troops provisioned until the
  end of the campaign. The Jesuit Frois states that of the 150,000 Japa-
  nese soldiers and transport laborers who crossed over to Korea in the
  first invasion, one-third died - few of them through enemy action, and
  most from exhaustion, hunger, cold, and disease. The Korean losses in
  dead and in prisoners, he says, were incalculably greater.65
  64 Vu Song-nyong (Soae), Chingbirok, pt. I, f. 35V, facsimile of the 1633 ed., in Soae munjip pu
  Chingbirok (Seoul: Songgyungwan taehakkyo taedong munhwa yonguwdn, 1958), p. 509.
  65 Frois, Historia, pt. 3, chap. 79, ed. Wicki, vol. 5, p. 599; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 2, p. 304.
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  The intervention of Ming China
  The Koreans, however, could not hope to expel the invaders from
  their land by themselves, and it was not the various logistical and
  organizational difficulties suffered by the Japanese that doomed the
  first invasion to failure. Rather, its fate was sealed by an external
  factor, the intervention of Korea's protector power, Ming China.
  The first Chinese troops crossed the Yalu into Korea on the day
  P'yongyang was occupied by the Japanese, 1592.6.15. Amounting to
  no more than three thousand men, they were led into a debacle by an
  overconfident commander who had them attack the far superior Japa-
  nese garrison of P'yongyang a month later. The Chinese withdrew, but
  even in defeat they inflicted a rude shock on the Japanese generals, the
  more perspicacious among whom realized that it was only a matter of
  time before this new enemy would reappear in strength. At the other
  end of the theater of war, off the southeastern tip of the peninsula, the
  Japanese naval forces were in the meantime being battered by the
  Korean fleet of Yi Sun-sin and were finally ordered by Hideyoshi to
  avoid engagements at sea. Hence it was clear that the initiative was
  slipping from the Japanese.
  Yu Song-nyong observed correctly that the Korean naval victory
  spoiled the entire strategy of the invaders by "cutting off one of the
  arms" with which Japan tried to envelop Korea, isolating Konishi
  Yukinaga's army at P'yongyang and securing Chinese waters from the
  fear of a Japanese attack, so that "the Celestial Army could come by
  land to the assistance" of Korea.66 The Chinese, however, could not
  commit major forces to Korea until they had dealt with a Mongol
  rebellion in Ning-hsia, on the distant northwestern frontier of the
  Ming Empire. They therefore initiated pourparlers with Konishi
  Yukinaga, who agreed to a fifty-day truce. The Ming emissary, Shen
  Wei-ching, may have intimated to Konishi that his government would
  66 Chingbirok, pt. I, f. 43, in Soae munjip, p. 513. The reference is to the victory of Admiral Yi
  Sun-sin at Hansan Island, 1592.7.7 (7.8 in the Korean and Chinese calendar), which was
  followed two days later by another off Angolp'o. See Yi Sun-sin's own report on these
  engagements, dated Wan-li 20 (1592).7.15: Chosenshi henshukai, ed.,Nanjungilgich'o, Imjin
  changch'o I Ranchunikkiso,Jinshinjdsd, in Chosen shiryd sokan, vol. 6, (1935), pp. 337-48; Ha
  Tae-hung, trans., and Lee, Chong-young, ed., Imjin Changch'o: Admiral Yi Sun-sin's Memori-
  als to Court (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1981), no. 9, pp. 56-68. Cf. Wakisaka ki, in Zoku
  gunsho ruiju, vol. 20, demivol. 2, kan 593(a), pp. 440-2. Hideyoshi's orders to cease naval
  operations until further notice, addressed to Todo Sado no Kami (Takatora), are dated
  [Tensho 20J7.16, the day of the Chinese defeat at P'yongyang; document in Kitajima, Chosen
  nichinichiki, pp. 184-5.
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  28O 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  not be averse to a partition of Korea at the Taedong River.67 In any
  event, the Japanese considered the talks not only opportune but also
  promising. The Chinese, however, actually meant to use the truce
  period for no other purpose but to marshal their forces.
  When Shen Wei-ching again came to P'yongyang for negotiations at
  the end of the truce, he would promise nothing more than that the
  Chinese government would consider resuming diplomatic and trade
  relations with Japan (and, as the precondition, investing a "King of
  Japan") if the Japanese first withdrew from Korea altogether. To be
  sure, Shen could afford a tough negotiating attitude, because he knew
  that a Chinese army of forty thousand men under the command of Li
  Ju-sung was about to march into Korea. Despite all the signs that
  pointed to a massive Chinese intervention, however, the Japanese were
  as surprised and as overwhelmed when it occurred as General Douglas
  MacArthur's United Nations forces would be in a similar situation
  three and a half centuries later. Unaware of the enemy army's ap-
  proach until the Chinese were practically on top of them, the Japanese
  were routed from P'yongyang on Bunroku 2.1.7 (February 8, 1593)
  and retreated southward in great disorder. Nine days later, Dom Agos-
  tinho Konishi's frostbitten soldiers stumbled into Seoul, and a week
  after that, they put that city to fire and the sword, "killing to a man all
  the Chinamen [Tojiri] that there were in the capital and burning all the
  houses outside the [Japanese] fortifications."68
  As this carnage was taking place in the streets outside their quarters,
  the members of Hideyoshi's field staff gathered to compose a gloomy
  report to their master on the unavoidable reasons for the withdrawal of
  his forward divisions as far back as Seoul, the critical need to secure
  the routes of communication south to Pusan, and the precarious sup-
  ply situation of his troops. In short, they saw the imperative demand
  for going over to the defensive in Korea. As the Chinese closed in on
  the Korean capital, however, its Japanese occupiers showed that their
  forces were far from spent, by mounting a sharp counterattack. Sally-
  ing forth in eight detachments that totaled more than forty thousand
  men, they succeeded in trapping the vanguard of Li Ju-sung's army in
  a long and narrow valley at Pyokchegwan, some fifteen kilometers
  67 Kitajima, Chosen nichinichiki, p. 204.
  68 Tajiri Akitane, Korai nikki, entry for Bunroku 2 (1593). 1.23, in Kitajima, Chosen nichinichiki,
  p. 384. Sonjo Sogydng Taewang sillok, 27:5, entry for S6njo 26 (1593)1, states that Konishi
  and other Japanese, enraged by their defeat at P'yongyang and suspecting the Korean popula-
  tion of aiding the Chinese army, massacred the male citizens of Seoul but not the women, so
  that men who disguised themselves in female clothes escaped the slaughter. See Choson
  wangjo sillok, vol. 25, p. 637.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  28l
  north of Seoul, and slaughtered the Chinese cavalry as it floundered in
  the mud of this impasse. Li Ju-sung fled with the rest of his troops to
  P'yongyang. Left exposed by his headlong retreat was the fort of
  Haengju, at a strong hilltop position on the Han River fifteen kilome-
  ters downstream from Seoul, which was held by a Korean garrison.
  Intent on eliminating this thorn from their side, the Japanese tried to
  storm Haengju with an assault force of thirty thousand, but they were
  resoundingly defeated and fell back on Seoul.
  Diplomacy, deceit, and disillusion
  The victory of the Japanese at Pyokchegwan coupled with their defeat
  at Haengju showed that a stalemate had developed. The Japanese were
  no longer strong enough to pursue a sustained offensive against either
  the Chinese or the newly confident Koreans, but they were still too
  powerful to be displaced from Seoul if they chose to cling to it. In-
  deed, at the beginning of the third month of 1593, with the division of
  Kato and Nabeshima back from Hamgyong, there were no less than
  53,000 of them in the city.
  Two things were done to encourage the Japanese to leave. First, a
  Chinese commando penetrated Seoul and burned the storehouses at
  Yongsan, destroying most of what was left of the Japanese troops'
  depleted stocks of food. Next, Shen Wei-ching made another appear-
  ance to conduct negotiations. Threatened by Shen with an attack by
  an army of 400,000 Chinese and aware of their own weak position,
  Konishi and Kato agreed to an armistice under which the Japanese
  troops would be withdrawn to the Pusan area while the Ming forces
  were called back to China; a Ming embassy would be sent to Japan to
  discuss peace terms. Notably ignored in this agreement were the
  wishes of the Koreans, who vowed to fight on. Ten days after the talks,
  however - on 1593.4.18 - the Japanese evacuated Seoul, marching off
  to be redeployed in the southeastern corner of the peninsula and the
  islands off Pusan. Along with them went Shen Wei-ching and two
  special agents of the supreme commander of the Chinese forces in
  Korea, masquerading as regular diplomats. On 5.15, this group of
  Chinese negotiators arrived in Nagoya, where Hideyoshi received
  them as Ming imperial envoys. Among the several displays he orga-
  nized to impress them was a tea ceremony in his golden tearoom, that
  ne plus ultra of ostentation.
  As the Ming agents were about to depart late the next month,
  Hideyoshi set down his terms for peace in a document addressed to
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  282 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Konishi Yukinaga and his other principal representatives in the nego-
  tiations, who were ordered to "explain the contents in detail to the
  imperial envoys of Great Ming." Seven conditions were put forward: a
  daughter of the Chinese sovereign to become the consort of the em-
  peror of Japan; the tally trade between Japan and China to resume;
  high officials of the two countries to exchange pledges of amity; four
  provinces and the capital city to be returned to the king of Korea (that
  is, the four southern provinces of Korea to be annexed to Japan); high-
  ranking Korean hostages to be sent to Japan; the two captive Korean
  princes to be set free; and the Korean government to swear never
  again to oppose Japan. Given the existing situation in Korea, Hide-
  yoshi was being overly optimistic if he really expected to get all that he
  demanded.
  That Hideyoshi felt absolutely justified in making his demands,
  however, is clear from the language of a companion piece that he
  likewise addressed to Konishi and his other delegates but meant for
  the edification of the Ming agents. The tone of this undiplomatic note
  is established in its first sentence, "Japan is the Land of the Gods."
  Those gods have given Hideyoshi a special mandate. After rehearsing
  the story of his solar conception and reiterating that the power to unify
  Japan was a virtue bestowed on him by Heaven, Hideyoshi gets down
  to cases. It is true that Japanese pirates in the past had bothered China,
  but one of Hideyoshi's most radiant accomplishments in the "rectifica-
  tion of the eight heavenly directions" was to quell the wako and secure
  the seas. For this favor, however, he never got any thanks from Ming.
  Assuming the reason to be that Ming despised Japan as an insignifi-
  cant country, he decided to send an army to prove otherwise. Korea
  promised to cooperate but failed to keep that promise. When Hide-
  yoshi accordingly set out to "correct" the Koreans, they had the temer-
  ity to defend themselves. As a result, many thousands of them had to
  be killed, and their capital was turned to ashes. China tried to save its
  client but failed. And so the present mutual predicament - the Chi-
  nese are informed in the peroration - is entirely Korea's fault.69
  Would the man who used this sort of rhetoric ever be satisfied with
  investiture as "King of Japan," that is, as a vassal of the Ming Empire?
  How could a child of the sun ever accept tributary subordination? But
  69 Both the list of peace conditions and the explanatory document are addressed to Konishi
  Settsu no Kami Yukinaga, Otani Gyobu no Sho Yoshitsugu, Mashita Uemon no Jo Nagamori,
  and Ishida Jibu no Sho Mitsunari, and dated Bunroku 2.6.28 (the day the Chinese agents left
  Nagoya). See Zoku zenrin kokuhoki, pp. 404-6. The four Korean provinces that Hideyoshi
  wanted to annex were Kyongsang, Cholla, Ch'ungch'ong, and Kyonggi (less the Seoul area).
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  that ritual of subservience was China's traditional sine qua non for the
  conduct of foreign relations. Whether or not Hideyoshi knew it, it was
  the indispensable condition he would have to meet or surmount before
  he could press forward his and Japan's claims in Asia.
  Hideyoshi's diplomatists (most notably Dom Agostinho Konishi),
  who appreciated the actualities far better than he did, were put in a
  quandary by their master's presumptuousness. They were expected to
  obtain a settlement that would aggrandize him; yet they knew that no
  accommodation with China could be gained on his terms. When Dom
  Joao Naito (Naito Hida no Kami Tadatoshi, d. 1626), the emissary
  that Konishi sent to the Ming court to explain away the Korean inva-
  sion, was held up in Liaotung Province because the Chinese authori-
  ties there considered his credentials incomplete without a message of
  submission from Japan, it became evident that this dilemma could be
  solved only by desperate means.
  The matter was not referred back to Japan; rather, Konishi dealt
  with it in his Korean fort at Ungch'on. Apparently persuaded by Shen
  Wei-ching that a forged letter was better than no letter at all, Konishi
  connived at the manufacture of a document in which "the former
  kampaku of Japan, [Your Majesty's] subject Taira no Hideyoshi" in the
  most abject terms declared himself to be in awe of the "power of
  heavenly protection" that flowed from the throne of China to keep the
  four corners of the world at peace, and proclaimed all of Japan to be
  the children of the emperor of Ming. Korea interfered with Hide-
  yoshi's earlier desire to demonstrate his submissiveness to China, and
  hence he invaded Korea; a peaceful solution was achieved at P'yong-
  yang through the efforts of Konishi and Shen Wei-ching but was
  ruined by Korean bellicosity; nevertheless, the Japanese showed a
  "forbearing sincerity" toward the Koreans and returned them their
  land. Now - the forged document continued - Hideyoshi wished to
  bare his heart before the Chinese sovereign: "I prostrate myself and I
  beg Your Majesty to let that light of the sun and moon shine forth with
  which He irradiates the world, to extend that nourishing capacity of
  heaven and earth with which He overspreads and sustains all things
  that there are . . . and to bestow on me the title of an imperially
  invested vassal king."70
  70 The text of the forged document, dated Wan-li 21 (1593). 12.-, is cited and glossed with the
  appropriately skeptical comments in Sdnjo Sogyong Taewang sillok, pt. 48, f. 14V, entry for
  Sonjo 27 (1594).2.[11], and again with minor variations, dated Wan-li 23(1117 error for
  21). 12.21 (February 10,1594), ibid., pt. 51, f. 28rv, entry for S6njo 27.5.[24]; Chosdn wangjo
  sillok, vol. 22, pp. 221 and 276.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Conspicuously absent from this document is Hideyoshi's usual bom-
  bast about his glory illuminating the universe. Little wonder that at
  the Korean court, doubts were expressed regarding its authenticity as
  soon as the text became known in Seoul. But the letter evidently
  satisfied the Chinese government when Naito finally bore it to Peking
  early in 1595. After Naito had affirmed that Japan would withdraw all
  its forces from Korea, would seek no relationship (not even trade) with
  China beyond the investiture of its ruler, and would establish friendly
  relations with Korea as a fellow vassal state of Ming, the court of
  Peking decided to grant what was presented to it as Hideyoshi's plea
  and to bestow on him the title "King of Japan." Orders were given for
  a golden seal bearing this title to be cast and for royal raiments to be
  made, and ambassadors were appointed to conduct the ceremony of
  investiture in Japan.71
  Toward the end of 1595, the Chinese ambassadors, conducted by
  Naito, arrived in Japanese-occupied Pusan. Months before, Hideyoshi
  had, in expectation of their coming, sent Konishi in Korea a reitera-
  tion of his seven conditions for peace. It is possible that at this final
  stage of the journey to Japan, the chief Ming envoy, Li Tsung-ch'eng,
  was finally apprised of the inordinate and inflexible nature of Hide-
  yoshi's actual terms or was persuaded by the rumors that he risked his
  life or his freedom once the true purpose of his mission became appar-
  ent to Hideyoshi. In any event, he abandoned his charge in Pusan,
  further delaying the progress of the embassy to its destination. Yet
  another ill omen was the great earthquake that destroyed the main
  buildings of Hideyoshi's palatial castle at Fushimi in the late summer
  of 1596, demolishing the enormous audience hall that had been espe-
  cially designed for the reception of foreign embassies.
  On Bunroku 5.9.1 (October 22, 1596), however, all difficulties ap-
  peared for the moment to be surmounted when Hideyoshi received the
  new envoys of the Ming Empire, Yang Fang-heng (gazetted as ambas-
  sador vice Ambassador Li, who had absconded) and Shen Wei-ching
  (the chief Chinese accomplice in the affair of the forged letter, now
  promoted to deputy ambassador) in audience at Osaka Castle. Hide-
  yoshi showed nothing but pleasure at the delivery of his kingly robes
  71 Naito's reception in Peking and the Ming government's decision to invest Hideyoshi with the
  title "King of Japan" are reported in Ming Shen-tsung shih-lu, pt. 280, f. 2v to pt. 283, f. 3
  passim, entries from Wan-li 22.12.[11] (January 20, 1595) to Wan-li 23.2.[3]: Ming shih-lu,
  vol. 108, pp. 5172-209. Relevant portions are extracted in Min jilsuroku no bu, vol. 3, pp.
  705-10. Note that in the Ming sources, Naito is called by the abbreviation of the name he
  adopted for the purposes of his mission as a delegate of Konishi Yukinaga: Konishi Hi(da no
  Kami), or Hsiao-hsi Fei in the Chinese pronunciation of the three characters.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  and seal. The sole discord in the well-orchestrated spectacle was
  struck when he refused to kneel as a sign of respect before the imperial
  edict of investiture, but that dissonance was quickly resolved when a
  resourceful attendant improvised the excuse that a boil in the knee
  joint prevented his master from genuflecting.
  At a banquet the next day, Hideyoshi appeared with crown and
  scepter in his Chinese costume before his paladins, some forty of them
  also freshly promoted to Chinese official ranks and richly caparisoned
  in Chinese ceremonial garb. At the end of the festive entertainments,
  he had his expert in diplomatic correspondence, the Zen priest Saisho
  Shotai (1548-1605), read the message from the Chinese emperor.
  From that reading, Hideyoshi realized that this imperial rescript con-
  tained not one word about his seven demands and was nothing more
  than an instrument for binding him to vassalage. He burst into a rage,
  abused Konishi, threatened the Ming ambassadors with death, and
  then dismissed them abruptly. Having thus rung down the curtain on
  the tragicomedy of the false surrender document, the dupe of the
  show, Hideyoshi, was left susceptible to the argument of Kato
  Kiyomasa and others who maintained that to resume the war was the
  only way to expunge the humiliation. The Korean people would have
  to pay the price for a stratagem that had failed.72
  The second campaign of aggression
  In the meantime, the Japanese troops in Korea had settled down to
  garrison life in their string of forts that stretched from Ungch'on in
  the west to Sosaeng in the northeast. Some 78,600 of the invasion
  force were left after the withdrawal from Seoul. They fought no
  significant military actions after the sixth month of 1593, when they
  took the great Korean fortress of Chinju by storm, thereby demon-
  strating once more that they could not so easily be forced off the
  peninsula. Instead, the common draftees cultivated the fields and rice
  paddies around their positions. The generals, too, engaged in activi-
  ties little different from those they might have pursued in peacetime
  in their own country. They hobnobbed with one another and with the
  merchant burghers (rnachishu) of Sakai and other war profiteers at-
  tracted to their camps. They held tea ceremonies in tea houses of the
  sukiya type built by carpenters summoned from Japan, exercised their
  72 A compendious summary of the sources regarding the failed ceremony of investiture may be
  found in Chosenshi, 4th series, vol. 10, pp. 628-31; a photographic reproduction of the edict
  designating Hideyoshi as the King of Japan is appended as Figure 9.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  literary skills at sessions of linked verse (renga and wakan) convoked
  in the properly Japanese ambience of chambers specially constructed
  in the shoin style of architecture, played the peculiarly Japanese game
  of kickball (kemari) on authentically laid out courts, and caroused in
  the Japanese manner at sake parties given diversity by amateur dis-
  plays of dancing (rambu). In short, they made themselves right at
  home in Korea. If they were bored by lack of action, hunts relieved
  their ennui even as they served to supply one of their master's fancied
  needs: The tiger population of Korea had to suffer because Hideyoshi
  believed tiger meat to be a balm that would restore his tottering
  health.73
  The pent-up energy of these garrison troops, augmented by new
  levies sent from Japan to form an army of 141,500, was released on
  Korea in Hideyoshi's second campaign of aggression, which began on
  Keicho 2.7.15 (August 27, 1597) with an event rare in this war, a
  Japanese naval victory. As a result of this battle, which was fought off
  Koje Island, the inept Korean commander, Won Kyun (an intriguer
  who had succeeded in displacing Yi Sun-sin from his post half a year
  previously), lost his life; the Korean navy lost its base on Hansan Island
  and its domination of the southern coast, being obliged to withdraw far
  to the west; and the conditions were created for the Japanese to advance
  in force into Cholla Province, something they had not been able to do in
  the first campaign. Indeed, the occupation of Cholla and Ch'ungch'ong
  provinces, through the rapid deployment of a massive force from its
  bases in Kyongsang Province, was the operational plan of Hideyoshi's
  armies in their return venture to Korea. If they reached their objectives,
  the Japanese would dominate the southern half of the peninsula; if they
  held their gains, they would in effect obtain the partition of Korea,
  which was Hideyoshi's - vastly reduced - war aim of 1597. To be sure,
  boasts about a future conquest of China do not fail to appear in the
  marching orders he issued to the daimyo in advance of the second
  campaign, but they sound halfhearted.74
  73 See, for instance, the letter addressed by Asano Danjo no Shohitsu Nagayoshi and Kinoshita
  Daizen no Daibu Yoshitaka to Hashiba Kikkawa Jiju (Kikkawa Hiroie)on [Bunroku 3.]i2.25
  (February 5, 1595), in which Kikkawa is ordered to send Hideyoshi the "head, meat, and
  entrails" of a tiger, "well salted" and "without leaving anything out" but the skin, which "is
  not needed here"; Kikkawa-ke monjo, vol. 1, no. 769, pp. 737-8. Also see the vermilion-seal
  letters in which Hideyoshi thanks Kikkawa for tigers sent from Korea; ibid., nos. 132-3, pp.
  98-100, dated [Bunroku 3J12.20 and [Bunroku 4J4.22.
  74 The initial Japanese order of battle and Hideyoshi's basic strategy in the second campaign are
  outlined in two documents issued over his vermilion seal, dated Keicho 2 (1597).2.21, and
  sent to Hashiba Satsuma Jiju (Shimazu Yoshihiro); Dai Nihon komonjo, lewake 16: Shimazu-
  ke monjo, vol. 1, nos. 402-3, pp. 392-6 and 396-402.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  Anticipating the Japanese resumption of the war, the Chinese court
  in the second month of 1597 decided to send a new expeditionary force
  to the support of its vassal state, Korea. By the middle of the sixth
  month, the advance guard of this army reached Namwon, a town in
  Cholla close to the Kyongsang border, fortified the place, and pre-
  pared to stand a siege there. Two months later, however, Namwon fell
  to a strong Japanese force under Ukita Hideie (daimyo of Okayama,
  1573-1655), putting all of Cholla Province at the mercy of the invad-
  ers. At the same time another large Japanese army, under the overall
  command of Mori Hidemoto (the future daimyo of Yamaguchi, 1579-
  1650), poured forth in three streams from Kyongsang and burst into
  Ch'ungch'ong Province to challenge the main body of the Ming expedi-
  tionary force, which was based in Seoul. A division of this army, led by
  Kato Kiyomasa, even penetrated Kyonggi Province, reaching Chik-
  san, less than seventy kilometers away from Seoul. This time, how-
  ever, the Japanese got no farther. They were blocked on the border of
  Ch'ungch'ong and Kyonggi by the Chinese army. Their fleet, too, was
  blocked from coming to the support of the land forces. It had rounded
  the southwestern corner of the peninsula and was heading for the
  Yellow Sea through the Myongnyang Strait when it was intercepted
  and defeated by the Korean navy under its reinstated commander Yi
  Sun-sin.
  The naval battle of Myongnyang, which took place on Keicho
  2.9.14-16 (October 24-26, 1597), marked the turn of the tide in
  Hideyoshi's second Korean campaign. The Japanese lost the initiative,
  were again forced on the defensive, and withdrew to fortified places
  along the coast closest to Japan. This time, their fortress belt stretched
  farther than it had after the first campaign, forming an arc that ex-
  tended more than two hundred kilometers from Sunch'on in the west
  through Sach'on and Pusan to Ulsan in the east. Soon enough, the
  Japanese generals in Korea were given ample reason to conclude that
  their forces were in fact overextended. Kato Kiyomasa's fortress at
  Ulsan, still under construction, was invested in January 1598 by a
  great Chinese-Korean army and could be relieved only with great
  difficulty. The siege of Ulsan was a near thing, and the experience
  impelled the Japanese commanders to request permission to reduce
  their perimeter by abandoning some of the more exposed forts.75 This
  75 Copy of a letter addressed by Ukita Hideie and twelve other captains to Hideyoshi's right-
  hand men tshida Jibu no Sho (Mitsunari), Natsuka Okura no Daibu (Masaie), Mashita
  Uemon no Jo, and (Maeda) Tokuzen'in (Gen'i) on [Keicho 3J1.26; Shimazu-ke monjo, vol. 3,
  no. 1206, pp. 59-63.
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  request fell on deaf ears, as Hideyoshi was determined to cleave to all
  of his bases in Korea, come what may.
  Hideyoshi's death and the Japanese withdrawal
  The moving spirit of the war did not, however, have long to live. In
  the late summer of 1598, as new Chinese and Korean armies assem-
  bled to prepare another offensive against his troops, Hideyoshi lay
  dying in his palatial castle at Fushimi. When he died on Keicho 3.8.18
  (September 18, 1598), the management of affairs fell into the hands of
  his inner circle of councilors and commissioners, who knew that they
  must end the war quickly or themselves assume the responsibility for
  the continued squandering of Japanese manpower and resources in a
  foreign campaign that held little promise of success. Moreover, the
  members of that governing camarilla, who by no means formed a
  united group themselves, surely realized that they lacked the coercive
  power with which Hideyoshi had compelled daimyo of diverse inter-
  ests to join together in the invasion of the mainland. They therefore
  had little choice but to seek as urgently as possible to disengage the
  Japanese troops from the enemy, extract them from the peninsula, and
  bring them safely home.
  At first, they tried to keep the news of Hideyoshi's death from
  becoming public knowledge. A letter signed by Ishida Mitsunari and
  the rest of Hideyoshi's "Five Commissioners" (go bugyo) exactly a
  week after their master's demise tells Nabeshima Naoshige reassur-
  ingly that "the Taiko is at length recovering from his illness," while
  informing him that two special emissaries are being sent to inspect the
  situation on the Korean front. A companion piece orders Nabeshima
  to go to Pusan and receive further instructions from those emissaries
  in person. Another piece of official correspondence, addressed on the
  same day to Shimazu Yoshihiro by one of the "Five Commissioners,"
  Mashita Nagamori (1545-1615), likewise maintains that "Our Lord
  has in the past few days at length been recovering from his illness,"
  while asserting that "some time ago he issued instructions for peace."
  The details will be explained by the two inspectors being sent to
  Korea, and the daimyo are ordered to consult with them on how to
  bring about a settlement of the war. Copies of the memoranda issued
  to the inspectors reveal the terms on which the "Five Commissioners"
  were prepared to negotiate a withdrawal from Korea. In exchange for
  the surrender of the Japanese forts there, they were willing to accept
  that a Korean prince be sent as hostage to Japan or to content them-
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  selves with the delivery of an unspecified amount of rice, tiger skins,
  leopard skins, and honey from the Koreans.76 How Japanese expecta-
  tions had shrunk since the beginning of the war and since the heady
  days of Hideyoshi's seven demands!
  But the Japanese were not to retire from Korea unopposed and
  unscathed. Before the special emissaries of the gobugyo and the orders
  they bore had had a chance to reach the peninsula, the Chinese and
  Korean armies struck hard at the key positions of the Japanese fortress
  belt. Ulsan was attacked first but once again was held by Kato
  Kiyomasa. Nine days later, on Keicho 3.10.1 (October 30, 1598), it
  was the turn of Sach'on, which was assaulted by a Chinese and Korean
  force so large that the commanders of the successful Japanese defense,
  Shimazu Yoshihiro and his son Tadatsune (the future daimyo of
  Kagoshima, Shimazu Iehisa, 1578-1638), were officially credited with
  taking 38,717 heads in this one battle.77 Although this figure is exag-
  gerated, it is true that the mass of the attacking army was decimated
  after being lured into an exposed position under the walls of the well-
  designed Japanese fort, where it was raked by a terrific fusillade.
  Indeed, the effect of the victory of the Shimazu at Sach'on can hardly
  be overestimated, as it was the Shimazu contingent, left intact after
  this fight, that later covered the withdrawal of the western wing of the
  Japanese army from Korea.
  A day after the battle of Sach'on, Konishi Yukinaga's fortress at
  Sunch'on was attacked by yet another huge land force. When this
  attack by land was repelled, a combined Chinese and Korean fleet
  tried and failed to take Sunch'on by sea. These were, however, only
  limited defensive successes for the Japanese: Having warded off the
  76 Tokuzen['in] Gen'i, Asa[no] Dan[jo no Shohitsu] Nagamasa, Ishi[da] Ji[bu no Sho] Mitsu-
  nari, Mashi[ta] U[emon no Jo] Nagamori, and Na(ga)[tsuka] O[kura no Daibu] Masaie to
  Nabeshima Kaga no Kami (Naoshige), dated [Keicho 3.J8.25; Nabeshima-ke monjo, nos. 131—
  2, in Saga kenshi hensan iinkai, ed., Saga-ken shiryo shusei: komonjo-hen, vol. 3 (Saga: Saga
  kenritsu toshokan, 1958), pp. 402-3. Mashi[ta] U[emon no Jo] to Shimazu Hyogo no Kami
  (Yoshihiro), same date, Shimazu-ke monjo, vol. 2, no. 986, p. 222; copies of the memoranda
  addressed by the "Five Commissioners" to the two special emissaries, Tokunaga Shikibu-kyo
  Hoin (Toshimasa) and Miyagi Choji[ro] (Toyomori), same date, ibid., nos. 984-5, pp. 274-6;
  copy of the oath sworn by the two inspectors regarding their mission on Keicho 3.8.22, ibid.,
  no. 982, pp. 271-2. Note that the announcement of Tokunaga's and Miyagi's mission to
  Korea, dated [Keicho 3J8.25, was sent to Shimazu Yoshihiro and his son Tadatsune over
  Hideyoshi's vermilion seal, even though the hegemon had been dead a week; Shimazu-ke
  monjo, vol. 1, nos. 423 and 435, pp. 415, 425.
  77 "Five Commissioners" to Hashiba Satsuma no Shosho (Shimazu Tadatsune), dated Keicho 4
  (i599)-!-9) Shimazu-ke monjo, vol. 2, no. 1070, pp. 362-3. Cf. the memorandum written in
  similar language and addressed on the same day to Shimazu Tadatsune by the "Five Council-
  ors" (gotairo) of the Toyotomi house, (Tokugawa) Ieyasu, (Maeda) Toshiie, (Ukita) Hideie,
  (Uesugi) Kagekatsu, and (Mori) Terumoto; ibid., vol. 1, no. 440, pp. 429-30. Note that both
  documents are copies, not originals, and therefore suspect.
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  290 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  initial assaults, the contingents of Konishi and the other captains of
  the Sunch'on garrison were blockaded in their fort by the Chinese
  squadron under Ch'en Lin and the Korean warships commanded by
  Yi Sun-sin. In the event, Konishi was able to evacuate Sunch'on only
  because the Shimazu sent a naval force to his rescue. The Japanese
  relief force was mauled severely by the Chinese and Korean fleet, but
  the victorious admiral, Yi Sun-sin, was killed at the height of this
  encounter, which is called the battle of Noryang, and Konishi's divi-
  sion of the Japanese army made good its escape from Sunch'on.
  The naval engagement of Noryang, which took place on the night of
  Keicho 3.11.18-19 (December 16-17,1598), was the last battle of the
  war. One week later, on Christmas Eve 1598, the weary troops of Dom
  Agostinho Konishi and the other rearguard elements of the army that
  Hideyoshi had sent to conquer the Asian mainland six and a half years
  earlier reembarked at Pusan and set sail for their home islands. The
  long Korean adventure was over.
  The legacy of the Korean invasion
  The Korean war was a complete failure for the Japanese, who won
  most of their battles but gained none of their objectives; having suf-
  fered grievous losses, they withdrew ignominiously from the penin-
  sula. In the long run, the war was to prove a disaster for the victorious
  Ming Empire, which could ill afford the vast expenditures required by
  its intervention in Korea. The drain on its public treasury and its
  military manpower seriously weakened a Chinese regime that was
  already burdened with an enormity of external and internal problems
  and made it sink deeper into the dynastic decline that was to overcome
  it half a century later. Korea, the other ostensible victor, was left a land
  in ashes and anguish. Not only had it been ravaged by its Japanese
  invaders; it also had been humiliated and maltreated by its Chinese
  allies, whose concept of universal sovereignty permitted them to nego-
  tiate with the common enemy single-handedly and without concern
  for the wishes of the Koreans and whose sense of a mission of justice
  did not prevent them from raping and pillaging the very people they
  were supposedly protecting against aggression.
  The war was fought with terrible cruelty, and its history is marked
  with atrocities that are amply attested in the contemporary records of
  the Japanese themselves. The manifestos published by the invading
  generals to announce the second coming of the Japanese in 1597 order
  all farmers to return to their homes and agricultural work or to be
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  WAR AND PEACE 
  291
  sought out and killed. They further declare that all officials will be
  killed as a matter of course, along with their wives and children, and
  that their houses will be burned, and they promise rewards for those
  who inform on officials in hiding.78 The style is that of the
  Bekanntmachung that became altogether familiar in occupied Europe
  between 1939 and 1945, and the way the occupiers went about their
  task was also distressingly similar. In both cases, they suffered under
  the delusion that they could keep a resistance movement from forming
  by terrorizing the populace into collaboration.
  In the manhunts conducted by the Japanese in the pursuit of this
  policy in Korea, many thousands of Koreans were killed or mutilated.
  No distinction was made among combatants and noncombatants,
  men, women, and children. The headhunters did not have to produce
  the head itself to obtain credit for a victim (in view of the numbers
  involved, that would have caused a logistical problem). Nor did they
  take scalps; instead, they collected noses. The noses taken by a unit
  were gathered together, preserved with salt, packed in casks, and sent
  on to the inspectors general of the field armies in Korea for forwarding
  to Hideyoshi's headquarters in Japan. A running account was kept, as
  the noses formed a sort of capital: Their number represented the
  quantification of that intangible quality, martial valor, and could be
  used as the basis for calculating future rewards for the captains of the
  search expeditions and their troops.
  Some idea of the sanguinary excesses of the Japanese invaders in
  Korea may be obtained from the receipts preserved in the archives of
  two daimyo families, which record that Kikkawa Hiroie's contingent
  submitted no fewer than 18,350 noses to Hideyoshi's field staff in a
  period of little more than a month (between 9.1 and 10.9) in the year
  1597 and that Nabeshima Katsushige's band was credited with at least
  5,444 noses between 8.21 and 10.1 of the same year.79 A mound made
  of the grisly trophies of the Korean invasion - known under the misno-
  mer Mimizuka, "mound of ears" - may still be seen in Kyoto near
  Hideyoshi's foundation, the temple of Hokoji, where it was erected in
  1597. Like his contemporary Ivan the Terrible, who had masses said
  for the repose of the souls of his victims, Hideyoshi had Buddhist
  78 See, for instance, the manifesto issued in the name of "Ninon Bizen no Chunagon Hideie"
  (that is, Ukita Hideie) and dated Keicho 2.9.-, Shimazu-ke monjo, vol. 2, no. 970, pp. 253-4,
  and those signed by Shimazu Hyogo no Kami Yoshihiro and twelve other captains, which
  were issued to various locales in the same month, ibid., nos. 971-3, pp. 254-60.
  79 SeeKikkawa-kemonjo, vol. i.nos. 138-9and716-22,pp. 105-6and662-7;anc'Nabeshima-ke
  monjo, nos. 115-18 and 121, pp. 386-8 and 391-2. There are slight discrepancies in the chart
  summarizing these receipts that is set out by Kitajima, Chosen nichinichiki, p. 305.
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  292 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  services performed over the miserable evidence of his continental expe-
  dition's true nature. The chief officiator at the ceremony, Saisho Jotai,
  did not fail to mention the profound feelings of mercy and compassion
  that had moved his patron Hideyoshi to offer this spiritual bouquet to
  the dead.
  A more genuine testimonial to the persistence of the spirit of com-
  miseration amidst the horrors of war comes to us from a far less known
  Japanese Buddhist priest, Keinen, the resident of a provincial temple
  of the True Pure Land sect (Jodo Shinshu). Keinen, who was the
  incumbent of the An'yoji in Usuki in Bungo - the recent domain of
  the dispossessed Otomo family - accompanied the town's new master
  Ota Kazuyoshi (d. 1600) on the second Korean campaign, in the
  capacity of his physician. He wrote down his impressions of the cam-
  paign in the poetic diary Chosen nichinichiki (Korean days), in which
  the record of the events he witnessed is interspersed with religious
  meditations, nostalgic reflections, and more than three hundred sim-
  ple but affecting epigrams written in the form of tanka (thirty-one-
  syllable Japanese poems) on whatever most concerned Keinen on a
  particular day.80 There is in this diary none of the bombast that is
  common in other Japanese accounts of the Korean invasion. Instead, it
  is an honest, vivid, and distraught portrayal of what went on. That the
  author was no hero, and indeed was somewhat of a naif, does not
  diminish the force of his images of death, destruction, and depravity,
  or the strength of his expressions of faith in the Buddha's saving grace.
  That grace seemed to Keinen to be the only hope for men who did not
  stop to reflect on what they were doing. Everywhere about him,
  Keinen saw covetousness, anger, and the ignorance of right and
  wrong: From samurai to camp follower, all were infected with these
  Three Poisons, which formed the substance of this war.
  People being led away in chains and tight bamboo collars through
  burning fields and hillsides that resounded with the wild voices of a
  soldiery intoxicated with their own arson; parents being killed before
  the eyes of their wailing children, who will be led away into captivity;
  the slaughter of the innocents after the capture of Namwon, where no
  80 Keinen, Chosen nichinichiki, ed. Naito Shumpo, in Chosen gakuho 35 (May 1965): 55-154,
  accompanied by Naito's explanatory article, "So Keinen no Chosen nichinichiki ni tsuite," pp.
  155-67. The text covers the seven months from Keinen's embarkation for Korea on Keicho
  2.6.24 w Ws return to Usuki on Keicho 3.2.2. Quotations from pp. 102 and 104, entries for
  Keicho 2.11.15 and 19.
  For a more extended look at Keinen and his remarkable diary, see George Elison, "The
  Priest Keinen and His Account of the Campaign in Korea, 1597-1598: An Introduction," in
  Motoyama Yukihiko Kyoju taikan kinen rombunshu henshu iinkai, ed., Nihon kyoikushironso:
  Motoyama Yukihiko Kyoju taikan kinen rombunshu (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1988), pp. 25-41.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  prisoners were taken; the dreadful punishments meted out for the
  slightest remissness to Korean and Japanese laborers alike in the rush
  to complete the fortifications at Ulsan - these being the scenes from
  which he could not avert his eyes, it is no wonder that Keinen con-
  cluded, "Hell cannot be in some other place apart from this.",
  Keinen's most haunting image is that of the slaver:
  Among the many kinds of merchants who have come over from Japan are
  traders in human beings, who follow in the train of the troops and buy up
  men and women, young and old alike. Having tied these people together with
  ropes about the neck, they drive diem along before them; those who can no
  longer walk are made to run widi prods or blows of the stick from behind.
  The sight of die fiends and man-devouring demons who torment sinners in
  hell must be like this, I thought.
  How many people were taken thus into bondage? No accurate count is
  possible, but it appears that no fewer than fifty thousand or even sixty
  thousand Koreans were forcibly brought to Japan as a result of
  Hideyoshi's war of aggression.81 Most were simple farmers forced to
  serve as laborers, but there were also numerous artisans and even some
  scholars.
  If one can speak of a positive effect of the war, then surely it was the
  cultural contribution made to Japan by these captives. In particular,
  Korean potters taken willy-nilly to Japan, who brought superior tech-
  niques with them, caused a revolution in that country's ceramic pro-
  duction. Some of the most famous types of Japanese ceramics - for
  example, Arita ware and Satsuma ware - owe their origins to groups
  of Korean artisans who were resettled in the domains of their captors.
  A similarly great transformation in Japanese intellectual history has
  also been traced to Korean sources, for it has been asserted that the
  vogue for Neo-Confucianism, a school of thought that would remain
  . prominent throughout the Edo period (1600-1868), arose in Japan as a
  result of the Korean war, whether on account of the putative influence
  that the captive scholar-official Kang Hang exerted on Fujiwara Seika
  (1561-1619), the soi-disant discoverer of the true Confucian tradition
  for Japan, or because Korean books from looted libraries provided the
  new pattern and much new matter for a redefinition of Confucianism.
  This assertion, however, is questionable and indeed has been rebutted
  convincingly in recent Western scholarship.82
  81 Naito Shumpo, "Jinshin, Teiyu no eki ni okeru hiro Chosenjin no sakkan mondai ni tsuite:
  Chosen shiryo ni yoru," pt. 3, Chosen gakuho (January 1965): 132.
  82 See Willem Jan Boot, The Adoption and Adaptation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan: The Role of
  Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan (Proefschrift, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, Netherlands,
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  294 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  The restoration of peaceful relations with Korea
  In view of the war's dreadful ravages on Korea and of the heritage of
  bitterness engendered by Hideyoshi's aggression, it is remarkable how
  quickly normal relations between Japan and Korea were restored.
  Naturally enough, the need to make peace appeared most urgent to the
  So of Tsushima, whose island's economy .depended on access to the
  peninsula. The So realized that the repatriation of the captives would
  be the principal issue of any peace talks between the two countries.
  Hence they pretended from 1599 onwards to play the part of an honest
  broker in the repatriation. They sought thereby to ingratiate them-
  selves with the Koreans, while at the same time proving themselves to
  the Japanese national regime in their traditional role as experts in
  Korean relations. From 1600, that regime was in the hands of Toku-
  gawa Ieyasu (1543-1616, r. 1603-5 a s shogun) and of his successors in
  the Tokugawa shogunate. This fact at first facilitated the diplomatic
  tasks of the So, as the Tokugawa (whose armed contingents had not
  been required to cross over to Korea) could be dissociated from the
  outrages perpetrated by the armies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and as their
  advent to power could be represented as an epochal turn in Japanese
  history. Eventually, however, the consolidation of the Edo bakufu
  caused difficulties for the mediators from Tsushima, whose wings
  were trimmed when the central government, intent on establishing its
  own preeminence, concluded that it could not permit a small, periph-
  eral feudatory to remain in effective control of the conduct of relations
  with a foreign country.
  By 1603, the So had returned some 800 prisoners to Korea; the next
  year, their efforts were rewarded when the Korean government sent
  the priest Yujong as an envoy to Tsushima with the welcome news that
  residents of the island would again be permitted to come to Pusan for
  trade. In the spring of 1605, So Yoshitoshi conducted Yujong and his
  retinue to Fushimi, where the Koreans were received in audience by
  Ieyasu and his son Hidetada (1579-1632, r. 1605-23), shortly to be
  proclaimed the second Tokugawa shogun. This meeting is noteworthy
  as the first direct contact between representatives of Korea and the
  highest personages of the new Tokugawa regime, even if Yujong was
  brought to Fushimi at Ieyasu's behest and without being accredited as
  an ambassador to him by the Korean government. There followed the
  1982), chaps. 1-2, pp. 15-98, esp. pp. 83-5. Boot takes issue with the opinions Abe Yoshio
  expressed in his "definitive" work Nihon Shushigaku to Chosen, 2nd ed. (Tokyo: Tokyo
  daigaku shuppankai, 1971).
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  repatriation of a large number of Korean captives. More than 4,390
  were sent back in the fourth and fifth months of 1605, bringing the
  total to 5,720 returnees.83
  These gestures were meant to elicit the appointment of a fully consti-
  tuted Korean embassy to Ieyasu, who exercised a dominant influence
  over Japan's foreign affairs even after retiring from the shogunate in
  1605. The court of Seoul, however, refused to send one until it had
  received an official communication - a "document of state" (kukso, J:
  kokusho) - from the Japanese ruler. But because the dispatch of such a
  message would show that the initial effort to resume relations after the
  war was Japanese and not Korean and could accordingly be inter-
  preted as an admission of defeat on the part of the Japanese, it was
  apparent to the So and their diplomatic councilors that none would be
  forthcoming from Tokugawa Ieyasu. Hence they decided in 1606 to
  write the letter themselves in the name of the "King of Japan, Mina-
  moto no Ieyasu." Although the Korean court knew this letter to be a
  forgery, it nonetheless determined to send a "return embassy" (hoe-
  dapsa, J: kaitoshi).
  In order to keep their first fraud from being exposed, the nimble
  diplomatists in the Tsushima chancery next had to deliver to their
  overlords a document that was ostensibly the message of peace and
  friendship expected by the Tokugawa from the king of Korea and was
  moreover, free of the nuances of a response to a previous communica-
  tion. They edited the text of the document that the Korean mission
  (purged by this hocus-pocus of the stain of a mere "return" embassy)
  actually bore with it and then, in a risky sleight of hand as the envoys
  were on their way to their audience in Edo Castle, they substituted
  their counterfeit for the original.84 The Tsushima chancery's exertions
  proved fruitful, as the Korean ambassadors, who were, during the
  summer of 1607, received not only by Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada in
  Edo but also by the "retired" Ieyasu in Sumpu, concluded their busi-
  ness smoothly, and returned to Korea with 1,240 more former prison-
  ers. The means used to bring about this embassy's success were more
  ingenious than honest; that success, however, was the indispensable
  precondition if normal relations were again to be established.
  Two years later, when Korea and Tsushima concluded a formal
  agreement, Japanese-Korean relations were restored on the same ba-
  83 Naito "Jinshin, Teiyu no eki," pt. 2, Chosen gakuho 33 (October 
  9 4 4 9
  84 The text of the Korean king's message, the emendations made by the diplomatists of Tsu-
  shima, and a brief discussion of this forgery may be found in Tashiro Kazui, 
  Kakikaerareta
  kokusho: Tokugawa, Chosen gaiko no butaiura (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1983), pp. 31-9.
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  296 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  sis that had prevailed before Hideyoshi's invasion, indeed, since the
  so-called Kakitsu treaty of 1443. To be sure, the terms of the 1609
  agreement were the most severe yet: The So were permitted to send no
  more than twenty ships to Korea annually, and various other privileges
  previously enjoyed by the Japanese were likewise reduced. Pusan was
  to be the sole port of entry open to the Japanese; moreover, the Japa-
  nese were restricted to a trading factory on the outskirts of that city
  and were no longer allowed to travel to the capital of Korea, Seoul, as
  they had been permitted in the past. In their walled compound outside
  Pusan - called Waegwan (J: Wakan), "Japan House" - the Japanese
  traders were confined in just the way their Dutch colleagues in Japan
  would be sequestered on the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki
  harbor after 1641. And yet, notwithstanding all the restrictions im-
  posed by the Korean government (which the So by various devices
  tried to circumvent), a flourishing trade was maintained between Ja-
  pan and Korea by way of Tsushima throughout the Edo period.
  In diplomatic relations, Tsushima continued to play a highly inven-
  tive role unhindered by higher authority for almost three decades.
  Although embassies were actually sent by Korea at the Japanese sho-
  gunal government's request, which was transmitted through the
  agency of Tsushima, for reasons of prestige it was thought necessary
  by the Japanese to disguise the fact that the initiative was theirs and
  not Korean. The Tokugawa wanted the gesture of recognition from
  the Korean government but did not wish to show deference to the
  neighbor country. The Koreans, for their part, were not unwilling to
  accommodate the bakufu, but they insisted on adherence to what they
  considered the proper forms of converse between nations. The differ-
  ences between the expectations of the two parties were papered over
  by the original devices of the chancery of Tsushima, which handled
  the exchange of documents and the reception of the embassies in
  Japan.
  An excellent example of the daring with which Tsushima's diploma-
  tists went about their business is their management of the second offi-
  cial Korean embassy to the Edo bakufu, that of 1617. It took at least
  four separate missions from the So to Korea before that country's gov-
  ernment agreed to appoint this embassy, which was ostensibly sent to
  congratulate the Tokugawa on their victory in the Osaka campaigns of
  1614-15. (Because that victory involved the destruction of the Toyo-
  tomi family and Hideyoshi's heritage, it was depicted to the Koreans as
  an act of retribution exacted on their behalf by the Tokugawa.) The
  insistent emissary of the So, Tachibana Toshimasa, finally succeeded in
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  swaying the Koreans when he presented them with a forged document
  purportedly sent by Shogun Hidetada. When the Korean "return em-
  bassy" bore with it merely a response to that forged communication
  instead of the felicitations commissioned by the Tokugawa, the con-
  gratulatory message expected at the shogunal court had to be fabricated
  in Tsushima. When the bakufu's diplomatic experts avoided using the
  title "King of Japan" (Nihon kokuo) in the reply that this embassy was to
  take back to Seoul and identified Shogun Hidetada only by the country
  he ruled, the "State of Japan" (Nihonkoku), the counterfeiters of Tsu-
  shima falsified this document, too, by adding the character for the
  missing syllable.85 Although dissimulation is not unknown in the con-
  duct of foreign affairs, this was a diplomacy based on outright forgery.
  What caused the diplomatists of Tsushima so much toil? The Ko-
  rean court expected the title "King" to be used in official correspon-
  dence with Japan, accepting it as the proper appellation of the ruler of
  a country within the East Asian international order dominated by
  China. The Edo bakufu (unlike its Muromachi predecessor) shunned
  the use of that title for the same reason, rejecting it as redolent of the
  language of enfeoffment used by Chinese emperors and an admission
  of subordinate status in the Sinocentric world system. Instead of com-
  municating with the kings of Korea as with their peers - that is, as
  fellow vassals of China - the Tokugawa wanted to place themselves a
  level above them. Indeed, the Japanese rulers sought a supreme desig-
  nation within an order of their own. Tsushima, the mediator, was
  caught in the middle of the conflicting interpretations of sovereignty.
  On the occasion of the third official Korean embassy, which was
  sent in 1624 to congratulate Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-51, r.
  1623-51) on his accession, the diplomatists of Tsushima once again
  had to counterfeit a shogunal message to make it conform with Korean
  expectations: They adjusted the title "Sovereign of Japan" (Nihon
  kokushu), which was selected this time by the bakufu's secretariat, to
  the familiar "King of Japan" (Nihon kokuo). This was a serious manipu-
  lation, even if it required nothing more than the reduction of one of
  the characters in the compound kokushu by a single pen stroke. Could
  the bakufu have been completely unaware of such remarkable creative-
  ness on the part of its island subjects? That is not very likely. It is more
  probable that for a time, the shogunate chose to turn a blind eye to the
  unorthodox activities of the editors of state papers in the service of
  85 Tanaka Takeo, "Sakoku seiritsuki Nitcho kankei no seikaku," Chosen gakuho 34 (January
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  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Tsushima, for they did, after all, smooth the relationship with Korea.
  At length, however, the manipulation of documents threatened to get
  out of hand and the bakufu had to crack down. In 1635, it took the
  opportunity of an internal power struggle on Tsushima to purge the
  forgers' group and install guardians against further diplomatic mal-
  practice in the domain of the So.
  The bakufu intervened when the history of forgeries became the
  central issue in a suit that pitted the daimyo of Tsushima, So Yoshinari
  (1604-57), against his vassal and accuser, Yanagawa Shigeoki (1603-
  84), one of the most influential samurai of the Tsushima domain, who
  also had excellent connections at the court of the Tokugawa in Edo.
  Shigeoki, who aimed at nothing less than Yoshinari's disenfeoffment
  and the displacement of the So from Tsushima, thought he could
  buttress his assertion that the daimyo was incompetent by denouncing
  the So family for decades of falsification of documents of state, forgery
  of shogunal seals, and gross malfeasance in the conduct of relations
  with Korea. Because Shigeoki had played a role almost surpassing that
  of the daimyo in Korean affairs - as had his father Toshinaga (d. 1613)
  and grandfather Shigenobu (d. 1605) before him - it could be as-
  sumed that he did, indeed, have intimate knowledge of such matters.
  But he fell into his own trap.
  Yoshinari produced a number of witnesses who incriminated the
  Yanagawa in the planning, fostering, and actual execution of the forger-
  ies, and Shigeoki was unable to discredit them. His Edo connections
  did not help him. On Kan'ei 12 (1635).3.11, after an investigation that
  dragged on for almost two years, he was summoned before Shogun
  Iemitsu, found guilty, and condemned to exile in a northern province.
  Some underlings of both the principals in the suit were sentenced to
  death. So Yoshinari, however, was vindicated and permitted to retain
  his position as daimyo of Tsushima.86 No doubt the reason for exoner-
  ating him and also for sparing Yanagawa Shigeoki's life was that the
  bakufu wished to avoid a scandal that would disturb the Koreans. The
  last thing the bakufu wanted was draw attention to the fraud that had
  for years been perpetrated in its name. Instead, it sought above all to
  preserve the appearance that propriety and normalcy ruled at least the
  Japanese side of Japanese-Korean relations.
  The conduct of those relations on behalf of the bakufu was, how-
  ever, much more circumscribed after this so-called Yanagawa incident.
  What had been until then a regionally managed concern was put under
  86 Tashiro, Kakikaerareta kokusho, pp. 133-60.
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  WAR AND PEACE 
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  the supervision of the national government's emissaries. To be sure,
  the So were left in place, and they remained the key intermediaries
  between Japan and Korea until the end of the Edo period. But they
  were no longer in full charge.
  In the seventh month of 1635 - a year of many institutional
  innovations - the bakufu started the practice of sending priests from
  the Five Great Zen Monasteries of Kyoto (Kyoto gosan, a traditional
  center of Chinese learning and source of expertise on correspondence
  in Chinese, the language of diplomacy in East Asia) to Tsushima,
  where they would keep a sharp eye on the management of official
  contacts with Korea. Because their residence was the cloister called
  Iteian and because they served on the basis of one to three years'
  rotation, this arrangement, which lasted until the fall of the sho-
  gunate, is called the Iteian rotational supervisory system (Iteian
  rinbansei). In the same year, a question that had long disturbed the
  diplomatists of both countries was resolved when the bakufu suc-
  ceeded in establishing "Sovereign Lord of Japan" (Nihonkoku taikun)
  as the form of address to be used in official communications from
  Korea.87 Taikun is the style that the Tokugawa shoguns bore thence-
  forth (with a brief interruption early in the eighteenth century) in
  their capacity as sovereigns of a nation engaged in intercourse with
  other nations. The English word "tycoon" derives from it.
  The Japan-centered "international order" of the Tokugawa regime
  That regularity had at length been achieved in the bakufu's foreign
  relations was demonstrated in 1636, when the Korean court for the
  first time appointed not a "return embassy" but a "diplomatic mis-
  sion" (fongsinsa; J: tsushinshi) to Japan. This large Korean embassy,
  which traveled to Edo for an audience with Shogun Iemitsu and then
  to Nikko to pay its respects at the shrine of the deified Ieyasu, was
  followed in 1643 by one sent to offer congratulations on the birth of
  Iemitsu's heir Ietsuna (1641-80; r. 1651-80) and then between 1655
  and 1811 by seven others dispatched to celebrate accessions to the
  shogunate. For the entire Edo period, that makes a total of twelve
  official embassies from Korea, the only foreign country with which the
  Tokugawa regime maintained diplomatic relations (tsushin, as opposed
  to commerce, tsiisho) until the nineteenth century.
  87 See Hayashi Akira, comp., Tsuko ichiran, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1912), 28:336-7
  and 30:365; and Kondo Morishige, comp., Gaiban tsusho, no. I, p. 11, in Kondo Keizo, ed.,
  Kaitei shiseki shuran, vol. 21 (Tokyo: Kondo kappansho, 1901).
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  300 
  JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND KOREA
  Commercial relations with the outside world were also extremely
  limited. Under the prohibition of foreign voyages {kaigai toko kinshi
  rei; sometimes called kaikin in reference to the Ming Chinese model,
  hai-chiri) issued by the bakufu in 1635, Japanese were forbidden on
  pain of death to travel abroad. Apart from the sanctioned commerce
  carried on by Tsushima through the Waegwan in Pusan, this measure
  left Japanese foreign trade in the hands of a few rigorously controlled
  groups of foreign traders resident in Japan. After the exclusion of the
  Portuguese in 1639, the Dutch were the only Westerners permitted to
  enter the country. Alongside them, there existed in Nagasaki a Chinese
  trading community that was, however, not officially countenanced by
  the Chinese imperial government. Relations with China were not rees-
  tablished during the Edo period, although there is some evidence of
  interest on Ieyasu's part in restoring them. Evidently, the Tokugawa
  shoguns were unwilling to demean themselves in the way the Ashikaga
  had, by submitting themselves to China's standards and entering into
  vassalage in order to enjoy the benefits of a tributary relationship with
  the "Central Country."
  Between 1634 and 1806, the kingdom of Ryukyu also sent fifteen
  embassies to the Tokugawa shoguns, but this could scarcely be called a
  foreign country insofar as Japan was concerned. Ryukyu was not an
  independent or even an autonomous state: It had been conquered in
  1609 by the Shimazu and was no more than a dependency of the
  daimyo of Kagoshima, whom the bakufu enfeoffed with Ryukyu just
  as it did with Satsuma and Osumi. This colony, which was intensively
  exploited by the Shimazu, was permitted to call itself a "kingdom,"
  that is, to maintain a tributary relationship with China, merely as a
  device that would give it continued trading access to that country. To
  be sure, in 1636 the bakufu ordered the Shimazu to cease referring to
  their puppet on the islands as a "king" and to call him "provincial
  governor" (kokushi) in future communications.
  The colorful processions of the exotically garbed envoys from Korea
  and Ryukyu may have impressed the populace along their route of
  progress to Edo with the notion that the bakufu enjoyed great author-
  ity among foreign nations. In actuality, however, they only masked the
  fact that after the 1630s Japan had a government that barely pursued
  foreign relations at all. The sham played with Ryukyu's enforced
  participation and the facsimile of a formal relationship in which Korea
  acquiesced sufficed to create for the bakufu its own international or-
  der, in which Japan ranked first, even if it had to be prima in vacua.
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  CHAPTER 7
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  The Tokugawa shogunate's self-serving conceit of a Japan-centered
  "international order," described in the conclusion of Chapter 6, could
  handily comprehend Ryukyu, Korea, and even the mercantile Dutch,
  because these foreign entities either acquiesced to being fit or had no
  power to resist being forced into the Japanese derivative of the tradi-
  tional East Asian model of international relations. Another group of
  foreigners posed a more difficult problem: The model of universal
  truth introduced by Roman Catholic Europeans who came to Japan
  with a missionary purpose could not be so easily accommodated by a
  regime intent on refashioning Japanese society in a mold of its own.
  Hence the Catholics' mission to Japan was ultimately condemned as
  subversive to the social order of the Tokugawa, and they were expelled
  as an alien element from the Japanese body politic.
  At first, however, the Catholic Europeans were welcomed. At the
  time of their arrival, Japan was a splintered realm composed of the
  autonomous domains of many warring daimyo. For reasons that will
  be discussed in this chapter, some of those daimyo protected the for-
  eigners, sought out their commerce, and even embraced the religion
  that the Europeans brought with them. The fragmented state of a
  nation that truly merited the label sengoku, a "country at war," made it
  possible for the Christian missionaries to disseminate their faith on a
  domanial and even regional basis.
  Because those missionaries' activity in Japan lasted for roughly a
  hundred years, from the 1540s through the 1630s, Western historians
  have developed the practice of calling this Japan's "Christian Century."
  To be sure, the last half of that "Christian" period saw the paradoxical
  conditions that had once permitted the religion an entry into Japan
  eliminated and almost all traces of Christianity erased. As Japan passed
  from a state of extreme political dissolution and social upheaval to a
  new era of unity and peace, it also turned inward and away from the
  relative cosmopolitanism of the Christian Century's first half. From
  sengoku, Japan was transformed into sakoku, a "closed country."
  301
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  3O2 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  For the daimyo, the establishment of a new order meant a reduc-
  tion to fealty under the Tokugawa shogunate. For the Christian mis-
  sionaries and their converts, it meant a bitter persecution and the
  nearly total eradication of their religion in Japan. For the country at
  large, it was the beginning of more than two centuries of national
  seclusion.
  THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUROPEANS
  The first contact between Japan and Europe, as far as can be deter-
  mined, occurred in 1543, when two or three Portuguese traders ar-
  rived on board a Chinese junk in Tanegashima, the oblong island that
  forms a pendant to the southernmost tip of Kyushu at the entrance to
  Kagoshima Bay.1 Scarcely a household word before that date, the
  island's name was destined to become famous throughout Japan on
  account of a Western product brought on this voyage, the harquebus.
  Tanegashima became synonymous with firearms when this weapon -
  introduced by those first Portuguese, imitated, improved, and pro-
  duced in numbers by Japanese armorers, and employed in battle by
  daimyo fighting over a dismembered body politic - began to trans-
  form the methods of warfare in the "country at war."
  The Portuguese traders' contribution of a new, modern instrument of
  mayhem to Japan's well-stocked but still medieval and, by European
  standards, obsolescent arsenal was one of those remarkable accidents of
  history that have a revolutionary effect. In the hands of the two or three
  warlords who had both the tactical acumen and the economic where-
  withal to employ firearms massively, guns that evolved from the
  Tanegashima prototype would, later in the sixteenth century, become
  the indispensable tools of Japan's military reunification.
  But the undoubted historical significance of their initial import not-
  withstanding, the traders were not the most important European ac-
  tors in this first, dramatic encounter between Japan and the West.
  Their interest in Japan was exclusively material, and their activities
  there were, by and large, confined to a few spots on the country's
  periphery. For better or for worse, they had neither the inclination nor
  the capacity to play the parts of Europe's cultural emissaries to Japan
  1 The date of the Portuguese traders' arrival in Tanegashima is given as Tembun [12].8.25
  (September 23, 1543), and Wang Chih, alias Wu-feng, is identified as their interpreter, in the
  brief essay Teppoki (1607) by Nampo Bunji, a Zen priest and diplomatist in the employ of the
  Shimazu daimyo of Kagoshima. The text is most conveniently found in Okamoto Yoshitomo,
  Juroku seiki Nichio kdlsushi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kobunso, 1936), pp. 187-9.
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  THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUROPEANS 
  303
  or the disseminators of knowledge about Japanese civilization in Eu-
  rope. Rather, those roles were to be filled by men with a definite
  cultural purpose and a special spiritual calling, the Christian missionar-
  ies who followed the merchants to Japan. The first of that dedicated
  and ultimately tragic group were three Jesuits led by the future saint,
  Francis Xavier, who were brought to Kagoshima in 1549 as passengers
  on another Chinese junk.
  Both the merchants and the missionaries were carried to Japan in
  the backwash of the wako tide. Indeed, in view of what has been
  observed in Chapter 6 regarding the character of the bahan trade and
  the role played by the Portuguese in its principal base of the 1540s,
  Shuang-hsii-kang or Liampoo, it was perhaps unavoidable that the
  first Europeans to visit Japan should have come in the company of
  Chinese illicit traders. For all that, it is rather startling to recognize in
  the "Confucian scholar" called Wu-feng, the fellow traveler who acted
  as an interpreter for the first Portuguese in Tanegashima, none other
  but the most notorious of all the wako captains, Wang Chih, sailing
  under a nom de plume. Another noted interpreter who voyaged under
  "tattered sails" was Yajiro, the Kagoshima samurai who displayed
  natural qualities of such apparent excellence that Xavier was led to
  believe in the likely prospect of a rich harvest awaiting Christian mis-
  sionaries in Japan: "For if all the Japanese are as eager to learn as
  [Yajiro], then it seems to me that, in all the lands that have been
  discovered, they are the people that is the thirstiest for knowledge."
  Yajiro was a wako, if not when Xavier first met him in December 1547
  in the Portuguese colony of Malacca as a fugitive from justice in his
  homeland, then certainly a few years later at the end of his days: He
  died on a pirate raid to China.2 Needless to say, Xavier was conveyed
  from Malacca to Japan on the ship of yet another wako, "a pagan
  Chinese pirate" named Avan.3
  2 On Yajiro's intellectual curiosity and the conclusions Xavier drew from it regarding the Japa-
  nese, see Xavier to Ignatius Loyola and other Jesuits, dated Cochin, January 20, 1548, in
  Georg Schurhammer SJ and Josef Wicki SJ, eds., Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius
  scripta, vol. I, Monumenta Historica Societatis lesu, vol. 67 (Rome: Monumenta Historica Soc.
  Iesu, 1944), no. 59, pp. 391-2. On Yajiro's end, see Padre Luis Frois SJ, Historia dejapam,
  pt. i, chap. 6, ed. Josef Wicki SJ, vol. 1 (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, 1976), p. 46;
  Matsuda Kiichi and Kawasaki Momota, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 6 (Tokyo: Chuo koron-
  sha, 1978), p. 72.
  3 Frois, Historia, pt. I, chap. 1, Wicki, vol. I, p. 22; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu
  Nihonshi, vol. 6, p. 29. On Av£n, also see Xavier to Dom Pedro da Silva, dated Cangoxima,
  November 5, 1549, Epistolae, vol. 2, Monumenta, vol. 68 (1945), no. 94, p. 230; and Xavier to
  various Jesuits in Goa, dated Malacca, June [20] and 22, 1549, ibid., no. 85, p. 124. Cf. Josef
  Wicki SJ, "Das neuentdeckte Xaveriusleben des P. Francisco P6rez S.I. (1579)," Archivum
  Historicum Societatis Iesu 34.67 (January-June 1965): 63-4.
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  304 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  As could be expected from these associations, the list of place names
  mentioned in the reports of the earliest Portuguese mariners who vis-
  ited Japan overlaps considerably with the Japanese toponymy found in
  Ch'ou-hai fu-pien and other Chinese sources on the home grounds of
  the wako. From those reports, it is clear that the Portuguese traders
  were informed about routes beyond Kyushu, both through the Inland
  Sea and around the southeastern coast of Shikoku. But they never
  sailed to Sakai or any of the other harbors of the Kinai region in
  Honshu. Instead, they confined themselves to Kyushu ports. From
  1550 to 1562, they mainly used Hirado, the ancient lair of the
  Matsuura-to, although on occasion they called at Kagoshima and
  Yamagawa in Satsuma and such places as Hiji and Funai in Bungo.
  After 1564, they abandoned Hirado for other ports in Hizen. The
  most notable of those was Nagasaki, which became the recognized
  -terminus of their trade with Japan from 1571 onward. Apart from the
  navigational and commercial, these changes had political and, indeed,
  also religious reasons.
  The missionaries no less than the merchants sought a safe harbor, a
  place free of storms where they could anchor their enterprise in the hope
  that it would prosper under official protection. That type of security
  was not easy to find in Kyushu or, indeed, anywhere in Japan at the
  middle of the sixteenth century. The atrophy of Japan's central govern-
  ing organism, the Ashikaga shogunate, had by that time reached an
  advanced stage. The malady of the central system of authority affected
  the political health of the entire country. The provinces were swept by
  disorder: Regional hegemonies emerged, only to disappear under what
  seemed to be the constant condition of war. Where, then, would their
  quest lead the foreigners through Sengoku's tempest?
  THE CONDITION OF KYUSHU
  When the first Portuguese and Jesuits arrived in Japan, Kyushu in
  particular was an arena of contention among many great or lesser
  warlords. No decision had yet been reached in that struggle, and the
  island would not be pacified until the great unifier Toyotomi Hide-
  yoshi (i537?-98) invaded and conquered it in 1587. Hence missionar-
  ies and merchants alike repeatedly had to change their bases of opera-
  tion in their search for a place of refuge and patronage. Eventually,
  they learned to utilize the political confusion that was endemic in
  Sengoku Japan to their own advantage.
  Southern Kyushu was in turmoil because of the long-lasting internal
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  THE CONDITION OF KYUSHU 
  305
  troubles of the Shimazu family, whose head had since the late four-
  teenth century held the title of shugo (military governor) of the three
  provinces of Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga. These provinces, however,
  remained full of independent-minded barons who continued to assert
  themselves militarily against their supposed overlord, the daimyo
  Shimazu Takahisa (1514-71), who was plagued by persistent party
  taking and rebellion among his nominal vassals.
  Takahisa made only slow progress in his effort to establish territorial
  control over southern Kyushu, even if his early recognition of the
  power of firearms aided that effort. At the siege of Iwatsurugi Castle in
  1554, for instance, his general Shimazu Tadamasa (d. 1561) used the
  novel tactic of "maneuvering five ships close in to the shore and shoot-
  ing with firearms" upon the fort's defenders, two or three of whom
  were killed by the new weapon.4 After a few weeks, the castle fell, but
  this success against a rebellious baron was no more than one step
  forward for Takahisa in the bitter and protracted conflict between the
  emergent Sengoku daimyo family of the Shimazu and the petty lords
  (kokujin) of an entire region. Not until the 1570s, under the leadership
  of Takahisa's son and successor Shimazu Yoshihisa (1533-1611), did
  the Shimazu succeed in consolidating their authority over the area's
  restive barons.
  Northern Kyushu, too, was in an unsettled state at the time of the
  first Europeans' arrival. For much of Japan's middle ages, ever since
  the establishment of the Kamakura regime at the end of the twelfth
  century, this area, which encompassed six of Kyushu's nine provinces,
  was the sphere of influence of two great shugo famines, the Shoni of
  Chikuzen and the Otomo of Bungo. In the late fifteenth century,
  however, these two traditional powers came under relentless pressure
  from a relative newcomer, the Ouchi family of Yamaguchi in Suo
  Province across the Shimonoseki Strait in Honshu. That pressure
  caused the collapse of the medieval power structure in northern
  Kyushu.
  The Shoni family was reduced to a nullity by 1536, when Ouchi
  Yoshitaka (1507-51) managed to destroy Shoni Sukemoto after entic-
  ing his principal vassal and most active general, Ryuzdji Iekane (d.
  1546), to join the Ouchi side. The Ouchi, however, did not enjoy the
  fruits of this victory for any length of time. Rather, it was their rivals,
  the Otomo, to whom the elimination of the Shoni brought more last-
  4 Iwatsurugi kassen nikki, quoted in Kagoshima-ken, vol. 46 of Kadokawa Nihon chimei daijiten
  (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1983), p. 124. Iwatsurugi Castle was located near what is now
  Shigetomi Beach in Aira-cho, just north of the Kagoshima city limits.
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  306 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMVO
  ing benefits. In the long run, however, the disappearance of the Shoni
  from the scene where they had played such a prominent role for
  centuries was significant mainly as the factor that permitted their
  former vassals, the Ryuzoji, to build a powerful new Sengoku daimyo
  domain. The Ryuzoji are of special interest to us because they were to
  play a baneful role in the history of the early Christian mission of
  Japan.
  For the time being, Ouchi Yoshitaka controlled most of Chikuzen
  and Buzen as well as parts of Hizen and Chikugo. Even after defeating
  the Shoni, however, Yoshitaka still had to confront the problem of the
  Otomo, who would never acquiesce in the Ouchi family's ascendancy
  over northern Kyushu. Traditional enemies since the 1430s, the two
  great daimyo houses eyed each other warily. The tension along the
  borders of the Ouchi and Otomo domains in Chikuzen, Buzen, and
  Chikugo never relaxed as the opportunistic petty barons of these prov-
  inces, ever on the lookout for the main chance, threw in their alle-
  giances first with the one side and then with the other. There were
  recurrent local skirmishes.
  In 1533, this habitually overstrained political situation had been
  aggravated when Otomo Yoshiaki (1502-50) succeeded in having his
  three-year-old son Shioboshi-maru (later known as Yoshishige, as
  Sorin, and as Francisco; 1530-87) designated shugo of Buzen by the
  Ashikaga shogunate. In the next year, Ouchi Yoshitaka responded to
  this apparent challenge to his dominion over Buzen by sending an
  invasion force into Bungo. This invasion was stopped by the Otomo,
  and a tenuous peace was reestablished in 1535 through the intercession
  of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiharu (1511-50, r. 1522-47) on condition
  that the Ouchi return certain disputed territories in Chikuzen to
  Otomo Yoshiaki. But this agreement could not keep the two rivals
  satisfied for very long, and by 1543 Yoshiaki was complaining that the
  Ouchi had failed to restore to the Otomo their rights in the port city of
  Hakata. For the time being, however, the truce freed both parties to
  turn their attention in potentially more profitable directions.
  Ouchi Yoshitaka used the respite to finish off Shoni Sukemoto, as
  just described. Otomo Yoshiaki moved against his own younger
  brother, Kikuchi Yoshitake (formerly known as Otomo Shigeharu, d.
  1554)5 who had assumed this new name after being installed by
  Yoshiaki as the fictive heir of another tradition-rich, but extinct, shugo
  family, the Kikuchi of Higo. Far from being a complaisant puppet of
  the Otomo, Kikuchi Yoshitake placed his bets on the Ouchi to prevail
  in northern Kyushu and took up arms against Yoshiaki. But Yoshitake
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  DEUS OR DAINICHI? 
  307
  was no match for his elder brother, who brushed him aside in order to
  grab his territory. By 1543, Otomo Yoshiaki's hold on Higo was solid
  enough to make his appointment as shugo over that province an appro-
  priate recognition of his actual status.
  Bungo and Higo were the foundations of the developing regional
  hegemony of the Otomo. This growing realm was disturbed severely
  in 1550 by a palace revolution in which Otomo Yoshiaki was killed
  after threatening to disinherit his eldest son Yoshishige. In the wake of
  this notorious affair, Yoshishige succeeded as the head of the Otomo
  family. He began his career as the lord over two provinces. In the
  stormy course of his life, he was to see the realm of the Otomo expand
  to a sum total of seven provinces and then shrink again until barely a
  small part of Bungo was left.
  DEUS OR DAINICHI?
  The daimyo Shimazu Takahisa, Ouchi Yoshitaka, and Otomo Yo-
  shishige, who were the most important political personages of western
  Japan, were also the Christian missionary Francis Xavier's most impor-
  tant collocutors in the country. To be sure, "collocutors" may not be
  the word, as the Basque priest's ability to learn foreign languages was
  poor, and he had to converse with his Japanese hosts through interpret-
  ers whose ability to convey his meaning was likewise highly limited.
  In any event, it is clear that Xavier was led badly astray by his first
  guide to Japan, Yajiro. This native informant may indeed have
  "learned in eight months to read, and write, and speak Portuguese"
  and even have been "very well indoctrinated in the faith of Jesus
  Christ Our Lord," as Xavier maintained.5 For all that, he thoroughly
  misinformed his mentor. Yajiro's outline of the essentials of Japanese
  religion was the sometime wako's biggest disservice to the future
  saint.
  According to Yajiro, the Japanese religious preached that "there is
  only one God, creator of all things." As if this sheer misstatement were
  not bad enough, the Christian neophyte proceeded to amplify it with
  fine-spun theological analogues. There was one order of priests, he
  said, who adored "the one and only God, whom they call de ny chy in
  their language. . . . Sometimes they depict this de ny chy with only one
  body and three heads, and then they call him cogy." Yajiro added that
  5 Xavier to Loyola, dated Cochin, January 12, 1549, Epistolae, vol. 2, no. 70, p. 10; Xavier to
  King of Portugal (Joao III), dated Malacca [June 20], 1549, ibid., no. 84, p. 117.
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  308 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  "he did not know the significance of these three heads; what he did
  know, however, was that all was one, de ny chy and co ny gy, just as
  among us are God and the Trinity."6
  It is apparent that Yajiro had some casual acquaintance with the
  Shingon sect of Buddhism: What he meant by de ny chy is unquestion-
  ably that sect's central Buddha, Mahavairocana, called Dainichi in
  Japanese. A more expert informant on Shingon Buddhism might have
  described Dainichi as the ultimate reality that is identical with the
  total functioning of the cosmos and also identical with the enlightened
  mind. The untutored Yajiro equated this totalist force with the per-
  sonal Creator and Lord of All, the God of Christianity.
  What this novice meant by cogy or co ny gy is obscure. In the
  extraordinarily rich iconography of Shingon, many figures are repre-
  sented with multiple heads, but Dainichi as such is not one of them. In
  the well-known Shingon schema called gochi nyorai, "Tathagatas of the
  Five Wisdoms," five forms of wisdom comprehended by Dainichi and
  personified by the Five Tathagatas of the Diamond Realm are repre-
  sented with Dainichi himself at the center and four other Buddhas
  either flanking him or surrounding him at the four cardinal points.
  Perhaps the term cogy reflects a distorted vision of that mandala; even
  so, the underlying Buddhist concept of course bears no resemblance to
  the Trinity of the Nicene Creed. But regardless of the background of
  Yajiro's garbled reference, the results of his altogether facile explana-
  tion are clear: Xavier began his mission in Japan by preaching
  Dainichi.
  To be sure, it is likely that Xavier's unwitting decision to translate
  key Christian concepts by means of a terminology charged with Bud-
  dhist meanings actually eased his entry into Japan, as it created - if
  only temporarily and deceptively - a common ground of discourse
  with the "heathen" whom Xavier had come to convert. Moreover, the
  very fact that this religious teacher came from "Tenjiku," that is,
  India, the classical homeland of Buddhism, gave him charisma and
  gained him acceptance.
  In Satsuma, for instance, Xavier was received amicably by the
  daimyo Shimazu Takahisa and also conversed on friendly terms with
  the eminent prelate Ninshitsu (d. 1556), the superior of Kagoshima's
  most important Buddhist temple, the Zen monastery Fukushoji. The
  6 "Emformacao da Ilha de Japao dada por mestre framcysquo que soube de pesoas muy
  autemtiquas pryncypalmente de huu Japao q se tornou crystao nesta cydade de Goa home de
  gramde egenho e abelydade," Biblioteca Municipal de Elvas, Mss. 5/381, ff. [60V-62]; tran-
  scription by A. Thomaz Pires, "0 Japao no seculo XVI," pt. 1, O Institute) 53 (1906): 760-1.
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  DEUS OR DAINICHI? 
  309
  teacher who had come from India drew the curiosity of crowds of
  people as he sat on the steps to Fukushoji's entrance and read aloud
  from a summary of Christian doctrine that had been put into Japanese
  with Yajiro's assistance and painstakingly written out in roman letters
  by Xavier. According to Xavier's great successor in the apostolate of
  Asia, Visitator Alexandra Valignano SJ, the translation was such a
  bungled piece of work that it aroused "jeers and laughter; for neither
  was the truth of what the Padre was saying expressed well, nor was it
  written in such a way that it could be read before their men of letters
  without laughter."7 For all that, in Kagoshima and in the castle of
  Ichiku, another key place of Shimazu Takahisa's domains, Xavier and
  his helpmates were able to convert more than one hundred people,
  who were drawn to the foreign priest by the force of his personality if
  not the power of his message. What the specific character of these
  converts' new religion was, however, cannot be said with certainty.
  Once the missionaries learned enough Japanese to engage in intellec-
  tual debates, their easy familiarity with Buddhist monks would per-
  force have to come to an end. Learning enough of the language to
  understand their partners in debate, however, was evidently a weary
  two years' task for Xavier and the two Spanish Jesuits who accompa-
  nied him, Padre Cosme de Torres and Irmao Juan Fernandez. Not
  until the summer of 1551, and far away from Satsuma, did Xavier
  finally abandon the hopelessly compromised terminology with which
  Yajiro had encumbered him.
  The occasion for that was Xavier's second visit to Yamaguchi. There
  Shingon priests applauded his insistence on the primacy of Dainichi as
  the self-generated "principle of all things," but their responses to his
  questions on the Trinity and on the Incarnation and Passion of Christ
  failed to satisfy him, and finally Xavier was enlightened. Having real-
  ized the gravity of his mistake, he sent Fernandez to preach in the
  streets that Dainichi and his religion were "an invention of the devil,
  as also were all the other sects of Japan."8 Not surprisingly, this provo-
  cation aroused the fury of Yamaguchi's Buddhist clergy.
  The Buddhists' protests merely underlined the fact that for the
  Jesuits, to establish Christian orthodoxy was, after all, their all-
  important mission. After this incident, the missionaries would disdain
  7 Alexandra Valignano SJ, Historia del principio y progresso de la Campania de Jesus en las Indias
  Orientates (1S42-64), ed. Josef Wicki SJ, Bibliotheca Institun Historici S.I., vol. 2 (Rome:
  Institutum Historicum S.I., 1944), p. 164.
  8 Frois, Historia, pt. I, chap. 5, Wicki, vol. 1, pp. 40-1; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu
  Nihonshi, vol. 6, pp. 61-3.
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  310 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  anything that smacked of syncretism and would preach the uncompro-
  mising law of Deus. As a result, the Japanese language was enriched
  with a great number of neologisms, catechetical terms derived from
  Latin or Portuguese.
  THE SEARCH FOR SECURE PATRONS
  If it was to survive and to grow in the face of opposition from the
  native religious establishment, the fledgling Christian mission of Japan
  had to find shelter under the protection of the powerful. Under the
  conditions of Sengoku, however, that protection - if it could be ob-
  tained at all - rarely endured and was almost never disinterested. Ac-
  cording to Valignano, the reason that the daimyo Shimazu Takahisa
  and his principal deputies in Kagoshima accorded Xavier and his
  party a good reception was because they "knew the credit and the
  authority that the Padres had among the Portuguese and greatly de-
  sired that, through the [Padres'] mediation, [the Portuguese] would
  come to that harbor with their ships." Hence they "detained the Pa-
  dres there with many tricks and promises." A year into Xavier's stay
  in their town, the lords of Kagoshima found out that their best efforts
  notwithstanding, the Portuguese had chosen to anchor elsewhere. Con-
  sequently, the Shimazu prohibited any further conversions to Chris-
  tianity and forced the missionaries to leave Satsuma.9
  Naturally, Xavier then went to the harbor where the Portuguese
  ship lay, Hirado. He thereby established the close association between
  the bases of the Jesuit mission and the ports of call of the Portuguese
  trading vessels in Japan that would continue until the country was
  closed to commerce with Catholic lands in 1639.
  In Hirado (where, it will be remembered, the Chinese sea king
  Wang Chih had his Japanese abode), Xavier and his companions re-
  ceived a warm welcome from the local tono (lord), Matsuura Takanobu
  (1529-99). The presence of the Portuguese traders and nothing else
  accounted for Takanobu's show of favor to the missionaries - a tempo-
  rary good grace, to be sure - and Xavier in any case had his eye on a
  reception at the courts of princes far greater than this wako chieftain.
  He wanted legitimation not from petty barons but from national au-
  thorities, whom he planned to seek out in "Meaco" (Miyako, that is,
  Kyoto), viewed by him as the capital of all Japan. He was to find out
  that those authorities were ephemeral and not easily approached.
  9 Valignano, Historia delprincipioy progresso, pp. 165, 167-8.
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  THE SEARCH FOR SECURE PATRONS 
  3II
  Even before traveling to Japan, Xavier had been given some idea of
  the peculiar division of sovereign powers that prevailed there. An
  imaginative report drawn up for him in India on the basis of informa-
  tion provided by Yajiro describes the Japanese polity as follows:
  The principal king, who is called Vo in their language . . . apparently is
  among them such as the pope is among us. He has jurisdiction over laymen as
  well as over the clergy, of whom there are many in that country. But although
  he has full authority over everything - [Yajiro] says - he never orders the
  exercise of justice against anyone but leaves all that worry to another, who is
  among them as the emperor is among us and who is called #0x0. The latter has
  the power and empire over all of Japan but nonetheless owes obedience to the
  aforesaid Vo. When goxo goes to visit Vo, [Yajiro] says, he does so kneeling on
  the ground; and - he says - if goxo commits a malfeasance, then Vo can take
  away his kingdom and cut off his head. And he says that those who are below
  strictly obey them who are above, as the exercise of justice there is so
  strict. . . .I0
  Actually, the regnant "Vo" (0) at the time in question, Emperor Go-
  Nara (1497-1557, r. 1526-57), was so powerless that his enthrone-
  ment had to be postponed for ten years, until 1536, because funds for
  the ceremony were lacking. To portray him as a mikado who could, if
  it suited him, make the punishment fit the crime throughout the
  country over which he had "full authority" does not quite capture Go-
  Nara's true historical image. And the ruling "goxo" (gosho) or shogun,
  Ashikaga Yoshifuji (1536-65, r. 1547-65; known as Yoshiteru from
  1554)3 is barely recognizable under the description of a potentate who
  had "the power and empire over all of Japan." In fact, he was no more
  than a feeble pawn in the hands of his nominal deputies and rear
  vassals. Chased from his capital city of Kyoto in July 1549, Shogun
  Yoshifuji had to spend eight of the next nine and a half years as a
  refugee wandering from one provincial locality to another. He was
  permitted to return to Kyoto in 1559, but that turned out to be a
  dubious consolation to the shogun, who was murdered there in 1565 in
  his own residence.
  It is evident that far from being a realm where "those who [were]
  below strictly obey[ed] them who [were] above," Japan at the time of
  Xavier's visit was a land that had fallen to the nadir of gekokujo, a
  seemingly anarchical condition in which those below endeavored, with
  considerable success, to overthrow the ones who were above them.
  Indeed, even as Xavier was on his way from Hirado via Yamaguchi to
  10 "Emforma?ao da Ilha de Japao dada por mestre framgysquo," Elvas Mss. 5/381, f. [53rv]; O
  Institute) 53: 758-9.
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  312 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  Kyoto in late December 1550, the upstart daimyo Miyoshi Nagayoshi
  (1522-64, also known as Miyoshi Chokei) was assaulting Nagao Cas-
  tle, Shogun Yoshifuji's last foothold on the northeastern outskirts of
  the capital. It was clearly not a propitious time to visit the seat of what
  remained of Japan's traditional establishment. Little wonder that Xa-
  vier's journey to Kyoto ended in failure.
  Xavier set out for the Kansai with two principal goals in mind. The
  first was to visit and even to convert the "king of Japan," from whom
  he hoped to obtain permission to spread Christianity throughout the
  country. Not content with the vision of making the Son of Heaven into
  a Christian, Xavier also cherished the hope that he could make mani-
  fest the truth of the Christian religion at what were reputed to be
  Japan's leading institutions of higher learning. Accordingly, his second
  major objective was to gain entry to the "University of Meaco" (which
  had "five principal colleges," as he called the Five Great Zen Monaster-
  ies of Kyoto, know to us as the Gozan) and to the other "principal
  university" of the Kyoto area, located on "Fieson" (Hieizan, the site of
  Enryakuji, the great monastery of the Tendai sect and citadel of tradi-
  tional Japanese Buddhism)."
  After a month's harrowing journey from Yamaguchi by way of
  Sakai, the hazards and discomforts of the trip eased somewhat by the
  letter of introduction given him along the way by an "honored person"
  who had taken pity on the priest from "Tenjiku," Xavier arrived in the
  capital about the middle of January 1551. Apparently, he first tried to
  seek out the gosho, Shogun Yoshifuji, but failed to track down that
  refugee from Kyoto. He then tried to obtain an audience with the "Vo,
  the universal king of all Japan," but was turned away, in large part
  because he bore no legitimation and no presents. Thus frustrated in all
  his endeavors, Xavier after a mere eleven days shook the dust of Kyoto
  off his feet.12
  XAVIER AND OUCHI YOSHITAKA
  In the course of his travels, Xavier had, however, learned two impor-
  tant lessons. The first was that Japan's national authorities were not
  nearly as powerful as some of its regional rulers. The second was that
  11 On the plan to convert the Japanese sovereign, "whereupon would follow much temporal
  profit for the king of Portugal," see Xavier to Padre Antonio Gomes SJ, dated Cangoxima,
  November 5, 1549, Epistolae, vol. 2, no. 93, p. 223. On Japanese "universities," see Xavier to
  the Jesuits of Goa, same place and date, ibid., no. 90, pp. 207-9.
  12 On Xavier's journey to Kyoto, see Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 4, Wicki, vol. 1, pp. 34-8;
  Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 3 (1978), pp. 15-26.
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  XAVIER AND OUCHI YOSHITAKA 
  313
  courage and charisma did not suffice to gain and retain an entree in the
  courts of princes: The petitioner who approached the gates of exalted
  personages barefooted and empty-handed would be turned away;
  apart from one's convictions, one had to bear with him gifts and
  credentials.
  Having identified the "king of Yamaguchi," that is, Ouchi Yoshi-
  taka, as the most powerful prince in Japan, Xavier determined to call
  on him again to seek his favor for the Christian mission. On his first
  visit to Yamaguchi, in November and December 1550, Xavier had
  succeeded in little more than annoying Yoshitaka, who had summoned
  the priest into his presence after being told that "this was a man from
  Tenjiku." It is difficult to say what caused the most offense on this
  occasion - Xavier's shabby appearance; the acknowledgedly barba-
  rous Japanese of his famous "summary of Christian doctrine," which
  he had his Jesuit companion Fernandez read before Yoshitaka and his
  suite (a performance Yoshitaka apparently endured for over an hour
  before abruptly breaking off the audience); or the intemperate lan-
  guage of the "summary's" condemnation of the sin of sodomy, at
  which "the king appeared to be severely conscience stricken and
  showed in his face that he was angered by this doctrine."13 Although
  Fernandez feared the worst, the daimyo did not harm the missionar-
  ies; more to the point, however, he did not encourage them. This time,
  they made few converts in Yamaguchi.
  On his second visit, which lasted four and a half months from the
  end of April 1551, Xavier appeared before Yoshitaka in the capacity of
  an envoy of the highest authorities of Portuguese India, equipped with
  letters from the governor and the bishop of Goa, bearing exotic pres-
  ents, and dressed in a splendid costume; that is, he comported with
  the official station of an ambassador. Yoshitaka was impressed. He
  responded by publicly posting his permission for the missionaries to
  preach and for the people to embrace the new religion in his domains.
  This was no small favor, because those domains at the time spread
  over all or parts of ten provinces, stretching from Bingo in the east to
  Hizen in the west.
  As a result of the daimyo's evident approval of the missionaries'
  enterprise, the vacant monastery he had assigned them as their dwell-
  ing place attracted crowds of the inquisitive, who heard and debated
  the Jesuits' expositions of their doctrine. Notwithstanding Xavier's
  13 Frois, Historia, pt. I, chap. 3, Wicki, vol. 1, pp. 31-2; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 6, pp. 54-5.
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  314 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  previously discussed gaffe regarding Dainichi and despite the furious
  counterattacks of the Buddhist clergy, within two months some five
  hundred of the curious were converted. Many of the converts were
  from noble families, "fidalgos."1* This success in Yamaguchi laid the
  foundation of the policy of reliance on the daimyo that the Jesuits
  subsequently pursued in their Japanese mission.
  That Yoshitaka should have accorded privileges to Xavier was
  scarcely the product of a whim. Indeed, it might even be maintained
  that he was predisposed to extend a welcome to this spiritual teacher,
  even if - or, rather, particularly because - he came from abroad. The
  Ouchi family, which itself pretended to a royal Korean ancestry, had
  a long history of diplomatic and economic relations with Korea and
  China and a tradition of cultural borrowing from overseas. Moreover,
  it was their aristocratic aspirations, which involved the patronage of
  the arts and of religion, that had made the Ouchi famous in Japan,
  no less than their military prowess had. Yoshitaka, in particular, was
  a highly cultivated if eclectic man, one whose interests extended from
  the military and courtly accomplishments expected of a member of
  his class to more unusual intellectual pursuits. Gathered about him in
  Yamaguchi were a good number of the most accomplished littera-
  teurs and religioners of the day. Under their guidance, he not only
  dabbled in poetry, linked verse, and courtly song but also inquired
  into philosophy.
  Yoshitaka is especially known for his studies of Confucianism. He
  was trained in the traditional Confucian exegetics of the Kyoto acad-
  emy, represented in Yamaguchi by such noted scholars as Kiyohara
  Yorikata (1520 - 90, also known as Kiyohara Ekata) and Ozuki
  Koreharu (d. 1551), but he was also familiar with Neo-Confucianism,
  still a relatively new intellectual vogue in Japan. He even charged an
  embassy to Korea with the mission of obtaining a complete edition of
  the Five Classics annotated by the great Neo-Confucian philosopher,
  Chu Hsi. He is known to have spent prodigious sums on Confucian
  texts, but his enthusiasm for this branch of learning was perhaps
  expressed best in the lecture series on the Four Books and Five Clas-
  sics that he instituted in 1546 for his close retainers and palace atten-
  dants, giving some of the lessons himself. Buddhism, too, attracted
  Yoshitaka's interest and support, as did Shinto. His wide range of
  learning makes Yoshitaka appear an open-minded man, one blessed
  14 Xavier to the Jesuits of Europe, dated Couchim, January 29, 1552, Epislolae, vol. 2, no. 96,
  pp. 262-6.
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  XAVIER AND OUCHI YOSHITAKA 
  315
  with a genuine intellectual curiosity.15 That he should have given a
  hearing to the Christian message therefore appears in character, and
  that the messenger should have been as great a representative of his
  culture as Xavier seems entirely fitting.
  But the association between the cosmopolitan daimyo Ouchi Yoshi-
  taka and the foreign missionaries, which seemed to open up such
  promising prospects to the Jesuits, was not destined to last. Indeed, it
  came to an end with a bewildering suddenness. Sometime toward the
  middle of September 1551, Xavier left for Bungo upon the receipt of
  news that a Portuguese ship had arrived there. A mere two weeks later,
  on September 30, Yoshitaka committed suicide, caught up in the vor-
  tex of a rebellion of his principal vassals led by Sue Takafusa (1521-
  55, known as Sue Harukata from 1552). To be sure, Padre Cosme de
  Torres, whom Xavier had left behind in Yamaguchi, escaped harm.
  Moreover, the regime installed by the rebels continued to treat the
  Christian missionaries with favor. But the rebellion had shaken the
  realm of the Ouchi in its very foundations, and the new regime would
  fall in less than six years.
  Takafusa, who had planned his revolt with the connivance of the
  Ouchi family's traditional enemy, Otomo Yoshishige of Bungo, invited
  that daimyo's younger brother Otomo Haruhide (d. 1557) to assume
  the headship of the Ouchi house (hence Haruhide was known as Ouchi
  Yoshinaga from 1553). But this device could not paper over the multi-
  ple rifts ingrained in a vast domain where the daimyo's authority had
  never been properly established. The outlying provinces crumbled
  away. The realm that Sue Harukata and Ouchi Yoshinaga themselves
  had gained by usurpation could not, at length, be defended against the
  determined attacks of their nominal vassal, the aggressive Sengoku
  daimyo Mori Motonari (1497-1571) of Aki Province. When Motonari
  destroyed Yoshinaga in the spring of 1557, the properties deeded by
  Yoshinaga to the Jesuits were confiscated and turned over to a Bud-
  dhist priest. And that was the end of the mission of Yamaguchi for
  three decades. It was revived for a few months in 1586 and 1587,
  resurrected again from 1599 to 1602, and then it was suppressed once
  more until the modern era.
  The protection of the powerful may have been indispensable to the
  Christian mission in sixteenth-century Japan, and reliance on the
  daimyo was no doubt an unavoidable policy. The Ouchi episode
  15 On Ouchi Yoshitaka's cultural accomplishments, see Fukuo Takeichiro, Ouchi Yoshitaka, vol.
  172 otjimbutsu sdsho (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1959), pp. 93-115.
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  316 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  shows, however, what perils inhered in that policy: If the power of the
  daimyo themselves was never secure, how could they guarantee secu-
  rity to others?
  OTOMO SORIN YOSHISHIGE
  The Jesuits had better luck with their next great patron, Otomo
  Yoshishige (known as Sorin from 1562), who remained consistently
  sympathetic to them through all the ups and downs of fortune he
  experienced from his first meeting with Xavier in 1551 to his death in
  1587. Yoshishige, too, may be considered a daimyo who was predis-
  posed to accord the foreigners a good welcome. Like his rival Ouchi
  Yoshitaka, Sorin earned a reputation for wide-ranging cultural inter-
  ests. The great Jesuit missionary and Japanologue Joao Rodrigues
  Tcuzzu (1561-1633), a man of many parts who knew Sorin personally,
  attests to him a great desire for knowledge, especially in matters of
  religion, even at the early age of twenty-one, when he first heard
  Xavier preach Christianity.16 Rodrigues also notes that Otomo was
  always well disposed toward the Portuguese, treated them with ex-
  treme politeness and generosity, and showed publicly the high regard
  he felt for them. Such displays of affection for the aliens may be
  regarded as evidence of this ambitious warlord's political vision and
  diplomatic skills. But his international-mindedness in fact had an inter-
  nal objective. Sorin sought to secure his position and expand his influ-
  ence within Japan by establishing firm ties with an overseas power
  whose commerce would strengthen him economically and militarily.
  A Portuguese ship had visited Bungo as early as 1544 or 1545, in
  the days of Sorin's father Yoshiaki, and Portuguese merchants had
  established what amounted to a trading post in Funai, where the
  daimyo habitually resided; the trader Diogo Vaz de Aragao stayed
  there for almost five years, from around 1546 to 1551.17 For the new
  daimyo Otomo Yoshishige, the arrival of the trading ship of Duarte da
  Gama and the resultant visit of the missionary Francis Xavier in the
  autumn of 1551 were a happy conjunction, one that offered him the
  chance to confirm the association between his house and the Portu-
  guese. When da Gama set sail for India - with Xavier on board -
  16 Joao Rodrigues Tcuzzu SJ, Hinoria da Igreja dojapdo, pt. 2, chap. 3, in Doi Tadao et al.,
  trans., Nikon kyokai shi, vol. 2, vol. 10 of Dai kokai jidai sosho (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
  1970), pp. 496-8.
  17 Otomo Sorin's own reminiscences, cited by Frois, Hiswria, pt. 2, chap. 3, Wicki, vol. 3
  (1982), p. 24; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nikonshi, vol. 7 (1978), p. 146.
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  OTOMO SORIN YOSHISHIGE 
  317
  Sorin made sure to send along an ambassador to the Portuguese gover-
  nor in Goa, as well as a letter and presents addressed to the king of
  Portugal himself.
  The relationship that was established in this way proved to be fruit-
  ful both for the daimyo of Bungo and for the Christian mission spon-
  sored by Portugal. It is true that Portuguese ships only called at Bungo
  four or five times in the decade from 1551 and after that their visits
  there stopped altogether. On the evidence of no less an authority than
  Visitator Alexandra Valignano, however, it is known that Sorin contin-
  ued, through the mediation of the Jesuit mission superior of Japan, to
  gain "many advantages and great profit from the ship of the Portu-
  guese," wherever it anchored.'8 It should also be noted that Otomo
  repeatedly wrote to the Portuguese base in Macao for munitions. Unc-
  tuous assurances of Sorin's "hospitality, honours and favour" toward
  "the things of God" and "the Christians who are in my kingdom"
  accompany these appeals for arms.19
  Otomo Yoshishige stopped short, however, of falling prostrate be-
  fore the Jesuits in order to assure himself of profitable contacts with
  the Portuguese. That would be the expedient chosen by lesser names
  among the Kyushu daimyo; as for Sorin, he did not accept baptism
  until 1578, after twenty-seven long years of flirtation with the mission-
  aries. But in the meantime he did protect their Japanese enterprise.
  Under his patronage, the Jesuits founded an infant refuge in Funai,
  one of Bungo's two major towns, in 1555. A hospital run by Irmao
  Luis de Almeida, who was a skilled physician, was established in the
  same town in 1557. Indeed, by 1556, when Cosme de Torres moved
  there from war-torn Yamaguchi and was joined by two other priests
  and two postulants (irmdos), Funai had become the headquarters of
  the Christian mission in Japan. Sorin installed the Jesuits in "some
  houses made of cedar wood, which were among the best in the coun-
  try" and even promised them a benefice of five hundred ducats a year,
  18 Valignano to General SJ, dated Goa, November 23, 1595, cited by Josef Franz Schiitte SJ,
  Valignanos Missionsgrundsdtze fur Japan, vol. 1, pt. 1: Das Problem (1573-1580) (Rome:
  Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1931), p. 328.
  19 English translations of two letters from Otomo Sorin to Bishop Belchior Carneiro SJ, dated
  9.15 (October 17), 1567, and September 13, 1568, are included in C. R. Boxer, The Great
  Ship from Amacon: Annals of Macao and the Old Japan Trade, 1555-1640 (Lisbon: Centro de
  Estudos Historicos Ultramarinos, 1959), pp. 317-19; for the Portuguese versions, see Cartas
  qve os Padres e Irmdos da Companhia de lesus escreuerao de lapao & China aos da mesma
  Companhia da India, & Europa, des do anno de 1549. ati o de 1580. (Em Euora por Manoel de
  Lyra. Anno de M.D.XCVIII.), vol. 1., ff. 249V-250. In the first letter, Sorin asks for "ten
  piculs of good saltpetre each year," so that "the tyrant of Yamanguchi," namely, Mori
  Motonari, may be dispossessed. In the second, he laments the loss in a shipwreck of a cannon
  being sent to him and urgently requests another.
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  3l8 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  "although these are not paid over faithfully by the person in charge."20
  Naturally, his advocacy of the Christian cause had the greatest reso-
  nance in northern Kyushu, an area that he came to dominate in the
  course of the ferocious war he fought against Mori Motonari through-
  out most of the 1560s. But Sorin's word on behalf of the Jesuits was
  heard as far as Kyoto, where he had useful connections at the shogunal
  court (an establishment that had managed to resettle in its capital in
  J559)- Sorin was highly regarded in the councils of the Muromachi
  bakufu, as is apparent from the honors and titles that the shogunate
  lavished upon him.
  THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION IN THE
  KANSAI AREA
  Otomo Sorin's Jesuit proteges benefited from his prestige. The letter
  of introduction Sorin is known to have written to an influential person
  in Kyoto - tentatively identified as Ise Sadataka (d. 1562), the chief
  (shitsuji) of the bakufu's Administrative Office (Mandokoro) - was
  most likely the key that opened the shogunate's doors to Padre Gaspar
  Vilela when the Jesuits in 1559 again conceived the plan to establish a
  mission in "the metropolis of all Japan and the fountainhead of all
  their laws." Vilela was received in audience by Shogun Ashikaga
  Yoshiteru, to whom he was represented as a "priest from Nanban
  [South Barbary], that is, the regions of India," and one moreover
  whose ecclesiastical rank was on a level with that of the principal
  religious dignitaries of Japan. Consequently, the bakufu on an unspeci-
  fied date in 1560 favored "Bateren, the priest from the Kirishitan
  Country," with the issue of a public off-limits notice (kinzei) that
  protected the missionary from having troops quartered and inappropri-
  ate imposts levied on him and prohibited intrusions, discourtesies,
  and other maltreatment.21 This shogunal notice amounted to a permis-
  sion to preach the Christian religion unharmed. With its posting, the
  Christian mission finally achieved the approbation of a national author-
  ity that Xavier had fruitlessly sought to obtain in 1551.
  20 Padre de Torres SJ to Loyola (Bungo, November 7, 1557), cited in Josef Franz Schutie SJ,
  Introductio ad hisloriam Societalis Jesu injaponia, 1549-1650 (Rome: Institutum Historicum
  Soc. Iesu, 1968), p. 551.
  21 See Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 25, Wicki, vol. z, pp. 159-63; Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi; vol. 3, pp. 76-83, with Matsuda Kudu's comments on Ise Sa-
  dataka, p. 83, nn. 9-11, and the original text of the shogunal kinzei in n. 8, pp. 82-3. Cf.
  Vilela's own retrospective account in a letter to Irmaos SJ in India, dated Sacay, August 17,
  1561, Carlas, vol. I, f. 91.
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  THE CHRISTIAN MISSION IN THE KANSAI AREA 
  319
  To be sure, that in itself did not guarantee the Jesuits security in the
  Kyoto area, let alone the entire country. In the Kinki region - the
  "Home Provinces" - no less than elsewhere, they had to cultivate the
  goodwill of the daimyo. This meant dealing with the likes of Miyoshi
  Nagayoshi and Matsunaga Hisahide (1510-77, also known as Sotai),
  those veritable exemplars of gekokujo.
  Miyoshi Nagayoshi (Chokei), the warrior from Awa Province in
  Shikoku who first led an army to Kyoto in 1539, over the next two
  decades managed to pursue successfully a truly spectacular obstacle
  course through history. The stages of his progress, marked with treach-
  eries as much as with acts of valor, led by way of the destruction of
  Nagayoshi's supposed betters, the Hosokawa and Hatakeyama fami-
  lies, to the establishment of his dominant influence in Awa, Sanuki,
  and Awaji as well as over the "Five Home Provinces" (Gokinai),
  namely, Yamashiro, Yamato, Kawachi, Settsu, and Izumi. Matsunaga
  Hisahide, a person of uncertain provenance, had entered Miyoshi's
  service by 1541. First, he turned himself into Nagayoshi's indispens-
  able right hand. Eventually, he usurped his master's power. Matsu-
  naga remained the nominal subordinate of Miyoshi and supported his
  campaigns.22 But by 1560, when the Jesuit missionary Vilela first came
  into contact with these two model careerists of Sengoku, Hisahide had
  become prepotent in the Kinai region.
  Vilela met Nagayoshi early in 1560 and obtained from him a patent
  of privileges similar to the public notice issued by the shogun in the
  same year.23 Indeed, Hisahide also appears to have given the same sort
  of guarantees to the missionary. But Hisahide was, as the Jesuit reports
  describe him, a fervent adherent of the Hokke sect (also known as the
  Nichiren sect), a particularly intransigent branch of Buddhism. Hence
  he was inclined to be sympathetic to the pleas of the Buddhist priest-
  hood of Kyoto when they insisted that the preacher of the foreign
  religion and his helpers, who had succeeded in making a handful of
  converts in the city, were subverting hallowed native traditions. Be-
  tween 1560 and 1562, Buddhist priests and laymen repeatedly peti-
  tioned Hisahide to have the padre expelled not only from the city of
  22 On the relationship between Miyoshi and Matsunaga, see V. Dixon Morris, "The City of
  Sakai and Urban Autonomy," in George Elison and Bardwell L. Smith, eds., Warlords,
  Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
  1981), pp. 45-51.
  23 See the letter from "Lourenco Iapao" (i.e., the quondam Irmao Lourenco) to the Jesuits of
  Bungo, dated Miaco, June 2, 1560, Cartas, vol. 1, f. 71. Cf. Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 34,
  Wicki, vol. 1, p. 228; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 3, p. 129; note
  that the events described unquestionably took place in 1560, even if Frois's organization (and
  Wicki's gloss) appear to indicate 1562.
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  32O 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  Kyoto itself but also from all the Home Provinces. Their sentiments
  were endorsed by certain of Matsunaga's samurai retainers, such as
  Takayama Zusho (d. 1596), the castellan of Sawa in Yamato, who
  advised his master to determine whether the new doctrine preached by
  Vilela and his Japanese translator Lourenco indeed countered the Japa-
  nese religions, and to "have their heads cut off" if it proved so.24
  Matsunaga decided on an official investigation.
  The inquisition, which took place in Nara in the early summer of
  1563, had startling results. Charged by Hisahide with establishing
  what he assumed - the presence of religious pravity - were two of the
  day's most highly reputed scholars, the astronomer Yuki Yamashiro
  no Kami Tadamasa and none other than Ouchi Yoshitaka's former
  Confucian tutor, Kiyohara Ekata. On the basis of the evidence they
  heard, both judges accepted the truth of Christianity and requested to
  be baptized. The delator of the missionaries, Takayama Zusho, also
  embraced their new religion.
  Of the three conversions, Takayama Zusho's was the most impor-
  tant. When this samurai led his entire family to baptism in 1564, he
  not only committed himself to the service of Japan's early church, but
  he also introduced into its ranks a young recruit who would become
  one of its greatest representatives. This recruit was Zusho's - or, to
  call him by his Christian name, Dom Dario Takayama's - son Ukon
  (Dom Justo, I552?-I6I5). Takayama Ukon would develop into the
  Jesuits' prize pupil even as he pursued the bloody career of a Sengoku
  and Momoyama warlord. A striking exception among the Christian
  daimyo of Japan, he persevered in his faith under persecution. At the
  beginning of the Tokugawa era, he was exiled from his country for his
  religious convictions and died on foreign soil, in Manila.
  The Kyoto mission's unexpected success was compounded when
  Yuki Tadamasa's son Yuki Saemon no Jo (Dom Antao), an officer in
  Miyoshi Nagayoshi's service, not only followed his father into the new
  religion but was so inspired by the new convert's proverbial zeal that
  he determined to make proselytes of his fellow samurai in Nagayoshi's
  castle town of Iimoriyama (now the city of Shi jo Nawate, Osaka Prefec-
  ture). Toward the end of spring in 1564, Lourenco (a biwa hoshi, or
  blind jongleur, converted by Xavier) visited Iimoriyama, and the pas-
  sionate sermons of this experienced public preacher swayed no fewer
  than seventy-three of Nagayoshi's bushi to become Christians. In-
  24 See the panegyric on Takayama written by Frois and dated Vsuqui [Usuki], August 20,1576,
  Cartas, vol. I, f. 364.
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  DAIMYO, MISSIONARIES, AND MERCHANTS 
  321
  eluded among them were some of Nagayoshi's principal vassals, such
  as Sanga Hoki no Kami Yoriteru (Dom Sancho), the castellan of the
  fort at Sanga (now the city of Daito, Osaka Prefecture), an important
  strong point in Iimoriyama's outworks.25
  The baptisms of this elite group were a major breakthrough, as they
  put the mission of the Kyoto area on a solid footing. Men such as the
  Yuki, Takayama, and Sanga were to prove true stalwarts of Christian-
  ity in the difficult years ahead. They are especially worthy of note
  because, unlike some of the barons of Kyushu, these samurai were
  untouched by the motive of temporal profit when they converted.
  Instead, they appear to have been genuinely moved by the ethos of the
  Christian religion.
  THE SYMBIOSIS OF DAIMYO, MISSIONARIES, AND
  MERCHANTS
  Kyushu, however, remained the main base of Christianity in Japan,
  and the promise of temporal profit was the enticement consciously
  used by the Jesuits in their effort to fortify and expand that base.
  Geography made Kyushu the natural terminus of the trade between
  China and Japan. The intrusion of the Portuguese into that trade,
  which they came to monopolize after the main wako bands were dis-
  solved in the late 1550s, presented the missionaries with a golden
  opportunity that they recognized and exploited.
  The assumption shared by all parties was that the Portuguese ships
  and their cargoes of Chinese silk would bring great profits to whatever
  Japanese lord managed to attract them permanently to his harbors.
  The traders, naturally enough, wanted a friendly environment for
  their commerce; the missionaries were willing and able to act as mid-
  dlemen in bringing about an amiable arrangement between the Portu-
  guese and the Japanese; the brokerage, apart from various forms of
  support given the Jesuits by the merchants, would involve the conver-
  sion of their common partner, the domanial lord (and, indeed, of his
  subjects), to Christianity. This equation, first developed in the 1560s,
  led to a fateful product, the cession of a piece of Japanese territory -
  the port city of Nagasaki and some of its environs - to the Society of
  Jesus in 1580.
  The potential mutual profit of a trilateral partnership embracing
  25 See Frois, Historia, pt. I, chaps. 37-9, Wicki, vol. I, pp. 245-69; Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 3, pp. 159-200.
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  322 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  merchants, missionaries, and daimyo had, of course, been apparent
  even in Xavier's day. It has already been shown that the likes of
  Shimazu Takahisa and Otomo Yoshishige welcomed Xavier not so
  much out of sympathy with the Christian cause as from susceptibility
  to the Portuguese ships' allure: They had quickly and correctly identi-
  fied the padres as likely brokers of influence with their coreligionists,
  the traders. At the time, however, Takahisa was too big a fish to be
  landed with the resources available to the missionaries, as indeed was
  the other great name, Yoshishige. (We should note that the number of
  Jesuits in Japan did not exceed nine at any time in the 1550s. Not until
  1564 did it reach ten.26) Nor was Xavier's other Kyushu host,
  Matsuura Takanobu of Hirado, a good prospect. Tractable enough at
  first, he soon enough proved to be not only no friend of the Jesuits or
  their religion but also an extremely awkward customer for the Portu-
  guese traders who came to his anchorages. Not for a decade after
  Xavier's departure would a genuinely promising target for solicitation
  be identified among the lords of Kyushu and a proper environment be
  found for the tripartite symbiosis.
  In the meantime, the mission of Kyushu showed little growth. In a
  year's work beginning in late 1557, Padre Gaspar Vilela is said to have
  baptized thirteen hundred people on the islands of Ikitsukijima and
  Takushima and in the other holdings of Matsuura Takanobu's vassal,
  Dom Antonio Koteda Yasutsune (d. 1580), in the vicinity of Hirado.
  Even if one includes this considerable mass of new converts, it is
  unlikely that the number of Christians in Kyushu reached four thou-
  sand in that entire decade. To count the converts in Koteda's fiefdom
  as solid gains may, however, be delusive. The Christian mission there
  was interrupted after that one year, late in 1558, when Takanobu,
  objecting to the book burning and destruction of Buddhist images that
  were part of Vilela's method of evangelization, expelled the padre
  from the Matsuura territory.27 No missionary was permitted to reside
  there for another five years, and it is doubtful that the majority of the
  neophytes could have sustained their faith during those years.
  As he reviewed the faded prospects of the 1550s, Cosme de Torres
  must indeed have been "very sorry to see how time passed without
  there coming about any new conversion" of substance, one that would
  26 See Josef Franz Schutte SJ, ed., Textus catalogorum Japoniae, lSS3-l6S4> Monumenta His-
  lorica Japoniae I, Monumenta Mtssionum Societatis Iesu 34, Monumenta Hislorica Socielalis
  Iesu, vol. i n (1975), nos. 1-10, pp. 3-70.
  27 Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 18, Wicki, vol. 1, pp. 114-16, 121; Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 6, pp. 188-91, 198.
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  DAIMYO, MISSIONARIES, AND MERCHANTS 
  323
  bring in its train a large-scale catechetical project to which "he could
  devote the rest of his life." Having been disappointed yet again by
  Matsuura of Hirado, he sent Irmao Luis de Almeida to explore
  whether someone else among the barons of western Kyushu might not
  be persuaded to turn Christian, "by stirring their hopes that the Great
  Ship (nao de carreira) would come to their harbors, were they to have
  suitable ones." At Almeida's behest, a Portuguese ship's pilot in 1561
  conducted secret soundings of Yokoseura (now a part of Saikai-cho,
  Nagasaki Prefecture), a harbor located at the northern tip of the west
  Sonogi peninsula and belonging to the territory of Omura Sumitada
  (1533-87). When Yokoseura was found to be a suitable port for the
  nao, Sumitada was approached with the suggestion that if he agreed to
  turn Christian and "permit the law of God to be preached in his land,
  great spiritual and temporal profits would follow for him therefrom."
  Sumitada was apparently more than willing to strike a bargain, for he
  promised "that he would give the harbor of Yocoxiura itself to the
  Church, so that a large Christian community might arise there, in
  whose houses the Portuguese traders and their merchandise could be
  sheltered securely; and that if the Portuguese would come to the afore-
  said harbor, he would exempt them and free them of duties for a
  period often years."28
  In 1562, the bargain was made perfect when the Jesuits not only
  arranged for the Great Ship of Pero Barreto Rolim to come to Yokoseura
  but also caused another nao and a Portuguese junk from Macao to be
  brought round from Hirado, where they had already berthed, to
  Sumitada's harbor. Three more Portuguese ships visited Yokoseura in
  1563. In late May or early June of that year, Omura Sumitada was
  baptized, taking the Christian name Bartolomeu. Reference works uni-
  versally call him Japan's first Christian daimyo. Whether the status of a
  daimyo can be properly attributed to him in 1563 is, however, highly
  doubtful. Significantly enough, Visitator Alexandro Valignano - a man
  who knew how to make sharp distinctions - as much as two decades
  later described Dom Bartolomeu as a kunishu, using a term borrowed
  from the feudal vocabulary of Bungo and meaning the same as kokujin,
  that is, no more than a petty lord or baron.29 What was it, then, that
  28 Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 40, Wicki, vol. 1, pp. 270-1; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 6, pp. 293-5. Also see Almeida's own report to Irmaos SJ, dated
  Vocoxiura (Yokoseura), October 25, 1562, Cartas, vol. 1, f. 109; and cf. Valignano, Historia
  del principio y progresso, pp. 445—6.
  29 Valignano, Sumario de las cosas de Japon (1583), Adiciones del Sumario de Japan (1592), ed.
  Jos6 Luis Alvarez-Taladriz, vol. 1, Monumenia Nipponica Monographs, no. 9 (Tokyo: Sophia
  University, 1954), p. 272; Matsuda Kiichi, Sakuma Tadashi, and Chikamatsu Hiroo, trans.,
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  324 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  enabled Sumitada to rise above his equals among the kokujin of Hizen?
  What laid the groundwork for the Omura family's emergence into
  daimyo status? In the final analysis, it was nothing other than
  Sumitada's adoption of Christianity.
  Before he could claim a favorable outcome, however, Sumitada had
  to traverse a long, rocky, and perilous path. Apart from the maritime
  location of his domain in the Sonogi district of Hizen, his resources
  were few. From the very beginning, his lordship was insecure. By
  birth a member of the Arima family of Hizen's Takaku region - he
  was the second son of Arima Haruzumi (1483-1566) - Sumitada suc-
  ceeded to the Omura house by means of adoption. His adoptive father,
  Omura Sumiaki (d. 1551), disinherited his own natural son Mata-
  hachiro (b. 1534) in the interest of forming, through Sumitada, an
  expedient alliance with the Arima. Matahachiro was in turn adopted
  into the Goto family, a Hizen military house that had its seat in Takeo,
  on the borders of Ryuzoji Takanobu's sphere of influence. Better
  known under the name of Goto Takaakira, Matahachiro owes his niche
  in history to his inexorable, but entirely understandable, hostility to
  the man for whose sake he had lost his heritage. He was the begetter,
  active accessory, or intended beneficiary of recurrent plots to do away
  with Sumitada.
  The most notorious of those conspiracies is one that fed on the
  discontent aroused among some of Sumitada's closest liegemen by his
  conversion to Christianity and came to a climax in a coup de main they
  tried on his residence in Yokoseura in the late evening of August 15,
  1563. The newly baptized Dom Bartolomeu barely escaped this at-
  tempt on his life, by fleeing precipitately to the wilderness of Taradake
  on the Sonogi district's eastern border. For weeks or months, it ap-
  peared that he could not recover his lordship. In the train of this
  violent disturbance that shook Yokoseura, a quarrel erupted between
  some of the Bungo merchants whom the presence of the foreign ships
  had attracted there and their Portuguese trading partners. Two or
  three of the latter were killed, while others fled with their goods to the
  safety of the vessels lying at anchor.
  For a few days, the missionaries Cosme de Torres and Luis Frois
  found themselves in captivity, held hostage by the Bungo merchants
  until the Portuguese traders came back ashore to deliver the silks for
  Nihon junsatsukt, vol. 229 of Toyo bunko (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1981), p. 127. Note that Omura
  is ranked only "among the principal lords of the realm of Hizen" and that there is a distinct
  contrast between his status and the higher one oiayakaia held by his natural brother Arima
  Yoshisada, who is alternatively described as rey de Arima.
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  DAIMYO, MISSIONARIES, AND MERCHANTS 
  325
  which they had already been paid more than sixty thousand cruzados'
  worth of silver. For three months thereafter, amity appeared to reign
  again between the Japanese and the Portuguese. Under the stage set-
  ting of good business relations, however, hostility continued to smol-
  der until it burst forth in a spectacular finale to this melodrama
  In late November, as the Portuguese ships were about to leave for
  Macao, the antiforeign party set fire to the Christian church and Jesuit
  house of Yokoseura and burned down the town that the missionaries
  had invested with the name "Port of Our Lady of Succor."30 What
  may be called Japan's first treaty port had flourished for little more
  than a year. The triple alliance between the lord of the domain, the
  missionaries, and the merchants had, to all appearances, broken
  down.
  But the deep links of that symbiosis had not, in fact, been dissolved.
  It was only the external conditions under which its formula had been
  tested that were inadequate. The essential validity of the equation con-
  tinued to be recognized by all three concerned parties. Omura
  Sumitada, for one, certainly remained convinced that privileged access
  to the Portuguese ships and their cargoes was vital to his interests. And
  he wanted those cargoes - especially the Western firearms brought by
  the nao - kept out of the hands of his enemies, such as the Matsuura of
  Hirado.
  In 1564, disregarding the Jesuits' advice to stay away from Hirado,
  the Portuguese traders insisted on going there, but they suffered for
  their pertinacity, losing a substantial part of their goods in a fire alleg-
  edly started with the knowledge (if not on the orders) of Matsuura
  Takanobu. In 1565, however, the Jesuits did manage to persuade
  Captain-Major Dom Joao Pereira to steer his Great Ship and its com-
  panion galliot to Fukuda in Omura Sumitada's domain. True to their
  wako tradition, the Matsuura of Hirado now conspired with some
  Sakai merchants to seize the Portuguese ships and goods, mobilized a
  fleet of some eighty vessels, and attacked the nao at its anchorage. The
  galliot's artillery drove off the assault, inflicting severe casualties on
  the attackers and demonstrating the superiority of Western weapons.
  In 1566, when Sumitada was supplied with munitions by the nao of
  Dom Simao de Mendonca anchored at Fukuda, that superiority was
  proved once again. The weapons from the Great Ship enabled Sumi-
  30 "Porto de nossa Senhora da ajuda," as Luis de Almeida calls it in the date of his letter to
  Irmaos SJ in India, November 17, 1563, Cartas, vol. 1, ff. 129-30. Frois describes the affair
  in his usual dramatic style in Historia, pt. 1, chap. 48, Wicki, vol. 1, pp. 333-41; Matsuda
  and Kawasaki, trans., Furcrisu Nihonshi, vol. 9 (1979), pp. 9 5 - m .
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  326 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  tada to recover a strategic fort in eastern Sonogi from the forces of his
  opponents headed by Goto Takaakira of Takeo, saving Dom Barto-
  lomeu from a situation in which "there remained for him almost no
  human hope."31 With the arms of the "Christian daimyo" blessed in
  this way, the tripartite relationship was obviously flourishing once
  again.
  THE JESUIT COLONY OF NAGASAKI
  Situated on a small bay that is exposed to the Sumo Sea, Fukuda was
  by 1570 found to be less than an ideal anchorage for the Portuguese
  ships. Hence the traders from 1571 onward shifted their activities to a
  more suitable site that lay across the Inasa Hills to the east. The Jesuits
  had been active at that site since 1568; it was called Nagasaki.
  Nagasaki was at the time no more than a group of small and desolate
  hamlets clustered around the unprepossessing fort of Omura Sumi-
  tada's vassal Nagasaki Jinzaemon Sumikage. It had, however, the ines-
  timable advantage of being located on a magnificent natural harbor.
  Within a few years, a settlement of Christians expelled from such
  places as Hirado and Yamaguchi grew up on this spot, and by 1573,
  that settlement was surrounded with rudimentary fortifications.32
  Over the next few decades, Nagasaki developed into a prosperous port
  and a thoroughly Christian city. It would remain both the Christian
  missionaries' and the Portuguese merchants' main base of operations
  in Japan until the former were banned in 1614 and the latter expelled
  in 1639. (To be sure, in the intervening two and a half decades the
  missionaries continued their work in the city and its surroundings
  underground.) Even after that, and throughout the Tokugawa era's
  period of seclusion (1639-1854), Nagasaki continued to be Japan's
  window to the West, as the Dutch were permitted to maintain a trad-
  ing factory there from 1641.
  The early history of the Christian city of Nagasaki and the continu-
  ing evolution of the symbiosis of daimyo, missionaries, and merchants
  were conditioned by the changing tides of war. In the late 1560s,
  northern Kyushu was the scene of a colossal conflict, as the armies of
  Otomo Sorin clashed repeatedly with the forces of Mori Motonari,
  31 Frois, Hisioria, pt. I, chap. 73, Wicki, vol. 2 (1981), p. 153; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 9, p. 277. Fukuda, now a part of the city of Nagasaki, is located on the
  western outskirts of the urban area.
  32 Frois, Hisioria, pt. 1, chaps. 98 and 100, Wicki, vol. 2, pp. 377, 391; Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 9, pp. 360, 387.
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  THE JESUIT COLONY OF NAGASAKI 
  327
  who had not only taken over the territories of the fallen power, the
  Ouchi family, in western Honshu but had also inherited that family's
  tradition of interference in Kyushu affairs. In the autumn of 1569, the
  Mori forces had to be withdrawn from that island when their home
  base in Honshu was threatened by the resurgence of scions of their
  conquered enemies, the houses of Ouchi and Amako. Motonari's allies
  in Kyushu capitulated to Sorin, who took control of Buzen and
  Chikuzen provinces, and all of northern Kyushu appeared to be in the
  grasp of the Otomo. But Sorin had failed to checkmate a wily and
  durable enemy, Ryuzoji Takanobu. The invasion force he sent in 1570
  to rout Ryuzoji out of his fortress of Saga in northeastern Hizen was
  repelled by Takanobu's captain Nabesbima Naoshige (1538-1618).
  Not only was Sorin's advance into Hizen stopped by the failure of this
  expedition, but Takanobu also was freed by his victory to direct his
  attention to areas that lay to the west of his territory. Subduing or
  intimidating the likes of Goto Takaakira, Matsuura Takanobu, and
  Arima Harunobu (i567?-i6i2), Ryuzoji in the course of the 1570s
  came to dominate Hizen.
  Takanobu's ascendancy over Hizen greatly complicated the situa-
  tion of Omura Sumitada, who had been hard pressed just to maintain
  himself even before the rise of this powerful new adversary. Between
  1572 and 1574, Sumitada was beleaguered and nearly destroyed by a
  confederation of external and internal enemies led by his brother-in-
  law, the baron Saigo Sumitaka of Isahaya. His plight was made desper-
  ate when the Great Ship of 1573 was lost at sea, robbing Dom Barto-
  lomeu of sorely needed sustenance and convincing his opponents that
  he had been "deprived of the strength to resist them."33 Sumitada was
  saved from this deadly threat, however, when no fewer than four
  Portuguese ships came to his assistance in 1574. Under the stimulus of
  this latest close escape and seeking to ascertain himself of further relief
  and reinforcement, he decided to stake all on the Portuguese card. But
  that necessitated, in turn, a forceful demonstration of his bona fides to
  his Western allies.
  The chronicler Luis Frois notes that Sumitada appreciated perfectly
  that "only the Christians, for all their small number, had stayed loyal
  to him in the hour of his greatest need." Hence Omura was entirely
  susceptible to the arguments of Padre Gaspar Coelho, the combative
  superior of the Jesuits' mission in western Kyushu, who importuned
  33 Frois, Historia, pt. 1, chap. 98, Wicki, vol. 2, p. 380; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu
  Nihonshi, vol. 9, pp. 365-6.
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  328 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  Dom Bartolomeu to repay the "great obligations" he had incurred to
  God for "freeing him of his enemies." The best way for Sumitada to do
  so, Coelho insisted, was by undertaking to "extinguish totally the
  worship and veneration of the idols in his lands" and to ensure, by the
  "universal conversion of his vassals," that "not a single pagan re-
  mained" there.34
  According to another Jesuit who was fully familiar with the Omura
  mission, Padre Afonso de Lucena, Dom Bartolomeu achieved this
  goal admirably, after having "ordered and required all to become Chris-
  tian, and those who did not want to do so should leave the land. And
  so those whom God did not call to Holy Baptism quitted Omura and
  exiled themselves to other lands with pagan lords."35 Although neither
  Frois nor Lucena says so, these were the familiar, contemporary Ibe-
  rian methods for ensuring political unity and ideological purity by
  means of Catholic uniformity. So that Christianity could flourish, tradi-
  tional religious beliefs had to be extirpated among the populace, and
  the symbols of the native faith destroyed. Accordingly, beginning in
  November 1574, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines were burned or
  demolished throughout the Omura domain. In this way, some sixty
  thousand of Dom Bartolomeu's subjects were indeed made Christian.
  This was the realization of Cosme de Torres's dream and Gaspar
  Coelho's plan, the first "universal conversion" of a feudal domain in
  Japan. To be sure, according to the Jesuit missionaries themselves, it
  took years before this mass of converts, who had been forcibly brought
  to baptism, could be made fit to receive the other sacraments. For all
  that, Omura did become a stalwart Christian territory. It remained the
  very heartland of the Jesuits' Japanese mission until 1606, when Dom
  Bartolomeu's son and successor Omura Yoshiaki (Dom Sancho, 1568-
  1616), piqued at what he construed as the Jesuits' intrigues against his
  interests in Nagasaki, expelled them from his domain and himself
  abandoned the Christian religion for Buddhism. For years after that,
  however - although "almost all of the most noble among his retainers"
  had followed Dom Sancho into apostasy36 - large portions of the popu-
  lace of the Omura domain continued to practice Christianity.
  34 Frois, Historia, pt. I, chap. 104, Wicki, vol. 2, p. 424; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 10 (1979), pp. 9-10.
  35 Padre Afonso de Lucena SJ, Erinnerungen aus der Chrisienheit von Omura: De algumas cousas
  que ainda se alembra o P'Afonso de Lucena que pertencem a Chrisiandade de Omura [1578-
  1614], ed. and trans. Josef Franz Schiitte SJ, Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S.I., vol. 34
  (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1972), pp. 96-7.
  36 Padre Mattheus de Couros SJ to General SJ, annua dated Nagasaki, February 22, 1617, cited
  in Lucena, Erinnerungen, p. 268, n. 124.
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  THE JESUIT COLONY OF NAGASAKI 
  329
  The reduction of the populace of his domain to one common reli-
  gious denomination did not, however, solve Omura Sumitada's exter-
  nal problems. Ryuzoji Takanobu, in particular, kept up the pressure
  on Omura, whose territory he invaded in 1577 and 1578. By 1580, it
  had become apparent that Sumitada could not continue indefinitely to
  resist Ryuzoji's overwhelming force and that he must, at length, sub-
  mit to Takanobu as his liege. Neither Sumitada nor the missionaries,
  however, could countenance the "pagan" Ryuzoji's taking possession
  of Nagasaki (that is, establishing himself in control of the base of the
  Portuguese trade that sustained both Dom Bartolomeu and his Jesuit
  mentors) as he subjected Omura to fealty. The solution formulated
  jointly by Sumitada and the highest Jesuit authority on the scene,
  Visitator Alexandro Valignano - it is difficult to say who took the
  initiative - was the cession of Nagasaki to the Society of Jesus. If
  Sumitada could not retain possession of Nagasaki, then neither would
  Takanobu obtain it.
  In real terms, the resulting "Donation of Bartolomeu" meant that
  Omura surrendered territorial sovereignty over the invaluable harbor
  and its environs to the Jesuits, instead of losing it willy-nilly to
  Ryuzoji. In doing so, he not only made certain that Portuguese ships
  would continue to call regularly at Nagasaki, a port that his donation
  had in a literal sense made a bastion of Christianity, but he also safe-
  guarded for himself a substantial flow of income from the trade of
  those ships: Part of the deal was that the Jesuits were to be given the
  ships' anchorage fees (seven hundred to two thousand cruzados annu-
  ally), but Sumitada would continue to collect the tariff duties on the
  goods that passed through the harbor. These tariffs amounted to sev-
  eral thousand cruzados each year. The Omura officials who collected
  those dues were pledged by the terms of the donation not to "intrude
  into any matter touching upon the jurisdiction or upon the govern-
  ment" of the place.37
  The conveyance of cession that surrendered Nagasaki and the strate-
  gic neighboring locality of Mogi to the Society of Jesus "for always"
  was signed by Omura Sumitada and his son Yoshiaki on Tensho 8.4.27
  (June 9,1580). On an unspecified date in 1580, Sumitada and his suite
  of relatives and retainers - the chief men of the Omura region -
  traveled to Saga, where they bound themselves in vassalage to Ryuzoji
  37 More detail on the "Donation of Bartolomeu," including a translation of the Spanish text of
  Omura's conveyance of cession, may be found in George Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of
  Christianity in Early Modem Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp.
  94-101; see pp. 98-9 on the fortification of the "Church domain."
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  33O 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  Takanobu. The Jesuits were left with full administrative and judicial
  sovereignty in Nagasaki and Mogi "with all the terrains and arable
  lands that appertain thereto." It cannot be overemphasized that in
  accepting the donation, they assumed capital jurisdiction over their
  new domain. In the conveyance, Dom Bartolomeu states explicitly
  that the "Padres of the Society may put as captain over the said place
  whomsoever they please, and remove him from his charge; and to
  whomever they select I give the faculty, that he may kill and exercise
  all the justice necessary for the good government of the land and for
  the chastisement of those that should break the laws thereof."
  How did the Jesuits propose to defend these responsibilities? No
  doubt they knew that Portuguese guns cast a long shadow, and they
  counted on the ambitious daimyo of Kyushu to be wary of those guns.
  But Nagasaki, contrary to what is sometimes asserted, never became a
  Portuguese colony. Instead, it was for a few years a Jesuit colony.
  Ultimately, the security of the missionaries' presence there depended
  on the degree to which whatever Japanese lord held the ascendancy
  over that region believed that advantages would accrue to him or the
  merchants patronized by him from the priests' mediation with the
  Portuguese. At the start of their tenure, however, the Jesuits were
  determined to hold on to their Japanese enclave by force of arms if
  need be. That much is evident from the orders Valignano gave on June
  24, 1580, to fortify it militarily "in a manner to withstand any attack."
  Hence "not only Nagasaki, the harbor of the nao, but also Mogi,
  which covers the Christian areas of [western Kyushu], Omura and
  Arima" were to be "protected with forts and equipped with munitions,
  weapons, and artillery." It may be true that such an elaborate system
  of defenses never came into existence, but even the Apologia, a polemi-
  cal tract that Valignano wrote in 1598, eighteen years after he issued
  these orders, admits the construction of earthworks and their arma-
  ment with five or six pieces of light artillery. (In actuality, a solid
  circumferential wall and bulwarks had been erected by 1581.) In
  short, the Jesuits made military plans and did not fail to act on them.
  They behaved de facto as what they indeed were de jure: a sovereign
  power (even if a small power) on Kyushu soil. This was the seedbed of
  their subsequent difficulties.
  The Jesuits' jurisdiction over Nagasaki was a product of the peculiar
  state of political fragmentation that characterized Sengoku Japan.
  They had a chance of retaining their dominion as long as that state
  prevailed. But Sengoku was about to come to an end. The 1580s were
  the last decade of the century of universal conflict that had rent Japan
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  CHRISTIAN ADVANCES IN KYUSHU 
  331
  to pieces. Even as rout continued in Kyushu, regeneration was well
  under way in central Japan, where the first of the great unifiers, Oda
  Nobunaga (1534-82), was putting the dismembered body politic back
  together by force. One of the principal items among his agenda was
  the elimination of the independent religious establishments that had
  developed into secular powers in the chaos of late medieval Japan.
  Indeed, the subjection of religious institutions to central hegemonic
  control was a major part of the general agenda of reunification.
  The greatest triumph of that policy of subjugation had already been
  sealed two and a half weeks before Omura Sumitada deeded Nagasaki
  to the Jesuits: On May 22, 1580, Kennyo Kosa (1543-92), the pontiff
  of the "religious monarchy" of the Honganji, the major branch of the
  Buddhist True Pure Land sect (Jodo Shinshu), capitulated to Oda
  Nobunaga after a sanguinary ten years' war and went into exile. A few
  months later, on September 10, the great temple fortress of that sect,
  the Ishiyama Honganji in Osaka, was burned, and the most prominent
  Japanese symbol of the combined exercise of religious and secular
  authority thereby was destroyed.
  Even if Nobunaga's power never did extend to Kyushu, that of his
  two great successors would. Hence it would be wise to recall that none
  of the "Three Heroes" of Japan's reunification - Nobunaga, Toyotomi
  Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) - had any tolerance for
  the type of institution that the "Church domain" of Nagasaki was.
  Indeed, they all spent significant parts of their careers in fighting such
  institutions.
  Against that historical background, it appears entirely logical that
  Hideyoshi, in the course of subjugating Kyushu to his central regime
  in 1587, should have objected to the Jesuits' pretensions to authority,
  their compacts with daimyo, and their forced conversions. These ob-
  jections constituted the stuff of his indictment of the "Padres of the
  Society" and formed the rationale for the edicts he issued banning the
  missionaries. For them, the clear message of Hideyoshi's conquest of
  Kyushu was this: Sengoku had come to an end, and with it, the
  Jesuits' freedom of action had ended.
  CHRISTIAN ADVANCES IN KYUSHU
  Neither the extent to which Japan would be transformed by the Three
  Heroes in the coming decades nor the dire consequences that vast
  transformation would have on Japanese Christianity could be pre-
  dicted by the Jesuits as they took possession of Nagasaki in 1580. They
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  332 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  knew that their Japanese mission faced many difficulties, but on the
  whole they had reason to believe that it promised success. To be sure,
  they had experienced problems in settling on a mission method that
  would be rigorously orthodox and at the same time accommodative to
  Japanese customs, but those problems, caused in large part by the
  intransigence of their Japan Superior, Padre Francisco Cabral - a
  castebound Portuguese fidalgo of the most dour sort - were about to
  be resolved by the suave and politic Visitator Valignano, who dis-
  missed Cabral from his charge in 1581. The mission's economic diffi-
  culties persisted, but they were eased substantially by the agreement
  Valignano had negotiated in 1578 with the city of Macao, which gave
  the Jesuits a fixed share in the cargoes of Chinese silk shipped annually
  by the Portuguese from Macao to Japan.
  This direct involvement in commerce was, strictly speaking, inap-
  propriate for members of a religious order, but the dearth of other
  reliable sources of income made it a necessity for the Jesuits, even if it
  involved severe risks. In 1582, for instance, eight thousand cruzados
  of the capital they had invested in silk - and, even more to the point,
  four thousand in expected profit - sank along with the large junk
  belonging to Bartolomeu Vaz Landeiro which was lost off the south-
  western coast of Taiwan.38 For all its risks and its unseemliness, how-
  ever, this commercial venture appeared to be the only practical means
  of sustaining the Japanese mission's expansion and financing the ambi-
  tious institutional improvements planned by Valignano.
  The mission was indeed expanding. As of the end of the year 1581,
  there were sixty-four members of the Society of Jesus in Japan, in-
  cluding twenty Japanese irmdos (at least eleven of these Japanese were
  actively engaged in preaching Christian doctrine, and six were nov-
  ices undergoing probation). In addition, seven European Jesuits as-
  signed to the Japan mission were in Macao, waiting to board ship for
  their final destination. Administratively, these missionaries consti-
  tuted a vice-province of the Society (Padre Gaspar Coelho was the
  vice-provincial, with his seat in Nagasaki), which was divided into
  three main mission areas: Bungo, Shimo (that is, western Kyushu,
  including the Arima and the Omura regions, Hirado, and the Ama-
  kusa Islands), and Miyako (that is, Kyoto, the five "Home Prov-
  inces" of the Kinai, and the neighboring region; Padre Organtino
  Gnecchi-Soldo, the superior of this area, resided in Oda Nobunaga's
  38 Ibid.,pp. 101-6; and Boxer, The Great Ship from Amacon, p. 44. Valignano's own assessment
  of the problem of financing the Japanese mission may be found in Sumario de las cosas de
  Japon, vol. 1, chap. 29, pp. 331-9; Matsuda et al., trans., Nihon junsatsuki, pp. 148-53.
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  CHRISTIAN ADVANCES IN KYUSHU 
  333
  castle town of Azuchi). About 150,000 Christians were under their
  spiritual care.39
  A considerable boost was given the number of their converts when
  Amakusa Shigehisa (baptized Miguel in 1571, d. 1582), a baron in the
  orbit of the Shimazu of Satsuma who had his main residence at
  Kawachi no Ura on one of the Amakusa Islands, was persuaded in
  1577 to undertake the wholesale Christianization of his subjects. In the
  typical manner of such enterprises, the "bonzes" (fiozu, Buddhist
  priests) of Shigehisa's domain were confronted with the choice of
  either turning Christian or leaving Amakusa. Buddhist temples were
  destroyed, and churches arose in their place. In quick order, all of
  Dom Miguel's subjects, "ten or twelve thousand souls," submitted to
  baptism.40
  An even greater advance came with the conversion of Arima
  Harunobu, the lord of the Takaku region of Hizen. Harunobu's father
  Yoshisada (Dom Andre, 1521-76), baptized in April 1576, had in little
  more than half a year brought about the conversion of more than
  twelve thousand of his subjects. After Dom Andre's death that same
  December, however, there followed a persecution in Arima. His suc-
  cessor Harunobu and his principal vassals "expelled the Padres,
  hewed down the crosses, burned the church, and forced the Christians
  of their region to apostatize."41 But Harunobu, like his uncle Omura
  Sumitada, was the target not only of internal rebellions but also of
  external aggression on the part of the powerful Ryuzoji Takanobu;
  hence he, too, was susceptible to the lure of military assistance. The
  Jesuits appreciated and utilized that susceptibility. Indeed, when
  Valignano steered the Great Ship of 1579, a nao belonging to Leonel de
  Brito, to the port of Kuchinotsu in the Arima domain, he did so with
  the direct intention of inducing Arima Harunobu to favor Christianity.
  The Jesuit chronicler Luis Frois tells us that early in 1580, as
  Arima's last forts were either in flames or under siege, Padre Alexan-
  dro Valignano, eager to keep Harunobu from "despairing entirely,"
  ordered that "succor be given the fortresses that were under fire."
  Making sure to "provision them with victuals and some silver, as
  much as he could," Valignano also supplied them with "lead and
  39 On the number of Jesuits in Japan, see Textus catalogorum Japoniae, no. 20, pp. 120-7. On
  the number of Christians, see the chart set out by Schutte in Introductio ad historiam Societatis
  Jesu injaptmia, pp. 429-30.
  40 Frois, Historia, pt. I, chap. 81, Wicki, vol. 2, p. 231; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu
  Nihonshi, vol. 9, p. 321.
  41 Valignano to General SJ, Kuchinotsu, December 10, 1579, cited in Schutte, Valignanos
  Missionsgrundsdtze, vol. I, pt. 1, p. 401.
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  334 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  saltpeter, of which he had laid in a good stock from the nao for this
  purpose (para este effeito)." Close to six hundred cruzados - a great
  sum, in view of the parlous state of the Jesuits' finances - were ex-
  pended in these matters.
  But there were dividends. According to Frois, the intelligence that
  Harunobu could suddenly avail himself of excellent munitions and
  provisions - thanks to the "aid that the Padre had given and would
  continue to give him" - impressed Ryuzoji Takanobu so much that he
  totally lost the confidence of being able to take the fortress of Arima
  and withdrew. Shortly before Easter, April 3, 1580, Arima Harunobu
  in turn let Vahgnano baptize him, taking the Christian name Protasio.
  The balance sheet for the three months spent by Valignano in Arima
  was as follows:
  All the temples of their camis and fotoques [gods and Buddhas] were broken
  up and destroyed — more than forty of them, large and small, among them
  some of the most beautiful and renowned in all Japan; and all the bonzes
  either turned Christian or left [Dom Protasio's] lands. And apart from those
  who newly came to Holy Baptism, there rose again in these lands of Arima
  more than seven thousand souls, those that had either fallen in the persecu-
  tions of the previous years or had been living without Padres, without
  churches, and without doctrine. . . . The bonzes were married, the idols
  were broken up, and the number of converts grows day by day.
  As Frois notes additionally, from this destruction of Shinto shrines and
  Buddhist temples "there were salvaged some remnants for the profit of
  the church," because Dom Protasio, "in accordance with a request"
  from Valignano, donated "the most important temples and their sites"
  for Jesuit projects.42
  The buildings of one such temple were converted into the Jesuits'
  first formal educational institution in Japan, the boys' preparatory
  school known as the Arima seminario, which Valignano called into
  existence some time before the end of June 1580. By October, the
  school had enrolled twenty-two pupils, children of noble houses from
  all over Kyushu; most of them were eventually to enter the Society of
  Jesus.43 Among the populace, too, the work of Christianization pro-
  ceeded apace, and by the beginning of 1582, some twenty thousand
  Christians could be counted in the Arima domain.
  With the contiguous territories of Omura, Arima, and Amakusa
  42 Frois, Historia, pt. 2, chap. 20, Wicki, vol. 3, pp. 145, 149; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. ioi pp. 160, 165-6.
  43 Jose Alvarez-Taladriz provides a list of the pupils enrolled in the Arima Seminario between
  1580 and 1583 in Sumario de lascosas dejapon, vol. i,chap. 4, n. 75, pp. 85-8.
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  THE VICISSITUDES OF BUNGO 
  335
  converted, a Christian bloc seemed to be coming into existence in the
  "Shimo" mission area. Although Arima Harunobu's motives for con-
  version appear questionable, in his long subsequent career as a daimyo
  he proved a staunch supporter of Christianity. Under his patronage,
  Takaku developed into a solidly Christian region, one where the prac-
  tice of the Christian faith continued, resisting extinction to the utter-
  most, even after being driven underground by the general persecution
  pursued in earnest by the Tokugawa regime after 1614. No wonder
  that in 1637 and 1638, Arima and Amakusa became the scene of the
  so-called Shimabara Rebellion, a peasant uprising heavily colored with
  the tones of a millenarian Christianity.
  THE VICISSITUDES OF BUNGO
  Meanwhile, how did the cause of the missionaries fare in Bungo, their
  other major area of activity in Kyushu? For all of Otomo Sorin's
  constant show of favor to the Jesuits, they were not held in high regard
  in his domain. As many as two thousand of the populace may have
  been baptized as early as the 1550s, but for a long time the upper levels
  of society remained barren ground for the seed of Christianity. In
  almost a quarter-century from Xavier's visit to Bungo's provincial
  capital, Funai, the Jesuits managed to convert no more than one mem-
  ber of its nobility, a man they had cured of a disease. Apparently, their
  works of charity among the distressed and downtrodden, such as the
  leper ward of their hospital in Funai, had if anything put them in
  disrepute among the upper crust - "a great impediment," Padre Fran-
  cisco Cabral noted dyspeptically, "to the growth of Christianity."44
  The missionaries' prospects changed markedly for the better only
  after Sorin's second son, the fourteen-year-old Chikaie, was baptized
  at Christmastime 1575 at the behest of his father, taking the name
  Sebastiao. A number of young samurai followed Chikaie's example,
  and the Christian religion began to gain esteem in Bungo. But greater
  things were yet to come. In 1578, Sorin himself was converted.
  Curiously enough, a marital problem and an extramarital affair
  formed the direct background of Sorin's decision to become Christian.
  The wife he had taken in 1550, with whom he had three sons and five
  daughters, was a passionate adherent of Shinto and Buddhism and no
  friend of Christianity, as perhaps befitted a daughter of the grand
  44 Padre Francisco Cabral SJ to General SJ, Kuchinotsu, September 9, 1576, cited in Schutte,
  Valignanos Missionsgrundsdtze, vol. I, pt. I, pp. 288-9.
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  336 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  priest (daiguji) of the Nada Hachiman Shrine, one of the two most
  important Shinto sanctuaries in Bungo. Naturally, she was loathed by
  the Jesuits, who painted her in the most garish colors in their writings.
  Depicting her as a malicious and relentless opponent of all their pious
  designs, they made sure that they perpetuated her image as that of a
  righteous ruler's perverse consort: The only name by which she is
  known in history is the highly descriptive nickname they used every
  time they referred to her in their propaganda, "Jezebel."
  According to Frois, by the beginning of 1578 this virago had driven
  her husband ill with her violent temper. Hence Sorin sought consola-
  tion from a noblewoman who served "Queen Jezebel" as her chief
  lady-in-waiting. We are assured that it was not this court lady's
  comeliness - "which she did not have, for she was already a woman of
  forty" - that attracted the ailing "king of Bungo" but, rather, her
  spiritual qualities, the dedication with which she nursed him on his
  sickbed, and her excellent sense of how to manage a household; more-
  over, she was already related to him by marriage, as her daughter was
  the wife of Sorin's son Sebastiao. In any event, Sorin abandoned the
  termagant "Jezebel," left his residential castle in Usuki for a seaside
  villa in a nearby spot called Gomiura, and one night ordered the lady
  "to be taken secretly from the palace [to Gomiura], where he kept her
  as his wife."
  Removed from "Jezebel's" poisonous influence, the two could
  freely hear Christian instruction. First the lady was converted, receiv-
  ing the name Julia in baptism. (At the same time her daughter was
  baptized, taking the name Cointa.) Then Sorin quit the practice of
  Zen meditation, was tutored on the prerequisites and the obligations
  of a Christian marriage, accepted the truth of Christianity, and was
  baptized on August 28,1578, with the name Francisco. The two could
  now properly be admitted to the sacrament of matrimony; "Jezebel"
  was no impediment, as she was an unregenerate pagan.
  Frois, who was at the time in question the superior of the mission
  area of Bungo, tells this astonishing story demurely.45 He has every
  intention of justifying Sorin. Even this tendentious chronicler refers,
  however, to the great scandal that was aroused by Sorin's actions
  among "Jezebel's" relatives and party takers; and some of these, such
  as her brother Tawara Chikakata, the head of the Tawara family (one
  of the three principal cadet branches of the house of Otomo), ranked
  45 Frois, Historia, pt. 2, chaps. 2 and 3, Wicki, vol. 3, pp. 12-28; Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 7, 128-55; quotations from p. 13 and p. 129, respectively.
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  THE VICISSITUDES OF BUNGO 
  337
  among the highest grandees of the Bungo realm. This sort of affair was
  the stuff of legend. Looking at it and other real or imagined scandals
  from their own perspective, the Japanese chroniclers of the Edo period
  saw grounds to depict Otomo Sorin as a selfwilled tyrant and a de-
  graded, crapulent lecher.
  The Jesuits, however, heroized their "good King Francisco of
  Bungo" as the ideal ruler. To them, his conversion was a triumph, one
  that was celebrated throughout their establishments in Portuguese Asia
  with high masses, edifying sermons, and solemn processions. In
  Cochin, for instance, it was the subject of a festive dramatic representa-
  tion that aroused feelings of "gratification, exultation, and devotion." It
  was there that Matteo Ricci, a young missionary on his way to the
  memorable palaces of China, wrote that he and his friends all were filled
  with the hope that with Sorin's baptism, "not only all his kingdoms,
  which number five or six, will be converted, but all of Japan."46 As far as
  these optimists were concerned, this was a reasonable expectation. For
  all they knew, "King Francisco" was still at the zenith of his power,
  prepotent in Kyushu, one of the mightiest rulers in Japan. They were
  unaware that their triumph was but the prelude to a disaster.
  At the beginning of the year 1578 (the time of Sorin's break with
  "Jezebel"), a grave new strategic threat developed on the southeastern
  flank of the Otomo realm. This threat was the rise of the house of
  Shimazu, which had been plagued for a century by tumults among its
  own collaterals, nominal vassals, and the refractory kokujin of Satsuma
  and Osumi. By the middle of the 1570s, the Shimazu had managed to
  subject the barons of those two provinces to fealty. Under the leader-
  ship of the consolidator of the authority of his house, Yoshihisa (1533—
  1611, r. 1566-87 as daimyo), they then embarked on an ambitious
  program of expansion that was to transform the entire political com-
  plexion of Kyushu.
  The first external target of the Shimazu was their old enemy, the Ito
  family of Hyuga, which had gained preeminence in that province
  during their time of troubles. By January 1578, the armies of Shimazu
  Yoshihisa and his brother Yoshihiro (1535-1619) had conclusively de-
  feated the levies of the Ito, forcing the young head of that house,
  Yoshikata (1567-98), to flee Hyuga and seek the assistance of his
  maternal relatives, the Otomo. Sorin had retired as daimyo in 1576,
  46 Padre Manoel Teixeira SJ to General SJ, dated Cochym, January 30, 1580, Documenta Indica
  XI (1577-80), ed. Josef Wicki SJ, in Monumenia Historica Societatis lesu, vol. 103 (1970), no.
  n o , p. 802; Padre Matteo Ricci SJ to Padre Martino de Fornari SJ, dated Coccino, January
  30, 1580, ibid., no. 118, p. 847.
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  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  passing on the rulership of his great domain to his eldest son,
  Yoshimune (1558-1605). But the Otomo were more than willing to
  help the Ito. Rising to the challenge of the Shimazu, they decided on a
  massive intervention. A new daimyo eager to prove himself, Yoshi-
  mune in the late spring of 1578 sent into Hyuga an army variously
  estimated as forty thousand or sixty thousand strong.
  To intervene in this way was not a wise decision. For one thing,
  committing such a large force to the south laid bare the Otomo
  realm's western frontiers, which could never be considered safe from
  Ryuzoji Takanobu's grasping reach. For another, it also exposed the
  north, if not to the risk of being invaded again by the Mori (who had
  their hands full at the time trying to fight off Oda Nobunaga), then
  to the danger of destructive forays by lesser names among the inde-
  pendent barons and disaffected vassals of that area, such as Akizuki
  Tanezane (1545-96) of Chikuzen and Tsukushi Hirokado (1556-
  1623) of Chikugo.
  At the start, however, the Otomo campaign in Hyuga went well.
  Between the Bungo border and the Mimikawa, a river that flows into
  the Hyuga Sea about one-third of the way down the long coastline of
  the invaded province, the only adherent of the Shimazu to put up
  serious opposition to the Otomo was Tsuchimochi Chikanari, the lord
  of Matsuo Castle in what is now the city of Nobeoka. On May 16,
  1578, Matsuo Castle fell; Chikanari, who was captured alive, was
  forced to disembowel himself. To make certain that everyone under-
  stood that the Tsuchimochi territory had new masters, Sorin and
  Yoshimune "ordered that the monasteries and temples of the camis and
  fotoques located there should be burned and laid waste; and so it was
  being done" when Sorin himself - a Christian, it will be recalled, only
  since August (Yoshimune would not submit to baptism until 1587) -
  decided in October of that year to move to that territory and build
  there a model Christian community.47
  Accompanied by his wife Julia, by the Japan Superior of the Jesuits
  Padre Francisco Cabral, and by three hundred Christian samurai,
  Sorin settled his new residence at Mushika (now part of the city of
  Nobeoka). His plan was to found here a city that would be "ruled with
  new laws and institutions, different from those of Japan." This city
  would be the center of a province transformed into Utopia: "So that
  the natives of Fiunga [Hyuga] could form a more perfect union" with
  47 Frois, Historia, pt. 2, chap. 2, Wicki, vol. 3, pp. 18-19, 38-40; Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 7, pp. 135-6, 168, 170.
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  THE VICISSITUDES OF BUNGO 
  339
  Sorin and his people, "they would all have to become Christians and
  live with each other in brotherly love and concord." This may appear
  to be a more radically formulated policy than that of the other "Chris-
  tian daimyo," but the methods used to attain the goal of Christian
  unity were to be the same.
  To ensure that the new conquest of the Otomo would indeed be
  "ruled and governed according to the laws and customs of Europe,"
  the "good King Francisco," encouraged by the missionaries, sought to
  make a clean sweep of the places of worship and the sacred images of
  Japanese religion in Hyuga. In Bungo, too, Sorin ordered Shinto
  shrines and Buddhist temples to be destroyed. But Hyuga seems to
  have been a special case. The Christian neophyte Sorin and his Jesuit
  mentors felt the need to be especially zealous and demonstrative in
  their work of demolition there, "because of the extraordinary venera-
  tion enjoyed by the camis and the cult of the fotoques in that land."
  Throughout the territory occupied by the Otomo, those Buddhist
  priests who had not fled to other parts but had chosen to stay (al-
  though left "without their old benefices and reputation") had good
  reason to go about "downcast and disconsolate, their temples and their
  dwellings demolished, and their idols pulled down." But Sorin's "holy
  enterprise" (santo exercicio) was brought to an abrupt end by an event
  that was unforeseen by the missionaries as totally as it was unexpected
  by the Otomo. Instead of conquering all Hyuga as they planned, the
  Otomo suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Shimazu. Before
  the year 1578 was out, Sorin and his entourage of Jesuits had to flee
  Mushika, as whatever was left of the Otomo armies streamed back to
  Bungo in disorder.
  The plural must be used in speaking of the "Otomo armies," as it is
  clear that one is discussing uncoordinated troop units led onward by
  constantly bickering rival captains, rather than an integrated body of
  men under the firm command of a single general in chief. It is remark-
  able that neither the daimyo Yoshimune - who lingered on in Notsu,
  no more than twelve kilometers (about 7.5 miles) from his home base
  of Usuki, instead of proceeding to the front - nor the "good King
  Francisco," who busied himself about his never-never civitas Dei in
  Mushika, was with those troops as they closed with the enemy. In-
  stead, the man who presided over their march to the shambles was
  "Jezebel's" brother Tawara Chikakata, whom Western and Japanese
  sources with rare unanimity call an incompetent at the art of war and a
  coward. And yet, not having encountered much opposition along the
  way, the Otomo forces were full of confidence (and off their guard) as
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  34° 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  they debouched into the open ground of the river Omarugawa, the
  dividing line between northern and southern Hyuga.
  There their progress was blocked by the fortress called Takajo (lo-
  cated in what is now Kijo-cho, Miyazaki Prefecture). An assault on the
  castle failed, due largely to the lack of unity and order among the
  captains of the attackers; they then agreed to settle down to a siege.
  Unfortunately for them and their soldiers, they neglected to take the
  elementary precaution of securing their flanks and rear. The while,
  unscouted and unrecognized by Bungo's captains, two strong forma-
  tions of Shimazu troops, led by the daimyo Yoshihisa's brothers
  Yoshihiro and Iehisa (d. 1587), advanced to the relief of Takajo.
  On December 10, 1578 (Tensho 6.11.12), Yoshihiro's and Iehisa's
  pincers closed about the hapless forces of the Otomo. Twenty thou-
  sand of Sorin's and Yoshimune's men are usually said to have perished
  in the ensuing slaughter. That figure may be exaggerated, as the num-
  ber of the common soldiers (zohyo) who lost their lives could only be
  estimated. It is known, however, that as many as three thousand men-
  at-arms (that is, heavy-armed and mounted samurai, hitakabuto) were
  either slain on this battleground or drowned in the eddies of the
  torrential Mimikawa River as they sought to escape. Among those who
  suffered death were a dozen top-ranking captains, but their general
  Tawara Chikakata, who was reported killed, had in fact managed to
  run away; he would reappear in Bungo more than a month after his
  defeat. The fearsome magnitude of the rout that overcame the "seven-
  province host of the Otomo" and the great and terrible extent of its
  killing ground may be surmised by considering that although the
  encounter began at Takajo on the Omarugawa, the running action
  continued as far as the Mimikawa, which flows some twenty-five kilo-
  meters (15.5 miles) to the north. Hence this great combat is known in
  history as the battle of Mimikawa.
  The missionaries sought to find a meaning for the disaster that had
  befallen their patron "King Francisco" and his cause in the "lofty and
  mysterious judgments" of God. Luis Frois, for one, evidently thought
  that he had an insight into those judgments. As far as he was concerned,
  the chief cause of that disaster was God's desire to "punish the people of
  Bungo" for their sins, which "had accumulated to an extent that God
  could no longer choose to ignore."48 Using a diametrically opposite line
  48 Ibid., chap. 10, pp. 70-1 and p. 220, respectively. This chapter is a fine illustration of the
  dramatic bravura of the Counter-Reformation historian Frois. The passionate tirade on the
  faults of Bungo's captains is followed up by a truly magnificent, venomous indictment of
  Tawara Chikakata.
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  THE VICISSITUDES OF BUNGO 
  341
  of reasoning, the "pagan" survivors of Mimikawa reached a similar-
  sounding conclusion regarding the main cause of their downfall. They,
  too, blamed the Christian God. Unlike the Jesuits, however, they
  heaped obloquy on his adherents. Prominent among those who blamed
  the Jesuits for all of Bungo's woes was the revenant Tawara Chikakata,
  but he was joined by many other peers of the dominions of the Otomo.
  The concerns and sentiments of those traditionalists are expressed most
  eloquently in the remonstrance that Sorin's great vassal Tachibana
  Dosetsu (i5i3?-85) addressed to a group of elders of the Otomo realm
  on Tensho 8.2.16 (March 1, 1580).49
  As the keeper of Tachibana Castle in Chikuzen (located in what is
  now Shingu-machi, immediately to the northeast of present-day
  Fukuoka), Dosetsu was the guardian of that realm's northwestern
  reaches: His fortress was the cornerstone of the entire Otomo position
  in the perimeter that extended from Higo through Chikuzen into
  Buzen. Accordingly, Dosetsu had to bear the full brunt of the conse-
  quences of the defeat in Hyuga, as the news of Mimikawa brought on a
  wave of defections from the ranks of Otomo vassals in that wide area.
  The perimeter crumbled.
  There was no doubt that Sorin's infatuation with Christianity at the
  expense of the traditional religious beliefs, practices, and institutions
  of the warrior class had exacerbated the retainers' disaffection from
  the Otomo. Hence Dosetsu sounds particularly alarmed when he la-
  ments what he cannot comprehend, namely, the abandonment of cus-
  toms that had prevailed among Otomo samurai from time immemo-
  rial: "to pray for the gods' and the Buddhas' protection, to stand on
  what is right and proper, and then to take up bow and arrow." Instead,
  according to Dosetsu, what had been going on in Bungo was some-
  thing unheard-of in previous generations: "young and old, men and
  women made willy-nilly into [adherents of] something that's supposed
  to be an Indian sect or whatever [Tenjiku-shu to yaran]; temples and
  shrines destroyed; [images of] the Buddhas and the gods either cast
  into the river or turned into firewood." To one who believed in the
  article of faith, "Japan is the Land of the Gods," as firmly as did
  Tachibana Dosetsu, it was apparent that the impious excesses that had
  been latterly committed in the Otomo domain in the name of the
  49 The remonstrance, addressed to Shiga Ise Nyudo Doki, Ichimada Hydbu Nyudo Sokei, and
  eleven others, can be found in Takita Manabu, ed., Otomo shityo, vol. 2 (Oita: Kin'yodo
  shoten, 1938), no. 89, pp. 56-66. For a synopsis of Tachibana Dosetsu's career in the service
  of the Otomo, see Toyama Mikio, Otomo Sorin, vol. 172 of Jimbutsu sosho (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kdbunkan, 1975), pp. 60-3.
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  342 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  foreign faith - of Christianity - invited punishment from the Buddhas
  and the gods.
  For all that, Tachibana Dosetsu remained loyal to the Otomo. That
  was not the case, however, with the majority of the provincial gentry of
  Chikuzen, Chikugo, and Higo, to whom the news of the Mimikawa
  debacle was a clear signal to cast off their allegiance - an imposed,
  unwelcome, and always tenuous loyalty - to the Otomo. Some sought
  a new alliance with the Shimazu; others looked to Ryuzoji Takanobu
  for protection. Serious disturbances afflicted the very core of the do-
  main: In Bungo itself, there was dissatisfaction with Yoshimune's lead-
  ership, discord within the ruling house, and discontent among close
  vassals of the Otomo.
  Yet the crisis passed. The Otomo survived Mimikawa's immediate
  aftermath, because the victors did not press home their advantage. In
  1580, the Shimazu made peace with the Otomo, ostensibly as a result
  of the intercession of the most powerful and the most prestigious
  authorities of Kyoto, the hegemon Oda Nobunaga joined by the
  former imperial regent (kampaku) and future grand chancellor of state
  (daijo daijiri), Konoe Sakihisa (1536-1612).50 In actuality - and quite
  paradoxically - it was Ryuzoji Takanobu's expansionist ambitions
  that, for the time being, removed the threat of destruction from the
  lords of Bungo. Takanobu rushed to fill the power vacuum created in
  Higo by the weakening of Otomo influence. By the middle of 1581,
  Ryuzoji had established a strong forward position in that province,
  thereby threatening Satsuma, the home of the Shimazu. Faced by the
  need to protect their northwestern flank, the Shimazu diverted their
  attention from Bungo. Inexorably, the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu
  headed for a showdown, one that would end with Ryuzoji Takanobu's
  defeat and death in 1584.
  The respite granted the Otomo by this shifting of the fronts in
  Kyushu brought on a kind of Indian summer for the Jesuits in Bungo.
  But they failed to perceive that the Shimazu had vouchsafed "King
  Francisco" and his realm not a reprieve but only a temporary stay of
  execution. Valignano, who stayed in Bungo from September 1580 to
  March 1581 and then again in October 1581, found "happiness and
  consolation" in what he had accomplished there on his first visit;
  50 Nobunaga to Konoe (Sakihisa), dated [Tensho 8].8.12, in Okuno Takahiro, Oda Nobunaga
  monjo no kenkyu, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1973), no. 885, pp. 519-20;
  Nobunaga to Shimazu Shuri no Diabu (Yoshihisa), same date, and Konoe Sakihisa to Shimazu
  Hyogo no Kami (Yoshihiro), dated [Tensho 8].9.19, ibid., no. 886, pp. 520-2. Konoe
  Sakihisa, who had been kampaku from 1554 to 1569, was to be appointed daijo daijin in 1582.
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  THE END OF RYUZOJI TAKANOBU 
  343
  hence he was cured, he stated, of his previous pessimism regarding the
  future of the Christian mission in Japan.
  As late as December 1581, when the visitator and the padres of the
  Shimo area met in Nagasaki for a lengthy consultation on the ques-
  tions that most affected their Japanese enterprise, they thought that all
  in all, Bungo was "the most secure kingdom" they knew in Japan.
  "Strong, belonging to one king only, and situated in the midst of other
  kingdoms belonging to the same king," the Otomo realm contrasted
  favorably with the Shimo and Miyako regions, "which are turned
  topsy-turvy every day and are kept perturbed by wars."51 Hence the
  major formative institutions of the Society of Jesus in Japan were
  located in Bungo. A novitiate was formally opened in Usuki at Christ-
  mas 1580, with twelve candidate members of the Jesuit order (six of
  them Portuguese and six Japanese) starting on a period of probation
  that was prescribed to last at least one full year and, if possible, two. A
  Jesuit "college of studies," which was located in Funai, also began
  operations in the latter part of the year 1580. But these institutions
  were not destined to enjoy a long life: Both had to be closed in Decem-
  ber 1586. Late that month, apprentice Jesuits and their professed
  masters, budding Latinists and aspiring Japanologists, all were forced
  to flee the domain of the Otomo and seek other and mightier patrons'
  protection from the Shimazu armies that flooded over Bungo and
  visited the last corners of that province with destruction.
  THE END OF RYtJZOJI TAKANOBU
  It is another irony of history that this disaster suffered by "King
  Francisco" and his house should have had as its direct antecedent a
  famous victory celebrated by another "Christian daimyo" and great
  friend of the Jesuits, Dom Protasio Arima. Desperate to ward off
  Ryuzoji Takanobu, who continued to foment rebellion among his vas-
  sals and to whittle away his territory, Arima in 1582 turned for assis-
  tance to the Shimazu. It was high time, because by then the house of
  Arima - so prominent in Hizen once - had little left in its possession
  beyond a paltry coastal strip of the Shimabara peninsula. Seizing the
  opportunity to outflank Ryuzoji, the Shimazu agreed to help. In De-
  cember 1582, they sent an expeditionary force across the Yatsushiro
  Sea and Shimabara Bay to Arima.
  51 Japan Consultation, Question 8: "Whether it is good to establish some houses in Japan where
  Ours would live conjointly in the manner of a college," Point III (2), in Valignano, Sumario de
  las cosas de Japan, vol. 1, p. 107.
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  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  The allies made little progress, as transport difficulties, if nothing
  else, made a massive transfer of Satsuma troops from other fronts
  impossible. By the middle of April 1584, not many more than five
  thousand had arrived, but they were picked men serving under the
  command of a fine general, Shimazu Iehisa. Even so, the troops at the
  disposal of Iehisa and Dom Protasio only numbered about 6,300 when
  they laid siege to Shimabara, one of the important fortresses that had
  been played into Ryuzoji's hands by Arima's treacherous vassals.
  Observing the numerical weakness of his enemy, Takanobu quickly
  moved to the relief of Shimabara with the whole glittering array of his
  main force, which is said, depending on the source, to have numbered
  between 25,000 and 50,000 men. On Tensho 12.3.24 (May 4,1584, by
  the Gregorian calendar), this huge force was routed at Okidanawate, a
  spot on the seashore between Shimabara and Mie (now part of the city of
  Shimabara), by the far smaller allied army of Arima and the Shimazu.
  An important role in the allies' dramatic success was played by a naval
  vessel belonging to an Arima nobleman and armed with two pieces of
  Western artillery, which bombarded the Ryuzoji troops clustered on the
  beach. "In the absence of a [trained] gunner, a Caffir loaded, a Japanese
  soldier aimed, and a Malabari fired the pieces." These three were no
  doubt all natives of Hizen; strange though it may seem, according to
  Frois, they praised the Lord as they passed the ammunition.52
  Providentially, the marching orders issued by Ryuzoji reached
  Omura Sumitada, his constrained vassal, too late. On their way to
  Shimabara, Sumitada and his hastily gathered contingent were still
  some "6 or 7 leagues [36-42 kilometers] from the field of battle" when
  they "encountered much soldiery who were fleeing as fast as their
  horses' hooves would carry, away from the disaster that had befallen
  Tacanobu and his entire army."53 Dom Bartolomeu wisely turned back
  to Omura Castle and escaped being caught up in the general rout. Thus
  the "Christian daimyo" of both the contending sides survived the battle
  of Okidanawate. But the "diabolical" Ryuzoji had been killed; the
  Christianity of western Kyushu was saved from his clutches.
  And yet the Jesuits' troubles were far from over. No less infernal an
  52 There is an extensive treatment of this campaign in Frois, Historia, pt. 2 [B], chaps. 6-9,
  Wicki, vol. 4 (1983), pp. 42-70; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 10,
  pp. 287-337; quotation from p. 59 and p. 316 (incomplete translation), respectively. Note
  that contemporary and near-contemporary Jesuit sources give the date of the battle of
  Okidanawate as April 24, 1584, that is, according to the Julian calendar, as the news of the
  reform that put the Gregorian calendar into effect in Catholic lands of Europe in October
  1582 had not yet reached Japan at the time when the combat took place.
  53 Lucena, Erinnerungen, pp. 254-5.
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  THE END OF RYOZOJI TAKANOBU 
  345
  adversary, the Shimazu family, became the masters of western Kyushu
  as a result of Takanobu's demise and the subsequent collapse of the
  Ryuzoji realm. To be sure, the resounding victory of the Shimazu at
  Okidanawate did not immediately elevate them to unquestioned su-
  premacy over that part of the island. They still had rivals in Kyushu.
  To start with, there were the Otomo, who either failed to recognize or
  sought to mask the weakness that had overcome them since the black
  day of Mimikawa in 1578; in any event, they thought they had the
  reputation of a major power to uphold. Naturally, they welcomed the
  chance to pick up the pieces left behind by the fall of one implacable
  enemy, Ryuzoji Takanobu, and at the same time to counteract, if not
  forestall, the rise of another, the Shimazu.
  In the fall of 1584, Otomo Yoshimune accordingly sent troops into
  Chikugo. His intention was to intimidate and bring to heel Takanobu's
  son and successor, Ryuzoji Masaie (1556-1607), while at the same
  time checkmating Akizuki Tanezane, that old enemy of the Otomo.
  Yoshimune's envoys even proposed that the Shimazu join him in an
  offensive alliance directed against those two.54 But their forcible-
  feeble policy availed the Otomo nothing. Their Chikugo army first
  encamped at Bandoji (now part of the city of Chikugo, Fukuoka Pre-
  fecture), then moved camp to Korasan (now Kurume), and after that
  hardly stirred from its lines. Its few offensive operations ended in
  failure, and in November 1585, even before the Shimazu could inter-
  vene in force against the Otomo, the Chikugo army finally withdrew
  from the field. One of its two generals, the famous Otomo loyalist
  Tachibana Dosetsu, was dead. The other, Takahashi Joun (1550-86),
  returned to his fortress at Iwaya in Chikuzen (now part of Dazaifu-
  machi, Fukuoka Prefecture) and braced himself to meet the onslaught
  that was sure to come. For it must be admitted that the futile maneu-
  vers of this forlorn army, along with some feeble gestures made by
  Yoshimune toward the recovery of Higo, did have one concrete result.
  They provided the Shimazu with a casus belli against the Otomo.
  At this juncture - in the late autumn and early winter of 1585 - it
  became vitally important for the Shimazu to consolidate their position
  in Kyushu and, if possible, to seize control of the entire island before an
  external force could intrude there to cross their plans and block their
  54 According to what Ryuzoji's ambassadors reported to the Shimazu, the Otomo were at the
  same time proposing an anti-Shimazu alliance to Masaie. See Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo,
  ed., Umai Kakuken nikki, vol. 2, Dai Nihon kokiroku, no. 5 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1954),
  pp. 125-6, entry for Tensho 12.10.15 (November 17, 1584). Also see the entries for 9.21 and
  9.25 of the same year, ibid., p. 113 and pp. 114-15, respectively.
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  346 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  triumphal progress. That such an intervention from the outside was
  more than likely became apparent to them with the arrival of an imperi-
  ous message, dated the second day of the tenth month (November 23,
  1585), from Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Speaking for the sovereign in the
  capacity of his imperial regent (kampaku) - a lofty appointment he had
  obtained through intimidation three and a half months previously55 -
  Hideyoshi grandiloquently told Shimazu Yoshihisa that the whole
  realm, "as far as the outer limits of Oshu," had now submitted to the
  imperial will and was at peace. This was balderdash, but it contained a
  serious threat. Kyushu alone, Hideyoshi asserted, was still plagued by
  war; this was a reprehensible state of affairs, and Yoshihisa must put a
  stop to it or suffer punishment.
  The Shimazu, conscious of their status as a "house of unblemished
  lineage since the days of Yoritomo," were outraged at the bluster of
  this "parvenu" (yurai nakijin). Considering Hideyoshi obviously unfit
  for his new office and unworthy to be addressed with the deference
  ordinarily due a kampaku, they refused to dignify his ultimatum with
  the courtesy of a direct reply. Instead, Yoshihisa chose the expedient of
  writing back to an intermediary, the "literary daimyo" Hosokawa
  Fujitaka (1534-1610). Protesting the Shimazu party's solemn commit-
  ment and scrupulous adherence to the armistice agreement arranged
  by Oda Nobunaga and Konoe Sakihisa in 1580, and putting the blame
  on the Otomo for violating the peace of Kyushu with their recent
  incursions into Hyuga and Higo, Yoshihisa insisted that any counter-
  measures by the Shimazu were steps taken in justifiable self-defense.
  In other words, the Shimazu would not abandon their aggressive de-
  signs in order to placate Hideyoshi. Instead, they planned an intensifi-
  cation of the conflict in Kyushu.
  The contents of this fateful correspondence were revealed to the
  principal captains of the Shimazu at a council of war held in Kagoshima
  in February and March 1586. The diary of Uwai Kakuken (or Uwai
  Satokane; 1545-89), the castellan of Miyazaki in Hyuga who was one of
  Yoshihisa's senior councilors, affords us an interesting glimpse into the
  proceedings.56 The die was cast, or rather the lots (mikuji) were drawn,
  55 See my "Hideyoshi, the Bountiful Minister," in Elison and Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, &
  Commoners, pp. 229-32.
  56 The text of Hideyoshi's message to Shimazu Yoshihisa may be found in Uwai Kakuken nikki,
  vol. 3 (1957), p. 89, entry for Tensho 14.1.23 (March 13, 1586). Kakuken notes that
  Hosokawa Fujitaka and Hideyoshi's confidant, the interior decorator Sen no Rikyu (1522-
  91), had sent adjunct letters (soejo) supplementing that message. Yoshihisa addressed his
  reply to Hosokawa; the text, dated [Tensho 14]. 1.11, is found ibid., pp. 89-90. The lots
  regarding the invasion of Bungo were drawn on 1.22; ibid., p. 88.
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  ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS OF COELHO 
  347
  at this council. Their oracle made it evident that the gods wanted Bungo
  to be invaded from two directions. Shimazu Yoshihiro was to lead a
  force that would strike through Higo. Commanding another army in an
  advance through Hyuga would be the daimyo Yoshihisa in person.
  THE ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS OF VICE-PROVINCIAL
  COELHO
  Their opponents did not stand idly by as the Shimazu prepared for war.
  In May 1586, Otomo Sorin himself traveled to Osaka to seek Hideyo-
  shi's pledge of military support. Although he got no such assurance
  directly from Hideyoshi, who was at his most garrulous as he conducted
  his awestricken guest on a tour through the sumptuous bedchambers,
  tearooms, and treasure houses of his nonesuch of the moment, Osaka
  Castle, Otomo could nevertheless go home with his fears assuaged, as
  the kampaku's half-brother and right hand, Hashiba Hidenaga (1541?-
  91), promised to take care of everything to Sorin's complete satisfac-
  tion.57 Among the others who were engaged in lobbying activities in
  Osaka that spring was the vice-provincial of the Jesuits, Padre Gaspar
  Coelho. His mission, too, was adverse to the interests of the Shimazu,
  whose oppressive dominance over the Christian areas of Kyushu he
  sought to resist at all costs. Indeed, he had undertaken the journey from
  Nagasaki to the Kansai in defiance of their express prohibition.
  His trip was absolutely necessary, Coelho tried to tell the Shimazu,
  because he had an obligation to express his thanks to Hideyoshi for
  permitting the Jesuits to maintain an establishment in Osaka. Even
  while granting the mission superior of Japan the necessity of making
  such a courtesy visit, one wonders about its timing. The Jesuits had
  been enjoying the hegemon's protection in his great new castle town
  since 1583. What, then, was Coelho's hurry? No fools, the Shimazu
  suspected that the vice-provincial "went to Miaco for no other purpose
  than to arrange with Quambacu [the kampaku Hideyoshi] that he
  should favor Bungo and assist it against Saccuma, which is the king-
  dom of the most inveterate and hard-bitten enemies that the Law of
  God has in Japan."58
  57 Sorin reported on his visit to Osaka in detail in a letter addressed to three of the elders of
  Bungo realm, Furuso Tango Nyudo (Ikkan), Kasai Suo Nyudo Sosen, and Saito Kii Nyudo
  Doreki, and dated Tensho 14.4.6 (May 24, 1586, the day after the audience); a convenient
  synopsis may be found in Toyama, Otomo Sorin, pp. 265-9.
  58 Frois, Hiswria, pt. 2 [B], chap. 29, Wield, vol. 4, p. 216; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 9, pp. 25-6. Also see Uwai Kakuken nikki, vol. 3, p. 47, entry for
  Tensho 13.10.10 (December 1, 1585).
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  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  To be sure, it is clear that questions of even wider scope and greater
  import than the affairs of Kyushu occupied the visionary mind of the
  vice-provincial; his flights of fancy took him to the most rarefied
  regions of higher politics. Recall from Chapter 6 that Hideyoshi had at
  least since 1585 planned an invasion of Korea and China.
  In the course of the audience that the kampaku granted him at
  Osaka Castle on May 4,1586, Coelho proved only too eager to discuss
  that plan. Indeed, if we are to believe Organtino Gnecchi-Soldo, a
  fellow Jesuit who was present at this baneful interview, Coelho even
  volunteered to use his influence in getting two Portuguese Great Ships
  put at Hideyoshi's disposal when the time came for the assault on the
  Asian mainland. But an invasion of the continent could obviously not
  be mounted unless a base were secured for it in Kyushu, and
  Hideyoshi would first have to conquer the island for that reason if for
  no other. Coelho saw himself playing a not-insignificant part in this
  grand design.
  How justified the Shimazu were in suspecting him of hostile inten-
  tions is apparent from the testimony of Padre Organtino, who affirms
  that Frois, addressing Hideyoshi as the interpreter on Coelho's behalf,
  began his speech by requesting the kampaku's military intervention in
  Kyushu and promising in turn the vice-provincial's aid in putting all
  of that island's Christian lords on Hideyoshi's side. In actuality,
  Coelho lacked the power to deliver on such a promise: Try as he might
  to create a bloc of Christian daimyo, he never succeeded. That, how-
  ever, is not really the point at issue. The paramount factor in the
  subsequent turn of events, one perceived clearly by Organtino, if only
  in retrospect, was that Hideyoshi had nothing but the greatest disdain
  for priests who meddled in military matters.59 Hence Coelho's ambi-
  tious performance in Osaka, rash at best, was at worst - and proved to
  be in fact - suicidal.
  For the time being, however, Hideyoshi hid his contempt. Appar-
  ently he found the prospect of cooperation outlined by Coelho attrac-
  tive and useful. Assuming momentarily the mantle of a patron of the
  Christian mission, the kampaku made sure that the vice-provincial
  would be sent on his way in a contented state, by issuing him a charter
  that guaranteed the padres the right to reside and to preach their
  59 A more detailed discussion of this audience can be found in my Deus Destroyed, pp. 112-14.
  Note that Frois and Organtino wrote conflicting versions of what was said in the course of the
  interview. Frois's report, which is dated October 4, 1586, was designed for publication
  throughout Europe. Organtino's confidential letter to the general of the Society of Jesus,
  written on October 10, 1589, is accordingly the more trustworthy even if less immediate
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  ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS OF COELHO 
  349
  gospel unimpeded "in all the lands of Japan," freed them from the
  duty of quartering soldiers, and granted them exemption from other
  imposts.60 The kampaku's decree, which is dated Tensho 14.5.4 (June
  20, 1586), gave Coelho an entree even with those daimyo who had
  previously shown no disposition to favor Christianity or its apostles.
  Armed with this document, Coelho left Sakai on July 23 and pro-
  ceeded westward by measured stages through the Inland Sea.
  First Coelho crossed over to the island of Shikoku to call on
  Kobayakawa Takakage (1533-97), the lord of Iyo Province (now
  Ehime Prefecture), and was received by him with extreme courtesy.
  This may seem surprising, because Takakage was one of the main
  pillars of the great house of Mori, a family with a history of hostility to
  the Christian religion. But the vast power complex of the Mori, which
  covered the six westernmost provinces of Honshu as well as Iyo on
  Shikoku, had by 1586 been fully subordinated to Hideyoshi's national
  regime. It is evident that in welcoming the vice-provincial as lavishly
  as he did, Takakage was in fact deferring to the promulgator of the
  kampaku's pro-Christian decree rather than to its bearer and benefi-
  ciary. (The end result of that decree, so far as the Mori were con-
  cerned, was the temporary reestablishment of the Jesuit residence in
  Yamaguchi after three decades of closure. It was promptly closed again
  when Hideyoshi turned anti-Christian in July 1587.) Along with his
  nephew Mori Terumoto and his brother Kikkawa Motoharu (1530-
  86), Takakage was destined to play a key role in the vanguard of the
  invasion of Kyushu that Hideyoshi would shortly set in motion. Know-
  ing Coelho's record, it is difficult to imagine him managing to stay
  away from that topic in his conversations with Takakage.
  In early August, the vice-provincial proceeded from Iyo to Bungo,
  but he found little encouragement to tarry there. Gloom impended
  over the Otomo realm as the threat that had so long been in the offing
  grew ever more palpable: Having rejected yet another plan for the
  partition of Kyushu, the Shimazu on August 15 took the offensive.61
  After a month of early successes, their advance bogged down. But the
  60 The charter's Portuguese translation, in which the standard chancery form of the exemption
  or "off-limits" decree (kinzei) is easily recognizable, can be found in Frois, Historia, pt. 2 [B],
  chap. 32, Wicki, vol. 4, p. 238. The original Japanese text does not survive.
  61 The partition plan floated by Hideyoshi would have given Chikuzen to Hideyoshi himself,
  turned over Hizen to Mori Terumoto, and assigned Chikugo, half of Higo, and half of Buzen
  to the Otomo, whereas the rest of Kyushu was to go to the Shimazu; see Uwai Kakuken mkki,
  vol. 3, p. 127, entry for Tensho 14.5.22 (June 9,1586). The Shimazu, required by Hideyoshi
  to reply to this plan by the seventh month or face his military intervention, decided at a
  council of war held on Tensho 14.6.7 to spurn the proposal and two days later ordered a
  mobilization; ibid., pp. 133-4.
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  350 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  very awareness that Satsuma was on the march kept the Jesuit sympa-
  thizers of the Otomo in an undiminished state of anxiety.
  This awareness evoked so vivid a specter of ruin before the eyes of
  Coelho's companion Frois that he thought he saw the enemy's grasp
  already extending over eight of the nine provinces of Kyushu - only
  "the wretched kingdom of Bungo" was left to stand by itself, and it
  was so denuded of resources and stripped of protection that "one
  could not help feeling sorry for its destitution." The causes of Bungo's
  derelict condition were obvious to this observer: The realm "lacked a
  head that would govern it, and its lords each went his own way with-
  out there being any sense of union among them." It was bad enough
  that Otomo Yoshimune "made light of the advice given him by his
  father, el-rey Francisco." Even worse, he shut his ears to Coelho's
  expostulations. The daimyo of Bungo refused to have Hideyoshi's
  decree regarding the free spread of Christianity officially proclaimed
  and enforced in his domains - not that the Society of Jesus "had any
  intention of forcing anyone," Frois reassures us. "Like another Pha-
  raoh," Yoshimune failed to heed all admonitions and instead "repudi-
  ated the light," becoming ever more "obstinate and clouded with
  darkness in his heart." Cleaving to his dissolute ways, he "gave free
  rein to his appetites."62
  The missionary's harsh words notwithstanding, Yoshimune's lack of
  enthusiasm for the Jesuits was not necessarily an instance of perver-
  sity. The daimyo of Bungo may simply have been afraid that any
  further encouragement of the Christian religion would exacerbate the
  deep cleavages that divided his realm and imperiled his rulership. If
  so, then there was reason in his recalcitrance.
  Conversions to Christianity had increased dramatically in Bungo,
  even as the storm gathered over the domain of the Otomo: There were
  2,000 adult baptisms in 1584, no fewer than 12,000 in 1585 (almost
  half that number in Funai and its vicinity alone), and 6,150 in the first
  nine months of 1586.63 To note that is by no means to suggest that
  these Christians posed a threat to the Otomo because they were some-
  how disloyal or even seditious. But because many important vassals of
  the Otomo continued to cherish traditional religion, it is plain that the
  issue of the toleration - let alone the advancement - of the Christian
  62 Frois, Hisioria, pt. 2 [B], chaps. 34 and 36, Wicki, vol. 4, pp. 254, 270-1; Matsuda and
  Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 11 (1979), p. 40, and vol. 8 (1978), pp. 159-61.
  63 See Schutte, Iniroduclio ad historiam Societatis Jesu injaponia, pp. 411-12; and Frois, Histo-
  ria, pt. 2 [B], chaps. 27 and 28, Wicki, vol. 4, pp. 202-4, 2I5> Matsuda and Kawasaki,
  trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 8, pp. 136-8, 156.
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  ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS OF COELHO 
  351
  cause by the daimyo family was highly divisive at the best of times and
  downright explosive during a time of crisis. In any event, Yoshimune
  resisted the Jesuits' entreaties, and Vice-Provincial Coelho departed
  for Shimonoseki on September 16, 1586, with his mission to Bungo an
  apparent failure.
  Or is it possible that Coelho was undertaking these travels from
  Kyushu to Honshu and Shikoku and back on something other than a
  purely religious mission? If part of his task, self-appointed or not, was
  the coordination of military plans - decidedly not out of character for
  this adventurist - then he may even have left Bungo with a sense not
  of frustration but of expectation. When he landed in Shimonoseki
  some five days later, he found himself in the middle of a military
  camp, the staging area of an army drawn from the extensive domains
  of the Mori and forming an advance echelon of the invasion of Kyushu
  ordered by Hideyoshi.
  Early in October, Coelho went on to Yamaguchi to meet Dom
  Simeao Kuroda (Yoshitaka, also known as Kodera Kambyoe, 1546-
  1604), the inspector general charged by Hideyoshi with overseeing the
  operations of the Mori forces. The two traveled back together to Shi-
  monoseki, where they were shortly joined by another chief member of
  Hideyoshi's field staff who was a fervent Christian, Dom Agostinho
  Konishi (Yukinaga, 15 56?-1600). Here the vice-provincial had the
  opportunity not only to consult again with Kobayakawa Takakage but
  also to make the acquaintance of Mori Terumoto when that powerful
  daimyo arrived to take personal charge of his troops as they prepared
  to launch their assault across the Strait of Shimonoseki. By the middle
  of November, the Mori army had occupied a strong beachhead in
  Kyushu, capturing the Shimazu side's fort at Kokura. For his part,
  Coelho left for Kyushu in the middle of December. In an odd throw-
  back to the association between wako and missionaries that dated back
  to Xavier's day, the vice-provincial was convoyed to Nagasaki by an
  escort of seven armed vessels from the fleet of Kurushima Michifusa
  (1561-97), the "supreme captain of all the pirates of the sea," who had
  been baptized in Shimonoseki a few days previously.64
  64 Frois, Historia, pt. 2 [B], chap. 38, Wicki, vol. 4, pp. 282-3; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 9, pp. 56-8. As noted by Frois, "Cuniximadono" or Kurushima (more
  properly, Murakami) Michifusa ranked alongside Murakami Takeyoshi, the head of the
  Noshima branch of the Murakami family, at the top of the pirate hierarchy of the Inland Sea.
  Michifusa, whose fort dominated the narrows at Kurushima (now part of the city of Imabari,
  Ehime Prefecture), due to its swift tidal currents one of the most difficult passages in that sea,
  was one of the maritime barons whose fleets, mobilized in the service of Hideyoshi, played an
  indispensable part in the invasion of Korea. He died at the battle of Mydngnyang, one of the
  key naval engagements of the second Korean campaign.
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  352 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  From Nagasaki, his own domain, Coelho went on to Arima, where
  he did his best to persuade the daimyo Arima Harunobu to abandon
  his temporal loyalties and join his fellow Christians, Konishi and
  Kuroda, in the war against the Shimazu. Dom Protasio, however,
  refused to turn his back on his erstwhile saviors, the lords of Satsuma,
  in order to take up the cause of the Jesuits. The vice-provincial there-
  upon ordered not only all missionaries but even the pupils of the
  seminario to leave Arima.65
  One would attribute this extraordinary action to a random fit of
  temper, were there no similar examples of how Coelho conducted
  policy. In the early 1580s, for instance, at a time when Arima was
  being brutalized by Ryuzoji Takanobu, Coelho sought to inspire Dom
  Bartolomeu Omura - a sworn vassal of Takanobu - to rise against his
  lord, enter into a compact with Dom Protasio "so that Christianity
  would flourish," and "make war as best he could" against Ryuzoji.
  Omura raised scruples about this proposal. Among the concerns he
  mentioned was the safety of his son Sancho, a hostage under Taka-
  nobu's control, but to Coelho this was a small matter, one to be dis-
  missed out of hand in view of any Christian's higher duty to his
  church. Hence Dom Bartolomeu's demur and the halfheartedness of
  his subsequent show of compliance with Coelho's fanciful anti-Ryuzoji
  scheme earned him the permanent ill will of the vice-provincial.
  The ambitious Coelho failed to recognize that the lords he sought to
  influence had concrete interests other than Christianity and that his
  project for a Christian axis in Hizen, not to speak of his even more
  ambitious plan for a Catholic league in Japan, was therefore un-
  grounded in reality. What a chimera this particular vision of a holy
  alliance was may be judged from the fact that Dom Protasio Arima and
  Dom Bartolomeu Omura in 1586 actually fought a war with each other
  over a parcel of territory in the western Sonogi peninsula. This was a
  small war, but it was bloody nonetheless. Unfortunately, it is not the
  sole example of a military conflict in which Christians shed Christian
  blood in Japan.
  In the event, Coelho applied to Omura Sumitada the very same
  sanctions that he had used against Arima Harunobu. According to the
  veteran Jesuit missionary Afonso de Lucena's reminiscences, "Our
  Japan Superior, for certain reasons and considerations that appeared to
  him to be just, ordered and required that all the Padres who were in
  65 Padre Joao de Crasto SJ to Padre Alexandra Valignano SJ, dated Hirado, March 19, 1587,
  cited in Schutte, Introductio ad historian Societatis Jesu injaponia, pp. 698-9, n. 54.
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  COLLAPSE OF THE OTOMO REALM 
  353
  Omura should remove ad tetnpus to Nagasaki, and [he did] this as a
  punishment he meted out to the Tono [Bartolomeu] for not doing
  certain things that [Bartolomeu] believed he could not do with respect
  to his honor and his temporal interests." Nor did Coelho's hostility to
  Sumitada end with this measure of coercion. When Dom Bartolomeu
  lay on his deathbed in the spring of 1587, Coelho twice refused urgent
  requests that he come to visit, to console, and to be reconciled with his
  prominent spiritual charge, the first of the "Christian daimyo."66
  What sort of ecclesiastical politics was this? The distinguished Jesuit
  historian Josef Franz Schiitte calls it "political willfulness" on the part
  of the Japan Superior.67 Coelho's arrogance, however, was about to
  meet its match, and the vice-province he headed would presently
  suffer the grave consequences of his imprudent actions.
  THE COLLAPSE OF THE OTOMO REALM
  As if to mock the orderly processes of causation, the downfall of
  Coelho's and his fellow Jesuits' enterprise was compassed not by
  Satsuma, the enemy they feared, loathed, and tried to damage, but
  rather by the kampaku Hideyoshi, the self-decreed friend whose pro-
  tection they cherished, whose interests they sought to further, and
  whose sweeping plans for conquest the vice-provincial had enthusiasti-
  cally embraced. First, however, Hideyoshi brought about the humilia-
  tion of the Shimazu, by no means an easy endeavor. The campaign to
  break the power of the Shimazu, establish Hideyoshi's dominance
  over Kyushu, and (perhaps most important of all) show the mastery of
  the national hegemon over the daimyo of central and western Japan
  was a military operation of a scale and complexity unprecedented in
  Japanese history.
  The kampaku is said to have ordered the mobilization of 200,000
  men, drawn from no fewer than thirty-seven provinces, for his inva-
  sion of Kyushu.68 At least half that total was to be assembled in the
  66 See Lucena, Erinnerungen, pp. 108-15 on Coelho's anti-Ryuzoji scheme; pp. 114-25 on the
  war between Omura and Arima; pp. 134-9 on Dom Bartolomeu's final illness (he died on
  May 25, 1587); and pp. 138-41 on the withdrawal of missionaries from Omura.
  67 See Schiitte, "Einleitung" to Lucena, Erinnerungen, p. 29, and n. 54 to pt. 2 of Lucena's text,
  pp. 134-5.
  68 Oze Hoan, Taikoki, ed. Kuwata Tadachika (Tokyo: Shin jimbutsu oraisha, 1971), p. 230.
  Hoan's chronicle, which has a preface dated Kan'ei 2 (1625), is an anecdotal work not
  characterized by an attachment to accuracy. His statement regarding the mobilization of
  Hideyoshi's Kyushu army is apt to be an exaggeration. Historians, however, have by and
  large followed Hoan. The normally careful Fujiki Hisashi, for instance, even raises Hoan's
  number of troops to "more than 250,000" drawn from "nearly forty provinces"; see Fujiki
  Hisashi, Oda-Toyolomi seiken, vol. 15 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975), p. 202.
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  354 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  Kansai area as Hideyoshi's main striking force. This large army would
  then have to be provisioned, marched in echelons for some five hun-
  dred kilometers (310 miles) to the western extremity of Honshu, fer-
  ried across the Strait of Shimonoseki, and finally deployed to fight in a
  vast territory over which a resourceful enemy held preponderant con-
  trol. The kampaku knew that he had to allow plenty of time for prepa-
  ration; hence, setting the departure date of the several elements of his
  main force well ahead into the spring, he determined that he would
  lead his personal guard from Osaka on Tensho 15.3.1 (April 8, 1587).
  He hoped that the Shimazu could be held in check until then by the
  Otomo and the advance contingents, made up of levies of his subject
  daimyo, that he had sent to their assistance.
  In the meantime the Shimazu laid their own plans to conquer Bungo
  and entrench themselves in control of Kyushu. Shimazu Yoshihiro was
  to advance through Higo while his brother Iehisa struck at Bungo
  from Hyuga; their offensive was scheduled to begin on Tensho
  14.10.21 (December 1, 1586). Long before that date - in fact, at least
  since the autumn of the previous year - vassals and even members of
  the house of Otomo were covertly taking up contacts with the
  Shimazu, as though vying with one another to clamber aboard the
  juggernaut they saw rumbling their way.
  When the Shimazu struck, Bungo's entire southern front caved in,
  as a rolling wave of defections from the vassal band of the Otomo
  smoothed the way onward for the invaders. As advised by his spies
  and collaborators, Shimazu Iehisa advanced with only a small force of
  his own, no more than three thousand men from Hyuga and five
  hundred from Satsuma. His ranks, however, were swelled by the
  troops of his fifth column in Bungo. This collapse of the vassalage
  structure of the Otomo in the face of an enemy attack showed once
  again how far behind the times their domain actually was. The Otomo
  had failed utterly to establish the direct control over their liegemen
  that was one of the identifying characteristics of the new breed of early
  modern daimyo. Theirs was still essentially a medieval realm built on
  the principle of coalition - a foundation, as it proved, of sand. The
  Shimazu knocked down their ramshackle dominion without much
  difficulty; then Hideyoshi restored it for a brief half-dozen years; but
  it would not survive the stewardship of Otomo Yoshimune.
  Bungo did not fall without a fight. Saiki Koresada, the keeper of
  Togamure-jo (located on the boundary of what now are the city of
  Saiki and the township of Yayoi, Oita Prefecture), sallied from his
  castle and mauled a force sent by Shimazu Iehisa to conquer eastern
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  COLLAPSE OF THE OTOMO REALM 
  355
  Bungo, thereby stopping the enemy's advance into that territory.
  From a cluster of points of resistance he organized around his strong-
  hold of Oka-jo (in what is now the city of Taketa), the Christian
  samurai Dom Paulo Shiga (Shiga Taro Chikatsugu, Bungo's most in-
  trepid captain throughout this conflict) and his adherents harassed the
  Shimazu and their collaborators with guerrilla warfare. The retired
  daimyo Otomo Sorin, "King Francisco" himself, rallied the defenders
  of Niujima-jo, the seaside fortress that guarded Usuki, to defy the
  Shimazu army that occupied the castle town below its walls. Helped
  greatly by two 97-millimeter cannon supplied by the Portuguese in the
  past days of Bungo's glory (and named with the Delphian prognostic
  Kunikuzushi, "Domain Destroyers"), the outnumbered garrison of
  Niujima kept the attackers at bay, and the Shimazu never did take the
  castle of Usuki.
  But these were practically all the creditable attainments of the
  Otomo arms in this war. The ruling daimyo, Otomo Yoshimune, cer-
  tainly did not cut a heroic figure in the general debacle that overcame
  his domain. He took his stand against a Shimazu army in the field only
  once, and that one time was a disaster. In January 1587, Yoshimune
  ventured a sortie to the relief of Tsuruga-jo (located in what is now
  Oaza Kami Hetsugi, Oita City), the last obstacle that barred Shimazu
  Iehisa's route to Funai, Bungo's provincial capital. Hapless as always,
  Yoshimune permitted his troops as well as those of his allies, the
  Shikoku daimyo Chosogabe Motochika (1540-99) and Sengoku Hide-
  hisa (1551-1614)- auxiliaries sent by Hideyoshi - to be lured into a
  trap at the crossing of the river Hetsugigawa (now called Onogawa),
  where they suffered a crushing defeat. After this battle, Yoshimune
  left Funai to its fate and fled to Ryuo-jo (located in what is now Ajin-
  machi, Oita Prefecture) in Buzen, abandoning Bungo to the enemy.
  His precipitate flight from the Otomo heartland prefigures, in a curi-
  ous way, his disastrous performance six years later in Hideyoshi's
  invasion of Korea, when Yoshimune abandoned his post at Pongsan
  (Hwanghae Province) in the face of an enemy advance, thereby expos-
  ing the left flank of the entire Japanese army and forcing his comrades
  into a hasty and disorderly retreat. Hideyoshi disenfeoffed Yoshimune
  for that dereliction of duty, and so the Otomo family's long rule over
  Bungo came to an end in 1593.
  In 1587, however, Hideyoshi was determined, for the time being, to
  revive, prop up, and sustain that rule as an element of his reorganiza-
  tion of the affairs of Kyushu. Hence he did not lay the blame for the
  fiasco of Hetsugigawa on Otomo Yoshimune. Instead, he put the re-
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  356 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  sponsibility for the "scandalous performance" on his own delegate in
  the field, Sengoku Hidehisa, whom he dispossessed from his Taka-
  matsu domain as an admonishment to others. The reverses suffered by
  his side in Kyushu did not make Hideyoshi any less confident. He
  boasted that it was "a sure thing" that, no sooner in Kyushu, he would
  "chop off Shimazu's head."69 Insofar as his promise to overwhelm
  Kyushu was concerned, Hideyoshi was as good as his word, even if he
  relented from his resolve to do grievous bodily harm to Shimazu
  Yoshihisa. In the end, the fact that they had overrun Bungo availed the
  Shimazu nothing. They were not permitted to rest, digesting their
  gains. Instead, they had to draw back before the massive force of the
  kampaku's intervention.
  Even before Hideyoshi could make his appearance in person on the
  stage they had come to dominate so spectacularly, the Shimazu con-
  cluded that prudence and self-preservation demanded that they vacate
  northern Kyushu and seek security in their home grounds to the
  south. Hence they left Bungo voluntarily. On April 22, 1587 (Tensho
  l5-3-l5)> Hideyoshi reached Aki Province and camped in Yokkaichi
  (now part of the city of Higashi Hiroshima), about halfway from
  Osaka to Kyushu, and Shimazu Yoshihiro evacuated Funai. Two days
  later, harried by Dom Paulo Shiga and Saiki Koresada, the troops of
  Yoshihiro and his brother Iehisa crossed into Hyuga; other Shimazu
  detachments withdrew into Higo. The avenues used by the Shimazu
  five months previously to attack Bungo became the paths of their
  retreat.
  HIDEYOSHl'S INVASION OF KYUSHU
  Hideyoshi's invasion armies followed those same paths in their ad-
  vance on Satsuma. On May 2 (3.25), Hideyoshi arrived in Shi-
  monoseki, his last way station on Honshu, where he assigned the route
  through Chikuzen, Chikugo, and Higo to himself and put his half-
  brother Hashiba Hidenaga, the daimyo of Koriyama in Yamato, in
  command of an army that would strike at the heartland of the Shimazu
  through Bungo and Hyuga, the eastern provinces of Kyushu.
  For Hideyoshi, the march down the western side of the island was
  nothing less than a triumphal progress. He crossed over to Kokura on
  5 (3.28), and less than a month later, on June 3 (4.27), he had
  69 Hideyoshi to Mori Uma no Kami (Terumoto), vermilion-seal letter dated [Tensho 14.J12.24
  (February 1, 1587), in Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nihon komonjo, iewake 8:
  M6ri-ke monjo, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1979), no. 951, pp. 231-3.
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  HIDEYOSHl'S INVASION OF KYUSHU 
  357
  reached Izumi in Satsuma, about three hundred kilometers (186 miles)
  away. He encountered no serious opposition along the way, where
  opportunists of the stamp of Akizuki Tanezane, Tsukushi Hirokado,
  Ryuzoji Masaie, the old wako Matsuura Takanobu - and, in the end,
  also Dom Protasio Arima - flocked to the victor's banners.
  Hidenaga had a more difficult time of it. As had been the case in the
  Otomo campaign of 1578, the powerful fortress Takajo in Hyuga stood
  in the way of the invaders from the north. As before, the castellan
  Yamada Shinsuke Arinobu defended his stronghold under siege; also
  as before, the Shimazu chieftains Yoshihisa, Yoshihiro, and Iehisa led
  an army to his relief. But unlike 1578, it was not the invaders who
  were surrounded and destroyed under the walls of Takajo. Rather, the
  relief army of the Shimazu was cornered and defeated on May 24,1587
  (Tensho 15.4.17), by Hidenaga's superior numbers and the devastat-
  ing force of his massed musketry. This battle decided the campaign.
  Four days later, the Shimazu initiated capitulation proceedings by
  sending hostages to Hidenaga. On June 13 (5.8), Shimazu Yoshihisa
  himself - his head shaven as a sign that he had abandoned worldly
  attachments - appeared before Hideyoshi to ask for his pardon.
  A consummate master of statecraft, Hideyoshi showed magnanim-
  ity to the Shimazu. He had the power to dispossess them. Instead, he
  chose to reduce their holdings but leave them their status. Confirming
  Shimazu Yoshihisa in his lordship over Satsuma and assigning Osumi
  to Shimazu Yoshihiro, Hideyoshi left them as rulers over the provinces
  where their family had held authority since the end of the twelfth
  century. Pushed back to their borders of 1577, the Shimazu neverthe-
  less still figured as the masters of southern Kyushu.
  The great shugo family of northern Kyushu, the house of Otomo -
  for whose sake, ostensibly, Hideyoshi had intervened in the island's
  affairs - likewise had to content itself with a diminished estate: Losing
  whatever traditional claim he had on other provinces, Otomo Yoshi-
  mune was confirmed as the daimyo of Bungo alone. This was still a
  considerable domain (one valued, according to the new kokudaka sys-
  tem, at 378,000 koku), but it was a far cry from the "seven-province
  realm" Otomo Sorin had once accumulated. Had Sorin still been their
  head, Hideyoshi might well have been more generous to the Otomo.
  But his sweeping rearrangement of the domanial borders of Kyushu,
  undertaken in July 1587, no longer had to take account of Sorin.
  "King Francisco of Bungo" had died on June 29 (5.24), apparently
  after having declined Hideyoshi's offer of Hyuga as an appanage.
  For all his display of generosity toward a defeated enemy and of
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  358 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  consideration toward a pitiable ally - who happened to be the two
  surviving pillars of the traditional structure of authority in Kyushu -
  the fact is that Hideyoshi imposed a completely new order on that
  island. Ryuzdji Masaie was left four districts in Hizen; also in Hizen,
  the Arima, the Omura, and the Matsuura all were confirmed in their
  possessions; the Sagara family retained their domain around Hitoyoshi
  in Higo. But the political map of the rest of Kyushu took on an
  entirely new appearance as a result of the kampaku's actions.
  Hideyoshi's old crony Terazawa Hiromasa (d. 1596) was given a
  37,000-koku fief at Karatsu in Hizen. Except for the Sagara domain,
  the province of Higo was entrusted to Sassa Narimasa (d. 1588), an-
  other old comrade and sometime rival, whom Hideyoshi had fought,
  defeated, and pardoned in 1585. Narimasa was transferred to Kyushu
  from a fief in Etchu (now Toyama Prefecture). In a similar way,
  Kobayakawa Takakage was made to exchange his holdings in Shikoku
  for a new 307,000-koku domain centered in Najima (now Fukuoka)
  and covering Chikuzen as well as parts of Hizen and Chikugo.
  Takakage's younger brother and adopted son Hidekane (known as
  both Kobayakawa and Mori Hidekane, 1566-1601) was installed in a
  j$,ooo-koku fief at Kurume in Chikugo. Baptized in the late spring of
  1587, Hidekane (thereafter called Dom Simao) reinforced his status as
  a Christian daimyo by marrying Otomo Sorin's daughter Maxentia
  later that year. Hideyoshi's confidant Dom Simeao Kuroda Yoshitaka,
  a baron from Harima, was made the lord of a 120,000-koku domain at
  Nakatsu in Buzen, whereas Kokura in the same province (a fief valued
  at 60,000 koku) was assigned to Mori Yoshinari (d. 1611), Hideyoshi's
  retainer from Owari. All of these daimyo were newcomers with no
  roots in Kyushu.
  Some of Kyushu's old, familiar names, however, were uprooted from
  their ancestral grounds and transplanted elsewhere. Thus Tachibana
  Muneshige had to leave Chikuzen for a new fief at Yanagawa in
  Chikugo; Akizuki Tanezane's son Tanenaga (1567-1614) and Taka-
  hashi Mototane (d. 1614) both were moved from the northwestern part
  of Kyushu to its southeast, the former to Takarabe (now Takanabe-cho,
  Miyazaki Prefecture) and the latter to Agata (now the city of Nobeoka)
  in Hyuga.
  What, however, was the significance of all this scene shifting and
  rearrangement of the dramatis personae of Kyushu directed by
  Hideyoshi? He was putting on stage the finale of the long drama of
  Kyushu as a place with an independent identity in Japanese history.
  (He did not know that an epilogue remained to be played. The kokujin
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  HIDEYOSHl'S ANTI-CHRISTIAN EDICTS 
  359
  rebellion that swept the mainland of Higo and the Amakusa Islands
  from 1588 to 1590 would represent a last flare-up of the lost indepen-
  dence.) This dramatic production, moreover, gave a glimpse into the
  future of Japan's political organization. Anticipating the coinage of a
  phrase that became a truism in the Edo period, Hideyoshi treated the
  daimyo as potted plants, objects to be moved about at will. By the
  dispositions he made in Kyushu, the largest territory he had yet con-
  quered, this grand arriviste showed that he had truly arrived: No
  longer could the Shimazu or any other military aristocrats, no matter
  how ancient their lineage, afford to treat Hideyoshi as a mere upstart.
  Even if Hideyoshi's was a new regime, it had been legitimated by
  his elevation to the loftiest rungs of the old imperial hierarchy, the
  offices of kampaku and daijd daijin (grand chancellor of state). But it
  was deeds and not just titles that confirmed his authority. Although he
  still had eastern and northern Japan to subjugate, Hideyoshi demon-
  strated conclusively in these southern and western regions that he was
  in fact as well as in name the national hegemon. The daimyo he
  planted in Kyushu, rulers of autonomous regions in theory, were no
  more than his vicars in actuality.
  HIDEYOSHl'S ANTI-CHRISTIAN EDICTS
  One more would-be daimyo, the vicar general of the Society of Jesus in
  Japan, remained to be dealt with. In keeping with his dignity as the
  holder of administrative and judicial sovereignty over the port city of
  Nagasaki, Padre Gaspar Coelho traveled to Hakozaki to meet Hide-
  yoshi in style and on his own naval vessel. Reputed to be the swiftest
  sail in Japanese waters, Coelho's/wsra armada was apparently a ship of
  some two hundred to three hundred tons, built by a Portuguese
  shipwright in Nagasaki in the fashion of a light galley. Jesuit sources
  acknowledge that this fusta was armed with artillery, and Japanese
  chronicles allege that it had been used in military action against the
  Jesuits' unfriendly neighbors on the Nagasaki peninsula, the wako
  band of Fukahori Sumikata.70 The vice-provincial had several things
  to discuss with Hideyoshi on this visit, but no doubt what Coelho
  wanted most of all was a confirmation of the kampaku's partiality for
  the missionaries and, if possible, an expansion of the privileges
  Hideyoshi had granted them by his decree of June 20, 1586.
  70 See Alvarez-Taladriz, "Introduction" to Valignano, Sumario de las cosas de Japan, vol. 1, p.
  146; cf. Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans., Furoisu Nihonshi, vol. 1, p. 283, n. 18.
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  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  In the intervening year, Hideyoshi had kept up his show of favor
  toward the padres, and they had reciprocated by devoting "continuous
  masses and prayers" to the intention of "his good success and prosper-
  ous outcome in these wars."71 Of all the Jesuits, however, surely it was
  Coelho himself who had the most reason to expect friendly regard if
  not gratitude from Hideyoshi: They both knew that the vice-provin-
  cial had exerted himself not only spiritually but also in a more direct
  way, politically, in the kampakii's behalf. The meeting between the
  two, which took place aboard the notorious fusta on July 19, 1587
  (Tensho 15.6.14), was marked by outpourings of affability on Hide-
  yoshi's part. Hence it came as a bolt from the blue when Hideyoshi,
  less than a week later, on July 24, 1587 (Tensho 15.6.19), issued his
  edict condemning Christianity as a "pernicious doctrine" and giving
  the missionaries twenty days to get out of Japan.72
  Hideyoshi's edict of 6.19 begins with the words, "Japan is the Land
  of the Gods," a nativist dictum that would be invoked again and again
  in subsequent anti-Christian pronouncements. Hideyoshi then asserts
  that the Christians' destruction of shrines of the native traditions "is
  something unheard of in previous ages." He stresses that "to corrupt
  and stir up the lower classes" by inciting them to commit these sacri-
  leges, as the missionaries and the barons converted by them have
  done, "is outrageous." Naturally, those who are ultimately responsible
  for all those outrages - the Jesuit padres - must leave Japan and do so
  "within twenty days." The Portuguese merchants are specifically ex-
  empted from this antimissionary directive, as "the purpose of the
  Black Ships is trade, and that is a different matter."
  Christianity and its servants had been the objects of suspicion, deni-
  gration, and occasional persecution in various parts of Japan from the
  day of Xavier's arrival in the country, but this was the first comprehen-
  sive anti-Christian decree issued by an effective national authority.
  What moved the kampaku to take this measure?
  A "notice" dated Tensho 15.6.18, the day before the edict of expul-
  sion was issued, clearly explains Hideyoshi's motives. Particularly
  noteworthy is this document's prohibition of forced conversions.
  "That enfeoffed recipients of provinces, districts, and estates should
  force the peasants of Buddhist temples (jian no hyakusho), as well as
  71 Frois, Historia, pt. 2 [B], chap. 53, Wicki, vol. 4, pp. 390-6; Matsuda and Kawasaki, trans.,
  vol. 1 (1977), pp. 3O3-I5-
  72 See my Deus Destroyed, pp. 115-16, for a complete translation of Hideyoshi's edict dated
  Tensho 15.6.19 (July 24, 1587); also see pp. 117-18, where an English version of the "notice"
  dated Tensho 15.6.18 (July 23, 1587) is given.
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  HIDEYOSHl'S ANTI-CHRISTIAN EDICTS 
  361
  others of their tenantry, against their will into the ranks of the sectari-
  ans of the Bateren [padres] is unreasonable beyond words and is outra-
  geous," declares Hideyoshi, who then proceeds to outline in detail
  why he finds the "Bateren" so objectionable.
  His most damaging aspersion is the elaborate comparison he makes
  between Christians and adherents of the Buddhist True Pure Land
  Sect (Jodo Shinshu, also called the Ikko, or "Single-Minded" sect).
  That sect's most prominent and belligerent branch, headed by the
  hossu (pontiff) of the Honganji, had in the sixteenth century developed
  into a religious monarchy that ruled whole provinces and competed
  with secular daimyo. The cohesiveness of this sectarian organization,
  drawn ever tighter by the "single-minded" nature of its members'
  commitment to the cause of their faith, made it the most formidable
  opponent of Hideyoshi's predecessor in the regime of national unifica-
  tion, Oda Nobunaga. That implacable hegemon did manage to defeat
  the Honganji's devotees and their pontiff, but not until they had
  fought him to the bitter end in a ten-years' war (1570-80) filled with
  sanguinary excesses.
  Hence Hideyoshi could count on total agreement among his audi-
  ence of military lords (many of whom had directly experienced that
  bitter conflict) when he asserted that the Ikko sect had been patently
  "harmful to the realm" before it was put under control. In the context
  of Sengoku history, it was surely a damning judgment to state, as
  Hideyoshi does in his "notice," that the sectarians of the "Bateren"
  were "even more given to conjurations" than had been the case with
  the adherents of the Honganji, whose very byword was ikki (sworn
  league), a curse to the feudal ruler. This, if nothing else, made the
  Christians anathema.
  With an eye on such Christian zealots as the daimyo of Akashi, Dom
  Justo Takayama Ukon, the kampaku reiterates: "That daimyo in pos-
  session of provinces and districts or of estates should force their retain-
  ers into the ranks of the sectarians of the Bateren is even more undesir-
  able by far" than the activities of the Honganji's adherents; hence
  "these individuals of no discretion shall be subject to chastisement."
  Hideyoshi's "notice" of 6.18 then concludes by denouncing "the sale
  of Japanese to China, South Barbary, and Korea" by slavers who are
  implicitly identified as foreigners, and by banning the "trade and
  slaughter of cattle and horses for use as food."
  The Jesuits reacted to Hideyoshi's determination with shock and
  indignant denials. In the propagandists reports they sent to Europe,
  they maintained that the bill of indictment issued against them was
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  362 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  nothing other than the unprovoked product of a tyrannical rage. Ex-
  cept for the allegation of the missionaries' complicity in the slave
  trade, however, all of the kampaku's charges had a base in fact.
  The name of Vice-Provincial Coelho was not mentioned explicitly
  in either of the two lists of particulars, but Hideyoshi's appreciation
  of the activities of this religious superior who pretended to secular
  authority, posed as the lawful ruler of Nagasaki, and paraded his
  military affectations on board his own naval vessel no doubt contrib-
  uted much to his declared intent to expel the "Bateren" from Japan.
  Certainly, it did not take preternatural suspicion for Hideyoshi to
  identify Coelho as a competitor for the allegiances of his Christian
  vassals. Although Coelho's various plans to form a league of Christian
  daimyo had so far been unsuccessful, Hideyoshi was surely not un-
  aware of the zeal with which he had pursued them (indeed, Coelho
  continued to entertain this figment of an armed holy alliance even
  after the edict of expulsion, going so far as to stockpile arms and
  ammunition for possible use against the anti-Christian tyrant). In
  short, the kampaku's fear of the Christians' potential for "conjura-
  tions" was not groundless.
  Hideyoshi had witnessed on the spot the inroads that Christianity
  had made into the nobility and the populace of Kyushu, and this made
  him all the more concerned about the number and the religious fervor
  of the Jesuits' converts in his own close entourage. These included
  such prominent figures as Dom Leao Gamo Ujisato (1556-95), Dom
  Agostinho Konishi, and Dom Simeao Kuroda, not to speak of Dom
  Justo Takayama. The last-named daimyo, thoroughly "Jesuited" from
  his youth, had made himself notorious by the forced Christianization
  of his domains in the Kansai area, first at Takatsuki and then, after
  1585, at Akashi. In both those places, he had relentlessly pursued the
  eradication of native religious symbols and practices. Such excesses,
  Hideyoshi determined, must stop.
  To make the other Christian lords toe the line, Hideyoshi dispos-
  sessed Takayama Ukon, reducing him to the existence of a ronin forced
  to seek the protection (or, rather, submit to the supervision) of daimyo
  who retained Hideyoshi's trust. The others showed that they were
  daimyo first and Christians second. For the most part, they bent
  before the will of their master and abjured their faith, if only on the
  surface. To be sure, some of these chastened Christians, such as
  Konishi Yukinaga, continued to aid the missionaries discreetly. Kur-
  oda Yoshitaka, too, remained loyal to the Christian religion to the end
  of his life. Such stalwarts, however, were few. The likes of Otomo
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  HIDEYOSHI'S ANTI-CHRISTIAN EDICTS 
  363
  Yoshimune - hopefully but inappropriately named Dom Constan-
  tinho at his baptism on April 27, just three months earlier - reverted
  to type and resumed the persecution of Christianity.
  Another matter of great concern to the national unifier as he pre-
  pared to leave Kyushu was the foreign Jesuits' status as the holders of
  domanial sovereignty over Nagasaki, a piece of Japanese soil made all
  the more important by its role as the terminus of the Portuguese
  trading vessels. In the aftermath of the edict of expulsion, Hideyoshi
  accordingly confiscated Nagasaki and appointed his own intendant
  (daikan) to administer the port city. The Jesuits' influence over that
  Catholic community was not erased, but it ceased being their colony.
  Nagasaki became instead the national hegemon's immediate domain.
  The historical significance of the dispositions made by Hideyoshi in
  July 1587 was that the question whether to encourage, tolerate, or reject
  the Christian religion ceased being a matter that each daimyo could
  decide for himself. Hideyoshi made Christianity a national problem.
  For the time being, however, the kampaku chose not to enforce his
  anti-Christian policy. To be sure, some churches were destroyed, and
  the missionaries were forced to reduce the scope of their public activi-
  ties, but none of them had to leave Japan permanently as a result of the
  edict of 1587. So long as they remained discreet, Hideyoshi allowed
  them to exist without undue molestation, most likely because he con-
  tinued to view the Catholic priests as valuable intermediaries in his
  contacts with the Portuguese traders. His forbearance caused some of
  the Jesuits to be optimistic regarding the chances of Japan's ultimate
  Christianization, especially because Hideyoshi seemed so enthusiastic
  about Western novelties. In fact, he himself led the period's fad for
  dressing a la Portugaise, a fashion complete with rosaries, reliquaries,
  and crosses worn as accessories around the neck. Hideyoshi did not,
  however, repeal his edict. The decree that stamped Christianity a
  subversive religion remained the law of the land. Hostility was but
  thinly hidden beneath the mask of tolerance.
  What unleashed it and made it come into the open was a fortuitous
  event, the wreck of the Manila Galleon San Felipe off the coast of
  Shikoku in October 1596. Three years previously, in 1593, the Span-
  ish colonial authorities in the Philippines had charged a group of
  Franciscan monks with an embassy to Hideyoshi; having concluded
  their diplomatic business, these friars remained in Kyoto as missionar-
  ies. Not only did their arrival mean the end of the Jesuit mission
  monopoly in Japan, the Franciscans conducted themselves with all the
  populist evangelical ardor characteristic of the early history of their
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  364 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  order. According to the Jesuits, the fervency with which the friars
  proclaimed their faith amounted to recklessness. In any event, it is
  clear that it disturbed the tenuous modus vivendi that had developed
  between the Christian missionaries and Hideyoshi's regime.
  The fact that the Jesuit mission was sponsored by the crown of
  Portugal whereas the Franciscans came to Japan under the patronage
  of Spain (two countries tied together since 1580 in a personal union
  under Philip II of Castile, a dynastic arrangement resisted by many
  Portuguese) aggravated the mutual antagonism between the two reli-
  gious orders. Intent on fortifying its own position, each intrigued
  against the other, thus feeding the suspicions of the Japanese ruler.
  Matters came to a head when the San Felipe was wrecked and
  Hideyoshi ordered the confiscation of the Spanish galleon's cargo. The
  ship's pilot sought to forestall that action by trying to impress
  Hideyoshi's agents with tales of his royal master's power, the might of
  the Spanish empire, and the thoroughgoing nature of the Spanish
  design for world conquest. An indispensable part of that design (so he
  alleged) was a fifth column of Spanish friars, sent ahead of military
  forces to Christianize the people of a country so that the land could
  then be easily taken over. At that, Hideyoshi "leapt to the conclusion
  that the friars of St. Francis, who had been in Meaco near unto three
  years, should also be taken for spies," and decided to do away with
  them and their Christians.73
  That, at least, is the Jesuit side of the story, taken from the testi-
  mony of Dom Pedro Martins SJ, the bishop of Japan. The Francis-
  cans, for their part, maintained that the Spanish pilot was blameless
  and that it was, in fact, the Jesuits who had slandered them before the
  Japanese authorities. A morass of recriminations between the mission-
  aries has submerged the truth regarding who was responsible, but the
  fatal outcome of the San Felipe incident is clear. Hideyoshi was once
  more provoked to a draconian action. He ordered the execution of
  twenty-six Christians, including six Franciscan missionaries, three Je-
  suits, and seventeen Japanese laymen. And he renewed his general
  proscription of Christianity: "/ will that there be no more preaching of
  this law hereafter."74 On February 5, 1597 (Keicho 1.12.19), there
  followed the martyrdom of the Twenty-Six Saints of Japan, who were
  crucified in Nagasaki. This was the first bloody persecution of the
  73 Testimony of Bishop Pedro Martins SJ, cited ibid., p. 138.
  74 Hideyoshi's orders, dated Keicho I . I I . I O (December 29, 1596), in Frois, "The report of the
  glorious death of xxvj persons," cited in my "The Cross and the Sword: Patterns of
  Momoyama History," in Elison and Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, & Commoners, p. 79.
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  CHRISTIAN DAIMYO 
  365
  Christian religion in Japan and a grim first foreboding of the two and a
  half centuries of persecutions that were yet to come.
  THE CHRISTIAN DAIMYO AND THE EARLY TOKUGAWA
  REGIME
  There were no further martyrdoms of Christians in Japan under
  Hideyoshi: In the year and a half he had left to live, he was preoccu-
  pied with inflicting carnage on a far greater scale in Korea. Under his
  successor as national hegemon, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Christian mis-
  sion was to enjoy a decade of calm weather and clear sailing. But the
  missionaries were sailing in the eye of a storm.
  Ieyasu at first took a conciliatory stance toward them, partially at
  least in consideration of the efforts of Christian daimyo who played
  important roles in the alliance that brought the Tokugawa to power in
  the great military conflict of 1600. To be sure, one of the principals of
  the anti-Tokugawa coalition that lost the battle of Sekigahara and,
  with it, the contest for Japan was also a Christian daimyo, Dom
  Agostinho Konishi Yukinaga. For every Konishi on the side of
  Ieyasu's adversaries, however, there was a Kuroda among the parti-
  sans of the Tokugawa.
  That his coreligionists should have been instrumental in his defeat
  might be called poetic justice for Konishi, who had slaughtered large
  numbers of his fellow Christians only a decade earlier, in 1589 and
  1590, in putting down a kokujin rebellion in the fief that Hideyoshi had
  assigned him in Higo Province. At least three of the "five Amakusa
  barons" (goninshu) who organized this ikki were Christians. But
  Konishi's brutal action as well as the uprising of the barons who
  wished to defend their regional autonomy should be considered as
  nothing more than further proof of the essential nature of the Chris-
  tian daimyo: They pursued their own interests first and those of their
  religion second. It was an illusion to think that Christianity could be
  used to bind them in fraternal union, let alone a political alliance.
  Thus Dom Protasio Arima Harunobu first promised to support
  Konishi in 1600 but then switched sides in time to help in the reduc-
  tion of Dom Agostinho's fortress of Uto in Higo, and the Arima family
  thereby gained the confirmation of its daimyo status after the Toku-
  gawa victory. Dom Simeao Kuroda Yoshitaka also took a stand against
  Konishi and was responsible for pacifying northern Kyushu in Iey-
  asu's behalf. Among those he defeated there was the ever-hapless
  Otomo Yoshimune, who had sought a last chance to recover Bungo but
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  366 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  had bet on the wrong party in the national conflict. (Supposedly,
  Kuroda also managed to reconcile Otomo with Christianity, a task that
  surely took considerable powers of persuasion.) It is known that
  Yoshitaka's diplomatic skill was of great help to the missionaries, for
  whom he interceded with Ieyasu after the campaign's conclusion. No
  doubt as important in influencing Ieyasu to take a positive attitude
  toward the Christians was, however, the role played at the battle of
  Sekigahara by Yoshitaka's son, Dom Damiao Kuroda (Nagamasa,
  1568-1623).
  His old and intimate political enmity against Ishida Mitsunari
  (1560-1600), the moving spirit of the anti-Tokugawa league, made
  Kuroda an early and fervent adherent of Ieyasu's cause, to which he
  made a critical contribution: It was Dom Damiao who engineered the
  defection of the opposing general Kobayakawa Hideaki (1582-1602)
  and his army to Ieyasu at a crucial moment in the battle, thereby
  sealing the defeat of Ishida, Konishi, and their allies. For this service
  Kuroda was rewarded with a great domain at Fukuoka, a fief assessed
  at 523,100 koku, where he actively encouraged the Jesuit mission at the
  beginning of his tenure. But his affection for the missionaries would
  last only as long as his master, Ieyasu, permitted. Unlike in Sengoku,
  in Tokugawa Japan the daimyo danced to the shogunate's tune.
  Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the inception of the Tokugawa
  regime's anti-Christian measures was intimately connected with the
  settlement of a problem of corruption in the Tokugawa house govern-
  ment. The man who set off this scandal was none other than Dom
  Protasio Arima.
  Arima, who sought the addition of certain properties in Hizen to his
  fief, thought he could obtain this goal by the payment of large sums of
  money to Okamoto Daihachi, an aide of Ieyasu's senior councilor
  (rcj/'w) Honda Masazumi (1565-1637). Okamoto took the bribe but
  could do no better than forge the required documents. In 1612, this
  confidence game was inevitably exposed and Okamoto was executed,
  but not before he had had the chance to denounce Arima Harunobu
  for plotting the murder of the shogunate's commissioner (bugyo) in
  Nagasaki, Hasegawa Sahyoe.
  For at least two reasons, this matter was far more serious than the
  melodrama that it may appear to be: That a vassal's investiture with
  land, a matter at the very pith and core of the feudal relationship,
  could be reduced to a business proposition between a subject daimyo
  and a relatively low-ranking member of their councils shocked the
  heads of the Tokugawa regime, the retired shogun Ieyasu (r. 1603-5)
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  CHRISTIAN DAIMYO 
  367
  and his successor Hidetada (1579-1632, r. 1605-23). And the allega-
  tion that the magistrate charged with the government of one of the
  shogunate's most important direct holdings, the port city of Nagasaki,
  had become the object of an assassination plot raised broader ques-
  tions regarding the loyalty of the western daimyo.75 It did not help
  matters that both the principals in this nasty business, Protasio Arima
  and Paulo Okamoto, were Christians.
  For his part in the Okamoto Daihachi incident, Dom Protasio
  Arima was first exiled from his province and then sentenced to death.
  But the incident had far broader consequences than the punishment of
  this one daimyo. The Tokugawa turned against Christianity with a
  vengeance, prohibiting the religion in shogunal domains. Needless to
  say, this measure was imitated by their subjects, the domanial rulers.
  One of the first who sought to ingratiate themselves with the Toku-
  gawa that way was Harunobu's son, Dom Miguel Arima (Naozumi,
  1586-1641), who apostatized, was installed by the shogunate as
  daimyo in Arima, and immediately began a massive effort to force his
  Catholic subjects into abandoning their faith. Not successful enough
  in that effort to please his masters, he was in 1614 transferred to
  another fief, Nobeoka in Hyuga. He left behind him a restive Christian
  populace and the seedbed of the Shimabara Rebellion, a large-scale
  disturbance that broke out in 1637 and confirmed the Edo bakufu in
  its cherished conviction that Christianity was a subversive faith.
  The basic rationale for that judgment was laid out on February 1,
  1614 (Keicho 18.12.23), f°r the rest of the Tokugawa era in a docu-
  ment that had the force of an ancestral law, because it was written at
  the behest of the founding father, Ieyasu. This "Statement on the
  Expulsion of the Bateren," which was drafted by the Zen monk
  Konchiin Suden (1563-1633), first rehearses the standard traditional-
  ist dictum, "Japan is the Land of the Gods," and then declares that the
  Christians seek to make Japan into "their own possession." Their
  religion teaches them to "contravene governmental regulations, tra-
  duce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy righteousness, corrupt
  goodness" - in short, to subvert the native Japanese, the Buddhist,
  and the Confucian foundations of the social order. What else was this
  if not jaho, the ultimate "pernicious doctrine?"76
  75 See Shimizu Hirokazu, Kirishilan kinseishi, vol. 109 of Kyoikusha rekishi shinsko: Nihonshi
  (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1981), pp. 98-101.
  76 The original text can be found conveniently in Okubo Toshiaki, Kodama Kota, Yanai Kenji,
  and Inoue Mitsusada, eds., Shiryo ni yom Nihon no ayumi (kinsei) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kobunkan, 1963), pp. 124-5.
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  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  What undermined society, however, had to be uprooted. Hence,
  from this year 1614 onward, there followed a general persecution in
  Japan.
  THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF THE TOKUGAWA
  True to the "statement's" title and intent,.the first and foremost mea-
  sure of the general persecution was to order the expulsion of the
  missionaries from Japan. Many of them defied the bakufu's decree and
  stayed in the country in order to try keeping Japanese Christianity
  alive. Others, even more courageous, sought to slip into Japan from
  abroad, an adventure made all the more difficult by the prior need to
  find a sea captain prepared to take the risk involved in flouting the
  regime's explicit law. In some parts of Japan, the priests at first found
  ample protection from the populace. This was most notably the case in
  and around Nagasaki. In the seventeenth century's first decades, the
  port city had a population of some 25,000, almost all of them Chris-
  tian. The neighboring areas of Hizen, too, were thoroughly Christian;
  indeed, many of the people of this region had been nourished in the
  Christian faith for three generations. Here the faith retained its vigor
  the longest, and here the persecution did its worst.
  No less than forty-seven missionaries, including twenty-seven Jesu-
  its, refused to leave in 1614, evaded the shogunate's agents, and contin-
  ued their activities underground. Including those who were smuggled
  into Japan in trading ships, the number of Jesuits in that country had
  by the year 1621 actually increased to thirty-six.77 Evidently, their zeal
  for the cure of souls did not diminish under persecution: Between
  1614 and 1626, the Jesuits alone claimed seventeen thousand adult
  baptisms in Japan, and the total number of Japanese converted to
  Christianity under the grim conditions of those years must have been
  even higher, because members of other religious orders were also ac-
  tive in this mission.
  Aware of the porous nature of his network of surveillance, Shogun
  Hidetada in 1616 ordered the daimyo to intensify their efforts to
  eradicate Christianity among the people of their domains. The perse-
  cution became more brutal. A sporadic bloodletting among the sus-
  pect populace followed, leading up to the so-called Great Martyrdom
  of Nagasaki in 1622, when fifty-five Christians were executed. But it
  77 On the number of Jesuits in Japan between 1615 and 1644, see the charts set out by Schutte in
  Intwductio ad hislonam Societatis Jesu in Japonia, pp. 348-66. On the number of adults
  baptized by them under persecution, see ibid., pp. 415-18, 422-3.
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  ANTI-CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF THE TOKUGAWA 
  369
  was not until the reign of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu
  (1604-51, r. 1623-51), that the bakufu's anti-Christian system was
  perfected.
  There were two faces to that system. Toward the inside, the bakufu
  asserted its supremacy by making the scrutiny of all possible traces of
  Christianity an instrument of social control throughout the country.
  The face directed toward the outside expressed the conviction that the
  "Christian peril" could be controlled and even eliminated if Japan
  were totally isolated from the sources of that contagion. Within Japan,
  all Catholic priests and their believers were to be hunted down, made
  to renounce their faith, or executed. Their sympathizers and sometime
  providers, the Portuguese traders were to be banned from the country.
  In 1639, the Portuguese were expelled, and all contacts with Catho-
  lic lands were cut. In the next year, sixty-one members of an embassy
  sent by the Portuguese of Macao to seek a remission of that harsh
  ruling were beheaded: The world was to know that the shogunate
  meant what it said in its decrees. Thereafter, the Dutch were the only
  Europeans permitted an existence in Tokugawa Japan. Merchants im-
  bued with a purely Protestant ethic, Christians who were enemies of
  the Catholics, they accommodated themselves to the shogunate's
  whims for the sake of profit and were content with their isolated niche
  in sakoku, a country under isolation.
  How intimately the two sides of the system instituted by Iemitsu
  were associated may be seen from the so-called closed-country direc-
  tives (sakokuret) issued over the names of his senior councilors and
  addressed to the bakufu's commissioners in Nagasaki. Five of these
  administrative directives were issued between 1633 and 1639, the year
  that ended the Christian Century. They deal in an increasingly rigor-
  ous fashion with three topics that the shogunate clearly thought to be
  interconnected: restrictions on Japanese travel abroad (after 1635,
  such travel was punishable by death), the reduction of the European
  presence in Japan, and the merciless persecution of Christianity.78
  The very first of these directives proved fatal to the Jesuit missionar-
  ies in Japan. The document included a paragraph that offered financial
  incentives to inform on the whereabouts of Christian priests or their
  helpers, and this "infernal design" in short order led to the arrest of
  ten Jesuit padres and one irmdo in Nagasaki. Another member of the
  Society of Jesus was arrested that year in Edo, and his capture reduced
  the number of Jesuits in Japan to six. By 1644, they all had been
  78 See Asao Naohiro, Sakoku, vol. 17 of Nikon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975), pp. 223-30.
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  37° 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  rounded up, tortured, and killed or forced to apostatize.79 There were
  no missionaries left, but the shogunate did not relax its watchfulness.
  Indeed, it urged redoubled vigilance on its subject daimyo.
  A central Office of the Inquisition (Shumon aratame yaku), estab-
  lished in Edo in 1640 and destined to remain in the bakufu's table of
  organization until 1792, coordinated the effort to purge Japan of Chris-
  tians. In January 1665 (Kambun 4.11.25), the daimyo were told to emu-
  late the shogunate and appoint inquisitors in their domains. From Yone-
  zawa in the north through Okayama in the west of Honshu and down to
  Kagoshima in southernmost Kyushu, han governments instituted of-
  fices called "religious commissioner" {shumon bugyo) and the like. To be
  sure, there was no real reason for this elaborate network's existence.
  The fact is that there were practically no Christians left in Japan by
  the 1660s. Some three thousand Japanese Christians had died for their
  religion, including some six hundred captured in the Omura domain
  as late as 1657 and 1658, the last large group to be discovered. The
  mass of Japanese Christians had been driven into apostasy. All but a
  few, remote pockets of adherence to the "pernicious faith" had been
  eliminated, and it is doubtful that those few remaining groups of
  believers could properly be called Christian: Deprived of priests, cut
  off from the sources of their faith, their memories of its doctrines
  fading even as the Tokugawa era progressed, the "crypto-Christians"
  (kakure Kirishitan) of these isolated groups imperceptibly drifted from
  Catholicism into a syncretic folk creed tinctured with Buddhism and
  Shinto, the native Japanese religion.
  And yet the machinery of surveillance did not rest. Indeed, at least
  one of the processes that the inquisition set in motion developed a
  dynamism that made it something more than a meaningless routine, a
  fruitless search for Christians where none was to be found. That pro-
  cess was the compilation of "religious inquiry census registers"
  (shumon aratame ninbetsu cho), which were part of a more comprehen-
  sive scheme of social control. As no one was exempted from these
  surveys, which classified individuals according to the religious organi-
  zation in which they claimed membership, they permitted the regime
  to keep tabs on all its subjects, whether or not there had ever been a
  Christian branch on their family tree.
  79 The shock dealt to the Society of Jesus in Japan by the first sakoku directive and its immediate
  effects is described vividly in Visitator Andre Palmeiro SJ to General SJ, dated Macao, March
  20, 1634, in Schutte, Invroductio ad historiam Societatis Jesu injaponia, pp. 256-8. Schutte
  painstakingly examines the process of the Society's extinction in Japan between 1639 and
  1654, ibid., pp. 266-81.
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  ANTI-CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF THE TOKUGAWA 
  371
  The Buddhist ecclesiastical establishment was made responsible for
  verifying that a person was not a Christian through what became
  known as the "temple guarantee system" (terauke seido). By the 1630s,
  people were being required to produce a certificate of affiliation with a
  Buddhist temple as a proof of religious orthodoxy, social acceptability,
  and loyalty to the regime. In the Obama domain of Wakasa Province,
  for example, the daimyo Sakai Tadakatsu (1587-1662), a senior coun-
  cilor of the shogunate, decreed peremptorily: "Everyone must have a
  [Buddhist] temple to go to for proof that he or she is not a Christian.
  Temple priests will therefore be required to issue guarantees." In
  1639, newcomers who wanted to buy or rent houses in the city of
  Osaka were required to produce a temple's attestation before the con-
  tract could be signed. By the 1670s, such guarantees were required of
  anyone wishing to enter any type of service.80
  When this system matured at the beginning of the eighteenth cen-
  tury, all members of the population were enrolled at birth in the Bud-
  dhist temple with which their family was affiliated and were listed as
  parishioners in the temple's shumon aratame ninbetsu cho. The temple
  was responsible for keeping these registers up-to-date and for forward-
  ing them periodically through the local officials to the domanial lord. So
  rigorously enforced was the terauke requirement that in many portions
  of Japan these documents provide modern demographers with exten-
  sive and reliable population data. Surely this is an effect that the inquisi-
  tors neither intended nor foresaw.
  What does the sum total of the shogunate's policies amount to? The
  Edo bakufu seized control of the country's relations with the outside
  world even as it directed a nationwide network of vigilance aimed at
  what it regarded as the enemy within - the adherents of Christianity,
  the alien religion. In these two closely related realms of national policy,
  the shogunate was supreme. With the exception of the So of Tsu-
  shima, whose mediate role in relations with Korea was described in
  Chapter 6, the daimyo were kept out of foreign affairs. In the internal
  sphere, they followed the shogunate's lead and acted as its faithful
  agents in tracking down all those infected with the "pernicious faith."
  Thus the daimyo, whose patronage had been so avidly sought by the
  missionaries of the sixteenth century and whose protection - once
  upon a time - had made Christianity flourish over wide regions of
  Japan, became in the seventeenth century the efficient instruments of
  80 The "temple guarantee system" is discussed compendiously by Okuwa Hitoshi, Jidan no
  shiso, vol. 177 of Kyoikusha rekishi shinsho: Nihonshi (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1979), pp. 97-127.
  On Sakai Sadakatsu's decree, see ibid., p. 102.
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  372 
  CHRISTIANITY AND THE DAIMYO
  a nationwide inquisition. They worked hard to eliminate from their
  domains and from their country what had been, in the case of daimyo
  families such as the Arima, Omura, and Kuroda, quite literally the
  faith of their fathers.
  Just as some of their Sengoku ancestors had exerted themselves in
  forcing their populations to become Christian, mercilessly purging the
  priests, the symbols, and the practice of the "native" religions, Shinto
  and Buddhism, from the territories they ruled, so did the domanial
  lords of the Edo period seek to eradicate all traces of the "foreign"
  religion from the han entrusted to them by the shogunate. They forced
  the people subject to them to denounce Christianity, trample its sym-
  bols, and submit themselves to the officially sponsored Buddhist eccle-
  siastical structure.
  What we see here is an extraordinarily vivid illustration of the extent
  to which the daimyo institution itself was transformed in the course of
  the Christian Century of Japan, the ninety years or so that passed from
  the arrival of Xavier and the first Jesuits to the promulgation of the
  final sakoku directives. With the advent of Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi
  Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the regional hegemonies and petty
  baronies of Japan were integrated into a national body politic, and the
  daimyo, rulers over parts of that body, were subordinated to its head,
  the national hegemon. The Christian mission, which had established
  itself in a disjointed realm and had managed to survive the topsy-
  turvydom of Sengoku daimyo politics, lost its opportunity to thrive
  with the establishment of a strong central regime. The daimyo who
  once had sought profit by favoring the foreigners were henceforth
  bound by different rules of self-interest, needing to safeguard them-
  selves in a world of constraints imposed on them by the Tokugawa
  shogunate.
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  CHAPTER 8
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 1550-1700
  Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Japanese society un-
  derwent fundamental changes that led to the dissolution of the tradi-
  tional state structure and the appearance of new forms of state and
  social organization. This chapter focuses on the period from the mid-
  dle of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century. It
  begins with the final stages of the era of social upheaval and ends a
  century after the formation of a unified political regime. During these
  150 years a new state structure became firmly established, and the
  stable social environment that evolved led to a relatively steady im-
  provement in the lives of the people. The factors that brought about
  this social change and the precise nature of its impact on the structure
  of society and the lives of the people are issues about which the opin-
  ions of researchers continue to differ. In this chapter, I would like to
  touch first on one social phenomenon that is central to the develop-
  ment of religion and thought in this period but has not received from
  researchers the attention it deserves. I refer to the establishment of the
  ie (house or lineage) as the basic unit of social organization among both
  the bushi (warrior class) and the rest of the population.
  What I refer to here as the "house" is centered on the family. But the
  house was not identical with a consanguineous family unit; it incorpo-
  rated as members unrelated persons such as employees (hdkdnin), and it
  was possible for an adopted heir who had no blood relationship to the
  other members to succeed to its headship. Rather than a natural kinship
  grouping, the ie may be described more accurately as an artificial func-
  tional entity that engaged in a familial enterprise or was entitled to a
  familial source of income.
  The research of sociologists and anthropologists has made clear that
  beginning in the seventeenth century, "houses" of this kind consti-
  tuted the basic units of Japanese society, and indeed the house has
  come to be recognized as a characteristic feature of Japanese society. It
  is believed that among the court aristocracy and the upper stratum of
  bushi, the house pattern took shape between the eighth to tenth centu-
  373
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  374 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 155O-I7OO
  ries, but it probably did not become characteristic of the ordinary
  population until the fifteenth century, a period of widespread social
  upheaval that had a far-reaching impact on thought and religion.
  The social structure that became established after the upheavals of
  the late medieval period was based on a system of functionally differen-
  tiated status categories: the bushi, peasant, artisan, and merchant
  classes. Within each category the house was the unit that performed
  the function associated with that status. In other words, the principle
  of a society organized around family units, each pursuing a hereditary
  "house occupation" (kagyo), emerged from the disintegration of the
  social structure of earlier times.
  That the house became a characteristic phenomenon of the com-
  moner stratum of society, a category that also encompassed the lower
  levels of the bushi class, was closely linked to an improvement in the
  standard of living of the ordinary populace. Researchers have found
  that from the fourteenth century the agricultural population began to
  establish solid ties to a particular piece of land, while merchants,
  artisans, and those engaged in various arts shifted from an itinerant
  to a more settled life-style. This development, as well as the closely
  related rise of cities during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
  may be regarded as consequences of the spread of the house structure
  throughout society.
  To be sure, not everyone could establish a "house" of his own. As
  late as the seventeenth century many people in the poorer strata of
  society were unable to form a house, and not all of those who were
  born into a house were able to preserve a place for themselves as
  regular members of it. The number of members that a house could
  accommodate was limited by the family enterprise and its total in-
  come. But even for those excluded from one house there remained
  the possibility of affiliating with another as an employee, servant, or
  adopted heir. And if one secured the economic wherewithal, one
  might eventually form a new house. The existence of various ways of
  pursuing a living within the framework of the house structure is
  evidence of the economic development that characterized the age.
  Bushi enjoyed far fewer opportunities for economic advancement
  than did peasants and townsmen. The stipends and fiefs that consti-
  tuted the bushi's sources of familial income were rigidly fixed accord-
  ing to hereditary criteria that allowed little room for expansion of the
  house or its division into separate branches. To ronin (unattached samu-
  rai) or those second and third sons who faced exclusion from the house
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO 
  375
  structure of bushi society, the world may indeed have appeared closed.
  However, if they did not cling to their bushi status, they could be
  adopted into the house of a peasant or townsman. Likewise, by taking
  up scholarship, religion, or one of the arts, they could establish a new
  house of their own. Society no longer assumed, as had often been the
  case in earlier ages, that birth into a particular lineage or social status
  was a prerequisite for making a living through cultural activities. The
  professional pursuit of such activities thus came to be regarded as a
  legitimate occupation, comparable to any other family enterprise. Con-
  sequently, regardless of one's birth, if one had scholarly or artistic
  talent, one could advance in one's field and thereby establish a house
  of one's own. This was true not only for bushi but also for those of
  townsman or peasant origin. The transformation of cultural activities
  into enterprises engaged in by the individual houses influenced in
  various ways the thought and religious outlook of this period. We shall
  leave fuller discussion of this influence for later, noting here only that
  the range of social activities expanded within the framework of the
  house structure.
  As a result of the spread of the house structure throughout society,
  the majority of people were able to enjoy a modicum of security and
  even to look forward to a future improvement in their lives. Not
  surprisingly, then, much of the thought and religious writings of this
  period were characterized by a "this-worldly" outlook that basically
  affirmed reality and was primarily concerned with the question of how
  one should live within the existing society. This outlook found expres-
  sion in an emphasis on ethics on the one hand and in the pursuit of
  hedonistic pleasures on the other. With the rise of a this-worldly out-
  look, the hold of the other world on the minds of the populace weak-
  ened, resulting in a relative decline in religiosity, as may be seen in the
  literature and art of the period.
  We should not conclude, however, that religion itself had lost its
  vitality. To the contrary, it was in this period that Buddhism and
  Shinto first penetrated the populace as a whole and came to have a
  significant influence on the everyday lives of the people. What we
  regard as the traditional religion of Japan, which has survived even
  into the postmodern era, took shape at this time. Inevitably this reli-
  gion took on a this-worldly coloration that constitutes its most distinc-
  tive feature. We should remember that a similar religious conscious-
  ness functioned as the spiritual backdrop to the seemingly secular
  thought and cultural activities of the age.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  Although the dominant trend of the day was toward a this-worldly
  outlook, not everyone, needless to say, adopted such a perspective.
  What is of importance to us here is the link between this dominant
  trend and the individual's consciousness of himself or herself. If we
  assume that the rise of the house as a general social phenomenon
  sustained the trend toward a this-worldly outlook, then in what ways
  did the individual, reflecting these changes in religion and thought,
  actually perceive himself or herself in this relationship to the house?
  The social conditions that enabled even the ordinary person to pur-
  sue a stable life within the framework of the house also brought about
  a general improvement in the lives of the house's members. The house
  system fostered in its members a growing awareness of themselves as
  individuals: not as free and independent entities but, rather, as dis-
  crete members of a particular house. As a result, the individual's
  perception of himself or herself was shaped by the dual role of the
  house as a unit of social organization.
  On the one hand, the house was expected to carry out a particular
  function, to act as a gesellschaft. At the same time, it also had the
  characteristics of a familylike organic social unit, or gemeinschaft. As
  a gesellschaft, the house necessarily had to define its internal human
  relations in such a way as to fulfill the purpose (the conduct of the
  family enterprise) for which it was formed. Hence, each individual
  was assigned a role relative to the purpose of the group as a whole,
  whose successful performance became the guiding aim of his or her
  life. Roles within the group were diverse, and in many cases the
  relationship among members of the group was that of leader and
  follower. To that extent, the house's internal human relations were
  discriminatory and stratified. Discrimination and stratification also
  characterized the relationship between one house and another. The
  house as a unit carrying out its hereditary occupation was incorporated
  into the larger entity of the village and town or, in the case of samurai,
  the retainer band. But within that larger unit, the house was still
  responsible for performing its designated function. Even within the
  overall organization of the state, the house had a specified place within
  the structure of statuses, similarly based on function.
  The clearly defined nature of the house fostered in the individual
  an awareness of his or her role as a member, and a consciousness of
  the responsibility in fulfilling his or her assigned role. However, that
  responsibility was rooted less in an objective perception of the indi-
  vidual function than in a sense of obligation to other members of the
  household, a moral obligation of devoted service typical of the rela-
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO 
  377
  tionship between parent and child or lord and retainer. Conse-
  quently, it was expressed not as an awareness of a clearly defined
  and demarcated accountability but, rather, as a feeling of unlimited
  responsibility.
  The function of the house as a gemeinschaft was also conducive to
  the development of this sense of unlimited responsibility. Insofar as
  unrelated individuals were readily incorporated as full-fledged mem-
  bers of the house, the house as a gemeinschaft rested on the principle
  of equality, or commonality, among its members, as opposed to that of
  an innate hierarchy. As the representative of the house to the outside
  world, the house head exercised a functional authority over the other
  house members. But within the house, he did not enjoy any special
  privileges that set him above the others.
  The premise of commonality rested on the understanding that each
  member of the house stood on equal ground and was responsible for
  some aspect of the underlying function of the house. This made it
  possible for each member of the house to regard the pursuit of his or
  her particular function as a self-generated responsibility rather than as
  something imposed from outside. The same premise was true of the
  external relations of the house. Although each house held a position
  within the village or town or state defined by its designated function
  within the hereditary status order, there was at the same time a sense
  of a commonality that linked houses, giving rise to a feeling of equality
  between members of different houses and thereby fostering the solidar-
  ity of the group.
  Historians are intrigued by the questions of whether this sense of
  commonality was based on something more than the mutual bonds
  formed among those belonging to a particular organization and
  whether it could transcend the limits of an organizational framework
  and develop into a universal perception of the innate equality of hu-
  man beings. This leads to the question of the extent to which this
  society could tolerate or guarantee freedom of the individual outside
  the bounds of the organization.
  Scholars who study the history of Japanese social consciousness and
  thought have usually argued that this sense of commonality could not
  be extended beyond the particular group. Consequently, most have
  held that a universal notion of respect for the individual as such did
  not exist in traditional Japanese society. Such interpretations, how-
  ever, may have resulted from facile comparisons with the individual-
  ism and universalistic systems of thought found in Europe and Amer-
  ica. Although it can be argued that the sense of commonality that
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  378 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-17OO
  bound individuals in Japan was based on their mutual affiliation with a
  particular group, the scale of that group could be expanded from the
  house to the village, town, or retainer band and beyond that to the
  entire nation.
  Given the gemeinschaft-like nature of the house, in which no funda-
  mental distinction was made between those who were linked consan-
  guineously to the house and those who were not, the sense of common-
  ality in fact could transcend the state or ethnic group. Similarly,
  viewed from one angle, the consciousness of social responsibility as
  something that, rooted in direct affective ties, could not be sharply
  demarcated carried certain dangers. It might result in overly heavy
  demands on the individual and thus lead to the impairment of his or
  her sense of selfhood. However, considered from another angle, the
  very fact that the scope of responsibility was not rigidly defined meant
  that it was left up to the individual to decide how to accomplish his or
  her task. Thus it was also possible for the feeling of limitless responsi-
  bility to foster a sense of autonomous judgment. Whether or not that
  potential was realized within the actual historical context of early mod-
  ern Japan is another question. Our aim is to try to answer this ques-
  tion, by examining Tokugawa society and thought.
  RELIGION
  The social upheaval during the fourteenth through the sixteenth cen-
  turies had a profound effect on Japanese religion, for it was during
  this period that what may be called a national religion was estab-
  lished in Japan. The religious beliefs and institutions regarded as
  characteristically Japanese reached maturity during this period and
  have continued to exist, with relatively little modification, until re-
  cent times. If one were to seek the origin of these religious beliefs,
  one undoubtedly could trace them back'to antiquity. But it was only
  during the period under consideration that religion came to penetrate
  the lives of the general populace, not just as a primitive faith, but
  also as a system of beliefs that had undergone considerable intellec-
  tual refinement while sustained by the teachings and rituals of Bud-
  dhism and Shinto. The same period saw the establishment of a com-
  mon religious institution throughout the country. And it is the spread
  of a common pattern of religious practice both geographically and
  socially that can be cited as evidence of the establishment of a na-
  tional religion. We shall next look more closely at the specific fea-
  tures of this religion.
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  RELIGION 
  379
  The structure of religious life
  We have seen that a common pattern of religious practice spread
  throughout society in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, encompass-
  ing diverse lineages of faith. One of its identifying external features
  was the establishment of one shrine and one temple in each village.
  This made possible the simultaneous adherence of community mem-
  bers to Buddhism and to the worship of the native deities (kami).
  These disparate elements were brought together into a single entity by
  a common thread: the general desire of the populace to link them-
  selves to something eternal while yet pursuing their everyday lives.
  For the individual, religion served two basic functions. One was
  concerned almost exclusively with satisfying the needs of daily life,
  the other with the individual's fate after death. Kami worship, or
  Shinto, was largely oriented toward the former, Buddhism the latter.
  Once the two were identified with separate functions, a person could
  concurrently adhere to both. Although syncretism was practiced
  from antiquity, the practice of distinguishing between the customs
  and forms of worship that could be performed at Shinto shrines and
  at Buddhist temples, as well as the compartmentalization of these two
  religions into separate religious spheres, was essentially a post-
  sixteenth-century phenomenon.
  To be sure, within the world of religion the inclination toward amal-
  gamating Buddhism and Shinto continued to be strong, and it is not
  always easy to draw a line clearly separating the two. Although
  syncretistic practices were associated primarily with Shinto, the main
  form of religious activity at shrines remained kami worship.
  Kami worship was believed to help achieve benefits in this world. At
  least two types of kami worship can be identified - one centering on
  the community and the other on the individual. For example, the
  shrine dedicated to the village's tutelary deity (ujigami or chinju)
  served as the center of village social life and was the focus of prayers
  for good harvests and a secure and peaceful existence. The shrine's
  significance in the lives of the villagers was largely limited to these
  functions, and the original religious nature of the object of worship
  was of no particular consequence. The deity worshiped may have been
  associated originally with syncretistic practices, such as Hachiman,
  but a deity's provenance had little bearing on the form in which it was
  worshiped.
  The communal worship of kami could be called customary wor-
  ship. People also engaged as individuals in a form of kami worship
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  with a strong magical component, in the hope of obtaining good
  fortune or longevity for either themselves or their family. In this
  individual form of kami worship, prayers were normally directed at
  some specific deity whose spiritual authority was grounded in syncre-
  tistic beliefs. Gradually kami worship based on an amalgamation of
  Shinto and Buddhism (including Shugendo) came to be limited to the
  latter type of worship.
  The new schools of Buddhism that arose in the Kamakura period
  were opposed in principle to the fusion of Buddhism and Shinto. The
  trend away from syncretism, in turn, influenced the older schools of
  Buddhism that had traditionally condoned such practices. The grow-
  ing popularity of the Kamakura schools from the fourteenth century
  led to the further rejection of syncretism.
  The new schools, unlike the traditional schools that were oriented
  primarily toward the concerns of the aristocracy, taught a new form of
  Buddhism that was concerned with the salvation of all people. This
  development in turn fostered the formation of a dual-structured,
  rather than syncretistic, religious outlook based on simultaneous faith
  in the kami as the protectors of one's day-to-day life and faith in the
  buddhas as entities who guided the individual to salvation in the other
  world.
  As the new Buddhist schools spread among the populace, they
  began to accommodate themselves to the prevailing conditions of
  society, a process that inevitably led to changes in their orientation.
  More specifically, there was a significant shift in their interpretation
  of what salvation of the individual entailed. That is, salvation came
  to be understood principally as the salvation of the spirits of the
  dead. Therefore, greater emphasis was placed on guiding these spir-
  its to the realm of the buddhas, and less attention was paid to the
  question of how the individual should seek salvation during his or
  her own lifetime. As a result, people came to regard the holding of
  funerals and masses for the dead as the main religious function of
  temples and priests.
  "Funerary Buddhism" is the name often given to the type of reli-
  gion that developed around these practices, and most of those who
  have written on the history of Buddhism in Japan have regarded it as
  marking a degeneration of Buddhism's original purpose. From the
  standpoint of Buddhist doctrine, such a conclusion is perhaps inevita-
  ble. A broader perspective, however, is necessary to understand the
  actual historical role of Buddhism as a social force. The founders of
  Kamakura Buddhism aimed to present Buddhist teachings in a form
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  RELIGION 
  38I
  that would be accessible to the "ignorant masses," and therefore they
  were forced to make accommodations that would enable them to dis-
  seminate Buddhism as widely as possible.
  The dissemination of Buddhism
  The most prominent evidence of the establishment of Buddhism
  among the populace on a national scale in this period is the fact that a
  majority of the Buddhist temples surviving into the modern era were
  founded during this time. For example, studies based on records of
  the late seventeenth century have shown that a preponderant number
  of the temples of the Jodo sect, one of the largest in Japanese Bud-
  dhism, were founded or reestablished between the late sixteenth and
  mid-seventeenth century. In the late seventeenth century, there were
  6,008 Jodo temples throughout the nation. A founding date can be
  ascertained for 4,435 of these temples; approximately 65 percent of
  them were established in the seventy-one years between 1573 and
  1643. Because another 15 percent were founded between 1501 and
  1572 and 10 percent were established between 1646 and 1696, all
  together about 90 percent of these Jodo temples were established
  over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moreover,
  the total number and the geographical distribution of these temples
  changed very little in the following centuries. A survey in 1941 re-
  corded 6,974 J°do temples with a geographical distribution similar to
  that of the 6,008 temples that existed in the late seventeenth century.
  This evidence suggests that the main outlines of the Jodo temple
  network as we know it today were established in the sixteenth and
  seventeenth centuries.1 The results of other case studies suggest that
  a similar pattern of temple construction applies to other schools of
  Buddhism.2
  The temples established during these two centuries fall into two
  major categories in terms of provenance. One type of temple can be
  traced back to the Buddhist sanctuaries (jibutsudo) set up by a local
  proprietary lord or influential warrior peasant within the grounds of
  his residence for the performance of funerary services for the repose of
  the spirits of his relatives and ancestors. The other type grew out of
  1 Takeda Choshu, Minzoku bukkyo to sosen shinko (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1971),
  pp. 1171-91.
  2 See Suzuki Taizan, Zenshu no chiho haiien (Tokyo: Unebi shobo, 1942), pp. 378-457; and
  Tamamuro Taijo, "Chusei koki bukkyo no kenkyu - toku ni sengokuki o chushin toshite,"
  Meiji daigaku jimbun kagaku kenkyujo kiyo I (1962): 20—7.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 155O-I7OO
  the communal sanctuary (sodo) established as a place of worship for
  the members of the local community. A local sanctuary was often
  transformed into a temple with a particular sectarian affiliation when a
  professional priest assumed responsibility for its affairs. The sanctuary
  was usually incorporated as a branch temple {matsuji) of the main
  temple of the school to which the priest belonged. This development
  also entailed a change in the priest's life-style. Before this time, most
  priests led an itinerant existence, traveling throughout the provinces
  to proselytize and carry on other religious activities, but with the
  proliferation of local temples, priests were able to take up permanent
  residence in a particular locality.3
  The separation of warriors from the countryside carried out on a
  national scale during the last decades of the sixteenth century also had
  an impact on local sanctuaries, because it transformed most of rural
  society into agricultural communities made up solely of peasants. As a
  result, the local temple, even if formerly a personal sanctuary of the
  local proprietary lord, came to function as an institution serving the
  religious needs of all village members. At the same time, a large num-
  ber of temples came to be established in urban areas where the bushi
  and commercial classes gathered after being driven from the land.
  Some existing temples were moved from the countryside to the city to
  serve the religious needs of the burgeoning urban population. But in
  most instances, the urban temples were new, a phenomenon that helps
  account for the expansion in the total number of temples across the
  nation during this period.
  In both the village and the city, the religious function performed by
  these temples was different from that of the shrines. Whereas the
  shrines served as the center of communal life, the temples usually were
  linked to individual houses, and their main function was to serve as a
  venue for funerary services and masses for the dead performed on
  behalf of these houses. Hence, the establishment of houses among all
  social classes, as we just discussed, can be seen as another factor
  contributing to the dissemination of Buddhism.
  The temple with which a particular house was affiliated was called a
  hereditary temple (bodaiji).4 The families belonging to such a temple
  3 Takeda Choshu, "Kinsei shakai to bukkyo," in Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 9 (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 265-8.
  4 The term bodai (Sanskrit: bodhi) originally indicated the state of enlightenment. The latter
  state came to be equated with that of nirvana, and nirvana, in turn, came to mean death.
  Consequently, the recitation of prayers for the successful passage of the souls of the dead into
  the realm of the Buddha was referred to as "offering prayers for enlightenment" (bodai 0
  lomurau). The bodaiji was the place where such prayers were offered.
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  RELIGION 
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  were its parishioners (danka).s Houses at all levels of society, from the
  ruling classes down to the ordinary populace, formed ties to hereditary
  temples. The imperial family's bodaiji was Sennyuji, a Shingon temple
  in Kyoto, and that of the Tokugawa shogunal line was the Zojoji, a
  Jodo temple in Edo. These temples contained, respectively, the graves
  of members of the imperial family and the Tokugawa shogunal line.6
  Similarly, members of bushi and commoner families had tombs in the
  graveyard attached to their family's bodaiji. It is particularly notewor-
  thy that even ordinary members of the populace came to have a temple
  and graveyard that they could regard as functioning on behalf of their
  family.
  This development had an important influence on the system of
  grave construction within the Japanese village. Typically, two "graves"
  were established, one at the actual burial site (umebaka) and the other
  at a place set aside for the performance of rituals on behalf of the
  spirits of the deceased (tnairibaka).7 Centered on the Kinki area, this
  practice extended westward to the Chugoku-Shikoku region, and east-
  ward to the Kanto and has continued into recent times.
  In 1854, S. W. Williams, the chronicler of Commodore Matthew
  Perry's expeditions to Japan, noted the existence of this custom in
  Yokohama, which at that time was still a small fishing village.8 Japa-
  nese ethnographers and specialists in religion began to research the
  subject from around 1929. Today it is widely believed that the custom
  began in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, partly because dates on
  the stone steles erected at the site of the mairibaka date from that time.
  We should note also that the appearance of this custom coincides
  with the establishment of the village as a cohesive community.9 It came
  to be regarded as obligatory to be buried in the graveyard shared
  communally by the villagers. At the same time, the autonomy of the
  5 The term danka (danna house) derives from the term danna (an abbreviation of the Sanskrit
  dana-pati), meaning alms-offering believers. The bodaiji was also referred to as the dannadera
  {danna temple).
  6 "Family" is used here in the narrow rather than the extended sense. For instance, in the case of
  the Tokugawa, Zojoji was the bodaiji of only the immediate shogunal line, not of the Tokugawa
  family as a whole. The other branches of the Tokugawa family each had their own bodaiji. For
  example, the Owari branch of the Tokugawa had as its bodaiji, the Kenchuji, in Nagoya.
  7 Although much research has been published on the dual-grave system, the most significant
  works have been collected in Mogami Takayoshi, ed., Haka no shuzoku, vol. 4 of Soso bosei
  kenkyu shusei (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1979).
  8 Samuel Wells Williams, "A Journal of the Perry Expedition to Japan (1853-1854)," Transac-
  tions of the Asiatic Society of Japan yj (1910): 116 (entry for February 25, 1854). The Japanese
  translation may be found in Hora Tomio, trans., Perii Nihon ensei zuikdki (Tokyo: Yushodo
  shoten, 1970), p. 191.
  9 Sato Yoneshi, "Ryobosei no mondaiten," and Mogami Takayoshi, "Soso," in Mogami, ed.,
  Haka no shuzoku, p. 99 and pp. 144-6, respectively.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  house as a constituent unit of the community grew stronger. People
  thus felt an increased need to maintain a sense of connection with the
  deceased members of the house, by conducting rituals for the repose
  of their spirits at a place specifically designated for that purpose. Such
  Buddhist funerary rites were performed to convey the spirits of the
  deceased to Amida's Pure Land or some other Buddhist paradise and
  thereby to transform the spirits into something pure. Because the
  actual burial site, which was associated with a state of pollution, was
  not regarded as a suitable venue for the performance of such rites,
  separate ritual graves were eventually established.
  The changes in the common people's religious life that were occur-
  ring at this time can be understood only as a complex interaction with
  other developments. These we have noted as the evolution in ancestor
  worship, the spread of Buddhism among the populace, and the growth
  in the number of temples. Before this time, the ordinary people did
  not have clearly demarcated graves but simply disposed of their dead
  by abandoning corpses in uncultivated uplands or along riverbeds.10
  The legacy of this practice was apparent in the umebaka. Indeed, in
  some regions, the umebaka was referred to as the "dumping grave"
  (sutebaka). Corpses were generally placed in shallow pits, and after
  only a short interval the same ground was often dug up and used to
  bury another corpse. Thus, the site of the umebaka functioned less as a
  grave and more as a dumping ground for corpses. By contrast, the
  mairibaka, which first appeared in the late medieval period, usually
  was located within the sacred grounds of the village temple. Thus,
  whereas the umebaka preserved the traditional customs regarding dis-
  posal of the dead, the mairibaka marked the emergence of a new
  conception of the burial process and enabled even members of the
  ordinary agricultural population to possess graves.
  Various attempts have been made to explain why the dual-grave
  system was most commonly practiced in the Kinki region and less
  frequently in outlying regions. Its emergence may have paralleled the
  appearance of the early modern village communities that developed
  first in the economically advanced Kinki region.11 Judging by the
  dates engraved on village grave stones, it appears that individual
  houses did not begin to erect steles or stone markers for their
  10 In ancient Japan the practice of disposing of the dead by exposing the body or burying it
  summarily was widespread, even among the aristocracy. See Tanaka Hisao, Sosen saishi no
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1959).
  11 Sato Yoneshi, "Ryobosei no mondaiten," and Takeda Choshu, "Ryobosei sonraku ni okeru
  mairibaka no nenrin (II)," Bukhyb daigaku kenkyu kiyo 52 (March 1968): 152.
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  mairibaka until quite late. Before the eighteenth century, only promi-
  nent families in the village seem to have erected individual grave
  stones; the majority of villagers made do with wooden memorial slips
  at the village bodaiji, or with a communal stele, or stone marker. This
  indicates that both the umebaka and mairibaka were originally commu-
  nal in nature, and it supports the hypothesis that the dual-grave sys-
  tem emerged in conjunction with the maturation of the communal
  structure of the village.
  Such a hypothesis also helps explain why the dual-grave system was
  less likely to take root in peripheral areas. There the social stratifica-
  tion was more rigid, which tended to hinder the development of a
  sense of community. Nonetheless, even in remote villages, similar
  relationships developed at about the same time between the hereditary
  family temples and its parishioners. Hence, the ordinary population in
  remote regions also came to possess graves, even if they did not adopt
  the dual-grave system.
  It is important to note also that graveyards appeared at the same
  time even among segments of the population that preferred a single
  grave and so practiced cremation, namely, the townspeople and adher-
  ents of the Shin sect of Buddhism. Shin believers were among the first
  to introduce the custom of cremating the dead and establishing a single
  grave for both burial and ritual.
  These changes in the role of the temple and that of burial customs
  suggest that faith in Buddhism had come to play an important part in
  the everyday life of most of the population. Accordingly, from the
  1650s, the governing authorities began to use these developments for
  various political purposes. For example, authorities seeking to enforce
  the bakufu's prohibition of Christianity established a temple registry
  system based on the relationship between the bodaiji and its parishio-
  ners. Bakufu officials sought to regulate the affairs of religious institu-
  tions by recognizing the authority of a main temple over its many
  branches. Although the civil authorities were merely co-opting existing
  relationships (between parishioner and bodaiji, and main and branch
  temple) to achieve their own goals and not creating social institutions
  anew, such manipulation brought about various changes in these reli-
  gious institutions, many of which were ultimately detrimental.
  For temples and priests to have taken on as their main function the
  performance of funerary rites and ceremonies for the spirits of the
  dead may have been a distortion of Buddhism's original spiritual inten-
  tions. However, by reassuring people about their own fate after death,
  such practices fostered a sense of well-being that comes from knowing
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  386 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-17OO
  that one has already been blessed with salvation, a development that
  was not without religious benefit.
  It is significant as well that the practice of referring to the deceased
  as hotoke seems to have become common about this time.12 The use of
  the term hotoke, which means buddha, indicates that people believed
  that the deceased would enter the realm of the Buddha as a result of
  the religious ministrations performed b;, the priest on the parishio-
  ner's behalf. The belief also developed that the spirits of the deceased
  returned to his or her family home every year during the Bon festival
  held in the summer and at the spring and autumn equinoxes, to re-
  ceive the religious solace offered by his or her descendants and by
  priests engaged for this purpose. The regular performance of these
  seasonal religious ceremonies came to be a distinguishing characteris-
  tic of Japanese Buddhism.
  From the perspective of Buddhist doctrine, it was contradictory to
  expect that spirits freed from the bonds of human existence would
  periodically return to this world.13 Yet it was not perceived so because
  Buddhist beliefs had fused with the beliefs of traditional ancestor
  worship.14 As a result, the deceased was regarded not simply as a
  hotoke but also as one of the ancestors who protected the house and
  preserved intimate ties with its living members. Likewise, the convic-
  tion that even after death one could continue to act as a member of the
  house offered further reassurance to the living about their own fate
  after death. This constellation of beliefs was reinforced by the spread
  of the custom of maintaining a Buddhist altar (butsudan) in each
  house, dating from about the seventeenth century.15 The butusdan
  contained such objects as a Buddhist image and mortuary tablets of
  deceased family members, and it acted as the repository of the spirits
  of the ancestors (who had become hotoke).
  Thus, Japanese Buddhism fostered a this-worldly orientation in two
  ways: It did not demand that ordinary believers pursue a particular
  religious regimen, which would set them apart from this world, and it
  sought to preserve ties with this world after death. The outlook charac-
  teristic of Tokugawa Buddhism linked the everyday life and human
  12 Aruga Kizaemon, "Hotoke to iu kotoba ni tsuite," in Takeda Choshu, ed., Senzo kuyo, vol. 3
  of Soso bosei kenkyu shusei (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1979).
  13 Hirayama Toshijiro, "Kamidana to butsudan," in Takeda, ed., Senzo kuyo, pp. 229-31.
  14 Much research has been done on the fusion of Buddhism and the veneration of ancestors.
  Representative works are Yanagita Kunio, Senzo no hanashi, vol. 10 of Teihon Yanagita Kunio
  shu (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1963); Takeda Choshu, Sosen suhai, vol. 8 of Saara sosho
  (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1957); and also Takeda, ed., Senzo kuyo.
  15 Hirayama, "Kamidana to butsudan," and Takeda Choshu, "Jibutsudo no hatten to shu-
  shuku," in Takeda, ed., Senzo kuyo.
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  relations that centered on the house with the sacred. Although the
  evaluation of the spiritual quality of such a religion is not our task, we
  should note that what often is described simply as a secular outlook in
  fact rested on religious sentiments of this sort.
  New forms o/kami worship
  Although Buddhism, which was by origin a foreign religion, did not
  take root among the ordinary population before the fourteenth cen-
  tury, kami worship was an indigenous religious practice that was
  widely disseminated much earlier. From ancient times, the formation
  of a social group was accompanied by the belief in the existence of a
  deity that would protect the group, and the members of the group
  assumed it to be their natural duty to conduct regular ceremonies
  honoring that deity. However, the form of such ceremonies and the
  popular understanding of the characteristics of the deities they hon-
  ored changed over time. Let us examine these changes that resulted
  from the transformation of society characteristic of the fifteenth and
  sixteenth centuries.
  The most important change was the emergence of the local tutelary
  deity {ujigami) as the center of the religious life of small regional
  communities like the agricultural village.16 The word ujigami means
  the kami that protects a particular uji (a family or social group origi-
  nally based on consanguinity). Although the uji often included people
  who were not blood relations, the tie among members of the uji was
  nevertheless usually conceived of as a blood tie. The custom of refer-
  ring to the tutelary deity of such uji as ujigami existed from ancient
  times, and the practice continued into the medieval age. We see evi-
  dence of it, for example, in the Minamoto worship of Hachiman as its
  ujigami. However, the local ujigami that appeared in the fifteenth and
  sixteenth centuries were quite different. They had no connection with
  a particular lineage but instead were regarded as the protective deities
  of groups formed on a purely regional basis.
  Early evidence of the use of the term ujigami in this new sense may
  be found in an entry for the year 1447, from the diary of the Zen priest
  Zuikei Shuho. He wrote: "It is the general custom of people to refer to
  the deity who presides over the place in which they were born as their
  16 The ujigami was also known as ubusuna no kami (natal deity) and as the chinju (protector);
  these names would seem somewhat more appropriate to the character of the ujigami as a local
  tutelary deity. However ujigami is the oldest and most generally used of these terms; the other
  two seem to have appeared later.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  ujigami." Having been born in Sakai in Izumi Province, Zuikei noted
  that his own ujigami was the deity of Sumiyoshi. In this case his natal
  home lay within a shorn that already had become urbanized. Moreover,
  the shrine of the deity of Sumiyoshi that he identified as his ujigami
  was not located in Sakai itself but in the neighboring province of
  Settsu.17 But though the ujigami of which Zuikei spoke was thus
  slightly different from the later village ujigami, his usage indicates that
  it had become the general practice to refer to the protective deity of a
  social unit with ties to a particular locality as a ujigami. In essence the
  ujigami to which he referred was the same as the ujigami of rural
  communities that existed from the seventeenth century on.
  No fully convincing answer has been offered to the question of why
  a term that originally indicated the deity of a consanguineous group
  came to be used for a regional deity. Based on current information, my
  tentative hypothesis is that such a usage developed because the resi-
  dents of a particular regional community regarded the kami in ques-
  tion as their common ancestral deity.'8
  The ujigami of antiquity - that is, the tutelary deity of a particular
  uji - was not necessarily the ancestral deity of that uji. This is clear
  from the fact that the Fujiwara uji of the Nara period took the kami of
  the Kashima and Katori shrines (located respectively in the provinces
  of Hitachi and Shimosa) as their ujigami, whereas the Minamoto uji
  adopted Hachiman. None of these kami was regarded as the ancestor
  of the uji in question. At the same time, each uji had its own "parent
  deity" (oyagami) which it took to be its ancestor. Over time, the
  ujigami was also seen as an ancestral deity. With the dissolution of the
  uji and the emergence of the house as the fundamental unit of society,
  the belief that the souls of the dead ancestors of the house would act as
  a kind of deity to protect their descendants became widely held.
  According to folklorists, one of the distinctive features of ancestor
  veneration in Japan is that in Buddhist services, the dead are first
  worshiped as hotoke, or spirits, but eventually (typically thirty-three
  17 The deity of Sumiyoshi was the object of special veneration by those involved in sea com-
  merce and fishing. It was presumably for this reason that it was worshiped as the protective
  deity of a port like Sakai. Sakai (literally, "border") was located on the border of the provinces
  of Settsu and Izumi; it combined within it what had originally been two separate shoen, Kita
  no sho (Settsu) and Minami no sho (Izumi).
  18 Yanagita Kunio expresses a similar view in Shinto to tmnzokugaku, vol. 10 of Teihon Yanagita
  Kunio shu, originally published in 1943, and in Ujigami to ujiko (vol. 11), pp. 405-7, origi-
  nally published in 1947. However, he holds that each house previously had its own ujigami
  and that these became combined into a common village ujigami. In fact, however, it appears
  that the concept of the village ujigami as the common ancestral deity of the villages existed
  before the practice of each house having its own ujigami became clearly established.
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  RELIGION 
  389
  or, in some cases, fifty years after death), the soul of the deceased is
  believed to lose its individual characteristics. At that point, it becomes
  fused with the spirits of the ancestors in general and, as the ancestral
  deity of the house, enters the realm of the kami.19 Although such
  beliefs are commonly referred to as "traditional folk religion," it is
  likely that this particular form of ancestral veneration, combining
  elements of both Buddhist and kami worship, spread widely through-
  out society only in the last several centuries.
  We can assume that from antiquity people shared the vague notion
  that the spirits of the ancestors would protect their descendants. How-
  ever, in an age when people simply abandoned the corpses of the dead
  instead of making a grave for them, the soul of a deceased individual
  was presumably not singled out for particular attention. But with the
  spread of Buddhism, which took the salvation of the individual as its
  mission, the idea took root that Buddhist services should be per-
  formed, for a certain length of time, for the dead as individuals. That
  period generally corresponded to the time during which family mem-
  bers retained a personal memory of the deceased. In other words, for
  that span of time the deceased "existed" simultaneously as an individ-
  ual who needed the religious ministrations of his descendants and as
  one of the ancestors of the house. Eventually, however, the souls of the
  deceased became totally subsumed into the latter category.
  Finally the question remained as to where the ancestors who had
  been transformed into kami should be enshrined. There were two
  plausible choices: the "god shelf" (kamidana) maintained by each
  household or the ujigami worshiped by the local community. Of these,
  the ujigami probably existed earlier. The relationship between the
  ujigami and the kamidana seems to have been similar to that between
  the temple and the butsudan in Buddhist practice. Just as the emer-
  gence of the temple as a communal site for funerary services and
  enshrinement of the dead appears to have preceded the establishment
  of butsudan in individual houses, it is likely that the members of the
  community gave priority to the ujigami that they worshiped as a com-
  munity. They referred to this kami that served as the focus of the
  solidarity of their community as their ujigami, precisely because they
  regarded the kami as their common ancestral deity.
  The people (actually the houses) who worshiped the ujigami were
  known as ujiko. Because the word ko (child) forms a natural pair with
  the word oya (parent), reference to the worshipers of a particular
  19 See Yanagita, Senzo no hanashi.
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  39° 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  ujigami as ujiko lends further support to the hypothesis that people saw
  the ujigami also as an oyagami (ancestral deity).20 Treating the ujigami
  as an ancestral deity thus assumed the existence of an exclusive bond
  between the ujigami and the ujiko. The ujigami was believed to protect
  only its ujiko; likewise it was worshiped only by its ujiko. In the same
  way, the ujigami of ancient society had been worshiped only by those
  who belonged to the particular uji associated with that ujigami.
  The worship of local ujigami began around the same time as did the
  formation of the village community. Initially, it is likely that the
  ujigami were enshrined not in permanent edifices but in yashiro, an
  ancient word that originally referred to a place where a temporary altar
  was erected to conduct services honoring a kami.21 Agricultural vil-
  lages traditionally held ceremonies to summon the presence of the
  kami only on particular occasions, such as before planting in the spring
  and after harvesting in the fall. During the rest of the year, the kami
  was believed to reside not in the village itself but at the top of a nearby
  mountain.
  It is difficult to determine just when villages began to build a perma-
  nent shrine in each village or group of villages and to regard the kami
  as residing there permanently. The change may have occurred as the
  content of communal life grew more complex and as susceptibility to
  disasters such as drought, floods, and epidemic diseases fostered a
  need among the people to offer prayers to the kami on more than the
  traditional fixed occasions. The increased tendency by the individual
  house or village member to pray for the kami's personal assistance
  could also have spurred the change.
  In any case, permanent shrines were probably not constructed be-
  fore the emergence of the house as a constituent element of the commu-
  nity was quite advanced, and thus we can safely date their establish-
  ment to sometime around the sixteenth century. The local ujigami,
  however, may have appeared somewhat earlier in economically ad-
  vanced areas like the Kinki region. There large communities known as
  sosho, which encompassed an entire shoen or an area of comparable
  size, had already emerged by the thirteenth century. The deity of the
  20 The word ko originally meant one belonging to an occupational group, and the term oya
  meant the leader of that group; see Yanagita Kunio, Ie kandan, vol. 15 of Teihon Yanagita
  Kunio shii. However, because from antiquity on, the family or familial organizations such as
  the uji or ie functioned as the work group, it became common to refer as well to a blood parent
  or ancestor as oya and a child or descendant as ko.
  21 The ya of yashiro means a building or altar, and shiro means the place where such a structure
  was erected. Originally the combination of these two linguistic elements seems to have
  referred to a space reserved for the construction of a temporary altar. Yanagita, Shinto to
  minzokugaku, and Hirayama, "Kamidana to butsudan."
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  RELIGION 
  391
  shrine that formed the religious center of the sosho was also referred to
  as its ujigami, and permanent shrines were built quite early. Another
  important feature of sosho ujigami worship was the existence of the
  miyaza, an organization made up of bushi and petty proprietors acting
  as representatives of the community, which took responsibility for
  conducting and managing the religious ceremonies of the shrine.22
  Whereas the formation of villages was the end result of communal
  efforts for economic survival, the sosho (which may have consisted of
  groups of villages) was a political institution. Consequently, although
  the sosho disappeared with the final disintegration of the shoen system
  in the sixteenth century, the village survived as the fundamental unit
  of social organization. These political developments were mirrored in
  the religious realm as the ujigami of the sho evolved into the ujigami of
  the village and the miyaza of the sho became the miyaza of the village.23
  The ujigami of a sosho became the ujigami of a particular village or the
  common ujigami of a particular group of villages, and the ceremonies
  centering on that ujigami were handled by a miyaza made up of influen-
  tial peasants from that village.
  The same pattern of evolution in ujigami worship occurred among
  the urban commoner population. In place of a communal structure
  encompassing the entire city, various subdivisions of the city (referred
  to as chb or machi) became the locus of social activities, and several of
  these chb jointly managed the rites for a common ujigami.
  In many ways the evolution of the ujigami resembled the evolution
  of the Buddhist temple. The difference is that the presence of a profes-
  sional priest was a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of a
  temple. In the case of the shrine, however, the miyaza or a comparable
  local organization of the parishioners played the central role in the
  religious activities focused on the shrine. Even when a shrine function-
  ary such as the kannushi had become responsible for the conduct of
  shrine rituals, in many cases the villagers had originally rotated the
  post among themselves. Shrines with a notable pedigree, like the
  ujigami of the sosho, tended to have professional shrine functionaries.
  In ordinary villages the normal practice was to appoint a professional
  shrine priest only if the ritual to be performed grew too complex.
  With the appearance of shrine priests in various parts of Japan, the
  need arose for some entity to oversee their activities. In response, the
  22 Higo Kazuo, Miyaza no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1941); Hagihara Tatsuo, Chusei saishi
  soshiki no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1962).
  23 Imai Rintaro and Yagi Akihiro, Hoken shaken no noson kozo (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1955); Ando
  Seiichi, Kinsei miyaza no shiteki kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, i960).
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 1550-I7OO
  Yoshida family, whose original base was the Yoshida Shrine in Kyoto,
  supplied a doctrine of kami worship (known as either Yoshida Shinto
  or Yuiitsu Shinto) and came to exert great influence over the adminis-
  tration of shrines throughout the country.24 Yoshida Shinto was
  founded by Yoshida Kanetomo (1453-1511), who established himself
  and his descendants as authorities who determined the proper way to
  perform shrine rituals and granted ranks and certificates to shrine
  functionaries. The Yoshida family also granted ranks and titles to
  shrines. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Yoshida
  family succeeded in bringing under their supervision the majority of
  the country's shrine functionaries.
  Originally, the people's ujigami had no distinguishing characteris-
  tics, but from the eighteenth century onward it became common for
  local ujigami shrines to be identified as a branch of some major shrine,
  such as those devoted to Hachiman, Inari, or Tenjin (Sugawara no
  Michizane). In most cases, the affiliation of the local ujigami with a
  major central deity had relatively little impact on the actual content of
  ujigami worship. The spread of Ise worship among the populace, how-
  ever, did have a major influence on local religious life.
  The missionary activities of priests (oshi) associated with the Ise
  shrines were at first directed primarily at important local figures and
  bushi. However, from the end of the sixteenth century, the oshi began
  to enroll members of the ordinary populace as "parishioners" (danna),
  and as a consequence the number of both oshi and parishioners in-
  creased greatly. The number of Outer Shrine oshi, which had been
  about 150 at the end of the sixteenth century, grew to about 550 by the
  beginning of the eighteenth century. In addition there were about 140
  Inner Shrine oshi. According to a document from the year 1777, the
  Outer Shrine oshi alone counted 4,961,370 households as parishioners,
  a figure nearly equal to the country's entire population.25
  In contrast with communal worship of the ujigami as the tutelary
  deity of the community, Ise worship rested on the faith of the individ-
  ual or his or her house. This was clearly a new development in popular
  kami worship. Worship of the Hachiman, Inari, or Tenjin deities,
  which became fused with the local ujigami, also entailed the selective
  worship of a particular deity for its distinctive spiritual authority.
  24 Hagihara Tatsuo, "Yoshida shinto no hatten to saishi soshiki," in his Chusei saishi soshiki no
  kenkyu, pp. 611-718; Emi Seifu, "Yuiitsu shinto ron," in Emi Seifu, Shinto setsuen (Tokyo:
  Meiji shoin, 1942).
  25 Miyamoto Tsuneichi, Ise sangu (Gendai kyoyo bunko) (Tokyo: Shakai shisosha, 1971); Shinjo
  Tsunezo, Shinko shaji sankei no shakai keizaishi-teki kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1982).
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  Notably it was from the sixteenth century onward that faith in a
  particular Hachiman, Inari, or Tenjin shrine, apart from one's ujigami,
  spread among the general populace. The parallel existence of two
  types of kami worship, one at the level of the community and the other
  at the level of the house or the individual, became a new feature of the
  religious life of this period, and Ise worship was the most representa-
  tive example of the latter type of kami worship.
  From the eighteenth century it became common for households to set
  up kamidana (god shelves) and to place in them talismans from their
  local ujigami and from the Ise Shrine. The kami worship conducted at
  the level of the individual house thus retained a magical component, as
  did individual worship of kami. However, kami worship sustained by
  the individual's growing sense of self-awareness also came to acquire a
  rational, ethical orientation among some worshipers. This development
  may be seen in the appearance of religious teachings that stressed rectify-
  ing oneself in order to conform to the kami's desire.
  A key example of such teachings is the "Oracle of the Three
  Shrines" (Sanja takusen), which is believed to have been formulated
  some time in the fifteenth century.26 The "Oracle of the Three
  Shrines" consisted of a piece of paper on which the names of the Ise,
  Hachiman, and Kasuga shrines were written. Below that was recorded
  the claim that the deity of each of these shrines taught the virtues of
  complete sincerity (shojiki), purity (shojo), and benevolence (jihi).
  From the sixteenth century onward this oracle was widely circulated,
  and it was common for ordinary people to mount a copy of it on a
  scroll that was placed in the alcove of their houses. This form of kami
  worship could be a denial of the efficacy of magical prayers and rituals.
  The popularity of the saying "If one's heart conforms to the way of
  complete sincerity (makoto), even if one offers no prayers, the kami
  will provide protection" may have reflected a trend away from
  magic.27
  An example of yet another new form of kami worship that took
  shape in this period was the practice of enshrining human beings as
  kami. A key date in the development of this practice was the enshrine-
  ment in 1599 of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had died the previous year,
  as Toyokuni daimyojin, at a shrine built in his honor in Kyoto. Before
  this time, historical figures had become the object of worship at cer-
  26 Watanabe Kunio, "Sanja takusen no shinko," in Watanabe Kunio, Shinto shiso to sono
  kenkyusha tachi (Tokyo: Wataki, 1957).
  27 In his Yottuki, written in 1650, Watarai Nobuyoshi argued that despite the prevalence of this
  formulation, it still was necessary to offer prayers to the kami.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  tain specific shrines. Emperor Ojin was identified with the deity
  Hachiman, an existing object of worship, and Sugawara no Michizane
  was deified as Tenjin, because he had died in a state of anger over a
  wrong done him. It was believed that enshrining his spirit would keep
  it from acting malevolently. But it was unprecedented for someone
  who had died under normal circumstances to be enshrined in his own
  right, and all the more unusual for the enshrinement to take place
  shortly after his death.28
  Hideyoshi is said to have left instructions for his enshrinement. But
  why should he have had such an idea? And why was this new arrange-
  ment readily accepted by the court and other contemporary political
  and religious authorities? The traditional explanation that Hideyoshi's
  deification was due on the one hand to a grandiose sense of his own
  importance and on the other to a general adulation of him as a heroic
  figure is unsatisfactory. Perhaps the motive should be sought in the
  new kind of religious outlook just described.
  In the new religious outlook, the kami and hotoke were not necessar-
  ily regarded as inhabiting a realm far removed from this world. If the
  dead became hotoke and the ancestors kami, it was also plausible to
  assume that the kami and hotoke were human, or at least a transforma-
  tion of what once had been human. Further, although in name and
  form the hotoke and kami may have been different, the idea became
  widely established that fundamentally they were the same.
  Both the view advocated by Buddhist Shinto (Ryobu Shinto) that
  the kami were local manifestations of buddhas (honji suijaku) and the
  opposite assertion of Yoshida Shinto that the kami were fundamental
  and the buddhas secondary manifestations served the notion that the
  kami and the hotoke were essentially the same. This idea was further
  reinforced by the fact that Buddhist priests often assumed responsibil-
  ity for performing shrine rituals. That a human being of extraordinary
  ability and accomplishments should have become a kami rather than a
  hotoke after his death was not perceived as particularly strange.
  The teachings and ritual developed under the aegis of Yoshida
  Shinto unquestionably contributed to the acceptance of a recently
  deceased person as a kami. At the same time, from Hideyoshi's per-
  sonal perspective, there were various reasons that he should have
  wanted to become a kami rather than a hotoke. As the founder of a new
  house rather than a successor to one with a long pedigree, it was
  28 Miyaji Naokazu, "Ho taiko to Toyokuni daimyojin," in his Jingi to kokushi (Tokyo: Kokon
  shoin, 1926); Kato Genchi, Hompo seishi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Chubunkan, 1934); Miyata
  Noboru, Ikigami shinko: hito 0 kami ni matsuru shuzoku (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1970).
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  THOUGHT 
  395
  necessary for him to create an ujigami protector of his house, in the
  same way that Hachiman, for instance, protected the Genji and the
  Ashikaga houses. Moreover, as one who died fearing for the political
  future of the Toyotomi house, it was quite natural that Hideyoshi
  should wish to become a kami, capable of directly influencing this
  world, rather than a hotoke, whose power over this world would be
  limited. These various factors contributed to the creation of a new
  type of shrine, dedicated to the Toyotomi house. Apart from such
  factors particular to Hideyoshi, the general religious consciousness of
  the day was already prepared to accept the practice of enshrining a
  human being as a kami.
  The enshrinement of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who succeeded Hideyoshi
  as the nation's dominant political figure, was a further manifestation
  of this religious trend. Ieyasu was deified as Tosho Daigongen the year
  after his death in 1616, and the Toshogu Shrine at Nikko was built to
  enshrine him. Moreover, from the seventeenth century on, not only
  political figures but also people of lesser stature came to be regarded as
  kami. Daimyo, Shinto teachers, and people who had accomplished
  some deeds of particular social merit frequently were enshrined as
  kami after their death or even during their lifetime. Connections might
  also be drawn between the growth of this religious consciousness that
  assumed a close linkage between this world and the world to come,
  and certain social phenomena of the seventeenth century. For exam-
  ple,there was the practice of self-immolation on the death of one's lord
  (a practice known asjunshi), which achieved a certain currency among
  bushi in the first part of the century, and the wave of double suicides
  (shinju), which swept commoner society in the latter half of the cen-
  tury. Both phenomena rested on the assumption that one could achieve
  after death what was unattainable in this world and hence may have
  been nourished by the same religious consciousness that sustained the
  practice of enshrining humans as kami.
  THOUGHT
  Ever since humans first became conscious of their own existence, they
  have posed the question of how they should live. When efforts to
  answer this question focused on the state of the human spirit or of a
  soul, which was presumed to survive the death of the individual, it was
  primarily a religious question. By contrast, when the issue of how the
  individual should behave within actual society was emphasized, it
  became mainly a matter of morality or ethics. The question of morality
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  was inextricably bound up with the nature of the society or state
  within which the individual acted. Consequently, the discussion of
  morality extended naturally to the question of the kind of government
  needed to ensure social and political order. Discussions of morality
  also had a significant religious dimension, particularly when address-
  ing the question of humanity's basic nature. And in the premodern
  world, speculation about the social or political order usually entailed
  the premise of some link between that order and a transcendental
  authority. Thus, the discussion of politics cannot be separated com-
  pletely from religion. Nevertheless, in what follows I shall focus on
  thought in the sense of more or less systematic ideas about the prob-
  lems of morality and politics, as distinguished from more purely reli-
  gious conceptions.
  In Japan, from the sixteenth century on, thought in this sense devel-
  oped independently of religion. From antiquity, Confucianism, trans-
  mitted to Japan from China, had served as the source of ideas about
  morality and politics. However, up to the fifteenth century, Confucian-
  ism had remained a branch of scholarship of interest almost exclu-
  sively confined to Buddhist clergy and intellectuals of the upper, aristo-
  cratic, stratum of society; it had virtually no impact on society as a
  whole. Rather, the general population turned to religious teachings, in
  particular those of Buddhism, for intellectual guidance. Then, during
  the fifteenth century, a fundamental reorientation took place in the
  nation's religious life that reassured people concerning their fate after
  death and shifted their interest toward questions of politics and moral-
  ity. The stabilization of people's livelihood and the possibility for
  future improvement that accompanied the spread of the house struc-
  ture throughout society also encouraged such a shift in emphasis.
  The development of thought in a form independent from religion
  sometimes is explained as the result of the separation of religion and
  thought, or even as the result of a trend toward the rejection of religion.
  More accurately, however, the new interest in the question of how to live
  in actual society should be seen as a consequence of the permeation of
  religion into the lives of the general populace. Confucianism, which
  played a central part in this intellectual activity, had a certain religious
  dimension, and several prominent Buddhist and Shinto clerics entered
  the debate over politics and morality from their own specialized, reli-
  gious point of view. What distinguished the activities of these figures
  from those of both earlier and later periods is that they, like the Confu-
  cian thinkers of this era, characteristically took up as individuals rather
  than as the leaders of a religious movement the question of how to live in
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  THOUGHT 
  397
  society. They may have attracted followers who were influenced by
  their ideas, but those followers did not form a religious sect. It as only in
  the nineteenth century that we would see the formation of such sects
  and the emergence of new religious movements.
  One of the most noteworthy characteristics of the development of
  thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was that it was
  generally addressed to the concerns of society as a whole rather than to
  those of a particular social status or occupation. It was therefore able
  to achieve wide penetration into society. This phenomenon parallels
  the spread, noted earlier, of a common pattern of religious life through-
  out society, regardless of distinctions in social status.
  In China, Confucianism was studied almost exclusively by officials
  and those who prepared for official examinations. In antiquity it was
  the aristocracy and, from the tenth century on, the scholar-gentry
  class who carried on the Confucian tradition of learning. Undoubtedly
  in part because of the difficulty of mastering the written language,
  Confucianism appears not to have been absorbed by the population at
  large. The situation was essentially similar in Korea, where Confucian-
  ism was established as the official school of learning in the fourteenth
  century. It remained a preserve of the upper stratum of society, the
  yangban class.
  By contrast, in Japan from the seventeenth century on, not only did
  Confucianism serve as the medium for educating the rulers, the sho-
  gun and daimyo, but also its moral teachings spread widely among the
  populace. The publication of large numbers of didactic works (kyo-
  kunsho), written in simple Japanese, and the establishment throughout
  the country of private Confucian academies (shijuku), brought a large
  percentage of the population into direct contact with Confucian teach-
  ings and ethics. Whereas in China and Korea Confucianism provided
  the subject matter for the examinations used to select officials, no
  comparable system of selection existed in Japan. Hence the study of
  Confucianism could not be expected to open doors to important politi-
  cal positions. Instead, scholars came to see their mission as the ethical
  training of not simply the rulers but society as a whole, including the
  ordinary bushi and commoner population.
  A similar situation may be seen in the case of Zen Buddhism. In
  China, Zen was principally the religion of the educated elite, and
  temples relied on the financial support of the government and promi-
  nent aristocratic families for their maintenance. In Japan, Zen fol-
  lowed the Chinese example and established a network of official tem-
  ples patronized by the government. But on the other hand, Zen priests
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I 5 5 O -
  from the fourteenth century on proselytized widely among the popu-
  lace and, through the support of local bushi and commoner adherents,
  succeeded in establishing many small temples throughout the country.
  This latter phenomenon, which resembled the developments in other
  branches of Kamakura Buddhism, such as the Jodo sect, led eventu-
  ally to the popularization of Zen to a degree that did not occur in
  China.29
  This development also had important repercussions in the area of
  thought. The tradition of Zen as the religion of the literati in China led
  Japanese Zen priests to acquire a general familiarity with Chinese
  culture, especially through the study of Confucian learning. By means
  of their missionary activities, then, these priests spread an awareness
  of Confucianism among the people. Moreover, by the early seven-
  teenth century, many significant Confucian thinkers emerged from
  among the ranks of Zen priests in Japan.
  The spread ofChu Hsi Neo-Confucianism
  Sung Neo-Confucianism, exemplified most fully in the writings of
  Chu Hsi, was introduced into Japan in the twelfth century. Incorpo-
  rated into the education of the aristocracy and Zen monks, it exerted a
  visible influence on the historical writings of the Nambokucho period
  C1333-92)5 such as the Jinno shotoki by Kitabatake Chikafusa and the
  historical chronicle Taiheiki.30 Its practical character as a system of
  thought that stressed the precise moral evaluation of political acts and
  human behavior further encouraged its diffusion to all reaches of soci-
  ety, a trend that accelerated in the middle of the sixteenth century.
  As a result, Confucian learning spread from the traditional cultural
  center of Kyoto into the provinces. The Ashikaga gakko, a notable
  institution of Confucian learning based in eastern Japan and founded
  in 1439 by Uesugi Norizane, reached the peak of its eminence under
  its seventh head, the monk Kyuka, around 1550.3I The number of
  29 On the differences in the social situation of the Zen sect in China and Japan, see Tamamura
  Takeji, "Nihon no shiso shukyo to Chugoku: Zen," in Bito Masahide, ed., Nihon bunka to
  Chugoku (Tokyo: Taishukan, 1968). The same work later was republished in Tamamura
  Takeji, Nihon zenshushi ronshu (Tokyo: Shibunkaku, 1976), vol. 1.
  30 On medieval Confucianism, particularly Chu Hsi Neo-Confucianism, see Ashikaga Enjutsu,
  Kamakura Muromachi jidai no jukyo (Tokyo: Nihon koten zenshu kankokai, 1932); Oe
  Fumiki, Hompo jugakushi ronko (Tokyo: Zenkoku shobo, 1943); and Wajima Yoshio, Chiisei
  nojugaku (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1965).
  31 Ashikaga Enjutsu, Kamakura Muromachi jidai no jukyo, pp. 586-664. Norizane is tradition-
  ally held to have "restored" rather than "founded" the school. But records concerning the
  school before 1439 belong more to the realm of legend than history.
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  THOUGHT 
  399
  students who gathered at the school during this period is said to have
  numbered three thousand. From about 1560 the school was supported
  by the Go-Hojo, the Sengoku daimyo who at that time controlled most
  of the Kanto region. This circumstance further enhanced the school's
  stature. Most of the students were Zen priests, but their studies cen-
  tered on Confucianism, if not pure Chu Hsi thought. Particular empha-
  sis was given to the study of the Book of Changes, a text of central
  importance to the practice of divination, and thus of interest to the
  daimyo, who were constantly confronted with the uncertainties of
  warfare. However, the interests of daimyo like the Go-Hojo were not
  limited to divination but also encompassed Confucian teachings about
  morality and government.
  For example, the Hojo godaiki, which records the history of the Go-
  Hojo house, describes the successive heads of the family and the major
  Go-Hojo vassals as having emphasized the importance of Confucian
  moral values. A similar interest may be observed in the case of another
  major eastern daimyo, the Takeda of Kai. Apart from the fifty-seven-
  article legal code compiled under the direction of the famous general
  Takeda Shingen, there also exists a set of ninety-nine admonitions
  compiled in 1558 by Shingen's younger brother Nobushige, which
  cites references from Confucian texts such as the Analects.
  Other Sengoku daimyo exhibited an interest in Confucianism as
  well. Known particularly for their influence on the intellectual world
  were the schools of Confucianism that developed under the sponsor-
  ship of the daimyo of Tosa and Satsuma. The Tosa school (the so-
  called Southern school) of Confucianism got its start under the Zen
  priest Nanson Baiken, who came to Tosa around 1548 or 1549. The
  Satsuma ("Satsunan") school claimed the fifteenth-century Zen priest
  Keian Genju (1429-1508) as its founder but began to flourish only
  under a later Zen priest, Nampo Bunshi (1556-1620). These priests all
  studied Confucianism at the Gozan temples in Kyoto, which stressed
  Chu Hsi's interpretations of Confucianism.
  In both Tosa and Satsuma, Confucianism received the patronage of
  the daimyo and exerted an influence on the retainers of the house. In
  Satsuma, Shimazu Tadayoshi (1492-1568), the father of the domain
  lord Shimazu Takahisa, showed a deep interest in learning and com-
  posed the "Iroha uta," a set of forty-seven poems (waka) that con-
  veyed Confucian moral principles in an easily comprehensible manner.
  The first poem states: "Merely to hear or study the way of antiquity is
  insufficient; merit derives from one's own practice of the way." Other
  poems propagated Confucian ethics together with faith in Buddhism
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  and the qualities necessary for military success. The "Iroha uta" con-
  tinued to play an important part in domain life until the end of the Edo
  period. Recited on various ceremonial occasions and used as a text at
  the han school and in terakoya (temple schools), it served as a central
  source of ethical teachings for all residents of the Satsuma domain.32
  The formation of a new political and social order under the aegis of
  the Sengoku daimyo helped foster the spread of Confucianism. The
  warfare of the Sengoku period destroyed the court-based social order,
  and in its place arose a new political structure centered on the daimyo
  domain and resting on the new rural communal social structure, con-
  sisting of the house and the village. People living in this time of flux
  were conscious of having to take the initiative in deciding the course of
  their lives: The majority of the Sengoku daimyo and their major vas-
  sals had risen from a low social status. To be sure, there were those like
  the Shimazu who came from a notable lineage dating back to the
  Kamakura period, but even such daimyo as Shimazu Tadayoshi and
  Takahisa succeeded in consolidating their position only after a fierce
  struggle with rivals within their family. They differed little from the
  Sengoku daimyo in having to depend ultimately on their own ability.
  Most bushi were free to choose the lord they wished to serve, and the
  function they would perform depended to a considerable measure on
  their ability. For the upper stratum of peasants and townspeople as
  well, their occupation was not something imposed on them from the
  outside but, rather, depended on their own initiative. Living in such
  an age of both uncertainty and opportunity, people naturally felt the
  need for spiritual or intellectual guidance to how they should lead their
  daily lives. This perceived need was the major reason that Confucian-
  ism, which was concerned precisely with such issues, won wide accep-
  tance among the people of the time, from the daimyo on down.
  The teachings that circulated at this time were not necessarily pure
  Chu Hsi Neo-Confucianism. To read the classics, people tended to use
  the Han and T'ang commentaries as well as those of Chu Hsi. This
  eclecticism reflected the trends prevalent in Kyoto, the center of Japa-
  nese scholarship. Two groups dominated Kyoto scholarly activities:
  those who continued the tradition of the scholars of the court, and the
  Zen priests belonging to the Gozan temples. Whereas the former ad-
  hered rigidly to the traditions of scholarship preserved since antiquity,
  the latter were quite free in their approach. Because many Gozan
  priests had direct contact with China, they were influenced by trends
  32 Ashikaga Enjutsu, Kamakura Muromachi jidai nojukyo, pp. 753-64.
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  THOUGHT 
  401
  in the continental scholarly world and thus tended to emphasize the
  latest interpretations of Chu Hsi, though they did not exclude other
  views. As might be expected, they did not draw a sharp distinction
  between Confucianism and Buddhism.
  The trend toward eclecticism was also seen in the life-styles of the
  rulers. For instance, both Confucian and Buddhist paintings embel-
  lished the walls of Azuchi Castle, built in 1576 by Oda Nobunaga.
  Whereas the paintings for the topmost seventh floor depicted Confu-
  cius and the Confucian sages of antiquity, those for the sixth floor
  portrayed Sakyamuni and his disciples.33 Toyotomi Hideyoshi and
  Tokugawa Ieyasu, who carried on the process of national unification
  inaugurated by Nobunaga, employed court scholars as well as Gozan
  priests and priests from the Ashikaga gakko in their personal entour-
  ages. Ieyasu actively collected and printed Buddhist and historical
  books, but the only Confucian texts printed under his patronage were
  the K'ung tzu chiayii (Koshi kego: Records of Confucius) and the Book
  of Changes, neither of which had a particular connection with Chu Hsi
  thought.
  However, as Confucianism spread throughout society as a system of
  thought suitable for guiding the daimyo, bushi, and commoners in
  their daily lives, the Chu Hsi component in the existing eclectic mix of
  Confucian teachings was increasingly emphasized. Several factors ap-
  pear to have been responsible for this development. First was the need
  to simplify Confucianism in order for it to function as a broadly appli-
  cable guide to responsible social life. For professional scholars it was
  possible to use the older commentaries together with those of Chu Hsi,
  but ordinary people could not be expected to sort out the different
  interpretations. Second, the Neo-Confucian teachings that had taken
  shape in China from the eleventh century in response to the concerns
  of the emergent gentry class possessed a rationalistic and universalistic
  component, as may be seen in the Neo-Confucian emphasis on the
  relatively accessible Four Books in place of the more archaic and
  difficult-to-understand Five Classics. Despite important differences in
  China's and Japan's social conditions, these rationalistic and universal-
  istic aspects suited in many ways the new, communally oriented social
  structure characteristic of Japan in this period. Whereas Chu Hsi Neo-
  Confucianism was regarded as the official state ideology in contempo-
  rary China and Korea, the state seemed to have played a lesser role in
  the spread of Chu Hsi's thought in Japan.
  33 Ota Gyuichi, Nobunaga ko ki (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1963).
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  402 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  Scholarly opinion is divided on the question of whether Chu Hsi's
  thought was suited to the actual circumstances of early modern Japa-
  nese society.34 Some hold that there was a close correspondence between
  the two, indeed, that the rulers of early modern Japan successfully
  promoted Chu Hsi's thought as an ideology to uphold the hereditary
  status order on which the society of this period was founded. Others
  point to the differences between Japanese society in this period and
  the Chinese social and political environment out of which neo-
  Confucianism emerged. For instance, the examination system, funda-
  mental to Chinese society, was not adopted in Japan. These differ-
  ences, they contend, limited the understanding and acceptance of Chu
  Hsi's thought in Japan.
  These two polar views exist because both camps have focused pri-
  marily on institutional elements such as the social status system, and
  have not paid proper attention to the people's mental outlook. Clearly,
  there were substantial psychological reasons for those who lived in this
  period to be drawn to Confucian moral thought, particularly Chu
  Hsi's thought. On the other hand, the foreign origin of Chu Hsi Neo-
  Confucianism made its total absorption impossible. Eventually this led
  to the emergence of Japanized forms of Chu Hsi Neo-Confucianism
  and, on the other hand, to the appearance of new schools of thought
  that challenged the premises of the Chu Hsi school.
  The key figure in both the diffusion of Chu Hsi's thought and the
  establishment of its independence from Buddhism was Fujiwara Seika
  (1561-1619), who came to be regarded as the founder of early modern
  Japanese Confucianism. Seika, descended from the Reizei branch of
  the Fujiwara family, became a monk and studied at the Kyoto Gozan
  temple of Shokokuji. However, he later rejected Buddhism and be-
  came active in society as a Confucian scholar. He lectured on Confu-
  cian texts to Tokugawa Ieyasu and various other daimyo and, with the
  assistance of Kang Hang, a Korean scholar taken captive during
  Hideyoshi's invastions of Korea and brought to Japan in 1597, edited
  and punctuated for Japanese readers the classics as interpreted by Chu
  Hsi.35 Later generations venerated Seika for his lofty vision of scholar-
  34 The assumption that the premises of Chu Hsi thought were well suited to the circumstances
  of Tokugawa society was common among scholars from the mid-Tokugawa period on. It was
  given a theoretical grounding by Maruyama Masao in his Nihon seiji shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo:
  Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1952). The contrasting argument is developed in Bito Masahide,
  Nihon hdken shisoshi kenkyu: bakuhan taisei no genri to shushigaku teki shii (Tokyo: Aoki shoten,
  1961); and Watanabe Hiroshi, Kinsei Nihon shaken to sogaku (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku
  shuppankai, 1985).
  35 A biography of Fujiwara Seika may be found in Ota Seikyu, Fujiwara Seika (Tokyo:
  Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1985). His works have been published in Ota Seikyu, ed., Fujiwara
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  THOUGHT 
  403
  ship and his devotion to learning that led him in his last years to lead
  the life of a recluse.
  Many of those who studied with Seika embarked on scholarly ca-
  reers, opening academies in Kyoto and becoming teachers or gaining
  employment as scholars with one of the daimyo. The most famous of
  his disciples was Hayashi Razan (1583-1657).35 The son of a ronin,
  Razan entered Buddhist training at the Gozan temple of Kenninji but
  left the temple in favor of life as a Confucian scholar. When, in 1604,
  Razan became a disciple of Seika, he presented him with a list of books
  he already had read. The list, which contains more than 440 Chinese
  works, offers evidence of the high level of scholarship pursued at the
  Gozan temples of the day. The previous year Razan, together with
  some friends, had begun a series of public lectures in Kyoto. Razan
  lectured on the Analects while another scholar, Matsunaga Teitoku,
  lectured on works of Japanese literature, such as Tsurezuregusa. These
  activities constituted a direct challenge to the premise that scholarship
  was the special province of a few aristocratic families and Zen priests,
  and signaled an effort to disseminate learning widely throughout soci-
  ety, a symbol of the new intellectual atmosphere of the age. It is said
  that one aristocratic scholar appealed to Ieyasu to prohibit such activi-
  ties as contrary to the traditions of the court, but he was brushed aside.
  From 1607 Razan entered the service of Ieyasu. In the following fifty
  years he served four shoguns, and for generations, his descendants
  continued to serve as scholars to the bakufu.
  Although known for his erudition, Razan was not an original
  thinker. Nonetheless, he contributed to the spread of knowledge about
  Confucian moral thought through writings such as the Shunkansho, an
  exposition of the tenets of Neo-Confucianism written in simple Japa-
  nese and published in 1629. A similar work attributed to Seika, the
  Kana seiri, was published in 1650. Earlier, in 1635, Asayama Irin'an
  (1589-1664), another scholar active in Kyoto, although not a disciple
  of Seika, published the Kiyomizu monogatari, which presented Confu-
  cian ideas in the style of a popular form of literature, the kana zoshi: It
  is said to have sold two thousand to three thousand copies.37 Thus, the
  Seika shu, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Kokumin seishin bunka kenkyujo, 1938-9); and Kanaya Osamu
  and Ishida Ichiro, eds., Fujiwara Seika, Hayashi Razan vol. 28 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1975). Regarding the influence of Korean Confucianism on Seika and other
  early Tokugawa Confucians, see Abe Yoshio, Nihon shushigaku to Chosen (Tokyo: Tokyo
  daigaku shuppankai, 1965).
  36 A biography of Razan may be found in Hori Isao, Hayashi Razan (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kobunkan, 1964).
  37 This figure is given in a similar work, Gum monogatari, published a little later.
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  404 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 1550-1700
  development of the publishing trade also helped foster the dissemina-
  tion of the ideas of Chu Hsi Neo-Confucianism.38
  Views of politics and history
  The concept of Heaven and the Way of Heaven (tendo, also pro-
  nounced lento) had circulated even before the spread of Confucianism.
  First introduced to a wide audience through historical works and
  military tales, these concepts became part of the everyday vocabulary
  of the ordinary people as well as scholars and intellectuals.39 In China
  there was widespread religious faith in Heaven as a transcendental
  entity that governed human destiny, and this faith had become an
  important element of Confucianism. The Japanese, by contrast, never
  developed a religious faith in the idea of Heaven. Nevertheless, the
  concept of Heaven and the Way of Heaven gained acceptance as an
  explanation for the vicissitudes of human existence.
  From the thirteenth century on, the extreme shifts in political and
  individual fortunes caused a general anxiety among the populace. The
  first intellectual tradition to respond to their concern was Buddhism.
  For example, the Heike monogatari uses a Buddhist notion of fate in
  depicting the tragic destiny of both the Taira regime and the various
  individuals who figure in the tale. It propounds the view that however
  unfathomable the fate that one experiences in this world, by accepting
  that fate and putting one's trust in the Buddha, one can transcend this
  existence and obtain spiritual salvation. The spread of the Confucian
  concepts of Heaven and the Heavenly Way paralleled the emergence of
  this new concept of fate.
  In Chinese Confucianism, the principles of Heaven regulated the
  entire universe, including the seasonal cycles. Adherence to the princi-
  ples of Heaven made it possible to establish and preserve order in
  human society. The Heavenly Way provided moral guidelines for the
  individual, and the proper approach to governance. These principles
  were also linked to the notion of just retribution. If the individual
  behaved properly, eventually he or his descendants would be blessed
  with good fortune; conversely, improper behavior would bring misfor-
  38 Until around 1630 the emergent publishing trade used movable wooden type; thereafter it
  was more common to carve a separate block for each page.
  39 For the concepts of ten and tendo and the historical thought of this period that drew from
  those concepts, see Ozawa Eiichi, Kinsei shigaku shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kobunkan, 1974); and Ishige Tadashi, "Sengoku Azuchi Momoyama jidai no shiso," in
  Ishida Ichiro, ed., Taikei Nihonshi sosho, vol. 2 of Shisoshi (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha,
  1976).
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  THOUGHT 
  405
  tune. The notion of heavenly retribution served to legitimize the prem-
  ise of dynastic change. Heaven, it was held, would grant its mandate
  (Ch: fien-ming, J: tentmei) to rule the people to one whose virtue
  showed him to be worthy of Heaven's trust. If his descendants contin-
  ued to devote themselves to ensuring the welfare of the people, they
  would continue to enjoy the mandate received by the founder. But if
  they failed to uphold their responsibilities as rulers, then Heaven
  would withdraw its mandate. The fact that the process of retribution
  was believed to take place over an extended period of time made it
  possible to attribute both the fate of a particular individual and the
  historical course of society to the operation of a basically rational
  principle.
  Though the Japanese may not have accepted all the ramifications of
  the Confucian concept of Heaven, historical works and military tales
  written in the Edo period frequently explained the course of history by
  referring to such notions. And because the concept of Heaven and its
  way spoke to a number of concerns particular to the late medieval
  period, it was widely diffused. For those living through an era of
  tumultuous change, the notion of a Heavenly Way provided a rationale
  for ignoring the constraints of an outmoded social order. A challenge
  to that order or to one's lord could be justified in the name of tendo
  which thus provided an ideology for the phenomenon of gekokujo (the
  overthrow of the superior by the inferior).40 The concept of Heaven
  and its way presumed, however, not the absence of order but, rather,
  the realization of an ideal social order. Thus it could be used not only
  to attack the old social and political structures but also to legitimize
  the creation of a new order in their place. The rationalistic view of
  history and human fate associated with the concept of Heaven gained
  support in this period in considerable measure because the people
  perceived the possibility of creating a new order and found in tendo an
  ideology appropriate to that endeavor.
  The term tendo appears in various literary sources such as accounts
  of battles and biographies dating from the second half of the sixteenth
  century to the start of the seventeenth. The phrase "tendo is fearsome"
  appears frequently in Nobunaga ko ki (or Shinchoki) (Life of Lord
  Nobunaga) by Ota Gyuichi (b. 1527), expressing the idea that human
  fate is frightening because it is unpredictable. Ota Gyuichi regards
  Nobunaga's political success as extraordinary but legitimate and from
  that perspective, seeks to explain the historical process of his rise.
  40 See Ishige, "Sengoku Azuchi Momoyama jidai no shisd," pp. 3-8.
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  406 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  Whereas most people fail to achieve their potential because of some
  sudden encounter with misfortune, Nobunaga, blessed with good for-
  tune, repeatedly escaped unscathed. Moreover, although Gyuichi por-
  trays the life of the individual as controlled by the fearsome power of
  fate, he also interprets tendo as a force that moved society as a whole
  toward the establishment of a new order centered on Nobunaga.
  Nobunaga's successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, also employed the term
  tendo in his declaration of war against the Go-Hojo. Their resistance to
  his efforts to unify the nation opened them up to the charge that they
  were going against "the principles of tendo." Hideyoshi simultaneously
  asserted that the new political structure he sought to create accorded
  with those principles.41 Both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were fond of
  referring to the entirety of Japan - the object of their policy of
  unification - as tenka (the realm, literally, "all under heaven"). Im-
  plicit in their use of this term is the premise that the unified state, the
  tenka, was the political structure that accorded with the will of
  Heaven. In Chinese thought, the will of Heaven was regarded as a
  projection of the popular will. Thus, the term tenka, as employed by
  Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, implied that the unification of the state
  under their authority was a reflection of the popular will.
  From the seventeenth century on, the concept of tendo acquired an
  increasingly Confucian coloration. For example, in the Kana seiri, the
  term tendo was used to explain Chu Hsi's idea of principle (tenri) and
  human nature. A firmer grounding in Confucian theory enhanced the
  utility of these concepts as norms to guide the conduct of government.
  The phrase "The realm is not the realm of one person; it is that of the
  multitude" (tenka wa hitori no tenka ni arazu, tenka no tenka nan)
  frequently appeared in popular histories and didactic writings, and it
  served to remind the rulers of society that they should govern with the
  welfare of the people rather than their own interests in mind.42
  The infusion of Confucian concepts imbued the political thought of
  this period with a new universality. A representative example of the
  political thought of the seventeenth century, the Honsaroku - said to
  be the work of the influential bakufu vassal Honda Masanobu - uses
  the conceptual framework of works like the Kana seiri but is noted for
  its discussion of various concrete political issues.
  41 See the vermilion-seal edict issued by Hideyoshi in 1689 (Tensho 17/11/24). Hideyoshi had
  copies of this edict sent to a large number of the major daimyo as well as to the Go-Hojo, in
  effect promulgating it nationwide.
  42 Regarding the wide diffusion of this phrase, see Tsuji Zennosuke, Nihon bunkashi (Tokyo:
  Shunjusha, 1949), vol. 6, pp. 1-3.
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  THOUGHT 
  407
  The Honsaroku begins by declaring that the ruler of the realm is
  called the "son of Heaven" (tenshi) because he had been singled out by
  tendo as the man capable of ruling the realm and thus had been ap-
  pointed "master of Japan" (Nihon no aruji). The Honsaroku does not
  specify whether this "son of Heaven" must be the emperor or the
  shogun; it simply sets forth in general terms the qualities that a ruler
  of the realm must possess. However, because the Honsaroku was in-
  tended to serve as a guide to governance, the term tenshi by implica-
  tion referred to the shogun.
  A similar premise may be found in the instructions that Ikeda
  Mitsumasa, daimyo of Okayama, handed down to his vassals in 1656.
  Mitsumasa declared that the shogun had been entrusted by Heaven
  with governing the people of Japan, that the daimyo had been en-
  trusted by the shogun with governing the people of their respective
  domains, and that the retainers of the daimyo, from the elders on
  down, were responsible for assisting the daimyo with that task.43 Both
  Mitsumasa and the author of the Honsaroku regarded a universal
  authority - heaven or tendo - as directly responsible for entrusting the
  ruler with the reins of government. Both ignored the traditional politi-
  cal role of the emperor as the source of the authority to govern.
  The complex relationship between the court and bakufu and the
  legitimization of the actual political order cannot be explained simply
  in terms of abstract premises, and the Honsaroku remained vague on
  the issue of the locus of sovereignty. Nevertheless, when writers of this
  period dealt with this subject, they did not feel compelled to appeal to
  distinctively "Japanese" political traditions, in contrast with later po-
  litical theorists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. History as a
  motive force that adhered to the universalistic principles of tendo was
  often used to explain the shift in the locus of effective authority from
  the court to the bakufu. The Honsaroku simply declares that Emperor
  Go-Shirakawa (r. 1155-8; exercised authority as retired emperor
  1158-92) lost the realm because he did not adhere to the "principles of
  Heaven," and it limits further discussion of governance of the realm in
  subsequent periods to the actions of the military (buke) rulers. Other
  political writers of the period generally recognized that a transfer of
  authority from the court to the military had occurred either with Go-
  Shirakawa (that is, at the time of the establishment of the Kamakura
  bakufu) or during the Nambokucho period (namely, with the establish-
  43 Hampo kenkyukai, ed., Okayama han, vol. i (Hamposhu, no. i) (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1959);
  Taniguchi Sumio, Okayama hanseishi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1964).
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  408 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-17OO
  ment of the Muromachi bakufu). In their view, while the military
  regimes that came and went contributed to social turmoil, their rule
  eventually led to the establishment of a stable political order and a
  peaceful society.
  The idea of restoring order by replacing the sovereign had much in
  common with the traditional Chinese notion of the "just revolution"
  (Ch: ko-ming, J: kakumei [literally "change of mandate"]). Although
  they did not necessarily employ the term revolution {kakumei) or ex-
  plicitly declare that actual dynastic changes had taken place, Japanese
  writers depicted a historical process implicitly regulated by "changes
  of mandate" sanctioned by tendo. The Tokugawa bakufu was pre-
  sented as the outcome of this historical process, which endowed it with
  an effective legitimacy transcending the more formalistic legitimacy it
  received through recognition by the court.
  Among the major historical works of the early Edo period manifest-
  ing this view are Honcho tsugan, compiled under the auspices of the
  bakufu, and the Dai Nihon shi, compiled by the Mi to domain. Both
  presented a comprehensive view of the history of Japan from ancient
  times. That both were official undertakings signaled a new awareness
  by the rulers of that time of the value of history as a mechanism for
  substantiating the contemporary political order. Previous military gov-
  ernments had not shown a comparable interest in the compilation of
  histories.
  The Honcho tsugan was begun by Hayashi Razan. After his death,
  the bakufu ordered his son, Gaho, to continue the work of compila-
  tion. Working with a team of disciples, Gaho completed the some 300-
  volume enterprise in 1670. Written in Chinese and in the traditional
  Chinese chronological annals (henneri) style, the Honcho tsugan covered
  the period from Jimmu (the legendary first emperor who, according to
  the traditional account, established his reign in 660 B.C.) to the end of
  the reign of Go Yozei (1611). In choosing the hennen style, Razan and
  Gaho followed the example of the six national histories, beginning
  with the Nihon shoki, that had been compiled in the Nara and early
  Heian periods.
  As the name Honcho tsugan (Comprehensive mirror of Japan) indi-
  cates, Razan and Gaho also sought to emulate the Tzu-chih fung-chien
  (J: Shiji tsugan, or Comprehensive mirror for aid in government), the
  great comprehensive history of China compiled by the Northern Sung
  scholar and statesman Ssu-ma Kuang. However, unlike the latter
  work, the Honcho tsugan did not incorporate those sections in which
  the author expressed his own evaluation of the recorded events. In
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  THOUGHT 
  409
  addition, the restrictions of the hennen style, which aimed at an objec-
  tive presentation of the facts, made the Honcho tsugan a somewhat
  bland work rather than one conveying a distinct historical viewpoint.
  By contrast, the Dai Nihon shi, compiled under the auspices of the
  Mito domain, employed the kiden style, consisting of annals, biogra-
  phies, and treatises. Developed by Ssu-ma Ch'ien in the Han period, it
  was used in the Chinese dynastic histories.44 The Dai Nihon shi was
  begun in 1657 at the direction of Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628-1700),
  the second lord of the Mito domain. The work, in 397 volumes, was
  completed only in 1906. A large number of scholars participated in the
  collection and collation of data for the project. As a result, the project
  has had an important influence on the development of the study of
  history in Japan. At the same time, the historical perspective projected
  by the Dai Nihon shi had a direct influence on society. Moreover, the
  historical perspective that governed the compilation changed signifi-
  cantly between the first stage of writing in the seventeenth century and
  the second stage which began at the end of the eighteenth century. The
  perspective employed initially adhered closely to the Chu Hsi Neo-
  Confucian historical views held personally by Mitsukuni.
  The Dai Nihon shi eventually incorporated four sections: the main
  annals, biographies, treatises, and chronological charts. However, the
  first stage of compilation dealt only with the annals and biographies.
  In the kiden style, as it developed in China, the annals were devoted to
  events centering on the emperor. Thus those whose lives were dis-
  cussed in the annals were established ipso facto as legitimate rulers.
  The biographies, by contrast, took up the lives of those active during
  the reigns of the rulers discussed in the annals. The biographies were
  grouped by categories, and the inclusion of a historical figure in a
  particular category served to pass judgment on him. In addition, from
  the time of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, the compilers of this genre of history
  followed the practice of appending explicitly evaluative passages
  (ronsan) to both the main annals and the biographies. One of the
  premises of the Chu Hsi historical outlook was that these evaluations
  should clarify as meticulously as possible the moral issues illustrated
  by the life of the subject being evaluated.
  Reflecting on his historiographical endeavors in his last years,
  44 Regarding the compilation of the Dai Nihon shi and its intellectual background, see Mito
  shishi, chukan, nos. 1,2,3 (Mito: Mito shiyakusho, 1968, 1969, 1976); Bito Masahide,
  "Rekishi shiso," in Bito Masahide, ed., Nihon bunka to Chugoku (Tokyo: Taishukan, 1968);
  and Bito Masahide, "Mitogaku no tokushitsu," in Mitogaku, vol. 53 of Nihon shiso taikei
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1977).
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  Mitsukuni wrote that he had sought to clarify which emperors were
  legitimate and whether the behavior of the emperors' subjects had
  accorded with the principles of morality.45 In setting forth his own
  views on the first issue, Mitsukuni stressed three points. The first was
  the shift of Empress Jingu, the consort of Emperor Chuai - who was
  said to have exercised regnant authority after the death of her spouse -
  from the main annals to the biographies, to emphasize the impropriety
  of her exercising sovereign powers.
  The second moral issue that Mitsukuni emphasized was the relation-
  ship between the later Emperor Temmu and his nephew, Otomo, at
  the time of the Jinshin rebellion in 672. In Mitsukuni's account,
  Otomo had succeeded his father (Temmu's brother) as emperor and
  was thus the legitimate ruler at the time of the rebellion. He thus
  included Otomo in the main annals, thereby indicating that the mili-
  tary contest between Otomo and Temmu in 672, which ended in
  victory for the latter, was in fact a rebellion by Temmu against the
  legitimate monarch. Mitsukuni's treatment of both Jingu and Otomo
  ran counter to accepted historical opinion, which adhered to the view
  of the Nihon shoki, the first of the official six national histories.
  Mitsukuni's third innovation concerned the fourteenth-century divi-
  sion of the imperial line into the Southern and Northern courts. Di-
  verging from the conventional view, the Dai Nihon shi treated the
  Southern Court as the legitimate line, and according to original plans
  the history was supposed to end with the absorption of the Southern
  line in 1392. Although this plan was subsequently modified, its basic
  contours shaped the content of the Dai Nihon shi.
  What were the implications of terminating the Dai Nihon shi at the
  point when the Southern Court came to an end? In accordance with
  Confucian historical thought, it indicated that at that point there had
  been a "change in the mandate" and, consequently, the replacement of
  one dynasty by another. The Dai Nihon shi, then, was the history of a
  single dynasty that began with Emperor Jimmu and came to an end
  with the extinction of the Southern Court. Because the Northern
  Court did not possess sovereign authority, it could not be considered
  the legitimate successor to its southern counterpart. Neither could the
  Ashikaga, the military house in power at the time of the Southern
  Court's demise, because its power had not been acquired in a morally
  appropriate fashion.
  Although the Dai Nihon shi does not explicitly designate a legitimate
  45 Bairi sensei hi. After his death, Mitsukuni's account of his life and historiographical endeavors
  was inscribed on a stele erected in homage to him.
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  THOUGHT 
  411
  successor, it implicitly endorses the Tokugawa as heirs to the mandate,
  in the evaluative passages appended to the main annals and biogra-
  phies, particularly in its depiction of the Nitta family, the putative
  ancestors of the Tokugawa. The Nitta, who.had loyally served the
  Southern Court, the legitimate dynasty by Mitsukuni's account, had
  met with misfortune at that point. However, in accordance with the
  principle of Heaven's just retribution, their moral propriety was appro-
  priately and eventually compensated when their descendants, the To-
  kugawa, assumed authority over the realm. Thus the emphasis on the
  legitimacy of the Southern line served indirectly to provide a historical
  grounding for the legitimacy of the Tokugawa.
  A tour de force analysis of Japanese history according to Confucian
  historiographical principles is the Tokushi yoron by Arai Hakuseki
  (1657-1725).46 This work was based on notes of lectures that Hakuseki
  gave before the sixth shogun, Tokugawa Ienobu, in 1712. Though dat-
  ing from the eighteenth century, the work exemplifies the seventeenth-
  century historical outlook just discussed. Tokushi yoron traces the start
  of the decline of the ancient court to the succession of the eight-year-old
  Emperor Seiwa in 858 and the subsequent establishment of the Fuji-
  wara regency.
  Hakuseki divides the period between those events and the end of
  the Southern Court into nine eras, which he treats as a process of the
  steady disintegration of the imperial dynasty. He separates the rise of
  the military into five eras spanning the time of the establishment of the
  Kamakura bakufu to the founding of the Edo bakufu. After the de-
  mise of the Southern Court, Hakuseki writes, the people were not
  even aware of the emperor's existence. The emperor of the Northern
  Court was no more than an "empty vessel" set up by the Ashikaga to
  further the shogun's interests, and not a legitimate ruler. By contrast,
  Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third Ashikaga shogun, acted in effect as the
  king of Japan, and with the appearance of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who
  possessed the virtues of a true Confucian king, the military state was
  fully established.
  According to Hakuseki, the Southern Court represented the legiti-
  mate line, but it failed to survive because of Go-Daigo's "lack of
  virtue." Instead, the warriors fell heir to the heavenly mandate for-
  feited by the Southern Court because in the Muromachi period their
  46 Regarding Hakuseki's historical thought, see Bitd Masahide, "Arai Hakuseki no rekishi
  shiso," in Bitd Masahide et al., eds., Arai Hakuseki, vol. 35 of Nikon shiso taikei (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1975). In English, see Lessons from History: Arai Hakuseki's Tokushi Yoron(Sl.
  Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1982). Translation & commentary by Joyce Ackroyd.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  leaders were relatively more virtuous than the emperor was, and they
  eventually produced a truly virtuous ruler in the Edo period. Whether
  or not Hakuseki's account of these developments corresponds to the
  historical record, it completely fits the Chinese concept of dynastic
  change through a "just revolution." Hakuseki does not explicitly take
  up the ties between the Tokugawa and the Nitta, but he does fre-
  quently refer to the concept of "Heaven's just retribution" to explain
  the rise and fall of various other regimes and political figures.
  Both the Dai Nihon shi and Tokushi yoron contain well-developed
  arguments, though marred perhaps by excessive abstraction. People
  generally were responsive to the notion that the flow of history fol-
  lowed the principles of tendo or the logic of the concept of just retribu-
  tion, but the association of those notions with the idea of dynastic
  change (through the transfer of Heaven's mandate) did not, in fact, fit
  well either the actual events in Japanese history or the general percep-
  tions of history among the people. Historiographical developments in
  the eighteenth century would better mirror historical circumstances.
  They also would reflect a shift away from the universalistic political
  thought of the seventeenth century exemplified by the notion of
  Heaven and tendo toward an emphasis on the political traditions par-
  ticular to Japan.
  New directions in ethical thought
  The growth of the individual's self-awareness that spurred the
  seventeenth-century diffusion of Chu Hsi's thought sustained as well
  the activities of various other original intellectuals who concerned
  themselves with matters of morality and ethics, that is, with the
  question of how the individual should live in society and of what
  spiritual qualities were needed to lead a proper life. Like the Chu Hsi
  thinkers, when considering governance and other sociopolitical is-
  sues, they tended to give priority to the moral qualities of the ruler
  rather than to questions of structure and function. This emphasis,
  together with their universalistic outlook, may be considered a gen-
  eral characteristic of the thought of this period. Their expression of a
  consciousness grounded in the particularities of Japanese society but
  based on universalistic ethical premises exhibits a historical signifi-
  cance comparable to the emergence of Kamakura Buddhism.
  A number of Zen priests were among the first major intellectual
  figures to put forth original views in the area of ethics. Compared with
  the Confucian scholars, who were inclined to become caught up in a
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  THOUGHT 
  413
  pedantic quest for academic knowledge, the Zen priests, having per-
  sonally submitted themselves to a rigorous discipline in pursuit of
  spiritual enlightenment, tended to be more conscious of the need for
  an intellectual outlook geared to the actualities of human life. To be
  sure, the tradition of Zen discipline had not continued uninterrupted
  from the medieval age. In the latter half of the medieval period (the
  fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries), the social power and influence
  of Zen had increased greatly, but its religious appeal had declined.
  In the big central monasteries like the Gozan temples, Zen priests
  became specialists in Confucianism and Chinese literature, and in the
  local temples, priests initiated disciples into the "correct" responses to
  the questions intended to ascertain whether they had attained enlighten-
  ment. As a consequence, Zen acquired an increasingly esoteric orienta-
  tion.47 But from the seventeenth century a movement arose within Zen
  to reject such tendencies and to restore the original religious spirit of
  Zen. One of the representative figures in this movement was Takuan
  Soho (1573-1645), a monk from the Kyoto temple of Daitokuji.
  In 1628 Takuan played a central part in the so-called purple vest-
  ment (shie) incident in which the temples of Daitokuji and Myoshinji
  mounted a resistance to the bakufu's efforts to regulate their activities
  and restrict their links to the court.48 The incident was touched off by
  the bakufu's revoking all grants of the privilege to wear purple vest-
  ments awarded by the court to priests of these two temples, between
  1615 (the year the bakufu issued comprehensive regulations to major
  temples) and 1627. It also entailed the temples' rejection of bakufu
  directives specifying, among other things, the standards of spiritual
  accomplishment that a monk in training should achieve. For instance,
  the regulations handed down to Myoshinji and Daitokuji declared that
  a monk could not be regarded as having completed his training unless
  he had answered seventeen hundred koan (Zen conundrums). This
  formalistic approach to Zen spiritual discipline assumed a continua-
  tion of the esoteric tradition of "secret transmission" that had devel-
  oped in the preceding centuries.49 However, to Takuan, such formalis-
  tic regulation was meaningless. The resolution of one koan alone, if it
  47 Tamamura Takeji, "Nihon chusei zenrin ni okeru Rinzai Soto ryoshu no ido: rinka no
  mondai ni tsuite," Shigaku zatshi 59 (July-August 1950); later this anicle was included in the
  author's Nihon zenshushi ronshu (Tokyo: Shibunkaku, 1979), vol. 2, no. I.
  48 The "purple vestment" incident is discussed in detail in Tsuji Zennosuke, Nihon bukkyoshi
  (kinsei 2) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1953).
  49 This interpretation of the "purple vestment" incident was developed by Tamamura Takeji,
  "Takuan soho: shii jiken ni taisuru ichi kenkai," in his Nihon zenshushi ronshu, vol. 1 (Tokyo:
  Shibunkaku, 1976).
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  414 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 155O-I7OO
  reflected true spiritual insight, should be sufficient testimony to a
  monk's religious achievements.
  Takuan fiercely criticized the bakufu's interference in the temples'
  religious affairs. His overt rejection of the bakufu's regulations was in
  turn condemned by the bakufu as disrespectful, and he and several
  other monks were sentenced to exile. But although the leaders of the
  bakufu felt compelled to uphold their authority to issue such regula-
  tions, they did not necessarily object to Takuan's religious position.
  That the dispute was as much a matter of face as a fundamental
  disagreement may be deduced from the fact that Takuan's forced exile
  was retracted three years later and that thereafter the third shogun,
  Iemitsu, showed him great favor, summoning him regularly to Edo for
  consultation.
  The Zen reform movement attempted to institute more rigorous
  training for the priesthood, but it also attempted to make Zen accessible
  to the general populace, teaching the lay believer the true spirit of Zen.
  Takuan's efforts to make Zen an effective guide to life for the individual
  may be seen in such works as Riki sabetsu ron (On the distinction
  between ri and ki), in which he set forth the similarities shared by
  Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, and Fudochi shimmyoroku (Miracu-
  lous records of the immovable spirit), in which he declared that the
  ultimate essence of swordsmanship was the same as the spirit of Zen.
  These works advocate "nothingness" or "no-mind," that is, a state of
  mind unimpeded by outside constraints, as the essential foundation for
  all human activities.
  Suzuki Shosan (1579-1655) was another monk who sought to make
  the essence of Buddhist teachings accessible to ordinary people.50
  Shosan originally served and fought for the Tokugawa as a bushi.
  Later, at the age of forty-two he became a Zen monk. He wrote several
  works for the edification of the general public, such as Bammin tokuyo
  (Teachings for the multitude), which argued that the occupations pur-
  sued by those living in society were universally endowed with religious
  significance.
  According to Shosan, one's ideal as a human being should be to live
  in a spiritually free, autonomous fashion. To achieve that ideal, unre-
  mitting and determined commitment to a spiritual regimen was essen-
  tial. For a bushi, that spiritual regimen was none other than the cor-
  rect pursuit of his daily duties as a bushi. Moreover, by pursuing those
  50 Nakamura Hajime, Kinsei Nihon ni okeru hihanleki seishin no ichi kdsatsu (Tokyo: Sanseido,
  1949)-
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  THOUGHT 
  415
  duties he would in some manner contribute to the functioning of
  society, thereby conforming to the intention of the Buddha, who had
  sought to be of use to the people of the world. In other words, the
  performance of one's allotted function or vocation was a spiritual
  means of attaining one's true nature, that is, becoming a Buddha; at
  the same time it constituted a realization of the will of the Buddha.
  Shosan held the same to be true for peasants and tradesmen.
  The attempt to present Buddhist truth not as something attainable
  only in the distant future or after death but as something to be used in
  the context of one's daily life was common at this time. In the Pure
  Land tradition, for example, there was a widespread saying: "The
  Pure Land exists within one's heart; in this form one is Amida."5'
  Shosan regarded Zen and the nembutsu (invocation of the name of
  Amida), as nearly the same.
  Another figure who tried to elucidate the lofty state of enlighten-
  ment in a simple manner for the people was Bankei Eitaku (1622-
  93).52 Bankei expressed the spiritual state attained through rigorous
  Zen training as one of "nonbirth" (fusho). "Nonbirth" referred to the
  mind in its original, unadulterated condition, and Bankei held that
  because all beings were endowed with "the Buddha-nature of non-
  birth," the individual needed only to become aware of that innate
  endowment. The straightforward manner in which he presented his
  teachings and his personal integrity won Bankei some fifty thousand
  followers, ranging from daimyo to ordinary people.
  The efforts of Shosan and Bankei to carry the teachings of Zen to
  the general population were inspired by religious motivations and had
  a significant social impact. Nevertheless, considered from the perspec-
  tive of traditional Zen doctrine, their approach might lead to the
  misconception that a rigorous religious discipline was not needed to
  achieve enlightenment. The figure who took on the task of resolving
  this problem was Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768).53 Revitalizing the tradi-
  tional Zen discipline based on zazen (meditation) and the use of koan,
  Hakuin established the approach that has characterized Rinzai Zen
  from the latter part of the early modern period to modern times.
  Religious figures belonging to the Shinto tradition also made intel-
  51 Okuwa Hitoshi, "Bukkyo shisoron: shokyo itchi ron no keisei," in Hongo Takamori and
  Fukaya Katsumi, eds., Kinsei shisoron, vol. 9 of Koza Nihon kinseishi (Tokyo: Yuhikaku,
  1941).
  52 Bankei zenji goroku (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1941); Suzuki Daisetsu, Zen shisoshi kenkyu,
  vol. I (Iwanami shoten, 1942); Suzuki Daisetsu and Furuta Shokin, eds., Bankei zen no
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Sankibo busshorin, 1942).
  53 Tsuji Zennosuke, Nihon bukkyoshi (kinsei 3).
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: 155O-I7OO
  lectual contributions in this period. The most noteworthy of these was
  Watarai Nobuyoshi (1615-90), a priest attached to the Outer Shrine
  (geku) of the Ise Shrine, who endeavored to reform Ise Shinto as it was
  established in the medieval period. In works like Yofukki, Nobuyoshi
  argued in a clear, rationalistic fashion that devoted performance of
  one's allotted social function conformed to the teachings of the kami
  and that on this point the moral philosophy of Shinto and Confucian-
  ism were the same. Nobuyoshi's attempt to free Shinto from a ritualis-
  tic, magical orientation paralleled the efforts of reformers like Takuan.
  It also fit in with the ethical dimension seen in the popular kami
  worship of this period and encouraged its further growth.
  In addition to Nobuyoshi, other contemporary figures who contrib-
  uted to the development of Shinto include Yoshikawa Koretaru (1616-
  94), who came out of the Yoshida Shinto tradition, and Yamazaki
  Ansai (1618-82), also active as a Neo-Confucian scholar, who founded
  the Suiga school of Shinto. All three thinkers, however, adhered to a
  Confucian interpretation of Shinto; it was only in the next century that
  scholars of "national learning" (kokugaku) broke out of this Confucian
  framework and presented Shinto as a religion indigenous to Japan. In
  this connection we may note that the foundations for the emergence of
  kokugaku also were established in this period through the accumula-
  tion of scholarly studies of the Japanese classics. Particularly Keichu
  (1640-1701) broke new scholarly ground through his adoption of a
  philological approach to the study of the classics.
  In this period, Buddhist and Shinto thought shared the view that
  the individual's committed pursuit of his or her allotted social function
  would ensure his or her autonomy and thus would serve as a means of
  spiritual salvation. To a certain extent this notion coincided with the
  premises of Chu Hsi's thought, which helps explain its successful
  diffusion and the acceptance among Zen and Shinto thinkers of the
  essential unity of their teachings with those of Chu Hsi's thought.
  According to the premises of Chu Hsi's thought, the fundamental
  principles of reason and morality (Ch: li, ]:ri) were identical with
  humanity's original nature (Ch: hsing, J: set). Consequently, the pur-
  suit of ri was at the same time a means of developing the potential of
  one's inner nature to guide one in behaving correctly. Through sus-
  tained effort, one would eventually succeed in making the principles
  of morality one's own and be able to act appropriately simply by
  following the promptings of one's mind.
  Moreover, because all beings were endowed with the original na-
  ture, they possessed the potential of achieving this ideal state of hu-
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  THOUGHT 
  417
  man existence. To fulfill that potential, it was essential to carry out
  faithfully one's moral duty as a member of society. The diversity of
  social roles meant that these duties differed from individual to individ-
  ual, as did the principles underlying them. But did this mean that
  through the performance of one's duty, one could grasp only the princi-
  ple specific to it? To the contrary, because these diverse specific princi-
  ples derived from the general principles of human morality present in
  each individual's innate nature, they were fundamentally different
  manifestations of one principle. The distinctive feature of Chu Hsi's
  moral view lies in this positing of a universal entity common to diverse
  circumstances and in the premise that pursuit of the latter is the
  proper means of achieving the former.
  An example of one who correctly understood this essential feature of
  Chu Hsi's thought and sought to put it into practice was Nakae Toju
  (1608-48).54 At the age of twenty-seven, Toju abandoned his bushi
  status and returned to his native village to devote himself to scholar-
  ship. In Okina mondo, which he wrote at the age of thirty-three, he
  explained in a simple fashion the essential points of Chu Hsi Neo-
  Confucianism as they applied to actual life.
  Beginning with a discussion of the familiar virtue of filial piety, Toju
  went on to show that whether one was lord, retainer, or commoner, to
  pursue one's vocation in an appropriate manner was to practice the
  tenets of Confucianism. Moreover, because all were endowed by nature
  with "illustrious virtue" (tneitoku), if the individual took into account
  the "time, place, and his or her status" and acts on this innate virtue, he
  or she could respond spontaneously in a correct manner to any situa-
  tion. Through the criteria of "time, place, and status," Toju sought to
  establish a basis for the individual to carry out his or her allotted social
  function while preserving his or her own spiritual autonomy.
  The postulation of the simultaneous pursuit of these ends as the
  ideal way of life corresponded closely to the premises of Chu Hsi's
  thought. At the same time Toju sought through the principle of "time,
  place, and status" to reduce some of the alien dimensions of Confucian-
  ism as a product of Chinese social experience, thereby making the
  essential elements of Chu Hsi's thought more applicable to the circum-
  stances of Japanese society. For example, Toju held that the principle
  of conforming to "time, place, and status" made it unnecessary for
  contemporary Japanese to adhere rigidly to the formal rules of behav-
  ior stipulated by the Chinese Confucian tradition.
  54 Regarding Toju, see Bito, Nihon hoken shisoshi kenkyu, pp. 136-216.
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  To be sure, there was a contradiction between Toju's assertion that
  one should not feel unduly constrained by formalistic rules of behavior
  and the Chu Hsi school's position that rectification of the self through
  the study of "principle" (kyuri) depended on scrupulous observance of
  the moral criteria specific to a particular circumstance. Inevitably
  those criteria were the product of social custom and tradition. Seeking
  a means of resolving this dilemma, in his last years Toju turned increas-
  ingly to the Wang Yang-ming school of Neo-Confucianism. As a conse-
  quence, he frequently has been called the founder of the Wang Yang-
  ming school in Japan. But this tag is somewhat of a misnomer. Toju's
  grasp of Wang Yang-ming's ideas remained incomplete; moreover his
  work that circulated most widely and had the greatest impact on soci-
  ety was Okina mondo, which belongs to the period of intellectual
  searching before his turn to the thought of Wang Yang-ming.
  The most influential of those who inherited Toju's intellectual tradi-
  tion was Kumazawa Banzan (1619—91) who served for a time as ad-
  viser to the daimyo of Okayama.55 Adopting Toju's advocacy of acting
  in accordance with "time, place, and status," Banzan applied that
  principle to the actual conduct of government. He criticized the grow-
  ing trend toward autocracy in the politics of the day and tried to
  expand the possibilities for individuals to act autonomously. Such
  views, however, made Banzan the object of suspicion, and bakufu
  officials ordered him to be kept under strict supervision, an order that
  remained in effect until the end of his life.
  The respective fates of Toju and Banzan suggest that there were
  major obstacles to incorporating the full dynamics of Chu Hsi's
  thought into Japanese society. Both men understood the essential Chu
  Hsi ideal of perfecting one's inborn potential to act as an autonomous
  being. However, Toju failed to find an effective means to realize that
  ideal, and Banzan's efforts to act in accordance with these principles
  led to his political isolation. For this reason, although Toju and
  Banzan were acclaimed by later generations, they had no immediate
  intellectual successors.
  Other contemporary figures were more successful in gaining a large
  following. Particularly notable in this regard was Yamazaki Ansai
  (1618-82), a fervent believer in the Chu Hsi tradition who emphasized
  putting the tenets of that tradition into practice.56 Ansai started out as
  a Zen monk but turned to Neo-Confucianism under the influence of
  55 For Banzan, see Bito, Nihon hoken shisoshi kenkyu, pp. 217-76.
  56 For Ansai, see Bito, Nihon hoken shisoshi kenkyu, pp. 40-99. In English, Herman Ooms, Toku-
  gawa Ideology: Early Constructs, 1570-1680 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.)
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  THOUGHT 
  419
  the Tosa Southern school of Confucian scholars. In 1655 he established
  a private school in Kyoto that attracted a large number of disciples.
  Besides instructing students, Ansai published works by Chu Hsi and
  wrote commentaries on them. He also traveled regularly to Edo where
  he lectured before a number of daimyo.
  To Ansai, practicing the tenets of the Chu Hsi tradition meant that
  one should endeavor, to the best of one's abilities, to carry out faith-
  fully the moral obligations specific to the social circumstances in
  which one was placed. This required an attitude of "reverence" (Ch:
  ching, J: kei or tsutsushimi), a mental state characterized by stability of
  mind and circumspect behavior. The emphasis that Ansai put on the
  cultivation of an attitude of "reverence," as opposed to the "plumbing
  of principle," is one of the distinctive features of his approach. In Chu
  Hsi's thought, reverence was originally held to be a precondition for
  the plumbing of principle. Ansai, however, interpreted reverence as
  summing up the essence of the Chu Hsi tradition. He did not explic-
  itly deny the importance of principle, but he believed the plumbing of
  principle to be something not readily attainable by the average person
  and so relegated it to a place of secondary importance.
  As a consequence, the ideal that Ansai delineated differed substan-
  tially from that of Toju. Toju envisioned an individual enabled by the
  process of self-cultivation to choose on the basis of his or her own
  innate reason the proper course of action. By contrast, Ansai regarded
  the ultimate goal as preservation of the correct social order, which
  consisted of the totality of specific moral standards, and he called on
  each individual to contribute to this goal by striving unremittingly to
  uphold the particular moral standard appropriate to his or her situa-
  tion. This task was described by the term meibun, or action in accor-
  dance with "names," in other words, action appropriate to the relative
  social status of all parties concerned. The stricture to uphold meibun
  was stressed particularly in the context of the relationship between
  lord and vassal, leading to the exaltation of an attitude by the retainer
  of devotion and unquestioning loyalty to the lord. However, Ansai did
  not see the person of the lord as the sole object of such commitment.
  Rather, he emphasized the extension of devoted service to the social
  organization that the lord represented and to the function that the
  individual was expected to perform within that organization. This
  expansion of the object of service constitutes one of the distinctive
  features of the moral outlook associated with Ansai.
  The mysticism inherent in this outlook may have stimulated Ansai's
  deep interest in Shinto. The conviction that one could find the basis
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  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  for the proper moral stance in the myths of ancient Japan led Ansai to
  engage in an elaborate reinterpretation of the language of the myths
  and eventually to formulate a new school of Shinto, the Suiga school.
  That development resulted, in turn, in the split of Ansai's disciples
  into two opposing factions, Shinto and Confucian, and the expulsion
  from his coterie of disciples of the two leading representatives of the
  Confucian camp, Asami Keisai (1652-1711) and Sato Naokata (1650-
  1719). Ironically, however, most of Ansai's school (said at one time to
  number as many as six thousand followers) coalesced around the Con-
  fucian faction rejected by Ansai. Naokata, Keisai, and a third scholar,
  Miyake Shosai (1662-1741), came to be known as the three exemplars
  of the Ansai school (Jkimon sanketsu), and their teaching exerted a
  substantial influence on society. Ansai's interpretation of Chu Hsi's
  thought, calling for devoted performance of one's particular social
  function, obviously responded effectively to the actual circumstances
  and needs of Japanese society in this period.
  If the meaning of existence is identified with one's contribution to
  society through the performance of one's particular function, the
  "plumbing of principle" advocated by Chu Hsi not only ceases to be
  necessary, but its emphasis on the development of the rational faculties
  may even come to be regarded as wrongly encouraging the individual
  to separate himself or herself from society at large. Ansai sought to
  overcome this dilemma by stressing will instead of reason. Eventually,
  however, scholars appeared who rejected the premises of Chu Hsi's
  thought as such and sought to establish a new intellectual system in its
  place. Foremost among them were Yamaga Soko (1622-85) and Ito
  Jinsai (1627-1705) who, together with the early-eighteenth-century
  scholar Ogyu Sorai, are known as the formulators of the Ancient
  Learning school (kogakuha).
  The term "Ancient Learning" refers to the effort to approach di-
  rectly the Confucian classics of antiquity, without relying on the com-
  mentaries and interpretations of later scholars such as Chu Hsi. On
  this point, all three of these scholars were in agreement. However, in
  regard to questions of actual methodology and the theoretical implica-
  tions they drew from their studies, each followed his own path. Their
  successors likewise formed distinct groups. Thus, despite the common
  denomination of these scholars as adherents of Ancient Learning, they
  did not constitute a single, consistent school of thought.
  The Tokugawa Ancient Learning scholars are often likened to the
  Empirical Learning school which arose in Ch'ing China, and indeed the
  philological studies of Jinsai and Sorai achieved results comparable in
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  THOUGHT 
  421
  many ways to those of the Empirical Learning scholars. Where the
  Ch'ing and Tokugawa scholars differed, however, was that the former,
  while rejecting the commentaries of Chu Hsi, tried to clarify the original
  meaning of the classics by using earlier commentaries written in the
  Han period. By contrast, the Tokugawa Ancient Learning scholars
  rejected reliance on all commentaries, including those of the Han pe-
  riod. To interpret accurately works written more than two thousand
  years earlier, even Chinese scholars found it necessary to use the oldest
  commentaries available. It inevitably was difficult for Japanese schol-
  ars, working with a foreign tradition and setting aside all commentaries,
  to reach the same level of scholarly achievement. But if the Ancient
  Learning scholars may be faulted on the point of scholarly precision,
  considered from the perspective of the history of Japanese thought they
  achieved much. They succeeded both in developing a systematic inter-
  pretation of Confucianism that accorded with the actualities of Japanese
  life and, to a considerable degree, in providing plausible textual support
  for that interpretation.
  Both Soko and Jinsai began as followers of Chu Hsi, but around 1662-
  3 each shifted to an Ancient Learning position. The two lived in differ-
  ent circumstances and were not in contact with each other. Of bushi
  origins, Soko was active primarily in Edo, while Jinsai grew to maturity
  in a townsman's family in Kyoto - Thus it was coincidental that each
  shifted to a new intellectual stance at approximately the same time. Yet
  this very coincidence points to the intellectual trends of the time.
  Soko acquired a notable reputation in his youth, not so much as a
  Confucian, but as a specialist in military affairs (heigakusha).57 Confu-
  cianism, in essence, served as the theoretical foundation for his ap-
  proach to military affairs. According to Soko, the Confucian sages put
  particular emphasis on "knowledge" (J: chi, Ch: chih). The object of
  this knowledge was the concrete standards of correct behavior specific
  to the individual human relationships, such as those between lord and
  vassal and father and son. In their totality those relationships formed
  the structure of society and the state. Consequently, the standards of
  behavior specific to each such relationship derived from the public
  purpose of maintaining the social order. Because the human relation-
  ships that formed the larger social order were different, the criteria of
  behavior proper to each must also be different; that is, one could not
  "know" them by extrapolating from one general principle. It was
  57 For Soko's biography, see Hori Isao, Yamaga Soko (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1959); and
  for his thought, see Bitd Masahide, "Yamaga Soko no shiso teki tenkai," Shiso 560-1 (1971).
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  422 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  necessary, therefore, to build up a concrete knowledge of particular
  relationships and the standard of behavior specific to each.
  "Knowledge" in the context of Chu Hsi thought was directed inter-
  nally toward the heart or mind. It referred to the effort to perceive
  directly through a spiritual awakening the original nature of the mind,
  that is, the general principles of morality. By contrast, for Soko what
  was to be "known" were things that could be perceived objectively,
  such as the social order and human relationships as they should exist
  within the framework of that order. By correctly understanding such
  things the individual would realize more precisely the social function
  allotted him or her and also would obtain a concrete knowledge of how
  to carry out that function.
  Seeing the dissemination of such knowledge to be his mission as a
  scholar, Soko wrote many books. These included not only works set-
  ting forth the fundamental principles of his intellectual approach, such
  as Seikyo yoroku (The essential teachings of the sages), but also histori-
  cal works such as Chucho jijitsu (The records of the central nation),
  which dealt with the ancient history of Japan, and Bukejiki (Account
  of the military houses), which dealt with the period of military rule
  from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The last covered various
  topics like methods of warfare, weapons, and the construction of cas-
  tles. In essence it was a kind of encyclopedia - a heigaku textbook -
  intended to give the bushi, whose function was to fight, systematic
  knowledge of the matters necessary for the performance of that func-
  tion. In Soko's eyes, those who like himself belonged to the bushi class
  had to acquire this kind of historical and practical information in order
  to fulfill appropriately their social role.
  Soko looked to the surrounding social order, rather than the individ-
  ual's inner being, to provide the criteria for action. In this regard,
  Soko's intellectual outlook resembled that of Ansai. However, Ansai's
  emphasis on the need for an attitude of devoted service to the social
  order in effect postulated a kind of religious transfiguration in which
  the individual became one with the social order. On this point Ansai
  drew from the Chu Hsi premise that the individual's original nature
  (set) and the principles of morality (ri) were one and the same and that
  the individual should seek to unify subjective and objective knowledge
  through the realization of this identity. Soko, by contrast, sharply
  divided the object of intellectual perception from the individual en-
  gaged in the act of perception. As a consequence, although Soko's
  concept of knowledge offered a rational foundation for the standards
  of behavior demanded of the individual, it lacked the appeal to the
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  THOUGHT 
  423
  emotions necessary to stimulate the drive to fulfill those standards. It
  presumably was for this reason that compared with his military and
  political writings, Soko's interpretation of Confucianism itself had
  little social impact.
  Ito Jinsai also held that the meaning of life was to be found in the
  performance of the role allotted to one in the context of specific human
  relationships such as those between lord and subject and father and
  son. He saw those relationships as constituting the actuality of human
  life and Confucianism as what taught the correct way of living in
  accordance with that actuality. He further assumed that as human
  relationships as a whole formed the social order, the manner of life of
  an individual should properly be considered within the framework of
  society as a whole (literally, the "realm," tenka). Up to this point Jinsai
  and Soko held essentially the same ideas. But then Soko focused on
  how to grasp objectively and concretely one's position in the total
  structure of society and one's corresponding responsibilities (shoku-
  buri). Jinsai, by comparison, concerned himself primarily with the
  problem of the inner moral sense which he believed should guide the
  individual in his or her relations with others.58
  On the surface Jinsai would seem to resemble the Chu Hsi school in
  his emphasis on a moral sense rooted in the heart of the individual. Yet
  Jinsai was highly critical of the Chu Hsi outlook. According to Chu
  Hsi, the foundation of morality lay in the "original nature," something
  akin to an intellectual capacity for moral judgment that constituted
  one aspect of the human heart. If it were allowed to function unim-
  peded by the passions or selfish desires, this capacity for moral judg-
  ment would enable the individual not only to act appropriately in his
  or her own life but also to exert positive influence on others, thereby
  helping bring society into conformity with its proper form. Although
  the Chu Hsi moral view thus started with the individual, indeed with
  the intellectual dimensions of the individual's mind or heart, Jinsai
  argued that morality transcended the level of the individual. By this he
  meant that morality existed within society as the overall structure in
  which were subsumed the multiplicity of human relationships. In that
  this overall structure reflected social purposes and desires common to
  all people, it broadly accorded with the individual's natural senti-
  ments. However, Jinsai held, the moral judgments reached by the
  individual through intellectual reasoning were not always congruent
  58 Bito Masahide, "Ito Jinsai ni okeru gakumon to jissen," Shiso 524 (1968); and "ltd Jinsai no
  shiso ni okeru jo no igi," Toko gakkai soritsuyonjushunen kinen whogaku ronshu (1987); Koyasu
  Nobukuni, ltd Jinsai - jinrinteki sekai no shiso (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1982).
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  424 
  THOUGHT AND RELIGION: I55O-I7OO
  with what was appropriate to society as a whole. Thus to follow un-
  swervingly one's own judgment, regardless of the general movement
  of society, might well be morally improper in the larger sense.
  Jinsai did not mistrust the human mind as such; to the contrary,
  faith in the propriety of people's natural sentiments is a major charac-
  teristic of his intellectual outlook. But he did fear that overdependence
  on the intellect might lead one to regard others coldly and to distance
  oneself from society, and so he opposed the Chu Hsi moral view as
  susceptible to such tendencies. In place of the intellect, Jinsai saw
  feelings, particularly the capacity to love and sympathize with others,
  as the essence of the human mind. Moveover, because human relations
  and the social order were founded on these feelings of love and em-
  pathy basic to the human heart, morality, in his view, should not be
  regarded as something lofty and difficult to achieve. Instead, it was
  rooted in the context of ordinary social life, and to conduct one's life
  properly in accordance with one's natural feelings of love for others
  was to practice morality.
  Among the Confucian classics Jinsai gave particular emphasis to the
  Analects and Mencius, which he interpreted in light of his concept of
  morality. In addition to commentaries in which he set forth this inter-
  pretation, he also wrote works such as Dojimon (Dialogue with a
  child), which systematically elaborated his own ideas. His approach to
  scholarship, which was continued by his son Ito Togai (1670-1736),
  attracted many followers to the private academy that he founded on
  Horikawa Street in Kyoto and had a major influence on the late-
  seventeenth and early-eighteenth-century intellectual world. The disci-
  ples of Jinsai and Togai formed what is known as the Horikawa or
  "Ancient Meaning" (kogi) school of scholarship.
  The Confucian thought exemplified by the Analects and Mencius was
  essentially an intellectual abstraction and systematization of the hu-
  man relations characteristic of the family-oriented community of an-
  cient China. Jinsai likewise tried to articulate a moral consciousness
  geared to the mentality of those living in the new communal social
  structure of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japan. In that the
  social base of early Tokugawa Japan and ancient China were different,
  Jinsai's interpretation of works like the Analects did not always con-
  form entirely to the meaning of the original text. But by the same
  token, his interpretations fit closely the mental reality of his own
  society. As such, they represent one culmination of the intellectual
  endeavors of the Confucian scholars of the seventeenth century.
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  CHAPTER 9
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH
  CENTURY
  By the middle of the seventeenth century, the government of Japan in
  many important respects had assumed the shape it was thereafter to
  maintain for the next two hundred years.1 The emperor, nominal head
  of state, was kept in Kyoto, isolated and virtually powerless. In Edo,
  the administrative center of the country, was the bakufu, a govern-
  ment staffed by a large group of samurai officials. Already they were at
  work producing a voluminous and dense body of statutes, precedents,
  and procedural instructions to cope with the increasingly complex
  society over which they presided. The sixty-eight provinces were di-
  vided among 250 feudal lords, or daimyo, all to some extent autono-
  mous but all having sworn - with a greater or lesser degree of
  sincerity - undying loyalty to the Tokugawa shogun. None of them
  had found the first fifty years of the new regime particularly easy.
  Some had been plucked abruptly from the Tokugawa vassal band to
  assume independent responsibilities for the first time; others, once
  Tokugawa equals and even rivals, had suffered in various ways, their
  domains now surrounded by Tokugawa watchdogs or shifted from
  favorable locations to areas more distant or less prosperous. Even so,
  they were the lucky ones - luckier by far than those 175 of their peers
  who lost all or part of their domains during the first half of the seven-
  teenth century.
  Once the first fifty years had passed, however, there were undeni-
  able signs that having attained a certain measure of security, the Toku-
  gawa revolution in government was coming to a halt. After 1650, it
  used its powers against the daimyo much less, the rate of both attain-
  ders and fief transfers falling decisively. To no small extent this was
  due to the recognition of the principle of deathbed adoption; failure to
  produce an heir had once been one of the major causes of daimyo
  i Tsuji Tatsuya," 'Geba shogun' seiji no seikaku," Yokohama shiritsu daigaku ronso (Humanities)
  2-3 (August i979):3°-3i-
  425
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  426 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  attainder, but after 1651 it no longer applied. Slowly, almost impercep-
  tibly, the social structure of the samurai class, after decades of constant
  flux, began to settle down, starting, appropriately enough, at the top.
  Daimyo families, unless they committed the grossest of indiscretions,
  were now safe; as institutions, they could continue even if the
  bloodline itself failed. The same held true for families all the way down
  the samurai hierarchy. What you were born to, you could rely on
  keeping, regardless of talent or suitability.2
  The imposition of the shogun's authority over the other power cen-
  ters, however, did not bring a halt to political transformations during
  the Tokugawa period. The politics of the eighteenth century were
  lively and significant in their own right. In large part, this was due to
  the appearance of new social and economic problems that forced cre-
  ative responses from the governmental structure.3 One of the most
  pressing problems was fiscal, for by the turn of the eighteenth century
  the growing shogunate had begun to discover that its need for revenue
  outstripped its capacity to tax the peasantry on its own lands. With
  quickening tempo, the control that government exercised over the
  farming communities that sustained them began to weaken, and tax
  revenues began to decline. New policies were called for, and successive
  regimes struggled with the problem of how to extract more taxes from
  a population that, in turn, was increasingly reluctant to part with its
  surpluses.4
  Political life in the eighteenth century was also affected by the in-
  creases in agricultural productivity. New crops and new farming meth-
  ods generated continuously larger rural surpluses, and these provided
  the fuel for unprecedented commercial development during the sec-
  ond half of the seventeenth century. Quickly trade and commerce
  grew beyond the government's ability to control it. In towns and
  villages alike, new opportunities and new risks brought about by com-
  mercial development began to reshape patterns of social organization.
  From the shogunate's perspective, this threatened to pull the farmer
  from his land and to erode the loyalty of the samurai class, whose
  incomes lagged behind those of their merchant neighbors. This com-
  mercial assault on the basis of the social status system would draw the
  attention of almost every eighteenth-century reformer.
  2 Asao Naohiro, "Shogun seiji no kenryoku kozo," in Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 10
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 39-40.
  3 Tsuji, " 'Geba shogun'," p. 42; and Matsumoto Shiro, "Kambun-Genroku-ki ni okeru
  daimyo-gashi no tokushitsu," in Mitsui bunko ronso, no. 1 (i967):8i-94-
  4 Tsuji, " 'Geba shogun'," pp. 40-3; and Sato Takayuki, "Kinsei zenki no nengu shushu to
  noson kin'yu," in Tokugawa ritisei-shi kenkyujo kenkyu kiyo (I979):39I-4I4.
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  TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI 
  427
  None of the new fiscal or commercial challenges, however, were
  amenable to easy solution. As problems mounted during the eigh-
  teenth century - or sometimes as proposed solutions created newer
  and equally vexing predicaments - various reform factions fought for
  control over the shogunate and sought to promote their own reform
  programs. At times, this pitted the shogun against entrenched bureau-
  cratic interests; at other times reform groups within the bureaucracy
  ruthlessly moved against their opponents. These struggles so colored
  the politics of the eighteenth century that the story of reformers and
  reformism provides a convenient framework for understanding the
  direction of political change during the middle years of the Tokugawa
  shogunate.
  TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI
  The first great reformer was Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709). The
  fifth of the Tokugawa rulers, Tsunayoshi nearly never became shogun
  at all. True, he was the son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third shogun,
  but he was the fourth son, with therefore only the slightest prospect of
  obtaining the succession. When in 1651, at the age of six, he became a
  daimyo with a fief of 150,000 koku, he seemed destined to follow the
  classic career of a younger son - comfortable and not particularly de-
  manding. His removal, ten years later, to a larger fief rated at 250,000
  koku at Tatebayashi, in the province of Kozuke, was much in the same
  tradition. But then in 1680, his elder brother, the fourth shogun,
  Tokugawa Ietsuna, died without issue, and Tsunayoshi was returned
  to the main Tokugawa line as his successor. From 1680 until his death
  in 1709, Tsunayoshi did all he could to bring the central government
  into line with commercial and social development.
  His years as shogun began with an extraordinary demonstration of
  autocratic power. Sakai Tadakiyo, who as grand councilor since 1666
  had been undeniably the most powerful and prominent member of
  Ietsuna's government, was abruptly dismissed, much to the surprise of
  everyone. This was a flagrant break with convention. In the past,
  officials of such eminence were expected to remain in their posts until
  they died. Typically, they were not permitted to resign, even if desper-
  ately ill, as convention decreed that both status and office were
  granted for life. What made all this even more remarkable was Sakai
  Tadakiyo's own family background, for he came from a line known for
  its firm support for the Tokugawa house. Naturally enough, because
  no official explanation was ever offered, Edo was filled with rumors,
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  428 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  one of the most widely accepted (although never substantiated) claim-
  ing that the grand councilor had disapproved of the new shogun and
  had unsuccessfully tried to have him replaced with an imperial
  prince.5
  It is more likely, however, that Tsunayoshi, by eliminating the expe-
  rienced and influential elder statesman, had sought to transfer Sakai's
  powers to himself. With the grand councilor gone, the entire bureau-
  cratic apparatus would become more responsive to the shogun's de-
  mands. A subsidiary aim might have been to inject some urgency into
  an administration grown stagnant; by removing the bureaucracy's
  highest official with such dispatch, Tsunayoshi had placed all other
  officials on notice. Certainly, if such were his motives, Tsunayoshi was
  to see them accomplished to a very large extent.
  Tokugawa Iemitsu, Tsunayoshi's father, had always been conscious
  of his lack of formal education and took some pains to see that his own
  sons did not suffer in the same way. Tsunayoshi therefore had been
  exposed from childhood to formal educational training, together with
  the Confucianism with which it was virtually synonymous. As a youth
  he had taken to this learning with great enthusiasm, and now as sho-
  gun, he at last had the opportunity to put his Confucian principles into
  practice. He particularly urged bakufu officials to pay close attention
  to their studies and obliged them to attend lectures on the Confucian
  classics, some of which he delivered personally. To some extent this
  may be seen simply as the whim of an autocrat basking in the adula-
  tion of those around him, but there is no question about his intention.
  Tsunayoshi desperately wanted to create a loyal, learned, and effective
  bureaucracy, one in which the spirit of Confucianism might be given
  tangible form.6
  The same impulse lay behind Tsunayoshi's attitude toward the com-
  mon people. For their benefit he had a series of public notice boards
  erected throughout the country in 1682 to publicize the key Confucian
  virtues of loyalty, filial piety, thrift, and diligence. His famous laws
  aimed at the protection of the animal kingdom, with dogs a special
  favorite - the so-called Shorui awaremi no rei, or Instructions concern-
  ing compassion for all living creatures - are yet another example. Ulti-
  mately, by enjoining people not to abandon sick cows or horses, by
  prohibiting the sale of creatures such as birds and tortoises for food, by
  jailing those who injured animals, and by threatening with death or
  5 Tsuji Tatsuya, Kyoho kaikaku no kenkyii (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1963), pp. 43-46.
  6 Tsuji, Kyoho, p. 36; and Tsuji Tatsuya, "Bakusei no shindankai," in Iwanami kbza Nihon
  rekishi, vol. 11 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1963), pp. 12-13.
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  TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI 
  429
  exile anyone who killed a dog, Tsunayoshi may have oppressed the
  people, but this was never his intention. Rather, he was trying to foster
  a true benevolence among them, one that would embrace the whole of
  creation, even its meanest members. He was in fact trying to create the
  perfect Confucian society, peopled by none but the benevolent and
  docile.7
  It was Tsunayoshi's Confucianism, too, that led him to institute a
  rigorous policy of rewarding or punishing bakufu officials for their
  efficiency, or lack of it. This resulted, on the one hand, in a number of
  promotions, as many administrators were raised far beyond their nor-
  mal expectations, in tribute to their honesty or diligence. On the other
  hand, an enormous number of officials in both the shogunate and the
  daimyo domains were punished for their alleged mistakes.
  Much of this unprecedented behavior has been attributed to Tsuna-
  yoshi's own personal idiosyncracies. The poet Toda Mosui, a contem-
  porary, wrote in his Gotodaiki:
  When so many were penalized for the most trifling errors, people's uncer-
  tainty grew; no one knew who would be punished next, nor what his punish-
  ment would be. During the rule of the fourth shogun, men had tried to win
  official appointment for the honor of their ancestors and their descendants;
  now, should they be given an official post, they pray to gods and buddhas that
  they might safely be allowed to resign.
  Indeed, some did see their estates confiscated when they dared to step
  down.
  Certainly there was an element of caprice in Tsunayoshi's policy
  reflecting both the authority of the shogun and his instability. Never-
  theless, it cannot be explained away simply in terms of the shogun's
  own individual peculiarities. There was an important political issue
  underlying this new severity as an examination of Tsunayoshi's treat-
  ment of the daimyo so clearly demonstrates.
  In the sixth month of 1681, Tsunayoshi sat in judgment on a diffi-
  cult and long-unsettled dispute that had taken place in Echigo, in the
  Takada domain. Characteristically, his judgment was severe. Not only
  did he punish the leaders of both sides of the dispute, but he also
  confiscated the entire domain, on the grounds that Matsudaira Mitsu-
  naga, the daimyo, had been at fault. In its way this was a momentous
  decision, for the Echigo Matsudaira family, of which Mitsunaga was
  the head, was an eminent branch of the three major cadet houses at
  7 Tsuji Tatsuya, "Seidan no shakai-teki haikei," in Yoshikawa Kojiro and Maruyama Masao,
  eds., Ogyu Sorai, vol. 36 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973), pp. 778-82.
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  430 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  Kii, Mito, and Owari. Tsunayoshi's decision to destroy it, therefore,
  startled contemporaries as much as his dismissal of Sakai Tadakiyo
  had six months earlier. This decision foreshadowed a new severity in
  the fifth shogun's attitude toward the daimyo class.
  Under Tsunayoshi a total of forty-six daimyo were stripped of all or
  part of their domains, surrendering a total of 1.6 million koku in the
  process. During the previous regime only half that number of daimyo
  had felt the shogun's displeasure. Further, an analysis of those forty-
  six daimyo reveals several interesting insights. First, seventeen of
  them were outside lords (tozama daimyo), men whose rise had been
  independent of, and often predated, that of the Tokugawa house itself.
  But nearly twice as many - twenty nine, in fact - were fudai, the
  daimyo who up to now had been most cherished by Tokugawa sho-
  guns. Furthermore, in seventeen examples the cause for punishment
  was reasonably clear-cut: for insanity, physical violence against an-
  other, and failure to produce an heir. In all such cases, punishment
  was mandatory. Nine of these seventeen men were tozama and eight
  were fudai. Of the twenty-nine remaining cases, the more problemati-
  cal decisions, only eight were tozama, and a totally disproportionate
  twenty-one were fudai, a clear indication that Tsunayoshi's displeasure
  was leveled far more at the traditional supporters of the Tokugawa
  than at those who had always kept their distance. Indeed, beginning
  with his dismissal of Sakai Tadakiyo, one of the most eminent of fudai
  daimyo, proceeding through his destruction of the Echigo branch of
  the Matsudaira family and culminating in an onslaught on the fudai as
  a group, Tsunayoshi seemed to be attacking the very underpinnings of
  Tokugawa authority.
  Not all of this was deliberate. Like all lords and indeed like the
  bakufu itself, the fudai daimyo had not been spared the consequences
  of social change. To a greater or lesser degree, all had been troubled by
  political difficulties within their own domains. Often the result was a
  factional dispute like that which had occurred at Takada - open, acri-
  monious, and not infrequently bloody. Such arguments, known as
  oiesodo, offered Tsunayoshi an ideal pretext for action, as all could be
  manifestly attributed to maladministration at the highest levels of do-
  main government. Further, not only were the fudai daimyo as vulnera-
  ble on such issues as the tozama, but they also ran an additional risk.
  They were far more likely to win office within the bakufu than any-
  body else and so were far more likely to provoke the unpredictable
  shogun with an administrative blunder of some sort.
  This does not mean that Tsunayoshi was able to shrug off com-
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  TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI 
  431
  pletely the traditional fudai influence. The authority conferred by
  lineage and status remained, and occasionally served to restrain the
  shogun. All in all, however, within the administration, the strength of
  the fudai class was diminished, and its hold over the shogun weakened
  perceptibly.8 Tsunayoshi, as a result, enhanced his own authority to a
  considerable degree. Such at least is the impression conveyed by Date
  Tsunamura, daimyo of Sendai. "When I had an audience with the
  fourth shogun Ietsuna," he is reported to have said, "I could always
  look him in the face; now, in the august presence [of Tsunayoshi] I
  automatically bow my head." Whether or not Tsunamura actually said
  this - and the source, the Sanno gaiki, is not the most reliable - the
  currency of this, and many other such stories, suggests the fifth sho-
  gun's heightened powers.
  Tsunayoshi's attempt to reform the bakufu administration, how-
  ever, did not run smoothly. It was not easy to replace a bureaucracy
  determined on the basis of family status with one recruited more
  widely, and by attempting to do so, Tsunayoshi forfeited the confi-
  dence of many of those whose support would have been helpful. He
  was quickly obliged, therefore, to turn to his own friends and cronies
  for support. In 1681, within a year of his succession, he restructured
  the administration of the shogunal household, creating the new posi-
  tion of sobayonin (lord chamberlain), with rank equivalent to that of
  senior councilor, and installing his old friend and adviser Makino
  Narisada in it. Narisada was the first to achieve what was seen by many
  as unwarranted influence through his personal association with the
  shogun. Fudai daimyo like Matsudaira Terusada and Matsudaira
  Tadachika followed, as did tozama like Nambu Naomasa and Kana-
  mori Yoritoki, and finally, Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, who, like Makino
  Narisada, had served Tsunayoshi even before his accession. The same
  shogunal patronage also took Kitami Shigemasa from the position of
  hatamoto (bannerman), with a stipend of one thousand koku, to that of
  sobayonin, with twenty thousand. In his case, however, this was fol-
  lowed by an equally abrupt fall from favor, and dismissal.
  Nevertheless, such reversals apart, it was clear that many newcom-
  ers, even those of low rank, were being elevated to positions of consid-
  erable power in both the shogun's own household and the external
  administrative hierarchy. Inevitably, many of those not so favored
  would seek their assistance and would offer bribes to ensure their
  success.
  8 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 46-55; and Tsuji, "Bakusei," pp. 9-12, 14-15.
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  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  The rise of Makino Narisada within the shogun's own household
  was paralleled by the growing eminence of Hotta Masatoshi within the
  bakufu. As a senior councilor, Hotta had certainly been eminent
  enough under the previous shogun, but in 1681 Tsunayoshi appointed
  him to the position of grand councilor left vacant by Sakai Tadakiyo,
  granting him at the same time a fief increase that took him from a
  40,000-koku domain to one of 130,000 koku.. Hotta seemed to be replac-
  ing Sakai, literally as well as figuratively, for he was also given his
  predecessor's official residence near the main Ote gate of Edo Castle.
  Such a transfer may seem normal enough now, but the Sakai family
  had been prominent in the Tokugawa service since the sixteenth cen-
  tury, even before the battle of Sekigahara; the Hotta, by contrast, were
  newcomers. The first of the Hotta family to serve the Tokugawa house
  had been Masatoshi's father, Hotta Masamori, who joined Tokugawa
  Iemitsu as a personal attendant in 1620. Nor was that all. Masatoshi,
  as his father's third son, was even further removed from the status
  rank demanded by the highest office in the shogun's administration.
  He too, therefore, like Makino Narisada, must be seen as one brought
  to power by Tsunayoshi's personal patronage, and by that alone.9
  By filling in such an arbitrary way the top positions in the shogunate
  and in his own personal household, Tsunayoshi sought to provide
  himself with a staff composed of those he trusted and to make the
  government more responsive to his wishes. There were some difficul-
  ties, however, particularly in regard to Hotta Masatoshi. The latter's
  relations with the shogun, for example, were far from ideal - perhaps
  because of his reluctance to commit himself completely to Tsuna-
  yoshi's policies. Hotta's relations with his own subordinates, who
  found him somewhat dictatorial, were even worse. Indeed his relations
  with one of them, the junior councilor Inaba Masayasu, must be con-
  sidered calamitous, as Inaba was to assassinate him in the summer of
  1684.
  After Hotta's death, Tsunayoshi promoted no more capable politi-
  cians to the bakufu administration. Those who became senior council-
  ors were, to borrow Arai Hakuseki's description of them, "daimyo's
  sons" - in other words, those with nothing but their birth to recom-
  mend them, men incapable of comprehending the state of national
  finances, much less of offering adequate political leadership.
  In consequence, the deliberations of the Senior Council, the highest
  organ of government, and that responsible for handling bakufu affairs
  9 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 57-8; and Tsuji, "Bakusei," pp. 15-16.
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  TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI 
  433
  became more and more involved with empty ritual. Effective political
  leadership passed instead to the shogun's own cronies, the lords cham-
  berlain who alone were privy to his wishes. Among these lords cham-
  berlain, Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu was especially noteworthy. In 1698 he
  was allowed precedence over the senior councilors, and in 1704 he was
  enfeoffed at Kofu Castle, previously held only by members of the
  Tokugawa family. Just how effective this new style of shogunal autoc-
  racy was can be seen by the readiness with which even the more
  eccentric of Tsunayoshi's laws were put into effect. They may have
  been inspired by the shogun's own fantasies, but complaisant follow-
  ers like Yanagisawa were prepared to enforce them without question.
  Not all of Tsunayoshi's new policies were strange. Some, like his
  attempt to reform the administration of the bakufu's own domain
  (tenryo), were eminently sensible. Immediately upon becoming shogun
  in 1680, Tsunayoshi gave Hotta Masatoshi, then still a senior coun-
  cilor, sole authority over the management of the Tokugawa domain,
  nominating a council of six others - the two Kyoto magistrates and
  four finance officials - to help with the task. This was a significant
  departure from tradition. First, it mixed officials of different rank, in
  this case senior councilors and magistrates. Second, whereas senior
  councilors normally rotated responsibility for routine administration
  among themselves, a month at a time, now an individual was given
  total control over one particular policy area. Clearly, the management
  of the Tokugawa domain was sufficiently important in the estimation
  of the new shogun to warrant some dramatic changes.
  The establishment of a unit of inspectors in the Finance Office in
  1682 was another move in the same direction. Experienced finance
  officials were assigned the task of scrutinizing the performance of their
  colleagues. They were given a rank one grade below that of magistrate
  but were no longer responsible to the superintendents of finance.
  Rather, they reported to the senior councilors, which meant that their
  former superiors also came under their scrutiny. Not only that, there
  were also changes in the way that superintendents of finance them-
  selves were appointed. Previously, such posts had never gone to any-
  one within the Finance Office itself; they went instead to middle- or
  upper-level hatamoto who had reached a career level appropriate to
  such a promotion. Consequently, appointees were not necessarily
  skilled in either financial matters or public administration. Their sub-
  ordinates, whether in Edo or the provinces, also tended to inherit their
  positions from their fathers, with no expectation of either transfer or
  further advancement. Tsunayoshi changed all this. Acting in the belief
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  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  that so important an arm of government needed capable administra-
  tors, he began promoting subordinates particularly experienced or
  skilled in matters of finance or local administration, as well as those
  showing more general promise. Before long this policy was to bear
  fruit with the elevation of a small number of men from the post of the
  comptroller of finance to superintendent of finance.
  It was also to bear fruit of a less palatable kind as these new officials
  turned their attention to the activities of the rural intendants (daikan),
  the men primarily responsible for local administration. As early as
  1680, intendants had received a set of instructions alerting them to
  their obligations and reminding them that the people over whom they
  presided were the very foundation of the state. The following year, the
  bakufu began to investigate the activities of individual intendants, and
  within the next eight years some twenty-six intendants were dismissed
  from office. When one realizes that there were, at the most, only forty-
  five intendants in office at any one time, then the massive scale of the
  purge becomes apparent. By 1704, when the wave of dismissals came
  to an end, a total of thirty-five men had been ousted from their posts,
  and some of them had even been sentenced to death.
  There are other interesting aspects of this policy. At least eighteen of
  the thirty-five men dismissed came from families accustomed to pro-
  viding intendants ever since the Tokugawa period began - families
  that, in all likelihood, had been prominent in their localities long
  before that. The records enable the positive identification of only
  eighteen families of this type, but there may well have been more
  involved. Those who escaped outright dismissal, too, did not necessar-
  ily go unscathed, as some of them - again from the same sort of
  background - were transferred from their traditional areas to places
  where they had no private authority. Obviously, Tsunayoshi was trying
  to break the private links between specific local officials and the areas
  they administered and was prepared to use whatever pretext necessary.
  In most cases, too, the alleged reason for dismissal was that the offi-
  cials concerned had failed to remit local taxes to the bakufu intact; in
  other words, they were guilty of embezzlement. No fewer than
  twenty-five of the thirty-five dismissals were on these grounds. Under
  Ietsuna, Tsunayoshi's predecessor, it had been a matter of common
  knowledge that intendants were dishonest, but it took Tsunayoshi to
  confront the issue directly.10
  10 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 62-75; and Tsuji, "Bakusei,", pp. 19-21; and Tsuji," 'Geba shogun'," pp.
  37-43. 63-4.
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  TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI 
  435
  The evidence of embezzlement was clear enough; the reasons for it,
  however, perhaps not so clear. Later, many attributed the cause to the
  bakufu's failure to supply its local administrators with adequate sala-
  ries, as well as to pressures on the intendants to lend money for the
  relief of local distress." But there were other factors at work as well.
  The problem lay with the bakufu's entire system of tax collection and
  with the position of intendant itself. In the beginning, the government
  had found it useful to appoint established local leaders as its rural
  administrators - not just intendants but also lower officials such as
  village headmen (nanushi and shoya). Such men, already respected and
  closely acquainted with local people and conditions, were invaluable in
  introducing Tokugawa authority into the rural districts.
  By the late seventeenth century, however, the situation had changed.
  The local magnates found their old economic status had begun to erode,
  while those about them, even the small farmers, were growing increas-
  ingly independent. Commercial development was already turning the
  class structure of the traditional farming village on its head, thereby
  weakening both local gentry and village authorities to such an extent
  that they could no longer function adequately as tax officials. Tsuna-
  yoshi's policy toward the intendants, therefore, attempted not just to
  control their peculations but also to remove the conditions that either
  tempted or obliged them to steal. Creating a new kind of intendant was a
  first step toward a new kind of local administration.12
  Politically, Tsunayoshi's attempt to strengthen the shogunal preroga-
  tive had a profound impact on the bakufu's faltering administrative
  machinery. From the very highest official down to the humblest inten-
  dant, the bakufu's bureaucrats were forced to be responsive to the
  shogun's own personal wishes. The daimyo domains, too, were being
  obliged to accommodate themselves to recent social developments. In
  terms of centralized control and administrative rationality, what the
  fifth shogun was trying to do was commendable. Yet Tsunayoshi's
  reputation - among his contemporaries and even today - has been far
  from good. Even the Tokugawa jikki, the official chronicles compiled
  for posterity on the order of the Tokugawa shoguns themselves, was
  ready to concede the misgovernment of his regime, offering only the
  excuse of mental instability in his defense. "Extraordinary rulers are
  11 Tsuji, Kyohd, pp. 74, 152-3; and Sone Hiromi, "Zaichi daikan shihai to shoki jinushi kosaku
  kankei no tenkai," in Kitajima Masamoto, ed., Bakuhansei kokka seiritsu katei no kenkyu
  (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), pp. 380-405.
  12 Tsuji, Kyohd, pp. 68-70;. Tsuji, "Bakusei," pp. 21-3; Asao Naohiro, Kinsei hoken shakai no
  kiso kozo (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1967), pp. 340-53; and Fujimoto Yukio, "Kawachi no
  kuni ichi shoya-ke no ken'i to sono tokushitsu," Nihon rekishi 353 (October 1977): 57-70.
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  436 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  prone to such excesses," it noted; ". . . more conventional rulers are
  never so extreme.'"3
  The truth of the matter is that eccentricities (and there were many
  of them) apart, even the most rational of Tsunayoshi's new initiatives
  failed. They raised new possibilities and suggested new solutions, but
  they did not themselves solve any of the problems Japan had begun to
  encounter as the seventeenth century shaded into the eighteenth. By
  trying to create a new government, one more trustworthy and efficient
  than the old, Tsunayoshi succeeded only in installing his cronies in
  positions of authority, leaving those no less talented (if not so fortu-
  nate) disoriented, forced into either passivity or flattery to protect
  themselves and their careers. Even within the Treasury itself, to which
  no criterion other than efficiency applied, the shogun's policy failed,
  bestowing total control on a man like Ogiwara Shigehide, who
  achieved little beyond corruption and confusion.
  Tsunayoshi's recoinage policy, too, failed to solve anything. In 1698,
  faced with massive financial difficulties (attributable to some extent to
  the unrestrained spending of the shogun and his colleagues), the sho-
  gunate decided to increase the amount of coinage in circulation. This
  in itself was not particularly new; previously, during Ietsuna's time,
  the government had also decided to buy itself out of trouble by mint-
  ing large quantities of gold and silver coins. It was hardly a long-term
  solution, however, as Tsunayoshi discovered when confronting the
  same difficulties with depleted reserves. What he did, therefore, was
  something quite innovative: He elected to increase the quantity of
  coins by the simple expedient of calling them in and reminting them,
  adulterating them with baser metals in the process. The end product
  was a greater quantity of coins with the same face value but with an
  inferior metal content. Having done it once effectively, Tsunayoshi's
  government thereafter proceeded to repeat the process several times.
  Not all the effects of this initiative were uniformly bad. By devalu-
  ing the currency, Tsunayoshi had increased bakufu revenue. Not only
  that, but the daimyo were also better off, as the size - or at least the
  value - of their debts had been reduced. Recent scholarship has also
  come to accept that Tsunayoshi's policy worked in favor of the money-
  lenders, too, simply because it got loans moving again. Further, as
  devaluation automatically raised prices, it helped those, whether farm-
  ers or merchants, with anything to sell.14 Ultimately, however, the
  13 Tsuji, Kyoho, p. 39.
  14 Nakai Nobuhiko, "Horeki-Temmei-ki no rekishiteki ichi," Rekishigaku kenkyu 299 (April
  I965):i6; and Matsumoto, ed., Bakuhansei, pp. 87-94.
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  THE SHOTOKU ERA 
  437
  result of this first experiment with devaluation was confusion, accom-
  panied by a dramatic leap in prices. It was also, incidentally, to offer
  Ogiwara Shigehide, the superintendent of finance, an opportunity for
  peculation on a massive scale.
  THE SHOTOKU ERA
  The death of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi early in 1709 and the accession of
  his nephew (and adopted son) Ienobu were greeted with general
  enthusiasm, both inside the bakufu and elsewhere. The new shogun,
  as if in response to popular expectations, began by quickly repealing
  the laws for the protection of birds and animals, which had been the
  most oppressive of his predecessor's policies, and by releasing 8,831
  prisoners under a general amnesty. This did not indicate that Ienobu
  was any less fervent a Confucian than the fifth shogun had been but,
  rather, that he chose to display his fervor somewhat differently.
  Tsunayoshi had been determined that his people would be made
  virtuous or that they should suffer the consequences. By contrast,
  Ienobu - influenced perhaps by the scholar Arai Hakuseki, who was
  his tutor - preferred his officials to act virtuously, thereby setting an
  example to those over whom they presided and to encourage rather
  than to force them to act more responsibly.
  This attitude surfaced quite early in the new shogun's regime, in
  1711, when farmers rioted in the province of Echigo on the Japan Sea
  coast. Opinion within the Supreme Court of Justice (hyojosho) was
  divided on the issue. Although some members urged punitive action,
  Arai Hakuseki, observing that "officials must listen like parents to the
  complaints of the people," argued in favor of sympathetic investiga-
  tion, a view that the shogun accepted. Further, when plans for revers-
  ing the currency debasements of the previous decade were discussed,
  Hakuseki advocated a humane approach. Instead of thinking only of
  the shogunate's profits, he said, the government should try to win the
  people's trust rather than to trick them. Here too, once recoinage
  began, Hakuseki's position seems to have been endorsed.
  Clearly, Ienobu made use of Arai Hakuseki's ideas, although per-
  haps not to the extent the Confucian scholar would have wished.
  Hakuseki wanted the shogun to be a model of Confucian rationalism, a
  ruler comparable to Yao and Shun, the sage kings of Chinese antiquity,
  and in his lectures to Ienobu he spared no effort to show him what his
  duty was. Yet at the same time Hakuseki worked no less diligently for
  the enhancement of shogunal prestige and for a system of ceremonies
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  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  by which order and stability might be preserved forever. As one might
  have anticipated, he failed in these two key objectives, but he never-
  theless succeeded in much else.
  The new government was by no means totally committed to the
  policies of its predecessors; had it been, there would have been no
  general amnesty and no currency revaluation, and Tsunayoshi's laws
  for the protection of animals would have been maintained. On the
  other hand, there were substantial areas of agreement. For instance,
  the general pattern of government represented by Yanagisawa Yoshi-
  yasu, Tsunayoshi's right-hand man who retired on his master's death,
  remained in effect. The senior councilors were not restored to political
  power - at least not during Ienobu's time in office - and the shogun
  himself, assisted by Arai Hakuseki and Manabe Akifusa, dominated
  his government just as surely as had Tsunayoshi before him.
  Indeed, superficial differences apart, the political functions of
  Hakuseki and Manabe were much in the Yanagisawa mold. Like him,
  they both had joined Ienobu's retinue when the future shogun was still
  only daimyo of Kofu and had won his trust and friendship long before
  his accession. Both had come from modest origins - Manabe begin-
  ning life as an apprentice noh dancer - and rose to influence together
  with their master. Thereafter, even though Manabe achieved the rank
  of daimyo, with a domain of fifty thousand koku at Takasaki and a
  status comparable to that of a senior councilor, the Confucian scholar
  Hakuseki was content to remain a mereyoriai, that is, a hatamoto with
  a modest stipend but no formal appointment. As personal friends of
  the shogun, both were as much his men as Yanagisawa had been
  Tsunayoshi's. "I humbly proffered my personal opinions," Arai noted
  with customary modesty, "not all of which were ignored."15
  This system of administration was strong enough to survive Ienobu's
  death in 1712, although not without some modification. Ietsugu, the
  new shogun, was only four years old and unable to offer his father's two
  associates anything like the same degree of support. Without a strong
  shogun to enforce their views, therefore, both Hakuseki and Manabe
  found their effectiveness diminished, and the government, in conse-
  quence, often brought to a standstill. Nevertheless, these two personal
  advisers to the shogun, even if that shogun were a mere infant, still had a
  formidable degree of authority. Accordingly, the rule of the seventh
  shogun, like those of the fifth and sixth, can be considered one in which
  the shogun's personal staff was dominant.
  15 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 81-86; and Tsuji, "Bakusei," pp. 27-9.
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  THE SHOTOKU ERA 
  439
  For that matter, the major issues of the period were also precisely as
  they had been in Tsunayoshi's time, that is, the reconstruction of the
  bakufu's financial base and the reform of the bakufu's administrative
  machinery. Finances were still very much, under the control of
  Ogiwara Shigehide, Tsunayoshi's superintendent of finance, so much
  so, indeed, that even those senior councilors assigned special responsi-
  bility for financial matters retained only nominal authority. Ogiwara,
  just as before, continued to raise money through recoinage, reducing
  the content of precious metal each time. Arai Hakuseki, to whom
  Ogiwara and his policies were anathema, urged Ienobu to get rid of
  him on three separate occasions, and on the last of these, just a month
  before the sixth shogun's death, he finally succeeded.16
  Earlier, in 1712, on the Confucian scholar's recommendation, the
  post of the comptroller of finance was revived. This office, originally
  established by Tsunayoshi in the hope that it would prove useful in
  reforming government finances, had been allowed to wither, to suit
  Ogiwara's convenience. Resuscitating it, therefore, was a step toward
  Ogiwara's removal. It was also a step in the direction of financial
  reform, for Arai's main purpose in this measure was to bring talented
  and sympathetic finance officials back into direct contact with the
  problems of the common people. A secondary aim was to make sure
  that nobody would ever again be able to amass the kind of power
  Ogiwara had.
  More immediately, reviving the office gave Hakuseki new sources of
  influence over policy. Hagiwara Yoshimasa, one of Hakuseki's favorite
  pupils and a man on whom the scholar could rely, was the first of the
  two officials appointed to the position of comptroller. Through him,
  Hakuseki gained the detailed knowledge of the shogunate's finances
  needed for the program of fiscal reforms he introduced in 1714.
  Through him, too, and one of Hagiwara's friends, a certain Tani
  Choemon, thought to have been a Sakai merchant, Arai Hakuseki was
  able to set about reforming the currency, a project that had been
  Ienobu's dying wish.
  Hakuseki's position on the question of currency was quite straight-
  forward, as doctrinaire solutions tend to be. In his view, the fundamen-
  tal cause of the current economic ills was the bakufu's unwise commit-
  ment to a policy that reduced the value of money while at the same
  time increasing its volume. The only way out of the morass, he be-
  16 Kate W. Nakai and Nakai Yoshiyuki, "Arai Hakuseki jihitsu Ogiwara Shigehide dangai-sho
  soko," Shigaku zasshi 89 (October i98o):38-49.
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  440 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  lieved, lay in revaluation, by which Japan's currency might be restored
  to its pristine, pre-Ogiwara purity.I7
  Of course, currency reform alone would not solve the government's
  financial difficulties, and Arai Hakuseki had other weapons in his
  armory. He was well aware that enormous quantities of gold, silver,
  and copper had been leaving Japan ever since the beginning of Euro-
  pean trade in the sixteenth century. In a pamphlet entitled Honcho
  hoka tsuyo jityaku (A brief treatise on the circulation of money), he
  advocated imposing restrictions on the amount of precious metals
  shipped abroad, and in 1715 he issued instructions that the number of
  Dutch and Chinese vessels entering Nagasaki was to be limited, as was
  the amount of metal they could take away with them. At the same
  time, in an effort to reduce imports, he urged his fellow countrymen to
  produce for themselves those things that, like silk and medicinal
  herbs, would otherwise have to be imported. On the whole, Hakuseki
  was opposed to foreign trade and hoped to wean the Japanese from
  their dependence on it.
  Hakuseki was no less active in the field of law reform, attempting
  through the intervention of Ienobu and Manabe Akifusa to make the
  processes of the Supreme Court of Justice both more prompt and more
  equitable. In his autobiography, Oritaku shiba no ki, he describes the
  confusion then prevailing in the resolution of disputes by the sho-
  gunate's legal agencies. Long delays were common, with examples of
  people kept waiting for as long as fifteen years before their cases were
  heard - long enough, in some instances, for the details of the original
  offense to have been forgotten. Those plaintiffs who came to Edo from
  distant corners of Japan and were forced to live there for long periods
  of time were financially disadvantaged. Other cases were impeded by
  trivia or obstructed by partiality or bribery. Arai Hakuseki did what he
  could to speed up the process, as he notes in his autobiography, but
  some of the abuses were far too well entrenched to be reformed at
  second hand.18
  With the death of Shogun Ienobu and the accession of the four-year-
  old Ietsugu, both Arai Hakuseki and Manabe Akifusa found their
  positions that much more difficult. The senior councilors could op-
  pose as they pleased, on the flimsiest of grounds, whatever policies
  Hakuseki might bring forward. In the legal field, for example, it
  seems to have become standard practice among the various magistrates
  17 ltd Tasaburo, "Edo bakufu Shotoku no kahei kaichu," Shaken keizaishigaku 18 (1953): 1-25;
  and Tsuji, Kydho, pp. 187-94.
  18 Tsuji Tatsuya, Ooka Echizen no kami (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1964), pp. 104-20.
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  TOKUGAWA YOSHIMUNE 
  441
  not to keep Manabe apprised of current affairs. Hagiwara Yoshimasa,
  Hakuseki's right-hand man in the area of currency reform, was moved
  out of his position as comptroller of finance in 1716 and transferred to
  the sinecure of keeper of the second enclosure (ni no maru rusut) of Edo
  Castle, there deprived of both power and responsibility.
  In fact, as matters stood, senior officials could now bring the machin-
  ery of government to a grinding halt, a situation in which only bribery
  could restore it to fitful life. The shogunate was deadlocked, with the
  new men Arai Hakuseki and Manabe Akifusa on the one side, and the
  traditional officials, led by senior councilors, on the other. Ultimately,
  it was settled in the only way such deadlocks could be resolved, by
  death. The seventh shogun, Tokugawa Ietsugu, only seven years old,
  died early in 1716. With the accession of a new shogun from outside
  the main Tokugawa family line, both Arai Hakuseki and Manabe
  Akifusa, experience and abilities notwithstanding, were driven from
  public life.19
  TOKUGAWA YOSHIMUNE
  The new shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, came to the shogunate with
  his reputation as a reformer already well established. As daimyo of the
  Kii domain he had proved an outstanding economic manager, particu-
  larly through his irrigation projects along the Kino River. His concern
  for education and military arts was also well known.20 Much was,
  therefore, expected of him as shogun, and Yoshimune acquitted him-
  self with great distinction during the thirty years of his rule, from his
  accession in 1716 to his retirement in 1745. In particular, he set in
  motion the Kyoho Reforms, a series of profoundly important initia-
  tives that took their name from the Kyoho era (1716-36) when they
  were introduced.
  To contemporaries, it seemed obvious that Yoshimune's accession
  changed the entire tone of government; historians ever since have
  confirmed this view, and not without reason. There was, to begin
  with, the undeniable fact that the new shogun was very different from
  his predecessors. Both Tsunayoshi and Ienobu had been cultivated
  men, absorbed in Confucianism and fond of noh (to the extent of
  performing on stage themselves); Yoshimune, by contrast, although
  no dunce, had no great interest in poetry or philosophy. Instead, he
  19 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 91-7.
  20 Tsuji Tatsuya, Tokugawa Yoshimune-ko den (Nikko: Nikko Toshogu, 1962), pp. 2-12.
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  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  was devoted to the martial arts, hunting, and falconry - during which,
  so it was said, he had been known to rip the heads from newly caught
  birds to drink their blood. This certainly could not have endeared him
  to Tsunayoshi and probably not to Ienobu either. Yoshimune was no
  less impulsive in seizing control of government. He quickly removed
  Manabe Akifusa and Arai Hakuseki, together with others of the previ-
  ous regime, from their positions of influence. He was no less quick to
  rid bakufu life of much of the ceremony that the punctilious Arai
  Hakuseki (who set great store in rites) had introduced. It is not surpris-
  ing, therefore, that to contemporaries, and to generations of later
  historians as well, the eighth shogun should have seemed opposed to
  both the persons and the policies of the previous ruler and therefore
  was inclined to do something quite new.
  These expectations were exaggerated. True, Yoshimune differed
  from his predecessors in personality and habits, and such differences
  naturally came to be reflected in the morale and efficiency of the
  administration he headed. Yet it is questionable how far differences on
  the individual level could affect the general direction of government
  policy. In this particular case, although Yoshimune did abandon some
  of Arai Hakuseki's projects, those projects themselves were of no
  major significance, and their demise did not indicate a critical shift in
  policy direction. Moreover, the removal of Arai Hakuseki and Manabe
  Akifusa from their former positions of influence was predictable.
  Given the hostility between these men and the senior councilors,
  which had brought government to a standstill, some such action was
  necessary to get it moving again. It was far simpler to dismiss the "new
  men" and reaffirm the traditional authority of the fudai, those daimyo
  from whose ranks senior councilors were customarily chosen. Yoshi-
  mune, of course, had brought some of his own advisers with him from
  Kii, but he tactfully refrained from institutionalizing their positions
  and made it his business to see that they did not acquire too much
  power.21
  This was the way in which Yoshimune dissipated the anxieties of
  senior bakufu officials who, ever since the rule of the fifth shogun,
  had seen their authority, and their entitlement to all the tangible
  signs of shogunal regard, pass to newcomers. In fact, however,
  Yoshimune was no more ready to allow his councilors to dictate to
  him than the earlier shogun had been. On the contrary, he continued
  to enhance his own position. Often, for instance, he would bypass
  21 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 98-107.
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  TOKUGAWA YOSHIMUNE 
  443
  senior officials to confer directly with their own subordinates in order
  to make himself familiar with both the broad outlines and the minu-
  tiae of government affairs. Further, he formed his own intelligence
  agency, the oniwaban, a group of some twenty handpicked men
  charged with providing him with information concerning daimyo and
  shogunal officials.22 In 1721 he decreed that three times each month
  a suggestion box should be set in front of the Supreme Court of
  Justice to give him access to even more information, thereby confirm-
  ing and institutionalizing his personal approachability. This sugges-
  tion box served two purposes: First, it injected new ideas into the
  system, and second, it offered an avenue through which dishonesty
  and incompetence might be exposed.23
  The eighth shogun also proved himself especially interested in, and
  adept at, the selection of administrative personnel. Indeed, his adroit
  use of capable men was one of the chief characteristics of the reforms.
  In 1720, for example, much to everyone's amazement, he retrieved
  Hagiwara Yoshimasa from the obscurity of his position as keeper of the
  second enclosure and reinstated him as comptroller of finance, the
  post that Arai Hakuseki had originally bestowed on him. Presumably
  Yoshimune had felt that his government could ill afford to waste a man
  of such talent.
  At the same time, however, Yoshimune was always careful to pay
  due respect to the claims of status and family lineage, seeming to
  honor the prestigious even as as he nudged them further and further
  away from real political power. For example, he maintained the tradi-
  tional distinction between bankata (those who manned the shogunate's
  standing army) and yakukata (those who staffed its civil service), by
  making sure that the former were made to seem more highly esteemed.
  But this was no more than a formality, for in practice the civil compo-
  nent emerged in the Kyoho period as much the more influential of the
  two. The military, by contrast, declined in everything save prestige, as
  its members, although continuing to be granted sonorous titles of one
  sort or another, were nevertheless distanced from power.
  In civil administration, Yoshimune encouraged the appointment of
  officials on the basis of talent alone and increasingly relied on such
  men to spearhead the government's reform program. This process was
  accelerated in 1723 with the introduction of the tashidaka system,
  which also facilitated the promotion of capable officials. Under this
  22 Fukai Masaumi, "Edo bakufu oniwaban to bakusei," Tokugawa rinsei-shi kenkyujo kenkyu kiyo
  (l979):35i-7.
  23 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 119-26.
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  444 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  new system, any officials promoted above their hereditary status expec-
  tations were to have their stipend augmented - not permanently, as
  had previously always been the consequence of any promotion, but
  only for their period of office. The administration could therefore
  make use the skills of various people, regardless of their station, and
  reward them handsomely, but always with the knowledge that the
  arrangement was temporary and conditional. This proved an impor-
  tant step in the process by which the bakufu became a bureaucracy,
  and its officials salaried bureaucrats. Given that large numbers of
  officials saw their stipends increase dramatically - often doubled or
  redoubled - for their term of office, and the implications such an
  arrangement had for the traditional stipend system, it could hardly
  have been otherwise.
  One of the most important personnel problems Yoshimune had to
  confront related to the roju, the members of the Senior Council. At the
  time of his accession, they had been five in number - Tsuchiya
  Masanao, Inoue Masamine, Abe Masataka, Kuze Shigeyuki, and Toda
  Tadazane. Arai Hakuseki, who had been obliged to deal with these
  men as adversaries, had considered them all unutterably stupid, but
  not so the new shogun. After all, these men represented the fudai
  (those families traditionally associated with the Tokugawa house), and
  perhaps of even more immediate consequence, they had brought
  Yoshimune over from the Kii branch of the Tokugawa house into the
  main line. Not unexpectedly, Yoshimune treated them with consider-
  ation. Yet, external tokens of respect notwithstanding, Yoshimune
  steadily brought them all under his control, and then, as they died or
  retired one by one, he failed to replace them, unobtrusively allowing
  the system of government they represented to disappear with them.
  By the time Inoue Masamine died in the middle of 1722, only one,
  Toda Tadazane, was left of the original five, and he, being old and
  passive, hardly counted. Effectively, therefore, the shogun no longer
  needed to defer to anybody. It is true that Mizuno Tadayuki had been
  promoted from Kyoto deputy to senior councilor in 1717, but he was
  definitely the shogun's own man. After Inoue's death in 1722, there-
  fore, Yoshimune was free to remake the system of government. In this
  reform, as in many others, he was assisted by Mizuno, and by another
  new senior councilor, Matsudaira Norimura, promoted from keeper of
  Osaka Castle in 1723.24
  24 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 108-11, 128-9, 131—3-
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  KYOHO REFORMS: FIRST STAGE 
  445
  KYOHO REFORMS: THE FIRST STAGE
  It is sometimes claimed that the Kyoho Reforms began only in 1722,
  the year in which the shogunate set about rearranging its finances, and
  that the first six years of Yoshimune's regime were merely a time of
  preparation.25 This view is somewhat distorted. There is, in fact,
  reason to believe that the years from 1716 to 1722 produced some
  important and distinctive reform policies in a variety of areas. The
  national economy and the shogunate's own finances were generating
  far too much concern to allow any government to overlook them for
  six years. Yoshimune, therefore, began his administration with a strict
  frugality campaign. This in itself was not unusual: Exhortations to
  frugality were as characteristic of the "normal" governments of Toku-
  gawa Japan as they were of those self-consciously committed to re-
  form. But this was a campaign with a difference. So thoroughly did
  Yoshimune pare government expenditures that even Confucian schol-
  ars, themselves normally the most vociferous advocates of frugality,
  were led to complain when ceremonial life was adversely affected.
  "There is a difference between economy and parsimony," complained
  Muro Kyuso, "and this is parsimony."
  On the other hand, critics found another of Yoshimune's early eco-
  nomic reforms far more palatable. This was his recoinage policy, intro-
  duced in 1718 with a series of instructions governing the use of gold
  and silver coins. These called for a total currency revaluation, exactly
  the same measure advocated previously by Arai Hakuseki, save for
  one important difference. The Confucian scholar had aimed at a grad-
  ual standardization of the currency in a process taking twenty years or
  so, but Yoshimune intended to work much more rapidly. He called for
  complete revaluation and standardization within the space of four
  years, and he succeeded. The conditions were not at all propitious, as
  Japan's gold and silver mines had virtually ceased production. Revalua-
  tion, therefore, could be achieved only by melting down currency
  already in use, skimming off the dross, and then casting new coins
  from the unalloyed residue. It sounds simple enough, but it contained
  one obvious difficulty: For any given number of coins recalled, the
  government would inevitably return a smaller amount - better in qual-
  ity, certainly, but deficient in quantity. The volume of coin in circula-
  tion would be reduced, as Arai Hakuseki had realized when urging a
  25 Oishi Shinzaburo, Kyoho kaihaku no keizai seisaku (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1961), pp.
  161-4.
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  446 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  cautious approach. Yoshimune, however, far more politically secure,
  plunged straight in and succeeded.26
  Another of Yoshimune's early reforms, predating even his currency
  revaluation, concerned regulations relating to Edo money changers.
  He began by restricting their numbers, continued by requiring them
  to register with the authorities, and finally, from 1718 onward, forced
  them into cooperating with the currency revaluation. Yoshimune ex-
  tended this policy of merchant control in 1721 by requiring the forma-
  tion of guilds for ninety-six different categories of merchants and
  artisans who were designated as being involved in the production or
  sale of extravagant and luxurious goods. Yoshimune hoped that once
  they were formed, he could compel these guilds to observe official
  prohibitions against the manufacture and sale of luxury items and
  novelties. These actions represented a totally new kind of initiative in
  the area of shogunate-business relations.27
  Before long, these early economic reforms had led to others in
  related fields. By restricting its own spending, for example, the sho-
  gunate had brought on something of an economic recession, the first
  effects of which were felt by the moneylenders. They in turn felt
  obliged to seek legal redress against defaulting debtors. So immediate
  was the increase in lawsuits that it effectively crippled those bodies
  officially concerned with resolving money disputes - the Supreme
  Court of Justice, and the office of the city magistrates. To relieve this
  pressure, the shogunate declared in 1719 that disputes over money-
  lending were private affairs and were to be settled without recourse to
  the official judicial system. This was the famous Kingin aitai sumashi
  rei, or Instruction for the private settlement of money disputes,28 a
  measure that, though in one sense resulting directly from the policy of
  financial retrenchment, was also a first step toward reform of the legal
  system.
  As we have already seen, the Edo law courts had long been inade-
  quate. Arai Hakuseki had done what he could, but Yoshimune was
  determined to make further improvements. The appointment of
  Ooka Tadasuke to the position of Edo city magistrate in 1717 was
  one of his first steps in this direction, and it was followed by a
  succession of practical measures, particularly in 1721, when Yoshi-
  26 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 205-14; and Ito Tasaburd, "Kinsei kahei-shi no ichi mondai," Rekishi chiri
  85 (1954):I5-36-
  27 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 246-59.
  28 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 215-17; Oishi, Kyoho, pp. 102-19; and Sone Hiromi, "Kyoho-ki no sosho
  saiban-ken to uttae," in Matsumoto Shiro and Yamada Tadao, eds., Genroku, Kyoho-ki no seiji
  to shakai vol. 4 of Koza Nihon kinsei-shi (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1980), pp. 267-72.
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  KYOHO REFORMS: FIRST STAGE 
  447
  mune held a special session in Edo Castle so that he might see how
  his magistrates operated.
  The main object of this legal reform was to speed up the legal
  process. To this end there was an attempt to simplify the presentation
  and hearing of petitions, but it is also noteworthy that efforts were
  made to have disputes settled informally at a lower level, by the
  mediation of such figures as ward headmen, before they could be-
  come a formal lawsuits - exactly the principle applied to disputes
  concerning money.29 Further, at the beginning of 1720 the shogun
  ordered those involved in the Supreme Court of Justice - the superin-
  tendents of temples and shrines, the Edo city magistrates, and the
  superintendents of finance - to collect and make public those regula-
  tions concerning the prompt reporting of grievances and the proper
  form for contracts, in the hope that this might reduce the volume of
  lawsuits.30
  This was by no means all, for at the same time officials were to
  designate which punishments were appropriate to which crimes, the
  first time in Tokugawa history that an attempt was made to establish
  and publicize a set of judicial procedures. Clearly, this was an attempt
  to create an impartial legal system. Precedents and legal instructions
  themselves were codified in 1724 under the title Kyohodo horitsu
  ruiyose (A collection of laws of the Kyoho period), although it is not
  clear to what extent they were actually used. Also, in the interests of
  an impartial legal system, restrictions were imposed in 1722 on the use
  of torture, the object being to save people from being vigorously per-
  suaded into confessing to crimes they had not committed. The sugges-
  tion box also played a part here, as it provided a safe way of complain-
  ing about dishonest or biased judgments.31
  A third strand in Yoshimune's legal reforms concerned the ameliora-
  tion of punishment. In 1721 it was decreed that families of those
  common people found guilty of serious crimes were to be spared the
  automatic charge of complicity that otherwise would have followed.
  This was no more than sensible in a society in which single men were
  moving from the country to towns and cities, leaving friends and
  family behind. Limits were also placed on terms of banishment, and
  instructions were given that such sentences be commuted to fines; this
  too seemed more appropriate now that unification under the Toku-
  gawa government had robbed banishment of much of its significance.
  29 Sone, Kyoho, pp. 275-9. 
  30 Tsuji, Ooka, pp. 125-7.
  31 Tsuji, Ooka, pp. 145-50, 133-5; Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 119-26; Sone, "Kyoho," pp. 279-90.
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  448 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  Both cases, therefore, exhibit a degree of rational adjustment to chang-
  ing circumstances.
  Mention should also be made of other reforms: a statute of limitations
  on criminal offenses, for example, and improvements in prison condi-
  tions, including efforts to keep the prisons clean, the prisoners healthy,
  and the jailers honest. Yoshimune's education policy also has its place in
  a catalog of legal reforms, simply because one of its aims was to teach the
  common people respect for the law. All in all, these legal reforms in the
  first years of Yoshimune's rule were among the most outstanding
  intiatives of the period, and their impact on Tokugawa society, then and
  later, was profound. Certainly they left their mark on the common
  people, among whom stories involving the law and above all Yoshi-
  mune's chief legal adviser, Ooka Tadasuke, were still circulating long
  after the Tokugawa government itself had disappeared.32
  Another important initiative of the early Kyoho period concerned the
  intendants, the shogunate's local administrators. In 1719 a total of
  twenty-one men, some of them currently intendants, others either
  former officeholders or their sons, had their stipends confiscated or
  were required in some other way to reimburse the government for
  money they, or their fathers had embezzled. Not since the years of
  Tsunayoshi, the fifth shogun, had intendants been treated so brusquely.
  In this case, as with Tsunayoshi's purge, most of those threatened also
  came from families traditionally associated with the office of intendant.
  The fifth and the eighth shogun, between them, virtually destroyed the
  old hereditary intendant class, setting something new in its place. The
  old intendant had been a tax farmer, a wealthy local identity with family
  ties in his area stretching back into the medieval period, but his replace-
  ment now became a tax-collecting bureaucrat.33
  The first six years of Yoshimune's rule, the years between 1716 and
  1722, therefore saw what was in some respects a continuation of policies
  laid down by earlier officials and advisers - Arai Hakuseki, and even to
  some extent by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. All these policies were backed
  by the shogun's personal authority, and all brought to some sort of
  conclusion. Currency was revalued and standardized; inflation was
  brought under control; government expenditures were reduced; and
  adjustments were made to the legal system and to local government. Yet
  the Tokugawa government was by no means free of its difficulties. Once
  the issues of currency chaos and inflation had been settled, other prob-
  lems, no less menacing, began to emerge from their shadow.
  32 Tsuji, Ooka, pp. 138-50. 
  33 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 146-51; and Oishi, Kyoho, pp. 86-91.
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  KYOHO REFORMS: SECOND STAGE 
  449
  KYOHO REFORMS: THE SECOND STAGE
  The most critical of these new problems concerned the shogunate's
  own finances, which had failed to keep pace with national productiv-
  ity. By the early eighteenth century, Japan's agricultural production
  was roughly 60 percent more than it had been a century earlier; by
  contrast, however, the central government's own financial position
  was declining year by year. In a nation bustling with all kinds of
  agricultural and commerical activity, the central government was sim-
  ply unable to secure enough for its own needs. From 1722 onward,
  having stabilized the currency and free now from the threat of opposi-
  tion from the Senior Council, Tokugawa Yoshimune turned to the task
  of financial reconstruction. His first step was an organizational one.
  He reestablished the position of senior councilor with special responsi-
  bility for financial affairs, set it in charge of long-term planning, and
  gave it to his friend and protege Mizuno Tadayuki.
  Still, the government's economic plight was desperate, and some-
  thing had to be done immediately to relieve the situation. In 1722 the
  shogunate notified the daimyo of its difficulties and ordered them all
  to supply rice to its storehouses at the rate of one hundred koku for
  each ten thousand koku of domain assessment. In return, the alternate
  residence system (sankin kotai), under which daimyo were required to
  reside in Edo at specified times, was to be modified, requiring them to
  spend only six months, rather than twelve, in Edo every alternate year.
  The special imposition, together with the sankin kotai concession,
  continued until 1730.
  Naturally, the shogunate did not neglect more conventional meth-
  ods of raising funds. Land reclamation, always a sure way to gain more
  income, was also to play its part. In the middle of 1722, Ooka
  Tadasuke, one of the Edo city magistrates, was assigned responsibility
  for agricultural policy, with special reference to land reclamation, irri-
  gation, and flood control in the Kanto area. The following month a
  notice was posted at Nihonbashi, in the very center of the city, calling
  for proposals for land reclamation anywhere in Japan, whether on the
  shogun's territory or in daimyo domains. A year later, Izawa Tame-
  naga, a flood control expert from the shogun's old domain, was
  brought into central government employment and set to work at land
  reclamation.34
  At this time too, the shogunate revised its methods of assessing
  34 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 175-80; Tsuji, Ooka, pp. 175-8; and Oishi, Kyoho, pp. 170-201.
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  45O 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  taxes on lands under its direct jurisdiction, in an effort to bring the
  fruits of increasing agricultural productivity into its own ambit. The
  result was an overall tax increase, by no means uniform across the
  breadth of its holdings but, rather, varying from village to village.
  From 1724 onward, a new taxation rate was hammered out in discus-
  sion among the intendants, finance officials, and farmers. Those vil-
  lages agreeing to the new rate were offered, in return, assessment by a
  new system. Previously, each year's harvest had been estimated by
  groups of traveling officials, who had to be courted and entertained -
  and not infrequently bribed - by those villages they passed through.
  Now, as an incentive to securing agreement to a higher tax rate, the
  shogunate offered farming villages a permanently fixed assessment set
  at a notional figure, thereby offering an escape from the nuisance of an
  annual inspector and the sometimes-arbitrary exactions that accompa-
  nied the older system. With this carrot-and-stick approach, the govern-
  ment hoped first to raise, and then to stabilize, its land-tax income.35
  There were other changes as well. Formerly, people on bakufu land
  in western Japan had been allowed to declare one-third of their hold-
  ings as upland (and therefore unsuitable for growing rice), a technical-
  ity that allowed them to pay one-third of their taxes in cash rather than
  in rice, but now the custom was revised. In 1722 the bakufu decreed
  that in principle all land taxes should be paid in rice, and it instructed
  intendants to set rates as high as possible - higher even than the local
  cost of rice - when farmers requested permission to pay in cash. This
  in fact was another way of increasing taxes, as the farmers of western
  Japan were known to prefer growing such lucrative cash crops as
  tobacco, cotton, and rapeseed.36
  Through such means the shogunate managed to increase its tax
  income considerably in 1727 and 1728. Between 1716 and 1723, its
  average annual income from the land tax had been 1.37 million koku;
  between 1724 and 1730 it rose to 1.52 million koku, an increase of
  nearly 11 percent.37 In 1727, particularly, the land-tax income of 1.62
  million koku represented an increase of 320,000 koku over 1723, when
  only 1.3 million koku had been collected.38
  35 Mori Sugio, "Kinsei chosaho no tenkan," in Osaka furilsu daigaku kiyo (Jimbun, shakai
  kagaku 12) (1964), pp. 169-94; Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 162-72.
  36 Oishi, Kyoho, pp. 122-60.
  37 These figures are taken from Otorika tsuji kakitsuke, which provides a reliable annual break-
  down of bakufu finances over the period 1716 to 1841. See Tsuji Tatsuya and Matsumoto
  Shiro, "Otorika tsuji kakitsuke oyobi Onengu-mai, onengukin hoka shomuki osame watashi
  kakitsuke ni tsuite," Yokohama shiritsu daigaku ronso (Jimbun kagaku keiretsu 15) (March
  1964), pp. 181-216.
  38 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 173-5-
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  KYOHO REFORMS: SECOND STAGE 
  451
  Nevertheless, although the shogunate's land-tax income may have
  been growing steadily, it was not long before opposition to the new
  economic policies began to appear in the towns and villages of Japan.
  In the villages, in particular, the opposition mounted until it was
  strong enough to impede the policies themselves. The government, as
  we have seen, was trying to guarantee high annual tax revenue through
  a fixed assessment that admitted no variation except in the case of
  famine. The farmers, for their part, were complaining that they were
  left without food and without seed rice for the following year's crop,
  and they soon began to bombard local officials with petitions. Ulti-
  mately, the government was forced to relax its policy. In 1727 it was
  decided that in the event of a 50 percent crop loss, the farmers could
  revert temporarily to the old system of annual inspection. In 1730 this
  was further relaxed, with the cutoff point lowered to 30 percent. The
  new system of assessment, therefore, was becoming meaningless, and
  land-tax revenues plummeted again, to an annual average of 1.3 mil-
  lion koku during the period from 1731 to 1736, a level similar to that
  recorded at the beginning of Yoshimune's years as shogun.39
  Another problem emerged when the price of rice fell. For various
  reasons - currency confusion, inflation, crop damage of sundry kinds
  (including that caused by an eruption of Mt. Fuji in 1707) - the price
  of rice had risen in the last years of the seventeenth century and
  remained high well into the Kyoho period. Especially meager harvests
  in 1720-2 had sent the price of one koku of rice up to around 70 to 80
  momme of silver (a momme being 3.75 grams), the highest yet recorded
  in the eighteenth century. Thereafter, however, a succession of normal
  harvests drove the price down by 50 percent in 1723 and by 75 percent
  in 1730-1. The impact on the samurai class, which lived by exchang-
  ing its rice stipends for cash, was to reduce its available income dra-
  matically. Consequently, during the opening decades of the eighteenth
  century, the shogunate tried several remedies: buying up rice itself,
  storing tax rice rather than selling it, stimulating the rice market by
  allowing speculation (previously prohibited), and imposing new con-
  trols over the activities of the Osaka rice market, which set the price
  for national rice trading. All were to no avail.40
  Then in 1732, the situation suddenly changed. In the summer of
  that year, swarms of locusts appeared in the Inland Sea area, ruining
  much of the rice crop of western Japan. In the resulting famine, rice in
  Edo and Osaka cost five to seven times as much as it had during the
  39 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 280-3. 
  4° Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 143-50.
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  452 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  glut of the previous years, and a koku of rice could now fetch as much
  as 150 momme, the normal price being 40 to 50 momme. City dwellers,
  at the mercy of these price fluctuations, grew restless - just how rest-
  less became apparent at the beginning of 1733 when a crowd of seven-
  teen hundred Edo residents, inflamed by rumors of hoarding, at-
  tacked and destroyed the residence of Takama Dembei, one of the
  government's specially licensed rice dealers, in Japan's first instance of
  uchikowashi (property smashing), in an urban area.41 The pressure on
  the cities was soon to be relieved, as rice prices began to slump once
  more, but this left the shogunate with the original problem un-
  touched. What could be done to stop falling rice prices? The govern-
  ment was not to find an answer; an attempt to halt the slide by enforc-
  ing a minimum price was evaded by dealers with ridiculous ease.
  Falling rice prices did not necessarily indicate a glut. On the con-
  trary, many parts of Japan were complaining of crop failures. The root
  of the problem lay in the overaccumulation of rice in Osaka, and this
  in turn can be traced back to the economic depression brought about
  by the shogunate's economic policies. By restricting expenditures and
  then reducing the amount of currency in circulation, the government
  had unintentionally created a depression, thereby reducing the buying
  power of the business community at precisely the time when daimyo
  were increasing their rice shipments to Osaka to earn money. Despite
  the shogunate's best efforts, therefore, unbought rice began to fill up
  the storehouses at Dojima. Prices fell accordingly. It was not the first
  time that daimyo interests had diverged from those of the shogunate,
  nor was it to be the last.42
  The difficulty over rice prices also drew the attention of government
  authorities to the question of commodity prices in general, particularly
  in Edo and other large cities. It was generally assumed that a fall in the
  price of rice would bring about commensurate reductions in the cost of
  other commodities. In fact, the opposite was more often the case, with
  some items becoming more expensive rather than less. To counter
  this, the shogunate in 1724 ordered a general lowering of prices and
  imposed heavy fines on lamp-oil dealers suspected of willfully raising
  prices. Further, it demanded the registration of all wholesalers dealing
  in such commodities as lamp oil, soy sauce, and miso (bean paste)
  whose prices had risen most noticeably. These dealers were formed
  into associations through which the government could assert some
  41 Hara Heizo and Toyama Shigeki, "Edo jidai koki ikki oboegaki," Rekishigaku kenkyu 127
  (May 1947): 24-6; and Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 150-6.
  42 Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 157-68; and Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 216-18, 283-7.
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  KYOHO REFORMS: SECOND STAGE 
  453
  degree of price control. By 1726 the government had succeeded in
  registering many individual dealers, but it had not been nearly so
  successful in forcing them into formal associations, perhaps because
  commercial life was now far too complex to allow such a simple solu-
  tion. Without any real understanding of market mechanisms, Yoshi-
  mune and his advisers were inevitably frustrated in their efforts at
  price control, just as were their successors throughout the rest of the
  Tokugawa period.43
  They could, however, help break the economic depression, at least
  to the extent of rectifying the shortage of currency. In 1736, the sho-
  gunate reversed its position and decided to increase the amount of
  money in circulation by devaluing its gold and silver coins. The num-
  ber of gold coins in circulation was increased by 65 percent and silver
  by 50 percent. At the same time, to balance this, a massive amount -
  six billion, in fact - of copper coins was to be minted. Between 1736
  and 1746, more than half the copper cash ever issued in the Tokugawa
  period was produced. This new currency provided a basis of stability
  such that no more gold coins were minted for another eight decades,
  until 1819, and no silver coins until 1820.44
  Still, the problem of financial reform remained. Earlier attempts to
  settle this, it will be recalled, had been brought to a halt by other
  difficulties: the rice price, the famine, and peasant resistance among
  them. In 1737, Yoshimune took yet another organizational initiative
  by giving senior councilor Matsudaira Norimura the finance portfolio
  (previously left vacant by the retirement of Mizuno Tadayuki in 1730)
  and promoting Kan'o Haruhide to the post of superintendent of fi-
  nance. Between them, these two men set about spurring the inten-
  dants into action in an effort to restore government tax revenues
  which, as we have seen, had begun to decline after reaching a peak in
  1730.
  In particular, these men began to look closely at shogunal lands in
  western Japan, where revenues were far lower than the high productiv-
  ity of the region warranted. Kan'o made a tour of the region in 1744
  and recommended that stern measures be applied to any farmers who
  refused to pay higher taxes, even if this meant executing them by the
  thousand. It was even rumored at the time than Kan'o had been heard
  to mutter the old maxim "Peasants and oil seeds are much alike; the
  harder you squeeze them, the more they will give." In the hands of
  43 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 259-62.
  44 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 226-38; Ito Tasaburo, "Edo bakufu gembun no kahei kaichu," Shirin 38
  (May 1955): 24-45.
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  454 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  men like this, the shogunate's finances took a sudden upward turn.
  Tax revenues in 1737 showed a jump of 340,000 koku over those of the
  previous year, and for the next nine years up until 1745 the annual
  average was 1.6 million koku, or some 80,000 more than the average
  for the years 1724 to 1730, when Yoshimune first turned his attention
  toward the land tax. Indeed, in 1744, the government's revenue from
  the land tax climbed to 1.8 million koku, the highest recorded during
  the entire Tokugawa period.45
  The years surrounding 1740 also marked a high point in the govern-
  ment's efforts at legal renovation, comparable in its own way to the
  reforms of 1719-21. This time the major activity took place in 1742,
  with the appearance of that collection of laws known as the Kujikata
  osadamegaki. Just when its compilation was begun is uncertain, but
  the Supreme Court of Justice in 1738 drew up a preliminary draft that
  served as a model for the revised and augmented version that appeared
  in two volumes in 1742. This code was never made public, but its
  significance as the central government's first comprehensive legal code
  is nevertheless enormous. The first volume was a collection of instruc-
  tions on legal procedure; the second, the so-called Osadamegaki
  hyakkajd, was a collection of legal precedents consisting of 103 articles
  divided into more than five hundred paragraphs.
  On the whole, the legal code's juridical connections with earlier
  Tokugawa law were minimal, for only a quarter of the cases predated
  the Kyoho period. In many respects, therefore, it represented a
  change in emphasis. One example of this concerns the penalties for
  peasants involved in acts of defiance against the authorities. Before
  the Kyoho period it was recognized that peasants with a legitimate
  grievance against their local lord could desert their villages en masse,
  always provided, of course, that they had paid their taxes before
  leaving. Such behavior was now forbidden, under threat of severe
  punishment. On the other hand, the free sale of land by peasants,
  prohibited since 1643, was now given official sanction. Both depar-
  tures from precedent were prompted, not unnaturally, by the govern-
  ment's immediate needs - first to keep peasant resistance in check
  and then to increase tax revenues, even at the expense of social
  polarization in the countryside.46
  45 Tsuji, Kyoho, pp. 287-9; and Mori Sugio, "Kano Wakasa no zocho o megutte," Rekishi
  kenkyu 9 (1965): 32-56.
  46 Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 230-42; Koide Yoshio, "Osadamegaki hyakkajd hensan jijo ni tsuite,"
  Shicho 4 (November 1934): 112-37; Kukita Kazuko, Edo bakufu ho no kenkyu (Tokyo:
  Gannando shoten, 1980), pp. 7-11, 31-119.
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  KYOHO REFORMS: SECOND STAGE 
  455
  The significance of the Kujikata osadamegaki was enhanced by the
  appearance of two other legal collections. The first of these was the
  Ofuregaki Kampo shusei, compiled by the shogunate in 1743, which
  consisted of 3,550 official decrees issued from 1615 onward, and the
  Sen'yo ruishu, completed separately by the office of the Edo city
  magistrates.
  Culturally, too, the Kyoho period marks a new epoch. On the one
  hand, we have already seen that Yoshimune and those under him
  displayed no great interest in traditional scholarship and education.
  Yet Confucianism was still an important element in official thinking,
  and education, particularly that of the common people, remained a
  matter of concern. In 1717, the series of Confucian lectures held at the
  Seido at Yushima, the academy patronized by the shogunate, was
  opened to the public for the first time. Then, in 1721, the shogunate
  issued a textbook specifically for the use of the commoners. This was
  the Rikuyu engi taii, a translation, with commentary, of a set of pre-
  cepts issued in China nearly a century earlier. Yoshimune had had it
  rendered into Japanese in the hope that it might be used as a text in the
  terakoya, the thousands of little schools throughout Japan where com-
  moners learned to read and write. It was also during this period that
  the bakufu encouraged the opening of private academies, again with
  the intention of fostering the education of the common people, al-
  though the ultimate goal was more the creation of a docile and tracta-
  ble public than a concern with pure intellectual achievement.47
  The shogunate was also especially interested in learning that had
  practical applications. Scholars like Muro Kyuso and Ogyu Sorai were
  often approached for advice on current affairs or else were asked to
  search ancient Chinese and Japanese histories for legal and historical
  precedents.48 Approaches were also made to the Dutch in the hopes of
  discovering what conditions were like in Europe or of acquiring new
  technical skills. Yoshimune himself contributed enormously to the
  development of Western learning in Japan simply because of his own
  keen personal interest in science and technology. He put entire genera-
  tions of future scholars in his debt by allowing Chinese translations of
  Western books into Japan after 1720.49
  By emphasizing the more immediately useful branches of learning,
  47 Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 254-60; and Tsuji Tatsuya, "Kyoho kaikaku to jugaku," in Saigusa
  Hiroto kinen ronshu iinkai, ed., Saigusa Hiroto kinen ronshu: Sekai ni okeru Nihon no bunka
  (Tokyo: Daiichi hold shuppan, 1965), pp. 46-51.
  48 Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 261-70, 229-30; and Tsuji, "Kyoho kaikaku to jugaku," pp. 40-46.
  49 Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 271-8; Ito Tasaburo, "Kinsho no kenkyu," Rekishi chiri 58 (October-
  November 1936): 313-46, 421-70.
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  456 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  Yoshimune's administration undeniably helped change the direction of
  Japanese thought, deflecting it away from speculative philosophy and
  toward the areas of natural science, classical study, and textual analy-
  sis, a shift that helped clear the way for the intellectual revolution of
  the eighteenth century. It is doubtful, however, whether the shogun or
  any of his advisers had ever really foreseen such a consequence. Their
  aim was far more restricted, for in this, as in everything else they did,
  they tried only to stabilize the form of government that they had
  inherited and that was, they knew, beginning to totter.
  THE HOREKI PERIOD
  Tokugawa Yoshimune retired in the autumn of 1745, installing as
  ninth shogun his eldest son Ieshige. There seems to have been no
  political reason for this change. In all probability Yoshimune, now past
  his sixtieth year, simply felt it appropriate to give way to his thirty-
  rive-year-old heir apparent. Some misgivings must have accompanied
  the transfer, however, for the new shogun was an invalid, the conse-
  quence perhaps of too many years of intemperance.
  Even though Ieshige was one of the least capable of all the shoguns,
  however, the government ran smoothly enough, at least on the surface,
  throughout the 1750s. Of course, the land-tax revenues never again
  reached the level of 1744, but between 1746 and 1764 collections
  averaged 1.65 million koku yearly, a level slightly ahead of the 1737-to-
  1745 period, producing the highest sustained averages for the entire
  Edo period. Land-tax revenues during the years 1746 to 1764 were
  remarkably stable, with very little fluctuation. Under these conditions
  the government treasury, which in 1742 held a reserve of 1 million
  gold pieces, swelled to 2.5 million by 1753, and to 3 million by 1770,
  the largest reserve ever produced during the Tokugawa period.50
  Underneath this apparent tranquillity, however, there were reasons
  for suspecting that the Tokugawa bakufu, by the 1750s, had already
  reached the limits of its power and that crises of various sorts were
  beginning to emerge. One of them, in fact, may have been a succession
  crisis, for no sooner had Yoshimune retired than his old ally, Senior
  Councilor Matsudaira Norimura, was removed from office and de-
  prived of ten thousand koku of his domain. The Tokugawa jikki cov-
  50 Tsuji Tatsuya, "Bakusei-shi.kara mita Kyoho yori Tanuma e no katei ni tsuite," Rekishigaku
  kenkyu 264 (April-May 1962): 63-66; and Tsuji Tatsuya, "Horeki-Temmei-ki no seiji josei,"
  in Kitajima Masamoto, ed., Seijishi, vol. 11 of Taikei Nihon-shi sosho, pi. 2 (Tokyo: Yamakawa
  shuppan-sha, 1965), pp. 247-8.
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  THE HOREKI PERIOD 
  457
  ered over the incident by observing that "nobody knew the reason,
  which was kept secret." The Zoku sanno gaiki, on the other hand,
  claimed that Matsudaira Norimura, believing Ieshige to be too frail to
  make a good shogun, pressed the case of Yoshimune's second son,
  Tayasu Munetake, thereby incurring Yoshimune's hostility. This latter
  is not an especially reliable source, but it is clear that some tension
  existed between Ieshige and his younger brother, for just two years
  after Matsudaira's dismissal, Munetake was ordered to spend three
  years under house arrest, so a succession dispute of some kind is by no
  means an implausible hypothesis.51
  After Matsudaira's departure, government in the Tokugawa admin-
  istrative structure devolved on a number of people, all of them
  judged by historians to have been mild and conscientious. One of
  these was Ooka Tadamitsu, a man whose spectacular rise from obscu-
  rity matched that of Arai Hakuseki and Manabe Akifusa. For some
  scholars, Ooka was the prototype of Tanuma Okitsugu, who later
  dominated the shogunate from a similar position, but the fact is that
  Ooka was deficient in both ability and authority. It was almost as if
  all involved in shogunal politics had agreed that power should not be
  monopolized by any single individual.52
  One of the most obvious characteristics of Ieshige's administration
  was the relatively severe treatment of the daimyo. The earlier Kyoho
  Reforms had concentrated on the shogunal level, and few daimyo had
  been called to account for maladministration within their domains. If
  we exclude those cases in which daimyo domains were confiscated or
  reduced because of the daimyo's inability to produce an heir, only two
  daimyo were punished by Yoshimune for breaches of discipline. As it
  happens, both of those concerned had gone mad and murdered peo-
  ple. Other flagrant breaches were punished by simple sentences of
  house arrest rather than by confiscation. Such, at least, was the punish-
  ment meted out to Tokugawa Muneharu of Owari, who publicly criti-
  cized the shogunate's frugality drive, preferring to beggar his own
  domain through an alternative policy of free spending, and to the
  notoriously dissolute Sakakibara Masamine of Himeji, whose pur-
  chases of Yoshiwara courtesans had raised many eyebrows.
  Ieshige's government, on the other hand, initiated a succession of
  confiscations, beginning with Senior Councilor Matsudaira Nori-
  51 Mikami Sanji, Edo jidai shi, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1944), pp. 286-90; Tsuji, "Horeki-
  Temmei," pp. 239-41; and Tsuji, Tokugawa, pp. 301-2.
  52 Mikami, Edo, pp. 290-6; Tsuji, "Bakusei-shi," pp. 63-4; Matsuo Masaji, "Horeki-ki
  seikyoku no doko ni tsuite," Rekishi chiri 91 (April 1968): 21-36.
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  458 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  mura's loss of ten thousand koku in 1745. This was followed by the
  punishments of Uemura Tsunetomo of Katsuura in 1751, Ando
  Nobutada of Kano in 1755, Kanamori Yorikane of Gujo in 1758, and
  Honda Tadanaka of Sagara in the same year. All, with the exception of
  Norisato, were punished for supposed misrule, whether in their do-
  mains or in their personal households. The 1758 punishments of
  Kanamori and Honda came in the wake of peasant uprisings, for
  example. Clearly, despite the deficiencies of the shogun himself, his
  administration could sense a looming crisis and displayed its concern
  by giving renewed attention to the conduct of local government
  throughout Japan.
  It was this same concern that also gave rise to a far stricter attitude
  toward the shogunate's own finances and the administration of the
  Tokugawa house domain, bringing with it a spate of penalties against
  local officials. In the twelve years between 1748 and 1759, for exam-
  ple, a total of thirty-two finance and local officials were either dis-
  missed or deprived of their stipends. Previous purges undertaken by
  Tsunayoshi and Yoshimune had emphasized punishments for embez-
  zling and misappropriation of taxes by members of the traditional
  official class in rural areas. As a result, these families had been largely
  removed from office by 1720 and replaced by bureaucrats held more
  directly accountable to top administrators in Edo. As a result, the
  shogunate's income from the land tax had increased.
  In the purges of the 1750s, however, the victims came almost en-
  tirely from among those bureaucrats introduced into local government
  by Yoshimune; not a few of them had built up considerable reputa-
  tions for their efforts in the Kyoho Reforms. Just why they were now
  being punished is far from clear - records offer little in the way of
  explanation beyond laconic statements like "corruption" or the even
  more cryptic "with reason." Whatever the case, the heroes of the
  Kyoho period had become the villains of the Horeki period (1751-64),
  a development from which it is possible to deduce that the nature of
  the shogunate's problems was changing.
  Not all administrators involved in local government were purged,
  however. Several families, the Okada and Ibi among them, were com-
  mended in 1767 for their management of the areas entrusted to them,
  which meant that they had produced greater tax revenues without
  alienating the common people. This latter fact was particularly signifi-
  cant, for the high tax yields of the Kyoho period, won at the cost of
  peasant disaffection, had, by the Horeki period, come to be seen as
  counterproductive. Instructions to local officials in 1745, 1748, and
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  THE HOREKI PERIOD 
  459
  1756 all had cautioned against excessive taxation, so for the Horeki
  period the model official was one who could keep the peasants happy
  and at the same time provide stable tax revenues.53
  Underlying this new, more conciliatory attitude toward local adminis-
  tration lay the fear of mounting popular unrest. This had been growing
  steadily since the latter stages of the Kyoho Reforms. In the thirty-five
  years between 1681 and 1715, there had been 426 incidents of peasant
  protest; the succeeding thirty-five-year period, from 1716 to 1750, pro-
  duced 724, or almost twice as many.54 Their scale was growing, too. A
  revolt in Iwakitaira in 1738 eventually involved an estimated 84,000
  farmers, and later that year a similar protest near the silver mines at
  Ikuno was put down only through the intervention of troops from
  thirteen different daimyo domains. Not since the great Shimabara Re-
  bellion of a century before had Japan seen such an emergency.55
  In one sense the incidence and scale of peasant protest can be seen as
  simply an extension of earlier patterns. The nature of the protests
  themselves, however, was quite different. Previously, such incidents
  had been directed against oppressive rulers and increased taxes and
  had only a limited measure of success. Now, in some instances, plans
  to increase taxation were brought to a standstill, and in others - as in
  the case of Kanamori Yorikane - peasant protest was enough to force
  the removal of the daimyo himself, together with a number of high
  officials who had been bribed to keep quiet about the affair.56 Several
  domains were also to see faction disputes among their samurai linked
  with, and echoed by, peasant revolts, one of the most notable examples
  taking place at Kurume in 1754.57
  Clearly, the authority of Japan's ruling class was coming under chal-
  lenge more and more during the 1750s. Ultimately, not even the sho-
  gun was exempt from criticism. In 1759, for example, a Shinto scholar
  named Takenouchi Shikibu was banished from Kyoto for having ex-
  pressed his belief that Japan was displaying all the classic signs of a
  realm in disarray. This was also the year in which Yamagata Daini, in
  his Ryushi shinron, called attention to the shortcomings of Tokugawa
  rule. Both Takenouchi and Yamagata were idealists, but in their mis-
  53 Tsuji, "Bakusei-shi," pp. 64-6.
  54 Aoki Koji, Hyakusho ikki sogd nempyo (Tokyo: San-ichi shobo, 1971), pp. 29-31.
  55 Tsuji, Tokugawa, p. 196.
  56 Hayashi Motoi, "Horeki, Temmei-ki no shakai josei," in Iwanami koza Nikon rekishi, vol. 12
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1963), pp. 106-13; and Yamada Tadao, "Horeki, Meiwa-ki no
  hyakusho ikki," in Nihon keizai-shi taikei, vol. 4 (kinsei 2) (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku
  shuppankai, 1965), pp. 134-49.
  57 Ito Tasaburo, Nihon kinsei-shi, vol. 11 (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1952), pp. 222-9.
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  460 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  givings about the stability of Japanese government and society, they
  expressed the criticisms of a great many of their fellow countrymen.
  The same mood was also reflected in the work of the Tohoku philoso-
  pher Ando Shoeki, who was currently writing his own critique of the
  Tokugawa class system.58
  THE TANUMA PERIOD
  In the summer of 1760, Ieshige resigned, leaving the office to his son
  Ieharu. His actions were likely prompted by his despondency over the
  death the previous month of Ooka Tadamitsu, reputedly the only high
  official capable of understanding the shogun's stammerings and inter-
  preting them to the outside world. Intimation of his own mortality
  may also have played a part, as Ieshige was to die the following year.
  Ieharu took no greater part in government than his father had. He
  ruled for twenty-six years, from his accession in 1760 to his death in
  1786 but, during this time government policy was guided chiefly by
  Ieharu's personal adviser, Tanuma Okitsugu, whose immense influ-
  ence earned these years the title of "the Tanuma period." It is often
  claimed that Tanuma deliberately excluded the shogun from govern-
  ment, or at the very least manipulated him into doing what Tanuma
  himself wished, but this is far too simple.59 The processes at work
  were much more impersonal and were related not so much to individ-
  ual strengths and weaknesses as to the fact that the task of government
  was now far too complex for any one man to control.
  Tanuma Okitsugu is so commonly associated with corruption, at
  least in the popular mind, that even today any political scandal is likely
  to evoke highly colored journalistic comparisons with the eighteenth-
  century politician. Certainly, the stories of Tanuma's cupidity and
  venality are greatly exaggerated, often wildly so, but undoubtedly
  Tanuma and those around him accepted bribes more or less openly.
  Similarly, there were others no less willing to offer bribes to Tanuma
  and his circle. Even the sanctimonious Matsudaira Sadanobu later
  confessed to having occasionally given money to Tanuma in order to
  obtain more influence. It should be remembered, however, that this
  kind of corruption was part of the fabric of Tokugawa political life.
  Nobody was immune to it, nor was the practice condemned as it is
  today. Senior Councilor Matsudaira Takemoto, held by posterity to
  58 Tsuji Zennosuke, Tanuma jidai (Tokyo: Nihon gakujutsu fukyu-kai, 1915), pp. 260-3; afld
  Hayashi, "Horeki," pp. 128-31.
  59 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 21-7.
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  THE TANUMA PERIOD 
  461
  have been a model of decorum, was no less guilty than Tanuma in this
  respect. Date Shigemura of Sendai, writing to his retainers in 1765,
  noted that if he wanted a higher court rank he would have to buy off
  both Matsudaira and Tanuma.60
  The issue of corruption aside, Tanuma Okitsugu faced some very
  severe problems. To begin with, the living standards of all bakufu
  vassals, regardless of rank, continued to decline. In particular, those
  who did not hold official positions in the bureaucracy, and were accord-
  ingly totally dependent on their inherited stipends, were subject to
  sharp financial distress. Living in Edo, surrounded by temptations to
  spend money they did not have, only made their deteriorating stan-
  dards of living more difficult to tolerate. So much had already become
  apparent during the Kyoho period; the passage of time simply made
  matters worse.61 This exacted its toll in both human and institutional
  terms. These retainers constituted the bakufu's standing army, and
  their progressive impoverishment meant the inevitable erosion of the
  government's military capabilities.
  Government finances also began to collapse during the 1760s. True,
  between 1746 and 1764 the annual revenue from the land tax averaged
  1.65 million koku, the highest sustained level during the Tokugawa
  period, but thereafter, from 1765 to 1779, that figure slumped to 1.52
  million koku. Then from 1780 to 1786 - even excluding the two fam-
  ine years of 1783 and 1786 (1.21 million and 1.08 million koku,
  respectively) - the annual average fell an additional 12 percent, to
  1.45 million koku. Government reserves dropped accordingly, from 3
  million gold pieces in 1770 to 2.2 million in 1788. The great Temmei
  famine, which lasted from 1782 to 1787, and the disastrous Edo fire of
  1772 also contributed to this financial downturn, as both caused loss of
  income and both required massive government relief measures.62
  The economic measures implemented by the bakufu to combat this
  problem were far from popular among conservatives, who saw in them
  palpable proof of corruption within the administration. More recently,
  however, some historians have come to judge these policies in a more
  positive light.63 They interpret the various new measures - among
  them the development of mines; the establishment of government
  monopolies in ginseng, camphor, copper, iron, and brass; the creation
  of associations of merchants specifically authorized to handle such
  commodities as seed-oil and sulfur; and the levying of licensing fees
  60 Ibid., pp. 11-21,60-6,234. 
  61 Ibid., pp. 67-92, 339-40.
  62 Tsuji, "Horeki," pp. 252-3; Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 116-34.
  63 Tsuji, "Horeki," pp. 186-219, 337-8.
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  462 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  (myogakiri) - as attempts to broaden the government's economic base
  and allow it to take advantage of commercial development.64
  Yet, the impact of these new initiatives on the bakufu's finances is
  still questionable. The lack of detailed records does not permit any
  certainty, but there is reason to doubt that they had much effect at all.
  Certainly the licensing fees demanded of merchants were not burden-
  some. According to guidelines announced in 1770, members of the
  licensed oil-seed guild of Osaka were obliged to pay an initial sum of
  twenty gold pieces and, thereafter, an annual fee of three gold pieces -
  a ludicrously small sum in view of the volume of oil-seed trade at the
  time. Other guilds appear to have paid at much the same rate, so it is
  more appropriate to conceive of the licensing fees simply as registra-
  tion dues rather than as an attempt to tap commercial wealth.65
  The more convincing explanation of Tanuma's attempt to force
  merchants into monopolistic associations concerns his desire to control
  prices. Previously, during the Kyoho Reforms, the shogunate had
  become concerned about fluctuations in the price of rice as well as the
  increase in other commodity prices and had first tried its hand at
  commercial controls. At that time, the main object of official attention
  was the various Edo wholesalers (ton'ya) as the authorities tried to
  regulate the price of goods sent from Osaka. In subsequent years the
  shogunate shifted its attention from Edo to Osaka and tried to police
  directly the Osaka wholesalers who shipped goods to Edo. With seed-
  oil used in lamps, for example, the government strengthened the mo-
  nopoly of the Edo wholesalers in 1741, by refusing to allow any other
  merchants to import directly from Osaka. From 1753 onward it also
  began to bolster the Osaka wholesalers, insisting in 1770 that all in-
  volved in oil pressing in the Osaka area form an association and come
  under the supervision of the Osaka oil market. This reinforced the
  privileged position of the Osaka oil wholesalers and also depressed the
  price of oil, as it maximized the quantity handled in Osaka, an area
  under constant bakufu supervision.66
  One feature of the Tanuma period was the emergence of specula-
  tors, men from outside the normal commercial establishment who
  came to have an inordinate degree of influence on Tanuma and his
  associates. Through their political activities, these men - known as
  yamashi by their contemporaries - were responsible for several new
  64 Ito, Nihon, pp. 160-8.
  65 Miyamoto Mataji, Kabunakama no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1938), pp. 132-45.
  66 Tsuda Hideo, Hoken keizai seisaku no tenkai to shijo kozo (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1961),
  pp. 26-62.
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  THE TANUMA PERIOD 
  463
  initiatives. Some of these were successful; many failed. It was at the
  urging of these men, for example, that government offices were set up
  to oversee the activities of the rice market, to regulate the flow of
  goods from Osaka to Edo, and to lend out money at low rates of
  interest. Elsewhere, these speculators were responsible for a plan to
  set up ten inspection posts in the Kanto area to check the quality of
  silk and silk goods produced there, with the costs of inspection to be
  borne by the purchaser. This proved to be one of the failures, as the
  scheme resulted in considerable opposition from local peasants, who
  ultimately expressed their anger by destroying the houses of the
  scheme's originators and by marching into Takasaki, the castle town of
  Senior Councilor Matsudaira Terutaka. The bakufu had no option but
  to dismantle the whole enterprise.67
  Another new element in Tanuma's economic policies involved
  moneylending. During the Kyoho Reforms the government had tried
  to stabilize the price of rice by permitting the use of promissory notes
  in speculative ventures into the rice market, but this had only encour-
  aged various daimyo domains - all of them under financial pressures -
  to issue promissory notes without the money to guarantee them. In
  1761, therefore, the government forbade daimyo to issue any promis-
  sory notes unless they were able to redeem them, and in 1767 it further
  ordered Osaka merchants not to accept such notes. Then, in 1782, the
  shogunate appointed the cloth merchant Goto Nuinosuke as inspector
  of rice promissory notes in Osaka and assigned to him the task of
  restoring confidence in the paper currency.
  The practice of moneylending between merchants and peasants had
  also grown, as farmers increasingly required help in meeting their
  farming expenses or their taxes. In 1767 the shogunate intervened and
  established an agency in Osaka to oversee any loans in which houses
  had been pledged as security. Already in 1760, the government had set
  up an office to deal with small loans in copper cash and followed this in
  1770 with a similar office dealing with silver cash. Finally in 1786, the
  bakufu issued a law under which, for the next five years, money was to
  be collected from all peasants, townspeople, and religious foundations
  in Japan, at a predetermined rate, and such money, augmented by the
  bakufu's own funds, was to be lent out to the daimyo. Tanuma was
  removed from office, however, before this could be put into effect.68
  67 Matsumoto Shiro, "Shohin ryutsu no hatten to ryutsu kiko no saihensei," in Nihon keizaishi
  taikei, vol. 4 (kinsei 2) (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1965), pp. 92-3, 96-9, 127-30;
  and Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 204-7.
  68 Matsumoto, "Shohin," pp. 96-9; and Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 207-12.
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  464 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  There were also noteworthy developments under Tanuma in the
  area of coinage. One of these concerned silver coins, always a vexed
  issue, as no specific weights had ever been established for them. This
  was a matter of considerable inconvenience, for it meant that coins had
  to be weighed for every transaction involving silver. Tanuma tried to
  put an end to that in 1765 by issuing a coin that conformed to the
  precious metal content established by Yoshimune in 1736 and weighed
  precisely five momme (a little over half an ounce). It was a praiseworthy
  initiative but, as with so many of Tanuma's ideas, did not translate
  into reality quite as anticipated. First, the coin was regarded with very
  great suspicion, perhaps because the coin and the concept behind it
  were unfamiliar. Two years later, when the bakufu declared that
  twelve of these silver coins were to be worth one gold piece, rumors
  attributed the change to a plot by moneychangers who wished to profit
  from the fluctuations in the exchange rate.
  In 1722 another new silver coin was minted, the nanryo nishuban,
  which was given the official but arbitrary value of one-eighth of a gold
  piece. This coin was therefore an oddity, a silver coin whose value was
  defined only in terms of gold. In all probability the shogunate was
  hoping to use this coin to break down the inconvenient dual-currency
  system under which western Japan carried out its affairs in silver, and
  eastern Japan in gold. Unfortunately, because Tanuma was associated
  with it, this initial attempt failed, being interpreted as yet another
  example of the senior councilor's shiftiness.69 Yet, this attempt to
  convert the whole country to a gold standard was a rational approach
  to the problem, and indeed, later politicians were to try it again suc-
  cessfully in the nineteenth century.
  Tanuma also introduced great changes in foreign trade. Ever since
  the beginning of Japan's isolation in the early seventeenth century, the
  general tendency in matters of foreign trade had been toward greater
  restriction, aimed at preventing the outflow of Japan's gold, silver, and
  copper reserves. Tanuma, however, adopted a vigorous export policy
  in an attempt to reverse these trade imbalances. By the late eighteenth
  century, there was a growing demand for what were referred to as
  tawaramono, that is, the various marine products like shark fins, sea
  slugs, and seaweed so prized in Chinese cooking. Tanuma proceeded
  to urge increased production and export of these items to help reverse
  Japan's trade imbalance. This initiative, at least, would seem to have
  been successful, as it was claimed that Tanuma's new silver pieces
  69 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 175-85; and Ito, Kinsei, pp. 163-7.
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  THE TANUMA PERIOD 
  465
  were actually minted from silver brought into Japan through the sale
  of exports.70
  The development of Hokkaido was another issue to which Tanuma
  devoted much thought. Always aware of their vulnerability to foreign-
  ers from the south, the Japanese at the end of the eighteenth century
  were beginning to look northward as well, and not without reason.
  The Russians had crossed Siberia, colonized portions of Kamchatka,
  and had even started to press southward toward the Kurile Islands.
  Russian ships were being sighted along Japanese coasts with increasing
  frequency. In 1777, indeed, a group of Russians approached the au-
  thorities of the Matsumae domain in Hokkaido with a request for
  trade. This was officially rejected, but there seems to have been some
  surreptitious trade, for some Russian goods were later to be found in
  the Osaka markets.
  News of these developments came to Tanuma's attention in a curi-
  ously roundabout fashion. Some of his friends had passed on to him a
  work entitled Aka Ezo fusetsuko, written by Kudo Heisuke, a medical
  practitioner from Sendai. Kudo's argument in favor of commercial
  exchange with Russia was so convincing that the senior councilor
  dispatched a team to Hokkaido in 1785 to investigate the possibilities
  of opening trade relations. As events transpired, the resulting report
  was notably unenthusiastic, putting an immediate end to any prospect
  of Japan's trading with its northern neighbor. On the other hand, the
  investigating team did urge the development of Hokkaido, contending
  that land reclamation there could bring the shogunate an additional
  5.83 million koku annually in tax revenues, an amount that would have
  more than doubled its income. Given the state of agricultural technol-
  ogy at the time, this may well have been too optimistic an assessment,
  but in any case, like other plans, this too would collapse along with
  Tanuma's own political career.71
  While Tanuma's government was experimenting with these new
  policies, a series of crises overtook Japan. The farming community, on
  whose revenues all political power rested, was beginning to fall apart
  under the combined pressure of mounting agrarian unrest and succes-
  sive natural disasters. Protest in rural areas, already formidable by the
  end of the Kyoho period, had risen, by the 1780s, to an average of
  more than fifty incidents a year.72 Their scale was growing too, as was
  the level of violence. More importantly, the nature of protest had also
  70 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 312-29; and Numata Jiro, "Nisshin boeki ni okeru ichi mondai," Rekishi
  chiri 68 (November-December 1936): 421-34, 543-8.
  71 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 295-312. 
  72 Aoki, Hyakusho ikki, p. 31.
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  466 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  changed. In the 1750s, protest had usually been in the form of de-
  mands from village communities that their feudal overlord - whether
  the bakufu or daimyo - reduce taxes or provide them with extra rice
  for food or seed. By the 1770s and 1780s, however, poor farmers were
  beginning to unite in attacks on the more prosperous members of the
  village community itself, particularly the village headmen (nanushi),
  landlords, and wealthy rural merchants. In some cases, these uprisings
  were echoed in Japan's towns and cities. To combat this alarming
  trend, the shogunate in 1769 instructed all daimyo that such outbreaks
  of violence were to be stamped out, irrespective of the merits of their
  grievances. In 1770, signs were posted throughout Japan offering re-
  wards to those ready to inform on agitators. Despite this increased
  government attention, however, agrarian unrest continued to grow.73
  The situation was not helped by an extraordinary succession of
  natural disasters: storms, droughts, volcanic eruptions, crop failures,
  famines, and epidemics throughout the countryside and fires in the
  cities. All of these made the life of the common people that much more
  precarious. They also focused resentment on the government, for in a
  Confucian society natural disasters were taken as Heaven's way of
  reproving earthly misrule. No one knows how many people died in the
  great Temmei famine, which began in 1782 and continued until 1787,
  but its severity can perhaps be gauged by the fact that the shogunate's
  land-tax revenues fell by more than half during its duration.
  Certainly there is no doubt that one of its casualties was Tanuma
  Okitsugu himself, the man held directly accountable for all his coun-
  try's maladies.74 The first blow came with the assassination of his son
  in the spring of 1784. At the end of the following year Matsudaira
  Sadanobu, the man destined to supplant Tanuma as leader of the
  government, bribed his way into the shogunate's highest advisory
  body, the Tamarinoma, and began to work toward the senior coun-
  cilor's overthrow. This was not long in coming. In the autumn of 1786,
  Tokugawa Ieharu, the tenth shogun, fell gravely ill and died. Even
  before his death, Tanuma's projects had been stopped, and now, left
  without a protector, Tanuma was turned out of office. Subsequently
  he lost twenty thousand koku of his domain and was placed under
  house arrest. Then early in the summer of 1788, he too died, in his
  seventieth year, leaving to his grandson Okiaki a domain that had
  shrunk to a mere ten thousand koku.ls
  73 Hayashi, "Horeki," pp. 113-17; and Yamada, "Horeki," pp. 149-74.
  74 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 116-34. 
  75 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 32-59, 220-42.
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  THE KANSEI REFORMS 
  467
  THE KANSEI REFORMS
  With the accession of the thirteen-year-old ienari as shogun, Matsu-
  daira Sadanobu's rise to political prominence was assured. As daimyo
  of Shirakawa, Sadanobu had already won the support of the new
  shogun's natural (as distinct from his adoptive) father, Hitotsubashi
  Harusada. A prominent leader of one of the three Tokugawa cadet
  branches descended from Yoshimune, Harusada was able to enlist the
  support of the prestigious Owari, Kii, and Mito branches for Sada-
  nobu as well. All were ready to encourage the young politician in his
  plan to mount a program of reforms, for not only was Sadanobu a
  grandson of Yoshimune, the Kyoho reformer, but he had also proved
  himself a capable administrator in his own domain at Shirakawa,
  where he had managed to keep the impact of the Temmei famine to an
  absolute minimum.
  Nevertheless, the initial steps in the campaign to install Sadanobu in
  the inner circles of the shogunate proved unexpectedly difficult.
  Tanuma Okitsugu may have been dismissed, but his associates still
  remained, in both the bureaucracy and the shogun's household, and
  particularly in the ooku, the women's quarters. The political tussle
  between Sadanobu's faction and the Tanuma diehards continued into
  the new year, until popular unrest brought it to a stop. In 1786, two
  years earlier, there had been 57 peasant protests, and in just the previ-
  ous year, 1787, violent riots had rocked Edo, Osaka, and other major
  cities. Finally, in 1788 there were 117 separate revolts.
  They were exactly what Tanuma's opponents needed to drive the
  last of his adherents from the shogunal household and clear the way
  for Matsudaira Sadanobu to be elevated to the post of senior councilor
  and shortly thereafter to chief senior councilor (roju shuseki). At his
  urging, the newly installed shogun quickly called together the senior
  administrators and ordered them to perform their duties in accordance
  with the spirit of Yoshimune, the reforming shogun of fifty years
  before. Following this command, Sadanobu told the bureaucrats in
  considerable detail exactly what was expected of them. This consti-
  tuted the opening maneuver in what came to be known as the Kansei
  Reforms.
  There were still some obstacles, however. The new shogun, Ienari,
  was just fifteen and unable to offer much assistance. Moreover, only
  two members of Sadanobu's own faction had thus far been brought
  into the administration - Honda Tadakazu as junior councilor, and
  Kano Hisanori as assistant chamberlain (sobayaku gqyo toritsugi).
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  468 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  Against this, Tanuma's old supporters were still strongly entrenched
  in important posts. Matsudaira Yasuyoshi still served as senior coun-
  cilor and Mizuno Tadatomo as the titular senior councillor (roju
  kaku). Faced with this much opposition, Sadanobu petitioned the
  heads of the Kii, Owari, and Mito branches of the Tokugawa house
  for some additional sign of official approval to help him implement
  his reform program. This petition had some success, although not as
  much as he would have wished. He had in mind promotion to grand
  councilor but had to settle for the ancient position of shogunal ad-
  viser (hosa), a post unfilled for more than 150 years. Once this step
  had been taken, early in 1788, both his major opponents, Mizuno
  and Matsudaira, resigned from the Senior Council, to be replaced
  with Sadanobu's own friends - Matsudaira Nobuakira as senior coun-
  cilor, Honda Tadakazu as chamberlain, and Toda Ujinori as superin-
  tendent of temples and shrines. These changes gave Matsudaira
  Sadanobu the commanding position he needed inside the bakufu and
  the shogun's own household. With this base and the support of the
  three cadet daimyo, as well as Ienari's father Hitotsubashi Harusada,
  Sadanobu could now begin his own reforms.76
  Of all the manifold problems confronting him, the legacy of social
  chaos left by the events of the last years of the Tanuma period was the
  most disturbing. To cope with this, Sadanobu believed it necessary to
  rebuild the entire social system, to restore morale, and to revive the
  economy, and all as quickly as possible. In particular, the problem of
  the bakufu's own samurai retainers, now largely demoralized, called
  for urgent attention. To restore morale, the government exhorted the
  samurai to improve their general behavior and encouraged them to
  devote themselves to scholarship and to training in the martial arts.
  The administration also promised to identify men with the necessary
  skills and qualities to take charge of such a program, and so orders
  went out to promote even subordinate, low-ranking samurai who
  might be considered for such responsibilities.
  Then, in mid-1790, the government issued the Igaku no kin (Prohi-
  bition of heterodoxy). The administration believed that the orthodox
  Chu Hsi philosophy espoused by Tokugawa officials for nearly a cen-
  tury and a half had been undercut by new philosophies. To the authori-
  ties, members of the Ancient Learning school and the proponents of
  76 Kikuchi Kenjiro, "Matsudaira Sadanobu nyukaku jijo," Shigaku zasshi 26 (January 1915):
  1-22; Inobe Shigeo, Bakumatsu shi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1927), pp. 1-17;
  Takeuchi Makoco, "Kansei kaikaku," in Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 12 (Kinsei 4)
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1976), pp. 5-14; Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 151-7, 237-8.
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  THE KANSEI REFORMS 
  469
  eclecticism seemed to be turning people away from the practical appli-
  cation of Confucian ethics and, instead, promoting undesirable habits
  of mind, antiquarianism and pedantry among them.
  Accordingly, Matsudaira Sadanobu took steps to protect Chu Hsi
  Confucianism, as it was defined by the Hayashi school, long the sho-
  gunate's custodian of doctrinal purity. Hayashi Nobutaka, head of the
  school, was instructed to see that the official orthodoxy was main-
  tained and that all other branches of philosophy were avoided as hereti-
  cal. Because the underlying intent was to reform all Japanese, not just
  the samurai, through proper Confucian morality, the Igaku no kin was
  accompanied by other similar measures. Stricter censorship was an-
  nounced, with an absolute ban on pornography, a step that led to the
  prosecution of some well-known figures, including the writer Santo
  Kyoden. On a more positive note, the shogunate also ordered a na-
  tional search for cases of exemplary behavior and later published appro-
  priate examples under the title Kogiroku (Records of righteousness and
  filial piety).
  There was also another side to the Igaku no kin, and this concerned
  the training of capable officials. To demonstrate its commitment to
  promoting scholarship and the martial arts, the shogunate also turned
  its attention to training students at its own academy, where future
  bureaucrats were instructed. To this end, it established in 1792 a five-
  tier system of annual examinations for shogunal vassals and their sons.
  These examinations were open to any samurai who wished to sit for
  them, but the government directed senior administrators to invite
  capable subordinates to apply, whether or not they wished to. In
  practice, however, this system did not prove as praiseworthy as ex-
  pected: Anyone could score well with hasty and mindless cramming,
  and the odds were still stacked against candidates of humble status, no
  matter how able. Still, the impulse itself was a good one, and it was
  revived later by the Meiji government with the introduction of com-
  petitive public service examinations.
  The Igaku no kin was significant in another way as well. By encour-
  aging scholarship in such a decisive manner, the bakufu, perhaps
  coincidentally, was staking its claim to ultimate authority over Japan's
  academic and technological development. This impulse can be seen
  clearly in its approach to the matter of medical training. Before 1791,
  the government gave no more than unenthusiastic support to the
  Igakukan, one of the country's many medical schools. In that year,
  however, the administration reversed course and took over the Iga-
  kukan, which then became the official medical school. Igakukan stu-
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  470 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  dents received exemptions from formal examinations, whereas all
  other doctors in bakufu employ were obliged to be examined there
  before they could be registered. Similarly, the government also took
  the first steps toward controlling the study of Western science and
  technology. In 1797, for example, the preparation of a new calendar
  became a pretext for bringing the country's best astronomers into
  employment in its own observatory. If many aspects of the Kansei
  Reforms were reactionary attempts to resolve the crisis of the late
  eighteenth century by restoring the older, feudal-based order, here, at
  least, they anticipated several late-nineteenth-century developments,
  for the Meiji academic establishment was ultimately created along
  lines suggested by Matsudaira Sadanobu's experimental efforts.77
  Samurai demoralization was not the only problem confronting the
  shogunate. Farming communities, too, were in desperate need of stabi-
  lization. In many areas, agriculture had been so damaged by natural
  disasters that there was little any government could do to restore
  productivity. In the Kanto and Tohoku regions, for example, the
  events of the previous decade had driven many peasants to abscond,
  leaving their farms to revert to wilderness. This was hardly a problem
  that the shogunate could ignore, so from the late 1780s onward the
  authorities began to devise strategies to cope with the phenomenon of
  "deserted villages." One plan was to encourage more well-to-do farm-
  ers to begin their own land reclamation projects, using the labor of less
  fortunate fellow villagers. Another was to identify "honest vagabonds"
  (mushukumono), that is, men who had left their villages and were no
  longer registered at any temple, and to grant them parcels of land in
  areas that needed more cultivators.
  The government also severely restricted the drift of seasonal work-
  ers from the country to the city. Toward the end of 1790 the shogunate
  announced that men who had come to Edo from the country would be
  provided with money for travel, food, and agricultural implements,
  provided they agreed to go home again. If for any reason they could
  not do so, or no longer had relatives or farms there, then the authori-
  ties would offer to settle them somewhere else.
  Abortion and infanticide, common in some parts of Japan during
  the famine of the 1780s, were seen as another cause of declining rural
  population. To cope with this, the government ordered local adminis-
  77 Tahara Tsuguo, "Kansei kaikaku no ichi kosatsu," Rekishigaku kenkyu 178 (December 1954):
  9—21; Kumakura Isao, "Kasei bunka no zencei," in Hayashiya Tatsusaburo, ed., Kasei bunka
  no kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1976), pp. 47-59; and Takeuchi, "Kansei kaikaku," pp.
  15-17.
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  THE KANSEI REFORMS 
  471
  trators to instruct village officials and the mutual responsibility
  groups (goningumi) to watch over the health of pregnant women. Such
  women were to be given every assistance, even sums of money to use
  to rear their children when necessary, but local officials were also
  instructed to rigorously investigate the death of any of these children.
  All in all, these efforts to rebuild rural Japan cost the shogunate a
  good deal. In 1800, for example, almost 150,000 gold pieces, some 10
  percent of its total expenditures for that year, were devoted to this
  cause.78
  In the end, however, agriculture could not be revived without the
  help of competent local administrators. Consequently, the bakufu
  again removed several local officials believed to be incompetent and
  replaced them with new appointments. Some of the dismissals were
  quite spectacular: Both Chigusa Senjuro, district magistrate (gundai)
  of Mino, and Okusa Masatada of Hida were banished in 1789. The
  following year Ina Tadataka of the Kanto had his stipend confiscated
  and was placed under permanent house arrest, and in 1793 Ibi Miki-
  nosuke, another prominent district magistrate, was dismissed from
  office. All four men were of extremely high status, far higher than
  usual for this level of local administrator, and all had been responsible
  for very large areas of shogunal land. Their fates, therefore, warrant
  special attention.
  Take, for example, the case of Ina Tadataka, the Kanto district
  magistrate, whose family had held that position for over two hundred
  years, ever since Tokugawa Ieyasu had moved into the region at the
  end of the sixteenth century. The family was very well liked and also
  trusted by the people in the region, as Tadataka had discovered in 1781
  and again in 1787, when he had used his popularity to quiet a series of
  violent local disturbances. Back in 1764 his grandfather Tadaoki, too,
  had used his personal standing in the community to disperse mobs of
  angry peasants. Why then, should the shogunate place such a man
  under permanent house arrest? The official reason was that Tadataka
  had failed to control a dispute among his own subordinates and that
  his report of the matter to higher levels of the bureaucracy had been
  less than frank. It is more likely, however, that the real reason con-
  cerned his poor handling of government loan funds. Yields on high-
  78 Takeuchi, "Kansei kaikaku," pp. 22-23; Kishimoto Junkichi, Kishimoto Budayu kun jiseki
  (Tokyo, 1919), pp. 26-30; Nagayama Usaburo, Hayakawa daikan (1929), pp. 190-201;
  Kanazawa Harutomo, Teranishi daikan jiseki shu (Tsunetoyo, Fukushima: Tsunetoyo kyo-
  doshi kankokai, 1930); and Murakami Tadashi, Daikan (Tokyo, Jimbutsu orai sha, 1963),
  pp. 144-5, 151-2, 154-65. 181-6, 195.
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  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  interest loans had become extremely important to administration fi-
  nances. Early in the Tanuma period the government had decided to
  offset falling land-tax revenues by turning moneylender and had dra-
  gooned its local administrators into helping. They were compelled
  personally to borrow funds from the shogunate, as well as from
  wealthy farmers in their areas, and then to lend out the monies to local
  farmers at high rates of interest. Under normal conditions this scheme
  might have worked, but the turmoil in the Kanto during the 1780s,
  the area for which Ina Tadataka was responsible, made it impossible.
  People simply could not repay their debts, and consequently, neither
  could Tadataka. In 1789, when he requested a twenty-year extension
  of his debt of fifteen thousand gold pieces, the shogunate refused. At
  the same time, his local reputation also suffered because of his role as
  moneylender, and he came to be seen as an ally of the rich against the
  poor. When a dispute erupted among his retainers, therefore, the
  shogunate simply took advantage of the opportunity to replace him.
  Ibi Mikinosuke was a man of similar eminence. In 1767 the bakufu
  announced that the office of west county magistrate would be granted
  to the Ibi family in perpetuity in honor of its exemplary record in local
  administration over the previous three generations. Some two decades
  later, however, Ibi Mikinosuke was denied the traditional privilege of
  an audience with the shogun. Two years later the shogunate dismissed
  Mikinosuke from office on the grounds that his predecessor had raised
  large sums of money from wealthy farmers on the pretext of lending it
  out to the needy and had then proceeded to use it for his own benefit.
  That same success in moneylending that had brought the family offi-
  cial recognition in the first place had also led to their downfall.
  Disgrace also awaited the Okusa family of Hida, who had been piling
  up debts for generations, ever since the time of Okusa Masatada's
  grandfather, Masanaga. They too were charged with misappropriating
  public money. Such corruption, linked as it was with moneylending,
  had little to do with the Kansei Reforms but, rather, was the legacy of an
  earlier period.79
  Having unmasked and punished one lot of local administrators,
  Sadanobu's administration then set about replacing them with new
  ones. Nine intendants were appointed in 1788 and another ten the
  following year. Several of these men went on to become famous offi-
  79 Takeuchi Makoto, "Kanto gundai Ina Tadataka no shikkyaku to sono rekishi-teki igi,"
  Tokugawa rinsei-shi kenkyujo kenkyu kiyo (1966), pp. 173-203; and Tsuji Tatsuya, "Edo
  Bakufu Policy in the Late Eighteenth Century," Yokohama shiritsu daigaku ronso 19 (1967):
  34-49-
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  THE KANSEI REFORMS 
  473
  cials. Okada Hakaru (better known by his pen name of Kansen) was a
  well-known Confucian scholar who, together with Shibano Ritsuzan,
  had been active in the shogunate's academy. His appointment was a
  gamble on Sadanobu's part, but it was a successful one. Some changes
  were made further down the hierarchy as well. Instead of using local
  peasants or commoners as clerks, a practice that had led to much
  corruption in the past, the government now decided that its local
  officials should appoint their subordinates from among the sho-
  gunate's own vassals.80
  Despite all this activity, however, the bakufu never overcame cor-
  ruption at the local level, especially the problems associated with
  moneylending. Sadanobu's administration never considered a straight-
  forward program of distributing grants of money for purposes like
  land reclamation or the care of orphaned children. Instead, it en-
  trusted large sums of money - as much as twenty thousand gold
  pieces in some cases - to local officials with instructions that the
  funds be lent out to wealthy peasants and merchants, and the interest
  used to create a fund from which the poor could then be assisted.
  This was precisely what Ina Tadataka and others had done, except
  that the Kansei Reforms had reasserted government authority, rather
  than leaving it in the hands of people who, like the Ina, Ibi, and
  Okusa, were compromised by their connections with the wealthy
  families of their areas.
  Toward the end of 1788, the bakufu tried to establish a closer associa-
  tion between the Finance Ministry and seven prominent Edo mer-
  chants. The significance of this may not be immediately apparent, but
  the government was effectively offering tacit recognition to a new
  commercial force. Formerly, two distinct merchant groups had domi-
  nated Edo's commercial life. One consisted of semiofficial merchants
  who ran the gold and silver guilds and managed the cloth trade. The
  other comprised entrepreneurs from elsewhere - places like Kyoto,
  Osaka, Omi, and Ise - whose nationwide interests dictated that they
  maintain branches in Edo. During the eighteenth century, and particu-
  larly after the Kyoho Reforms, a third group had emerged. These
  were local Edo entrepreneurs who had found new routes to wealth and
  influence. By enticing representatives of this group into its service, the
  bakufu hoped to tap their resources and to use them to supervise the
  activities of the city's rice and money markets. Already, earlier in that
  80 Kumakura, "Kasei bunka," pp. 59-67; and Takeuchi, "Kansei kaikaku," pp. 17-18;
  Murakami, Daikan, pp. 140-74, 179-204.
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  474 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  same year of 1788, the government had asked them to contribute
  funds for repairing the Imperial Palace in Kyoto.
  The second objective was to enlist the efforts of these merchant
  elites in fund-raising schemes. The administration lent the men money
  at low interest and had them put that money to work in various
  spheres. At the same time the men could also commit their own capi-
  tal, in full expectation of guaranteed government support on debt
  collections. It was not long before the government needed their ser-
  vices. In the autumn of 1789 the regime ordered the cancellation of all
  debts incurred by the samurai. This, it was hoped, would remove one
  of the government's most pressing concerns, but it was also recognized
  that unless something further was done, this measure might well have
  unfortunate repercussions, namely, that the rice brokers and money-
  lenders, whose loans had been abruptly and unilaterally wiped out,
  would simply refuse to lend money to samurai again. The govern-
  ment, therefore, asked their new merchant allies, whose numbers had
  increased from seven to ten, to open a bureau at Saruyacho where
  distressed rice brokers and moneylenders could borrow money at ad-
  vantageous rates.
  Then in 1791, the bakufu instructed each of the residential wards in
  Edo to economize on administrative costs and to keep 70 percent of
  what they saved in a ready reserve. These funds, augmented by money
  from the bakufu, were to be administered by another bureau for poor
  relief or for low-interest loans. Naturally, the administration's new
  allies would manage this as well and thus have control over the city's
  money lending system. By using them, rather than representatives of
  Osaka or Kyoto, it was coincidentally helping raise Edo's own finan-
  cial status.81
  Foreign affairs had already begun to emerge as a political issue
  during the Tanuma period, when there were indications that the policy
  of seclusion might be modified.82 The development of Hokkaido was
  being planned in precisely this context. Matsudaira Sadanobu, on the
  other hand, believed that traditional policies should not be tampered
  with, and he also argued that an undeveloped Hokkaido provided the
  best-possible buffer against foreign encroachment. Looking inward,
  81 Takeuchi Makoto, "Kansei kaikaku to 'Kanjosho goyotashi' no seiritsu," pts. I and 2, Nihon
  rekishi 128 (February 1959): 23-32; and vol. 129 (March 1959): 44-56; and Takeuchi
  Makoto, "Bakufu keizai no hembo to kin'yu seisaku no tenkai," Nihon keizaishi taikei, vol. 4
  (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1965), vol. 4, pp. 197-207.
  82 Tsuji, Tanuma, pp. 295-7; and Numata Jiro, "Tanuma jidai to Isaac Titsingh," Nihon rekishi
  380 (January 1980): 101-6.
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  THE KANSEI REFORMS 
  475
  he committed himself enthusiastically to the task of rebuilding and
  extending Japan's coastal defenses.
  His efforts were stimulated by the arrival of Adam Laksman at
  Nemuro in 1792. A lieutenant in the Russian army, Laksman came
  with orders from Catherine the Great to repatriate Japanese castaways,
  but he also requested the opening of diplomatic and commercial rela-
  tions between Russia and Japan. The bakufu avoided giving an imme-
  diate reply. But eventually it nominated Nagasaki as the port where all
  contact should take place, and then it gave Laksman an entry permit
  that proved to be invalid until the middle of the following year. The
  intention was to gain time so that the shogunate could organize its
  defense with, as a fallback position, the possibility of permitting trade
  until they were ready. As events transpired, however. Laksman soon
  returned to Russia, and Japan saw no more of its northern neighbors
  until 1804.
  Meanwhile, the bakufu was not idle. It ordered all daimyo with
  coastal domains to improve their defenses, and it drew up its own
  plans for the fortification of Edo Bay. Further, it dispatched officials to
  inspect the coasts of the Kanto, Izu, and Suruga regions. Matsudaira
  Sadanobu himself made a tour of the Izu and Sagami coasts. He also
  gave some thought to creating new daimyo domains along the shores
  of Edo Bay to replace the multitude of small domains, and he made
  plans for the fortification of Hokkaido. But he was to resign before any
  of these possibilities reached fruition, leaving the pressing problem of
  defense to bedevil his successors in the nineteenth century.83
  One of the new issues to cast its shadow over politics during the
  Kansei period concerned relations with the imperial court. The trou-
  ble came in 1789 when Emperor Kokaku requested that his natural
  father be accorded the title dajo tenno, or retired emperor. Were this to
  be granted, the father could take precedence over imperial ministers
  on ceremonial occasions. Otherwise, as a mere imperial prince, he
  would be obliged to yield precedence, as decreed by Tokugawa Ieyasu
  in his 1615 instructions to the imperial court. The emperor's request
  was therefore refused, on the grounds that it lacked precedent. After
  several more overtures, matters came to a head in 1792 when Emperor
  Kokaku declared his intention to promote his father, whether or not
  the shogunate approved. Quickly, the shogun summoned two senior
  83 Suematsu Yasukazu, Kinsei ni okeru Hoppo numdai no shinien (Tokyo: Shigundo, 1928), pp.
  204-44: Shibusawa Eiichi, Rakud ko den (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1939), pp. 273-317; and
  Tabohashi Kiyoshi, (Zotei) Kindai Nihtm gaikoku kankei shi (Tokyo: Toko shoin, 1943), pp.
  148-57.
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  476 
  POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  court officials to Edo and the following year punished them for their
  role in the incident.
  Unfortunately for Kokaku and his father, they had chosen the least
  opportune time to approach the shogunate with such a request. By
  coincidence, Matsudaira Sadanobu was already committed to resisting
  a similar initiative from the shogun Ienari, who had expressed the wish
  that his own father, Hitotsubashi Harusada, might be given the title of
  retired shogun (completely unwarranted, for he was no such thing).
  Although Sadanobu owed a great deal to the head of the Hitotsubashi
  branch, including his own promotion to senior councilor and subse-
  quently to shogunal guardian, his debt was not so heavy that he would
  countenance quite such a promotion. Were it to eventuate, Hitotsu-
  bashi might very well become so strong as to threaten the political
  supremacy of the shogun's own cabinet of advisers. Were the govern-
  ment to accede to the emperor's request, the same privilege could
  hardly be refused to the shogun.84 The punishment of the Kyoto
  envoys in 1790 laid both issues to rest, but it left an open sore between
  Kyoto and Edo.
  There is no doubt that by this time Matsudaira Sadanobu had be-
  come generally unpopular. When he announced his intention to resign
  in 1791, a move designed, perhaps, to gauge the depth of his support,
  his followers prevailed on him to remain in office. The following year,
  he tested his standing a second time. After learning that several ladies-
  in-waiting had become involved with Buddhist priests, Sadanobu insti-
  gated a purge of the shogunal women's quarters. Then, feeling vulnera-
  ble, he formally requested permission to surrender some of his duties.
  In particular he asked to be relieved of his financial responsibilities
  within the bakufu, his supervision of the shogun's household, and his
  position as shogunal guardian. Once again he was reassured. The
  shogun relieved him only of his duties as supervisor of the shogunal
  household, confirming Sadanobu in everything else and showering
  him with gifts. In 1793, however, Sadanobu decided to test Ienari's
  confidence in him for the third, and to his surprise, the last time.
  Asking to be relieved of his duties as shogunal guardian, he found his
  request granted - and was stripped of his office of senior councilor
  into the bargain.85
  In the short term, Sadanobu's departure made little difference to
  the general thrust of government policy. His office passed to his friend
  84 Tsuji Zennosuke, Nihon bunkasht (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1950), vol. pp. 138-327. The Kyoto
  affair is referred to as the songo (title) incident.
  85 Shibusawa, Rakud ko den, pp. 318-33.
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  THE KANSEI REFORMS 
  477
  and colleague Matsudaira Nobuakira, to whom Sadanobu continued to
  offer advice, despite his retirement. Nevertheless, the reform impulse
  eventually ebbed away, leaving ominous jetsam in its wake.
  The Russian threat may have retreated for the moment, but Japan
  was hardly prepared to respond to future emergencies. In Kyoto, the
  long dormant imperial court had unaccountably begun to stir, and the
  reverberations, already felt in Edo, would soon be evident every-
  where. Above all, the bakufu, having spent more than a hundred years
  trying to cope with changing circumstances, had failed, leaving prob-
  lems of rural distress, shrinking finances, and samurai demoralization
  not only intact but far more daunting and intractable than they had
  ever. been. It was no basis on which to face the crises of the coming
  century.
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  CHAPTER 10
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  DURING THE EDO PERIOD
  THE SENGOKU VILLAGE LEGACY
  Near the end of the Tokugawa period, officials from the shogunate's
  Finance Office undertook a survey of villages in Musashi and Sagami
  provinces.1 During the course of their investigations, the bakufu offi-
  cials consulted documents preserved by prominent village families
  that traced their lineages back in time to samurai society of the six-
  teenth century. Some of the documents from the villages of Sagami
  had been issued by the Ho jo house of Odawara, and many of the
  Musashi documents carried the seal of the Uesugi daimyo. Among
  them were directives requiring the recipient to provide horses for
  military service, whereas others bestowed fiefs in reward for distin-
  guished service in battle, an indication that some of the villagers'
  ancestors had served, nearly three centuries earlier, as warriors under
  the Sengoku daimyo. Other evidence corroborates this notion. In
  many cadastral survey registers from the early seventeenth century, it
  is not uncommon to find two persons listed as cultivators (sakunin).
  Usually the name of a samurai or priest appears first, below which is
  entered the name of the man who was presumably the actual cultiva-
  tor, separated by the term bun. From this it is clear that many former
  samurai who had lived in the villages while serving the Sengoku
  daimyo as warriors remained on the land in the seventeenth century,
  thus establishing the lineages revealed in the survey at the end of the
  Edo period. Why these persons chose to remain on the land, abandon-
  ing samurai status for a life on the soil, remains an intriguing question
  that can be answered only by examining how the relationships among
  land tenure, taxation, agricultural technology, and the social composi-
  tion of villages subtly yet irrevocably shifted over the course of time
  that separated the late Edo from the late Sengoku period.
  Social stratification within the shoen estates of the medieval period
  i For a comprehensive explanation of these surveys, see Furushima Toshio, Nihon nogyoshi
  (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1956), pp. 177-9.
  478
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  THE SENGOKU VILLAGE LEGACY 
  479
  was very complex. Local landholders, known as myoshu, were the
  principal cultivators, and they paid an annual land rent to the estate's
  proprietors, most often temples or aristocratic families in Kyoto.
  These local landholders possessed legally protected entitlements to
  their lands, including the right to buy, sell, and bequeath their hold-
  ings. Landownership was transferable not only between fellow land-
  holders but also to officials of the shogunate such as the military estate
  stewards (jito), some of whom might reside within the boundaries of
  any given estate and ultimately become the vassals of that estate's
  proprietors. At this time in the Tokai region, small-scale private land-
  holders, who also constituted a portion of the lower stratum of the
  warrior class, were referred to as kumon, or native estate officers. Like
  the myoshu these men could buy and sell land, expand agricultural
  production, and open markets.
  Many of the landholders of the medieval period had to fight when
  called upon by the daimyo with whom they had entered an alliance. To
  this end, members of this landowning warrior class were expected to
  supply their own provisions and military equipment and to lead their
  own retainers into battle. Moreover, this upper stratum of warrior-
  villagers also managed groups of "vassal peasants" (hikan-byakusho),
  who in peacetime worked land leased from the samurai but who in
  time of war accompanied their samurai masters into battle. More nu-
  merous were the villagers called jige-byakusho, men who engaged
  solely in agriculture under the direction of the myoshu and kumon but
  who were not required to fulfill any military service obligation. These
  numerous social differences indicate that the sharp division between
  the warrior and peasantry that distinguished the class structure of
  Tokugawa society had not yet come into existence even in the late
  Sengoku era.
  Although the proprietary control wielded by the temples, shrines,
  and nobility over their shden in the Kinai region gradually diminished,
  their vestigial authority over the land lingered on until Toyotomi
  Hideyoshi, as part of his drive to achieve national hegemony, began a
  comprehensive survey of Japanese agricultural land, the famous Taiko
  cadastral survey, which permanently altered the nature of rural land
  tenure in the final decades of the sixteenth century. Consequently, the
  offices of military estate steward (jito) and estate officer (shokan) also
  remained until Hideyoshi's time. Some of these officials had been able
  to accumulate considerable holdings within the villages that comprised
  the shden and had built up sizable military followings. Some had even
  managed to acquire court rank by virtue of their political connections
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  480 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  with court-based proprietors, allowing them to become directly in-
  volved in the political machinations of the Kyoto court.
  The cultivators-cum-samurai and the villagers who farmed but did
  not fight constituted different social classes in villages, living together
  and performing complementary functions. A community of such
  small-scale landowners usually constituted a so, an autonomous body
  entrusted with resolving any problems that arose within its bound-
  aries.2 The right to convene assemblies to resolve so matters was gener-
  ally limited to samurai. Within the community, members with samurai
  status were called otona-byakusho, or senior farmers, and they had
  many special privileges. All festival activities of the village shrine dedi-
  cated to the local tutelary deity, for instance, were conducted by this
  group. The rise of the samurai marked an important stage in the
  transition from the increasingly ineffectual shoen system to the social
  institutions of Tokugawa society.
  As Toyotomi Hideyoshi established his hegemony over the country,
  he and his fellow daimyo enacted policies that obliterated the old social
  composition of rural society.3 Of all his policies, Hideyoshi's nation-
  wide survey of all land under cultivation did more than anything else
  to redefine the composition of the peasant class and to establish the
  amount of land tax that the cultivators were capable of delivering to
  the overlord. Political motivations accompanied the social and eco-
  nomic aspects of the survey, for this was also Hideyoshi's means for
  safeguarding the authority he had acquired through conquest, as it
  enabled him to measure more accurately the worth of the fiefs he
  granted to his band of retainers.
  The first land survey was carried out in Yamashiro Province in 1582,
  a month after Hideyoshi had hunted down Akechi Mitsuhide and
  extracted revenge for his having killed Oda Nobunaga. As the survey
  teams moved out across Japan, they discovered that not all villages
  were equally receptive to the inspection. In Kyushu, for instance,
  Hideyoshi was obliged to proceed more cautiously, because of the
  strength of the hostile local samurai. When one of Hideyoshi's com-
  manders did begin a survey there, the indigenous samurai rose up in
  an ill-fated rebellion that was quashed by daimyo forces mobilized
  2 The historical significance of so is discussed in Keiji Nagahara, with Kozo Yamamura, "Village
  Communities and Daimyo Power," in John Whitney Hall and Takeshi Toyoda, eds., Japan in the
  Muromachi Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 107-23.
  3 Hideyoshi's career and policies are covered in Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge,
  Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982); and George Elison, "Hideyoshi, the Bountiful Minis-
  ter," in George Elison and Bardwell L. Smith, eds. Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in
  the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981), pp. 223-44.
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  THE SENGOKU VILLAGE LEGACY 
  481
  from throughout Kyushu. But soon after this, Hideyoshi was finally
  able to open up the entire island of Kyushu to survey teams. In 1590,
  after the Kanto and the Tohoku regions were subjugated, Hideyoshi
  ordered a survey for the entire Tohoku region. To encourage compli-
  ance, he promised to destroy the castles of any warrior who resisted
  and to slaughter all peasants who complained.
  Survey teams measured the area of land cultivated by individual
  farmers, estimated the average productivity of the region, and on this
  basis calculated the potential yield of each plot of land. This calcula-
  tion was referred to as the kokudaka, an assessment of the land's
  productive capacity in terms of koku (approximately five bushels) of
  rice. The name of the cultivator was entered into the cadastral register
  next to this figure. Before Hideyoshi's survey, landownership was
  usually verified through a process known as sashidashi, or a call for the
  submission of pertinent documents. The landowner would present
  documents describing his holdings, both fiefs and hereditary lands,
  together with documentary evidence to support his claims. Under
  Hideyoshi's procedures, however, verification of landownership by
  initiative from below was no longer considered adequate. Instead, the
  impetus now came from above. Typically, a proprietor dispatched his
  own officials to the countryside to measure all of the agricultural and
  residential land in a certain region, using the cho (approximately one
  hectare) as their standard. The "cultivator" listed in each entry of the
  register was then held responsible for paying the annual land rent,
  whether or not he actually tilled the land.
  Regional differences were common, however. For instance, Yama-
  shiro, the province surrounding the capital city of Kyoto, never came
  under the control of a strong, independent daimyo. Rather, it long
  remained an area of competition among small warrior families seeking
  influence in the Muromachi bakufu. The myoshu who served as estate
  officials or military estate stewards were rewarded with benefice land
  (kyubun) for their service, and they were also allowed to buy up
  myoshu rights to additional landholdings. These privileges enabled
  many of the myoshu to accumulate extensive holdings, and a growing
  number became samurai. As a result, the gap widened between those
  with samurai status and those who remained mere peasants. Some of
  the landed samurai left their villages to become vassals of the nobility,
  but most chose to remain in their villages. When Hideyoshi's survey
  teams came to the lands in Yamashiro that belonged to the nobility
  and the religious organizations, the samurai and functionaries of the
  religious establishment who still resided in the villages were classified
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  482 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  as "cultivators" (sakunin), even though they served simply as collec-
  tors of rent from the actual families who tilled the land. This meant
  that the actual cultivators, in this instance, were not accorded any
  status in the registers.
  Consequently, historical debate has focused on questions of when
  and under what conditions the separation of status in rural society
  eventually took place.4 In regions where the aims of Hideyoshi's sur-
  vey were fully realized, the actual cultivator was usually recognized in
  the survey registers as the sakunin; in such areas most of the former
  warrior families, having relinquished their lands, did not appear on
  the register. Registration became more complex when Hideyoshi reas-
  signed daimyo to different domains, however. In such circumstances,
  some of the rural vassals accompanied their lords to the new domains,
  but most remained behind in their villages. At this point they lost their
  official status as samurai and were carried on the village registers as
  sakunin, which meant that now the actual cultivator of the land might
  be listed below them in the register, separated by the character bun.
  This practice was known as bunzuke kisai, or joint registration, and
  was most common to Shinano and the provinces of the Kanto.
  One objective that Hideyoshi hoped to achieve through the use of
  surveys was to establish a system of agriculture based on the small,
  independent farmer (shono). Discrete social units consisting of mem-
  bers of the immediate family were to become the principal source of
  the annual land revenues, and the act of cultivation was now deemed
  as the most important criterion for determining who possessed the
  land and who paid the annual rent. This basic intent can be further
  discerned from pertinent pronouncements issued during the late six-
  teenth century. A decree promulgated by Hideyoshi in 1594, for in-
  stance, forbade any peasant family from living with a collaterally re-
  lated family if both families had independent incomes, and it further
  ordered such families to construct separate residences.5 Similarly,
  Asano Nagamasa's decree of 1587 prohibited the upper stratum of
  4 Among the major interpretative works are Araki Moriaki, Taiko kenchi to kokudakasei (Tokyo:
  Nihon hoso shuppan kyokai, 1959, 1982); Wakita Osamu, Shokuho seiken no bunseki, 2 vols.
  (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1975-7); Osamu Wakita, "The Emergence of the State in
  Sixteenth Century Japan: From Oda to Tokugawa," Journal of Japanese Studies 8 (Summer
  1982): 343-67; Kanzaki Akitoshi, Kenchi (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1983); and Miyakawa Mitsuru,
  Taiko kenchi ron, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1957-63).
  5 Editor's note: Unless otherwise specified, the factual material for this article is contained in the
  very rich corpus of scholarship that Professor Furushima has published in Japanese. Those
  wishing further details should see his Nihon nogyoshi and his Kinsei keizaishi no kiso kalei -
  nengu shudatsu to kyodotai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1978); Tochi ni kizamareta rekishi (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1969); and Sangyoshi (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1966). These have been
  reprinted in Furushima Toshio chosakushu, 10 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyo daikaku shuppankai, 1974).
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  THE SENGOKU VILLAGE LEGACY 
  483
  peasantry from employing tenant farmers to work their lands, and it
  stipulated that the actual cultivator of the land had to forward the
  annual land rent directly to the proprietor in order to fulfill his obliga-
  tions as a cultivator, thus preventing the village upper class and official-
  dom from employing peasants without remuneration.
  The nature of Hideyoshi's prohibition against peasant ownership of
  weapons was revealed in another of his well-known policies, the
  "sword hunt," announced in a decree dated 1587/7. The previous year
  a rebellion in the province of Higo, led by local samurai and supported
  by elements of the cultivator-warrior stratum of rural society, had been
  suppressed only with great difficulty. In the wake of this incident,
  Hideyoshi punished many samurai, and in the following year he pro-
  hibited peasants from bearing weapons of any kind. Impounded were
  long swords as well as short swords, bows, spears, and firearms.
  The total disarmament of the peasantry throughout the country
  moved in pace with the pacification of the daimyo. Previously,
  Nobunaga had depended on village warriors to fill out the ranks of his
  spear columns and infantry corps, and when the flintlock became the
  major weapon of warfare, they constituted the bulk of his musket
  corps and were officially designated as samurai. On the other hand, as
  Hideyoshi conducted land surveys and sword hunts, the former samu-
  rai who elected to remain in the village were no longer permitted to
  bear arms. They now had their lands confirmed by being listed in the
  survey registers as cultivators. Thus, these measures helped support
  the newly erected barrier between the farmer and warrior, and the two
  most important social groups of society were henceforth differentiated
  not only economically but also by social status, as symbolized by the
  bearing of swords. Of course, in rural areas farmers were permitted to
  keep guns for hunting and to fire blanks in order to prevent wildlife
  from destroying crops. They were, however, expected to register these
  guns with regional officials. The size of the ammunition they used was
  regulated, and the number of guns held by a village was checked
  annually.
  Hideyoshi also sought to implement what can be called his small,
  independent farmer policy by prohibiting cultivators from migrating
  from their home villages or changing occupations. Consequently, al-
  though the samurai would accompany a daimyo who was transferred
  to a new domain, the peasants remained in place in their home vil-
  lages. Daimyo sought to maintain or, if possible, to increase the num-
  ber of households subject to payment of the annual land tax (nengu).
  This aim was repeatedly stressed in the ordinances banning the flight
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  484 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  of cultivators, especially those who held official posts. When the num-
  ber of farm families within a village decreased because of unavoidable
  mishaps, such as the death of a household head, the samurai officials
  demanded that village officials seek assistance from the farmer's
  widow and his surviving children to make certain that either their
  family or another would continue to cultivate the holding and pay
  taxes.
  Still other policies, enacted later during the Tokugawa period, also
  promoted stability for the small-scale independent farmer. One matter
  of special concern was the effort to maintain the viability of agricul-
  tural households. A decree in 1649 dealt with a father's bequest to his
  children, and his wish to register each of his children who were en-
  gaged in agriculture. Not only did this decree acknowledge the
  farmer's right to divide the property, but it also recognized each of the
  inheritors as independent farmers. In the Kinai region in the seven-
  teenth century, many personal servants (genin) began to acquire their
  own homes, and most gained official recognition as independent culti-
  vators and full members of the village as well.
  Two important decrees that significantly influenced affairs in the
  countryside were the prohibition against the permanent alienation of
  farmlands (dempata eitai baibai no kinshi) and the decree limiting the
  division of land (bunchi seigen ret).6 Such prohibitions codified many
  measures announced earlier by individual daimyo before the appear-
  ance of Hideyoshi. According to the house laws issued by the Imagawa
  family of Totomi in 1553, for instance, the sale (or mortgage) of
  private lands for a fixed time period after prior notification of the
  authorities was permitted, but the decree still prohibited the perma-
  nent alienation of land.7 A placard from Kaga domain dated 1615
  prohibited the sale of agricultural land, and a 1631 decree stipulated
  that when rice fields were sold, the purchaser was required to collect
  the annual land-tax payments from the original cultivator, serve as
  proxy for the seller, and promise not to sell the land later.8 The prohibi-
  tion against the permanent alienation of land was not incorporated into
  bakufu law until 1643. Up to that time, village deeds clearly recorded
  instances of the permanent sale of agricultural land. Thereafter, in-
  stances of mortgaging and foreclosure continued to occur, and al-
  6 Furushima, Nihon nogyoshi, chap. 7. See also Furushima Toshio chosakushu, vol. 3, pp. 49-59.
  7 Katsumata Shizuo, "Imagawa Kana mokuroku," in Chusei seiji shakai shiso, vol. 21 of Nihon
  shiso laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972).
  8 Nakamura Kichiji, Kinsei shoki ndseishi kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1938), p. 364.
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  THE SENGOKU VILLAGE LEGACY 
  485
  though the prohibition was often repeated, the transfer of land became
  quite widespread by the beginning of the eighteenth century.9
  Decrees that limited the subdivision of land also restricted the redis-
  tribution of land to children other than the eldest son in those cases in
  which the family head held less than a defined minimum amount of
  land. This minimum requirement varied from domain to domain and
  not infrequently changed over time, but a figure of ten koku was
  common. The first appearance of this sort of inheritance restriction
  came in the year 1673, when most people considered approximately
  one hectare of land as the minimum needed to support an ordinary
  small family for a year, and hence to ensure perpetual consanguineous
  possession.10
  The cadastral surveys generally dealt only with cultivated land and
  residential plots. Individual possession and utilization of forestland
  and communal brushland, as well as the use of the lakes, seas, and
  coastlands, did not come under the jurisdiction of any clearly stated
  measure similar to the survey. In the sixteenth century, the rapid
  growth of waterborne commerce led to an increased demand for ship-
  building materials which, along with the growing demand for build-
  ing materials for castles, warrior residences, and the houses and stores
  of the merchants, stipulated the demand for lumber. Consequently,
  many villages began communally to cut timber to sell commercially.
  Forestland also served as a crucial source of fuel necessary for the
  farmer's subsistence. Grass from pastures and forests provided fodder
  for both the samurai's riding horses and the farmers' own workhorses
  and oxen.
  Even more importantly, woodlots became the single most impor-
  tant source of green fertilizer. Under the shoen system, the use of
  mountain woodlands, the collection of grasses for fertilizer, and fish-
  ing in the lakes and seas usually were regulated according to long-
  established customs that obviated the need for official guidelines.
  Local custom also prevailed with respect to the use of village commu-
  nal forests and brushlands. Such lands might be owned by an estate
  proprietor or his officials who were empowered to grant access to the
  stewards, the myoshu, and the peasants who depended on such lands.
  Even after the Taiko survey clearly established the peasantry as a
  landed class, such long-standing local practices would not change
  until well into the Edo period.
  9 Furushima Toshio chosakushu, vol. 3, pp. 57-8. 
  10 Ibid., pp. 59-61.
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  486 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE EARLY MODERN
  VILLAGE
  Although the basic intent of the Taiko cadastral survey was to record the
  names of the heads of small peasant families that cultivated the land in
  order to bring social stability to the countryside and to make these
  families responsible for paying annual land taxes, this goal was not
  completely realized everywhere. Had it been, it would have resulted in a
  situation in which all peasants owned and worked parcels of land of
  approximately the same size. However, entries in registers dating from
  the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries reveal a considerable
  disparity in the assessed value of the lands held by individual farmers,
  even among inhabitants of the same village. A few large families might
  cultivate lands whose productive capacities amounted to as much as two
  hundred or three hundred koku of rice. On the other hand, some individ-
  ual peasant families held less than five koku, and the putative yields of
  others did not amount to even one koku. This inequity arose because
  many village samurai in the regions of Kinai and the mountainous
  reaches of Kanto and Tosan (the old provinces of Hida, Shinano, and
  Kai) were permitted to retain rights of possession and cultivation over
  their hereditary lands. These samurai-turned-peasants might hold
  lands assessed at upwards of three hundred koku, and they were able to
  manage such large possessions only by incorporating branch families
  into their own households and by employing hereditary servants,
  known as hikan, nago, or kadoya. These house servants were owned by
  the heads of households and could be sold or traded.
  In contrast, a more common pattern could be seen among the farm-
  ers who worked lands estimated at ten to twenty koku and who culti-
  vated these lands by relying on the labor of their immediate family and
  relatives. Those farm families who worked only tiny plots were forced
  to lease land from wealthier farmers and to pay rent in kind or in labor
  service. In some very remote villages, there were even some farmers
  who still used the primitive slash-and-burn and field rotation tech-
  niques, and these lands were usually not subject to the annual land
  tax.
  Inequality in the distribution of individual family holdings was also
  reflected in social relationships within the villages. Those farmers who
  possessed large landholdings were able to monopolize the prized, hon-
  orary functions in ceremonies that evoked the village's protective dei-
  ties. In villages near Kyoto such families in fact were considered to
  have the status of samurai. In Honden village in Kawachi, for exam-
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  SOCIAL COMPOSITION 
  487
  pie, only the upper-class villagers participated in the local religious
  ceremonies, and they claimed to be descended from the founders of
  the village." Such farmers were referred to as "the rooted" (neoi) or as
  "the pioneers" (kusawake).
  Quite common in the Kinki region and certain other areas in west-
  ern Japan was the monopoly of religious and ceremonial duties by a
  miyaza, or shrine council, composed of the heads of landholding vil-
  lage families.12 Moreover, in the early Togugawa period, village cere-
  monies were typically conducted by a select "privileged council," or
  kabuza. Still other customs that served to differentiate the older fami-
  lies who constituted the village's upper class from the rest of the
  villagers survived throughout Japan well into the Tokugawa period.
  Even in the early nineteenth century, elite villagers in Mino Province
  were still referred to as "elder" or "head" farmers (otona- or kashira-
  byakusho). In Kano domain, official government edicts gave legal sanc-
  tion to the traditional housing and clothing privileges that were re-
  served for this class. The smaller, more ordinary farmers were called
  "lower" or "adjunct" farmers (jige- or waki-byakusho), and they were
  upposed to live in more humble dwellings.13 In some villages, the
  older and lower-class farmers even patronized separate shrines.
  The gap between the upper-class farmers and the rest of the farming
  population was both a product of traditional social custom and a conse-
  quence of economic privileges and laws favorable to the elite rural
  families. For instance, in the Sengoku period it was common for only
  head farmers to have the right to own forestlands. Moreover, riparian
  works were often carried out by either a so or a coalition of myoshu, and
  this often meant that the village's upper class was able to retain author-
  ity over the distribution of reservoir water. Such privileges and the
  concomitant economic advantages continued to be enjoyed by select
  groups well into the Edo period, and the accompanying social differ-
  ences that had arisen among the inhabitants of pre-Tokugawa villages
  were often preserved for a considerable length of time.
  Although the nationwide land surveys of the late sixteenth and early
  seventeenth centuries established a rough kind of horizontal equity
  among the cultivators, by requiring everyone listed in the survey regis-
  ters to work the land and to pay the annual land taxes, in fact, condi-
  11 See chap. 5 of Furushima Toshio and Nagahara Keiji, eds., Shohin seisan to kisei jinushisei
  (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1954).
  12 See the entry "miyaza" in Terao Hirotaka, comp., Nihon keizaishi jilen, vol 2 (Tokyo: Nihon
  hydronsha, 1940).
  13 See doc. 119 ("Motorogun Miederamura teisho") in Gifu kenshi shiryo, vol. 4.
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  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  tions in the early Tokugawa period allowed a privileged subclass to
  continue to dominate village politics. In some part this can be attrib-
  uted to the concern of many daimyo governments with protecting
  small-scale farmers from falling victim to the insolvency that could be
  brought on by the combined onus of tax payments and the frequently
  heavy expenses associated with conducting official village duties. It
  should also be remembered that early Tokugawa village officials were
  often descended from a privileged class of local elites who had held
  official posts assigned by the earlier civilian proprietors or military
  lords. Thus they could claim that a prestigious lineage entitled them to
  positions of authority, especially as village headmen.
  Beginning about the mid-seventeenth century, however, the practice
  of limiting formal membership in village organizations as well as posi-
  tions of leadership to select members of the village's upper class gradu-
  ally began to change, especially in response to transformations in the
  village economy and domain politics. Sometimes the initiative came
  from below. In many places where the "privileged councils," or
  kabuza, had dominated village affairs, for instance, protests by lower-
  class villagers, who not infrequently took their demands to daimyo or
  shogunal courts, brought about the establishment of "village coun-
  cils," or muraza, which permitted all village families to be represented
  in such ceremonies. Another example, this time concerning access to
  forestlands, comes from Horado village in the mountainous region of
  northern Mino. In 1655 the long-standing claim by wealthy village
  landholders to the exclusive use of nearby forestlands was challenged
  by lower-class farmers who had been denied entry into the forest to
  collect materials for use as fertilizers. The dispute was eventually
  settled in favor of the lower-status farmers, and most of the forestland
  was opened for communal use.14
  Another factor leading to change was the increasing tendency to
  apportion taxes and other dues in proportion to a family's holdings
  relative to the entire village kokudaka. This process can be traced in
  some detail for the villages of Todo domain, located in the ancient
  provinces of Iga and Ise.'5 In principle the annual land rent was based
  on the putative yields recorded in the cadastral survey, and it was paid
  by the cultivators as a percentage of these assessments. During the
  14 Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi no kiso katei, pp. 189-92.
  15 See the 1750 document "Sokokushi," edited by Todo Kobun, for specific ordinances. Particu-
  larly relevant are the details for 1692. This document was published in 1941 by the Kyoiku
  kai of Ueda-machi in Mie Prefecture.
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  SOCIAL COMPOSITION 
  489
  early Tokugawa period, however, the Todo village officials, not the
  common cultivators, came to be held responsible for ensuring that
  their village as a unit delivered the specified amount of its total tax
  assessment to the appropriate domain official. Indeed, village leaders
  were sometimes even held hostage when defaults occurred.
  At first, documents imposing the annual land tax tended merely to
  list a figure that represented the total kokudaka for all old and new
  paddies and dry fields within the village and then demanded a certain
  percentage of tax based on that total, thus treating the village as a
  single tax entity. Consequently, within any given village, taxes often
  were not apportioned according to an individual farmer's assessment
  as specified in the original cadastral survey records. Eventually the
  annual tax assessment documents began to include clauses providing
  that village meetings, in which all village households were repre-
  sented, would decide how to apportion the village's tax burden. The
  earliest instances in Todo domain of villagewide participation in the
  apportionment process date back to 1610, but the practice did not
  appear in the tax documents of Todo domain until approximately
  1650. Furthermore, the apportionments agreed upon within the Todo
  villages had to be written down and witnessed by everyone, and even
  other minor taxes, originally paid exclusively by upper-class house-
  holds, were now divided into equal amounts and paid by all village
  households.
  To continue with the Todo example, in 1649 the domain govern-
  ment conducted a survey of the rural households within its bound-
  aries. A document summarizing the results of the survey noted that
  the number of village households had increased markedly, but it re-
  marked on a decline in the number of so-called official farmers (yakugi
  no hyakusho), a term used in Todo to refer to households that had
  existed in the late Sengoku period and that were traditionally held
  responsible for paying an annual household levy known as the yanami
  yaku, a cash substitute for an older corvee levy. Based on this finding,
  domain officials recommended that the number of households subject
  to this levy be decreased in poor villages and increased in wealthier
  villages. This policy enabled the domain to restore the number of
  households obligated to pay this levy to a figure roughly equivalent to
  what it had been in previous years. Consequently, the term "official
  farmers" had now come to indicate one's degree of wealth, and not
  one's pedigree. Status within the village was now bestowed according
  to the farmer's actual holdings and his ability to pay the village assess-
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  490 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  ment. Those who were able to pay the entire family allotment were
  considered "full" members. Less wealthy peasants who only paid
  seven or eight tenths of the tax were called "seventy percenters" or
  "eighty percenters."
  Policies designed to alter the number and composition of officially
  recognized village members reflect a shift in the pattern of landholding
  that was taking place as a result of the sale of farmland. There was an
  increasing tendency among villagers to apportion all taxes, not just the
  land tax, in accordance with the kokudaka assessment for each family.
  For example, a 1690 decree in Todo ordered that village maintenance
  fees (muranyuyo) were to be borne by the entire village. Village officials
  were also prohibited from taking other farmers along on trips to the
  domain capital, nor were they to employ other farmers to cultivate their
  own lands. The decree also stipulated that servants and members of
  extended families, who had previously been denied standing as separate
  householders, now could become independent farmers if they received
  partitioned lands and established separate, detached domiciles. Two
  years later, in 1692, another decree stipulated that "from this date
  village maintenance fees are to be paid as a proportion of an individual
  family's kokudaka and are not to be divided among village households in
  a manner that fails to reflect differences in wealth." This decree also
  stated that "official farmers" had to pay the village maintenance fee as a
  proportion of their kokudaka. Significantly, the document justified this
  policy by noting that if equal fees were paid by all village households,
  the poorer farmers would be put at a disadvantage.
  In short, the social structure commonly found in most villages in
  the latter half of the Tokugawa period emerged after tax assessments
  began to be levied in proportion to the size of an individual farmer's
  holdings and started to take account of disparities in wealth. New
  nomenclature also appeared that reflected these changes in village
  social stratification. For example, from the beginning of the eigh-
  teenth century, all cultivators with independent holdings were re-
  ferred to as hyakusho or hombyakusho, and the poorer families who
  did not possess their own holdings, and hence did not have a
  kokudaka assignment, were known as mizunomi (literally, "those who
  drink water").
  As the possession of holdings included in a village's official koku-
  daka became the sole criterion for determining hyakusho status, official
  administrative posts, such as village headmen, elder, group household
  head, and farmers' representative (hyakushodai), gradually replaced
  the mixed bag of village-level positions that had been recognized in the
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  SOCIAL COMPOSITION 
  491
  early Tokugawa years.16 Moreover, the method of selecting village
  officials became more open. In the early years of the Tokugawa period,
  village officials were usually appointed by the domain government,
  and almost all were drawn from the same traditional upper-class fami-
  lies, often referred to as the otona-byakusho, or elder farmers, who had
  dominated so many other aspects of village life. But as landholding
  patterns and taxation methods changed, new people felt that they had
  achieved a more equitable standing in the village, and so they began to
  press for administrative changes that would give them a larger voice in
  village political affairs.
  In 1841, for example, a coalition of village officials and otona-
  byakusho of a village in Mino Province submitted a document to the
  local lord that set out guidelines for resolving a dispute that had
  erupted over nominating a man to serve as village headman.17 These
  guidelines established new rules to govern the election of future village
  officials by providing that two members from a group of six former
  elders (toshiyori) would serve alternately as headman for three years
  while the other four continued to serve as elders. This measure essen-
  tially created a six-member council to govern the village. Routine
  village functions were to be carried out by the six elders in consulta-
  tion. All "elder farmers" were allowed to participate in discussions of
  special matters such as the apportionment of the annual land tax, the
  official domain inspection of the rice crop, and the provision of lodg-
  ing for visiting officials. Among the thirteen signatories of the docu-
  ment, social distinctions remained. Only one wrote hyakusho under his
  name. The remaining twelve listed themselves as otona-byakusho, one
  of whom was a farmer's representative, and six of whom were elders.
  The sharp social barriers between farmers who had the status neces-
  sary to become village officials and the lower-class farmers began to
  crumble even more after the 1720s when disturbances and even violent
  demonstrations flared up concerning the election of ordinary peasants
  as village officials, usually in regions where viable markets had devel-
  oped for agricultural goods.18 For instance, in 1642 the shogunate
  16 For a discussion of village offices in English, see Harumi Befu, "Duty, Reward, Sanction and
  Power: The Four Cornered Office of the Tokugawa Village Headman," in Bernard S.
  Silberman and Harry D. Harootunian, eds., Modem Japanese Leadership (Tucson: University
  of Arizona Press, 1966), pp. 25-50; and Harumi Befu, "Village Autonomy and Articulation
  with the State," in John Whitney Hall and Marius B. Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional His-
  tory of Early Modem Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 301-14.
  17 Gifu kenshi shiryd, vol. 4, doc. 133, pp. 594-6.
  18 A detailed discussion of this process in Kurashiki can be found in Thomas C. Smith, The
  Agrarian Origins of Modem Japan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959), pp.
  180-200.
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  492 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  stationed an administrative representative (daikari) at Kurashiki in
  Bitchu, and the town prospered as a port from which the shogunate's
  rice tax was shipped. From this time, thirteen men, known as the
  koroku (ancient lineages), held positions of authority as village officials
  and landlords.
  Beginning in 1700, new fields were developed near the sea, and
  cotton cultivation became increasingly widespread around Kurashiki.
  At the same time, wealthy men who engaged in the cotton trade began
  to appear. They became known as the shinroku (new lineages), and
  beginning in the late eighteenth century they opened a contest, at
  times edging on violence, with the old lineages for positions of author-
  ity in the village. By the 1818-30 period the so-called new lineages had
  emerged as the community's political elite. Under conditions such as
  these, elections in which ballots were formally cast for candidates
  began to be held in many areas throughout Japan. Peasant grievances
  over the unfair distribution of the land-tax burden and the unequal
  imposition of the village maintenance fees were the primary catalysts
  for these disturbances. Important also was dissatisfaction over the
  monopoly by an elite few of honorary positions in village festivals.
  More ordinary farmers now questioned the governing abilities of the
  once-wealthy farmers whose fortunes had declined but who nonethe-
  less continued to hold sway over village politics.
  LAND-TAX REVENUE AND GOVERNMENT FINANCES
  Wealth came from many sources in the Tokugawa period. The mines
  and forests produced important primary resources, and Chapter 11 in
  this volume explains the dynamic growth in commerce during the
  seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet for all the vitality and excite-
  ment associated with the expansion of cities and trade, it must be
  remembered that the rice taxes collected from rural villages consti-
  tuted the basic wealth of the country throughout the entire early mod-
  ern epoch. An appreciation of the important role of the peasantry in
  the economy can be gained from examining the income of the largest
  and most important of the military families, the Tokugawa house, for
  the last century of the regime.
  The extensive Tokugawa domain was officially assessed at between
  3.5 million to 4 million koku. By comparison, the domain of the next
  largest lord, the Maeda house of Kaga, was officially appraised at just
  over 1 million koku, although the annual rice crop was usually nearly
  a third more than that. The Tokugawa family enjoyed many other
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  LAND-TAX REVENUE 
  493
  economic advantages beyond its landholdings. First, the Tokugawa
  house had the benefit of the services of an enormous bureaucracy
  that it entrusted with the task of administering its lands scattered
  throughout Japan. This bureaucracy was distinguished by its exten-
  sive organization, its systematic auditing of accounts, and other fea-
  tures that were later adopted by the Meiji civil service. Moreover, the
  Tokugawa house acquired control over the output of all mines
  throughout Japan, including the rich gold mines of Sado and the
  extensive silver mines of Ikuno and Omori. In addition the Toku-
  gawa house managed the large tracts of forests situated in the Hida
  and Kiso mountains. And finally, the Tokugawa family was able to
  levy taxes on commerce and industry in Edo, Osaka, Kyoto, and
  other cities under its direct administration and to collect revenues
  from the Nagasaki trade.
  Because only secondary sources survive, we do not have accurate
  figures on the shogunate's revenues for the entire Edo period. However,
  it is possible to make calculations derived from documents that are
  extant for certain years. In 1844, for instance, a year for which good
  documentation exists, gross bakufu revenues amounted to 4,011,766
  ryo of gold, of which 1,827,879 ryo was categorized as "regular income"
  and 2,183,887 ryo as "extraordinary revenues."19 The single most impor-
  tant source of revenue was the land tax, which amounted to the equiva-
  lent of some 1,660,000 ryo in 1844. The shogunate also netted about
  583,000 ryo from loan repayments; 839,000 ryo as profits garnered from
  a recoinage that lowered the precious metal content of the coins it
  issued; and 23,629 ryo from forced loans and gifts extracted from
  wealthy merchants and peasants. Lesser but still significant amounts of
  income were derived from mining revenues (62,000 ryo) and transport
  fees (71,000 ryo).
  Clearly, the land tax was the major source of revenues. Such tax
  payments made up 41 percent of the bakufu's total revenues in 1844,
  almost twice the 21 percent of total earnings represented by the second
  largest source of income: recoinage profits. Daimyo who could not
  avail themselves of the special sources of income restricted to the
  Tokugawa house were even more dependent on the land tax. In Kaga
  domain, to take but one example, the land tax during the early decades
  of the nineteenth century accounted for well over 80 percent of all
  domain revenues, or nearly 560,000 koku of rice annually. Although
  Kaga's landed income was exceptionally large in absolute terms, most
  19 Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi no kiso kalei.
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  494 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  domains derived approximately the same percentage of their total reve-
  nues from the rice tax.20
  It is easy to imagine the burden that fulfilling the annual tax obliga-
  tions presented to the average household farm. Many specific taxes
  were typically lumped together to make up the average family's annual
  tax obligation. The most important of these was the "basic tax"
  (honnengu), calculated as a proportion of the official, estimated yields
  on surveyed lands. Added to this were the various miscellaneous taxes
  (komononari) that were imposed on fixed assets: the boats that plied
  the rivers and seas, the soaking bins used for making paper, the large
  pots used for boiling seawater to make salt, and even the possession
  and use of forestland. These taxes were usually small sums paid as user
  or licensing fees rather than as a percentage of output or profit. In the
  early Edo period, there was also a labor corvee imposed on each regis-
  tered farm household, and this was later converted into a cash pay-
  ment calculated as a percentage of kokudaka holdings. Another levy -
  one that won little favor with local farmers - was imposed from the
  mid-Tokugawa period and required the villages located along the ma-
  jor highways maintained by the shogunate, the Tokaido, Nakasendo,
  Nikko Kaido, and Koshu Kaido, as well as those dotting the highways
  constructed by individual daimyo, to provide packhorses for official
  communications and transport.
  The payment of these taxes resulted in severe hardships for most of
  the peasantry, and official policies often seemed to be designed to leave
  the peasants with only the minimal income necessary for their contin-
  ued existence. The draconian spirit of the shogunate's officials is re-
  vealed in a few well-known sayings that have come down to us.21
  Honda Masanobu (1538-1616), a daimyo closely allied with Tokugawa
  Ieyasu, urged his officials to estimate a peasant's annual output and his
  consumption needs and then to calculate the basic tax so that it would
  soak up every surplus grain of rice. "The proper way to govern is to
  ensure that peasants don't accumulate wealth yet don't starve either."
  Ieyasu advised his rural intendants to govern the peasant by "making
  certain they can neither live nor die." Kan'o Haruhide, the finance
  magistrate in 1749 when the shogunate increased its tax levies, com-
  20 For a general discussion of domain finances, see Aono Shunsui, Daimyo to ryomin (Tokyo:
  Kyoikusha, 1983); pp. 70-91; and Kitajima Masamoto, Bakuhansei kokka kailai katei no
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), esp. pp. 1-28.
  21 This quotation and others similar to those that follow can be found in many texts. See
  Furushima, Nihon nogydshi, pp. 173—6, as well as vol. 22 (Shiryo-hen, Nihon, kinsei-hen) of
  the Sekai rekishijiten (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1955).
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  LAND-TAX REVENUE 
  495
  pared the peasants to sesame seeds: "The harder you squeeze them,
  the more you can extract from them."
  The harshness of the tax burden is also revealed in the expenditure
  records of village officials from several domains. During a normal har-
  vest year, most peasant families could usually manage to make ends
  meet with the income left to them after paying the land tax. Successive
  poor harvests, however, could make it impossible for some households
  in hard-hit areas to survive. Rice production was frequently ruined by
  insect plagues, especially in the southwestern regions, by extended
  spells of cold weather during the summer growing season in the north-
  east, and by rain and wind damage during the autumn typhoon season
  across the entire country. Unseasonally cold weather brought special
  dread to farm villages throughout the Tokugawa period. During cool
  summers, outbreaks of rice blast could wipe out the year's entire rice
  harvest over large regions. Cold temperatures usually damaged other
  grain crops as well, leaving peasant families without any food at all to
  subsist on. During the Temmei famine, which lasted from 1782 to 1785,
  and the great Tempo famines that occurred in the 1830s, tens of thou-
  sands of peasants throughout Japan died from starvation and disease.
  Adding to the crushing weight placed on the peasantry were the
  revised tax collection procedures authorized by the shogunate during
  the early eighteenth century in order to counter its own gradual de-
  cline in revenue collection. Many of these revisions were first ordered
  by the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, as part of his famous Kyoho Re-
  forms. Surviving documents permit a glimpse at the effect these new
  procedures had on tax rates and gross tax collections on shogunal lands
  over the subsequent century.
  These changes can be divided into four distinct phases, the first
  covering the twenty years of the Kyoho period itself, from 1716 to
  1736. Among the reforms instituted during this period was the so-
  called jomen, or fixed-rate system, first introduced to selected villages
  in 1724. Under this system, a village's tax rate would be set for a fixed
  period, usually three, five, or ten years. If more than 30 percent of the
  anticipated harvest was then destroyed by natural causes during one of
  the fixed periods, the tax rate would be temporarily lowered. Under
  the new procedures the taxation rate was reviewed after each period,
  and the government probably expected regular upward revisions. This
  reform had an immediate impact on the shogunate's income. Total
  annual revenues, which had previously hovered around 1.4 million
  koku, leapt immediately to 1.5 million koku. In 1727, the shogunate
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  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  collected 1.62 million koku, and this caused rice prices to plunge. Five
  years later, in 1732, however, crop failures occurred in Kyushu and
  the Chugoku region, and subsequent annual revenues returned to the
  1.4 miWion-koku level.
  During the second stage of reform, from 1737 to 1764, tax collec-
  tions rose to new peak levels. Early in this phase, the shogunate initi-
  ated the use of the "actual inspection" method (arige kemi) in which the
  levy for each field was calculated as a fixed percentage of the putative
  yield, as determined by a visual inspection of the crop. This new
  practice permitted the shogunate's officials to monitor more closely the
  crop conditions, and it resulted in enhanced revenue collections. The
  well-known scholar and government adviser Honda Toshiaki (1744-
  1821), however, believed the actual inspection system to be a perni-
  cious practice, and he attributed the frequent outbreaks of famine in
  the Kan to and Tohoku regions to its widespread adoptation. Be that as
  it may, in 1744, the revenues derived by the shogunate from land taxes
  reached a record high of 1.8 million koku. Five years later, in 1749, the
  system was officially extended over the entire country, and for the next
  sixteen years the shogunate's annual land-tax revenues ranged between
  1.65 million and 1.7 million koku, with the exception of one year when
  they temporarily fell to 1.55 million koku.12
  Such high levels of tax collection could not be maintained for long
  without inviting protest from the peasantry, who were wont to inter-
  pret any perceived hike in tax collections as unjust and unfair. Peasant
  attitudes had changed since 1710, the eve of the Kyoho Reforms.
  Before the Kyoho era, there were rarely more than ten incidents of
  violent protests by peasants in any given year. But fifteen violent
  protests erupted in the year following the record tax collections of
  1744, and in 1749, thirty-one violent outbursts took place, with more
  than ten incidents recorded for each of nine of the thirteen years of the
  Horeki era (1751-63).23
  The third stage of tax reform witnessed even more agrarian unrest. In
  1766, tax collections had receded to the 1.55 million-fco&K level, where
  they remained until 1780, only to decline rapidly again after the disas-
  trous harvests of 1783 and 1786. These nationwide crop failures were
  caused by summer cold spells, which were due chiefly to the large
  22 Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi no kisokatei, pp. 335-41.
  23 Ibid., p. 271. A convenient introduction to recent interpretations concerning popular protest
  is Aoki Michio et al., eds., Ikki, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1981-2). The
  most comprehensive listing of popular dissent is Aoki Koji, Hyakusho ikki no nenji-teki kenkyu
  (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1966).
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  LAND-TAX REVENUE 
  497
  amounts of volcanic ash thrown into the atmosphere by an eruption of
  Mt. Asama. The poor harvests brought on a significant number of
  peasant demonstrations, and the shogunate announced that penalties
  would be imposed on leaders of such protests and that government
  forces would be empowered to fire on rebellious peasants. Despite the
  threat of government suppression, continuing outrage against tax in-
  creases made it difficult for the shogunate to consider any further hikes.
  The fourth stage spanned the period from 1787 to 1819, correspond-
  ing to the years that Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758-1829) served as
  senior councilor and to the first half of Shogun Ienari's administration.
  Although the shogunate's expenditures for the construction of tem-
  ples, shrines, and coastal fortifications suddenly increased, the sho-
  gunate was able to keep its budget under control by compelling the
  daimyo to contribute significant portions of the expenses for these
  projects. Consequently, the shogunate was able to manage with less
  revenue, often with just 1.55 million koku a year, and tax rates fell
  accordingly. Indeed, the principal dissimilarity between the second
  and fourth stages was in the different rates of taxation. During the last
  sixteen years of the second stage (1748-64), the taxation rate hovered
  between 37 and 39 percent of the tax base, with the exception of one
  year. By contrast, during the fourth stage there were only three years
  in which the taxation rate approached 35 percent, and for three years
  the rate fell below 32 percent.
  Despite the extreme hardship brought on by periodic famines and
  unpredictable yet sharp tax increases from time to time, living condi-
  tions for much of the peasantry improved during the course of the Edo
  period, thanks in part to advances in agricultural technology. A key
  factor in this process was that the rural upper classes accumulated
  large agricultural surpluses which they then used to develop and intro-
  duce the new technologies. These surpluses were a consequence of
  certain features of the tax collection system at the time it was first
  implemented. During the Taiko survey, all villages within a specified
  region were classified into three categories according to their total
  yields, and all farmland within a village was further graded as superior,
  average, poor, or even "especially poor" quality land. In mountainous
  regions, land was classified as either "mountain paddy" or "mountain
  field" land. In the Kinai region, the rank of "especially superior" was
  given to land of extremely high quality, and in other regions, similar
  distinctions were made among different grades of land to reflect ex-
  pected variances in yields. Despite this multiplicity of grades, how-
  ever, the documentary record for specific regions reveals that the grada-
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  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  tions in the tax scale applied to lands of very different quality were
  actually quite small.
  In the early Tokugawa period, moreover, land taxes were typically
  assessed as a percentage of the total village kokudaka, and this tended
  to translate into a low percentage tax rate for high-yield lands, and a
  relatively high tax rate for low-yield lands, if for no other reason than
  that the farmers who owned the better lands often had more influence
  in the village assemblies that apportioned the tax levy. Thus, the
  burden of meeting the annual tax payments fell inequitably on the
  small-scale farmers. Those who found themselves unable to pay their
  dues were forced to sell part or all of their land, falling into the status
  of indentured servant. While the small farmer eked out his living, the
  agrarian upper class, paying a lesser proportion of their yield as taxes,
  accumulated surpluses that provided the funds to develop and intro-
  duce new technology.
  Changes in peasant life during the Edo period were also related to
  fluctuations in the amount of annual land-tax revenues collected over
  time. Thus the decline in the shogunate's tax revenues that began in
  the 1760s, as we noted, as well as the drop in percentage rates in the
  early nineteenth century, permitted some members of the agrarian
  class to gather funds to invest in technology. Moreover, it is clear that
  the amount of rice extracted through land taxes also began to level off
  in many individual daimyo domains during the eighteenth century.24
  This was the case in such widely separated domains as Satsuma, Kaga,
  and Aizu-Wakamatsu. As with shogunal lands, this left a surplus in
  the hands of the peasants, who could then plow them back into techno-
  logical improvements or buy the new kinds of foods, clothing, and
  housing that did so much to change the quality of life in rural villages,
  as described in Chapter 13 in this volume.
  IRRIGATION AND LAND RECLAMATION
  Many of the rural upper classes who accumulated surpluses increas-
  ingly invested them in irrigation and land reclamation projects. They
  were joined in this effort by the daimyo, who anticipated that such
  projects would broaden their tax base by expanding rice production.25
  24 Land taxes are discussed in Aono, Daimyo to ryomin. In English, Thomas C. Smith examined
  the stabilization of rates, especially in Kaga domain, in his "The Land Tax in the Tokugawa
  Period," in Hall and Jansen, eds., Studies, pp. 283-99.
  25 A thorough discussion of irrigation and land reclamation projects can be found in Kozo
  Yamamura, "Returns on Unification: Economic Growth in Japan, 1550-1560," in John
  Whitney Hall, Keiji Nagahara, and Kozo Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa: Political
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  IRRIGATION AND LAND RECLAMATION 
  499
  Indeed, in the late Sengoku and early Edo periods, the daimyo often
  took the initiative in sponsoring such projects, as they had the political
  authority needed to mobilize large labor forces and the capital neces-
  sary to finance these efforts.
  One of the most noteworthy flood control and irrigation projects of
  the late sixteenth century was undertaken by the daimyo Takeda
  Shingen (1521-73) in the area between the Kamanashi and Fuefuki
  rivers to the south of Kofu city, an area already blessed with one of
  Japan's highest per acre yields for wet-field rice. The Midai River,
  which fed into the Kamanashi, was redirected north to join the
  Kamanashi at a point where there are cliffs on the opposite shore.
  Over time, Shingen then constructed dikes that would direct water
  toward the Kamanashi in such a manner that whenever the rivers
  flooded, the spillover would flow gently onto the farmland behind the
  dikes. During the Edo period, these dikes were gradually moved
  closer to the river, and by the 1750s riparian technology had improved
  to a level that enabled the completion of a continuous dike encircling
  the entire southern section of Kofu. During this period, the tributaries
  of the original Kamanashi River were then converted into irrigation
  canals.
  Even more sophisticated projects later became possible as the Japa-
  nese improved the riparian technology available to them. For example,
  engineers learned how to construct sluices near the rapids that usually
  formed at the point where mountain rivers spilled out onto the plains,
  thus converting natural waterways into irrigation canals, so that a
  constant flow of water could be maintained through both dry and
  rainy seasons. Moreover, by the seventeenth century, domain construc-
  tion offices were able to plan more complexly designed systems of
  reservoirs. In Sanuki Province on Shikoku, for example, construction
  teams blocked off ravines to provide reservoir storage during the au-
  tumn and winter, drawn from the upper reaches of rivers in that
  area.26 These new reservoirs were linked to older, existing reservoirs in
  order to form an interlocking irrigation system that would ensure a
  steady supply of water throughout the growing season.
  The new castle towns often benefited from these riparian projects.
  In Kanazawa, for instance, engineers designed a system of inter-
  Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500-1650 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
  1981), pp. 327-72. Also see William W. Kelly, "Water Control in Tokugawa Japan: Irrigation
  Organization in a Japanese River Basin, 1600-1870," in Cornell University East Asian Pa-
  pers, no. 31 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982).
  26 Furushima, Nihon ndgyoshi, pp. 231-2.
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  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  linking canals several dozens of miles in length that drew water from
  two rivers and delivered it to key points within the city. They even
  invented a unique siphon pump to move the water uphill at one
  point.27 Initially, the city of Edo relied on Inogashira Pond, located
  some twenty kilometers to the west of the city, for its water supply.
  But from 1650, the city began to channel water in from the upper
  reaches of the Tama River, after an extensive canal system was laid out
  on the plateau west of Edo.28
  Providing for a more constant supply of water was only one of many
  methods used to increase agricultural production during the Edo pe-
  riod. Land was also reclaimed from the bays and shallow tidal marshes
  facing the Pacific Ocean and the seas off western Kyushu, as well as
  from Seto Inland Sea. Most of this land was very fertile, as it was
  composed of rich silt deposited by rivers. Engineers constructed break-
  waters, and the trapped saline water was pumped or allowed to flow
  out through the gates at low tide. The scale of reclamation projects
  grew considerably as technology improved. Often by the 1700s more
  than one hundred hectares of land were being reclaimed at a time.
  At first, only the daimyo had the resources to carry out large-scale
  reclamation schemes, but during the seventeenth century, wealthy
  merchants and peasants also began to finance coastal projects. The
  funding provided by Yoshida Kambei (1611-86) for the reclamation of
  a portion of Edo Bay was one of the earliest examples of the mer-
  chants' participation in large-scale land development.29 There, fields
  were reclaimed from the delta region of the Ooka River, situated just
  behind what would later become the port of Yokohama. Drainage
  work for the project was initiated in 1656, although construction had
  to be halted the next year owing to tidal damage. Work was resumed in
  1659, and the project was completed only after Edo merchants re-
  sponded to a call for additional investment funds from Yoshida, whose
  name then became linked with the project. Another example comes
  from Osaka, where in 1685 merchants began to invest in the reclama-
  tion of the marshland located near the delta of the Yodo River.30
  Merchant-inspired land development projects continued for several
  decades in this region. The reclamation of an old riverbed of the
  27 The siphon system is described in Nishi Setsuko, "Tatsumi yosui repoto," Rekishi techo 2
  (May 1974): 31-4.
  28 Doboku gakkai, ed., Meiji izen Nihon dobokushi, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1936), pp.
  1436-42.
  29 Yokohama shiyakusho, ed., Yokohama-shi shi, vol. 3 (Yokohama: Yokohama shiyakusho,
  1958), PP- 670-8.
  30 Matsuyoshi Sadao, Shinden no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1936).
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  IRRIGATION AND LAND RECLAMATION 
  50I
  Yamato River, begun in 1707, as well as the drainage of additional
  marshes helped make the Osaka area the nation's most productive
  agricultural region, starting in the 1700s.
  Many projects during the Edo period were made possible by the
  joint effort and investments of both political overlords and wealthy
  farmers and merchants. Governing officials, of course, saw such proj-
  ects as a means of expanding the tax base, whereas farmers and mer-
  chants viewed them as a means of enhancing their own income. One
  famous example of such a joint effort occured in Echigo in the 1720s
  when the shogunate authorized Edo merchants to provide the financial
  backing that permitted local farmers to convert coastal swamps into
  paddy fields.
  In some cases, however, land reclamation became a new source of
  friction that threatened village harmony or led to disagreements be-
  tween farmers and government authorities. Kumazawa Banzan (1619-
  91), a seventeenth-century Confucian scholar, noted that the large
  amount of reclaimed paddy in Bizen Province would deprive the older
  fields of water and fertilizer.31 To take another example, the increase in
  the amount of arable land forced some daimyo in Sanuki to measure
  the water level of the reservoirs during the spring and then to set limits
  on the acreage that the farmers could plant in rice during that year.32
  Farmers everywhere were keen to secure sufficient supplies of water
  for the spring planting season and the months of rapid plant growth
  during the summer. This not infrequently set off a sharp competition
  among farmers from the same, or even different, villages whose irriga-
  tion systems shared the same water source. Consequently, care had to
  be taken to allocate water equitably over the entire irrigation system.
  Gates, locks, and other facilities were constructed to guarantee a fair
  distribution of water, and watering was often done on a daily or even
  hourly rotational basis. Decisions regarding the dispensation of water
  essentially defined the length of the rice-planting season and deter-
  mined where the seedlings, later transplanted to rice paddies, were
  first set and the amount of land that could be planted with a winter
  grain crop. Because individual households were unable to secure water
  supplies on their own, they were forced into cooperating with other
  members of their or neighboring villages in order to carry out their
  31 See Kumazawa's "Shugi gaisho," in Takimoto Seiichi, ed., Nikon keizai sdsho, vol. 33 (To-
  kyo: Nihon keizai sdsho kanokai, 1917), p. 222. Chapter 3 in vol. 3 of my Furushima Toshio
  chosakushu has many examples in which people complain to the shogunate concerning the
  opening of new fields.
  32 Furushima, Nihon nogyoshi, pp. 234-5.
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  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  agricultural tasks. When quarrels erupted, officials often had to be
  called in to mediate a settlement.
  The same was especially true in areas where double cropping was
  practiced. Typically, the second crop was barley, wheat, or rapeseed.
  In order to plant such grains, a farmer had to drain and till the fields
  after the fall harvest. Because the fields were kept dry during the
  winter, they required proportionately more water when reflooded in
  the spring, a time of peak demand. This contributed to water short-
  ages and sparked additional disagreements among neighbors. To dissi-
  pate such frictions, officials in Todo domain in 1649 moved to discour-
  age double cropping, ordering its peasants to reduce the size of the
  winter grain crop to two-thirds of normal yields. The same decree also
  stipulated that the land-tax rate would remain unchanged even when
  there were crop failures, and the officials warned that farmers who
  diverted their labor to tilling their newly reclaimed fields, to the detri-
  ment of their registered paddy fields, would not be granted tax relief.
  AGRICULTURAL USE OF FORESTLAND
  The availability of good land and an adequate supply of water were
  not, in themselves, sufficient to guarantee stable agricultural outputs
  during the early modern period. Farmers also had to maintain the
  fertility of their paddy fields by gathering shrubs, shoots, and grasses
  from marginal lands for use as green manure or for mixing with horse
  and cow manure. Nearby woodlands provided many of life's other
  necessities - wood for sheds, outbuildings, irrigation canals, and fire-
  wood; roof thatch; and such supplementary foods as greens, fruits,
  and mushrooms. Tree buds, grass shoots, and roots also served as
  emergency foods that helped the peasants survive, however miserably,
  through the worst stretches of famine. Because the woodlands played
  an indispensable role in the agricultural process and the daily lives of
  the agrarian population, the peasantry was intensely concerned about
  their supervision and use.
  During the Sengoku period, the valuable woodlands and marginal
  wastelands usually belonged to the estate proprietor, and individual
  peasants could gain entry only on the basis of negotiations worked out
  between the proprietor and the village community, which over time
  tended to coalesce into an accepted definition of custom and precedent
  governing access to the bounty of the forests. In the Edo period, two
  forces worked to change these local traditions. The first came from the
  top down as daimyo moved to assert their authority over their realm.
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  AGRICULTURAL USE OF FORESTLAND 
  503
  From the late sixteenth century, daimyo needed building materials in
  order to construct their castle towns. Even later, demand remained
  high as the country's cities were ravaged periodically by fires. Conse-
  quently the daimyo regulated the felling of trees that could be used for
  construction materials. At first, they tended to declare the dense for-
  ests in remote mountains that contained the largest trees as being off
  limits to the farmers, though the lords still permitted villagers access
  to the smaller woodlands that surrounded the agricultural plots. Later,
  many daimyo barred the peasants from cutting zelkova, cedar, cy-
  press, fir, hemlock, and other prime timber on these smaller wood-
  lands. In time, the shogunate and most daimyo designated all timber
  stands as "the lord's forest" and strictly prohibited any unauthorized
  cutting of trees.33
  The second force for change came from inside the village commu-
  nity itself. In the medieval period, the local conventions worked out
  with proprietors had typically provided only for a village's elite, land-
  holding families to have access to the forests, whereas the commoner
  farmers usually could enter the forest only by virtue of their estab-
  lished relationships with the elites. In time, however, the commoner
  farmers became inclined to consider such privileges as rights, and they
  came to view nearby forestland as communal property from which
  they could gather firewood and materials for building and for aging
  into fertilizer. In many places by the mid-seventeenth century, villag-
  ers were demanding that the forests be opened to the whole commu-
  nity. Government officials were usually invited to mediate such dis-
  putes, and the typical solution was to reserve a small portion of the
  forestland for the person claiming ownership and to open most of the
  remaining land for communal use.
  Although the documentation for this evolution of rights to for-
  estland is sketchy, it appears that as elite control broke down, the use
  of communal forests came to be regulated by the village covenant,
  which guaranteed equal access to the forests.34 Infractions of the vil-
  lage covenant could be punished by the withdrawal of such rights, and
  the eyes of the village youth association (wakamonogumi) enforced
  compliance. The covenant determined the opening day and length of
  the periods during which entry into the forests would be allowed. The
  first day of each gathering season was usually referred to as the day of
  "opening the gates to the mountains." After inspecting the growth of
  33 Forestry policy is the subject of Conrad Totman, The Origins of Japan's Modern Forests: The
  Case of Akita (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985).
  34 Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi no kiso katei, pp. 186-94.
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  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  rice seedlings and meadow grasses, the village officials would desig-
  nate a day during which grass used for mulch could be cut, usually two
  or three days before the seedlings were transplanted to the paddies.
  There were separate opening days and periods for collecting fodder
  that would be used for farm animals, for gathering the hay spread on
  barn floors during the winter, and for cutting firewood and roof
  thatch.
  Daimyo and village alike enforced other restrictions so as to protect
  the forests' resources. Most daimyo permitted peasants to use only
  sickles and scythes when in the woodlands so that they would not
  damage large, valuable trees. Frequently, village covenants included a
  provision prohibiting the sale of harvested grasses, especially to peas-
  ants from other villages. Similarly, a farmer's consumption of forest
  products was limited to the amount of grass required to fertilize his
  paddy fields and the amount of hay that had to be mixed with the
  manure in his compost pits. Equal access did not mean equal division
  of forest and meadow products among all households. Instead, the
  yield from the meadows and forests was typically divided among farm-
  ers according to the size of a farmer's landholdings and the number of
  people in his family.
  This system underwent additional changes during the latter half of
  the Tokugawa period. A farmer's yearly take from the woodlands came
  to be perceived as a right held by every farming household, and these
  allotments began to be bartered and sold. Some households were as-
  signed plots in woodlands, initially for limited periods of time. Such
  assignments gradually became permanent, and individual households
  began to ignore village or communal claims to the forests and wood-
  lands. Some farmers planted thickets in order to sell the yield as
  firewood, and others produced and marketed charcoal. Forestland was
  cleared and converted into paddy land, and meadowland was forested
  so that farmers could sell trees for use as lumber. This privatization
  and commercialization of communal lands became especially prevalent
  after 1800.
  TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE
  The previous sections have examined how several aspects of agricul-
  tural life changed over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is
  now possible to take a more comprehensive view of the evolving agri-
  cultural community and to elaborate on the relationship between the
  transformations in village life and the changes in the mode of agricul-
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  TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE 
  505
  tural production. During the Edo period, agriculture passed through
  three technological stages of varying degrees of complexity: the slash-
  and-burn technique, the self-contained village economy, and the com-
  mercialized cash crop economy - and the shift from one stage to an-
  other lay at the bottom of three different life-styles.35
  Slash-and-burn farming
  The most rudimentary type of farming relied on slash-and-burn tech-
  niques. The so-called agricultural servants such as hikan and nago, as
  well as other subordinate peasant families who provided labor services
  for the large farming households, often used this method on their
  marginal holdings in poor, upland areas. But in secluded mountains
  and on isolated islands, whole villages employed this primitive technol-
  ogy. The isolated regions of the Chichibu district in Musashi, the
  Shibayama district of Hyuga, and Tsushima Island are prominent
  examples. In these areas, farmers would typically raze sections of
  forestland. Trees, shrubs, and grasses within delineated areas were cut
  and burned on the site, and farmers could then grow crops in the ashes
  for two to five years. The farmers did not bother to apply fertilizers to
  preserve the soil's fertility, as the ashes usually provided sufficient
  nutrients to produce crops for several years. After yields fell to ineffi-
  cient levels, the farmers would abandon the land. However, the land
  could be used again after a lapse of several years, once it had become
  overgrown with small trees and shrubs.
  Another aspect of slash-and-burn farming was that fields did not
  need to be plowed. Plots were kept small enough to be leveled with
  rakes and bamboo brooms after removing any branches that had not
  been reduced to ashes in the fire. Hence, the only tools needed for
  cultivation were a sickle for cutting grass, hand axes for felling trees,
  and the rakes and bamboo brooms used to level the ashes. These
  plots were usually planted with such crops as buckwheat, soybeans,
  and foxtail millet, and farmers on Tsushima also grew wheat and
  barley. Productivity, however, was quite low; yields amounted to only
  three or four times the amount of seed sown, whereas ordinary rice
  paddies usually yielded between thirty to fifty times the amount of
  seed sown.
  Because fields created with slash-and-burn techniques were often
  situated in hilly or mountainous areas, crops were vulnerable to dam-
  35 Ibid., pp. 238-72, for additional details.
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  age from wildfowl, boar, and deer. When harvest time approached, the
  villagers put up temporary huts near the fields from which they kept
  watch in order to ward off predators. On Tsushima, for instance,
  farmers constructed wooden palisades to keep out wild boar. Hence,
  once fields had been burned over on this island, they had to be left idle
  until enough wood for making palisades could be cut from nearby
  trees. Good land thus had to be held out of production for fifteen
  years, poor land for up to twenty-five years.
  Self-sufficient farming
  The phrase "self-sufficient farming," used here in contrast with "com-
  mercialized farming," should not be taken to mean that individual
  farmers, or even entire villages, relied completely on the goods and
  crops they produced themselves. Rather, villagers who engaged in
  these self-sufficient practices had a traditional peasant mentality. That
  is, they did not engage in commercial agriculture in order to accumu-
  late wealth that could then be used to create new and different modes
  of living. Rather, their aim was more modest and was bound by the
  concerns of their ancient village customs. Thus, they grew commercial
  crops and engaged in trade only to the extent necessary to acquire
  commodities that would permit them to sustain life at a traditional
  level. To this end, they tended to shun the market whenever possible
  and to produce items for sale only within the context of an assured
  production for subsistence. Typically, the proceeds from such sales
  would then be used to buy goods that could not be produced on the
  homestead.36
  Examples of this kind of production are abundant for the early
  Tokugawa period. With the exception of those living near the sea, for
  instance, most farmers were forced to rely on outsiders for salt, be-
  cause of the lack of rock salt deposits in Japan. Moreover, iron and
  other metals used for farm tools and household goods usually had to be
  acquired from a limited number of mining regions. After 1680, cotton
  replaced cruder fibers as the most common material for clothing, and
  peasants began to buy secondhand cotton clothes, ginned cotton, and
  cotton cloth from external sources. At first, the farmers simply bar-
  tered their crops for the goods they needed from outside, but then
  they started to pay for them more frequently with cash. People in the
  36 Most readers will be aware of the similarity between this sort of peasant mentality in Japan
  and the general ideas about peasant attitudes toward commerce expressed by Eric Wolf in his
  Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. xiv-v.
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  TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE 
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  Tsuzuki district (gun) in Musashi, for example, acquired their salt in
  the early Tokugawa period from villages in the neighboring Kuraki
  district. The exchange was by barter, with the salt producers in
  Kuraki receiving firewood, which they used as a fuel to make the salt.
  Later, the Tsuzuki villagers began to sell their firewood to inns in Edo
  and along the Tokaido highway, where they got a better price, and
  they used that cash to buy salt.37
  Villagers in many regions were able to remain self-sufficient during
  the early modern period because of their access to water and for-
  estland. An abundant water supply was necessary for wet-rice cultiva-
  tion, which provided the bulk of the land tax, and free use of forests
  provided the basis for self-sufficiency in everyday essentials. We have
  already noted that the ready availability of materials for constructing
  flood control and riparian works made cash expenditures unnecessary
  in most daily transactions. But even more important to agricultural
  self-sufficiency were the fertilizers gathered from the forests and the
  wild fodder collected from marginal lands. Farmers were thus able to
  continue self-sufficient farming on the same farmland despite inten-
  sive cultivation because they could maintain the fertility of the soil
  with these self-gathered fertilizers.
  The three most important fertilizers were "gathered mulch" (kari-
  shiki), livestock manure, and human waste. Tall grasses, shoots that
  grew from the stumps of felled broad-leaved trees, and the leaves of
  shrubs were used for mulch and were laid directly on the paddies.
  Livestock manure was mixed with leftover fodder, dried autumn
  grasses, forage, and rice straw. Horses and cattle were used to till the
  fields and to transport goods, but their most important role was as a
  source of manure. This is revealed in the design of stables of this
  period. Stable floors were dug out to accommodate the addition of
  straw and grass, and the roofs were raised in order to allow the
  manure - hay mixture to pile up into large heaps. The stable manure
  was shoveled out monthly and piled in the yard. When it reached a
  sufficient age and height, the manure would be transferred to the
  fields. Farmers' almanacs recommended that hay and grasses be fed to
  animals from all four sides of the stable to ensure a proper blend of the
  manure and uneaten fodder.38 Farmers who fertilized paddy fields
  with cut grasses used this fodder-manure mixture for dry fields. In
  villages without livestock, pits were dug in the yard and filled with cut
  37 Yokohama-shishi, vol. 4, pp. 504-5. See also vol. 11, pp. 971-4.
  38 Furushima, Nihon nogyoshi, chap. 6, esp. pp. 250-3.
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  508 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  grass, straw, chaff, wastewater from the kitchen, and human waste.
  This mixture was allowed to decompose and then was then applied to
  the fields in place of the animal manure and fodder mixture.
  Fertilization with night soil has often been viewed as a hallmark of
  Japanese agriculture. Naturally, the bodily waste from an average
  household was not sufficient to maintain the fertility of its farmlands.
  But farmers from villages located near cities and post towns were able
  to collect human waste from these communities in exchange for a few
  vegetables and some glutinous rice cakes during the New Year's sea-
  son. Night soil was used to fertilize land planted with rice, grain, or,
  quite often, vegetables. A thriving night soil trade developed in cities
  like Edo and Osaka, as well as regional castle towns such as Kanazawa,
  and "ladler guilds" were formed in these cities to cater to outlying
  villages.39
  Improved tools and their expanded availability were also responsi-
  ble for helping Tokugawa villagers achieve self-sufficiency. Advances
  in agricultural efficiency came slowly in those isolated areas where
  most holdings were too small to utilize the new technology efficiently.
  Consequently, the farmer who held less than one hectare of farmland
  continued to rely on the hoe, which he used as an all-purpose tool for
  tilling, leveling the ground, preparing the soil, and even for cutting
  grass. In most regions, however, change came more quickly and was a
  product not only of the farmer's desire to grow more but also of his
  lord's will that he do so.
  Studies of several domains reveal that blacksmiths residing in castle
  towns were frequently ordered by the daimyo to produce iron-bladed
  hoes for farmers who were unable to make them on their own. Ini-
  tially, the blades were paid for in rice when the land tax was collected.
  By the 1680s, blacksmiths had begun to move permanently to villages
  so that they could expand their business of repairing and selling farm
  tools and blades. In some instances, the villages paid a small part of
  the village maintenance fee to the blacksmith for his services, and
  most repairs were probably paid for in kind. By the 1730s such smiths
  had invented several kinds of highly specialized hoes. The split-bladed
  "Bitchu hoe" was designed for improved tilling, and a hoe especially
  for cutting grass was also being manufactured. Wealthy farmers who
  employed servants and kept livestock would, of course, have used
  horse- or ox-drawn plows, but the ordinary peasants had to make do
  with a nagatoko. This Was a plow with a long wooden base and a cast-
  39 Kobayashi Shigeru, Nihon shinyo mondai genryuko (Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 1984).
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  TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE 
  509
  iron blade that had to be pushed by hand, and it could not cut even as
  deeply as a hoe could.40
  The second most important farm tool was the sickle. It was usu-
  ally used for weeding and cutting grass, as well as for chopping
  down shrubs, trimming branches, and even hacking down trunks of
  small trees. Sickles were even pressed into service as weapons by the
  disarmed peasantry. With the sickle and hoe, the peasants could
  carry out all of their farm duties. Moreover, they needed to buy only
  the blades for these tools, as the handles and all other farm imple-
  ments could be made by using material gathered from the communal
  forestlands.4'
  Self-sufficient agriculture was also defined and limited by the vari-
  ety of crops cultivated and by the tiny amount of land available to grow
  these different crops. Self-sufficient farmers paid their land taxes in
  kind and usually planted all of their arable paddies with rice. If they
  double-cropped their fields, they would most often grow wheat and
  barley (usually more of the former than the latter) as winter crops to
  feed their households. Wheat was usually ground into flour and eaten
  as noodles or dumplings. For home consumption, dry fields were
  planted with soybeans, millet, buckwheat, large white radishes, sweet
  potatoes (in western Japan), and taro, especially along the Pacific
  seacoast from Ise eastward into Suruga. Bits and pieces of spare land
  around residences were also turned into gardens and planted with a
  variety of vegetables.
  An agricultural manual from a secluded mountain village in Shimo-
  tsuke with a preface dated 1808 describes a typical harvest.42 The
  writer was a village headman (nanushi) who held nearly seven hectares
  of land, about half of which was cultivated by his household in 1814.
  However, the average peasant who appears in this manual farmed only
  0.2 hectares of paddy and an equal amount of dry field. In one case
  mentioned in the document, a peasant who worked a tiny plot of land
  planted the paddy entirely with rice and cultivated other grains on the
  dry fields, typically millet, soybeans, cotton, adzuki beans, buck-
  wheat, tobacco, and cowpeas. The borders of these fields and any
  remaining land were used for vegetables such as eggplant, autumn
  radishes, and taro. This peasant's fields gave only minimal yields.
  40 Furushima, Nihon nogyoshi, pp. 244-8.
  41 Dai Nihon nokai, ed., Nihon no kama, kuwa, suki (Tokyo: Nosei chosa iinkai, 1979). For a brief
  discussion in English of agrarian technology, see Kee II Choi, "Technological Diffusion in
  Agriculture Under the Bakuhan System," Journal of Asian Studies 30 (August 1971): 749-59.
  42 Furushima, Nihon nogyoshi, pp. 344-6.
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  510 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  Cotton production for this secluded mountain village was perhaps no
  more than three to five kan per tan (i kan = 8.267 lb.)> which meant
  that in the average year this man grew only enough to meet the cloth-
  ing needs of his own family. The tobacco yield was also not large
  enough to market. However, by 1808 even a small household such as
  this sold some of its produce, most often the surplus rice that re-
  mained after paying the land tax. This household ate almost none of its
  rice crop, instead relying chiefly on the grains from its dry fields. But
  this farmer owned a horse, and by using night soil, grass mulch, and
  the animal's manure, he was able to maintain the fertility of his fields
  without having to buy commercial fertilizers.
  Commercialized agriculture
  In some parts of Japan during the seventeenth century, and in most
  parts of the country after that, subsistence farming gave way to more
  commercialized forms of agriculture, and the traditional peasant men-
  tality was increasingly displaced by more modern attitudes toward
  farm production. The key to this transformation was increased interac-
  tion with the marketplace. If the older peasant kept the market at
  arm's length, the new farmer embraced it more fully, opening his land
  and labor to competition and exploring alternatives to the factors of
  production so as to maximize returns. In this process the new cultiva-
  tor came to favor those products with a potential of commercial profit
  over the more traditional, less risky crops cultivated for family subsis-
  tence. The changeover to cash crops was first seen among the upper-
  class farmers in the Osaka region around the middle of the seventeenth
  century. By 1770 commercial crops were grown by all peasant classes
  in the Kinai region. Within the next half-century, they were also being
  widely adopted in the Kanto region.
  The first great cash crop of Tokugawa Japan was cotton. Even as
  early as the Muromachi period, cotton was imported, first as cloth and
  later as thread, which was woven into "Ise cotton cloth" and other
  designed cloths, and then sold to the nobility and clergy. During the
  Sengoku period, cotton was used to pay the fees charged at check-
  points along major transportation routes. Later, as farmers began to
  cultivate cotton for commercial purposes, cotton fields acquired suffi-
  cient importance to be listed separately in the land survey registers of
  Mikawa, Totomi, and Shinano provinces, as well as those from the
  Kanto region. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the area
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  TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE 
  5II
  stretching west from Kyoto along the Inland Sea and east as far as
  Mikawa had become a major cotton-growing region.43
  The agrarian upper class was most responsible for introducing cot-
  ton as a cash crop, for their lands generated the surpluses that permit-
  ted them to risk introducing such an innovation. From a village in the
  Otori district of Izumi in 1605 comes an example of a farm household
  that possessed lands assessed at ninety-five koku and given over en-
  tirely to growing rice as well as a small amount of other cereals. By
  contrast, seventy years later, in a neighboring village within the same
  Otori district, farmers grew rice and cotton on alternate years.
  One household in this village that rotated between rice and cotton
  cultivation had its total landholdings assessed at 69 koku during the
  1594 survey. By 1647, the family's holdings (including scattered pos-
  sessions in neighboring villages) had swollen to 165 koku, 8 to, and by
  1666 had increased to 190 koku. From harvest records, we discover
  that this family planted dry fields near the foot of the mountains with
  cotton, but they rotated cotton and indigo on the other dry fields and
  alternately grew cotton and rice in the paddy fields. The family leased
  the paddy fields to tenant farmers during the years when they were
  planted with rice. Because this region was subject to water shortages,
  portions of the paddy land were left unirrigated and used for cultivat-
  ing cotton during drought years. This family could afford to purchase
  sardine-meal fertilizer by selling the surplus from their cotton crop. In
  1665 the family fertilized between seven tan to one did of its lands with
  sardine meal, and the cotton yield from these lands far surpassed the
  clothing needs of the family's four members and twelve servants.44
  Although there are no extant records that document the transition
  from a rice-based to multicrop agriculture, the introduction of cotton
  can safely be attributed to farmers from the agrarian upper class.
  Clearly, we have evidence here of the influence of demand on sup-
  ply. The emergence during the seventeenth century of massive urban
  populations, especially in Edo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Kanazawa, in-
  creased the demand for cotton and other commercial crops. Yanagita
  Kunio in his "Before Cotton Wear" (Momen izen no koto) concludes
  from the description of clothing colors and textures found in haikai
  poems that cotton clothing had become quite widely used by urban
  43 The most detailed study in English examining the spread of cotton as a commercial crop is
  William B. Hauser, Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan: Osaka and the Kinai
  Cotton Trade (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1974).
  44 Furushima, Nihon nogyoshi, chap. 6, esp. pp. 217-19.
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  512 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  residents before the Genroku era (1688-1704).45 Indeed, sumptuary
  regulations promulgated in many domains in the 1650s and 1660s
  called for merchants and peasants to use cotton rather than silk.46
  Other kinds of documentary evidence from the early 1700s show that
  40 to 50 percent of the land in some villages surrounding Osaka were
  given over to the cultivation of cotton.
  In this region, farmers from all economic strata grew cotton. A
  detailed study of a village in the Kawachi district found that in 1705
  nearly 41 percent of this village's paddy fields were planted with cot-
  ton; by 1747 this figure had climbed to 50 percent. By then the villag-
  ers had even blocked off the irrigation ditches leading to the paddies,
  in order to concentrate the village's water resources on the fields
  planted with rice. Sections for growing cotton were rotated annually.
  This meant that each farmer had to grow on his land the crop selected
  by the village for that portion of fields during that year.47
  Other changes accompanied the increasingly widespread cultivation
  of cotton by large- and medium-scale farmers in the Osaka area. Dur-
  ing the 1700s, for instance, live-in servants began to build their own
  homes, and many were able to establish themselves as full-fledged
  independent farming households on the basis of their increased out-
  put. In addition to household reorganization, several technological
  innovations also played an important role in increasing production.
  These were designed to improve yields for all crops, and the most
  remarkable were related to methods of fertilization, farm tools, and
  agricultural management.
  Commercial fertilizers appeared during the seventeenth century. As
  early as 1673 sardine meal had been adopted by the wealthier members
  of the agrarian class to fertilize cotton fields. Initially, merchants sold
  dried sardines to urban dwellers for consumption as an ordinary food-
  stuff. Chapter 11 in this volume explains in some detail how dried
  sardines came to be used as a fertilizer and how merchant guilds that
  specialized in this product were formed in response to this new and
  growing demand. Sardine guilds cooperated in helping increase the
  size of sardine hauls, because the farms consumed sardines in much
  greater volume than did the urban consumers, and extremely large
  seines, which had to be hauled in by several fishermen, were intro-
  45 Yanagita Kunio, Momen izen no koto, in Teihon Yanagita Kunio shu, vol. 14 (Tokyo: Chikuma
  shobo, 1962).
  46 Furushima, Nihon ndgyoshi, pp. 209-10.
  47 Furushima, Nihon ndgyoshi, pp. 347-50; and Hayama Teisaku, Kinsei nogyo hatten no
  seisamyoku bunseki (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1969).
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  TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE 
  513
  duced. These nets required large sandy beaches and were used only
  during sardine runs. Sardine fishing required large amounts of capital,
  both to purchase the nets and to mobilize a large force of fishermen.
  Osaka's sardine merchants provided the necessary capital and opened
  up many new fishing grounds. At first, sardines were caught off the
  coasts of Bungo, Hyuga, and Iyo, and later off the coasts of Kujukuri-
  gahama beach in modern-day Chiba Prefecture, from whence they
  were shipped to Osaka. During the nineteenth century, herring and
  whale by-products were shipped from ports in Hokkaido to Osaka.
  In time, bricks or cakes of pressed rapeseed, sesame seed, and
  cottonseed were used as fertilizers. Merchants tested the fertilizing
  potential of numerous organic materials and began to market a variety
  of new products as well. The result of the opening of new fishing
  grounds and the ensuing leaps in the quantities and varieties of catches
  not only boosted the quantity of fertilizers produced but also led to the
  adoption of fertilizers for all crops, resulting in the greater productiv-
  ity of food crops as well as cash crops. For example, some documents
  show that farmers who once had averaged one koku, six to of rice per
  tan on high-quality fields were, by the beginning of the nineteenth
  century, able to harvest between two koku, five to, and two koku, eight
  Throughout Japan new fertilizers naturally led to new methods of
  fertilization. At first, grass-manure mixtures had been applied once a
  year to fields before sowing or transplanting seedlings. When first intro-
  duced, dried whole sardines were also laid on the fields just once a year.
  But later, sardines were ground in mortars and applied several times a
  year in quantities that corresponded to the crops' rate of growth. These
  methods were later applied to traditionally self-supplied fertilizers.
  Urine, for instance, was separated from night soil and ladled around
  crops late in the growing season as a supplemental fertilizer.
  Farmers in the Osaka region who grew commercial crops such as
  cotton and rapeseed led the move to new fertilizers as a way of improv-
  ing yields. These same cultivators also sought to improve farm tool
  technology, although here their interest was directed as much at reduc-
  ing labor costs as at increasing yields. For instance, on an average farm
  with a yield of nineteen koku, threshing done by hand required ap-
  proximately 111 days of labor, more time than any other farm task
  took after fertilizers were improved. To reduce this cost, some farmers
  48 Furushima Toshio, Kinsei Nihon nogyo no tenkai (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1963),
  P-345-
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  514 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  first employed a new tool known colloquially as the "threshing chop-
  sticks," two, thirty-centimeter-long bamboo sticks used to scissor ears
  and kernels of grain. By the 1680s, the "threshing chopsticks" had
  been replaced in the Osaka area by the one-thousand-tooth thresher,
  whose split bamboo teeth were fastened in rows to a wooden block.
  This one-thousand-tooth thresher was reputed to be ten times more
  efficient than the threshing chopsticks. These farm implements helped
  decrease labor requirements during the autumn harvest and threshing
  season and reduced the total labor input for cotton and rapeseed culti-
  vation. In 1720, iron teeth had replaced the bamboo in the one-
  thousand-tooth thresher, and this version was subsequently intro-
  duced to all regions of Japan.
  These many improvements in agricultural technology, when applied
  systematically by farm households, led to intensive cultivation. The
  literature of the Edo period, especially that written by Confucian schol-
  ars, often gives the impression that farmland in general was tilled only
  once in several years and that seeds were sown in a haphazard fashion.
  Casual cultivation methods were, however, limited to the fields opened
  up by slash-and-burn techniques. Otherwise, seeds were sown on up-
  land dry fields in rows or clusters. Although rice seedlings were not
  transplanted to paddies in precise rows, they were planted in bunches
  adjusted so that a certain number covered a fixed area. Moreover, the
  more effective management of nursery beds and rice seed meant that
  fewer seeds had to be sown per tan of paddy, and upland fields were
  managed with more care as cash crops were introduced.
  As rice came to be grown as a commercial crop, wealthy, elite farm-
  ers, especially village headmen, often kept farm journals in which they
  recorded the types of crops, amounts of fertilizer, strains of rice, and
  annual yield for each plot of village farmland.49 Strains were selected
  after comparing the yields recorded in such documents. In this man-
  ner, farmers were able to discover rice plants with especially produc-
  tive ears, and eventually even to breed new varieties systematically. At
  the same time, farmers tried to reduce the amount of seed sown. In the
  Kan to region, where seeds were thickly sown, one tan of rice paddy
  usually was sown with somewhere from one to, two sho, to one to, five
  sho of unhulled rice. By 1720, farmers were only sowing three sho of
  rice per tan. This improvement resulted from the adoption of new
  sowing methods. Previously, unhulled rice was sown after being
  49 A general discussion of this kind of manual can be found in Jennifer Robertson, "Japanese
  Farm Manuals: A Literature of Discovery," Peasant Studies 1i (Spring 1984).
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  COOPERATIVE ASPECTS OF VILLAGE 
  515
  soaked in water until sprouts began to appear. But by soaking the
  unhulled rice for only one day, draining the seeds, and sowing them
  immediately, farmers were able to save seeds. Additional savings were
  achieved by selecting seeds through testing for resistance to wind and
  water damage.
  Innovative methods of intensive agricultural management were also
  devised by farmers who grew fruits and vegetables for sale to the
  urban market. In the Kyoto region, for instance, melons known as
  makuwa uri were highly prized. By 1680 several villages had become
  well-known for producing handsome melon specimens, the best of
  which were produced near Toji (temple) and sold with an affixed seal
  testifying to their origin.50 Farmers prepared and fertilized the plots
  for these melons during the preceding winter. When the plants first
  appeared in the spring, the farmers carefully observed each plant,
  keeping the most promising and thinning out the others. They even
  counted the leaves and cut the tops of branching vines to permit the
  main stem to grow larger and stronger. The top of the main vine was
  also pruned, and the next generation of vines was then allowed to
  bear fruit. Though time-consuming, such intensive horticultural tech-
  niques were already widely employed before the eighteenth century
  in regions where agriculture had been influenced by the growth of
  markets.
  COOPERATIVE ASPECTS OF VILLAGE SOCIETY
  Despite the great changes that surged through the villages during the
  Edo period, many cooperative aspects of village life provided elements
  of continuity that linked together the new and the old. The inhabitants
  of the early modern village may have possessed differing levels of
  political responsibility and observed distinctions based on lineage, but
  they also worked together, functioning as a coordinated unit to engage
  in agriculture. Village unity was fostered by a system of social relation-
  ships that encouraged cooperation and promoted a sense of commu-
  nity. Moreover, all village inhabitants were obliged to work together
  for mutual advantage in a variety of agricultural and social activities,
  of which irrigation provides a good example.
  The construction and maintenance of an irrigation system was a
  complex undertaking. In addition to the initial investment of labor for
  50 Furushima Toshio, Nikon nogyo gijutsushi, vol. 6 of Furushima Toshio chosakushu, pp. 426-7,
  543-8.
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  5l6 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  the construction of the irrigation canals that enabled the expansion of
  rice cultivation, constant maintenance was necessary to keep the irriga-
  tion system in operation. Locks, sluice gates, and other flood control
  devices that were erected to hold back rivers during the typhoon
  season required periodic maintenance and frequent repair. These facili-
  ties were made of wood, bamboo, stone, and sand, that is, from materi-
  als gathered by mutual consent and effort from the village's communal
  lands. Furthermore, irrigation ditches had to be dredged and repaired
  before the planting season, and the weeds that sprouted along ditches
  during the summer required constant attention. Villages that shared
  water supplies with neighboring villages or that were allowed to irri-
  gate their fields only during certain times of the day shared the respon-
  sibility for opening and closing the water locks at the water sources,
  yet another task that required the full cooperation of all villagers.
  In regions where double cropping was possible, rice seedling nurser-
  ies were begun before the winter grain was harvested. The young rice
  plants had to be irrigated as soon as they were put into the nursery
  plot, but diverting water to the seedbeds often lowered the level of the
  groundwater in adjacent fields that were planted in a winter grain
  crop. Consequently, where to locate a seedling nursery was a delicate
  question, requiring the consent of the entire village. As a general rule,
  farmers had to cooperate in order to be ensured of adequate water
  supplies. Moreover, they were forced to work their lands according to
  identical schedules, because adjoining fields in the same irrigation
  system were watered at the same time.
  Cooperation was also the order of the day in villages that specializa-
  tion in commercial crops. Cotton farming required dry fields, which
  were often constructed from paddy fields by cutting off the flow of
  irrigation water. Hence, cotton could be grown only with the coopera-
  tion of farmers whose lands shared the same irrigation ditch, as all land
  downstream within an irrigation system would be simultaneously con-
  verted into dry fields when the irrigation water was blocked off, unless
  the cultivators were willing to expend the time and funds to redirect
  the irrigation canals.
  The re thatching of roofs was typically a community matter as well.
  Although it was possible for the average farmer to save enough straw
  from successive wheat harvests to cover his roof, the accumulated
  straw would not be of uniform age or dryness. Hence, special roof
  thatch was grown for covering roofs, and villagers set aside specific
  fields to grow enough thatch to reroof one or two villages homes every
  year, although the large houses of wealthy villagers usually required a
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  CONCLUSION 
  517
  double portion of thatch. All healthy male members of the village
  would help harvest the reeds and thatch the house selected for that
  year, and all families contributed to providing the bamboo supports
  and straw ropes needed for tying down the thatch. Because thatching
  the eaves of roofs required special skills, one person from every village
  (or sometimes every other village) was usually trained for this task,
  and the more elementary chores would be performed by ordinary
  villagers under his guidance.
  Close cooperation among village members and the need for joint
  effort and consensus also had another side, making it difficult for
  innovations in life-styles, farm tools, and crops to penetrate village
  life. Traditions of cooperation tended to survive longest in those vil-
  lages that were most self-sufficient and isolated from the outside
  world. On the other hand, the relative importance of village coopera-
  tion tended to diminish in areas where the market economy had made
  inroads and market-bound crops were widely cultivated.
  CONCLUSION
  When the farmers in Musashi and Sagami dug out their old family
  records to show the officials of the shogunate's Finance Office near the
  end of the Tokugawa period, what they found must have excited them.
  Verification of one's lineage, especially a tie to samurai origins nearly
  three centuries earlier, would have provided psychological satisfaction
  by placing one in the great flow of tradition and the village's history.
  Even more pleasing, one could now boast with confidence about one's
  elite heritage and claim a special niche in village lore.
  But if one reads between the lines of those musty documents, what
  is even more startling is the change that time had wrought. The shift
  from subsistence to commercial farming; the appearance of new imple-
  ments, seeds, and farming techniques; the expanded use of irrigation
  and fertilizers; the development of new means of village administra-
  tion; and the steady improvement of diet, clothing, and housing - all
  of these had so far removed the farmer of the mid-nineteenth century
  from his samurai ancestors that he must have wondered whether his
  predecessors had ever existed at all.
  The late Edo period farmers also stood, perhaps unknowingly, at
  the brink of another revolutionary transformation that would propel
  their own successors into the modern age. The shift from "peasant" to
  "farmer" that had occurred over the course of two centuries had not
  been simply a psychological reorientation. Rather, as depicted in the
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  5l8 
  THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE
  other chapters in this volume, it had also involved a major shift in the
  institutional context within which the Japanese farmer lived. That
  institutional context was powerfully conditioned by the massive com-
  mercial developments in central Japan, developments that are beyond
  the purview of this chapter and that are treated in Chapter 11 of this
  volume and in volume 5 of The Cambridge History of Japan.
  As a result of these changes, the expansion of national and interna-
  tional markets in the 1850s and 1860s would shake the foundations of
  Japan's institutional structure, inviting a group of leaders from west-
  ern Japan to overthrow the shogunate and launch Japan on the course
  of modernization. Few farmers participated in the revolutionary
  struggles - perhaps because commercialization had proceeded so far
  as to dissolve the traditional cohesiveness of the peasant community -
  but all would be profoundly affected by its outcome.
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  CHAPTER 11
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN
  GROWTH IN EARLY MODERN JAPAN
  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH
  During the first century and a half of the early modern period, be-
  tween 1550 and 1700, Japan became one of the most urbanized soci-
  eties in the world. At the beginning of this era, the ancient imperial
  capital of Kyoto was the only city with more than 100,000 residents,
  and a mere handful of other settlements held as many as 10,000 per-
  sons. But by the year 1700, four new Japanese communities had ex-
  ceeded the 100,000 mark, and approximately 5 to 7 percent of all
  Japanese lived in such large cities. This compared with a figure of 2
  percent in Europe, where only fourteen cities had reached the 100,000
  level, and only the Netherlands and England-Wales could boast of
  urban concentrations greater than Japan's. Edo had become the
  world's largest city by the end of the seventeenth century, and the
  populations of Osaka and Kyoto approached those of London and
  Paris, the two largest cities in the West.
  The meteoric urban growth that occurred in Japan at the beginning
  of the early modern period had profound and diverse consequences for
  Japanese history. First, the cities acted as large magnets, creating
  energy fields that set in motion large-scale population movements and
  propelled hundreds of thousands of persons into the cities to fill bur-
  geoning job opportunities. The growing urban centers served as enor-
  mous consumption centers as well, and across Japan farmers changed
  their cropping patterns to meet new demands for vegetables, fruits,
  and plant materials for clothes. Consequently, regional specialization
  increasingly became a feature of early modern commerce, and new
  transportation networks and post towns sprang up everywhere to cater
  to mobile traders. In time, a fresh, spirited set of urban entertain-
  ments came into being as well, thus enriching the texture of Japanese
  cultural history. Finally, the unprecedented concentrations of people -
  vigorous, creative, and at times unruly - compelled the authorities to
  devise new kinds of political and administrative institutions.
  519
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  The Sengoku period background
  The quest to understand how and why this urban growth took place,
  and to appreciate as well the historical significance of the cities, takes
  us back in time to the middle of the sixteenth century - to the
  Sengoku period and the genesis of Japan's extraordinary epoch of
  urban development.1 There were three principal types of urban settle-
  ment at that time. The most common, and the seed of what ultimately
  would become the dominant urban force in the early modern period in
  Japan, was the castle town, or jokamachi, literally a community that
  grew up around a castle. During the first half of the sixteenth century,
  the bushi tended to live in agricultural villages, where they managed
  their fiefs and the affairs of the villagers. Gradually, during the de-
  cades of continual warfare that marked this era, these bushi emerged
  as an elite, arms-bearing class. As this happened, their leaders began
  to move out of the villages and to establish fortified residences at more
  easily defended locations. As revealed in names such as Negoya (liter-
  ally, the huts at the base of the mountain) and Yamashita (at the foot of
  the mountain), these strongholds were usually situated where plains
  meet mountains, and they provided assembly points where, in times of
  crisis, the lord could gather his military band of retainers, relatives,
  and vassal samurai.2
  These military centers quickly came to be the home for civilians as
  well. As combat spread into even remote parts of the country during
  the later decades of the sixteenth century, the castellans (now more
  familiarly known as daimyo), found it advantageous to gather into
  their castle headquarters larger and larger numbers of artisans who
  could manufacture weapons such as swords, lances, and even fire-
  arms; merchants who could transport these goods; and finally, groups
  of laborers to work on construction projects. It was also useful for the
  daimyo to establish within the precincts of the new castle towns offi-
  cially authorized marketplaces where commodity transactions could
  1 For a convenient overview of the issues that have occupied the attention of historians concern-
  ing Sengoku period cities, see Nakabe Yoshiko, "Sengoku jidai daimyo kyoju toshi ni kansuru
  shomondai," in Chihoshi kenkyu kyogikai, ed., Toshi no chihoshi (Tokyo: Yusankaku, 1980),
  pp. 56-79. In English, see Haruko Wakita, with Susan B. Hanley, "Dimensions of Develop-
  ment: Cities in Fifteenth-Century Japan," in John Whitney Hall, Keiji Nagahara, and Kozo
  Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa: Political Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500-
  /650 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 295-326.
  2 Nishikawa Koji, Nihon toshishi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Nihon hoso shuppan kyokai, 1972), pp.
  167-202.
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  521
  take place peacefully, and this too encouraged permanent residence in
  the towns.3
  As the daimyo's policies gave rise to larger and more prosperous
  communities, the towns also became centers of local religious and
  cultural activities. Moreover, as life in the imperial capital of Kyoto
  became less secure after the Onin War (1467-77), men of artistic and
  literary accomplishment, such as the landscape artist and garden de-
  signer Sesshu, left the capital and took refuge in the provinces. And
  like Sesshu, who was employed by the Ouchi daimyo of western Ja-
  pan, such persons often were taken into service by the daimyo, thus
  ultimately bringing a measure of cultural refinement to the lives of the
  bushi and cementing the tie between artist and military figures that
  would endure into the early modern period.
  Some notion of the vitality of these communities can be found in the
  epistles of the Jesuit missionaries, who openly admired the castle
  towns of the Sengoku period.4 When visiting Gifu in 1575, for in-
  stance, Luis Frois wrote: "At this point I wish I were a skilled archi-
  tect or had the gift of describing places well, because I sincerely assure
  you that of all the palaces and houses I have seen in Portugal, India,
  and Japan, there has been nothing to compare with this as regards
  luxury, wealth, and cleanliness." And after visiting Azuchi in 1584,
  Louren§o Mexia remarked that Japanese houses were as neat and clean
  as sacristies and that at Nobunaga's palace "the gardens and corridors
  were such that one could not spit in them." Such praise, however,
  should not obscure the fact that these castle towns were still relatively
  small; even in the 1580s most had populations of only a few thousand
  persons. Still, more than a hundred such settlements dotted the coun-
  tryside of Japan, and these would provide one of the seedbeds for the
  rapid urbanization of the seventeenth century, growth that would pro-
  pel Japan into the leading ranks of the urbanized countries.
  Although these rustic castle towns represented the principal urban
  creation of the late Sengoku period, they were not without competi-
  tors. The warfare of that age was fought at two different levels. The
  first and most visible was the struggle among daimyo to expand their
  domains by military means; the other was the contest for supremacy
  within domains between individual daimyo and armed elements of the
  peasantry. In some instances, groups of such peasants were members
  3 Nakabe Yoshiko, Jokamachi (Kyoto: Yanagihara shoten, 1978), pp. 9-64.
  4 Michael Cooper, ed., They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-
  1640 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965), pp. 131, 145.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  of secularly powerful Buddhist sects, such as the Ikko, or True Pure
  Land sect (Jodo Shinshu), which permitted the peasants, together with
  merchants and artisans who were also sect members, to take up resi-
  dence in and around a sect temple. These settlements then became
  known as "temple towns" (jinaimachi), and their residents often
  claimed autonomy from daimyo control.5
  These temple towns were distinct from the so-called monzenmachi
  (literally, towns in front of the gates), which were concentrations of
  inns and souvenir shops clustered together around the entrances to
  those famous shrines and temples that attracted large numbers of
  worshipers and pilgrims.6 The essential difference between the two
  urban types is that the temple towns formed under the auspices of
  major temples had a distinctive religious character and asserted their
  independence from the daimyo's authority. That is, these communi-
  ties as corporate groups exercised judicial and police powers, appor-
  tioned and at times even levied their own tax dues, and undertook self-
  defense projects such as the construction of moats. The possession of
  these special immunities permitted the temple towns to carry out cer-
  tain functions outside the direct purview of daimyo authority, and it is
  this latitude for independent action that has prompted historians to see
  them as autonomous, self-governing communities.7
  Historians have identified seventeen temple towns, all founded in the
  middle decades of the sixteenth century.8 These settlements, however,
  tended to have very short life spans. As daimyo put together greater and
  greater concentrations of military and political might during the latter
  half of the sixteenth century, they attacked the major religious sects and
  cut away the independent power basis of the temple towns. In some
  cases, the daimyo actually converted the temple towns into their own
  castle headquarters. For instance, Osaka was known at that time as
  Ishiyama and was built up as an armed community of Honganji believ-
  ers. In 1580, Oda Nobunaga destroyed this fortified town after a decade
  of fighting, and subsequently Toyotomi Hideyoshi erected his own
  5 The term is also read as jinaicho. A good introduction to this type of settlement can be found in
  Wakita Osamu, "Jinaimachi no kozo to tenkai," Shirin 41 (January 1958): 1-24.
  6 Harada Tomohiko, "Kinsei no monzenmachi," in Toyoda Takeshi, Harada Tomohiko, and
  Yamori Kazuhiko, eds., Koza: Nihon no hoken loshi, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Bun'ichi sogo shuppan,
  1981-2), vol. 3, pp. 201-23.
  7 In certain jinaimachi the temple priests retained ultimate political authority and managed the
  affairs of the community. See Osamu Wakita, with James L. McClain, "The Commercial and
  Urban Policies of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi," in Hall, Nagahara, and Yama-
  mura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, pp. 231-7.
  8 For a careful discussion of the origins of temple towns and their historical significance, see
  Wakita Osamu, "Jinaimachi no rekishi-teki tokushitsu," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori,
  eds., Koza: Nihon no hoken wshi, vol. 1, pp. 143-64.
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  523
  castle headquarters on its ashes. Similarly, the castle town of Kanazawa,
  which by 1700 would become the fourth largest city in Japan under the
  rule of the Maeda family of daimyo, was built on the site of an earlier
  temple town named Kanazawa Gobo, which had existed under the
  protection of the Ikko sect. In other instances, conquering daimyo left
  the towns in place as local merchant settlements. But in these cases as
  well, the military lords stripped the communities of their self-governing
  responsibilities and fully incorporated them into the tightening web of
  daimyo authority. The town of Imai, associated with Yanenji temple in
  Nara Prefecture, is a typical example of a temple town that lost its
  immunities and became purely a commercial settlement populated by
  small-scale merchants.
  If the temple towns represented impediments to daimyo power,
  there was another type of sixteenth-century community that served an
  essential purpose for the daimyo. These were centers of trade and
  transshipment, or what might be called entrepot towns. Some of these
  were inland post towns, but most were ports, such as Sakai on Osaka
  Bay, Kuwana on Ise Bay, and Hakata on the bay of the same name in
  Kyushu. In some instances, these settlements exercised self-governing
  powers similar to those claimed by the temple towns. In Sakai, for
  example, influential merchants managed urban administration and
  maintained armed forces.9 But whether fortified or not, these mer-
  chant communities received different treatment from the daimyo than
  did the temple towns. Their strategic locations made them useful to
  daimyo, almost all of whom had to engage in some trade in order to
  acquire goods that were produced beyond their own borders. Indeed,
  most daimyo believed these entrepot towns to be so central to their
  own ultimate economic success that they adhered to a tacit agreement
  to maintain a policy of nonaggression toward the settlements.
  Interestingly enough, certain features of urban life and the city-
  scape in sixteenth-century Japanese cities reminded the first West-
  erner visitors of European urban settlements. One missionary noted
  the similarity between Japanese temple towns and Venice, which was
  also governed through administrative offices staffed by merchants.
  When visiting Nara, Gaspar Vilela wrote, "I spent some days there
  and saw three outstanding things of note. One of them is a great
  9 For a detailed study of Sakai, see Izumi Choichi, Sakai: chuseijiyu toshi (Tokyo: Kyoikusha,
  1981). In English, see V. Dixon Morris, "Sakai: From Shoen to Port City," in John W. Hall and
  Takeshi Toyoda, eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
  California Press, 1977), pp. 145-58; and V. Dixon Morris, "The City of Sakai and Urban
  Autonomy," in George Elison and Bardwell L. Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists, & Commoners:
  Japan in the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981), pp. 23-54.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  metal idol as big as the tower of the gate of Evora."10 However
  impressed those European visitors might have been, no medieval city
  would survive unscathed the wars of reunification at the end of the
  sixteenth century, and the powerfully centralized state that resulted
  from that unification would call into being new cities, larger and
  more grand than anything those first European visitors saw.
  National unification and early modern castle towns
  It has become a historical truism to say that Oda Nobunaga initiated
  the political and economic programs that resulted in the early modern
  state; that Toyotomi Hideyoshi amplified them; and that Tokugawa
  Ieyasu supplied the final institutional refinements. As familiar as that
  paradigm might be, however, it is still relevant to a discussion of those
  social policies that had the most significant impact on urban growth -
  the separation of the peasants from the warriors (heino-bunri) and of
  the peasants from the merchants (nosho-bunri).
  Oda Nobunaga's first step in imposing a new social order came after
  a bitter and bloody campaign against the forces of the Honganji sect
  gathered at their stronghold at Ishiyama. It took Nobunaga the full
  decade of the 1570s, and the sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives,
  before he could defeat the Honganji army, a mix of peasants, local
  samurai, and even merchants and artisans from the local temple town.
  As a consequence of this victory, Nobunaga acquired the strength and
  reputation to begin a policy of disarming peasants on some portions of
  his holdings. He also initiated steps to separate the warriors from
  agricultural management by conducting a cadastral survey (kenchi) in
  his home provinces of Yamato and Harima.
  What lay behind Nobunaga's actions was the fear of an aroused
  peasantry and of an alliance between his retainers and villagers.11 As
  long as the vassal warriors resided in the countryside and oversaw
  village affairs, they held the potential to threaten the lord. Indeed, in
  the middle decades of the sixteenth century, so many retainers turned
  their village holdings into independent power bases from which they
  defied daimyo orders, or even rose in revolt against their masters, that
  these years became popularly known as the era of gekokujo, of the
  inferiors overthrowing their superiors. The ultimate motive of Nobu-
  naga, and of the daimyo who followed his example, was to drive a
  10 Cooper, eds., They Came to Japan, pp. 282.
  11 On the importance of peasant actions, see Keiji Nagahara, with Kozo Yamamura, "Village
  Communities and Daimyo Power," in Hall and Toyoda, eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age,
  pp. 107-23.
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
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  wedge between the retainers and vassals in order to bring each under
  more direct control.
  Hideyoshi extended these policies of status separation.12 As de-
  tailed in Chapters 2 and 4 of this volume, from the mid-15 80s
  Hideyoshi began to expand the survey of rice-producing lands first
  started by Nobunaga, a policy that eventually produced a new village
  and administrative system, as well as a much more closely regulated
  peasantry. In 1588 he ordered a nationwide "sword hunt" to confis-
  cate arms from villagers and to etch more clearly the status lines
  between peasant and warrior. Three years later, in 1591, Hideyoshi
  instructed the daimyo to conduct a village-by-village census (hitoba-
  rai) of their domains, a recording of the population and the numbers
  of households in rural areas that was designed to prevent the peasants
  from absconding and to bind them more tightly to the land. In that
  same year Hideyoshi also issued his famous edict that prohibited
  changes of status from samurai to merchant or from farmer to mer-
  chant. Although none of these policies could ever be fully enforced,
  they did provide a clear conceptual and legal differentiation of war-
  rior, peasant, and merchant.
  Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successors brought these policies to their
  completion. During the seventeenth century, the Tokugawa line of
  shoguns completely disarmed the peasantry and summoned the bushi
  class into the areas around its castles, moves that were repeated in
  nearly every daimyo domain. To be sure, in places where agriculture
  developed more slowly - generally in Shikoku, Kyushu, and in the
  north of Honshu - some lower-ranking bushi continued to live in
  villages. But with these exceptions, the imposition of status distinc-
  tions and the severing of the samurai from the management of agricul-
  tural affairs gave the shogun and daimyo the opening they needed to
  compel the warriors to move out of the villages and to take up resi-
  dence around the lord's castle. At the same time, the overlords held
  out more positive incentives, by granting their vassal warriors residen-
  tial sites and guaranteeing them annual stipends.
  One consequence of these social policies was the large-scale growth
  of castle towns.13 If the populations of the rudimentary castle towns of
  the Sengoku era tended to number in the low thousands, now cities of
  12 Cities and the policies of the first two unifiers are discussed in Takamaki Minoru, "Shokuho
  seiken to toshi," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza: Nikon no hoken loshi, vol. 3, pp.
  189-211.
  13 A discussion of the historiographical issues can be found in Matsumoto Shiro, "Kinsei
  toshiron," in Fukaya Katsumi and Matsumoto Shiro, eds., Bakuhansei shakai no kozo (To-
  kyo: Yuhikaku, 1980), pp. 109-21.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  thirty, forty, and even a hundred thousand persons became common-
  place. The core population for these cities were those samurai who had
  been forcefully uprooted from the countryside by the social policies of
  the unifiers. Between the 1580s and the 1650s, for example, some
  50,000 samurai, including their families and attendants, moved into
  the shadow of the Maeda daimyo's castle at Kanazawa. By the end of
  the seventeenth century, more than half that number had taken up
  residence at Sendai, the headquarters of the Date family of daimyo,
  while nearly 25,000 samurai and their dependents lived at Tottori and
  18,000 at Okayama. In all, the bushi class comprised approximately 5
  to 8 percent of Japan's total population. As they settled into the areas
  around some 250 or so daimyo castles that dotted the Japanese country-
  side, they became the stable nucleus around which the urban popula-
  tion formed.'4
  A second migration, this one among rural villagers who hoped to
  become the merchants, artisans, and laborers of the new cities, accom-
  panied the movement of the samurai into the communities around the
  castles. The construction of the castle and samurai residences entailed
  a tremendous outlay of capital expenditures, and thousands of rural
  men poured into the city to take up jobs in the booming construction
  trades. As the samurai set up urban households, they hired servants -
  even a humble warrior family would usually employ an attendant, a
  valet, and a couple of women servants - thus creating additional em-
  ployment opportunities for rural immigrants.
  Urban bushi households also generated enormous consumption de-
  mands. Restricted by daimyo fiat to military and bureaucratic careers,
  the samurai relied on the commoners to provide them with both mili-
  tary equipment and a variety of everyday goods and services, a situation
  that naturally attracted would-be merchants and artisans to the city. A
  fraction of them came because they were invited to sell specialty goods
  such as swords and armor to the daimyo and his warrior followers, but
  most of the prospective merchants arrived on their own, hoping to take
  advantage of the new commercial opportunities by setting up shops to
  sell more ordinary goods: umbrellas, footwear, wooden buckets, and
  pots and pans. It was this civilian migration that pushed the population
  of Tottori to 35,000 persons, Okayama to 40,000, Sendai to 50,000, and
  Kanazawa to nearly 120,000 persons by the year 1700.
  14 The three classic works on premodern Japanese cities are Ono Hitoshi, Kinsei jokamachi no
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1928); Toyoda Takeshi, Nihon no hoken toshi (Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1952); and Harada Tomohiko, Nihon hoken toshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku
  shuppankai, 1973).
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
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  Although the castles and surrounding environs were originally
  planned as defensive enclaves, the mass migration of merchants and
  artisans into the new communities quickly gave them well-defined
  economic functions, as nodes of both consumption and production, so
  that their commercial significance far exceeded the capacities of the
  Sengoku period towns. The economic needs of the daimyo lords dur-
  ing the seventeenth century also contributed to the burgeoning impor-
  tance of these castle town communities. Probably no daimyo domain
  was ever totally self-sufficient in goods or currency. Some had to
  import crockery or clothing materials such as cotton or silk; others had
  to acquire foodstuffs such as tea, salt, or fish from outside sources.
  Moreover, whenever the Tokugawa shogunate made demands on the
  daimyo for contributions to construction projects, some lords had to
  go outside the local economy for cash or building materials. Conse-
  quently, no daimyo could escape the need to participate, at least to
  some extent, in the broader, national network of economic exchange
  that was taking shape around these cities.
  The policies of the shogunate toward currency and the minting of
  coins also encouraged an expansion in the volume of commercial
  transactions and contributed to the emergence of castle towns as
  nodes of economic exchange. Most major daimyo minted their own
  coins in the early decades of the seventeenth century. The shogunate,
  however, began to produce gold and silver coins in 1601 and copper
  coins five years later, and it soon claimed a monopoly on the right to
  issue currency that circulated throughout the entire nation. This
  meant that coins minted by the daimyo could be spent legitimately
  only inside the domain of origin and that the lords were compelled to
  spend the shogunate's currency to pay for imported goods, as well as
  to meet the extraordinary construction levies imposed by the sho-
  gunate and the expenses associated with the alternate residence sys-
  tem (sankin-kotai) that was institutionalized during the decade of the
  1630s. To acquire these coins meant that each daimyo had to sell a
  portion of his tax rice in the national, shogunate-controlled markets
  of Edo and Osaka, thus contributing to their growth and importance.
  In addition, most daimyo also marketed some exportable local spe-
  cialty products that could be collected from the peasantry in place of
  rice. These specialty goods were determined by the topographical
  conditions within each domain but many, at least in the early seven-
  teenth century, consisted of raw materials such as lumber or hemp
  harvested from mountainous regions, copper and iron dug from the
  earth, and dried fish and salt hauled from the sea. During the opening
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  decades of the seventeenth century, castle towns soon became the focal
  points not only of commercial activity but also of the collection and
  transshipment of these items.
  The geographic location of the new castle towns within the daimyo
  domains reflected their twin importance as military and economic
  centers.15 Toward the end of the sixteenth century, as the daimyo
  began to consolidate their grasp over increasingly large territorial
  units, they moved out of the narrow confines of the mountains and
  built new, more massive moat-and-tower fortresses on the wide plains
  that constituted the strategic and economic heart of their holdings.
  Here, the daimyo could assemble and hold in readiness their growing
  warrior bands, protected by walls and moats constructed at sufficient
  distance from the castle nerve center to safeguard it from musket and
  cannon, the new implements of siege and destruction. But the new
  locations conferred economic advantages as well, for these citadels
  towered over the villages of the domains and permitted the daimyo
  easier access to the agricultural surpluses that they could tax and use
  for trade and to support their regimes. Most of the new castle towns
  were also situated directly on or close to major transportation routes,
  an important consideration for the merchants and artisans whom the
  daimyo lords hoped to attract to their communities.
  Because most bulk commodities were transported by ship, the
  daimyo took into consideration the proximity of bays and harbors
  when choosing locations for their castle towns. If a castle could not be
  located directly on the coast, a daimyo would often construct port
  facilities as close to the castle town as possible and then dig a connect-
  ing canal so that barges and small boats could transport goods into the
  castle town. The castle town of Kanazawa, for instance, was located
  several kilometers inland from the Sea of Japan, and so the Maeda
  daimyo encouraged the development of Miyanokoshi as a port and in
  the early seventeenth century went to considerable expense to dredge
  out two rivers connecting the port to Kanazawa so that the castle town
  merchants could profit from easier access to oceangoing transporta-
  tion. Between the 1580s and 1630s, several dozen new port towns
  15 The bulk of research in Japan concerning the relationship between economic growth and the
  geographic distribution of castle towns has been conducted not by historians but, rather, by
  specialists known as historical geographers, who have tended to use one variety or another of
  central place theory. Two of the more influential works in this genre are Yamori Kazuhiko,
  Toshizu no rekishi: Nihon hen (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974); and Matsumoto Toyotoshi, Joka-
  machi no rekishi chirigaku-teki kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1967). In English the
  fullest discussion of economic linkages among Tokugawa period cities can be found in Gilbert
  Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
  University Press, 1974).
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  529
  sprang up along the harbors of Japan, one example of the secondary
  urban construction stimulated by the growth of the early modern
  castle towns.
  One disadvantage of the new locations was that the castles and their
  adjoining communities were usually located at some distance from the
  materials necessary to construct them. The mammoth stones used for
  the walls of Edo Castle, for example, had to be quarried in the higher
  mountains along the rugged western coast of the Izu peninsula. They
  then had to be lowered by ropes down the steep, treacherous mountain-
  sides and loaded onto the nearly three thousand barges that had been
  assembled to ship the stone blocks to Edo.16 In Kanazawa, the stones
  were carved out of Alt. Tomuro, nearly eighty miles to the east of the
  city. Labor gangs rolled them overland on logs to a staging area near the
  castle where they were cut to shape by stone masons before being lifted
  and fitted into place. Such undertakings were hazardous. Countless
  numbers of men died while lowering the stones down the Izu moun-
  tains, and in Kanazawa portions of the walls collapsed twice during
  construction, killing dozens and injuring hundreds of laborers.17
  Indeed, the epic nature attributed to these endeavors became part of
  the country's folklore as the peasant families who were compelled to
  supply the labor for these construction project left their feelings in a
  tradition of sorrowful folk songs and legends about those who toiled,
  and sometimes died, to erect the castles. For others, however, the
  sacrifices of the laborers were quickly overshadowed by the magnifi-
  cence of the new castles, which were praised both as works of beauty
  as well as strength. In Kanazawa, one samurai wrote with pride that
  the long sweep of the walls gave the castle a sense of permanence,
  while the white stucco watchtowers gracefully, yet dramatically, set off
  the massive turrets and gates. Awed, he boasted that Kanazawa Castle
  was equal to the Toyotomi fortress in Osaka.'8
  To a large degree, the military and economic requirements of the age
  influenced the internal spatial arrangement of the castle towns.19 Cer-
  16 For a wonderfully illustrated history of the building of Edo, see Naito Akira, Edo no machi, 2
  vols. (Tokyo: Soshisha, 1982).
  17 James L. McClain, Kanazawa: A Seventeenth-Century Japanese Castle Town (New Haven,
  Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 33.
  18 McClain, Kanazawa,p. 33. The construction of Osaka Castle is discussed in William B.
  Hauser, "Osaka Castle and Tokugawa Authority in Western Japan," in Jeffrey P. Mass and
  William B. Hauser, eds., The Bakufu in Japanese History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univer-
  sity Press, 1985).
  19 The most detailed mapping of the castle towns has been completed by historical geographers.
  Especially influential has been Yamori's Toshizu no rekishi. Yamori divided castle town layouts
  into five general types, a classification that has been generally accepted as a working model by
  most researchers.
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  53° 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  tainly, the physical layout of the communities embodied the status
  assumptions imposed by the lord on his domain. In the most common
  pattern, the residence of the daimyo lord and his family, as well as the
  most important administrative offices, were located in an area known
  as the naikaku, or central keep, an enclosure securely protected by
  stone walls and a network of moats, canals, and rivers. Around this
  inner redoubt lay the residences assigned to the band of vassal retain-
  ers, generally in two zones. The more important and unquestionably
  loyal samurai received rather large residences with perhaps as many as
  a dozen or more rooms and graced with landscape gardens. These
  were generally clustered together near the castle walls, protected by
  the ramparts and close to the administrative offices where these high-
  ranking retainers spent their working hours. Quarters for lower-
  ranking retainers were located in a second belt, usually far removed
  from the castle and often unprotected except perhaps for a single outer
  moat or sometimes a simple earthen barricade. The accommodations
  here accorded with the more humble status of these warriors, who,
  divided by occupational rank (riflers, foot soldiers, and the like), were
  crowded together with their families into tiny apartments inside long,
  narrow, barracks-style tenement houses known as nagaya.
  Most of the merchants and artisans lived between the two groups of
  warriors. This residential area for the urban commoners was divided
  into wards (machi). Most commonly, these were oblong quarters, strung
  out along the roads which were planned to cross at right angles, with the
  houses facing each other across a street constituting a single ward. To
  some extent, the composition of these wards reflected the status and
  economic gradations that subdivided the merchant and artisan classes.
  Within any castle town, some wards were made up almost entirely of a
  small group of elite merchants who supplied certain crucial military or
  prized luxury goods to the daimyo, items such as munitions or arms,
  rice in bulk shipments, silks and other quality clothing materials, or
  cakes and sake. The daimyo would grant charters to these men, vouch-
  ing that he would buy their products and thus coining the generic term,
  gqyo shonin, purveyors to the lord, that defined this distinctive group. In
  addition to the charters, the lord often bestowed on these merchants tax
  exemptions and residential housing plots within the better wards, gener-
  ally known as the hommachi, that were close to the castle and among the
  first laid out, locations that had the additional advantage of being near
  the wealthier samurai customers.
  Also given preferential treatment were the forwarding agents, the
  men who procured packhorses, arranged coolie labor, and otherwise
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  531
  managed the details of the daimyo's export trade.20 Typically they
  received residential plots in the center of the commercial section, an
  area that then became known as Temmamachi, literally the post horse
  ward. Similarly, each daimyo required the services of certain kinds of
  artisans - swordsmiths, armorers, carpenters, stone cutters, plaster-
  ers, and tatami makers - and to entice them to his domain he would
  offer guarantees of employment, tax exemptions, and housing that was
  conveniently situated close to the castle.21 Often those with the same
  occupation were clustered together in a specific ward, and even today
  ancient names such as carpenters' ward, swordsmiths' ward, and so
  forth can be found in the modern cities that evolved from former castle
  towns.22
  Beyond the quarters dominated by the commoner elites were the
  more numerous wards populated by the merchants who dealt in ordi-
  nary goods such as vegetables, tea, oil, charcoal, and paper, and by
  artisans such as umbrella makers, coopers, dyers, and barbers.23 Al-
  though separated from the elite areas, these wards usually still enjoyed
  a favorable location within the belt between the two main zones of
  samurai residences. Beyond the outer ring of lower-ranking samurai,
  on the outskirts of the town, were the slumlike areas of the urban poor,
  outcast groups, and day laborers who toiled in the lowest-paid and
  least-skilled construction jobs.24
  The rapid growth of the castle towns during the late sixteenth cen-
  tury and early seventeenth centuries forced the Japanese daimyo to
  devise new systems of urban administration. Such a task defied easy
  solution, however, and it was not until the middle of the seventeenth
  century that most daimyo could set in place the administrative struc-
  tures that served as the basis of urban government for the balance of
  the Tokugawa period. Unfortunately, the specific steps that the
  daimyo took to build these urban political structures cannot be easily
  traced, for natural disasters have destroyed much of the documentary
  base in most cities, and so the events in the first half of the seventeenth
  20 Tsuchida Ryoichi, "Kinsei jokamachi no temmayaku," in Chihoshi kenkyu kyogikai, ed.,
  Nihon no toshi to machi (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1982), pp. 146-75.
  21 The residential clustering of persons according to occupation is the topic of Fujimoto
  Toshiharu, "Toshi no dogyosha-machi to sangyo," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds.,
  Koza: Nikon no koken toski, vol. 2, pp. 35-7.
  22 For a recent study of artisan groups, see Yokota Fuyuhiko, "Shokunin to shokunin dantai,"
  in Rekishigaku kenkyOkai, ed., Koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppan-
  kai, 1985), pp. 189-226.
  23 Fukai Jinzo, "Kinsei toshi no hattatsu," in Matsumoto Shiro and Yamada Tadao, eds.,
  Genroku, Kyoho-ki no seiji to shakai (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1980), pp. 148-59.
  24 For a discussion of outcast groups, see Harada Tomohiko, "Kinsei toshi no hisabetsu buraku,"
  in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza: Nihon no hbken toshi, vol. 2, pp. 389-412.
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  532 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  century often must be conjectured from the later records of the eigh-
  teenth and early nineteenth centuries.
  One exception to this rule is the castle town of Kanazawa, where a
  variety of early-seventeenth-century documents have been preserved.
  Although there was perhaps no such creature as a perfectly typical castle
  town, the general evolution of Kanazawa paralleled that of other such
  cities. Consequently, the details observed there can provide a useful
  example of how urban government commonly developed. Moreover,
  because urban governance has received little attention from historians
  to date, a close examination of Kanazawa can help illuminate how the
  castle towns served as important units of local government and how the
  daimyo's efforts to govern the cities fit into the pattern of domain and vil-
  lage governance, as explained in Chapters 4, 5, and 10 of this volume.25
  The administrative arm of the city government in Kanazawa, as in
  other castle towns, could be functionally divided into two principal
  components: one designed to rule the merchants and artisans and the
  other to govern the samurai. The samurai's administrative apparatus
  was the direct heir of the battlefield chain of command established in
  the late sixteenth century as the Maeda daimyo fought their way to
  power in the hills and plains of the Hokuriku region. During their rise
  to power, the Maeda had put into place a military organization in
  which authority passed from daimyo to individual retainers through a
  hierarchy of command that permitted the daimyo to mobilize and
  deploy military personnel easily during the years of constant warfare.
  As the Maeda summoned the samurai into the castle town between
  1580 and 1620, they began to add civil administrative functions to this
  system of command. The highest level of the Maeda band of retainers,
  known collectively as the Eight Houses (hakka), served as the lord's
  leading military tacticians and commanders during times of warfare,
  but after the move into Kanazawa they were named as chief advisers
  and made responsible for formulating the political and administrative
  policies for the entire domain. Consequently, after the 1620s every
  important political decision that affected life in Kanazawa was made
  by either the daimyo or this body of chief advisers. In addition, these
  men were responsible for overseeing the activities of the next lower
  status group, the commanders (hitomochi).16
  25 The most complete general coverage of castle town governments can be found in Nakabe,
  Jokamachi, pp. 239-300; Tanaka Yoshio, Jokamachi Kanazawa (Tokyo: Nihon shoin, 1966);
  and McClain, Kanazawa, pp. 85-101.
  26 This pattern was similar to that observed in other domains; see, for example, John Whitney
  Hall, "The Ikeda House and Its Retainers in Bizen," in John W. Hall and Marius B. Jansen,
  eds., Studies in the Institutional History of Early Modem Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  533
  The commanders were relatively high-ranking samurai (they had
  stipends ranging between one thousand and fourteen thousand koku),
  who had led troops on the field of battle. After being withdrawn to the
  city, they were assigned to significant posts in the civilian government.
  Four of the most influential domain offices, for example, were the
  offices of comptroller, rural magistrates, city magistrates, and magis-
  trates for shrine and temple affairs, and all were staffed by men from
  this status group. Strictly speaking, these posts were not usually en-
  dowed with specific policymaking powers. However, the incumbents
  had frequent contact with the daimyo and the chief advisers, who
  often solicited their opinions, and this gave the commanders an infor-
  mal mechanism for influencing policy decisions. Thus, for example,
  when the daimyo and the chief advisers were deadlocked over whether
  or not to license a kabuki and prostitution district in Kanazawa in the
  1820s, the decision turned on the recommendations submitted by the
  city magistrates.
  In addition to their posts within the formal administrative struc-
  ture, the commanders were also held accountable for the civil con-
  duct of the samurai under their jurisdiction. Any one commander
  might oversee as many as 150 warriors, who were then divided into
  several units, each captained by a unit leader (kumigashira). The
  commander was responsible for ensuring that all members of these
  units, as well as their families and attendants, obeyed the laws and
  edicts issued by the daimyo. If a rear vassal committed a crime
  involving violence, for instance, he had to be turned over to the
  appropriate domain police officials for punishment. In other cases,
  however, the unit leaders would meet with the parties involved in a
  dispute and attempt to arrange a mutually agreeable settlement. If
  that proved impossible, the commander would enter the case and
  could even mete out punishments, subject to the approval of his own
  superiors.
  A much more elaborate administrative apparatus specifically de-
  signed to handle the affairs of the merchant and artisan status groups
  was created during the opening decades of the seventeenth century. In
  its final form, the city government became highly bureaucratic. Per-
  haps the most crucial officials were the city magistrates (machi bugyo).
  The first appointments to this office were made irregularly from the
  1590s and permanently from 1641. These officials were entrusted with
  University Press, 1968), pp. 79-88; and Madoka Kanai, "Fukui, Domain of a Tokugawa
  Collateral Daimyo: Its Traditions and Transition," in Ardath W. Burks, ed., The Modernize™
  (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 33-68.
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  534 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  implementing policies established by the daimyo and the chief advis-
  ers, and to this end, they supervised the City Office (Machi kaisho)
  that by the end of the seventeenth century had come to include more
  than three hundred employees.
  A great number of merchants and artisans also served as lesser
  officials in urban administration. The post of city elder (tnachidoshi-
  yori) was the most important of these. This term appears in docu-
  ments as early as 1594, but appointments were not made on a regular
  basis until the late 1640s and early 1650s, when the number of elders
  was fixed at twenty.27 The daimyo appointed as city elders merchants
  who had made their marks in business, men who possessed adminis-
  trative skills and enjoyed a high reputation, as defined in terms of
  commercial success. Not unexpectedly, many came from the ranks of
  the chartered merchants, the merchant elite who enjoyed commercial
  privileges and an especially close relationship with the lord and high
  retainers.
  The elders performed a variety of duties. They received written
  requests and complaints from the townspeople, attached their own
  opinions, and then submitted the paperwork to the samurai officials at
  the City Office. They also checked tax receipts and submitted state-
  ments that the proper amount had been collected. The elders accompa-
  nied the police officials who investigated the crimes of merchants and
  artisans and then attended hearings. Finally, they helped supervise the
  activities of other commoners who worked at the City Office. In a
  more general way, they were expected to promote good behavior and
  filial piety among the townspeople, to mediate civil disagreements
  between commoners, and to encourage diligence by merchants and
  artisans.
  Several dozen other offices that functioned under the jurisdiction of
  the city elders in Kanazawa also became institutionalized during the
  middle decades of the seventeenth century. It became common prac-
  tice, for example, to appoint inspectors (yokome kimoiri) and ward repre-
  sentatives (machi kimoiri) to assist the city elders. The inspectors helped
  with tax collection and investigated charges of questionable administra-
  tion by city officials. Each representative served several wards (in the
  1690s there were approximately forty representatives and slightly more
  than one hundred commoner wards), and they were specifically in-
  structed to help compile census reports, examine commoner com-
  27 The number was reduced to ten in 1669. Machidoshiyori rekimei narabi ni tsutomekatacho, ms.
  copy, Kanazawa City Library.
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  535
  plaints about allegedly exorbitant and unfair prices, hold conciliation
  talks in commercial disputes, and investigate suspicious deaths. For
  this, the representatives were paid a salary of a little less than five koku
  of rice each, about one-half of what the city elders received.
  The groups of ten households (juningumi) constituted the final link
  in the administrative chain. The groups had a long history in Kana-
  zawa, and the term can be found in early-seventeenth-century docu-
  ments. Apparently not all urban commoners formed themselves into
  such groups, however, until domain proclamations issued in the 1640s
  instructed them to do so. These groups of ten households (in reality,
  the number of households in any one group often exceeded that num-
  ber) were the functional equivalent of the household groups estab-
  lished in the rural villages in most domains.
  In one sense, the groups preserved the interests of the merchant and
  artisan neighborhoods, since they functioned as units of mutual aid
  and self-help. In Kanazawa, for instance, members were supposed to
  assist neighbors who fell on hard times financially, and from the mid-
  seventeenth century each group maintained firefighting equipment
  such as ladders, rakes, and rain barrels. Looked at from another per-
  spective, the groups reflected an effort by the daimyo to extend his
  authority and laws over the commoner populace, as the group mem-
  bers were held jointly responsible for obeying the law and, in theory,
  could be collectively punished for the actions of any single member.
  Beyond this, the groups also carried out a variety of administrative
  functions. They assembled periodically to hear a reading of legal
  codes, enforced the provisions of wills and decided the disposition of
  property when a member died without leaving such a document, and
  verified that any member who moved to a new ward left no debts
  behind. Moreover, they conducted conciliation talks whenever quar-
  rels, commercial disagreements, or land disputes among group mem-
  bers interrupted neighborhood tranquility. If no satisfactory solution
  could be found, then the ward representative, and ultimately the city
  elder if necessary, would be called in for further rounds of negotiation.
  Only if the mediation at all these levels failed did the dispute move up
  the ladder for settlement by samurai officialdom.
  In pace with the amplification of the urban administrative apparatus
  during the first half of the seventeenth century, Kaga's officials acted
  to establish a written, legal basis for their political authority by issuing
  codifications of laws and ordinances. These were promulgated accord-
  ing to status group, with different codes for the samurai and for the
  urban commoners. During the early years of the castle town's growth,
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  536 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  the Maeda daimyo issued three separate codes regulating the samurai
  life: in 1601,1605, and 1612 (with a set of supplements in 1613). Here,
  daimyo law was very limited in scope and intent. For instance, the
  1605 code, issued under the personal seal of Maeda Toshinaga (1562-
  1614), prohibited the following:
  1. Walking on the streets at night.
  2. Loitering on the streets.
  3. Singing on the streets.
  4. Playing the flute (shakuhachi).
  5. Holding sumo matches on the street.
  6. Dancing in the streets.
  7. Masking one's face with a scarf.
  Clearly, the government's chief concern was to preserve law and order
  and to establish procedures for the adjudication of disputes. The other
  samurai codes played on the same themes: They forbade cliques, de-
  clared that retainers should not harbor thieves or suspected criminals
  among their rear vassals, specified that all parties involved in violent
  quarrels were to be judged equally guilty, irrespective of who was at
  fault, and prohibited gambling, with specific rewards for anyone who
  supplied information about violators.
  The laws directed at the merchants and artisans were much more
  numerous, and major codifications were issued in 1642 and 1660. A
  concern with peace on the city streets could also be detected in these
  documents. The 1642 code, for instance, carried prohibitions against
  gambling, gossiping, and keeping dogs as pets; whereas the 1660 edi-
  tion repeated earlier injunctions against prostitution, wearing swords,
  and urinating from the second floor of houses.
  But these merchant codes could intrude more into the lives of the
  urban commoners than did the samurai codes. Particularly noticeable
  was the expansion of government involvement in the economic life of
  the townspeople. The 1660 code stipulated that maximum interest
  rates be fixed at 1.7 percent per month and prohibited any joint
  samurai-merchant business ventures. Yet another article announced
  that a representative from the City Office would visit any person who
  fell behind in his debt repayments or credit obligations, an especially
  important clause for the merchants and artisans of Kanazawa, as it
  promised government assistance in collecting all debts. Another fea-
  ture of merchant codes was a concern with public services. The 1660
  code contained clauses concerning garbage disposal, the firefighting
  responsibilities of the household groups, and the duties of the ward
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  AN ERA OF URBAN GROWTH 
  537
  patrols (teishubari), whose chief responsibility, which rotated among
  the residents of each ward, was to patrol nightly the ward's streets,
  watching for fire and criminal activity.
  In addition to the major legal codifications, the domain government
  issued a mass of ordinances during the middle of seventeenth century
  that attempted both to regulate behavior and to further refine status
  distinctions. An important ordinance in 1661, for example, attempted
  to synchronize clothing with status. Regulations that took effect on
  New Year's Day of that year established the types of clothing fabrics
  permitted to peasants, townspeople, and each major subdivision of the
  samurai status group. Accordingly, high-level retainers such as mem-
  bers of the Eight Houses and the commanders could wear thirteen
  kinds of high-quality silk; retainers from the middle ranks were permit-
  ted four kinds of lesser silk; and those such as the more minor archers
  and riflers were restricted to pongee, cotton, and the rougher fibers of
  flax, hemp, and vines, known collectively under the rubric of nuno.
  The regulations provided that townspeople could wear plain silk (kinu)
  and pongee, whereas the peasants were held to pongee and the rougher
  fibers.
  The domain complemented these clothing regulations with other
  status decrees. Some laws set limits on the amounts and kinds of foods
  that could be served on holidays and ceremonial days, with the samu-
  rai permitted more opulent indulgences than merchants were. Accord-
  ing to other laws, townspeople were not supposed to have carved
  wooden beams or doors made from cedar in their homes, because
  these were perquisites of the samurai class. Nor could townspeople,
  unless they were seriously ill or over sixty years of age, ride in palan-
  quins, whose use was normally restricted to high-ranking samurai and
  certain city officials.
  The establishment of patterns of urban governance in early modern
  Japan paralleled the transformations in the exercise of political author-
  ity in rural areas and on the domain level, as explained in Chapters 5
  and 9 of this volume. The daimyo of the late sixteenth century had
  been personal autocrats who led armies, enfeoffed retainers, issued
  decrees, and set policy. By the second half of the seventeenth century,
  most of their successors had withdrawn from the direct, day-to-day
  management of the affairs of government and, instead, had become
  more nominal rulers whose chief function was to serve as the legitimiz-
  ing agent of the administrative structure.
  The retreat of the daimyo as personal leaders, however, did not
  portend a decline in state powers, for the new bureaucracies of the
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  538 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  seventeenth century had more ability to tax, legislate, and punish than
  did the daimyo of the previous age. Yet, in a profound historical twist,
  the exercise of this power was also newly tempered; first, by the
  government's need to harmonize its policies with the aspirations and
  wishes of the merchants and artisans in the cities and, second, by the
  obligation of government to subordinate its impulses to the require-
  ments imposed by the new bureaucratic practices, legal codes, and
  standardized procedures that grew up during Japan's transition from
  the medieval to the early modern polity. The history of cities such as
  Kanazawa demonstrate how castle towns brought together the concen-
  trations of wealth and power that made possible this shift away from
  personal forms of authority toward a new style of bureaucratic statism.
  CITIES AND COMMERCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
  Castle towns and the agricultural revolution
  The commercial economy grew significantly during the period of Ja-
  pan's political unification, from the middle sixteenth down to the end
  of the seventeenth century. The point of departure for this expansion
  was a revolution in agricultural production. Although the statistical
  data are not without shortcomings, some scholars have estimated that
  the amount of cultivated paddy more than doubled in the century
  from 1550 to 1650 alone.28 Productivity and yields also increased as
  better fertilizers, improved farm tools, and new strains of seeds made
  their appearance. Important as well were reclamation and large-scale
  irrigation projects, many underwritten by daimyo who hoped to ex-
  pand the taxable revenue base of their domains. Another (actor was
  the role played by the individual peasant household. As ruran?esidents
  acquired more secure rights to their holdings, a process discussed in
  Chapters 3 and 10 in this volume, the farmers came to believe that
  significant portions of any increase in yield would accrue to them, and
  thus they were more willing to make the investments necessary to
  boost productivity and to bring formerly marginal fields into cultiva-
  tion.29 Indeed, signs of a growing rural prosperity - new and larger
  houses, improved diet, better clothing - were evident in most areas of
  Japan by the middle of the seventeenth century.
  These improvements in the nation's productive capacity touched off
  28 Kozo Yamamura, "Returns on Unification: Economic Growth in Japan, 1550-1650," in Hall,
  Nagahara, and Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa, p. 334.
  29 Ibid., pp. 339-57-
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
  539
  a dynamic spurt in population growth. Although accurate statistics
  were not kept at that time, some demographers and historians place
  the growth rate in the range of 0.78 to 1.34 percent annually between
  1550 and 1700. Others posit an accelerating rate during the seven-
  teenth century, rising from 0.5 percent in the early decades of the
  century to nearly 1.4 percent between 1650 and 1670.3° Despite these
  differences of opinion, most scholars agree that the greatest population
  increases took place in the last half of the seventeenth century and
  that, in aggregate, the country's total population grew from roughly 12
  million persons to approximately 26 million to 30 million at the time of
  the shogun's census in 1721.
  The rapid increase in both productive capacity and population also
  brought about changes in household composition. The number of
  individual farm households increased at a faster rate than did overall
  production growth, and this statistic indicates a rearrangement of
  household configuration away from a complex, extended family to-
  ward smaller nuclear families, many of which were created as branches
  and given land by the stem family. The disappearance of the extended
  farm family meant that the small independent cultivator (jisakushono)
  who farmed his holding with the labor of his own family became the
  most common type of peasant household. As the process of subdivi-
  sion continued, however, there eventually came into being a growing
  number of families who possessed land that was barely sufficient for
  their needs. Indeed, by the 1670s the shogunate had become so con-
  cerned about the destabilizing aspects of the further subdivision of
  farmland that it issued a "law restricting the division of farmland"
  {bunchi seigen-rei).1'
  The evolution of the farm family also brought about conditions that
  favored urban migration. As families shed surplus members during
  the first half of the seventeenth century, there were always some who
  did not have enough land to establish branch families. These disfran-
  chised men and women often moved into the growing castle towns,
  where they could hope to find work as day laborers or unskilled arti-
  sans, although the poorest of the women were sometimes forced into
  prostitution. Similarly, those new branches who had received only
  marginal amounts of land were in a position of continuous economic
  30 Hayami Akira, Kinsei ndson no rekishi jinkogaku-teki kenkyu (Tokyo: Toyo keizai shimposha,
  1973), p. 23; and Shakai kogaku kenkyujo, ed., Nihon relto ni okeru jinko bumpu no choki
  jikeiretsu bunseki (Tokyo: Shakai kogaku kenkyujo, 1974), pp. 42-57.
  31 The fullest discussion of the relationship between the commercialization of agriculture and
  household composition remains Thomas C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modem Japan
  (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959).
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  540 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  jeopardy, and in years of even slight drought or cold weather they
  might have to abandon their homes to search for work, or even to beg,
  in the castle towns.
  There is no way of knowing the exact magnitude of migration in the
  seventeenth century, but given the rapid growth of the castle towns,
  surely several hundreds of thousands of persons were on the move in
  the middle decades of the century. In Kanazawa alone, to take one
  example, between 1660 to 1663, arriving would-be merchants and
  artisans leased well over 300,000 square meters of farmland on the
  fringes of the city.32 Regardless of the exact scale of migration, how-
  ever, local officials were clearly worried, and many castle towns en-
  acted special ordinances in the middle of the seventeenth century that
  discouraged further movement into their cities and that attempted to
  bring beggars under closer supervision.33
  The ongoing migration from village to city also prompted the sho-
  gunate to introduce the system of family census registers (koseki) as
  one way of gaining some measure of control over this migrant popula-
  tion. Before this, the shogunate had compelled each temple to conduct
  a religious investigation (shushi aratame) as a means of suppressing
  Christianity. It had also ordered a census and household count in each
  village for the purpose of making corvee levies, and at the same time,
  it instructed peasants to report the number of cattle and horses they
  were raising. In 1670, however, these two records were combined in
  the religious and census investigation (shumon aratame). This new
  reporting system began the practice of requiring all the households of
  each domain, without exception, to register the names of their mem-
  bers with ward or village officials and to identify their temple of
  affiliation. Once a person was registered, if he wanted to migrate, he
  had to prove that he had obtained the permission of his temple and his
  ward or village.
  In addition to provoking the imposition of stricter political controls,
  the large influx of population into the cities in the middle decades of
  the seventeenth century affected the physical layout of the castle
  towns. First, the castle towns started to expand into areas beyond the
  geographic limits that the daimyo founders had envisioned. The mi-
  grants, mostly poor, tended to live where rents were lowest, on the
  rural fringes of the castle towns. Increasingly, the boundaries between
  urban wards and agricultural villages became blurred as men and
  32 Tanaka Yoshio, "Kinsei jokamachi hatten no ichi kosatsu - 'Aitaiukechi' kara mita joka-
  machi, Kanazawa no baai," Hokunku shigaku 8 (1959): 19-37.
  33 For a specific example, see McClain, Kanazawa, pp. 124-32.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
  541
  women who worked as laborers, craftsmen, or bushi household ser-
  vants rented lodgings in settlements that were under the administra-
  tive jurisdiction of the rural magistrates (Jkori bugyo). Moreover,
  theaters and houses of prostitution often sprouted up in these fringe
  areas. This growth caused, in turn, a whole new set of problems, as
  farmers complained about the newcomers trampling over fields, break-
  ing down dikes, or otherwise disrupting the rhythm of agricultural
  life. Many urban governments responded by transferring these areas
  to the jurisdiction of the city magistrates, thus making the merchant-
  farmer wards part of the cityscape.
  The physical expansion of the cities played havoc with older notions
  of urban planning. Originally, for instance, most daimyo had pre-
  ferred, for defensive purposes, to situate their foot soldiers and the
  large Buddhist temples in a concentric circle around the outer limits of
  the city. Now many had to abandon that design or else undertake
  considerable expense and trouble to relocate the warrior residences
  and religious institutions. Predictably, this kind of urban reorganiza-
  tion most frequently occurred in cities that had the misfortune of
  suffering a major fire. Such conflagrations provided a convenient pre-
  text for the daimyo to relocate people who otherwise would have been
  reluctant to move to strange neighborhoods, away from old friends
  and familiar shops and places of worship. Following such fires, many
  daimyo also widened the streets and established open areas as fire-
  breaks at strategic points.
  Concurrently, the principle that persons of the same occupation
  ought to live together in the same wards suffered serious erosion, and
  except for some special occupations such as that of gunsmith or
  swordsmith, artisans as well as merchants began to reside in scattered
  locations throughout the expanding cities. One reason contributing to
  this process was that some established merchants and artisans voluntar-
  ily moved into the newly created fringe wards, in search of new cus-
  tomers or lower shop rents. A second reason was that the forced
  relocation of some bushi turned the fringe areas into real residential
  hodgepodges, adding samurai to the merchant, artisan, and day la-
  borer populations. In Kanazawa, for instance, seven of the households
  in one ward on the outskirts of the city belonged to artisans, twenty-
  eight to merchants, six to day laborers, and thirteen to samurai.34
  The complexion of the inner city changed as well. As some of the
  34 For this and other examples, see Tanaka, Jokamachi Kanazawa, pp. 103-106; and Tanaka
  Yoshio, Kaga hart ni okeru toshi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Bun'ichi sogo shuppan, 1978), pp. 140-5.
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  542 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  newcomers prospered, they moved into the older, more prestigious
  sections of the city, usually choosing sites that suited their fancy and
  commercial needs, rather than adhering to the artificial occupation
  divisions of an earlier age. Finally, many were tempted by the empty
  land within the new firebreaks. Not uncommonly, poorer merchants
  and artisans squatted on this land, much to the chagrin of those do-
  main authorities who were still wedded to the notion of a planned city.
  But the perseverance of the homesteaders to stay was usually greater
  than the resolve of the city authorities to evict them.
  The expansion of cities in the middle and later decades of the seven-
  teenth century was only one factor working to change the character and
  function of cities. By the end of the century, the commoners of the castle
  towns had also achieved new levels of economic prosperity and brought
  into being a distinctive urban-based culture. The interaction of the
  population migration with the commercial and cultural developoment
  inside the city created a new kind of castle town, as we shall see, one that
  was very different from the expectations of the daimyo during the
  period of urban creation at the beginning of the century.
  Commercial development and castle town merchants
  Paralleling the agricultural revolution was a spectacular expansion in
  the volume of commercial exchange that began during the middle
  decades of the sixteenth century and continued until the end of the
  seventeenth century. Historians have identified several causes that
  contributed to this process, including the policies implemented by the
  daimyo during the late Sengoku period in order to strength^ the
  economic basis of their rule, such as the abolition of toll gate barriers
  and the promotion of periodic markets that would be open to all
  traders.35
  Daimyo of the seventeenth century continued these policies and also
  vigorously promoted the expansion of permanent markets within the
  new castle towns, such as when the Maeda daimyo set aside two plots
  of land in the commercial heart of Kanazawa to be used by fish and
  vegetable dealers.36 Other significant stimulants included the standard-
  35 The classic work on this topic is Sasaki Gin'ya, Chusei shohin ryutsu no kenkyu (Tokyo: Hosei
  daigaku shuppankyoku, 1972). In English, see Gin'ya Sasaki, with William B. Hauser,
  "Sengoku Daimyo Rule and Commerce," in Hall, Nagahara, and Yamamura, eds., Japan
  Before Tokugawa, pp. 125-48; and Kozo Yamamura, "Returns on Unification," on pp. 327-
  72 of the same volume.
  36 Kanazawa-shi Omicho ichiba-shi hensan iinkai, ed., Kanazawa-shi Omicho ichiba-shi (Kana-
  zawa: Hokkoku shuppansha, 1979), pp. 10-25.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
  543
  EDO
  BI 100,000 °K. NIORJ; •" "
  ® 50,000 -TO 90,000 
  0
  • 
  30,000 -ro 50,000 „
  Map 11.1 Major cities and transportation routes, eighteenth century.
  ization of weights and measures and the minting of coins by the Toku-
  gawa shogunate that were accepted nationwide as units of exchange.
  Important, too, was the growth of transportation facilities.37 Beyond
  constructing port facilities and dredging rivers and canals to link castle
  towns to ports, the Tokugawa shogunate and individual daimyo also
  laid out large sums of money to develop overland transportation facili-
  ties. The keystone of these projects was the linking of Edo with distant
  localities by the construction of several major roadways, including the
  great Tokaido highway between Edo and Kyoto, whose more than
  fifty post towns provided the supplies, horses, and resting places that
  made possible transportation between the emperor's and the shogun's
  home cities. Within the domains, too, the daimyo built roads and
  bridges to ease the transport of foodstuffs and raw materials from the
  rural villages into the castle towns.38 (See Map n.i)
  37 Maruyama Yasunari, "Toshi to rikujo kotsu," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza:
  Nihon no hdken toshi, vol. 2, pp. 119-44.
  38 For a very useful study of the post towns, see Haga Noboru, Shukuba-machi (Kyoto:
  Yanagihara shoten, 1977).
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  544 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  Another factor was the institutionalization of the system of alternate
  residence. Although the custom of personal attendance on one's supe-
  rior and the submission of hostages as an expression of loyalty had
  become fairly common during the sixteenth century, these practices
  were made a permanent obligation for the daimyo only after 1633.
  From that date, daimyo were compelled to alternate their residences
  between Edo and their home domains, to build elaborate mansions in
  Edo, and to leave appropriate retinues, including their wives and
  children, permanently in the shogun's city. This system was designed
  to permit the shogunate to maintain a close surveillance over the
  daimyo, but it also had the consequence of stimulating the nation's
  volume of commercial exchange as the daimyo processions moved
  back and forth along the new highways that crossed Japan.39
  The growing wave of commercial transactions had several important
  consequences. Agricultural patterns changed enormously, for now
  farmers were able to concentrate more profitably their energies on
  growing commercial crops, such as cotton, tea, hemp, mulberry, in-
  digo, vegetables, and tobacco, for sale to the urban markets.40 Re-
  gional specialization also became a feature of economic life, as great
  numbers of villagers around Osaka, for instance, started to switch over
  to cotton cultivation while farmers in northern Japan began to raise
  horses and cattle for sale as draft animals.41 Individual rural house-
  holds began to develop by-employments or simple rural industries, so
  that even within a single domain certain villages became known for
  their production of goods such as paper, charcoal, ink, pottery, lacquer
  ware, or spun cloth.
  Concurrent with the commercial growth of Tokugawa Japan was the
  daimyo's increasing need for cash revenues, which could come only
  through participation in interregional trade. One part of the story is
  simply that the daimyo needed money to buy the growing number of
  specialized goods that were produced outside their own domains. But
  the system of alternate residence also put a strain on the daimyo's
  finances. The experience of the Maedo daimyo of Kaga was fairly
  typical. By the end of the seventeenth century, their journeys to Edo
  39 The most complete treatment of the alternate residence system in English is Toshio George
  Tsukahira, Feudal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kotai System, Harvard East Asian
  Monographs, no. 20 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).
  40 This shift in cropping patterns is discussed in Watanabe Zenjiro, Toshi to noson no aida
  (Tokyo: Ronsosha, 1983), esp. pp. 121-49, 241-76.
  41 For examples of this sort of regional specialization in the Kinai, Morioka, and Okayama, see
  Susan B. Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial
  Japan, 1600-1868 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 91-198.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
  545
  and the expenses associated with maintaining the nearly three thou-
  sand persons from Kaga who lived year-round in the Edo mansion
  often consumed at least one-third and sometimes as much as one-half
  of all annual domain expenditures.42
  The occasional extraordinary levies made by the shogunate were
  also burdensome. The Tokugawa rulers demanded economic assis-
  tance when they rebuilt Osaka Castle after the siege of 1614-15, con-
  structed a castle residence for the retired Ieyasu at Sumpu, and re-
  paired Edo Castle after fires in 1636, 1657, and 1658. The shogunate
  also made fairly regular exactions for the construction of roads,
  bridges, and waterways. The cash requirements dictated by the sho-
  gun's levies, when added to burdens associated with the system of
  alternate residence, contributed greatly to the domains' growing in-
  debtedness. By the end of the seventeenth century, nearly all domains
  were spending in some years more than they could collect in agricul-
  tural levies, and many daimyo had turned to borrowing funds from
  wealthy merchants in Edo and Osaka. To return to the Kaga example,
  annual domain expenses amounted to nearly 15 percent more than its
  revenues in the 1690s, and within another two generations the total of
  its outstanding loans to wealthy merchants probably amounted to
  more than twice the sum of all annual domain revenues.43
  Commercial growth and the expanding needs of most domains for
  new sources of revenues prompted many daimyo to revise their poli-
  cies toward the merchants in their castle towns. In particular, many
  daimyo began to cast aside their ties with the older class of privileged
  merchants, the goyo purveyors to the lord, and, instead, began to
  nurture relationships with other groups of businessmen who could
  best meet the changing requirements for increasing the flow of goods
  into castle towns and promoting interdomain trade.
  In most castle towns, the daimyo and their governments now forged
  ties with ton'ya, or groups of wholesalers and forwarding agents, to
  whom the lords granted monopoly rights over specific commodities
  and commercial crops. Some of these associations participated in in-
  terregional trade. In Kaga domain, for instance, an association of tea
  wholesalers had been formed by the 1650s and had been granted sole
  rights to import tea from other domains. The wholesalers' own profits
  came from a commission, which was authorized by the domain and
  added to the basic price before the wholesalers sold the tea to peddlers
  42 For the figures for Kaga and several other domains, see Tsukahira, Feudal Control, pp. 81 -102.
  43 Kuranami Seiji, Kaga: Hyakumangoku (Tokyo: Hachiyo shuppan, 1974), pp. 101-28.
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  546 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  who then retailed it throughout the domain.44 Other wholesale groups
  specialized in moving goods from the closer rural hinterlands to castle
  town customers. Thus by the 1680s several different wholesale groups
  were authorized to buy charcoal, paper, ink, cloth, cooking oil, and
  firewood from villagers throughout Kaga domain, who produced these
  items at slack times in the agriculture season, and to sell them, after
  adding a commission, to retailers in the castle town of Kanazawa.45
  In other cases, wholesalers were responsible for directing the com-
  plex flow of raw materials that were used to produce local specialities for
  sale outside the domain. An example of how many layers of wholesalers
  might be involved in such a process comes from the castle town of
  Hikone, headquarters of the famous Ii family of fudai daimyo. There,
  the most marketable local product was clothing made from jute (asa),
  which was prized for its coolness and breathability in the warmer, more
  humid regions of Japan. Farmers in mountainous areas around Hikone
  collected the jute and sold it to designated groups of wholesalers, who in
  turn resold it to artisans, who then spun it into thread. A different group
  of wholesalers known as asaya, or jute dealers, then purchased this
  thread, added an authorized markup, and sold it to craftsmen who wove
  it into cloth. Finally, yet another authorized group of wholesalers pur-
  chased the cloth and marketed it outside the domain.
  In other circumstances, a domain might pursue policies that favored
  particular artisan groups. In the castle town of Wakamatsu in Aizu
  domain (the present-day city of Aizu-Wakamatsu), about 10 percent
  of all the artisans in the city produced lacquer ware, a local product
  that won fame nationwide and was in great demand in central markets
  such as Edo and Osaka. The domain designated the trees and bushes
  from which lacquer base was extracted as yakuboku, or "tax trees,"
  and the domain ordered the peasants to collect the liquid extracted
  from the trees and to pay it as a tax. The government later sold the
  extract to castle town artisans and then purchased the output, mostly
  wooden soup bowls, for sale outside the domain. Although no figures
  for the seventeenth century are available, by the middle of the eigh-
  teenth century, exports of such lacquer ware accounted for 84 percent
  of all domain exports. Indeed, the fact that the domain imported
  beech and magnolia trees, which provided sap that could be turned
  into the lacquer base, indicates that demand for Aizu lacquer ware far
  outstripped the amount of raw material available in the domain.
  44 Heki Ken, eds., Kaga han shiryo, 18 vols. (Tokyo: Ishiguro bunkichi, 1928-58), vol. 4
  (Kambun 3 [i663]/3/6), pp. 10-12.
  45 McClain, Kanazawa, pp. 131-4.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
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  Government policy in almost every castle town gave preferential
  treatment to rice dealers. The reason for this had to do with the tax
  and stipendiary systems. When the diamyo across Japan pulled the
  samurai into the castle towns and abolished their prerogative to extract
  dues from the peasants directly, the lords began to compensate their
  retainers by providing stipends, denominated in units of rice. By the
  middle of the seventeenth century, it had become standard practice in
  most parts of Japan to pay samurai with certificates, good for the
  amount of their stipends and collectible from the daimyo's granary.
  Very soon, rice dealers who bought the certificates from the samurai,
  and even from the daimyo himself, and then sold the rice on the open
  market became a prominent part of the merchant class in nearly every
  castle town.
  Because it was in the daimyo's interest to have rice sell at as high a
  price as possible, most daimyo governments enacted laws that, in
  effect, gave special protection to the rice dealers. For example, almost
  every daimyo strictly prohibited the importation of rice from outside
  his home domain, except during times of famine. Moreover, most
  daimyo formally recognized groups of rice dealers, who could then
  form a protective association, or kabunakama, with monopoly rights to
  purchase rice certificates from the samurai.
  Finally, many daimyo enacted policies that favored sake brewing as
  a way of encouraging rice consumption. One way that they did this
  was to specify the amounts of rice to be set aside for sake production.
  Beyond this, many daimyo also protected the brewers by authorizing
  the formation of protective associations, prohibiting the importation
  of sake from outside the domain, and granting special payment terms
  to brewers for the rice they used in their business.46 By the end of the
  seventeenth century, sake brewers in the castle towns had become as
  important as their rural counterparts and were among the more pros-
  perous elements of the urban merchant class.
  Local towns
  Closely related to the increasing volume of commercial exchange was
  the appearance of what were called local towns, or zaigomachi. As
  46 Numerous restrictive regulations concerning sake brewing can be found in compilations of
  laws in the Tokugawa period, and so it has been argued that sak6 brewing was generally
  carried out under very severe production restrictions. However, these regulations were typi-
  cally issued on a temporary basis during the periods of poor harvest or crop failures. In
  normal times, sake brewers were valued as large-scale consumers of rice.
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  548 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  farmers engaged more and more in by-employments, merchants began
  to move into rural areas in order to help the farmers assemble raw
  materials, process those into finished products, and then transport the
  goods into the urban retail markets. In time, the percentage of the
  rural population engaged in trade grew, and many of the villages lost
  their agricultural identity. The evolution of villages into local towns is
  often considered to be a nineteenth-century phenomenon, but the
  process certainly began earlier. For instance, in Kaga domain alone,
  by the close of the seventeenth century the government had recognized
  the commercial growth of fifteen villages by redesignating them as
  towns (machi) and placing them under the jurisdiction of their own
  town magistrates.47
  The village of Johana, located not far from Kanazawa in Kaga do-
  main, can serve as a useful example of the trend toward small-scale
  rural urbanization.48 Johana sits on a large alluvial delta at the point
  where the famous Mt. Gokayama faces Tonami Plain. Farmers who
  lived in the foothills around the mountains grew cocoons that were
  used to manufacture silk thread. These farmers, however, had only a
  few plots of rice paddy, and after they paid their taxes and fed their
  families, few had enough capital to cover the cost of producing the
  cocoons. Consequently, certain urban-based rice merchants and finan-
  ciers came to Johana and began to lend rice and money to farmers so
  that they could raise cocoons, with the understanding that these mer-
  chant financiers would be permitted to buy the crop. The merchants
  then turned over the cocoons to artisans in Johana who would spin
  them into thread, which in turn was sold to another group for weaving
  into silk cloth. Finally, wholesalers, also based in Johana, would sell
  the silk cloth outside the domain, especially to merchants in Kyoto.
  This kind of commercial opportunity transformed Johana from an
  agricultural village at mid-century into a community in which the
  majority of households in 1693 were engaged in some aspect of the silk
  business. Indeed, about 30 percent of Johana's residents had migrated
  there between 1683 and 1693 in order to take advantage of these
  commercial opportunities.
  Raw cotton was another commercial crop whose increased popular-
  47 Kaga han shiryo, vol. 5 (Genroku 13 [1700]), p. 515. For more on Japan in general, see
  Thomas C. Smith, "Pre-modern Economic Growth: Japan and the West," Past and Present 43
  (1973): 127-60.
  48 Johana is the topic of several articles in Mizushima Shigeru, Kaga han, Toyama han no shakai
  keizaishi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Bunken shuppan, 1982), pp. 41-64.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
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  ity had significant repercussions on urbanization and the emergence of
  local towns.49 Cotton was first grown extensively as a cash crop in the
  Yamato region (present-day Nara Prefecture), and the provinces of
  Settsu, Kawachi, and Izumi quickly became centers of cotton cultiva-
  tion. Later, production moved further into western Japan. The rapid
  expansion of cotton production at the end of the seventeenth century
  touched off a clothing revolution, for farmers and lower-class urban
  dwellers quickly began to replace their rough hemp and jute clothing
  with cotton products.
  At first cotton was grown on dry fields in the Yamato region, but
  farmers soon changed to wet-field production. In many villages, more
  than 50 percent of the wet-field area was given over to cotton produc-
  tion. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the shogunate spon-
  sored a construction project on the Yodo River, which flowed into the
  sea at Osaka, and completed a channel that emptied into the ocean at
  Sakai. At that time, old residences, ponds, and swamps along the river
  were converted into wet fields, most of which were used to grow
  cotton. Indeed, there were even some villages where all the land was
  turned over to cotton cultivation.
  Farmers typically held back a portion of the cotton crop that they
  harvested and processed it themselves by stripping the seeds and spin-
  ning the cotton into thread for weaving into cloth on home looms.
  Normally, they did this as a form of by-employment in the slack season
  and sold the output to cotton cloth dealers. The farmers sold any
  remaining portion of the crop in its unprocessed state to wholesale
  agents, who turned it over to local artisans who ginned the cotton,
  some using an instrument called a wataguri, a tool imported from
  China through the port of Nagasaki. Next, other local artisans spun
  the cotton into thread and wove it into cloth for sale by retailers. Any
  remaining portion was bought up by traveling wholesalers who ped-
  dled it in various individual domains across Japan.
  In the Yamato region, the collection of raw cotton from farmers and
  the processing into thread and cotton cloth took place chiefly in the
  castle town of Koriyama.50 But in the Osaka area, where cotton grow-
  ing developed on a wide scale, several local towns sprang up to house
  49 For a study of the causes leading to the growth of local towns in one region, see Omura
  Hajime, "Echigo no zaigo-machi," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza: Nihon no
  hoken toshi, vol. 3, pp. 354-91.
  50 Kobayashi Shigeru, "Kinai no zaigo-machi," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza:
  Nihon no hoken toshi, vol. 3, pp. 392-422.
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  550 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  the merchants and artisans engaged in the trade.51 Examples include
  Hiranogo, Kashiwabara, Furuichi, Tondabayashi, Daigazuka, Izumi-
  sano, and Kaizuka, many of which once had been temple towns.
  The largest of these old temple towns that emerged as a commercial
  center was Hiranogo, which, according to a 1704 census, had 2,543
  households and 9,272 persons. Among these households, 1,331 were
  listed as agriculturalists, and thus Hiranogo might be labeled an "agri-
  cultural town" (noson-toshi), that is, one in which approximately half
  the population engaged in agriculture and half in commerce. Among
  the 1,212 households engaged in commerce in Hiranogo, 254 were
  involved in some aspect of the cotton business, from the wholesaling
  through the winnowing stages. In addition, 60 households purchased
  cottonseeds and manufactured oil. If the dyers of cotton cloth, dealers
  in used cotton clothing, fertilizer manufacturers, and shipping agents
  are also included, then 44 percent of all the merchants in the city
  managed businesses that were related in some way to the cotton trade.
  Day laborers accounted for 313 households, and many were undoubt-
  edly employed in some aspect of the cotton business. Thus it is clear
  that Hiranogo was supported by the cotton production of surrounding
  agricultural areas and that the cotton trade within the city was charac-
  terized by a highly developed functional specialization.
  There were some ten other, similar "agriculture towns" in the re-
  gion, including Kaizuka, which also had previously been a temple
  town. Kaizuka was the home port for eleven oceangoing ships and
  forty-one coastal boats used to export cotton and cloth and to import
  rice from Shikoku and Hokuriku and fish fertilizer from Edo and
  Uraga. This indicated that the production of cotton was not dominated
  solely by capital financiers from Osaka but, rather, flourished in the
  various "agricultural towns" and in large part involved small-scale,
  independent traders and producers. Moreover, the Kaizuka example
  shows how the development of the cotton business brought about a
  new marketing structure that stimulated the commercial rice business
  in Shikoku and Hokuriku as well as the fish business in the Kanto
  region.
  The commercialization of agriculture and the emergence of new
  patterns of marketing during the seventeenth century also created
  fresh opportunities for new groups of men to compete with the older,
  51 For a full discussion of the spread of the cotton trade into local towns, especially those such as
  Hiranogo and Kaizuka in the Osaka region, see Nakai Nobuhiko, Tenkan-ki bakuhansei no
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1971), pp. 237-321. In English, see William B. Hauser,
  Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan: Osaka and the Kinai Cotton Trade (Cam-
  bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 143-60.
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  established shipping agents who were based in castle towns and who
  monopolized the transportation of goods under charters authorized by
  their daimyo. That is, during the first half of the century, goods were
  typically transported along a limited number of prescribed roadways
  by officially designated transportation agents or shippers, who han-
  dled cargo at prescribed places called toiyaba within the cities. In
  exchange for this monopoly right, the shippers had to handle freight
  for the daimyo and his retainers either free of charge or at reduced
  rates. However, some commodities, especially those that had to be
  carted into a castle town from its hinterland villages, were transported
  outside of the official system. In these cases, farmers simply packed
  goods that they had made themselves onto horses or other draft ani-
  mals, which they otherwise used for agricultural purposes, and took
  these products into the cities.
  During the seventeenth century, some of these farmers started to
  transport goods to more distant places, shipping agricultural products
  and rural handicrafts, and even finished goods from the castle towns,
  to central markets outside of their own domains. For many merchants
  the new services offered by the farmers turned part-time shippers were
  cheaper and more convenient than the official system, which by law
  required that loads be placed on fresh horses at the toiyaba of each post
  town, which were located about ten kilometers apart along the major
  roadways. Consequently, many customers began to use the services of
  these farmer-agents. As they accumulated capital, some of these new
  shippers also became wholesalers, buying up goods in rural areas and
  selling them to urban merchants. In this way there emerged a new
  group of former agriculturalists who moved into the cities during the
  final decades of the seventeenth century and who came to specialize in
  the purchase, handling, storage, and sales of various commodities.
  Because the public transportation system had been set up by the
  shogunate and the individual daimyo domains, the older, officially
  recognized forwarding agents and wholesalers in the post towns now
  protested to the shogunate and requested that prohibitions be directed
  against the newly emerging shippers and wholesalers in both cities and
  rural areas. Often, however, daimyo supported the newer shippers.
  The reason was that the daimyo were hoping that the greater volume
  of commerce generated by the new shippers would help enhance the
  prosperity of their domains, especially the castle towns.52
  52 For a study of the transportation system and of some of the contentions that could arise, see
  Constantine N. Vaporis, "Post Station and Assisting Village," Monumenta Nipponica 41
  (Winter 1986): 377-414.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  It was also during the latter half of the seventeenth century that
  ocean transport developed rapidly, especially between Edo and Osaka.
  The enormous consumption demands generated by the residents of
  Edo, the de facto political capital of the country, were satisfied in large
  part by supplies from advanced economic areas in western Japan.
  Consequently, great importance was attached to the development of an
  ocean link with Osaka, which had emerged as a collection and distribu-
  tion center. The Inland Sea, used for shipping from the earliest times,
  formed the principal route between Osaka and Kyushu, Shikoku, and
  western Honshu. Usually goods sent to Edo from the Pacific coast
  region of northern Japan were shipped by oceangoing transport to
  Naha Bay (near Mito in present-day Ibaraki Prefecture) where they
  were off-loaded and forwarded to Edo via land, river, and lake routes.
  A second ocean link involved shipping the goods to Choshi Bay
  (present-day Chiba Prefecture) and then sending them up the Tone
  River on barges to Edo. Ships avoided going around Boso peninsula
  and directly into Edo Bay because of the danger of shipwreck off the
  southern tip of the peninsula. Goods from the Japan Sea side of
  Tohoku and from Hokuriku were first shipped to Tsuruga (Fukui
  Prefecture) or Obama on Wakasa Bay. They were off-loaded at these
  ports and sent overland to the northern shore of Lake Biwa where they
  were put on boats and transshipped to Otsu before being forwarded
  overland to Kyoto and Osaka.
  Shipping was still divided into these circuits at the middle of the
  seventeenth century, although all had the disadvantage of requiring
  that the goods be hauled overland for a portion of the journey. That
  state of affairs was remedied and the Japan Sea coast transformed
  into one complete circuit when the shogunate instructed the entrepre-
  neur Kawamura Zuiken to develop the sea routes known as the
  eastern sea circuit (higashi mawari) and the western sea circuit (nishi
  mawari). Kawamura accomplished this by charting coastal waters,
  erecting beacons and lighthouses at dangerous points where the ship-
  ping lanes came close to rocks, and providing disaster relief facilities.
  With the backing of the shogunate, he was also able to convince
  many daimyo to abolish port taxes and to issue regulations that per-
  mitted freedom of cargo handling so that ships from every domain
  could enter all ports. Ultimately, the eastern sea circuit connected the
  most distant parts of Tohoku directly with Edo, and the western sea
  circuit went from the Japan Sea coast side of Tohoku through
  Hokuriku, then around the Straits of Shimonoseki and into the In-
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
  553
  land Sea, before continuing directly to Osaka. The Edo-Osaka route
  connected the two circuits.53
  The establishment of the two coastal shipping circuits in 1671 and
  1672 was a direct response to the growth of Edo's population. In other
  words, Edo's demands for foodstuffs, which had increased markedly
  just before this period, far outstripped supplies from the city's nearby
  hinterland, which were unusually scarce because of several poor har-
  vests, and this threatened social unrest in the city. Consequently, the
  shogunate was anxious to find a way to ship tax rice from its holdings
  in the Tohoku area quickly and safely to Edo.
  The consolidation of the shipping circuits, however, also encour-
  aged private traders and stimulated the development of a nationwide
  commercial economy by fostering the manufacture of goods for export
  outside the area of production. One example of this is commercial
  fertilizers which became necessary for the cultivation of raw cotton as
  the acreage dedicated to that crop expanded explosively in the Nara
  and Osaka areas. The most common kind of fertilizer was made from
  dried sardines, and at first fish taken from the Inland Sea were used
  for this purpose. In response to the rapid increase in demand for this
  kind of commercial fertilizer, new businesses were established on Boso
  peninsula, especially at Kujukuri beach. At first, the fishing grounds
  around Boso were worked by fishermen who came up from Wakayama
  during the fishing season and toiled for a daily wage on boats owned
  and managed by men who lived in the Kujukuri area. They dried the
  sardines on the sands of the beach and then sent them to ports in
  Uraga. Fertilizer merchants from Kansai opened branch stores in the
  port towns around Uraga Bay to buy up fertilizer for shipment to
  cotton-growing areas in western Japan.54
  Until this time, the broad sands of Kujukuri beach had been used to
  produce modest amounts of salt, which the local farmers made by
  boiling off salt water in large cauldrons. Now, however, the farmers
  learned from the men of Wakayama new methods of netting fish. In
  time, some of the villagers even abandoned their agricultural homes in
  53 For a thorough study in English, see E. Sydney Crawcour, "Kawamura Zuiken: A Seven-
  teenth Century Entrepreneur," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 9, 3rd series (1966):
  1-23. A detailed analysis of the impact of the new routes on local commerce is contained in
  Takase Tamotsu, Kaga han kaiunshi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1979).
  54 For an account of how the development of shipping routes influenced commercial production
  on the opposite side of Japan, see Makino Ryushin, Kilamaebune nojidai (Tokyo: Kyoikusha,
  1979)- In English, see Robert G. Flershem, "Some Aspects of Japan Sea Trade in the
  Tokugawa Period," Journal of Asian Studies 23 (May 1964): 405-16.
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  554 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  order to establish fishing villages on the seashore. An improved, larger
  net that could be stretched between two boats came into general use,
  and this made the Kujukuri area Japan's richest sardine-fishing
  grounds. The farmers-turned-fishermen capitalized on this by open-
  ing up a wholesale office on the banks of the Fuka River in Edo, and
  even the fertilizer dealers from the Kansai region had to purchase
  supplies through this office. Gradually, the Edo wholesale office also
  took over the collection of cargoes, which had previously been handled
  by merchants in Uraga.
  In this way, the fishing villages located along the Boso coastline in-
  creased their catches offish that were processed into fertilizer for use in
  cotton cultivation in the Kansai region, and the residents of Kujukuri
  beach, who had given up making salt to concentrate on producing fish
  fertilizer, began instead to purchase salt that was produced in villages
  along the Inland Sea, an area where salt production grew rapidly at the
  end of the seventeenth century. The abandonment of salt production at
  Kujukuri beach was not an isolated event. The demands of the great
  urban markets at Edo and Osaka stimulated the production of salt in the
  villages along the Inland Sea, and this salt, cheaper because of large-
  scale production techniques, came to be sold commercially along the
  western circuit and almost completely displaced local, small-scale salt
  manufacturers, such as those at Kujukuri. The only exception to this
  trend were those special cases in which daimyo supported salt produc-
  tion through the grant of special privileges.
  In short, the expansion of urban markets was closely linked to the
  emergence of local towns, such as Johana, where businessmen could
  produce competitively priced goods, and to the more intensified re-
  gional specialization in the production of commercial items such as
  fertilizers and salt. In turn, the new production locales and marketing
  networks triggered further transformations in the three major metropo-
  lises of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka, as we shall see next.
  The three metropolises
  Kyoto. Nestled at the top of the urban hierarchy in early modern Japan
  were the three large metropolises of Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Of these,
  Kyoto was the most ancient and the most highly regarded as a cultural
  center. Kyoto's artistic and literary achievements had sparkled most
  brightly during the classical golden age of the early eleventh century,
  when court mimes, pageants, and processions were held regularly at
  palatial residences around the city, when artists unrolled their stories
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
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  on narrative scrolls (emakimono), and when court ladies such as Mura-
  saki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon penned novels and literary diaries of
  unsurpassed elegance and style.
  During a large portion of the medieval period, Kyoto functioned as
  the nation's undisputed administrative center.55 From its founding in
  794 Kyoto had been home to the emperor and his court, but from 1338
  until 1573 Kyoto became as well the headquarters for the shogunate.
  From the thirteenth century, the city also served as Japan's primary
  religious center when the new, popularly oriented Jodo and Nichiren
  sects, as well as the more rigorous Rinzai branch of the Zen sect,
  established their chief temples in Kyoto or else in the city's immediate
  environs. Concurrently, as the priesthood and warrior class joined the
  nobility in the city as a consuming elite, Kyoto became a center of
  trade, manufacturing, and exchange. Artisans who produced handi-
  crafts of exceptional quality for the courtiers had long been a perma-
  nent feature of Kyoto life, but now they worked alongside merchants,
  known as toiya or ton'ya, who served the military elite by forwarding to
  the city tax revenues and other goods from the warriors' home prov-
  inces. Within Kyoto, the Ashikaga shogunate also encouraged the
  development of guilds (za) to control the production and distribution
  of certain crucial commercial products such as lamp oil and salted
  fish.56
  Kyoto reached another crossroads in 1573 when Oda Nobunaga
  forced the last Ashikaga shogun to flee and then burned and pillaged
  Kamigyo, the aristocratic northern half of the city. Hideyoshi began to
  refashion the city into a military strongpoint by girdling the city with
  an earthen rampart and compelling religious establishments to congre-
  gate in Teramachi and Tera-no-uchi, areas set aside for that specific
  purpose. Tokugawa Ieyasu then capped this process by placing Nijo
  Castle and a military garrison in the midst of the city.57
  The rich history of the city during the early modern period is re-
  flected in an occupation register compiled in 1685.58 According to this
  55 The leading scholar on premodern Kyoto is Hayashiya Tatsusaburo. See especially his Ma-
  chishu: Kyoto ni okeru "shimin" keisei shi (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1964). In English, see
  Tatsusaburo Hayashiya, with George Elison, "Kyoto in the Muromachi Age," in Hall and
  Toyoda, eds., Japan in the Murotnachi Age, pp. 15-36.
  56 These issues are covered in Takeshi Toyoda and Sugiyama Hiroshi, with V. Dixon Morris,
  "The Growth of Commerce and Trades," in Hall and Toyoda, eds., Japan in the Muromachi
  Age, pp. 129-44.
  57 Ashikaga Kenryo, "Kyoto jokamachi no keisei," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza:
  Nihon no hoken toshi, vol. 3, pp. 68-97.
  58 Nakai Nobuhiko, "Kinsei toshi no hatten," in Iwanami koza Nihon no rekishi, vol. 11 (kinsei
  3) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1963), pp. 37-100. The population composition of the city is also
  discussed in Moriya Takeshi, Kyo no chonin (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1980), pp. 55-70.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  document, Kyoto was home to 51 doctors, categorized as physicians,
  surgeons, pediatricians, obstetricians, ophthalmologists, and dentists.
  In addition, two other registers list 41 "men of letters" (bungakusha),
  including poets and specialists of Chinese classics; 16 "experts"
  (kanteiniri) on painting and calligraphy; and 125 "masters" (shisho) of
  the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, the noh theater, and the board
  games go and shogi.
  Skilled artisans also made Kyoto the nation's center of traditional
  fine arts and handicrafts. The population registers of 1685 also list
  famous shops by specialty, and among these we can find dealers with
  national reputations for their musical instruments, writing brushes,
  and implements for the tea ceremony. A separate register contains the
  names of craftsmen who produced such high-quality artistic goods as
  crowns, folding fans, porcelain, tabi footwear, special clothing for use
  in the tea ceremony, fixtures for Buddhist household altars, and high-
  quality paper used by the emperor, courtiers, and the warrior elite.
  Beyond this, the weaving of silk goods and textile dyeing added a
  distinctive touch to craft production in Kyoto. The number of weavers
  in the seventeenth century is not known for certain, but some docu-
  ments state that a fire in 1730 destroyed nearly three thousand looms,
  out of a total of more than seven thousand in the city.59 If this is so,
  then it would seem likely that more than ten thousand persons were
  engaged in textile production at that time, if the dyers are included.
  During the late medieval period, weaving spread to Kaga and then
  other parts of the country, but in general regional production concen-
  trated on more ordinary, plain silk, whereas the techniques for expert
  dyeing and for making complicated patterns and crests remained an
  exclusive monopoly of the Kyoto craftsmen.
  The great economic transformation of the seventeenth century
  changed the nature of the silk trade in Kyoto. The growth in wealth
  nationwide generated new demands for Kyoto silk, and over the cen-
  tury the ancient imperial capital became as well known for its commer-
  cial production as it had been for its aristocratic traditions. Some of
  the new demand came from daimyo and upper-level samurai, who had
  become the country's new social nobility. Keenly aware of the need to
  develop symbols of their new status, they began to consider the expen-
  sive, high-quality silk of Kyoto as indispensable for use in their own
  clothing. They also gave presents of this silk to the shogun and his
  59 Hayashiya Tatsusaburo and Kato Hidetoshi, Chdnin kara shitnin e (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1979),
  pp. 65-83.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
  557
  officials. Many daimyo even sent retainers to Kyoto to purchase silk so
  that they could make certain that they were acquiring genuine, Kyoto-
  produced textiles.
  Other specific policies implemented by the Edo shogunate also had
  an impact on the high-quality silk-weaving trade that was concentrated
  in the Nishijin section of Kyoto. The restriction of foreign trade to
  Nagasaki, a city under direct shogunal administration; the beginning
  of the tally trade in silk thread with China; and the granting to desig-
  nated merchants of exclusive rights to deal in imported raw silk thread
  (referred to as shiraito) all affected business conditions in Kyoto. The
  raw silk thread imported through Nagasaki was shipped to Kyoto,
  along with high-quality silk cloth and other textiles produced in
  China. These goods passed from the tally-trade merchants, who were
  the importers, to the thread-shipping agents (nakagai), who were con-
  centrated in Nishijin, and then to the weavers. The 1685 occupation
  register lists seventy-six tally-trade merchants, thirty-eight shipping
  agents for imported silk thread, and thirteen wholesalers who handled
  imported goods other than raw silk thread.
  This same register also lists forty-six silk wholesalers who dealt in
  unfinished silk cloth that was produced outside Kyoto. Silk cloth
  usually was not shipped directly from local production areas to large
  consumption centers such as Edo and Osaka. Rather, because the
  Kyoto craftsmen had exclusive knowledge of certain dyeing and pro-
  cessing techniques, silk cloth from other regions was sent to Kyoto
  where it was glossed, dyed, embroidered, and rolled into finished
  bolts. The Kyoto-based wholesalers not only handled unglossed silk
  cloth, but they also acted as purchasing agents and wholesalers for raw
  silk thread that was produced in various regions in Japan. These same
  purchasing agent-wholesaler houses also helped establish silkworm
  cultivation in various regions at the end of the seventeenth century,
  and Nishijin weavers quickly began to use this locally produced raw
  silk thread instead of imported thread. As a consequence, Nagasaki's
  importance as an entry point for foreign trade rapidly declined.
  The 1689 occupation register lists fifty-four money changers in the
  city of Kyoto.60 These coinage specialists not only assayed and ex-
  changed coins minted in various domains, but they also provided
  several forms of rudimentary banking services, by advancing loans
  and issuing letters of credit. The cash holdings of wealthy persons
  such as importers of raw silk thread were concentrated in Kyoto by the
  60 Nakai, "Kinsei toshi no hatten," pp. 37-100.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  middle of the seventeenth century. The daimyo, who had no means of
  obtaining cash other than from the sale of tax rice and who needed
  large amounts of cash for obligations to the shogunate, often borrowed
  money from wealthy merchants, using future tax proceeds as collat-
  eral. Moreover, merchants found it necessary to exchange among them-
  selves coins minted in various parts of Japan in order to purchase
  semiprocessed goods and raw materials such as silk thread and cloth
  and also to complete the sales of processed goods to outlets in Edo and
  Osaka. These kinds of monetary conditions gave rise to the business of
  money exchanging, the buying and selling of cash, and the issuing of
  letters of credit - all of which served to transform Kyoto into one of
  Japan's leading financial, as well as production, centers.
  Osaka. Like Kyoto, Osaka could trace its history back into antiquity.
  A settlement had come into existence in prehistoric times, and this
  later served as a point of embarkation for embassies to Korea. The
  community then became the temporary site of an imperial capital
  before more permanent ones were established, first at Nara and then at
  Heian early in the eighth century. Several centuries later, in 1496, the
  monk Rennyo (1415-99) chose this site on Osaka Bay as the location
  for his Ishiyama Honganji temple complex. Over the next century, the
  population expanded rapidly, at first because of a sudden influx of
  migrants when the main Ishiyama temple in Kyoto was overrun by
  rivals in 1532, and then thanks to more modest but steady growth as
  merchants and artisans arrived to serve the needs of the temple person-
  nel and their followers.61
  In 1580 Oda Nobunaga, during his quest to unify Japan, over-
  whelmed this fortress after several unsuccessful attacks. Two years
  later Nobunaga's successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, took over what re-
  mained of the fortress and erected a large, formidable castle on the
  site. The city expanded under Toyotomi control, as several daimyo
  built residences near the castle to signify their loyalty to Japan's new
  military hegemon. Still more merchants and artisans arrived to cater to
  the daimyo's needs, and the city also expanded physically as the gov-
  ernment filled in portions of the adjoining bay. By the battle of Osaka
  Castle in 1614-15, when Tokugawa Ieyasu obliterated the Toyotomi
  house and subsequently placed the city under the administrative super-
  61 For a classic survey of Osaka's history, see Miyamoto Mataji, Osaka (Tokyo: Shibundo,
  1957). More current is Wakita Osamu, Kinsei Osaka no machi to hito (Kyoto: Jimbun shoin,
  1986). In English, see William B. Hauser, "Osaka: A Commercial City in Tokugawa Japan,"
  Urbanism Past and Present 5 (Winter 1977-8).
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
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  vision of the shogunate, Osaka rivaled, and perhaps even surpassed,
  Kyoto in population.62
  In the decades after the battle of Osaka Castle, the city was recon-
  structed, and by the middle of the seventeenth century Osaka had
  become one of the two greatest commercial and manufacturing centers
  in the country.63 At the heart of this dramatic growth was Osaka's
  emergence as the central rice market for western Japan. Hideyoshi had
  shipped some of his tax rice from Shikoku to Osaka before his death in
  1598, but the city's transformation into the nation's most important
  rice market followed the establishment of the Tokugawa hegemony
  and the imposition of the shogunate's authority over the city. As Osaka
  continued to grow in the early decades of the seventeenth century,
  daimyo from western Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku began to ship
  tax rice into the city. Concurrently, daimyo along the coast of the Japan
  Sea sent rice to Tsuruga or Obama, where it was transshipped over-
  land and across Lake Biwa. In all, some estimates for the first quarter
  of the seventeenth century place the quantity of rice shipped into
  Osaka in the range of one million koku annually, and a century later,
  by the 1720s, this figure had increased more than fourfold.64
  But Osaka did not prosper simply because of rice sales. According
  to 1714 statistics, the following categories of goods were shipped into
  Osaka: farm products, 40.9 percent of total imports; forest products,
  24.4 percent; marine products, 14.1 percent; and mining products,
  8.9 percent. The fertilizer made from sardines was 7.8 percent. The
  kinds of goods shipped out from Osaka in the same year were as
  diverse: farm products and processed agricultural goods, 72.8 percent;
  mining products, 12.6 percent; and processed forestry products, 12.6
  percent.65
  These statistics reveal a number of interesting points. Aside from
  rice, for example, forestry products constituted the chief imports. Most
  of the lumber was consumed in construction projects within the city,
  and the remainder were manufactured into household utensils and fur-
  niture, and then exported to other urban markets. After forest prod-
  62 Osamu Wakita, with James L. McClain, "The Commercial and Urban Policies of Oda
  Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi," in Hall, Nagahara, and Yamamura, eds., Japan Before
  Tokugawa, pp. 243-4.
  63 The layout of the city is discussed in Yanai Akira, "Kinsei Osaka keikan fukugen e no
  kokoromi," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza: Nihon no hoken toshi, vol. 3, pp.
  122-42.
  64 Hauser, Economic Institutional Change, p. 13.
  65 Nakai, "Kinsei toshi no hatten," p. 46. Occupation statistics are also a concern of Yasuoka
  Shigeaki, "Edo chuki no Osaka ni okeru torihiri soshiki," Doshisha shdgaku 16 (November
  1964): 290-307; and 16 (February 1965): 589-625.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  ucts, the next largest import into Osaka was oil (15.8 percent), which
  was processed for use in lamps and cosmetics. Surplus oil not consumed
  in the city was exported. Similarly, mining products and imported raw
  materials were processed into iron or copper goods, or into refined
  copper, and also shipped out to other consumption centers.
  Other statistics corroborate Osaka's emergence as a manufacturing
  and commercial center during the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
  ries. Records dating from the 1710s, for instance, indicate that some
  two thousand ship's carpenters resided in the city, a clear indication
  that shipbuilding had become a major industry in Osaka. These statis-
  tics also record that fifty rapeseed oil producers and twenty-seven
  cottonseed oil producers lived in the city, and they turned out approxi-
  mately seventy thousand kiloliters of oil annually. This should be
  regarded as a very large amount as no producers used waterwheels at
  that time but, rather, relied on the labor of humans and animals.
  Special wholesalers who shipped processed oil to Kyoto and Edo had
  made their appearance as early as the decade of the 1610s, and within a
  century a total of 360 wholesale houses handled raw, unprocessed
  seeds. Nine others shipped processed oil to Edo and Kyoto, and 250
  agents shipped it to cities and villages in Hokuriku, Tohoku, and
  western Japan. An additional 25 wholesalers dealt in oil cakes (shima-
  kasu), a by-product of the oil-manufacturing process that was used for
  fertilizer.66
  Perhaps the largest production facility in Osaka at this time was a
  copper-refining plant.67 Virtually all mined copper in the entire coun-
  try, about 3,257 tons annually, was brought to Osaka. There it was
  refined and nearly all, about 3,000 tons yearly, was reshipped to
  Nagasaki for export overseas. There were seventeen refiners in Osaka,
  and a total of approximately ten thousand men worked in the smelting
  plants. At that time, the Sumitomo family operated copper mines in
  Kyushu and was the largest refiner in Osaka. They later became,
  along with the Mitsui family, one of Japan's largest zaibatsu.
  Osaka profited greatly from the nation's expanded agricultural pro-
  duction during the second half of the seventeenth century, as well as
  from the new opportunities afforded by the establishment of the West-
  ern Sea Circuit. Osaka quickly surpassed Kyoto in economic impor-
  tance as it drew on products from many sections of Japan. Kyushu,
  Shikoku, and regions in northern Honshu supplied raw materials from
  66 Exports are discussed in Nakai, "Kinsei toshi no hatten," p. 80.
  67 Nakai, "Kinsei toshi no hatten"; and Yasuoka, "Edo chuki no Osaka ni okeru torihiki
  soshiki."
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  the primary sector, such as rice, soy beans, lumber, minerals, and fish,
  as well as a limited number of finished goods from the secondary
  sector such as paper, wax, and tatami-mat facing. The Kinki region
  emerged as the leading source of certain commercial agricultural goods
  such as cotton and rapeseed, processed goods made from these farm
  products, and such manufactured items as sake, soy sauce, and cotton
  cloth which were made from raw materials supplied from as far away
  as Kyushu and Shikoku. The coastal areas of the Inland Sea region, on
  the other hand, developed primary industries such as commercial agri-
  culture and fishing.
  All of these different goods were shipped to Osaka, where they were
  either consumed or reexported to other consumption centers such as
  Edo, Kyoto, and the cities and villages of the Kinki and Horuriku
  regions. Processed goods brought into Osaka were redistributed in
  that form, and the raw materials were manufactured into various prod-
  ucts by artisans in the city. As Osaka became a hub of manufacturing
  and distribution, its population grew, and the city became the leading
  commercial center in western Japan, pushing Kyoto into the economic
  background.
  As Osaka developed its commercial potential, new types of financial
  and credit institutions were established. These played an especially
  important role in promoting the flow of goods and raw materials into
  Osaka from surrounding rural areas. Essentially, there were two kinds
  of wholesalers: "provincial wholesalers" (kunidoiya) and "specialized
  wholesalers" (semmondoiya). As can be seen from such names as "the
  Satsuma wholesalers" and "the Awaji wholesalers," the provincial
  wholesalers derived their names from the old provincial units of the
  ancient imperial system established as part of the Taika Reforms in the
  seventh century, and they handled a complete line of commercial prod-
  ucts and raw materials from that particular area. These provincial
  wholesalers were especially common in those regions that were linked
  to Osaka by shipping routes, and they sometimes included descen-
  dants of the wealthy merchants who helped make the Yodo River more
  suitable for shipping in the early Tokugawa period, as well as influen-
  tial merchants who from the beginning had been engaged in ocean
  transport, cargo-handling, and warehousing services.
  In the latter half of the seventeenth century there was a tendency for
  specialized wholesalers to split off from the provincial wholesalers.68
  68 Nakabe Yoshiko, "Kinsei toshi Osaka no kakuritsu," in Toyoda, Harada, and Yamori, eds.,
  Koza: Nihon no hoken toshi, vol. 3, pp. 106-15.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  For example, the Bingo tatami mat-cover wholesalers separated from
  the Bingo provincial wholesalers, and the Bizen pottery wholesalers
  amicably divorced themselves from a larger set of Bizen provincial
  wholesalers. In all, the number of provincial wholesalers tended to
  decline, and the specialized wholesalers started handling key commer-
  cial goods such as cotton and oil. Then, during the final decades of the
  seventeenth century, the number of specialized wholesalers increased
  sharply and subspecializations began to appear. For example, fish
  wholesalers broke away from the provincial groups, exerted their domi-
  nance over the market, and then subdivided into more narrowly spe-
  cialized groups that dealt exclusively in fresh fish, dried and salted
  fish, dried bonito (katsuobushi), and river fish. In pace with these
  developments, the kinds and numbers of brokers and shipping agents
  multiplied, and nearly ten thousand were recorded in an Osaka census
  report from the 1710s.
  New instruments of finance and credit were necessary in order to
  support this increased volume of trade. Among the first to invent these
  were the financiers associated with the marketing of daimyo rice.
  These financiers were known as kakeya, and they replaced the
  daimyo's own retainers as managers of the daimyo's warehouses
  (kuramoto). Serving on a contract basis, these kakeya disbursed ware-
  house rice, held cash on deposit, and supplied additional capital to the
  daimyo by making loans to them. So great was the lords' need for
  capital, however, that a daimyo often would approach a set of mer-
  chants in the same line of business, who would then pool their funds to
  make a joint loan and thus to share the risk of default. There were also
  financiers who solicited money from a number of merchants involved
  in different lines of business in order to acquire sufficient funds to
  make loans to daimyo.
  The latter half of the seventeenth century also witnessed the growth
  of transactions among rice merchants who handled the sales of large
  volumes of daimyo tax rice after it reached the Osaka warehouses. In
  the 1710s, there were already some thirteen hundred rice brokers
  (komenakagai) in the city. These brokers bought and sold tax rice
  shipped through the daimyo warehouses at the new rice market estab-
  lished in a section of the city known as Dojima. Soon they also started
  to deal in futures by buying and selling rice certificates as negotiable
  instruments that entitled the bearer to withdraw a specified amount of
  rice from the warehouses. By the 1710s some seventy money changers
  attached themselves to the rice market and offered guarantees for
  transactions made in the market.
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  As the Dojima market flourished, the price of rice sold there tended
  to become the standard rice price for the entire nation, and this lent a
  certain stability to the finances of the daimyo who pledged their future
  tax levies as collateral for loans. Previously, the daimyo had frequently
  defaulted on the loans advanced by merchants, who understandably
  then became wary of making such loans. The establishment of the
  market at Dojima, however, gave renewed confidence to Osaka mer-
  chants concerning the collectibility of daimyo loans. As a conse-
  quence, many money changers began to specialize in daimyo loans.
  One obvious example is the Konoike family, which became one of the
  wealthiest merchant houses of the Tokugawa period.69
  In addition to the money changers associated with the rice market
  and those who specialized in daimyo loans, there were also many
  moneylenders who performed more generalized commercial services
  in Osaka. Like the money changers in Kyoto, these men issued letters
  of credit, bought and sold coins, changed coins, and advanced loans to
  wholesalers. As Osaka became the nation's largest commercial city,
  economic activity outpaced that of Kyoto and stimulated the develop-
  ment of a credit system whose most outstanding feature was the circu-
  lation of promissory notes, or tegata, which were secured by real estate
  or by current accounts.70
  The moneylenders of Osaka devised other credit instruments as
  well. Merchants in Edo and Osaka, for instance, had often exchanged
  letters of credit, but the continuance of too many unbalanced accounts
  hindered the expansion of business activities. The solution to this
  problem came when the shogunate and daimyo accepted a new means
  of transmitting to Edo the proceeds from the sale of their tax rice
  through Osaka warehouses. Until the final decade of the seventeenth
  century, the shogunate and daimyo had sent cash overland to Edo. But
  from 1694 the warehouse managers began to take the receipts from the
  sale of tax rice to Osaka money exchangers, who would then purchase
  what was termed a "collectible credit draft" (gyakugawase) from a
  merchant who had an accounts receivable due from an Edo merchant.
  The Osaka money exchanger would then send this collectible credit
  draft to his own branch shop in Edo (or to a merchant in the same line
  of business), who would then collect the amount due from the Edo
  69 Sakudo Yotaro, "Kinsei Osaka ryogae sho keiei no keisei katei - junin ryogae no sosetsu to
  Konoike ryogaeten," Bankingu 175 (October 1962): 32-54.
  70 For an informed discussion of new credit devices, see Sakudo Yotaro, "Tokugawa chuki ni
  okeru shin'yo seido no tenkai - toku ni kin'yu to zaisei no kanren o chushin to shite,"
  Rekishigaku kenkyii 264 (April-May 1962): 66-70.
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  564 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  merchant. This money would then be turned over to the shogunate or
  to the Edo mansion of the daimyo within a fixed time limit, generally
  set at sixty days after the issuance of the draft in the case of the
  shogunate.
  The Osaka money changers profited greatly from the commissions
  charged for such services. But even more significant was the impact
  that the use of these drafts had on the national economy. Because the
  person who held a collectible credit draft could in effect use it as
  collateral for sixty days, this system permitted a dramatic expansion in
  the volume of available commercial credit. As the system evolved in
  the early eighteenth century, promissory notes and credit drafts in
  circulation frequently amounted to several times the amount of actual
  currency in circulation, and this stimulated the growth of manufactur-
  ing and production throughout the entire country. The new credit
  system also drew more business to Osaka, making it a hub of finance
  as well as manufacturing and distribution. This contributed to the
  further centralization of economic activity in this city rather than
  Kyoto, so that by 1700 Osaka and Edo had emerged as Japan's leading
  commercial cities.
  Edo. Of early modern Japan's three great cities, Edo was the youngest,
  and it grew the fastest.71 The settlement was a small agricultural vil-
  lage until 1457, when Ota Dokan (1432-86), a retainer of the Uesugi
  family, built a small fortress on the site.72 In 1590 Tokugawa Ieyasu,
  newly settled in the Kanto region, took over the castle, and after
  Ieyasu was appointed shogun in 1603, the surrounding community
  began to develop rapidly, both as the castle town headquarters of the
  Tokugawa family and also as the effective political and administrative
  capital of the country.73
  Edo's population exploded in the seventeenth century. The nucleus
  for this growth was provided by the direct retainers of the shogun, the
  army of bannermen Qiatamoto) and housemen igokenin) who, together
  with their families and attached service personnel, were compelled to
  take up residence near the castle, just as the vassals of the daimyo were
  moved into the castle towns of their lords across all of Japan.74 Once
  71 A summary of the early growth of the city can be found in Haga Noboru, 0 Edo no seiritsu
  (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1980), pp. 1-64.
  72 A fascinating introduction to the early history of the settlement can be found in Naito Akira,
  Edo to Edojo (Tokyo: Kashima kinkyujo shuppankai, 1966), pp. 14-40.
  73 A fluent overview of the history of Edo can be found in Nishiyama Matsunosuke and Haga
  Noboru, eds., Edo no sambyakunen, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1975).
  74 Nomura Kentaro, Edo (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1966), pp. 49-70.
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
  565
  the system of alternate residence was institutionalized in the 1630s, the
  daimyo, some members of their immediate families, and their exten-
  sive entourages established residences within the city, adding perhaps
  another third of a million persons to the city's growing population.75
  Merchants, artisans, and construction workers flowed into the city in
  response to the burgeoning occupational opportunities, and by the
  time this phase of rapid growth had exhausted itself in the 1720s,
  Edo's commoner population of merchants and artisans surely stood
  above the half-million mark, and the city's total population easily
  surpassed one million persons.
  Some of these merchants and artisans accumulated considerable
  wealth and fame. The principal merchant wards of the city were
  referred to as hommachi, and many of these streets were lined with the
  shops of clothing and lumber merchants, who have come to represent
  the popular stereotype of the great Edo merchants.76 In part, the
  popular image grew out of the special favors that the shogunate be-
  stowed on some of these families. For instance, the headman (toryo) of
  the chartered artisans (goyo shokunin) who were entrusted with mint-
  ing coins on behalf of the shogunate, together with the headman of
  the chartered merchants (goyo shonin) who specialized in silk goods,
  lived on large estates that were given to them by the shogunate. These
  were situated near the entrance to the castle, a location of very high
  status (today the Bank of Japan is located on the grounds of the
  former residence of the headman of the minters). In other cases, the
  stereotype derives from the lavish way in which these merchant
  princes displayed their wealth. In particular, the extravagant life-
  styles of the lumber merchants, who took on construction projects
  during the great building booms of the second half of the seventeenth
  century and who made enormous fortunes, became central characters
  in folktales that still remain well known today. These men allegedly
  often reserved several large rooms in the pleasure quarters, sum-
  moned prostitutes beyond number, and threw gold coins around with
  reckless abandon.
  Despite some similarities in growth patterns between Edo and the
  75 Edo's population structure is discussed in Gilbert Rozman, "Edo's Importance in the Chang-
  ing Tokugawa Society," Journal of Japanese Studies i (Autumn 1974): 93-4.
  76 Some of the most imaginative research on the layout of Edo has been undertaken by Naito
  Akira. See, for instance, his Edo no machi (cited in note 16); Edo no loshi no kenchiku (Tokyo:
  Mainichi shimbunsha, 1972); and "Edo no machi kozo," in Nishiyama Matsunosuke and
  Yoshiwara Ken'ichiro, eds., Edojidai zushi, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1975). A useful
  account of the spatial relationships between old Edo and modern Tokyo can be found in
  Jinnai Hidenobu, "Tokyo no machi o yomu," Bunka kaigi (November 1985): 20-33.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  other major metropolises, the city in eastern Japan retained a distinc-
  tive identity. Not only did more warriors live in Edo, but the city's
  merchant and artisan cultures also provided a contrast with those of
  Osaka and Kyoto. An Edo occupation register published in 1694 lists
  a total of 161 employment classifications and includes the names of
  important merchants and artisans. Among these are 68 doctors and
  280 persons are identified as scholars, poets, painters, and noh ac-
  tors, thus giving the impression that Edo was emerging as a city of
  culture and learning. But set against this is the fact that almost all the
  artisans were employed in the rougher construction trades or in the
  production of weapons. Moreover, there were in Edo no distinctive
  industries that were innovative technically or aesthetically, such as
  the copper refiners and shipbuilders of Osaka or the weavers and
  dyers of Kyoto.
  In many ways the most visible merchants in Edo were those who
  dealt in fresh foods such as vegetables and fish. Edo's residents dined
  on a great variety of regional specialties shipped in from the city's
  hinterland: daikon radishes from Nerima, burdock from Iwafu (in
  modern-day Saitama), native Japanese melons from Kawagoe and
  Fuchu, and watermelons from Hachioji.77 Vegetables grown in villages
  within a forty-kilometer radius of Edo were sold daily by retailers at
  six markets in the city. Fish from nearby Tokyo, Sagami, and Suruga
  bays, as well as the coastal areas of Chiba and Ibaraki, were sent by
  ship from the fishing villages to riverside fish markets, and they were
  then sold at four markets in Edo. Because the volume of fresh foods
  consumed by all urban residents, including both warriors and com-
  moners, was enormous, both the forwarding agents and retailers who
  handled goods needed in daily life, such as oil and wood and charcoal,
  together with the rice merchants, occupied an important niche in
  Edo's commercial activity.
  Craft production developed slowly in the Edo region, and for a long
  time the city had to depend on the more economically advanced
  Kansai region, and on Osaka in particular, for supplies of those con-
  sumer goods that required sophisticated processing.78 Other cities of
  the Kanto and Tohoku regions faced similar circumstances, and whole-
  salers in Edo in the early seventeenth century functioned chiefly to
  77 An early and still influential study concerning the spread of commercialized agriculture is
  Furushima Toshio, Edojidai no shonin ryutsu to kotsu (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1951).
  78 For a discussion in English of the relationship between Edo and its hinterland and Edo's
  dependence on Osaka, see William B. Hauser, Economic Institutional Change, pp. 14, 30; and
  Rozman, "Edo's Importance," pp. 105-6. For a classic study of Edo's commercial develop-
  ment, see Hayashi Reiko, Edo ton'ya nakama no kenkyu (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1967).
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  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
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  distribute goods to outlets in these regions on behalf of shippers head-
  quartered in the Kansai region. However, by the end of the seven-
  teenth century, wealthy merchants from Ise, Omi, and Kyoto who had
  extensive experience and reserves of capital expanded their operations
  into the Kanto area and Edo's extended hinterland. At that time they
  no longer functioned as simple forwarding agents on behalf of others,
  but, rather, they themselves directly purchased goods in Kansai and
  Osaka for sale in Edo. In this fashion, real economic power slipped
  from the hands of the old forwarding agents who handled sea shipping
  and warehousing services and passed into the hands of these more
  aggressive merchants.
  Not unexpectedly, the more intense competition from these outside
  merchants set off a reaction among the merchants in Edo, first visible
  in their efforts to organize trade associations to meet the new chal-
  lenges. In 1694, to take the most notable example of this, wholesalers
  in Edo who dealt in eighteen different kinds of goods shipped by sea
  from Kansai formed what was referred to as the tokumidon'ya, or ten
  groups of wholesale guilds.79 As was the case with the formation of
  protective associations in the castle towns, the Edo wholesalers,
  through this agency, hoped to be able to better protect markets and
  restrict the operation of outsiders.
  The Edo wholesalers also discovered ways to use their organization
  to provide more regular business practices and some degree of protec-
  tion against the unexpected. Thus, they forbade group members from
  engaging in shipping practices that might give one house an unfair
  competitive advantage. To promote stability for the entire group, they
  also started to indemnify members whose goods were lost or damaged
  in transit. It was not uncommon at this time for the crews of hired
  ships to fake a shipwreck and then secretly sell the cargoes. Also, it
  was standard practice for a ship's captain to jettison deck cargoes in
  order to improve his ship's stability and seaworthiness whenever
  storms stirred up rough seas. Among the more valuable of these car-
  goes were casks of refined sake brewed in the Nada sections of Osaka.
  Because Nada sake enjoyed an especially proud reputation in Edo,
  wholesalers there quickly sold whatever stock they had, and the loss of
  a cargo of Nada sake represented an immediate and substantial finan-
  cial loss. Indeed, the system of joint indemnification initiated by the
  Edo wholesalers was originally designed to cover losses of sake car-
  79 For a recent study of the development of merchant associations, see Kagawa Takayuki,
  "Toshi shoten no hatten," in Rekishigaku kenkyukai, ed., Koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 6 (Tokyo:
  Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1985), pp. 195-228.
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  568 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  goes, although indemnities were soon extended to cover the loss of any
  cargo that was tossed overboard or went down with a ship.
  As the curtain fell on the seventeenth century, it was obvious that
  Japan's commercial economy had become urban centered. On the
  regional level, the castle town of each domain had become a nodal
  point of trade, drawing in raw materials, agricultural surpluses, and
  processed goods from the village and towns in its hinterland. Much of
  this was consumed by the residents of the castle towns, but an increas-
  ing fraction - either in its original state or after further processing -
  entered the new transportation conduits that served as the arteries of
  the emerging national economy. The great centers of Edo, Osaka, and
  Kyoto were the poles that defined the national economy's magnetic
  field. Their enormous populations needed to be fed, and this gener-
  ated the currents that set in motion the transfers of materials, finished
  products, and the development as well of financial instruments that
  had come to define Japan's early modern economy.
  CITIES AND COMMERCE IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH
  CENTURY
  The expanding commercial activity of the seventeenth century pro-
  duced new and unprecedented levels of well-being and prosperity in
  Japan, especially for those segments of society that were most directly
  involved in economic production. Yet at the same time, the economic
  changes that surged through Tokugawa society also caused disloca-
  tions, created fresh problems for government, and stirred up waves of
  concern among the nation's political leaders. Ultimately, in the 1710s
  and 1720s the shogunate would address these challenges through a set
  of policies known as the Kyoho Reforms. Chapter 9 in this volume
  details the political significance of this political program, but as we
  shall see, the reforms also held important implications concerning the
  economic life and well-being of Japan's urban residents.
  The impact of the Kyoho Reforms on the urban economy can best
  be understood by recalling some of the events and concerns that led up
  to them. Among these were the apprehensions of the nation's political
  leaders, who feared at the end of the seventeenth century that contin-
  ued and unrestrained economic growth might have adverse conse-
  quences for the system of rule by status that they had worked so hard
  to implement earlier. Merchants were supposed to occupy the lowest
  rung of the Neo-Confucian hierarchy, but in some cases their business
  success had given them wealth and a reputation inconsistent with their
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  THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  569
  theoretical position in society. As one city magistrate in Kanazawa
  noted in his office diary:
  Merchants deal in goods. They buy and sell things which people need in their
  daily lives - food, shelter, and clothing. Merchants transport goods from one
  area to another. . . . They accumulate money. They lend out money and
  make a profit. Merchants who have a plan of operations and a good sense for
  profits do a large volume of business and make a great deal of money. When
  they have a favorable destiny, they can become rich in a single generation.
  Among the newly rich are some whose descendants are lazy and lack a profit
  sense, and they squander all of the accumulated wealth. In these troubled
  times, samurai households are suffering vicissitudes and changes of fortune.
  Persons who excel in business have become society's heroes. . . . A samurai
  can inherit [his father's] fief, but he cannot inherit his father's standing as a
  great man.80
  The uneasiness of the political elite sprang from other, practical
  fiscal considerations as well. Despite the growth in the commercial
  economy, tax rice still remained the foundation of wealth for the sho-
  gun and daimyo. Too much commercial development, officials feared,
  might prompt farmers to take land out of rice production, thus jeopar-
  dizing their tax collection. Moreover, as ever more wealth flowed into
  the countryside to pay for commercial crops or the products of rural
  handicraft industries, the political leadership became increasingly con-
  cerned that farmers might become lazy and spendthrift, and thus less
  diligent in their efforts to produce rice and less able to pay taxes.
  Finally, the shoguns Ietsuna (1651-80) and Tsunayoshi (1680-
  1709) pursued currency debasements in order to offset their well-
  known extravagant expenditures and to finance the resultant budget
  deficits. Specifically, for a fifteen-year period beginning in 1668, the
  shogunate minted large volumes of copper coins and then authorized
  the issuance of great amounts of gold and silver coins as well. This
  expansion of the money supply was designed to cover the increasing
  budgetary shortfalls of the period and to counterbalance the loss of
  coins that flowed out of Nagasaki to finance the export trade with
  Chinese, Dutch, and Korean merchants.
  The shogunate's other chief concern at this time was to compensate
  for dislocations caused by the expansion of the commercial economy
  and its penetration into peasant villages. This is evident from the fact
  that the increase in minting activity emphasized those kinds of silver
  coins that were used in the Kansai regions and points farther west,
  where economic development and the commercialization of agricul-
  80 Quoted in McClain, Kanazawa, 
  p. 121.
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  570 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  ture had been most rapid.81 Whatever the specific causes, however, the
  increase in the minting of silver coins took place at a time when the
  production of silver at Japan's mines was declining rapidly. As a result,
  the shogunate was forced to reduce the proportion of silver used in the
  coins to less than one-third of the coins' par value. In all, these various
  debasements sparked an inflationary fire, and, in the minds of policy-
  makers during the opening decade of the eighteenth century, fear of
  inflation combined with the apprehensions concerning the nature of
  economic growth to bring on a sense that an economic crisis was
  sweeping the country and undermining political authority.
  The Kyoho Reforms, merchant associations, and urban violence
  The Kyoho Reform program bundled together several specific policies
  that were aimed at dampening inflationary pressures, including calls
  for austerity in government; the issuance of detailed sumptuary regula-
  tions designed to encourage frugality in private life; the promulgation
  of moral injunctions exhorting the samurai to revive their martial
  spirit; a tightening up of rice-tax collections through the implementa-
  tion of a fixed, annual payment system; a return to hard currency; and
  the wide-scale licensing of merchant protective associations (kabuna-
  kama) in the cities under the shogunate's jurisdiction. This set of
  policies, especially the authorization of merchant associations, would
  redefine the relationship between the urban and rural sectors of the
  economy, and the deflationary trends set in motion by the reforms
  would also have an impact on urban living standards, contributing, as
  we shall see, to the appearance of the first examples of organized
  violence by commoners in the urban centers of early modern Japan.
  Merchant protective associations endowed with monopoly rights
  were not entirely new, of course.82 We noted earlier how many individ-
  ual daimyo during the seventeenth century had come to rely on certain
  wholesalers and transportation agents for the conduct of interregional
  trade and had consequently accorded exclusive prerogatives to these
  merchants houses. Similarly, those craftsmen who could produce cer-
  tain goods - lacquer ware in Aizu-Wakamatsu, jute cloth in Hikone,
  and paper, ink, and charcoal in Kanazawa, to note but a few already
  familiar examples - not infrequently received special privileges as
  81 Classic studies on currency problems include Kobata Atsushi, Nihon no kahei (Tokyo:
  Shibundo, 1958); and Sakudo Yotaro, Kinsei Nihon kaheishi (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1958).
  82 An early and still frequently cited study of such associations is Miyamoto Mataji, Nihon kinsei
  ton'yasei no kenkyu (Tokyo: Toko shoin, 1951).
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  THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
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  well. In all cases, the government and merchants could hope to derive
  certain obvious benefits. The merchants received monopoly rights and
  were able to reduce intragroup competition, while the government
  could offer protection to business enterprises that were important to
  the city's overall economy and well-being.
  The authors of the Kyoho Reforms also saw in these examples of
  protective associations, however, a way in which government might
  gain greater leverage over economic activity and the structure of
  prices. So excited were they by these possibilities that between 1721
  and 1726 the reformers organized nearly all merchants in Edo into
  protective trade associations, a pattern followed by many daimyo in
  their own domains. Out of this burst of licensing came the form of
  protective association that is most familiar to historians. That is, the
  government authorized specific monopolies in exchange for the pay-
  ment of annual licensing fees (myogakin) and annual taxes (unjokin),
  monies that could help the shogunate and the domains address their
  financial difficulties. In addition to a guaranteed monopoly, each mer-
  chant group acquired the rights to define its exact business activities,
  fix the number of licenses to be issued, decide who would be eligible to
  buy or inherit a license, determine their own internal regulations, and
  confiscate the licenses of those who violated the bylaws. They also
  jointly decided prices to be charged and apportioned the percentage of
  the licensing fees and annual taxes to be paid by each member. More-
  over, the government typically required each association to include in
  its bylaws a promise to observe the laws of the shogunate or daimyo
  domain and to submit periodic reports to the appropriate officials
  concerning prices, fees, and recent business activities.
  The shogunate, and the daimyo in their castle towns, had certain
  specific intentions in mind when they licensed protective associations,
  and they found ways to impose their policy considerations on associa-
  tion merchants. First, they used the submission of the periodic reports
  as opportunities to jawbone merchants into holding the line on prices.
  In addition, political leaders hoped to prohibit the production and sale
  of certain expensive luxury goods, such as some types of clothing, and
  of all kinds of new products, in order to be able to restrain consump-
  tion and, by extension, inflation. Moreover, government officials
  sought to regulate the volume of goods being shipped, in order to
  prevent unscrupulous merchants from buying up and hoarding com-
  modities, and they acquired yet another means of influencing prices
  when they began to insist on making public their approval (or disap-
  proval) of the handling fees and commissions that middlemen pro-
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  posed charging. Finally, the shogunate and most daimyo wanted to
  prevent urban wholesalers from making purchases in producing areas
  and local towns, so as to isolate the producers, especially farmers,
  from what were seen as the debilitating effects of trade and commerce.
  One means they used to accomplish this was to enforce the descrip-
  tions of business activities included in association bylaws, although
  many daimyo governments also chose to issue new ordinances on the
  subject as well.
  The impact of the Kyoho Reforms on Japan's residents cut many
  ways. Some prospered. It is clear, for instance, that the leading houses
  within the merchant associations were sometimes able to amass consid-
  erable wealth in regional castle towns, such as Kanazawa, and that
  they came to constitute a new elite that could compete for the social
  and political prerogatives accorded the older, established merchant
  families.83 In the major metropolises of Edo and Osaka as well, it was
  not difficult in the early eighteenth century to discover evidence of
  better housing and food in the wealthier merchant wards and, despite
  the disappearance of some of the vigor of Genroku culture, to find a
  proliferation of entertainment establishments that catered to the more
  well-to-do merchants, such as the leaders of the protective associa-
  tions. Indeed, by mid-century some merchant houses had grown so
  rich that they were well known throughout the country, houses such as
  the Echigoya (the Mitsui family of the modern era) and the Shirokiya
  (founders of today's chain of Tokyu department stores).
  Yet, whatever prosperity the Kyoho Reforms brought to merchant
  elites, on another social level the new policies caused distress that
  found its outlet in acts of collective violence. These were most com-
  mon in the countryside, where the reforms squeezed the peasantry
  under a more severe tax system. Indeed, before the Kyoho period,
  there had seldom been more than one or two examples a year of
  organized, violent rural protest, but by 1750 such incidents averaged
  more than six a year. The Kyoho Reforms led to economic hardship
  for some segments of urban society as well. In urban centers, the
  policies of reducing consumption, controlling prices, and, from the
  1710s, issuing gold and silver coins at previous standards of purity
  while prohibiting the circulation of older, debased coins all combined
  to produce a sharp, if short, depression toward the end of the 1720s.
  In the midst of these economic difficulties, a widespread infestation
  of locusts in 1732 caused severe damage to the rice crop in western
  83 Tanaka, Kaga han ni okeru toshi no kenkyu, pp. 129-98.
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  THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
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  Japan, especially on the island of Kyushu. In order to stave off a
  famine in that region, the shogunate quickly purchased large amounts
  of rice in Osaka and Edo for shipment to western Japan. As a conse-
  quence, prices rose dramatically in these major cities. In Edo, some
  two thousand poor persons, believing that the price increases were due
  to a sinister plot by the rice merchants, rioted and broke into the shops
  of the largest chartered rice merchants (koine goyo shdnin). This distur-
  bance occurred in 1733 and constituted the first riot by urban common-
  ers in the city of Edo, the shogun's castle town.84
  In that same year, riots also broke out in Nagasaki on Kyushu, and
  in Hida-Takayama (present-day Gifu Prefecture) where the city's resi-
  dents smashed rice shops.85 As was the case in the countryside, such
  urban food riots became increasingly common over the last century of
  Tokugawa rule. With increased numbers came, ultimately, new de-
  mands as well. Whereas the 1733 rioters had engaged in a typical
  struggle for control over the food supply and had simply demanded
  that government function as it ought to in accordance with Neo-
  Confucian concepts of benevolence and order, by the beginning of the
  nineteenth century the rioters were denouncing the entire political and
  social order. Even this was only a prelude to the call for a radical
  reordering of the polity that would resound throughout Japan at the
  middle of that century.
  The Kyoho Reforms, urban financiers, and marketing networks
  As stressful as were the economic dislocations and human suffering
  associated with the deflationary period of the 1720s and 1730s, it is also
  important to note that in the long run of economic development, the
  Kyoho Reforms accelerated already existing trends concerning Japan's
  protoindustrialization and the development of an integrated national
  marketing network.86 This can be seen in the subsequent history of the
  merchant houses and associations: By the middle of the eighteenth
  century, for instance, there were more than five thousand wholesalers in
  over four hundred different kinds of businesses in Osaka alone, and
  84 For a discussion of this event within the broader context of Edo period urban violence, see
  Sasaki Junnosuke, Hyakusho ikki to uchikowashi (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1974), pp. 47-61, and
  Takeuchi Makoto, Edo to Osaka (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1989), pp. 112-38.
  85 The most comprehensive listing of popular dissent can be found in Aoki Koji, ed., Hyakusho
  ikki no nenji-teki kenkyu (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1966). A convenient introduction to popular
  protest is Aoki Michio et al., eds., Ikki, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1981-2).
  86 Two influential studies concerning the development of national markets and regional com-
  merce are Toyoda Takeshi and Kodama Kota, eds., Ryutsushi, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Yamakawa
  shuppansha, 1969); and Hayashi, Edo ton'ya nakama no kenkyu.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  despite what the Kyoho Reforms had said about urban-rural separa-
  tion, the Echigoya and the other urban retailers maintained large pur-
  chasing establishments that sometimes contracted for the textile output
  of an entire region.
  The extensive commercial activity generated by the wholesalers in-
  jected fresh bursts of energy into the arteries of interregional trade,
  stimulating new growth and creating a need for larger sums of capi-
  tal.87 As the wholesalers fanned out across Japan, it became standard
  practice for them to make partial payments in advance of receiving
  orders and to lend capital for production purposes as well as for pur-
  chasing raw materials. In time, some merchants made as much or
  more from the interest earned on these loans as they did from the
  commissions they received for their shipping and marketing services.
  The elaboration of the marketing activities of these wholesalers
  held other implications for capital formation. That is, although some
  merchants had functioned solely as wholesalers in the seventeenth
  century, more typically, men in local areas who themselves engaged
  in production also arranged to ship their goods and those of their
  neighbors and fellow villagers to customers of their own choosing.
  The appearance of the new wholesaler associations, however, meant
  that the local producer-cum-shipper was relegated to functioning as
  an agent who filled orders from the urban-based wholesalers, by
  using the wholesalers' capital to buy and transport goods. Now the
  incomes of the rural merchants no longer derived from profits they
  made on sales but, rather, came from commissions on the volume of
  goods they handled. In effect, the local men now functioned as buy-
  ers' representatives. In this capacity, they would host members of the
  wholesaler's shop who were dispatched to the producing areas, help
  them select and purchase goods, and arrange for shipping. For these
  services, the local merchants received their expenses and a commis-
  sion. These local merchants were typically referred as kaiyado, or
  purchasing houses, and in many cases they had an exclusive contract
  with a particular wholesale association. Moreover, as local shippers
  came to function as the purchasing agents for urban-based wholesal-
  ers, they were increasingly isolated from the local commercial distri-
  bution system. In turn, this often meant that still new kinds of
  financing arrangements were necessary. In time, the producers them-
  selves began to borrow money from the urban-based wholesalers,
  which they repaid in the form of manufactured goods.
  87 Matsumoto Shiro, "Genroku, Kyoho-ki no seiji to keizai," in Matsumoto and Yamada, eds.,
  Genroku, Kyoho-ki no seiji to shakai, pp. 1-35.
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  This process of commercially inspired changes came full circle when
  the new methods of finance and distribution began to influence the
  business practices of the great financiers. For example, large wholesale
  houses now had to create complex accounting systems, and some even
  developed a form of double-entry bookkeeping that permitted them to
  compare credits against debits and to register both capital accounts
  and profit accounts. Moreover, in accordance with an expansion in the
  scale of operations, shops began to separate business finances from
  household finances.
  Increasingly as well, in a practice known as "dividing the shop cur-
  tain," some wholesale houses began to provide training for their most
  skilled employees and to help them establish their own branch shops.88
  Men were often first employed by a shop at the age of twelve or
  thirteen and were given training in mathematics at the shop while
  carrying out their job obligations. Future shop managers were chosen
  from this group. Even though an employee might not ultimately be-
  come a manager, if he worked diligently for a fixed number of years, he
  might be given a lump sum of money, the hereditary family shop name,
  and other assistance in order to help him start his own shop. The day-
  to-day management of the main shop was often entrusted to managers
  who were employed for life, were granted use of the hereditary family
  name, and were treated much like a family member. This style of
  operation became widespread after the 1820s, and a century later Japa-
  nese modern industrialists were able to refer back to this system and to
  use it to rationalize the new schemes of permanent employment and
  promotion by seniority that they were attempting to fashion.
  The Kyoho Reforms, fires, and local government
  Although the economic consequences of the Kyoho Reforms were
  complex and subtle, it should be remembered that the guiding motive
  behind them was simple and direct: The shogunate was seeking to
  regulate the economy more closely. The same desire for greater control
  can be seen in the shogunate's attempt to reorganize the Edo city
  government during the decade of the 1720s. As was the case with the
  economic side of reform, the administrative changes constituted a
  response to a century of growth and to many unexpected problems
  that had arisen during the era of unparalleled urbanization.
  88 One standard account of this process can be found in Miyamoto Mataji, "Kinsei no shoka
  hokonin to shoten soshiki," in his Kinsei shogyo keiei no kenkyu (Kyoto: Oyashima shuppan,
  1948), pp. 111-47.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  One of these unanticipated problems was fires, often poetically
  referred to as "the flowers of Edo." Pestilence would be more like it,
  especially for the city's commoners. The merchants and artisan wards
  of Edo were densely populated, houses were constructed of wood and
  paper; and firefighting equipment was rudimentary. The hand-
  operated pump first came into use in Osaka only during the latter
  half of the eighteenth century; but even in the nineteenth century,
  this pump was used in just a few places and the most common means
  of stopping fires was simply to demolish wide rows of homes in order
  to create firebreaks.
  Under these conditions, any fire could quickly become a major
  disaster, and the documentary record reveals that the central wards of
  Edo were destroyed by fire on the average of once every six years in
  the 178-year period between the middle of the seventeenth century
  and the 1830s.89 In particular, exceptionally large numbers of fires
  occurred in the decades of the 1650s, 1710s, I77os,and 1830s, and all
  of them contributed to the social unrest of those decades.90
  Among these four periods, the largest number of fires broke out
  during the decade of the 1710s. Then in the 1720s, the shogunate
  changed its urban policy by forming a firefighting association and
  offering rewards to those who could identify arsonists. The transforma-
  tion in urban policy also involved a reorganization of the city.91 In
  order to prevent the spread of fires, the shogunate increased the num-
  ber of public squares (hiroba) and issued an ordinance instructing
  people to use adobe or mud plaster in home construction and to tile
  their roofs, which previously had been made of wood or thatch. Al-
  though this decree was not uniformly observed in every ward, espe-
  cially those whose residents had sunk into serious economic straits, the
  government did try to enforce it more strictly in certain designated
  wards, mainly those that had been rebuilt following a fire. In time, the
  practice of using the new building materials spread, and by the nine-
  teenth century, streets with rows of houses constructed of adobe or
  plaster and roofed with tiles gradually started to appear in cities in all
  parts of Japan.
  The government also began to organize firefighting brigades in al-
  most all sections of Edo. Officials actually used red ink to divide a map
  89 A useful introductory study to fires and fire fighting is Minami Kazuo, "Shobo," in Toyoda,
  Harada, and Yamori, eds., Koza: Nihon no hoken toshi, vol. 2, pp. 457-71.
  90 Harada Tomohiko, Kinsei wshi sojoshi (Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1982), pp. 92-123.
  91 Yoshioka Yuriko, "Kyoho-ki Edo machikata ni okeru sogan undo no jittai," in Chihoshi
  kenkyukai kyogikai, ed., Toshi no chihoshi, pp. 108-58.
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  THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
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  of the city into forty-seven firefighting precincts. Each administrative
  subdivision within a precinct had to supply a brigade of thirty men,
  and all of the brigades would be mustered whenever a fire broke out
  anywhere within the precinct. The individual brigades were captained
  by the ward elders, and the new post of precinct fire chief was rotated
  among them, each serving for a period of one month. All of the city's
  firefighting precincts were placed under the authority of six newly
  appointed fire superintendents (nine in winter), who reported to the
  city magistrates. Since the forty-seven precincts that served as the
  basis of the new system were named after the forty-seven characters of
  the syllabary, this was known as the i-ro-ha system.
  Firefighting officials often enlisted special artisans known as "scaf-
  folding men" (tobi), who normally worked in high places on construc-
  tion projects, to help demolish houses in order to create firebreaks. In
  time, these scaffolding men were placed on fixed retainers, with the
  aim of ensuring a supply of reliable reinforcements for the firemen in
  each ward. However, scaffolding men were also infamous as abare-
  mono, or rowdy, undisciplined members of the day laborer class of that
  era, and fights among the scaffolding men broke out at each fire,
  sometimes actually adding to the problems of the average urban
  dweller.
  This attempt to fold the responsibility for firefighting into the gen-
  eral administrative duties assigned to the City Office should be seen as
  part of a broader attempt to restructure urban government and to
  redefine the tax responsibilities of the merchant class in Edo at the
  beginning of the eighteenth century.92 The main thrust of this adminis-
  trative reorganization was to restrict the number of ward elders while
  expanding the scope of their jurisdiction and strengthening their pow-
  ers. As a consequence, their duties came to resemble closely those
  noted earlier for the ward representatives in the castle town of
  Kanazawa.
  At the same time, the entire city of Edo was divided into seventeen
  "townships," each consisting of several of the original wards. An orga-
  nization of ward elders (machikucho kumiai) was established, and a
  ward elder head (kumiaicho) was appointed from among the ward
  elders for a one-year term for the purpose of maintaining a proper
  liaison with higher units of government. Specifically, there were 254
  designated wards in the city and a total of 263 ward elders, with some
  92 Yoshiwara Ken'ichiro, Edo no machi yakunin (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1980), pp. 92-
  128.
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  578 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  wards having joint appointments. In addition, some peripheral areas
  were not included among these designated wards. These were not
  eligible to have their own elder and so were placed under the supervi-
  sion of an elder from a neighboring ward.
  Below the elders, the urban residents in each ward were organized
  into neighborhood associations, or groups of households, just as in the
  castle towns and rural villages. Originally, the official, recognized
  members of a ward were those who could claim proprietary rights of
  possession to land within the ward. The individual members of the
  neighborhood associations would alternately serve one month each as
  household group head and assist the ward elders in the performance of
  their duties. For instance, all reports, petitions, and lawsuits had to
  bear the seal of the household group head and the ward elder before
  they could be submitted to higher officials.
  In general, the wards' fiscal obligations to the shogunate, as well as
  other expenses such as the salaries of the ward elders, originally were
  apportioned among those who possessed land and who were thus formal
  members of the ward, in accordance with the physical size of each
  individual's landholdings. Many merchants, however, claimed that the
  value of any particular plot of land depended on location as well as size.
  To do away with the alleged irregularities, then, the reformers of the
  early eighteenth century created three new categories of land value,
  assigned each merchant plot to one of these categories, and made uni-
  form levies based on territorial size on all plots in each category.
  For the wards where the artisans lived, the shogunate imposed
  corvee obligations that were different from the property taxes levied in
  the merchant wards. For example, the members of the carpenters'
  ward owed a fixed number of days of service when they had to work on
  shogunal construction projects. However, after the artisans moved out
  of their original wards and began to live in scattered locations around
  the city, the service obligations that had been levied on artisan wards as
  a whole were redistributed and levied on the individual members of an
  occupational group, regardless of their place of residence. Thus, an-
  other reason that the shogunate, as part of the Kyoho Reforms, de-
  cided to authorize and encourage the formation of protective associa-
  tions of artisans throughout the city was to make it easier to identify
  those individuals subject to service levies.
  These kinds of changes that the shogunate effected in the urban
  administrative machinery of Edo in the 1720s were also replicated to a
  large degree in Kyoto and Osaka, which the shogunate governed di-
  rectly and which generally had been subject to the same social and
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  579
  economic transformations that had swept through Edo.93 Then from
  the 1750s the daimyo throughout Japan instituted similar reforms in
  their castle towns, and although other, lesser reforms were introduced
  afterwards in response to the changing circumstances of the nine-
  teenth century, the framework constructed in the early seventeenth
  century tended to endure until the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate
  in the 1860s.
  CITIES AND COMMERCE IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH
  CENTURY
  The regional spread of commercial production
  As discussed in detail in Chapter 9 in this volume, the Kyoho Reforms
  did not provide permanent solutions to the ongoing problems of eco-
  nomic growth that were satisfactory to the shogunate. In particular,
  the shogunate was not able to halt further commercialization of agricul-
  ture, and that, together with the explosive growth of processing indus-
  tries in local areas, eventually led the shogunate, and many individual
  daimyo as well, to yet another round of economic reforms in the 1770s
  and 1780s.
  Signs that the Japanese economy was moving into a new stage of
  development during the middle decades of the eighteenth century
  were first visible in the textile industry. Cotton cultivation, which had
  been concentrated at first in the Kinki region, spread throughout
  almost the entire nation during the middle and late eighteenth century,
  except for the Tohoku area, where climatic conditions made such
  farming nearly impossible. As cotton cultivation spread out from the
  Osaka region, it soon became a particularly important crop on the Ise
  peninsula and in areas along the coast of the Inland Sea. As the farm-
  ers in these locales started to cultivate cotton, farm families also began
  to engage in spinning and weaving as forms of by-employment. Later,
  the bleaching of cotton and the processing of bleached cloth became
  concentrated along the southern and eastern shores of Lake Biwa,
  before spreading into the Ise area in the latter half of the eighteenth
  century.
  In the 1760s the silk textile industry became established in the
  Kiryu region (modern-day' Gumma Prefecture) when local weavers
  93 See, for instance, Nakabe Yoshiko, "Kinsei toshi Osaka no kakuritsu," in Toyoda, Harada,
  and Yamori, eds., Koza: Nihon no hoken toshi, vol. 3, pp. 98-121.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  mastered some of the dyeing techniques for silk that previously had
  been an exclusive possession of craftsmen in the Nishijin section of
  Kyoto. As Kiryu silk became known for its fine quality and as sales
  increased, other farmers and merchants in the area started to engage in
  silkworm cultivation, silk thread manufacture, and the production of a
  variety of silk textiles. About the same time, farmers in the mountain-
  ous areas of the southern Kanto region started to produce raw silk
  thread and cotton cloth for use by the great mass of urban commoners.
  As this happened, towns like Hachioji and Ome became important
  collection and transshipment points. A similar story could be told for
  Hokuriku, when the area around the city of Toyama became a thriving
  center for the production of silk and cotton textiles.94 This localization
  of production and the development of new networks of exchange dur-
  ing the last half of the eighteenth century meant that Kyoto's impor-
  tance as the center of the silk trade diminished greatly.
  There were similar changes in the production of lamp oil, another
  important product. Originally, a variety of fish and vegetables were
  refined into oil in Kobe and Nishinomiya, where waterpower was
  abundant. Later, refining spread into a great number of local areas
  that grew rapeseed, which producers, until that time, had exported in
  its raw state although they also processed small amounts for individual
  use. Not surprisingly, the emergence of competitive marketing sys-
  tems for cotton, silk, and rapeseed generated some sharp tensions
  between the established merchants of Osaka and the local upstarts.
  Some sense of this can be felt in the organization of a new protective
  association of lamp-oil traders in Osaka in 1759, whose members then
  pressured the shogunate to decree that all oil seeds, including rape and
  cotton seed, be sent to Osaka for processing.95
  It is also important to note that the regional growth of processing
  industries often stimulated the production of raw materials in local
  areas. For example, in the early seventeenth century, people in Edo
  relied on imports of soy sauce from areas in the Kinki region such as
  Yuasa (present-day Wakayama Prefecture) and Tatsuno (Hyogo Prefec-
  ture). Then, by mid-century, the sardine fishermen discussed earlier
  took with them from Yuasa to Choshi the manufacturing techniques
  employed by the soy sauce brewers of western Japan. From there, the
  brewing process became generally known among producers in such
  localities as Sawara and Noda (Chiba Prefecture) and Tsuchiura
  94 See Mizushima Shigeru, "Etchu orimono no hattatsu," Toyama shidan 34 (1966): 35-51.
  95 For further details, see Nakai, Tenkan-ki bakuhansei no kenkyu, pp. 118-23.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  581
  (Ibaraki Prefecture), and merchants in those areas started to brew soy
  sauce to suit the tastes of the residents of Edo, fond of a saltier, more
  intensely flavored seasoning than was marketed in Osaka. Soon, soy
  sauce manufactured in the urban centers of the Kansai region was
  driven from the markets of Edo. Thus in a variety of products ranging
  from soy sauce and cooking oil to silk and cotton cloth, rural produc-
  ers were challenging the previously predominant position of the older,
  more established shops of Kyoto and Osaka, many of whom had
  enjoyed some form of favored government protection.
  Commercial growth and new economic policies
  Tanuma Okitsugu. The 1760s and 1770s witnessed the initiation of new
  economic policies by the leaders of the shogunate and individual do-
  mains. Often historians have focused less on this set of events than on
  the subsequent Kansei Reforms; yet the policies of the 1760s and
  1770s had a significant impact on the structure of economic activity in
  Japan, and they deserve our close attention. To some extent, the new
  policies constituted a response to the problems brought on by the
  regional spread of commercial activity and the growth of local market-
  ing systems. As we shall see, the aggressive behavior of rural-based
  merchants and the decline of the central role of Osaka merchants
  caused dislocations and difficulties that would force their attention on
  government officials when the established but threatened merchants
  appealed for protection.
  The new policies also addressed some older, and frustratingly persis-
  tent, fiscal problems that had plagued the shogunate and daimyo gov-
  ernments. The central concern here was to find some way to eliminate
  what had by now become chronic budgetary shortfalls and to reduce
  reliance on loans from merchant houses. Moreover, government offi-
  cials hoped to acquire some control over prices, in order to overcome
  the inflation that had reappeared after the economic recession of the
  late Kyoho period and that was seen as being responsible for both
  driving up government expenditures and causing serious financial
  problems for the samurai status group.96
  The contemporaries who struggled with these problems and the histo-
  rians who have reviewed their policy decisions have not had an easy time
  understanding the causal relationships between persistent budgetary
  96 An early and still useful study of domain indebtedness is Sekiyama Naotaro, Nihon kahei
  kin'yushi kenkyu (Tokyo: Shinkeizaishi, 1943).
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  shortfalls and the resurgence of inflation. Research has shown that
  currency debasements and other policies concerning coinage were
  clearly a factor. On more than sixty occasions, for instance, the sho-
  gunate issued new varieties of gold or silver coins, typically in order to
  debase the currency and thus augment official revenues.97 These debase-
  ments, some historians contend, acted to drive up commodity prices.
  Others, however, have suggested that despite the infusion of new coin-
  age into the economy, the shogunate never did mint enough coins to
  meet demand, so that the gap between supply and demand for currency
  became the chief source of inflationary pressures.98
  Yet other historians place the blame for inflation on the unwise
  policies of domain governments. The lords of many domains, for
  instance, began to issue paper notes (hansatsu) during the eighteenth
  century. But frequently these were inconvertible, and even when con-
  vertibility to coins was promised, domain officials tended to pay little
  or no attention to the relative quantities of paper currency issued or to
  the amount of metallic money that they were supposedly holding on
  reserve to back the issuance.99 That was precisely what happened in
  Kanazawa in 1775 when the domain first printed an excessive amount
  of paper currency and concurrently banned the use of silver coins. The
  popular action was immediate: People shunned the notes; the currency
  rapidly depreciated in value; and prices rose sharply.100
  As frustrating as it has been for historians to obtain a full understand-
  ing of the relationship between currency policies and inflation, they
  have had even more difficulty with other related questions, which con-
  stitute an agenda for future research. We still, for instance, do not know
  the exact extent to which the shogunate and daimyo bureaucracies taxed
  the growing merchant wealth; nor do we fully understand why they did
  not put into place more systematic methods for moving that wealth into
  official coffers, especially after the Kyoho Reforms had secured the
  unquestioned right of governments to levy annual dues and licensing
  fees on protective associations. Moreover, we have not yet fully ana-
  lyzed the relationship between the spread of commercial production
  and rising commodity prices. On the one hand, we might well expect
  97 John Whitney Hall, Tanuma Okilsugu: Forerunner of Modem Japan (Cambridge, Mass.:
  Harvard University Press, 1955), p. 69.
  98 Shimbo Hiroshi, "Kinsei koki ni okeru bukka, kin soba, kawase uchigin soba, 1787-1867," in
  Umemura Mataji et al., eds., Nihon keizei no hauen (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1976),
  pp. 261-79; and Sakudo, "Tokugawa chuki ni okeru shin'yo seido no tenkai," pp. 66-70.
  99 Sekiyama, Nihon kahei, presents several case studies; and a detailed analysis of Okayama can
  be found in Kokusho Iwao, Hoken shakai no tosei to toso (Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1928), pp. 53-102.
  100 Tsuchiya Takao, Hoken shakai hokai katai no kenkyu - Edojidai ni okeru shokd no zaisei, pt. 2
  (Kyoto: Kobundo, 1927), pp. 239-309.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  583
  that the diffusion of commercial enterprises and technology would en-
  hance competition, cut production costs, and reduce the prices of com-
  mercial goods; yet, officials in domains across Japan constantly com-
  plained of higher prices as people within their jurisdictions became
  more actively involved in the commercialized sector of the economy.101
  Further, we need to know more about the linkage between prices and
  the formation of official merchant groups.102 Useful, too, would be
  more amply documented analyses of the impact on prices of other
  daimyo policies, such as the frequent bans on the import into any one
  domain of goods that competed with local products. Finally, it is neces-
  sary to uncover more precise and detailed information about the rela-
  tionship between rice prices and commodity prices in general. It has
  become somewhat of a truism that the eighteenth century witnessed a
  rise in commodity prices in general, but a decline in rice prices.103
  Indeed, one can find documentation that would support this conclu-
  sion.104 Yet, most studies assume this inverse correlation between the
  two price indices without offering a convincing explanation of why the
  growth of the commercial economy should depress the rice price and
  thus reduce the relative value of tax revenues and samurai incomes.105
  Although shogunal and daimyo officials frequently had an even less
  precise understanding than do modern-day historians about how their
  economy worked, many in the 1760s realized that a new fiscal crisis
  was at hand, and so they put together a set of fresh economic policies
  to address the problems confronting them. On the national level,
  Tanuma Okitsugu (1719-88) became the chief architect of the sho-
  101 Dohi Noritaka, "Kinsei bukka-shi no ichi kosatsu," in Nishiyama Matsunosuke sensei koki
  kinenkai, ed., Edo no minshu to shakai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1985), pp. 415-37.
  102 The Edo city magistrates, for instance, in 1723 thought that creating licensed groups of
  wholesalers would give them a way to reduce prices. "Prices have risen," they claimed,
  "because of competition between traders, shippers, and producers. If producers were autho-
  rized to sell only to ton'ya, monopoly profits could be controlled." Quoted in Hauser,
  Economic Institutional Change, p. 36. Yet, other officials would later condemn protective
  associations on the grounds that their monopolistic practices acted to increase prices. See
  James L. McClain, "Failed Expectations: Kaga Domain on the Eve of the Meiji Restora-
  tion," Journal of Japanese Studies 14 (Summer 1988).
  103 See, for instance, Hauser, Economic Institutional Change, pp. 34-5; and Kitajima Masamoto,
  Edojidai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1958), pp. 125-40.
  104 See, for example, Ono Takeo, Edo bukkajiien (Tokyo: Tembosha, 1982). For information on
  a local area, see Takase Tamotsu, "Kaga han no beika hyo," in Toyoda Takeshi, ed.,
  Nihonkai chiikishi kenkyu, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Bunken shuppan, 1980), pp. 319-60.
  105 See, for instance, Sasaki Junnosuke, Daimyo to hyakusho, vol. 15 oiNihon no rekishi (Tokyo:
  Chuo koronsha, 1966), p. 160; and Kitajima Masamoto, Nihonshi gaisetsu, vol. 2 (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1968), pp. 201-8. As might be expected, given the nature of the data
  available, scholars do not even agree that all members of the samurai class suffered a relative
  loss of income. See, for instance, Kozo Yamamura, A Study of Samurai Income and Entrepre-
  neurskip (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 26-69.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  gunate's economic initiatives. In the 1760s and 1770s he reversed the
  old, Kyoho-inspired policies of restraint and, instead, began to encour-
  age the growth of the economy's commercial sector, in the hopes that
  this would increase supplies, bring down prices, and create new
  sources of revenues.106
  Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of Tanuma's program was to
  add to the existing number of protective associations and to broaden
  the official patronage of the great merchant families, in the hope that
  this would stimulate production. Thus the 1760s witnessed the appear-
  ance of many new retail groups in Edo and Osaka with exclusive
  privileges in the retail marketing of iron, brass, lime, and other staple
  commodities. Concurrently, selected wholesale houses were granted
  newly authorized monopsony rights over such products as oil, cot-
  tonseed, and sulfur. Similarly, the shogunate authorized associations
  to organize all shipping on the Tone and Kinu rivers as well as along
  the Kasumigaura coastal region, so as to reduce transportation fees.
  Individual merchant houses also prospered from the acquisition of
  new privileges. The Sumitomo family, for instance, had been involved
  in the pharmaceutical and iron-goods business in Kyoto from the early
  years of the Tokugawa period. Later, it started to trade in copper,
  opened a refinery in Osaka, and, as we saw, rose to a position of
  economic and social prominence. Thus, when Tanuma decided to
  establish a copper monopoly in 1783, the Sumitomo were given exclu-
  sive rights to the copper trade in the Kansai region and later were
  permitted to develop the rich Besshi mines.107
  The desire to promote development and growth was evident in other
  initiatives as well. Tanuma, for instance, provided funds to bring new
  lands under cultivation, and after the eruption of Mt. Asano in 1783
  had raised the bed of the Tone River, the shogunate arranged for flood
  prevention and other riparian works to be undertaken. In a more
  grandiose and controversial move, Tanuma encouraged foreign trade
  through Nagasaki to China. Particularly attractive as export items
  were the so-called tawaramono, or bales of dried sea products such as
  tangle (kombu), sea slugs (iriko), and abalone. Then he turned his
  106 For a full study in English of this policymaker, see Hall, Tanuma Okitsugu.
  107 The expanded licensing of protective associations in the 1760s and 1770s is often interpreted
  as an attempt by the shogunate to sell special privileges in order to increase its revenues, as
  each association had to pay an annual licensing fee to the shogunate. Licensing had this
  advantage, of course, but because the annual fees were rather small and contributed little to
  the shogunate's financial well-being, historians in recent years have come to see licensing
  only as one part of a broader set of economic objectives designed to stimulate production and
  promote lower commodity prices. For a discussion of the importance of these revenues for
  the shogunate, see Hauser, Economic Institutional Change, pp. 41-46.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  585
  attention to developing fishing around Hokkaido, an island also re-
  puted to be rich in gold and other minerals, and he converted the
  existing baled-goods business into a shogunal monopoly. In 1786
  Tanuma ordered all merchants who had formerly engaged in the trade
  to become government agents, and he then established a Baled Goods
  Office (tawaramono yakusho) at Nagasaki to supply capital to fisher-
  men, set prices, and establish strict domestic consumption limits for
  exportable marine products. So successful were these efforts that some
  members of the shogunate even contemplated extending such activi-
  ties into Sakhalin and the southern part of the Bering Sea, a move that
  would have reversed Japan's traditional seclusion policy.
  Finally, Tanuma tried to reform the currency. Notable here was the
  introduction of a new silver coin known as the nanryo nishu, minted at
  98 percent pure silver. In an innovative move, the shogunate tried to
  fix the coin's exchange rate by stamping onto its face the legend "Eight
  nanryo will exchange for one gold ryo," and officials further announced
  that the shogunate would accept only the nanryo for the obligations
  owed to it. In a related policy development, Tanuma tried to overcome
  the shogunate's chronic scarcity of copper for minting purposes, not
  only by relying on important merchant families such as the Sumitomo,
  but also by actually taking over the direct operation of some mines. In
  Akita, for instance, the shogunate confiscated from the local Satake
  daimyo the lands surrounding the family's famous Ami mine so that
  the shogunate could take over its production. Finally, the shogunate
  augmented the supply of coins by opening a mint for zeni at Nagasaki
  in 1768 and also by issuing a new four-won copper piece known as the
  shimon sen in that same year.
  Historians have not generally credited much success to these cur-
  rency reforms, chiefly because the new policies aroused so much oppo-
  sition that Tanuma was rather quickly driven from office, when stories
  of unprecedented shogunal extravagance and corruption also came to
  light. Some of the strongest opposition to specific Tanuma policies
  came from merchants.1"8 Many of them, for instance, refused to have
  anything to do with the new nanryo nishu silver coin, and so it was used
  only for the intrinsic value of the silver it contained, not the artificial
  rate stamped on its face.109 Moreover, the government seems to have
  108 Kitajima Masamoto, Kinsei no minshu to toshi (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1984), pp. 292-313.
  109 The popular rejection of the nanryo nishu was first reported by Getaya Jimbei in a 1787
  memorial. Shortly thereafter, popular attitudes changed when people realized that the coin
  had a high degree of purity, and it continued to circulate until 1824. See Hall, Tanuma
  Okitsugu, pp. 71-3.
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  been somewhat too enthusiastic in minting zeni and copper coins, and
  it issued more than markets would accept. Zeni, for example, circu-
  lated at approximately 2,800 to one gold ryo in the late 1730s but fell to
  5,780 to one ryo in 1773. The consequence was an immediate and
  disastrous rise in commodity prices that produced loud complaints
  from people all across Japan.
  Even more troublesome for Tanuma was the manner in which the
  licensing of new protective associations created tensions between
  those merchants and the older, established families, leading the sho-
  gunate to exhaust considerable credibility in trying to resolve such
  conflicts. One example of this concerns oil dealers in and around
  Osaka. Before Tanuma's tenure as grand chamberlain, merchants in
  Osaka had monopolized the oil business. In order to encourage ex-
  panded production, Tanuma divided the area between Osaka and
  modern-day Kobe into five geographic districts and granted special
  rights to purchase all raw materials in these districts to five newly
  created associations of oil dealers. When the established Osaka mer-
  chants complained, Tanuma shifted gears and gave them the right to
  buy specified amounts of raw materials for processing into oil in all
  five of the districts, although the Osaka merchants were instructed to
  pay a fee to each of the new rural associations for this privilege. This
  solution satisfied no one, and both sides bombarded the local daimyo
  and the shogunate's officials with objections, petitions, and protests.
  The bitterness ran deep, and ultimately a frustrated shogunate tried
  to demonstrate its authority by announcing a shocking final solution:
  It confiscated from the local daimyo most of the territory where the
  oil was being produced, placed towns such Nishinomiya under the
  direct jurisdiction of the Osaka city magistrates, and gave its own
  rural attendants {daikan) stationed in Osaka administrative authority
  in the rural areas.110
  If merchants protested some policies, the daimyo were even more
  apprehensive about other ways in which Tanuma flexed the sho-
  gunate's muscles. The confiscation of land in the Kansai brought no
  joy to the daimyo there, of course, and those in the north were equally
  frightened by Tanuma's confiscation of territory surrounding the cop-
  per mines in Akita, although there a strong protest by the Satake
  family ultimately succeeded in getting the family lands returned.
  Even more daimyo felt threatened by Tanuma's new policies concern-
  ing the way in which they financed their own debts. Throughout the
  n o Nakai, Tenkan-ki bakuhansei, pp. 118-23.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  587
  Tanuma years, the shogunate held to the belief that its fiscal problems,
  as well as those of the daimyo, were caused essentially by a combination
  of falling rice prices and rising commodity prices. Tanuma and his
  associates further argued that one of the primary reasons for the decline
  in rice prices came from false market surpluses created when daimyo -
  who sold rice certificates in Osaka in order to finance their own domain
  governments - began to issue certificates for more rice than their do-
  mains could actually produce.
  Consequently, the shogunate began to require each daimyo to report
  officially the total amount of rice certificates issued as well as the
  actual amount of tax rice that he shipped into the city. The shogunate
  also permitted the merchants at the rice market in Dojima to buy and
  sell only those certificates that bore the seal of the rice certificate
  inspector, an official newly appointed by the shogunate. The sho-
  gunate added still more restrictions on the diamyo's financing when it
  began to impose extraordinary levies on moneylenders and then to
  lend these funds back to the moneylenders with instructions to make
  these monies available to daimyo. As complicated as these fiscal ar-
  rangements seem on the surface, the new system meant that loans to
  the daimyo in theory were now originating with the shogunate, and as
  a condition for receiving such loans, the shogunate could require that
  daimyo pledge as collateral a portion of the domain tax rice equal in
  value to the loan. Thus, whenever a particular daimyo defaulted on
  the repayment of a loan, the rights to that portion of the domain's tax
  rice could be transferred in theory to the shogunate until the loan was
  fully repaid. In hopes of making this a more general method for all
  daimyo financing, the shogunate even went so far as to announce that
  it was considering extracting forced loans from peasants and urban
  dwellers throughout the country. Had such a scheme materialized, it
  would have marked the first time in the shogunate's history that it had
  bypassed the daimyo and directly taxed the residents of individual
  domains.
  Many daimyo were severely handicapped by the new financing sys-
  tem, and all were shaken by the shogunate's threat to usurp their
  taxing prerogatives. Soon the dissatisfactions of these daimyo boiled to
  the surface, and when Tanuma's protector, the shogun Ieharu, died in
  1786, Tanuma's enemies conspired to force his resignation and to
  appoint Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758-1829) as senior adviser to the
  shogun. Together with his own supporters, Sadanobu then launched
  the so-called Kansei Reforms of the late 1780s and early 1790s, whose
  self-declared purpose was to "return to Yoshimune" by recreating the
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  588 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  alleged golden age of Sadanobu's grandfather and the author of the
  Kyoho Reforms.
  As we have learned from Chapter 9 in this volume, the core of the
  Kansei Reforms consisted of the abolition of many of the protective
  associations, a reissuing of sumptuary regulations, retrenchment pro-
  grams, decrees ordering reductions in commodity prices, and exhorta-
  tions against corruption, prostitution, and bribery. The Kansei Re-
  forms came to an abrupt halt when Sadanobu himself was removed
  from office in 1793, and they were not particularly successful. The
  reforms treated symptoms, not causes. They did not adequately ad-
  dress such fundamental problems as the growing gap between commer-
  cial reality, on the one hand, and the frequent misconceptions of the
  daimyo and shogun about how the economy worked, on the other. Nor
  did the reforms eliminate the destructive aspects of the rivalry between
  urban merchants and the producers and wholesalers based in local
  towns and commercial villages. With economic policy in near chaos,
  commercial and urban problems would continue to mount in the early
  decades of the nineteenth century, forming part of the process that
  ultimately led to the Meiji Restoration.
  Daimyo commercial policies. As many daimyo confronted increasingly
  severe problems with deficit financing during the latter half of the
  eighteenth century, they began to encourage commercial development
  within their domains and attempted to develop new mechanisms for
  tapping that wealth.111 The centerpieces of these efforts were usually
  the creation of domain monopolies over certain products that could
  profitably be produced locally and sold in the great urban metropo-
  lises. Some domains had established such monopolies as early as the
  seventeenth century, but the techniques employed at that time were
  not nearly as sophisticated as those deployed in the late eighteenth
  century, when domain governments introduced new products and en-
  couraged production by importing technology and supplying raw mate-
  rials and capital to producers. Another important difference was that
  whereas the domains established the earlier monopolies in order to
  increase official revenues by collecting annually taxes and licensing
  fees, in the late eighteenth century many domains hoped to accom-
  plish the same ends by capturing a portion of the profits of the trade,
  i n For a recent discussion of the spread of commerce into local areas, see Yamaguchi Tetsu,
  "Bakuhansei ichiba no saihen to shohin seikatsu," in Rekishigaku kenkyukai, Nihonshi
  kenkyukai, eds., Koza Nihon rekishi, vol. 6 (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1985), pp.
  229-65.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  589
  typically by marketing themselves the final product or by taking a
  percentage of the price of the goods as they moved from producer to
  wholesaler or from wholesaler to retailers outside the domain.
  Kumamoto provides a good example of a domain that actively
  moved into new commercial endeavors. In the latter half of the eigh-
  teenth century, domain officials established a local silkwork culture
  industry by importing techniques originally developed at Nishijin in
  Kyoto. Those same officials promoted wax tree cultivation by advanc-
  ing to farmers in producing areas interest-free loans for fertilizer,
  tools, and household expenses."2 Similarly, officials in Yonezawa do-
  main imported silkworms and technical advisers from the nearby Date
  and Fukushima domains, distributed pamphlets with advice on mul-
  berry cultivation throughout the domain, and advanced loans to pro-
  ducers. In Kaga, the government coupled similar incentives with tax
  exemptions in order to promote the lacquer and gold leaf industries."3
  In most instances, the domain governments also attempted to con-
  trol distribution and thereby to reserve the bulk of the profits for
  themselves. That is, the monopolies' actual day-to-day operations
  were entrusted to wholesale merchants within the local castle town,
  who were placed under the jurisdiction of newly created offices that
  typically bore names such as the Office of Domain Products (Koku-
  sankata) or Office for Domain Prosperity (Kokuekikata). These of-
  fices usually carried out a full range of services, such as researching
  production problems, introducing technology, advancing capital and
  loans, and setting up distribution systems for the sale of the final
  products. Thus, the Kaga Office of Domain Products, established in
  1813, oversaw the production - and took a percentage on the sale of -
  a variety of products, including textiles, lacquer, gold leaf, pottery,
  gold and silver inlay, ink, and paper.114 In Mito, the domain estab-
  lished an office to handle the sale of locally produced konnyaku (devil's
  tongue) and then applied the profits to discharge loans contracted
  earlier between the domain and merchants in Edo and Osaka.
  The system of domain monopolies had a mixed record. Some suc-
  112 Several examples of specific domain monopolies can be found in Fujino Tamotsu, Daimyo:
  sono ryokoku keiei (Tokyo: Jimbutsu oraisha, 1964), pp. 229-37.
  113 For additional details, see Shimode Sekiyo, Kaga Kanazawa no kimpaku (Kanazawa:
  Hokkoku shuppansha, 1972); Mori Yoshinori, "Kanazawa no haku," Gakuho 26 (1982): 79-
  85; Miyamoto Masahisa, Ishikawa ken (Tokyo: Shoheisha, 1982), pp. 43-5; and Wajima
  shishi hensan semmon iinkai, ed.', Wajima shishi, vol. I (Wajima: Wajima shiyakusho, 1976),
  pp. 286-314.
  114 See Tabata Tsutomu, "Bunsei, Tempd-ki no Kaga han sanbutsukata seisaku no igi ni
  tsuite," in Tanaka Yoshio, ed., Nihonkai chiikishi no kenkyu, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Bunken
  shuppan, 1982), pp. 67-9.
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  59° 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  ceeded and provided revenues that the daimyo could use to decrease
  their indebtedness. But many more failed, leaving domain finances in
  worse shape than ever.1'5 In other instances, the monopolies drew the
  ire of established merchants and commercial farmers, who saw them as
  new threats to their own enterprises, and there were several incidents
  when peasants and merchants banded together to protest violently the
  new monopolies, thus adding to the challenges to daimyo authority that
  began to mount as the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth.
  The monopolies also presented new problems to the shogunate, for the
  monopolies once again challenged the role of Osaka and Edo merchants
  and disrupted the established marketing systems that centered on these
  urban centers. In all, their intention ran counter to the policies of
  Matsudaira Sadanobu, and their legacy was a new set of problems with
  which the shogunate ultimately would have to contend.
  CONCLUSIONS
  Viewed from the long run of Japanese history, the emergence of a more
  urbanized society and the growth of a commercialized economy during
  the Tokugawa period contained significant implications for Japan's
  development after 1868. Others have explained in some detail, for
  instance, how such Tokugawa period innovations as insurance systems
  and improved facilities for banking and credit contributed to Japan's
  relatively rapid economic transformation in the second half of the
  nineteenth century.116 As we have seen, the merchants of Osaka and
  Edo created a system of marine insurance, and the moneylenders in
  those two urban centers put in place a sophisticated set of practices
  concerning deposits, advances, bill discounting, exchange transac-
  tions, and financing programs for rural industry that anticipated many
  of the functions of a modern banking system.
  Equally important were the economic developments that took place
  outside the major cities. The protoindustrialization that occurred in
  the local towns and commercialized villages of the Tokugawa period
  stimulated the growth of light industry in such diverse endeavors as
  115 Yoshinaga Akira, "Sembai seido to shohin ryutsu," in Rekishigaku kenkyu 229 (March 1959):
  48-54.
  116 See, for instance, E. Sydney Crawcour, "The Tokugawa Period and Japan's Preparation for
  Modern Economic Growth," Journal of Japanese Studies 1 (Autumn 1974): 113-25, as well
  as his "The Tokugawa Heritage," in William W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic
  Enterprise in Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 17-44. A
  particularly influential article concerning banking is Kozo Yamamura's "The Role of the
  Samurai in the Development of Modern Banking in Japan," Journal of Economic History 27
  (June 1967): 198-220.
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  CONCLUSIONS 
  591
  the production of textiles, pottery, sake brewing, lacquer ware, tatami
  matting, roofing tiles, and farm equipment. Historians have found it
  difficult to quantify precisely the exact level to which such production
  had risen by the 1860s, but most agree that from this base, these
  industries grew quite rapidly during the final decades of the nine-
  teenth century. Again, the precise rates of growth in the modern pe-
  riod are disputed by historians, and in any case they seem to have
  varied regionally, but it is clear that after 1868 the broader diffusion of
  traditional technology, the importation of new materials and technol-
  ogy from the West, the availability of new markets, and an increase in
  personal incomes in Japan all combined to stimulate considerable
  growth in the rural-based industries. Over time, this confluence of
  factors created greater sources of capital accumulation, increased the
  level of output of the economy, and provided useful experience with
  early forms of mechanized manufacturing that made possible the
  growth of modern, heavy industry in Japan at the turn into the twenti-
  eth century."7
  However salutary the long-term consequences of commercialization
  and urbanization, in the shorter run they generated dislocations, con-
  tention, and competition, all of which contributed to the growing
  domestic crisis that formed a prelude to the Meiji Restoration. One
  example of this was the change in the internal composition of urban
  populations seen in Japanese cities during the opening decades of the
  nineteenth century. An especially prominent trend was a growing gap
  between the wealthier and the poorer members of the population, as
  well as an apparent increase in the absolute number of very poor.
  Although the documentation is not complete, it seems likely that
  the percentage of urban residents who rented lodgings in major cities
  such as Edo and Osaka increased rapidly, often by as much as one-
  third."8 These renters worked as peddlers, day laborers, or artisans
  who, to use the shogunate's own contemporary parlance, "eke out
  their living one day at a time."
  It is difficult to explain why the proportion of urban poor should
  have been growing at a time when the total urban population had
  117 The classic study that initiated research concerning the role of traditional industries in
  Japan's transition to modern economic growth is Furushima Toshio, Sangyoshi, vol. 3 of
  Taikei Nihonshi sosho (Tokyo: Yamakura shuppansha, 1966). One of the more optimistic
  estimates of the growth of traditional industries in the Meiji period, and still widely cited, is
  Yamada Yuzo, Nihon kokumin shotoku suikei shityo (Tokyo: Toyo keizai shimposha, 1957);
  and lower growth rates for western Japan are documented in Nishikawa Shunsaku, Nikon
  keizai no seichoshi (Tokyo: Toyo keizai, 1985).
  118 An insightful study about the urban poor is Minami Kazuo's Edo no shakai kbzo (Tokyo:
  Hanawa shobo, 1977).
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  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  leveled off and when there is compelling evidence, as demonstrated in
  Chapter 13 of this volume, that standards of living were improving for
  many segments of urban society. Some demographers argue that the
  marriage age in cities was relatively high, compared with that of the
  agricultural villages, and that consequently in-migration from rural
  areas was necessary in order to maintain urban populations at a steady
  level. Such migrations did in fact take place in many regions, and most
  likely it was the poorer elements of peasantry who moved into the
  cities in the late eighteenth century. Most were formerly independent
  farmers who had lost their lands when the commercial economy
  reached agricultural villages.
  Moreover, poor harvests hit Japan several times in the late eigh-
  teenth century, resulting in widespread starvation. At that time, the
  poor in several cities, including Edo and Osaka, took part in food
  riots, inspiring the shogunate to fashion new social welfare schemes
  for urban centers. The system implemented in Edo came to serve as a
  model for many other cities. There, each person who owned land
  contributed annually to his ward an amount of money that was deter-
  mined by the value of his land. The collected monies constituted a
  reserve fund that ward representatives used to buy and store rice for
  emergencies, to make grants to elderly persons who lived alone, and to
  finance low-interest loans for the construction and maintenance of
  homes and shops. These funds were referred to as the City Office
  reserve fund (machi kaisho tsumikiri) and still existed at the time of the
  Meiji Restoration, when Edo passed to the control of the new Meiji
  oligarchy, and the office that controlled the funds became the focal
  point of the new movement to establish a City Assembly (shikai) in
  Tokyo after 1868."9
  The economic and social problems of the early nineteenth century,
  especially the rapid increase in budget deficits on both the shogunal
  and domain levels, contributed to the well-known, relative decline of
  the economic lot of many samurai retainers in the decades immediately
  before the Meiji Restoration.120 Equally obvious, both to the samurai
  who lived through the times and to modern historians, was the fact
  119 For more on the life of the urban poor at this time, see Matsumoto Shiro, "Kinsei koki no
  toshi to minshu," in Iwanami koza Nihon no rekishi, vol. 12 (kinsei 4) (Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1976), pp. 89-146.
  120 Discussions of domain deficits and the impact on the samurai can be found in Aono
  Shunsui, Daimyo to ryomin (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1983); Kitajima Masamoto, "Tempo-ki no
  rekishiteki ichi," in Kitajima Masamoto, ed., Bakuhansei kokka kaitai no kenkyu (Tokyo:
  Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), pp. 1-22; and Hanley and Yamamura, Economic and Demo-
  graphic Change, pp. 131-60.
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  CONCLUSIONS 
  593
  that the shogunate and the country's daimyo had been generally un-
  able to implement policies that would provide long-term solutions to
  the economic problems experienced by the samurai. Tokugawa Ieyasu
  and his fellow daimyo had built a society based on the concept of rule
  by status, but two centuries of urbanization and commercial growth
  had created a new world in which such a political ideal no longer
  corresponded to economic and social reality. Agriculture had become
  commercialized and oriented toward the urban markets, and even
  domain governments had become involved in the production and sale
  of commercial products. While inflation ate away at the samurai's
  incomes, some merchants, and even peasants, grew wealthy and en-
  joyed life-styles that drew the envy of even the highest-ranking ele-
  ments of the samurai status group. Yet during times of drought and
  famine, the rural poor would crush into the castle towns, and the
  sounds of the food riots and of shops being smashed could be heard
  even within samurai mansions. Increasingly, society seemed out of
  kilter.
  Confusion and anger led many to question the legitimacy of the
  shogunate and daimyo governments, and the samurai seemed to grow
  less loyal. This was manifested in subtle ways: some warriors took
  handsomely dowered wives from the merchant class; others sold their
  birthrights and drifted off into mercantile occupations; and a few
  simply gave up in despair and committed suicide. From the 1830s,
  other samurai, no longer willing to bear the hardships forced on their
  class, began to pay more attention to domain affairs. For some, this
  meant listening more closely to critics of government policy, whereas
  others tried to gain bureaucratic positions that would enable them to
  redirect domain policy. Thus, when the nation's crisis worsened in the
  1850s and 1860s, a great many samurai were prepared to enter the
  political arena, eager to defend Japan from without and to reform its
  political structure from within.
  During the early nineteenth century, the bonds that had shaped the
  nation's status groups into a coherent whole began to fray along other
  seams as well. In the seventeenth century, society was symbiotically
  organized, held together by mutual obligations and the trust that each
  of society's status groups would perform the duties assigned to it.
  The daimyo relied on merchants and artisans to supply goods and
  services, and the lords reciprocated by providing an environment
  within the castle towns and domains that responded to the merchants'
  needs and desires. Samurai and merchants were also organically
  linked. The samurai handled military responsibilities and staffed the
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  594 
  COMMERCIAL CHANGE AND URBAN GROWTH
  most important, decision-making offices in the domain government.
  The merchants catered to the samurai's daily needs for commercial
  goods and also fleshed out the lower, enforcement ranks of urban
  administration.
  During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however,
  the pressures of commercial growth and the problems associated with
  urbanization eroded the old organic bonds of interdependence. Deri-
  sion replaced trust. Daimyo no longer voiced confidence in merchants
  but, rather, condemned them. The bitterness in the new attitudes is
  clearly revealed in the speeches and behavior of the lord's officials in
  Kaga domain. In 1835 the leading adviser to the Maeda daimyo called
  the city magistrates to his office. "Among the households of urban
  commoners," he complained, "are many, both high and low, rich and
  poor, who are audacious and who do not preserve their status." The
  more humble merchants, he lamented, purchased splendid clothing
  when attending ceremonial functions, or even worse, he cried out,
  borrowed large sums with which to rent such clothing. Criticisms
  rolled from his tongue. Some merchants "coveted the houses of those
  of higher status," whereas others served "expensive banquets at wed-
  dings, beyond their status and financial means. . . . Yearly the ex-
  cesses have become greater as people strive to impress their neigh-
  bors." Sadly, he concluded, "There are many who no longer observe
  the status regulations, who spend too much money, who have a poor
  sense of social responsibility." In response to this outburst, the city
  magistrates reissued sumptuary regulations and instructed lower offi-
  cials to make certain that they were read aloud to all of Kanazawa's
  residents.121
  It was a short step from scorn for the merchants' social behavior to
  condemnation of their business ethics. In 1842 several of the lord's
  advisers in Kaga jointly set forth their complaints about higher com-
  modity prices:
  In recent years, there has been adequate production of rapeseed. However,
  merchants have spread rumors that shortages exist, and they charge higher
  prices. Merchants have claimed shortages of paper, firewood, and charcoal
  and then raised their prices. All merchants and artisans have been forgetting
  the dictates of status and moral behavior. The attitude that one can neglect to
  work hard and yet still make a large profit has become widespread. . . .
  Originally, in the past, people worked at their jobs with passion and sincerity,
  and they made a reasonable profit. Now, however, people concoct elaborate
  121 Kaga han shiryd, vol. 14 (Tempo 6 [l835]/imercalary 7), pp. 597-602.
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  CONCLUSIONS 
  595
  schemes that allow them to neglect the proper conduct of their profession but
  still make enormous profits.'22
  The new abusive rhetoric displaced the more expected discourse of
  respect and deference and thus put into place paving stones that others
  would tread when they moved toward a new formulation of the politi-
  cal norm at mid-century. Even in the face of such frustration and
  complicated economic change, the shogunate and daimyo stubbornly
  continued to cling to the tenets of class separation, agrarianism, and
  rule by status, and their dogmatism was increasingly interpreted as an
  arrogant attempt to preserve artificially their dominant position in
  politics and society. The failure of the Tempo Reforms in the 1830s
  and 1840s opened the door for even more doubts and questioning, and
  the edifice of shogunal and daimyo authority collapsed quickly when a
  foreign policy crisis became intertwined with domestic upheavals dur-
  ing the 1850s and 1860s. It was only in the process of building a new
  system to respond to the changing modern environment after 1868
  that the Meiji leadership finally adopted policies that reached an ac-
  commodation with the forces set in motion by the waves of urban and
  commercial growth that Japan experienced during the seventeenth and
  eighteenth centuries.
  122 Kanshi zuihitsu (The public service records of Okumura Hidezane), ms copy, Kanazawa City
  Library, Tempo 13 (1842)75/29.
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  CHAPTER 12
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN
  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TOKUGAWA
  THOUGHT
  INTRODUCTION
  Of all the years that spanned the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), the
  middle years, Tokugawa chuki, here called the "eighteenth-century,"
  are distinguished by the creative achievements realized along a broad
  front. Important innovations were introduced in theater, literature,
  and printmaking in the arts and, more pertinent to this chapter, into
  reflections on history, nature, and political economy. Coming in the
  era directly before the Industrial Revolution in modern times, this
  century offers key insights into the philosophical foundations of mod-
  ern Japanese civilization that are grounded in the history prior to
  Japan's intense engagements with the Western world. It comes as no
  surprise that intellectuals have continued to turn to that history as a
  resource for critical inspiration.1
  An obvious point must be made before continuing. As historical time
  was not recorded according to the Christian calendar, "eighteenth-
  century Japan" is no more than a rough Western "translation" of a
  period of time following the well-known era of Genroku (1688-1704),
  essentially commencing with the Kyoho (1716-36), and ending with
  the Ka-sei, an elision of Bunka and Bunsei, 1804-18 and 1818-30,
  respectively.
  The opening years present a sobering aftermath of the ebullient
  commercial revolution identified with the Genroku. Often cited as a
  specific event to demarcate that moment of uneasiness is the famous
  1 In the area of political thought, the outstanding figure is Maruyama Masao, known for his
  theory of creative political fabrication and fiction that he traced to the historical philosophy of
  Ogyu Sorai: Nihon seiji shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1952). This was
  translated by Mikiso Hane, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (Princeton,
  N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974). The terms for the discussion of postwar politics were
  set decisively by Maruyama's reflective writings on Tokugawa thought. Also of interest are
  Bito Masahide, Nihon hoken shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1961); Yoshikawa Kojiro,
  Jinsai-Sorai-Norinaga 
  (Tokyo: Toho gakkai, 1983); Minamoto Ryoen, Tokugawa shiso shoshi
  (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1973); Matsumoto Sannosuke, Kinsei Nihon no shisozo (Tokyo:
  Kembun shuppan, 1984); and a special issue on Tokugawa thought in Shiso 4 (1988).
  596
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  INTRODUCTION 
  597
  vendetta incident of the "forty-seven samurai" in 1702. This cele-
  brated act of loyal revenge, admired by many, was also legally treason-
  ous, and after much agonizing debate, the Tokugawa bakufu ordered
  the execution of these "loyal" retainers through ritual suicide. Political
  thinking concentrated on the meaning of the new commerce that had
  come to dominate the economy of the nation and, more pointedly, on
  whether or not this new history could be brought under control by
  loyal men committed to the system and its laws. Shortly after the end
  of the century and signifying the beginning of yet another tempestu-
  ous era, is the rageful rebellion of 1837, led by the philosophical
  radical and former official of the regime, Oshio Heihachiro (1794-
  1837). With Oshio's rebellion, overt militant action against the regime
  itself as an expression of true loyalty and not of personal revenge was
  injected with unprecedented forcefulness into the waning years of the
  Tokugawa bakufu, a period known as Bakumatsu.
  Between these eventful markers, the legitimacy of the Tokugawa
  order was rarely doubted nor was it frontally challenged. There was
  much faith in reason and the possibility of objective knowledge, as
  exemplified by Ogyu Sorai in the beginning, and Honda Toshiaki,
  Kaiho Seiryo, and Yamagata Banto at the end. It would be erroneous,
  however, to conclude that the Tokugawa regime governed during this
  century in "peace and tranquility under heaven," or tenka taihei, the
  moral epithet with which the bakufu embellished its rule.
  Hardly tranquil, the eighteenth century presents a troubled land-
  scape dotted with periodic famines and rebellions in the countryside,
  rice riots and bankruptcies among merchant houses in the towns and
  cities, and deepening indebtedness among the regional barons, the
  daimyo, and their samurai retinues. Indeed, historians generally agree
  that the bakuhan system, with the bakufu at the center in Edo and two
  hundred or so semiautonomous domains in the regions, had entered a
  period of severe unrest, doyoki, which was reflected in the carefully
  planned reforms from within the system to rectify that unrest. Known
  as the "Three Great Reforms" - sandai kaikaku - of Kyoho, Kansei
  (1787-93), and Tempo (1830-44), historians often rely on these re-
  forms to provide chronological coherence to the political history of the
  eighteenth century.2
  Although all of these reforms failed to offer lasting solutions, de-
  spite the intelligent purpose behind them, they reveal a consistent aim
  worthy of notation, namely, to resolve the discordance between what
  2 See Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi, vols. 11-13 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1964).
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  598 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  had been envisioned by the founders of the Tokugawa order - peace
  and tranquility in seclusion and agricultural self-sufficiency - with the
  unintended consequences of that settlement, centering mainly on the
  commercial revolution and the turbulent economic forces unleashed
  by it. A money and market economy of unexpected magnitude had
  been generated by the movement of aristocratic retinues to and from
  Edo. Anchored in Osaka, the merchant city of large and small banking
  and trading houses, this new economy witnessed the spillage of re-
  sources from the countryside into the cities, in the form of rice sti-
  pends that were converted into cash and that fueled the expanding
  commercial economy.
  It was in this troubled middle period, when the sudden demise of
  the regime was not thought to be imminent but its competence was
  frequently held in doubt, that the meaning of history, nature, and
  political economy was pondered, constituting a major intellectual expe-
  rience in Japanese history and indeed East Asia more generally. Com-
  monsensical questions came increasingly to be asked toward the end of
  Genroku as a sober mood replaced the optimism of the generation
  before: Why was there so much inefficiency and misery in the se-
  cluded kingdom? Why had the initial vision of peace and tranquility
  gone awry? Was the apparent errant flow of history due to passionate
  and vulgar forces underlying commerce and hedonistic play? Was it
  due to the overall structure of the political order itself? Or was it due at
  some deeper level to faulty epistemology adopted by the regime that
  could not serve as a reliable guide to action?
  There was virtually universal agreement that the problem was not
  the general design of the political structure itself, although this consen-
  sus would undergo steady erosion over the century. There were always
  warnings about the decline of human virtue and the rise of reckless
  passion as the source of political failings. But the more fundamental
  concern was directed at the question of epistemology, the manner in
  which knowledge was to be approached, ordered, and translated into
  action. Attracting the attention of the leading thinkers of the time, this
  question informed a good deal of the contentious and polemical de-
  bates that went into the compilation of prodigious scholarly works for
  which this era is noted.3
  3 A comprehensive summary of such works is Inoue Tetsujiro, Nihon Yomeigakuha no teisugaku
  (Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1900); and two sequels, Nihon kogakuha no leisugaku (1902) and Nihon
  Shushigakuha no letsugaku (1905). Valuable collections are Seki Giichiro, ed., Nihon jurin sosho,
  14 vols. (Tokyo: Toyo tosho kankokai, 1927-38); Inoue Tetsujiro, ed., Nihon rinri then, 10
  vols. (Tokyo: 1901-3); and Takimoto Seiichi, ed., Nihon keizai taiten, 60 vols. (Tokyo: Meiji
  bunken, 1966-). For this essay, I have relied primarily on volumes in Ienaga Saburo and
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  INTRODUCTION 
  599
  The central issue was the reliability of the philosophy utilized by
  the Tokugawa regime to justify its claim to moral and secular knowl-
  edge. This was the philosophy systematized by the Sung scholar Chu
  Hsi (i 130-1200) and known in Western historiography as Neo-
  Confucianism. Although it would be unwarranted to claim Neo-
  Confucianism to be a comprehensive ideological "orthodoxy" for the
  bakuhan system, owing to the bakufu leaders' syncretic approach to
  ideas and rituals, Neo-Confucianism contained an epistemology that
  Buddhism and Shinto did not, as to how objective knowledge could
  be acquired and on the basis of which the flow of history could be
  managed in a predictable manner.
  Thus, even though the Tokugawa rulers did not sever their ties with
  either Buddhism or Shinto, the former provided the rituals related to
  death, and Shinto those that sanctified sacred territory under a protec-
  tive deity - an image the shogunal figures projected for themselves -
  they also saw in Neo-Confucianism a set of broad philosophical propo-
  sitions on which servitors in positions of administrative responsibility
  could agree to govern according to predictable rules and not by arbi-
  trary and whimsical acts. In time, these propositions became the pri-
  mary "foil" behind which criticism was leveled against the politics of
  the day, with the intended aim of explaining the apparent lack of
  control over the course of events.4
  As a cosmological system authorized by a transcendent moral abso-
  lute, the "Great Ultimate" or taikyoku, Neo-Confucianism articulated
  a sharp division between the Tokugawa era of peace and tranquility
  and the immediately preceding Sengoku period of constant warfare. A
  timeless and absolute norm drawn from outside historical time and
  transcending the chaotic warfare of the recent past was called on to
  establish the bakuhan structure of noncentralizing governance as being
  "principled."
  Above all, it was theorized that this cosmology could be verified
  through the diligent and disciplined observation of things close at
  hand. The cognitive procedure would lead the human mind to un-
  cover norms that informed categories of phenomena, each category
  anticipating higher and more universal levels that culminated in the
  "great ultimate" or "univeral reason" - ri. This perfect virtue, in turn,
  Shimizu Shigem et al., eds., Nihon shiso taikei, 67 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970-82);
  and ltd Sei et al., eds., Nihon no macho, 50 vols. (Tokyo: Chud koronsha, 1972-82). Multivol-
  ume collected works of most of the major thinkers have also been published in modern form.
  4 Divergent interpretive views are presented in Maruyama, Studies; Bito, Nihon hoken shisdshi;
  and Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology - Early Constructs, 1$70-1680 (Princeton, N.J.:
  Princeton University Press, 1985).
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  600 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  logically encompassed those abiding moral values such as goodness,
  benevolence, wisdom, and loyalty, in short, the very ethic of trust on
  which the Tokugawa government relied to regulate itself internally at
  the ground level of ordinary administration. Within such a cosmologi-
  cal scheme, the bakuhan system gained an intrinsic moral essence that
  went beyond military hegemony secured on the field of battle. Thus
  the Tokugawa regime presented itself as capable of humane and just
  rule in accordance with the norms of peace and tranquility.
  The procedure of acquiring knowledge through observation, how-
  ever, yielded disturbing evidence that was at odds with the ostensive
  goals of "ordering" and "saving" the people - keisei saitnin - that gov-
  ernments universally should realize. No heady theorizing was required
  to realize that many trends of the day were not in accord with prevail-
  ing moral beliefs, such as merchants dominating the economy, samurai
  living in debt, peasants rebelling and townspeople flocking to vulgar
  theater. Agreeing on a persuasive alternative approach to knowledge,
  however, was quite another matter that required addressing broad
  theories of epistemology. If observing things close at hand was unreli-
  able, as they did not yield general meaning, where then should the
  inquiring mind seek stable knowledge with which to better steer the
  course of history? In short, what was the proper object of cognition
  from which stable norms might be extracted? Two broad responses to
  this problem dominated much of the intellectual history of the eigh-
  teenth century.
  One powerful resolution identified history, as expressed in language
  and text, to be the reliable object of knowledge, in contrast with
  speculative cosmology. Within this historicist frame of reference, there
  were those who insisted that the field of history be defined in terms of
  origin and the first articulation of principles. To grasp the present, the
  seeker must detach himself or herself from indigenous history and the
  convenient references to recent history and clarify a creative move-
  ment, this most often being ancient China where civilization presum-
  ably began. However, others denied the validity of such a search for
  beginnings in a "foreign" culture, arguing instead for the sufficiency
  of norms as shaped within indigenous history either as a result of a
  lengthy evolutionary political history, as in the inexorable rise of the
  bakuhan system, or in a moment of divine creation when the sacred
  community of the Japanese people first came into existence.
  The alternative position to these theses of history proposed that all
  human knowledge, including documentation of the past, were rela-
  tive, vis-a-vis universal nature. Although history was obviously a valu-
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  HISTORY 
  601
  able source of inspiration to show how people sought to gain deeper
  empirical and emotional insights into nature, thereby strengthening
  the bonds of trust among themselves in society, it was to nature that
  the human mind must ultimately orient its quest for knowledge. What
  was normative here was not a fixed and refined moment in human
  time, but nature as infinite and thus ontological. The human mind
  could never fully comprehend nature, and therefore knowledge would
  remain relative even as it expanded. Human morality, then, was not so
  much a replication of nature as it was a series of human understand-
  ings based on the reverential and objective study of nature as an
  inexhaustible resource of knowledge. Modern Japanese scientific
  thought may be traced to this view of nature.
  Though these two major themes of history and nature hardly de-
  plete the range and richness of eighteenth-century Tokugawa thought,
  they provide an introductory perspective into some of the conceptual
  events of that important era.
  HISTORY
  It was Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) who best articulated the basic proposi-
  tion that reliable knowledge was to be located in history, in docu-
  mented human experience itself and not outside human time in a
  transcendent absolute. It was captured in his famous dictum: "The
  ultimate form of scholarly knowledge is history."5 Undoubtedly the
  most provocative and influential of the historicist thinkers, Sorai ar-
  gued that although nature was certainly universal and infinite, the
  human mind was finite. Nature could not serve as a stable source of
  social norms precisely because it was beyond the grasp of human
  intelligence, and the procedure of directly observing nature to deduce
  moral norms was therefore flawed and arbitrary. Historical text, on the
  other hand, could be authenticated through the systematic philological
  "study of ancient language," or kobunjigaku. The intellectual choice
  that scholars faced regarding the proper object of study, therefore, was
  not between nature and history but between a textual field in one
  period of time as compared with another. While affirming that the
  source of knowledge was external to the human self and thus needed to
  be observed, Sorai insisted that the object was not, in the first in-
  stance, nature or the immediate social universe but a distant epoch,
  5 Gakumon tua rekishi ni kiwamari soro koto ni sord. From Sorai's Tomonsho, in Inoue, ed., Nikon
  rinri ihen vol. 6, pp. 146-203, esp. p. 153. A modern rendering is by Bito Masahide, ed.,
  Nihon no meichd, vol. 16 (Tokyo: Chuo kdronsha, 1974), pp. 297-358.
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  602 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  detached from the present and the recent past, when social norms were
  first created. Only after these norms and the intent behind their cre-
  ation were clarified could the scholar then objectively "observe" things
  in the present. Without this knowledge, the act of observation was
  simply relative and subjective. Studying the ancients was not mere
  antiquarianism for Sorai. Rather, it was aimed at locating refined
  moral norms locked in ancient language that might guide the political
  order and control of the rapidly changing present.
  Sorai's thinking was prefigured by ltd Jinsai (1627-1705), a re-
  nowned philosopher of merchant background who taught during the
  latter part of the seventeenth century.6 Observing things close at hand
  did not yield to Jinsai a moral perspective on universal reason. He
  moreover rejected the claim that natural and social hierarchies were
  morally fixed by a cosmological absolute. This minimized the virtue of
  ordinary human beings and belittled their capacity to order and con-
  trol, in a moral manner, the world around them. Jinsai had thus
  concluded that the scholar must first sever his analytical view of things
  from existing reality - the hierarchical order received from the imme-
  diate past - and seek out the initial creative formulation of the univer-
  sal moral worth of all human beings, regardless of their social and
  political status.
  Bypassing the history of Japan that had yielded the present as well
  as that of imperial China that had relied on deceptive metaphysics,
  Jinsai proceeded to study ancient language and texts. Significantly, he
  identified as fundamental to all subsequent humankind the writings of
  Mencius. Here was the first clear expression of the universalistic idea
  that all human beings possessed a potential for goodness and that
  goodness was not a static virtue or an unchanging absolute available
  only to the knowledgeable few or the influential. Kings, Mencius had
  emphasized, could be powerful and also wicked. Viewing virtue as an
  active potential residing in all human beings, regardless of status,
  Jinsai separated virtue from an abstract absolute and emphasized the
  "horizontal" dimension of it as a universal human possession, a cease-
  less tendency toward action found everywhere in society. Although
  hierarchy was necessary for social existence, Jinsai emphasized that
  virtue persisted at every level.
  6 Jinsai's key essays Gomdjigi and Dojimon are in Yoshikawa Kojiro and Shimizu Shigeru, eds.,
  ltd Jinsai - ltd Tdgai, vol. 33 of Nihon shiso laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971), pp. 11-113;
  and Ienaga Saburo and Shimizu Shigeru et al., eds., Kinsei shisdka bunshu vol. 97 of Nihon
  koten bungaku taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1966), pp. 49-200. See also Yoshikawa, Jinsai,
  Sorai, Norinaga; and Koyasu Nobukuni, ltd Jinsai - jinrinteki sekai no shiso (Tokyo: Tokyo
  daigaku shuppankai, 1982).
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  HISTORY 
  603
  The ultimate value of Mencius, then, was the existential emphasis
  given to human virtue as never static, and not an absolute to be recov-
  ered through diligent meditation or study. Virtue was constantly being
  acted out by ordinary individuals as a continuous part of human history,
  in small and unspectacular ways that never led to final resolutions, as in
  total enlightenment. It was best to speak of the "way," Jinsai thus
  concluded, not as an ultimate and unchanging reason but as small
  pathways that human beings journeyed over in daily life, with compas-
  sion, fairness, humility, and truthfulness. This included for Jinsai a
  healthy appreciation of the inevitable human passions, jo, of fear, sad-
  ness, joy, and anger as essential to human life. The active tendency
  toward goodness was thus to be found in the actual world of work, play,
  learning, and commerce without regard to distinctions previously im-
  posed by metaphysical and political hierarchies. Through Jinsai,
  Mencius took on a fresh moral and intellectual cogency among common-
  ers often not adequately appreciated by historians of thought. Through
  Mencius, ancient text had framed action in the present at whatever level
  in society that could be moral in a universally human sense.
  Ogyu Sorai found much in Jinsai's thinking to admire, especially as
  he too had independently reached similar conclusions regarding the
  unreliability of Neo-Confucian metaphysics, the centrality of historical
  genius as the proper source of moral knowledge, and the importance
  of leaving the present and identifying with that genetic moment.
  Sorai, moreover, did not dispute Jinsai's propensity to see virtue in
  human action at all levels of society. He disagreed profoundly, how-
  ever, on where the ultimate genesis of moral knowledge should be
  located and on what this knowledge should clarify in the first and most
  fundamental instance. Whereas Jinsai directed his historicism to ex-
  pand the spaces for universal moral action among commoners, stress-
  ing the horizontality of human potential, Sorai insisted that this per-
  spective did not address the question of why there was hierarchy and
  governance at all, and what these meant to history and to the ongoing
  present as a moral field.
  Sorai's admiration for Jinsai, therefore, was qualified on firm con-
  ceptual grounds, as he reiterated in his key writings on the way and on
  names - Bendd and Benmei.1 He expressed particular dissatisfaction
  7 The Bendd and Benmei are in Yoshikawa Kojiro and Maruyama Masao, eds., Ogyu Sorai, vol.
  36 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973). See also Bito Masahide, ed., Ogyu
  Sorai, vol. 16 of Nihon no meicho (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1974). See also Tahara Tsuguo,
  Tokugawa shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1967); Imanaka Kanshi, Soraigaku no kisoteki
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1966); Hixaishi Naoaki, Ogyu Sorai nempuko (Tokyo:
  Heibonsha, 1984); J. R. McEwan, The Political Writings of Ogyu Sorai (Cambridge, England:
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  with Jinsai's conception of moral potential which he thought hardly
  differed from the Neo-Confucian view that all human beings possessed
  an innate goodness. For Sorai, Jinsai had succumbed to a simple
  theory of human virtue and had not explained why structures and
  hence history had come into existence in the first place. The ideas of
  Mencius, Sorai argued, were inadequate and inappropriate to the
  study of this problem, as they were articulated as part of a passionate
  polemic against the proponents of legalism and Taoism. Thus, al-
  though Jinsai had addressed the question of commoners managing and
  controlling their immediate lives in ways that were moral in a universal-
  istic sense, Sorai focused on the broader issue of governance as a
  structured presence and further sought to resolve this problem by
  theorizing about historical and social genesis.
  Sorai reasoned that human history was not "natural," but was "cre-
  ated," fashioned with artificial means. Unlike nature, which was infi-
  nite, having neither beginning nor end and thus being in this sense
  timeless, human history had a determinable beginning, an epoch when
  societies were forged and thus separated from nature. In a state of
  nature human beings did not possess history, but in society they did.
  Once the intent behind that creation could be uncovered, however,
  history, like natural time, could persist indefinitely into the future. Yet
  that vision of endless and dynamic continuity that all regimes, includ-
  ing the Tokugawa bakufu, must first grasp in order to rule wisely
  could be clarified only through the systematic philological analysis of
  the textual evidences of ancient history. It was on the basis of this
  knowledge of the "beginning" that political societies would survive
  and flourish or decline and fall, as could easily be demonstrated in the
  fate of Chinese dynasties and regimes in Japan's history before the rise
  of the Tokugawa.
  Though he conceded that many of the texts existed in fragmentary
  form only, requiring historians to explore without prejudice a wide
  variety of evidence, including formal texts on law and ritual as well as
  the songs that conveyed the true feelings of princes and commoners,
  Sorai went on to formulate a grand and provocative perspective. In the
  ancient world well before Mencius and even Confucius, great, heroic
  kings, or sen'3, grasped the original mandate of Heaven to bring peace
  and well-being among humankind. They replaced strife and struggle
  in nature with rites, laws, administrative procedures, moral norms,
  Cambridge University Press, 1962); and Olof G. Lidin, Ogyu Sorai's Distinguishing the Way
  (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970).
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  HISTORY 
  605
  poetry, songs, and so forth that would nourish all human virtues in
  society, including those of the weak and lowly.
  The great virtue of benevolence - jin - Sorai thus concluded must
  be identified only with these ancient kings who created society and
  with it human history, and it should not be confused as a general and
  innate human possession. Later kings, princes, lords, scholars, and
  commoners may be endowed with specific virtues, but these were not
  the same as the great virtue of historical creation. Confucius himself
  must be seen in this light as a compiler and transmitter of received
  wisdom, not as the creator of social norms. And similarly, because
  the norm of benevolence is external to humankind, it is neither
  transcendent and timeless nor to be found in the natural order, as
  theorized by Neo-Confucian cosmologists. "The way," as Sorai put it
  explicitly, "was created by the ancient kings. It is not natural. . . .
  The way of the ancient kings most assuredly is not to be found in
  nature."8
  Much of human history presented itself as a record of decline and
  failure, Sorai argued, precisely because the creative norm of the an-
  cient kings had not been used by kings and ministers, who accepted
  instead the deceptive metaphysical idea that the essence of Heaven and
  human goodness were identical. Human beings were coerced into
  believing that they could transform their flawed virtue into true time-
  less virtue. This idea was totally contrary to the reality of multiple
  virtues among humans and the indisputable fact that limited human
  intelligence could not possibly "know" the essence of Heaven, or what
  its moral intent (ten'i) might be in distributing virtues.
  The great sages of antiquity, therefore, scrupulously avoided claim-
  ing to know Heaven as a universal norm and, instead, expressed rever-
  ence for Heaven and its infinite mystery. Even when Confucius spoke
  of "knowing Heaven's mandate" (tenmei 0 shiru), he certainly did not
  mean by this that he had gained an authoritative understanding of
  Heaven but simply that, as he gained wisdom with the advancement of
  age, he had finally become aware of his heavenly endowed personal
  virtue and thus now knew his imperative in life to be a scholar and not
  a political minister. Nowhere, Sorai claimed, did Confucius speak of
  his personal virtue as being in accord with the moral essence of
  Heaven. Indeed, much of human history reveals a fundamental misun-
  derstanding of this meaning of virtue and universal and transcendent
  8 Sorai's views on nature as institutional creation are scattered throughout his writings. A clear
  statement is sec. 5 of Bendo.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  norm, by claiming the former to have a normative significance as
  meaning innate benevolence located in the human self.
  The meaning of virtue, Sorai insisted, must be distinguished in two
  basic ways. There was first the great virtue specific to the ancient
  kings, who created history by separating society from nature with the
  intent of bringing peace and well-being among humankind. This vir-
  tue to be called Benevolence is located only at the beginning of history
  and is not a possession of subsequent kings and scholars. There is
  another virtue, the "little virtue" (shotoku) that is granted by Heaven
  to each individual. It is the "imperative" (met) within each self that the
  individual alone can realize. How little virtues are distributed among
  individuals in society is entirely unpredictable, as this is determined
  by a transnatural force to be referred to as Heaven. Virtue in this
  human sense should not be thought of as normative, in that it is
  entirely plural and relative from one person to the next. Indeed, virtue
  among humankind may be thought of as infinite, as there is no way to
  predict what sorts of virtues will appear as history unfolds. Expressing
  deep skepticism regarding the view that human virtues were common
  and shared, Sorai contended that each individual must conform to the
  virtue that is given by Heaven and, relying on benevolence, strive to
  realize fully that personal virtue.
  Sorai practiced this theory of virtue as a teacher. Denying that he
  could mold others to become scholars, Sorai insisted that each student
  must realize his own virtue from within himself as a personal quest or
  imperative. Only when this effort had reached a moment of excruciat-
  ing frustration could he, as a teacher, be useful by offering suggestions
  and encouragement. Despite his reputation as a dogmatic scholar,
  Sorai in fact assumed a laissez-faire attitude toward his students in
  accordance with his belief that a teacher, like a ruler, should not
  attempt to reshape the virtues of others.9
  Sorai's theory of virtue contained an elitist implication that did not
  elude his many critics: If virtue is relative and specific to the individ-
  ual, it followed that only few would be endowed with the "political"
  virtue to govern or the "scholarly" virtue to study ancient history. The
  bulk of society would be outside these crucial spheres of human activ-
  ity and would simply rely on others who did possess these virtues.
  Although Sorai criticized the aristocracy for posing as a class endowed
  at birth with political virtue, his theory also created intellectual limits
  9 Sorai's ideas about human virtue are presented in his Gakusoku, in Yoshikawa and Maruyama,
  eds., Ogyu Sorai, pp. 187-98; and also in his Bendo, as in sec. 14.
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  HISTORY 
  607
  that especially educators of commoners found unacceptable. Lenient
  in the sense that it allowed for a wide variety of virtues to flourish, this
  theory was constraining to intellectual versatility and creative expan-
  sion beyond more than one field, meaning, practically, that it limited
  individuals to a functional occupation.10
  At the same time, however, Sorai's concept of little virtues was
  intertwined with a broader theory of moral purpose in government.
  Although human virtues could not serve as a political norm, they were
  nonetheless the object of moral rule. The ancient kings created laws
  and political structures to nourish the myriad virtues that Heaven had
  bestowed on human beings. This was the substance of benevolence as
  the great virtue of the kings, and it therefore was also termed the way
  of human nourishment (yashinai no michi). Recognizing Heaven to be
  the sole source of human virtues and hence beyond human control, the
  kings forged political instruments to nourish all of these virtues with
  equanimity and without exception.
  To the kings, all virtues were precious and worthy of fulfillment, no
  virtue being too trivial to be wasted. It was the vision of the kings that
  no virtue that appeared in the unfolding of future history would ever
  exceed the boundaries of the norm of nourishment. Virtues not yet
  known would find nourishment in their way. It allowed men to seek
  deep enjoyment in the arts. The way of the ancient kings, therefore,
  was vast and expansive, not inflexible, rigid, and legalistic. Indeed, as
  Sorai emphasized, if the broad way is in place, all the little virtues may
  move to and fro without interference. And in this free-flowing inter-
  mixing of human virtues that Sorai idealized, the king or prince would
  represent that comprehensive and broad norm of benevolence symbol-
  izing thereby the individual virtues of each; he would scrupulously
  refuse to tamper with those virtues to make them conform to a single
  moral standard. In short, for Sorai, the prince did not stand for a
  moral norm to which men should aspire to approximate. Nor for that
  matter did he stand as a personal symbol of power and wealth. "The
  prince," as Sorai observed, "is always a social prince.""
  To Sorai, then, all governments must be evaluated according to the
  norm of benevolence, not according to principle in nature, essence in
  Heaven, or universal virtue in human beings. Quite simply, any exist-
  10 Scholars of commoner background argued against Sorai all through the eighteenth century.
  See my Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa Japan - The Kaitokudo Merchant Academy of Osaka
  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
  11 Sore kun naru mono via gun nari. See Ogyu Sorai's Bemmei, Yoshikawa and Maruyama, eds.,
  Ogyu Sorai, pp. 37-185, esp. pp. 48, 54.
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  ing system of rule must nourish human virtues and refrain from coerc-
  ing them into something other than what Heaven had endowed. It was
  this historical norm of benevolence fashioned by the ancient kings that,
  Sorai believed, must be brought to bear in the observation of the pres-
  ent. Goverments that maintain moralistic distinctions in status must be
  seen as coercive and as having failed to meet the demands of that
  original norm. And at this level of historical actuality, it was no longer
  the language or rhetoric of men who ruled that mattered, but the
  structured practice of nourishment that did. Of immense importance,
  Sorai's conception of politics held that no system of laws and procedure
  of governance should be taken prima facie as fixed in perpetuity, as
  being sacrosanct in terms of cosmological ideals, but instead must be
  constantly evaluated in accordance with the external norm of benevo-
  lence, the proposition enunciated by the ancient kings at the beginning
  of history on which all human societies must be made to rest.
  The true purpose of observation as an epistemological procedure,
  therefore, was not to find principle in nature to anchor moral norms,
  but to analyze the state of political economy in light of the constant
  intent underlying historical creation. As observation based on this aim
  took precedence over other considerations, such as maintaining the
  integrity of the aristocracy, it followed that specific political prescrip-
  tions must be directly oriented to the relative discrepancy perceived
  between historical norm and the ongoing present. Sorai's theory of
  history and virtue, in short, called on critical scholars to focus on this
  discrepancy and not on stable continuity, which was to be Sorai's
  lasting legacy in the discourse on political economy.
  Viewing the historical present in terms of his theoretical perspec-
  tive, Sorai drew the pessimistic conclusion that the Tokugawa peace
  would not last far into the future unless major structural reforms were
  carried out. Although in the past, systems were known to have cor-
  rected themselves in times of crisis, trends in the present suggested to
  Sorai a bleak and irreversible process under way that would lead be-
  fore long to popular insurrections that would prove fatal to the regime.
  Men in positions of authority, he complained, lacked the proper virtue
  to govern, leading inevitably to "men of talent and wisdom emerging
  from below to overthrow the order." Before the faith of the people in
  the government faltered even further, Sorai concluded, talent from
  below must be nourished and elevated to positions of political responsi-
  bility to serve the needs of peace and well-being among the populace.12
  12 Ogyu Sorai, Seidan, in Yoshikawa and Maruyama, eds., OgyuSorai, pp. 259-445, esp. p. 366.
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  HISTORY 
  609
  Sorai's critical perception was entirely consistent with his overall
  thesis that human virtues were distributed by Heaven at random, and
  not in relation to socially determined status, and that therefore the
  monopoly of power by the aristocracy was inappropriate to the exer-
  cise of benevolence. This discrepancy between fixed status and the
  historical mission of social well-being, moreover, could be traced to a
  systemic failure to adapt from conditions of general warfare to one of
  peace, from the movement of marching armies to fluid commerce,
  from logistical encampments to hotels and pleasure quarters - in
  short, the entire transition from Sengoku to Genroku. Although it
  may be said in retrospect that Sorai's anticipation of swift decline was
  unfounded, as the regime maintained itself for another century and a
  half, his long-term vision of its fate was unerring.
  In his analysis of the current state of the political economy, Sorai
  found widespread poverty among the general populace, not the nour-
  ishment of human virtues.13 The discrepancy with the basic norm of
  benevolence was indeed of crisis proportion, as the aristocracy had
  failed to identify with the way of the ancient kings and had used
  cosmology instead to fix its own virtue in place as a privileged ruling
  group. The actual norms defining this class, however, were entirely
  inappropriate to historical actuality. The aristocracy was organized on
  principles fashioned under conditions of generalized warfare, which
  did not apply to normal conditions of peace that the regime was com-
  mitted to maintain. Even though military techniques were useful in
  preserving the status of the aristocracy, they could not serve the needs
  of society over the long duration. Talent judged according to the
  norms of military standards was inadequate for providing peace and
  well-being. The rules that had separated the military aristocracy from
  the soil, compelling it to live in castle towns and to travel back and
  forth from Edo to reconfirm loyalty to the shogunal center, all were
  outmoded, relevant only to a country in a state of endemic military
  siege but not one living in peace yet experiencing extreme poverty.
  Under these circumstances, Sorai concluded, "there is no real alter-
  native except to reconstruct the laws." He meant by this specifically
  returning the aristocracy to the soil, not to reunite sword and land
  literally, but to avoid the erroneous assumption that sword and talent
  were coincidental, a fiction sustained by authoritative law. By return-
  ing the samurai to the land, Sorai argued, they would once again mix
  with the general population as commoners as they had been before
  13 Ibid.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  their rise as men of military ability. After the ruling class was reconsti-
  tuted in this manner, new and appropriate talent (jinzai) would be
  sought to govern the land in ways appropriate to the original vision of
  the ancient kings. True to his theory that no single class intrinsically
  possessed the virtue of governing others, as political authority did not
  influence how virtues were distributed in society, Sorai prescribed far-
  reaching reforms vis-a-vis the present. Through his outline of practical
  prescriptions, moreover, he insisted that the norm of benevolence be
  used consistently so that reforms would not be whimsical and purpose-
  less or gauged merely to self-centered needs of status preservation.
  Thus, whereas Jinsai had oriented his historicism to clarify personal
  moral action without regard to the status structure, Sorai turned his
  framework to challenge the fiction of aristocratic virtue, articulating
  forcefully the idea that political talent was to be found distributed
  throughout society, a provocative concept that would grow in impor-
  tance all through the rest of the eighteenth century and, indeed, on
  into modern times.14
  Sorai's critical pragmatism steered some of his students away from
  the prolonged study of ancient texts that the philological approach
  demanded and oriented their scholarly attention to the immediate
  world of political economy. The most prominent among these was
  Dazai Shundai (1680-1747), whose principal work on political econ-
  omy, Keizairoku,15 would be among the most widely read treatises on
  this subject throughout the remainder of the Tokugawa period. Unlike
  others among Sorai's students, most notably Hattori Nankaku (1683-
  1759) who maintained a lifelong focus on the study of ancient poetics
  and philology, a commitment that Sorai tolerated in accordance with
  his appreciation of divergent virtues, Shundai found this to be anti-
  quarian and dilettantish and felt nothing but impatience toward it. To
  Shundai, scholarly priority must always go to the careful assessment of
  the changing conditions of the present. The ancient kings, as he had
  learned from Sorai, did not establish a fixed set of laws that would be
  appropriate to all historical circumstances. On the contrary, these
  kings had taught that history would change and that conditions would
  differ from one epoch to the next. Although the original vision of
  benevolence would remain unchanged as the underlying way, the
  means by which this vision would be realized must adapt to the actuali-
  ties of historical change itself. Without objective adaptation, Shundai
  14 Ibid., pp. 273,420-1.
  15 The Keizairoku and the addendum, Keizairoku shui, are in Rai Tsutomu, ed., Sorai gakuha,
  vol. 37 ofNihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972), pp. 7-57.
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  HISTORY 
  6 l l
  reasoned, the original norm of benevolence would simply be an ab-
  straction differing little from the metaphysical concepts that Sorai had
  found to be unsound.
  Referring to the world of the ancient kings metaphorically rather
  than as supportive of sacrosanct structures and fixed procedures,
  Shundai took his thinking to an extreme position consistent with the
  pessimistic appraisal of the present he shared with Sorai. Given the
  severity of the economic crisis, Shundai reasoned, only the drastic and
  comprehensive redesigning of the existing semiautonomous bakuhan
  system could produce the desired result of peace and well-being. Hav-
  ing argued his theory to this radical conclusion, however, Shundai
  retreated from it as being tactically infeasible in the present and pre-
  scribed instead reform within the existing order. His prescription none-
  theless called for a departure from received moral ideas that extolled
  the primacy of rice agriculture as the fundamental basis for virtue and
  decried the political engagement in market and trade. Shundai's think-
  ing in this regard may be seen as a major epistemological break-
  through, marking a key beginning in the conceptualization of politics
  in economic terms.
  Shundai proposed a systematic creation of wealth through trade,
  utilizing the principle of exporting plentiful goods from one domain
  and importing scarce ones from another. History, as it currently pre-
  sented itself, Shundai reasoned, was driven helter-skelter by an eco-
  nomic crisis that could be resolved only in economic terms. The sud-
  den emergence of money and a market economy was new, to be found
  in neither ancient China nor Japan. In the present, aside from a few
  minor matters, "everything is money," and "the best way to earn
  money is through trade."16
  No longer seeing trade and market economies as functionally spe-
  cific to the merchant class, but as politically necessary, Shundai ad-
  vised that there was no alternative but to increase the income of cash
  through trade and thereby carry out the true ethical aims of gover-
  nance. Trade was simply another means, in this regard, to a moral
  end, just as were law, rites, language, and other legacies handed down
  from the distant past. In Shundai's eyes, no legal artifact could be
  thought of as being sacrosanct. Institutions must continuously adapt
  to the requirements of promoting peace and well-being in society.
  Consistent with this view, Shundai urged that the aristocracy not be
  allowed to maintain their houses through the "unnatural" act of adop-
  16 Ibid., pp. 45-47.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  tion in order to maintain the fiction of house immortality. The artifi-
  cial maintenance of a large aristocracy, he maintained, was inconsis-
  tent with the pressing need to generate wealth. Should these measures
  not be adopted, he predicted the quick demise of the bakuhan system
  in which scholars like himself would have no choice but to "do noth-
  ing" (mu-i) which Shundai claimed idiosyncratically, to be the true
  meaning of Taoism, to become a recluse in nature and let the political
  order collapse of its own accord, as it should.17
  Shundai's conceptual breakthrough regarding trade was one of sev-
  eral similar tendencies that developed within the framework of Toku-
  gawa historicism. His reference to ancient texts to provide a critical
  perspective on the present can be detected in other historicist think-
  ers, as witnessed in Jinsai's incorporation of commoners through
  Mencius and Sorai's denial of aristocratic virtue. Historicism as a
  mode of thought, in other words, provided a variety of related yet
  distinct uses. It was in this respect a creative conceptual framework
  that illuminated certain major intellectual trends other than those of
  governance and trade. An intriguing variant, for example, proposed a
  radical skepticism regarding all history, and another affirmed history
  politically as well as culturally.
  Skepticism as to whether any historical text contained normative
  ideas relevant to the present was articulated best by the precocious
  scholar Tominaga Nakamoto (1715-46).l8 Trained at the Osaka mer-
  chant academy, the Kaitokudo, Nakamoto shared with Jinsai and
  Sorai certain general presuppositions: Metaphysics and cosmology as
  well as the subjective interpretation of nature were unreliable, and
  history was indeed the proper object of study from which to gain
  insight into the present. However, Nakamoto went well beyond the
  limits of what his predecessors would have allowed. Unlike them,
  Nakamoto challenged the view that language and text could ever serve
  as objective data from which to make universal statements, and he
  argued instead that texts were always manifestations of particular cul-
  tural contexts. History was thus relative and fundamentally unreliable
  as a resource for ethical guidance in the present.
  Because all texts, be they ancient or recent, were in the final analysis
  17 I have commented on Shundai's idiosyncratic reading of Taoism in "Political Economistn in
  the Thought of Dazei Shundai (1680-1740)," Journal of Asian Studies 31 (1972): 821-39.
  18 Tominaga Nakamoto's writings are in Mizuta Norihisa and Arisaka Takamichi, eds.,
  Tominaga Nakamoto-Yamqgata Banto vol. 43 of Nihon shiso laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
  '973)> PP- 11 —138; and in Ienaga Saburo et al., eds., Kinsei shisoka bunshu, vol. 97 of Nihon
  koten bungaku laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1966). I have written about Nakamoto in
  relation to merchant ideology in Visions of Virtue, pp. 99-121.
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  HISTORY 
  613
  distorted, the important issue for Nakamoto was to clarify what made
  texts, and hence all of history, unstable. History, Nakamoto reasoned,
  underwent constant change. Language and the meaning of words also
  changed. Each historical present was continuously interpreting its past
  and changing its mind about basic philosophical ideas. Underlying this
  instability, moreover, was human ambition, which led scholars to ma-
  nipulate language and impute new meanings to articulate mythmaking
  claims as to what was orthodox, as opposed to heterodox.
  All through history, each new generation of philosophers sought in
  this manner to outdo their predecessors and to seek hegemony over
  their competitors as to what constituted "true" history. The pure ori-
  gins, as in the original vow of Buddhism or, for that matter, the
  normative purpose in the first creation of history, were therefore im-
  possible to reconstruct. The overlay of claims and counterclaims was
  simply too intricate to unravel. If there was a dimension to history that
  was stable, Nakamoto noted, it was the rhetorical patterns by which
  scholars distorted received knowledge. He identified these patterns as
  exaggeration, generalizing from the concrete, reducing the meaning of
  the concrete from a priori abstractions, and using polarity and contra-
  dictions in deceiving ways. Religious history was particularly guilty of
  relying on rhetorical dishonesty. It could be found easily in the mysti-
  cism of Buddhism, the scholasticism of Confucianism, and the super-
  stition of Shinto.19
  Received moral wisdom should therefore be viewed with extreme
  skepticism, and the present, in turn, must be appreciated in its own
  terms, without regard to history. Referring to this approach to the
  present as "the way of truthfulness" (makoto no michi), Nakamoto
  called for ethical filial relationships and trust among human beings,
  for their own authenticity in the world of the living and not because of
  textual authorizations from the past.
  Nakamoto added another provocative idea to his theory of history.
  Just as historical texts were irrelevant to the present, Nakamoto fur-
  ther reasoned that the intellectual and cultural history of one country
  could not be transferred to another. Historical lines were parallel and
  distinct rather than sympathetic and comparable. The history of Bud-
  dhism, for example, became increasingly distorted as it was grafted
  onto the history of China and Japan. Religious ideas, customs, and
  cultural styles, he concluded, could not be transferred from one his-
  19 Nakamoto's views in his "Jottings of an Old Man" (Okina rwfumi) are in Ienaga et al., eds.,
  Kinsei shisoka bunshu, pp. 519-36.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  torical sequence to another. Japan especially had suffered by incorpo-
  rating Chinese scholasticism and Indian mysticism, disfiguring the
  indigenous cultural ideal of "unadorned honesty" {naoki no kokoro).
  Although Nakamoto was harshly critical of Shinto as a body of
  simple and superstitious ideas, he had also posited the concept of
  distinctive historical cultures that could not be transferred to other
  societies. It was this conception of history that attracted the attention
  of scholars of national studies such as Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801)
  and Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843). These were scholars who turned
  historicist reasoning to affirm an authentic indigenous history un-
  touched by the moral and scholastic ideas imported from abroad.
  Whereas Jinsai and Sorai had left the present and set their scholarly
  attention on ancient origins, Nakamoto saw this procedure as flawed
  and called for a return to the present in and for itself. Yet in reorient-
  ing historicist thinking in this direction, he also confirmed the particu-
  larity of historical sequences and hence the distinctiveness of cultural
  experience.20
  Nakamoto's return to indigenous culture as separate and distinctive
  was in keeping with a general tendency in Tokugawa historical
  thought. Even Sorai, who had dramatized the beginning of history in
  ancient China, was not entirely untouched by this intellectual current.
  His conceptual scheme affirmed the Tokugawa system of noncen-
  tralized rule {hoken) as conforming more closely to the ancient model
  than to the more recent centralized imperial regimes in China. He
  believed the latter to be unduly harsh and legalistic, with the examina-
  tion system especially stifling to intellectual life.
  Sorai's forerunner in the development of ancient studies, Yamaga
  Soko (1622-85), w a s e v e n more explicit in his affirmation of indige-
  nous political history.21 After identifying ancient norms in Confucius's
  Analects, Soko tried to show how, during the course of some five
  hundred years, equivalent values had been created within Japan itself
  by the aristocracy. These values as a coherent whole he termed the
  "way of the warrior" (bushido). Filial piety, loyalty, truthfulness, trust,
  and so forth that are central to the Analects were also fashioned inde-
  pendently in Japanese history. It was thus incumbent on the aristoc-
  racy to continue to identify with the values of its class rather than on
  metaphysics and cosmology, in order to rule effectively and morally.
  20 Nakamoto's critique on Buddhism, Shutsujo gogo, is in Mizuta and Arisaka, eds., Tominaga-
  Yamagala, pp. n-105.
  21 Soko's writings are in Tahara Tsuguo and Morimoto Jun'khiro, eds., Yamaga Soko, vol. 32 of
  Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970).
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  HISTORY 
  615
  Soko's leap outside the present into the world of the ancients was thus
  followed by a return to a point in indigenous history from which ideals
  were extracted, in order to explain and critique current history. Sorai
  did not rely on this evolutionary scheme of narration, choosing to
  bring the norm of creative historical genesis directly to the present,
  although the option was clearly there, as is evident in Shundai's own
  recounting of the rise of noncentralized governance in Japan.
  It was Sorai's political rival Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725) who most
  effectively used the evolutionary reconstruction of the rise of noncen-
  tralized governance as a comprehensive representation of Japan's politi-
  cal history. A scholar-bureaucrat of considerable reputation in the
  inner councils of the bakufu between 1709 and 1716, Hakuseki turned
  Soko's emphasis on values embodied by the aristocracy into a political
  history involving relationships of power. Significantly, Hakuseki sepa-
  rated that history from the normative underpinnings of ancient texts
  and provided an interpretation that was grounded primarily in develop-
  ments within the Japanese nation. In his influential history of 1712
  (Tokushi yorori), Hakuseki presented the unfolding of national history
  in which the present was made to seem like an inevitable outflow of
  the past. The emphasis, moreover, was not on the creation of value
  over time but on the steady emergence of a political class. Although
  Hakuseki's history covers the entire span from the mythical begin-
  nings, his emphasis was clearly on the six hundred years that had
  culminated in the founding of the Tokugawa regime.22
  Hakuseki identified two crucial trends that had intersected in the
  earlier portion of this history and had permanently and irreversibly
  altered the character of Japanese history. One was the steady decline
  of imperial authority all through the tenth and eleventh centuries
  under the Fujiwara regency and especially with the establishment of
  the Kamakura bakufu in the late twelfth century. The other was the
  ascendancy of the aristocracy of the sword and, with it, a comprehen-
  sive tradition of noncentralized rule. What had been cast as centuries
  of warfare, to be distinguished from the new era of peace and tran-
  quility, was now rendered by Hakuseki as explicable in terms of
  coherent linkages between the peaks and valleys covering a vast ep-
  och. A political tradition was shaped in these centuries, irrevocably
  22 On Hakuseki, see Matsumura Akira, Bito Masahide, and Kato Shuichi, eds., Arm Hakuseki
  vol. 35 oiNihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975); and translations by Joyce Akroyd
  of Tokushiyoron, Lessons from History (New York: University of Queensland Press, 1982); and of
  Hakuseki's autobiography, Oritaku shiba no ki, Told Round a Brushwood Fire (Princeton, N.J.:
  Princeton University Press, 1979). See also Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Politics: Arai
  Hakuseki and the Premises of Tokugawa Rule (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.)
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  6l6 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  setting into place an institutional mode of governance that made
  perfect sense in the light of the previous flow of history. It followed
  that the rise of the aristocracy was a central feature of this history,
  thus confirming the special status of the Tokugawa samurai class in
  relation to that history.
  In legitimating the present in this manner, Hakuseki did not resort
  to ancient textual sources to authenticate his account. In his view,
  history did not evolve out of individuals making moral choices and
  thereby altering the course of events. The imperial decline was not due
  to faltering moral conviction, nor was the rise of the aristocracy of the
  sword a reflection of moral superiority. History, in short, was not
  chosen, as one does in conventional life, weighing the advantages of
  doing things in one way as against another. The decisive overall trend
  in one direction and not the other, however, was unmistakable. And
  this transformational flow, though not willed by the whims of heroic
  choices nonetheless swept all along with it, inexorably, irresistibly, and
  cumulatively into a recognizable and coherent political tradition of
  hoken manifested in the political forms of the present.
  Although this evolutionary reconstruction of history clearly con-
  tained a critique of centralized imperial rule, it also, more fundamen-
  tally, confirmed the adaptive capacities of the Tokugawa bakuhan sys-
  tem in the present. Produced by a long political history, the system of
  noncentralized rule could not be drastically altered, even if men chose
  to do so. Existing structures, therefore, must be used in creative and
  enlightened ways to bring order and peace to the general populace.
  Moving the aristocracy back to the soil, as Sorai had prescribed, was
  obviously not acceptable to Hakuseki. To him, the rise of the aristoc-
  racy of the sword was inevitable, the product of a pervasive historical
  evolution that could not be undone and to which no one in Japan from
  the emperor and court nobles down to the general populace could be
  exempted.
  The dissociation of internal political history from external legitima-
  tion found further expression in the intellectual movement known as
  "national studies" (kokugaku). Here too the conception that historical
  sequences are separate and distinctive, regulated by patterns that owe
  nothing to exogenous influences, was strongly underscored. The re-
  turn, however, was not to political history but to comprehensive cul-
  tural autonomy, found at the nation's birth. The devotees of national
  studies focused their intellectual attention on the indigenous cultural
  spirit that unified the entire people. Their concern was not to repre-
  sent the most salient aspect of political tradition, as they were not
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  HISTORY 
  617
  interested in political structures such as the hoken form of governance,
  and similarly with the rise of the aristocracy.
  National studies, instead, was a "populistic" search for a common
  spiritual and emotive culture that preceded the formation of political
  structures, aristocracies, and, most pointedly, the imposition of for-
  eign historical values, language, and modes of thinking. It thus clearly
  occupied a distinctive place in the development of eighteenth-century
  historical consciousness. Its relationship with the broader discourse on
  history, however, is at the same time unmistakable: in Sorai's quest for
  ancient historical genesis, Tominaga's thesis on the inapplicability of
  foreign ideas for indigenous culture, and Hakuseki's representation of
  national political history in its own terms.
  Of particular importance is the emphasis of national studies on the
  aesthetics that unified the indigenous culture. What needed to be
  shown in terms of ancient origin, distinctive internal patterns, and
  comprehensive meaning to history was the irreducible cultural level at
  which members of a community knew without reflection and analysis
  the beauty and hence the truthful meaning in beings and things. A
  powerful stimulus to this aesthetic perspective of national history was
  provided by the late-seventeenth-century Buddhist scholar-priest Kei-
  chu (1640-1701).23 A devotee of the Shingon sect, Keichu also studied
  at ltd Jinsai's school and used the method of ancient studies to ap-
  proach the life and writings of the patron saint and founder of
  Shingon, Kukai (or Kobo Daishi) (774-835) and to seek the spiritual
  resources of this great and celebrated saint.
  Kukai had insisted in his teachings that true religious experience
  could be attained in Japan, on the native land itself, without having to
  travel to the holy sources of scripture on the Asian continent, establish-
  ing from this point of view the famous pilgrimage sites around the
  island of Shikoku. Keichu focused on Kukai's spirituality within Ja-
  pan and identified Japanese poetics in Kukai's writings as crucial to
  understanding the saint's religious faith. It was here that Keichu be-
  lieved Kukai had expressed in unadorned manner his innermost faith
  in the religiosity of the universe inclusive of all things. Keichu pro-
  ceeded from that aesthetic perception of Kukai to the poetics of the
  ancient Mariyoshu and the Kojiki.
  Keichu's scholarship remained a touchstone for all subsequent advo-
  cates of national studies. Although specifically Buddhistic elements
  23 See Hisamatsu Sen'ichi, Keichu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1963); and Taira Shigemichi
  and Abe Akio, eds., Kinsei Shinto ron zenki kokugaku, vol. 39 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo:
  Iwanami shoten, 1972).
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  6l8 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  were to be shorn from his works, the emphasis on faith in a true commu-
  nal origin of the nation would be retained as an elaboration of the way of
  truthfulness. Subsequent scholars relying on a similar philological
  scheme sought to clarify the unique foundations of Japanese cultural
  history rather than to seek the faith of Buddhism, to make clear the
  origins of Japan as a sacred community and thereby expose the superfici-
  ality of cultural glosses drawn from foreign sources such as Buddhism
  and Confucianism. Scholars such as Kada no Azumamaro (1669-1736),
  Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769), and especially Motoori Norinaga
  (1730-1801) were decisive in shaping this idealistic view of national
  history that celebrated its uniqueness, its sacred land and community,
  and the aesthetics of the people's language and feelings.
  The common strategy employed by these men in their writings was
  to establish binary contrasts between Japanese and foreign, most point-
  edly Chinese, cultures. For example, China's monosyllabic language
  with its thirty-odd thousand characters is compared with Japan's syl-
  labic one of fifty phonetic letters; artificial scholasticism and rheto-
  ricism with the natural unity of speech and language; the separations
  among the human spirit, nature, and society and the undifferentiated
  world of humankind, things, and creatures; the belief in the universe
  as being reason and hence subject to rational distinctions with an
  allowance for life, and the universe as being beyond reason and full of
  divine mystery - life not being rational but mystical; the emphasis on
  scholastic reason leading to the construction of elitist and artificial
  cultural and political constructions that were inaccessible to the popu-
  lace at large, with a sacred community in which language and feelings
  were conjoined in poetics of the heart, devoid of artificiality yet rever-
  ential to the mystery of life and nature; artificial social constructs that
  rise and fall, with a sacred community that is immortal from ancient
  origins into the indefinite future as it precedes structures; and an
  imperial monarch being all-powerful yet distant from the people, with
  an archaic king that is part of the sacred community, mediating be-
  tween nature and human life through the rite of eternal renewal and
  hence one and inseparable from the feelings of the people.24
  These binary constructs clearly outline the principal aims of na-
  tional studies. Foreign cultural ideas and beliefs must be discarded as
  artificial and replaced with an identification with communal genesis, a
  pure moment in an ancient world when the natural and sacred commu-
  24 Saegusa Yasutaka, Kamo no Mabuchi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1959); and for Ma-
  kuchi's Kokuiko, Endo Ryukichi et al., eds., Nihon kokusui zensho (Tokyo: Nihon kokusui
  zensho kankokai, 1916), vol. 3, pp. 1-35.
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  HISTORY 
  619
  nity first came into existence, that moment when "national" history
  may be said to have begun. From such identification, the meaning of
  culture and politics in the present must be recomprehended. Although
  Sorai had used this scheme to identify a Utopian origin as located in the
  records of the ancient kings and although Nakamoto had argued that
  such a transference across time and space was extremely misleading,
  the scholars in national studies absorbed both Sorai's concept of pure,
  normative beginning and Nakamoto's concept of the distinctiveness of
  cultural histories, to fashion a potent conception of Japanese culture
  and the basis on which to evaluate its meaning. By uncovering the
  original meaning of Japanese culture, these men contended, all of the
  artificialities of subsequent history could be erased. The way of truth-
  fulness (makoto no michi) thus would not be fragmentary and mo-
  mentary but anchored to the ideal of sacred community when word,
  feelings, and human trust all were conjoined. When such a reidenti-
  fication with origin occurred, it would then be possible to reconstitute
  and reorder the meaning of the present as well.
  A good many of these themes were expressed by Motoori Nori-
  naga, the pivotal thinker in this entire intellectual development. It is
  perhaps safe to say that without Norinaga's scholarship, works such
  as the Tale of Genji and the mythic Kojiki, which had been referred
  in the past in sporadic and fragmentary ways, would not have sur-
  vived into the modern era as sacred cultural classics. That they have
  survived as such is in no small measure a creation of the national
  studies movement of the late eighteenth century. To Norinaga, too,
  the beginning moment was the emergence of the Japanese people as a
  sacred community. In that beginning, he wrote, humankind, the
  gods, and nature were in a state of peace and harmony. The world of
  infinite mystery and natural community were one. Words and things
  were joined in divine fashion (kannagara). Sophistry and deception
  were absent, and truthfulness reigned. The sacred king oversaw this
  wondrous community and mediated between the needs of human life
  and nature, a role he confirmed in the rite of eternal renewal
  (Daijosai).25
  25 Endo et al., eds., Nikon kokusuizensho, vol. 13; and Yoshikawa Kojiro, Satake Akihiro, and
  Hino Tatsuo, eds., Motoori Norinaga vol. 40 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
  1978). See also Koyasu Nobukuni, Norinaga to Atsutane no sekai (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha,
  1977); Watanabe Hiroshi, " 'Michi' to 'Miyabi' - Norinaga gaku to 'kagaku' ha kokugaku no
  seiji shisoshileki kenkyu," Kokka gakkai zasshi 87(1974): 477-561, 647-721; and 88 (1975):
  238-68,295-366; and Shigeru Matsumoto, Motoori Norinaga 1730-1801 (Cambridge, Mass.:
  Harvard University Press, 1970); and H. D. Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse
  and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  History, however, went awry. The Chinese idea of the Way was intro-
  duced, deceiving the people with the belief that reason controlled hu-
  man time rather than faith in the divine ways of ancient times and
  convincing people to stray from the immediate and practical ethics of
  human truthfulness. As the result of the introduction of these foreign
  ideas, history actually declined from its communitarian origins to one of
  treachery and deception. The sacred king and the community retreated
  from the mainstream of popular life. Artificial ways came to dominate.
  It was clear from all of this that Norinaga had come through his his-
  toricist thinking to conclude rather dimly about the cultural realities
  around him. And although he avoided making political prescriptions as
  to what specifically to do about the present, Norinaga envisioned, none-
  theless, a renewal of the pure and sacred native land, which would be
  wrought not by human reason and planning but by chaotic divine cleans-
  ing. The idea here that history is not intrinsically evolutionary and
  decided by inexorable forces, as argued by Arai Hakuseki, but, rather,
  determined by divine intervention or what might be termed "accident"
  beyond the control of human and bureaucratic reason was a potent one,
  for in time, it could serve as a theory of action to identify the individual
  will with the idea of divine instrumentation.
  The previous examples from ancient and national studies illustrate the
  divergent directions in which historical thinking could travel. That the
  impact of Sorai's was enormous in all this is readily evident. Indeed, in
  his assessment of Confucian thinkers, the late Tokugawa scholar
  Hirose Tanso (1782-1856)26 observed that the Confucian tradition in
  Japan underwent sudden and irreversible change after Sorai and that
  no scholar could revert to Neo-Confucian metaphysics without first
  stating his clear reservations. Thus although many chose not to align
  themselves with ancient studies, they adopted an intellectual stance of
  philosophical syncretism (setchugaku), which, Tanso noted, became
  the mainstream of intellectual thought from then on. Syncretism, in
  Tanso's view, resulted directly from the impact of Sorai and the coun-
  tervailing arguments leveled against him. Yet this attack on Sorai in
  order to protect the metaphysics of Neo-Confucianism had the net
  effect of also ensuring the continuation of Sorai's conception of history
  and political economy, as his theoretical position could not be entirely
  discredited and displaced. Most granted Sorai a distinguished place in
  26 Tanso's view in Jurin hyd (1836) is in Seki Giichiro, ed., Kinseijuka shityd, vol. 1 (Tokyo:
  Hancho shobo, 1942), pp. 1-22.
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  NATURE 
  621
  the discourse on political economy, while admitting at the same time
  the importance of the idea of natural reason in Neo-Confucianism.
  The syncretic resistance to historicism indeed suggests the dynamic
  role played by the idea of universal reason. Anchored by a theory of
  natural ontology, this philosophical position rested on a rationalistic
  view in which human affairs and hence history were seen as relative to
  nature. No particular epoch, such as an ancient origin, could assume
  an absolutely privileged status vis-a-vis nature, as one era was no more
  or less insightful than another. When based on natural ontology,
  syncretism regarding history did not mean indecisiveness, as this devel-
  opment is sometimes characterized to be.
  NATURE
  Parallel to the expanding discourse on history, a distinct tradition
  within the related conceptual universe of Tokugawa Confucianism had
  also gained favor among articulate segments of the various classes.
  Based on the Neo-Confucian theory of the universality of natural prin-
  ciple (ri), this intellectual tradition underwent important metamor-
  phoses from a cosmology that fixed in place the status quo into a body
  of scientific thinking and, reminiscent of ltd Jinsai's use of Mencius, a
  philosophy that validated new moral spaces among commoners. In
  this new science, nature was conceptualized as the ultimate field of
  knowledge that should engage scholarly attention, differing fundamen-
  tally in this regard from the historicist position that had placed pri-
  mary focus on historical experience and hence on language rather than
  on nature, which, as Sorai had observed, was beyond human compre-
  hension. Moreover, although advocates of natural principle agreed
  with historicists that the purpose of scholarship was to nourish, or
  "save," the general populace, they stressed the importance of a sound
  knowledge of nature as taking precedence over the reliance on political
  hierarchy. Again, the difference with Sorai in this regard is particu-
  larly striking.
  As articulated in the thinking of Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714) in his
  development of agronomy for the peasantry, Nishikawa Joken (1648-
  1724) and Goi Ranju (1697-1762) in their instruction to merchants,
  and Miura Baien (1723-89) in his theory of economic value based on
  broad social utility, we find in common the view that the people are to
  be saved by teaching them about the importance of objectively grasp-
  ing natural principle and dealing with the world around them in a
  practical, accurate, nonarbitrary, and hence moral fashion. To these
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  622 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  men, history was less significant as a philological field to be studied as
  it was a continuing present to be ordered and acted out, through the
  empirical reliance on natural reason. There was also the mutually
  consistent understanding that the study of nature as the universal text
  would yield nourishment to commoners in general. Knowledge was
  not thought to be the special privilege of the aristocracy. Thus, though
  the exponents of natural ontology did not produce counterstructural
  radicalism, they generated a good deal of eccentricity and defiance
  toward conventions regarding social structure.
  A good deal of eighteenth-century thought on nature can be traced
  to Kaibara Ekken.27 An extremely prolific writer on such varied sub-
  jects as ethics for commoners, childbearing, education for women, and
  even the natural history of plants and minerals in Japan, his Yatnato
  homo is a monumental work that, through the eighteenth century,
  remained a testimony of his intellectual convictions. Ekken dedicated
  his last efforts to a sweeping critique of Neo-Confucian metaphysics
  and cosmology. Entitled Taigi roku (A record of grave doubts; ca.
  1713), the treatise argued for the disengagement of the empirical study
  of nature from its moralistic and political uses. Though Ekken be-
  lieved in the necessity of politics, he stressed that nature could not
  provide metaphysical sanctions for it. He viewed cosmology as simply
  a convenient device to confirm status and authority. It did not, in his
  eyes, direct men to address the basic moral question of social order,
  namely, providing nourishment for the people, which he believed an
  objective reference to nature did. Nature, he contended further, did
  not embody a timeless moral norm, as posited in Neo-Confucian meta-
  physics. It was characterized more fundamentally by ceaseless life
  activity, whose underlying principle ought not be intuited or medi-
  tated on in quietistic fashion, presupposing nature to be in essence
  static and unchanging. How nature changed and reconstituted itself
  and underwent change again, therefore, involved systematic observa-
  tion that would result in moral action.
  Ekken related the study of nature and moral action in the following
  manner: Human beings possessed within themselves at birth a univer-
  sal "principle of life" (seiri). All were, in this sense, "children" of
  nature, the "great parent" (daifubo). Human morals, however, were
  not inherent in nature, as theorized in Neo-Confucianism. By sharing
  27 Araki Kengo and Inoue Tadashi, eds., Kaibara Ekken - Muro Kyuso, vol. 34 of Nihon shiso
  taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970). I have focused on Ekken in "Intellectual Change in
  Early Eighteenth Century Tokugawa Confucianism," Journal of Asian Studies 34 (1975):
  931-44.
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  NATURE 
  623
  a common understanding of being governed by one natural principle,
  human beings related to others in humane and trustworthy ways that
  in fact made moral society possible. The principle of life that one
  received from nature, therefore, ought to be thought of as a "blessing"
  (on or megumi) or, indeed, the "great blessing" that transcended con-
  ventional ones that came from rulers or parents. Nature was the ulti-
  mate and absolute source of human blessings, and it was the reverence
  toward this ontological truth that, in turn, informed the human "spirit
  of truthfulness" (makoto no kokoro).zi
  Ekken further insisted that compassion based on reverence for na-
  ture must extend beyond social relations to encompass all natural
  things. The idea that humankind stood in a dominant relationship vis-
  a-vis nature, or even as being separate from it, as Sorai had argued,
  was repugnant to Ekken. Because nature was the primary object of
  study, in the final analysis, history, language, and other forms of orga-
  nizing knowledge were significant only in relation to it.
  Historical texts must thus be seen as relative insights into the com-
  plexities of nature. They reveal that human knowledge of nature had
  expanded from the ancient period down to the present and that the
  most reliable insights were not those stemming from passive and medi-
  tative engagements with nature as an unchanging norm, but the active
  observation of nature as a dynamic reality. And because human knowl-
  edge had expanded in history, the accumulation of knowledge should
  not be viewed as embodiments of truths, but only as relative insights
  into a natural universe that would never be fully known. In the quest
  for knowledge, therefore, the human mind must always proceed from
  a position of skepticism, doubting things and facts that had been
  documented and, in the end, doubting once again what had been
  organized and ordered as reliable knowledge. Ekken found flawed and
  unacceptable the belief that the human mind could realize ultimate
  truth through the spiritual identification between moral self and tran-
  scendent absolute.
  A major feature of Neo-Confucianism was a dualism in which all
  phenomena were categorized as being either beyond shape (keijijo) or
  with shape (keijika), as in the world of observable physical objects.
  The former preceded physical experience and hence the nonvisible
  principle or reason that defined one category of things as opposed to
  another. Being beyond the constraints of time and physical changes, it
  was constant, universal, ultimate, and good in serving as an unchang-
  28 See Araki and Inoue, eds., Nikon shiso taikei, vol. 34, pp. 9-64.
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  624 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  ing moral norm. The principle defining particular things was thus
  identified with this ultimate norm and was also rendered good and
  moral in being constant and transcendent of form. It was this moral
  philosophy that Ekken found to be conceptually misleading, as it was
  speculative and similar to Buddhist and Taoist thinking about human
  immortality.
  Expressing much impatience with the religious impulse embedded
  in Neo-Confucianism, Ekken redefined this philosophy in terms of a
  strict monism. Visible and invisible would be understood with refer-
  ence to a unified principle of matter. Principle or reason was thus not a
  timeless essence of matter but matter itself, one and identical with it.
  Reason, in his view, was the reason of matter and not separable into
  two categories. By focusing on the physical world as theoretically
  central and not relative to another metaphysically conceived reality,
  Ekken had effectively denied the claims made in Neo-Confucian cos-
  mological reasoning of an abstract moral norm more universal than
  and hence transcendent of physical nature. Nature itself was the onto-
  logical basis on which all human considerations of knowledge, includ-
  ing history and ethics, must be made to rest.29
  Owing to Ekken's skeptical view of Neo-Confucian metaphysics,
  scholars of ancient studies took immediate notice of the treatise on
  grave doubts. Sorai himself was shown a copy of the manuscript
  shortly after Ekken's death and was much impressed with it. So too
  was Dazai Shundai, who noted his surprise that a scholar so closely
  identified with Neo-Confucianism should enunciate his objections to
  that philosophical system with such devastating succinctness. Al-
  though Shundai argued that Ekken had not spelled out the logical
  conclusion to his thesis, namely, the total unreliability of Neo-
  Confucianism as a framework to organize knowledge, he admitted that
  Ekken had in fact vitiated it to an irreparable degree by rejecting its
  philosophical dualism.30
  Despite the interconnectedness in Ekken's thinking with that of
  Sorai's school in their shared skepticism regarding Neo-Confucian
  metaphysics, a profound intellectual distinction separated Ekken's
  from the historicists. The latter firmly anchored their conception of
  knowledge on human and hence historical experience, whereas Ekken
  insisted on the proposition that nature ought to remain the ultimate
  object of knowledge. In this respect, the Neo-Confucian method of
  29 Ibid., pp. 17-20.
  30 Shundai's piece, "Sonken Sensei no Taigi roku o yomu" is in ibid., pp. 59-62.
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  NATURE 
  625
  observing things remained vital to Ekken. His doubt about dualism
  did not lead him to view history as being a superior source of knowl-
  edge over nature. Indeed, despite an eclectic interest in a wide variety
  of intellectual fields, he remained consistent in the orientation to first
  principle in nature.
  Throughout his life, Ekken insisted that nature should not be re-
  ceived passively as a given, but that it should be viewed as an infinite
  source of knowledge that the human mind would continuously explore
  but never exhaust. The human mind in every present age, therefore,
  takes part in an ongoing process of uncovering insights into nature as
  an inexhaustible source of knowledge. In this continuing process,
  knowledge once believed to be unshakably true will constantly be
  altered through the exercise of doubt.
  A key teacher of the philosophy exemplified by Ekken was Goi
  Ranju (1697-1762) who taught merchants in Osaka.31 Ranju turned
  the theory of natural ontology into a pedagogical principle on which to
  instruct commoners. Lectures, and informal comments taken down
  by his students, clearly reveal a consistent theoretical stance in regard
  to the relationship between historical texts and nature. The observa-
  tion of things, Ranju taught, led to the indisputable conclusion that
  nature and the entire universe of phenomena, humankind included,
  were organized internally by an ordering principle.
  This theory of knowledge held that the fundamental "thing" to be
  examined was not language, as Sorai, Jinsai, Nakamoto, and other
  historicists had argued but, rather, the natural order itself. Ranju, like
  Ekken, did not discount the importance of language fields and history
  in general; but language was relative to nature, a tool with which human
  beings sought in ever-expanding ways to grasp more persuasively and
  effectively the meanings that were apparent in nature. Language texts
  were thus to be appreciated in accordance with the insights they pro-
  vided into universal nature. The ancient classics were classics for this
  reason. And so too were the writings of Chu Hsi and other Neo-
  Confucianists, especially in their discussion of observation and princi-
  ple. These texts were not to be seen as absolute, as no human text could
  ever contain a complete statement of the reason embedded in the uni-
  verse. That historical texts were thus flawed was not only inevitable but
  utterly human. To reject Neo-Confucianism and, through philological
  reduction, to isolate only one or a certain cluster of historical texts, as
  31 Ranju has not been anthologized as have been the other thinkers in this chapter, although he
  played a pivotal role at the merchant academy of Osaka, the Kaitokudo. I have written about
  him in Visions of Virtue, pp. 121-48.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  Sorai and Jinsai had done, was to Ranju and his students, the brothers
  Nakai Chikuzan (1730-1804) and Riken (1732-1817), prejudicial and
  unsound scholarship, a viewpoint they outlined in polemical arguments
  directed against Sorai.32
  To Ranju and his students, Sorai's scholarship was even more seri-
  ously flawed than the excesses of Neo-Confucian metaphysics. Assum-
  ing that historical origin could be demonstrated with philological
  tools, Sorai went on to minimize the importance of some of the other
  great classics such as the Doctrine of the Mean and Mencius, labeling
  these as merely polemical. To his critics, however, Sorai's evidence did
  not warrant these interpretations, or his grandiose claim that he had
  uncovered the intention of the ancient kings in creating history
  thereby clarifying the meaning of human virtue for all subsequent
  history. Ranju denounced this dogmatic reading of Sorai's historicism.
  To Ranju, historical texts in general were to be read, evaluated, and
  appreciated in terms of the relative insights offered into the infinite
  wonders of nature. And from this perspective it was unreasonably
  restrictive to isolate only the most ancient texts as normative and to
  assess all subsequent ones as polemical glosses. Recent texts such as
  those of Chu Hsi were also valuable, Ranju believed, as were literary
  expressions that contained honest human perceptions of nature as a
  universal phenomenon. Ranju could thus without apology encourage
  commoners to study Japanese literature as important philosophical
  texts. Although Sorai had also emphasized literature as important
  evidence for the cultural spirit of the ancients, to Ranju, literature
  represented the continuing imperative among humankind to gain rela-
  tive insights into the universality of nature.
  The human mind, like historical texts, was and always would be
  relative to infinite nature. This principle of relativity, furthermore,
  was universal and encompassed all human beings, regardless of class
  and status. To Ranju this meant the human capacity to observe and
  know, in relative ways, certain general truths. Never absolute, such
  knowledge was relative from one individual to the next, and it was
  never predetermined by one's birth. As all humans shared the poten-
  tial to know, to gather and organize external knowledge, and to act on
  that knowledge, this meant more than knowing about things close at
  hand, or one's little virtue, but, rather, comprehending broad moral
  concepts that related to matters large and small.
  32 Ranju's Hi-Butsu hen of 1766 remains unpublished in modern print. The main thesis of Nakai
  Chikuzan's Hi-Cho is in Nakamura Yukihiko and Okada Takehiko, eds., Kinsei kokijuka shu,
  vol. 47 oiNihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972), pp. 43-62.
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  NATURE 
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  Here again the disparity with Sorai was striking: Whereas Sorai had
  insisted that most human beings could not fathom the meaning of
  external norms and thus should not seek to do so but should rely on
  them (yorashimubeshi), Ranju countered vehemently that ordinary hu-
  man beings indeed could "know" such norms, just as they were inher-
  ently capable of grasping the order of things in nature. Human knowl-
  edge of nature would always be incomplete and relative. The quest for
  a better comprehension of nature, however, would remain the continu-
  ing epistemological imperative for all humankind, and not the special
  occupation of the talented few. Thus although the knowledge that
  human beings acquired from within, vis-a-vis external nature, would
  remain incomplete, the relationship between inner and outer, for
  Ranju, could not logically be in a state of disjuncture, as Sorai had
  theorized.
  The insistence we see here on the moral unity between inner virtue
  and outer knowledge was especially important to commoner educa-
  tion. The inner virtues of commoners were taught within this frame-
  work as not being inferior to those of other classes, including the
  aristocracy. It also allowed teachers to claim that all commoners pos-
  sessed the capacity to know a wide variety of external things, such as
  general moral norms and the truthfulness or righteousness of the objec-
  tive calculation of the workings of the agricultural cycle or the market-
  place. The strong stance taken against Sorai's historicism, therefore,
  carried far-reaching implications. At stake was the prerogative of com-
  moners, in general, to acquire knowledge and thus to study classical
  texts, even though they might be merchants and not scholars.
  The articulate defense of the potential of commoners to acquire
  general knowledge underscores an important pattern in the metamor-
  phosis of Tokugawa Neo-Confucian thought. A philosophical system
  favored at first, because it fixed in place law, social order, and political
  hierarchy, had come to take on a much broader significance, namely,
  the universality of virtue in terms of a human capacity to study and
  know moral knowledge.
  This idea received powerful moral reinforcement from Ishida Bai-
  gan (1685-1744) who taught among the humble townsfolk in Kyoto.33
  Known as shingaku (teachings of the human spirit), his teachings
  spread through various cities and regions of the country as an educa-
  tional movement among commoners, and the young in particular. In
  33 Shibata Minoru, Baigan to sono monryu (Kyoto: Minerva shobo, 1977); and Robert Bellah,
  Tokugawa Religon: The Values of Pre-Industrial Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985).
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  Baigan's works, too, the strong resistance to Sorai's historicism is
  readily evident. Against Sorai, who had particularized human virtue,
  denying the universal moral potential of human beings to transform
  themselves in terms of a common norm of goodness, Baigan argued
  exactly the opposite. Humans possessed a mutually shared virtue that
  allowed all to gain an inner knowledge of moral truths. Individuals,
  therefore, should not rely on an externally fixed norm created at the
  dawn of history but instead should actively seek that knowledge of
  virtue in the present and transform themselves from within the spiri-
  tual self.
  Moreover, external activity, whatever the particular field of action,
  was potentially a true moral extension of one's inner virtue. Baigan
  thus combined with his idealistic ethic a practical message that af-
  firmed as potentially moral both commerce and the menial activities
  that accompanied trade and agriculture. The exchange of goods of
  reliable quality, he taught, involved an expression of trust among men
  that contributed to the ethical and material well-being of society. By
  emphasizing the moral coherency between inner and outer realms in
  this manner. Baigan found receptive audiences especially among the
  lower strata of the cities' new commercial segments.34
  Baigan's moral teachings, it should also be stressed, differed from
  Ranju's in significant ways. In Baigan's teachings, an idealistic theory
  of the human spirit served as the basis of his syncretism. To Baigan,
  the aspects of all of the major religions - Buddhism, Confucianism,
  and Shinto - that affirmed the inner human spirit, or the heart, were
  equally valid, and moral men should accept them. To claim one reli-
  gion to be superior to another was prejudicial and contrary to the inner
  spirit. Ranju found this view to be unacceptable. Because the basis of
  selection must be based on natural reason, religions that did not accept
  that premise must be rejected as unreliable. Buddhism, for example,
  advanced a philosophy that nature could not serve as a stable ontologi-
  cal reference because it was in a constant state of impermanence and
  flux. Shinto, moreover, based its ideas on superstition.
  Due to the different philosophical premise on which their syncretic
  ideas rested, the thrust of Baigan's and Ranju's teachings was distinct,
  even as they both affirmed the new commerce. The accuracy or righ-
  teousness of knowledge was less critical to Baigan than was the inner
  spirit of truthfulness that informed external action. Ranju, on the other
  34 See Ishikawa Ken, Nihon shotnin kyoikushi (Tokyo: Toko shoin, 1925); and his Ishida Baigan
  to 'Tohi mondo' (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968).
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  NATURE 
  629
  hand, stressed universal nature as the source of human accuracy, empha-
  sizing therefore the crucial internal potential to observe natural phenom-
  ena rather than to introspect on the inner spirit. Ranju, in short, tended
  to be decidedly secular and rational, situating himself squarely in the
  naturalistic tradition of Neo-Confucianism and targeting within this
  framework the universality of virtue and the inevitability of natural
  passion (jo). Although he did not endorse the reckless pursuit of worldly
  pleasures, Ranju denied the view held by some of his moralistic contem-
  poraries that human life was to be guided by the idealistic heart alone.
  The exclusive emphasis on the primacy of the human spirit, he argued,
  was the source of much deception, as it denied the great virtue of
  nature, life, which included human passions.
  Reminiscent of Ito Jinsai, Ranju insisted that human goodness was
  to be realized in the daily world of active and passionate interactions
  and not in meditative concerns about the truth of one's inner spirit.
  His entire moral philosophy was informed by this naturalistic realism.
  People assigned names to certain kinds of action that were deemed
  supportive of human society, he taught, but what people termed
  "good" or "evil," or "pure" or "corrupt," were customary agreements
  and hence relative, and not a manifestation of a universal moral abso-
  lute that is consistent with the human spirit. For example, in nature a
  wolf is not deemed to be wicked for its instincts; men kill fish and fowl
  but are not named wolves. The limits that the sages proposed in order
  to clarify the excessive pursuit of human wants were thus relative and
  not fixed extensions of natural principle. As practical and necessary
  measures for social well-being, they should not be taken as idealistic
  denials of the natural passions of people that are part of universal life.
  The inquisitive and flexible approach to knowledge found in Ranju's
  rationalism was articulated by other philosophers of commoner back-
  ground as well. Ranju emphasized the justifiable prerogative of ordi-
  nary men to study texts from all periods of history, but others stressed
  the importance of history as a continuing life process to be acted out in
  the present in relation to natural reason. This practical orientation to
  the study of nature was evident in Kaibara Ekken's colleague in the
  shaping of agronomical studies, Miyazaki Yasusada (1623-97).35 Best
  known for his compilation of the enormously influential Nogyo zensho
  (Compendia of agricultural knowledge, ca. 1697), Yasusada wrote in
  35 Takimoto, Nihon keizai taiten, vol. 3; Furushima Toshio and Aki Koichi, eds., Kinsei kagaku
  shiso-jo, 
  vol. 62 of Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972), pp. 67-168; and
  Thomas C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (New York: Atheneum, 1966), pp.
  88-95.
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  the easily accessible language of the day about the fundamentals of
  scientific farming, the accurate assessment of seasonal, weather, clima-
  tic, and soil conditions to maximize agricultural production. Hand-
  books based on Yasusada's work proliferated throughout villages in the
  country, greatly enhancing the science of agriculture among the Toku-
  gawa peasantry in one of the most momentous developments in the
  intellectual history of commoners. To Yasusada, the proper object of
  knowledge was not so much history - although he did not deny the
  importance of the subject for scholars - but natural history, the actual
  conditions bequeathed by natural legacy that determined how people
  must act in accordance with it to save society. Commoners must not wait
  for benevolent barons from above to nourish them or meditate about
  their spirit but must alleviate suffering based on the firm epistemologi-
  cal control of natural reason.
  This theme was popularized still further by Nishikawa Joken
  (1648-1724). A merchant astronomer in Nagasaki, Joken penned two
  enormously successful didactic tracts aimed specifically at common-
  ers, one entitled Chonin bukuro (A bagful of knowledge for merchants,
  1719) and the other Hyakushd bukuro (A bagful for peasants, 1721).36
  As implied in the metaphor of the bag, these works were a miscellany
  of ethical and practical ideas that ranged from nature, politics, history,
  language, custom, infanticide, and even to diet, in regard to the bane-
  ful effects of consuming red meats and wines in the manner of Western-
  ers. In short, bits and pieces of knowledge drawn from a wide variety
  of sources, some scholarly, others not, were assembled in a convenient
  and readable format and with certain consistent themes emphasized
  through repetition. More than moral didacticism pure and simple,
  these themes add up to the affirmation of the epistemology based on
  natural ontology that accorded closely with the thinking of Ekken,
  Antei, and Ranju.
  Emphasizing that all human beings existed within a broad and uni-
  versal natural order, not apart from or superior to it, Joken drew from
  this premise the conclusion that all people, regardless of status or
  genealogy, were therefore relative to that absolute. Because at some
  ultimate level all human beings shared a common natural essence, the
  moralistic claims assigned to social hierarchy regarding superior and
  inferior were unacceptable. That natural essence, however, was the
  relative capacity possessed by all to acquire universalistic knowledge
  36 These two works are, respectively, in Nakamura Yukihiko, ed. Kinsei chonin shiso, vol. 59 of
  Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 85-174; and Takimoto Seiichi, ed.,
  Nihon keizai taken, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Meiji bunken, 1967), pp. 493-534.
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  NATURE 
  631
  of external phenomena. As an example Joken cited the commonsense
  knowledge that all humans possessed in regard to the predictable and
  nonarbitrary character of natural time and their ability to make accu-
  rate judgments and to act in accordance with this knowledge. Because
  commoners could acquire knowledge of natural principle, they also
  could know moral norms and control moral action. Commoners, in
  short, should not distance themselves from these general human prob-
  lems merely because they were not learned scholars of language and
  history.
  Joken went on to argue that the exercise of natural reason by peasants
  and merchants was social and public in character and not passionate or
  inferior. Commerce, for example, was vital to distributing agricultural
  and handicraft products through a system of exchange. Hardly the
  expression of human greed, commerce served the well-being of the
  entire country. Money, in his view, belonged to everyone in the nation.
  By conceptualizing commerce as an extension of natural reason (tenri)
  and as public in its ramifications, Joken provided sturdy endorsement
  to the actions of traders. Exchange through trade was presented as
  reflecting a universal norm, expressing a non-arbitrary reason or princi-
  ple. It followed from this line of thinking that "wealth" itself was also
  part of natural reason. Like nature, wealth was always in a state of
  dynamic movement and flow. It was in this regard not a static possession
  of an individual, but relative to different segments of society. It was not
  an item that an individual ruler or merchant could fix absolutely in
  place. All this was also to say that poverty, like wealth, was not fixed by
  natural reason. It, too, was in a constant process of dynamic flow. And
  as poverty was not absolute, it behooved peasants and merchants alike
  to grasp the natural principle of commerce to better manage the con-
  stant flow between wealth and poverty.37
  Joken's "bagful of knowledge" clearly set out to create a realm of
  political economy for commoners, articulated with reference to the
  theory of natural ontology. He did not believe that nature contained a
  principle regarding the superior and inferior among human beings.
  These distinctions resulted from custom only. Indeed, as nature had
  no selfish or private purpose and so blessed all without prejudice, no
  object or creature in nature should be seen as inherently inferior or
  wicked. Just as a wicked parent was likely to raise a child in his or her
  image, so too it must be said that a lowly peasant could be raised by a
  samurai to become a samurai. In this manner, Joken emphasized hu-
  37 Nishikawa, Chonin bukuro, p. 105.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  man potential, regardless of social status, denying emphatically that
  status was a hierarchical ideal reflecting natural reason. And by exhort-
  ing commoners to control their own ongoing present in accordance
  with natural principle, reasoned calculation, the nonarbitrary flow of
  commerce, and the regularity of Heaven's time, Joken claimed for
  merchants and peasants their universal capability to acquire knowl-
  edge without reference to considerations of power and hierarchy, as a
  privilege they possessed as much as the aristocracy did.38
  To Joken as to Ranju, natural philosophy was utilized to create a
  moral basis for commoners that bypassed the formal definitions of
  status set by the legal order. Ideological certitude was thus offered to
  commoners in their everyday lives. As with historicist thinking, in
  other words, the idea of natural principle could be used in various
  ways, revealing a migratory dynamic that crossed the boundaries of
  status and regions.
  In the case of Ando Shoeki (1707-55) the identification with nature
  was applied to affirm the validity of indigenous community in a distant
  corner of northern Japan. Here nature was used to argue the need to
  retreat from received history and formally constituted structures. Al-
  though Shoeki exhibited traces of nativist thinking akin to the stu-
  dents of national studies, the idea of true history found in Kamo
  Mabuchi and Norinaga is not evident in Shoeki. There is, rather, the
  affirmation of natural community vis-a-vis artificially constructed le-
  gal society. Referring to this latter as selfish "fabrications" (koshi-
  raegoto) designed to protect and enhance the authority of the privi-
  leged few, Shoeki posited the true way of human life as being based
  ultimately on nature or the natural way of doing things. In the final
  analysis, the human community must be close to nature, whose mem-
  bers are one under Heaven in relation to nature so that status distinc-
  tions between male and female and high and low do not exist and all
  are simply human. In his words, "In the way of nature, there is no
  superior and inferior . . . no division between one and another."39
  Analogous to Nakamoto's use of ancient studies to denounce the
  major religious tradition, Shoeki, relying on natural existence, at-
  tacked Confucianism and Buddhism for reinforcing artificial social
  distinctions. In Confucianism, abstract moral concepts were used to
  38 Ibid., p. 134; also my Visions of Virtue, pp. 47-57.
  39 Shoeki's Shizen shin'ei do is in Ienaga, et al., eds., Kinsei shisoka bunshu, pp. 567-682. See
  also Bito Masahide, "Ando Shoeki to Motoori Norinaga," Bungaku 36 (1968): pp. 882-92;
  and E. H. Norman, "Ando Shoeki and the Anatomy of Japanese Feudalism," Transactions of
  the Asiatic Society of Japan 2, 3rd series, 1949.
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  NATURE 
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  distinguish between high and low; Buddhism identified natural pas-
  sions as the source of pain, evil, and suffering. Even in the imperial
  tradition in Japan, the position of the emperor was altered from its
  true role of preserving the life principle in nature to a cloistered figure
  in exile. The specific occupational functions - farming, fishing, crafts-
  manship, and so forth - that served as fundamental distinctions
  among men were disregarded by Shoeki, as they did not contradict the
  commonality of humanity. However, abstract categories drawn from
  metaphysics or history were responsible for reinforcing the hierarchi-
  cal control of human life. The ancient sages, Shoeki contended, built
  hierarchies to maintain order but created evil systems instead, impos-
  ing poverty among the populace. Better, he noted ironically, to do
  neither good nor evil and simply to withdraw to the natural commu-
  nity based on trust and respect for other natural selves.
  The idea that history was to be controlled in the present in relation
  to nature and not to ancient models or moral philosophy was also
  present in the thinking of pioneering scientists such as Sugita Gem-
  paku (1733-1817) of Dutch studies (rangaku), as well as the episte-
  mologist Miura Baien (1723-89). These were men who avoided the
  Utopian and "Taoistic" orientation of Shoeki and addressed themselves
  more squarely to questions of applying scientific knowledge of nature
  and formulating a theoretical basis on which to seek such knowledge.
  Sugita Gempaku shared with Ranju the perspective of relativity of
  insight into knowledge, which allowed a view of modern science as
  relatively, though never absolutely, superior. For Gempaku, the appro-
  priate text to be studied was not to be found in Asian history but in
  Western and primarily Dutch works on anatomy. The language to be
  examined, therefore, was not the ancient Chinese characters but the
  Dutch alphabet, grammar, and vocabulary. The purpose of scholar-
  ship remained the same: saving the people from suffering and misery
  in the most objective and effective manner possible. The general
  method was also related: The approach was to be systematic and
  empirical. But the field of knowledge had been dramatically displaced
  by philology, anatomy, and medicine. And the specific procedure had
  likewise been altered from reading and dissecting language texts to
  practicing vivisection.40
  40 Gempaku's Rangaku kolohajime is in Haga Tom, ed., Sugita Gempaku, Hiraga Gennai, Shiba
  Kokan, vol. 22 of Nihon no meicho (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1971), pp. 87-136. A translation
  of it is by Ryozo Matsumoto and Eiichi Kiyooka, Dawn of Western Science in Japan (Tokyo:
  Hokuseido Press, 1969). See also Akagi Akio, Rangaku no jidal (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha,
  1980).
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  Gempaku, however, had been influenced by the sensitivity to lan-
  guage taught in the intellectual tradition of Ogyu Sorai, which was
  manifested most pointedly in his early awareness that the Dutch lan-
  guage must first be mastered before the most advanced texts on anat-
  omy and science could be grasped. The result of this approach was the
  translation from Dutch of a work on human anatomy of pivotal impor-
  tance in the development of medical sciences in Japan - Kaitai shin-
  sho. Although only a handful of scholars were then interested in Dutch
  medicine, virtually every practitioner of the art of healing only a gen-
  eration later had read and accepted the knowledge contained in
  Gempaku's first work on human anatomy. Indeed, the study of Dutch
  medicine would expand enormously beyond Gempaku's pioneering
  days and reach its culmination in the first half of the 1800s, as wit-
  nessed in the school of Ogata Koan (1810-63), the Tekijuku, to which
  some six hundred young scholars from virtually every domain in the
  country would go to study the Dutch language and medicine in the
  1840s and 1850s. Among them were leaders of the modern intellectual
  movement for reform and "enlightenment" such as Hashimoto Sanai
  (1834-59) a nd Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901).41
  Although Dutch studies represented natural ontology as an applied
  science, emphasizing practical experience and diagnosis, it was not a
  framework for theoretical reasoning. Dutch was a language to trans-
  late, not to theorize with. This attitude remained within the existing
  language field and, more specifically, the Confucian discourse on na-
  ture. Undoubtedly the most original thinker in this regard was Miura
  Baien. Although fascinated with Dutch science, Baien felt that certain
  fundamental questions about nature had not been answered by it, and
  so he turned his intellectual energies to address the problem of episte-
  mology, by creating new meanings out of the system of communica-
  tion he had before him, a language of objective science that was not a
  translation from another language. Convinced that his project as a
  student of nature was to address the fundamental norm or reason
  underlying nature, Baien, with single-minded dedication, took up this
  task and expanded Tokugawa thinking on natural ontology to its ex-
  treme conceptual limits.
  Following in the footsteps of Kaibara Ekken, Baien based his over-
  all epistemology on the familiar idea that nature was the ultimate
  object of knowledge, and although it would never be totally fathomed,
  as its mysteries were infinite, people should strive continuously to
  41 See Ogata Tomio, Ogata koan den (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1963).
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  NATURE 
  635
  uncover what there was to know about nature, revising received knowl-
  edge on the subject and expanding the horizon of human understand-
  ing. Going beyond Ekken in shaping an objective perspective on na-
  ture, Baien challenged not only the reliability of particular history but
  also language itself. History for him was primarily the accumulation of
  social habits that added up to what people called custom. He saw in
  this repetition and accretion of human habits the shaping of mental
  prejudices toward nature. Though he did not characterize history as
  passionate and ambitious distortions over time, as Tominaga Naka-
  moto had hypothesized, and he moreover attributed a practical neces-
  sity to moral precepts for social existence, Baien still did not assign a
  fundamental place to history and language, and hence to historical and
  literary texts in general, as guides to objective knowledge.
  Despite his breadth of learning in classical literature, Baien empha-
  sized the fundamental importance of the origins of knowledge as it
  related to nature. As his skepticism dictated that this genesis was not
  located in history, he was moved to seek a new vocabulary, a new
  language, to convey his thinking on nature. His insistence that knowl-
  edge about nature or political economy be based on ultimate or funda-
  mental premises is best illustrated in his philosophical treatise on basic
  propositions (Gengo).42
  Human beings, Baien observed, lived within the overall confines of
  the natural order, not apart from or in opposition to it, and nature
  therefore should be the primary focus of study. Although knowledge
  of the universe had increased manifold, especially through the contri-
  butions of Western astronomy, the understanding of the underlying
  principle of nature (tenchi no jori) remained well beyond the grasp of
  human reason. Western scholars were not, in Baien's view, any closer
  to resolving this issue than he and his colleagues were. The major
  obstacle to understanding natural principle was conventional reason-
  ing itself, which relied on the senses which were invariably condi-
  tioned by social habits - traits acquired through the repetition of as-
  sumed truths. History and religion were especially influential in this
  regard. They deceived human perception, leading people to believe in
  their superiority over other natural forms such as insects and fishes
  that were classified as handicapped and belonging to a lower order.
  The principle that governs the shaping and unfolding of life, however,
  did not have definable organic parts. There was, moreover, the ten-
  42 Baien's works are in Yamada Keiji, ed., Miura Baien, vol. 20 of Nihon no meicho (Tokyo:
  Chuo koronsha, 1982). See also Saigusa Hiroto, Miura Baien no leisugaku (Tokyo: Dai-ichi
  shobo, 1941).
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  dency to infer humanlike elements in nature, reminiscent of cartoon
  books for children. Animals such as badgers and foxes were thus made
  into goblins intertwined mysteriously with human life, and plants such
  as the wisteria and pines were made to convey or reflect human feel-
  ings of sadness or loneliness. Projections of human emotions of this
  kind onto the natural landscape should not be used as an approach to
  firm knowledge.
  Baien questioned the procedure of observing things that was pre-
  scribed in Neo-Confucian philosophy. The human eye, he argued,
  cannot observe certain things in nature, and the theory that predict-
  able repetition in nature only constituted a basis of generalization as to
  the universality of categories but failed to raise the important question
  "why" of any given phenomenon. On the other hand, observation
  often draws the mind to anomalies, to the strange happenings in na-
  ture, as in a blooming flower on a dying tree. Yet here again, the
  curiosity aroused does not lead one to question why flowers bloom at
  all, in young flourishing trees as well as old ones. This question is not
  asked because such happenings are assumed by the human senses to
  be normal, the way that nature ought to be, thus requiring no further
  explanation. Similarly, to be intrigued by thunder and lightning
  should yield the query as to why the skies are quiet and clear on most
  other days. The fundamental approach to knowledge, Baien reasoned,
  must involve the self-conscious detachment from the forces of habit
  handed down from history and the commonsense empiricism that
  relied on the immediate senses and, instead, introduce constantly an
  attitude of doubt, so that nothing would be accepted as unequivocally
  and self-evidently true.
  Baien's view of knowledge led him to doubt the utility of received
  names and language itself and to seek out a new set of terms and a
  provisional method. His approach relied on a theory of oppositional or
  binary configurations in all phenomena. As the truth of any given
  datum is always more than meets the eye, there must always be a
  hidden oppositional dimension that the mind should ponder. The sun,
  in one example, appeared to move westward while moving constantly
  in fact to the east. The outward and observable thus must always be
  seen as a sign of another dynamic set of opposite features. In a similar
  vein, he hypothesized that all phenomena were part of a dialectical
  process of counteraction and synthesis in an infinite sequence. This
  infinite process could be reduced to the mathematical principle that
  one is always two and two continuously unfolds as one. The process
  also could be conceptualized in the oppositional categories of form and
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  NATURE 
  637
  nonform, of internal constructions gridded along horizontal and verti-
  cal or longitudinal and latitudinal lines, and of movement that was
  rotative and linear.43
  Baien hypothesized that these general concepts were universal to all
  things, despite apparent discrepancies in physical appearances. As
  they suggest phenomena in nature to be without origin or end, without
  direction, and not limited by location, they should not be confused
  with human demarcations of time and place or conventional ethics.
  Nor were they guidelines to metaphysical moral concepts about good-
  ness and hierarchy.
  Baien's assessment of political economy closely paralleled his ap-
  proach to knowledge in terms of first principles, as was clear from his
  ideas about money and the origins of value in Kagen.44 Offered as
  prescriptions to the lord of Ueda domain on how to rescue the faltering
  economy, Baien's treatise, despite passing references to stylized ideas
  about political ethics, did not base its appeal on ancient custom or the
  classics. He offered instead the provocative thesis that the ultimate
  source of economic value was social utility (riyo kosei). The tiny lantern
  that gives light to thousands of homes, in his phrasing, surpassed in
  value the precious stones or the markers surrounding a mighty castle.
  Unfortunately, the principle of social utility had been abandoned in
  favor of the concept of scarce, and hence relatively useless, items as
  being of value. The virtuous ruler, however, should not prize scarce
  jewels but should adopt the basic norm of utility. According to this
  norm, the most useful metal among the people is iron and then copper
  and lead; rarely is it silver and gold.
  All economic transactions in society should be gauged in terms of
  social utility. The prevailing view that the value of money was deter-
  mined by the content of scarce metal - gold, silver, copper, in that
  order - should be abandoned. The use of cash minted with scarce
  metal gained importance in the Tokugawa era owing to the large
  amount of goods transported over long distances, which required less
  bulky monetary equivalences. This function, however, should not be
  confused with the fundamental value of money, which is the general
  social utility of exchanging goods. If this principle were firmly sub-
  scribed to, then paper could be substituted for gold. The more funda-
  mental corrective, however, was to realign the production and con-
  sumption of goods so as to reduce the need for exchanging large
  amounts of goods over long distances and to return the exchange and
  43 Saigusa, Mima Baien no tetsugaku, pp. 9-31. 
  44 Ibid., pp. 37-82.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  consumption of goods close to the source of production. This meant
  returning value to the producers of goods, to labor itself. In such an
  economy, iron, the most widely available metal, would serve as money,
  and the wise lord could then claim to have promoted the nourishment
  of human life and to have brought politics into accord with natural
  reason (jori).
  Convinced that the conventional view of money would not be al-
  tered, thus perpetuating poverty in the countryside, Baien called on
  nearby peasants to organize themselves into self-help communes of
  "unlimited trust" {mujin ko) to nourish life from below and not to wait
  for political benevolence from above. In his particular village in
  Kyushu, Baien drafted a written contract or compact that each mem-
  ber signed to confirm that trust. Though this withdrawal into the
  natural village strikes sympathetic chords with Ando Shdeki, Baien's
  conceptual framework was far less romantic and aggressively analyti-
  cal in its application of a consistent and, from his point of view, basic
  principle of knowledge.45
  Baien explored in radical ways (for which he is justly remembered)
  eighteenth-century Tokugawa theorizing about nature. His skepticism
  vis-a-vis received custom as being emotive and deceptive and his re-
  lated search for a new abstract language and method detached from
  time and space reveal a conceptual readiness to study Western natural
  and physical science. By stretching the outward boundaries of Toku-
  gawa Neo-Confucian thinking on nature, Baien and his disciples Waki
  Guzan (1764-1814) and Hoashi Banri (1778-1852) generated the intel-
  lectual momentum that led to the incorporation of Western science
  into modern Japan.46
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH
  CENTURY
  Eighteenth-century Tokugawa thought as expressed by such thinkers
  as Ogyu Sorai, Dazai Shundai, and Kamo no Mabuchi, on the one
  hand, and Kaibara Ekken, Ando Shdeki, and Miura Baien, on the
  other, suggests a complex and uneasy intellectual history. Indeed, the
  conceptual unfolding of this history suggests a growing sense of moral
  crisis, especially in the recognition from diverse points of views of the
  discrepancy between conventional moral language and the actualities
  45 See Shinozaki Tokuzd, Jihi mujin no soshisha Miura Baien (Tokyo: Chuo shakai jigyo kyokai
  shakai jigyo kenkyu jo, 1936).
  46 Saigusa Hiroto, ed., Nihon kagaku koien zensho, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1978).
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  639
  of political economy. As Tokugawa history moved into the late eigh-
  teenth century, however, the categories of history and nature would
  continue to serve as resources from which thinkers would draw to
  help resolve the perceived dissonance between received history and
  what properly should be and to clarify thereby the future course of
  events. The proliferation of critical insights along a broad front re-
  flects this general intellectual concern. Some of the perspectives were
  harshly critical of the existing regime, others were moderate; some
  offered grand epistemological frameworks, others were more specific
  and prescriptive. Many of the thinkers were viewed as eccentrics by
  their contemporaries. Almost all were syncretists, not meaning here
  men without intellectual convictions but individuals who, out of a
  dissatisfaction with the world around them, reformulated received
  conceptual language in ways that were experimental, adventurous,
  and sometimes desperate. What seems common to all of them was the
  awareness that beneath the surface of administrative order was a
  world of uncertainty, nervousness, and fretful impatience that perhaps
  the Tokugawa order should not continue as it had during the previous
  one hundred years. Although the forms of thought were manifold and
  complex, the following examples will suffice to illustrate the general
  theme.
  One of the most potent of these was the school of thought identified
  with the domain of Mito. A blood-related collateral house of the ruling
  Tokugawa family itself, Mito was nonetheless denied administrative
  responsibility in the bakufu government in Edo. Its collateral status
  was dignified, in part, by being assigned the privilege of compiling
  "The Great History of Japan" (Dai Nihon shi). What began in the early
  1700s as a project to outline the splendid culmination of history with
  the founding of the virtuous Tokugawa order gradually turned into a
  glorification of the imperial court, an understandable shift, as much of
  ancient history was written from that perspective. During the late
  eighteenth century, however, this shift in emphasis came to be com-
  bined with the spiritual idealism of national studies. It was indeed
  through the Mito scholars that the full political implications of na-
  tional studies were spelled out.
  National studies lacked a coherent theory of political structure, as
  its primary intellectual concern was clarifying the genesis of national
  history as a sacred community preceding bureaucratic formation. The
  intellectual energies of thinkers such as Motoori Norinaga were ad-
  dressed to refining the elemental cultural ideal informing Japanese
  culture and not to describing the rise of feudal government. Yet, when
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  synthesized within a scheme of thought such as that of the Mito school
  that was concerned with the problem of governance, national studies
  did serve as a vital thesis on which reformist prescriptions could be
  made to rest, such as in the writings of Mito scholars Fujita Toko
  (1806-55) and especially Aizawa Seishisai (1782-1863) and his influen-
  tial treatise of 1825, Shimon (A new thesis).47
  Mito scholars melded the previous ideas about structures, including
  those identified with Ogyu Sorai, with the ideal of sacred community
  emphasized in national studies. A provocative synthesis, it contained a
  radical splitting of structures from the moral values of genesis, which
  allowed for an ideology oriented to reform from within the existing
  order, without in any way violating the moral foundations of historical
  culture. This culture the Mito scholars termed the "national historical
  essence" (kokutai). As expressed by Seishisai, the moral values of
  trust, loyalty, filial piety, peace, and well-being among the people - in
  short, those values that society agreed to be essential for orderly life -
  all were part of that national essence that was transferred as a mandate
  from Heaven to the divine line of archaic kings through the sun god-
  dess Amaterasu. Moral values were thus inherent to the Japanese
  sacred community and were not imported from the Asian continent at
  a later time. Echoing Yamaga Soko, this line of thinking had the net
  effect of saying that the moral values of sacred community and those of
  the Confucian tradition were not contradictory but essential to Japan
  as absolutes from the beginning of national history. They were not
  special only to Chinese civilization, as equivalences were easily found
  in indigenous historical experience.
  The particular importance of this form of syncretic thinking was to
  underscore the general proposition that moral values were part and
  parcel with the sacred community when national history first began
  and thus preceded the subsequent formation of structures. They had a
  continuous history as part of the national essence, without regard to
  the rise and decline of particular institutional arrangements. The per-
  sistent faith among the populace in the unbroken imperial line stem-
  ming from the sun goddess (sanctified in the rite of eternal renewal, or
  Daijosai, in which the emperor mediated between sacred community
  and nature to symbolize social immortality) provided convincing evi-
  47 J. Victor Koschmann, The Mito Ideology - Discourse, Reform, and Insurrection in Late Toku-
  gawa Japan 1790-1864 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987); and
  Harry D. Harootunian, Toward Restoration (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
  nia Press, 1970), pp. 47-128. See also Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-foreignism and Western
  Learning in Early Modem Japan: The New Theses of 182s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
  sity Press, 1986) for a full translation.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  64I
  dence to the people of Mi to of this essential history. In short, the
  values of sacred community were sacrosanct; structures were not. The
  latter could be altered without causing injury to the former.
  This reformist proposition was conceptually at odds with the propo-
  sition subscribed to by the Tokugawa bakufu, in which moral norms
  and structures were argued to be mutually inseparable, the former
  always reinforcing and sanctioning the latter. It was hardly surprising
  that the bakufu did not view the Mito scholars with favor and in fact
  imprisoned some of them and sent their domain lord, Tokugawa
  Nariaki (1800-60), into house exile. Although the actual prescriptions
  advanced by the Mito school need not be detailed here, a few of the
  general proposals are worth noting. Although hardly revolutionary,
  they were at the same time quite provocative. Echoing the thinking of
  Sorai, the Mito scholars called for the return of the aristocracy to the
  land so that it could provide effective leadership over the countryside
  and engage in productive activity. The peasantry, Seishisai and others
  insisted, should not be feared and kept separate from the rest of
  society. Rather, it should be taught new skills and mobilized for the
  greater good of the domain. Above all, the Mito scholars recom-
  mended increased administrative autonomy for regional domains such
  as Mito so that they could institute reforms that would provide peace
  and well-being to the populace at the village level, which was an
  approach that ran contrary to the bakufu's policy of separating the
  sword from village society.
  Despite the moderate character of the proposals, it should be empha-
  sized that the Mito thesis regarding structure and sacred community
  carried with it rebellious action consequences. In late Tokugawa times,
  young radicals from Mito armed with the ideas of Toko, Seishisai, and
  others would engage in direct terrorist action against bakufu leaders
  and also throw the domain of Mito into civil war (1864-5) m what is
  sometimes known as the "uprising of the party of mountain goblins"
  (tengu to no ran).4*
  The articulation by the Mito scholars of the aesthetic historicism of
  national studies as a political concept of national essence, contributed
  mightily to shaping a critical discourse on institutional reform in the
  late eighteenth century that, in the following generation, would be
  used to topple the Tokugawa order itself. That the Mito thinkers did
  not have in mind such a drastic consequence is clear enough. Toko
  and Seishisai firmly believed that the bakuhan structure provided suffi-
  48 J. Victor Koschmann, "Action As a Text: Ideology in the Tengu Insurrection," in Tetsuo
  Najita and J. Victor Koschmann, eds., Conflict in Modern Japanese History - The Neglected
  Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 81-106.
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  642 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  cient flexibility to remedy the economy. The issue was how to inte-
  grate that system so that it would resolve the crisis at hand. Yet the
  dilemma was equally evident. Although the system of noncentralized
  government was to be preserved, policies must be directed to solve the
  ills of the whole. To reduce the discordance between name and reality,
  terms often used by the Mito scholars, the efficiency of structure must
  be made to accord with the earlier norm of national essence.
  The reformist prescriptions of Mito, based on this fusion of instru-
  mentalist and historicist thinking, encouraged sympathetic expression
  from other politically articulate parts of society. In some instances, the
  comprehensive representation of hoken narrated by Arai Hakuseki was
  used as a critical perspective. Although initially used to confirm the
  existing aristocracy, the same outline could be used with other pur-
  poses in mind that called, for example, for institutional alteration of
  the sort that Hakuseki would not have prescribed. A good case in
  point is Nakai Chikuzan (1730-1804) student of Goi Ranju and a
  teacher among merchant leaders in Osaka.
  Despite the reliance on Hakuseki's overall historical scheme, the
  resulting orientation of Chikuzan's thinking was not to offer ideologi-
  cal affirmation of the aristocracy.49 In explaining the Tokugawa order
  as the glorious achievement of recent rather than ancient history,
  Chikuzan was implying that the existing order could accommodate the
  virtue of all human beings in society, particularly commoners. Despite
  his confirmation of the existing order in terms of the history that
  produced it, therefore, Chikuzan's prescriptions were decidedly re-
  formist in certain crucial ways. His assessment of the Tokugawa world
  suggests a realization of a once-glorious regime in a state of crisis that,
  in fact, overlapped with the thinking of the men of Mito.
  Chikuzan's critical perspective is best stated in his prescriptive opus
  Sobo kigen, which ranks along with the writings of Sorai's Seidan and
  Dazai Shundai's Keizairoku as one of the three most widely read works
  on political economy. Chikuzan brought to the attention of the bakufu
  all subjects that teachers of virtue should have under intellectual con-
  trol. The subjects were broad and all-inclusive. But among them,
  Chikuzan called for major structural alterations such as the curtail-
  ment and ultimate abandonment of the hostage system of alternative
  attendance in Edo by regional daimyo and their retinues. The costs to
  these daimyo, he reasoned, were unbearable and the impact on the
  economy too extensive to be controlled through political means.
  49 Najita, Visions of Virtue, pp. 149-86.
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  Chikuzan also recommended the termination of guaranteed stipends
  for the aristocracy, urging the institution of a merit system by which to
  compensate the aristocracy, which meant, in effect, the abolition of
  that class.
  Above all, Chikuzan proposed a unified educational system that
  would instruct all classes, with the talented at various levels being
  promoted to higher levels of accreditation until, regardless of social
  background, those who had achieved the highest status would be
  recognized as scholars and be awarded certificates and appropriate
  salaries. One center of the educational system, he believed, should be
  in Edo, especially for the training of administrative skills. The other,
  he advised, should be in the Kyoto-Osaka area, and its specialization
  should be in cultural studies, that is, history, morals, and the letters in
  general. This vision of a national educational system, it might be
  noted, was endorsed by other scholars such as Hoashi Banri, a disciple
  of Miura Baien who also studied with Chikuzan and who developed
  Chikuzan's ideas on education, advocating a similar construction but
  adding to the curriculum in the university of arts and letters a program
  of translation and research in Western science.50
  The critical though sanguine vision that Nakai Chikuzan and
  Hoashi Banri projected through educational reform was not shared by
  others in that closely related intellectual world. Chikuzan's brother
  Riken (1732-1817) offered an alternative view, although it was quite
  obviously drawn from a common conceptual grounding, as both were
  students of Ranju. Riken did not agree with his brother that the
  downward course of Tokugawa history could be halted. He agreed on
  the universality of human virtue and took part in the polemic against
  Ogyu Sorai. Riken also agreed that history should be explained in
  terms of an evolutionary framework more in keeping with Hakuseki's
  perception rather than advocates of ancient studies. Yet his relation-
  ship to both perspectives was ambivalent. Toward Sorai (and Ito
  Jinsai), Riken adopted the method of philological analysis used in
  ancient studies to reencounter the classics (nanakei hogen) and to con-
  firm human virtue as the epistemological capacity of all human beings
  to judge what was accurate or just in the external world. He remained
  true to Ranju in this regard and shared this moral point of view with
  his brother Chikuzan.
  Riken's interpretation of history, however, was decidedly different.
  Whereas Chikuzan believed in reform, Riken did not think this to be
  50 See Nakamura and Okada, eds., Kinsei kokijuka shu, pp. 163-219.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  possible. Riken used the evolutionary framework to disagree with
  what the previous generation, including Chikuzan, had said, namely,
  that the history of the previous five hundred years had resulted in the
  virtuous Tokugawa regime. In Riken's eyes, that same evolutionary
  history revealed a consistent pattern of deceit, the unwarranted usurpa-
  tion of legitimate kingly authority, and steady decline. Having read the
  Mito school's "Great History," Riken could not reconcile this account
  with the broad representation of the present as the inevitable outcome
  of the past. The decline of justice over that long history was not
  inevitable but attributable to passionate warlords seeking power
  against the imperial center that sought peace and tranquility for the
  populace. Although Riken retained intact the evolutionary perspec-
  tive, he had sharply altered the interpretive intent into an indictment
  of received history. The Tokugawa shogunate could now be framed as
  the culmination of a vast conspiracy and incessant betrayal. Riken's
  pessimism led him to withdraw from political society and to lead a life
  as a scholarly recluse.51
  Riken was not alone in reinterpreting history in this harsh manner.
  A near contemporary, Yamagata Daini (1725-67) had taken this alter-
  native scheme and shaped a theory of rebellion against the bakufu
  itself.52 History revealed, for Daini, treachery by ambitious men,
  whose manifestation in the present was the privileged aristocracy. As a
  class that depended on the sword, it retained the norms of emergent
  military rule to govern society in inappropriately brutal ways. Gover-
  nance in times of peace should rest on cultural means, which required
  that the aristocracy be dismantled and returned to the soil and new
  talent from below recognized.
  The key issue that Daini addressed was that of action. If the injus-
  tices received from history were perpetuated through systemic proce-
  dures and power and were enforced as legitimate law, how should
  moral men of knowledge proceed? Dazai Shundai had raised this ques-
  tion too and had advised that the sage had no choice but to do nothing
  and let the system falter and collapse on its own. Daini did not believe
  that the existing order would allow such an ignominious fate and that
  injustices backed up by the force of law would persist. Rather than do
  nothing, therefore, the sage must meet power with power. Curiously,
  Shundai himself had discussed this alternative in connection with the
  51 I have written about Riken in Visions of Virtue, pp. 186-221.
  52 See Ichii Saburo, Meiji ishin no tetsugaku (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1967), pp. 33-53; and my
  "Restorationism in the Political Thought of Yamagata Daini (1725-67)," Journal of Asian
  Studies si (1971): 17-29.
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  645
  vendetta case of the forty-seven ronin (masterless samurai). Rather
  than attack a single wicked lord, Shundai had argued, these wronged
  ronin should have either turned their domain into a military bastion
  from which to launch rebellion or directly attacked the bakufu center
  in which formal laws were produced and enforced. Daini opted for
  this latter, in the cause of justice and well-being for the populace.
  Daini proposed, therefore, that a popular army be raised in the coun-
  tryside, that it capture a regional domain, and that it lead a rebellion
  against the bakufu center.
  Scholars supportive of the bakufu argued strenuously against Daini's
  use of history to show illegitimate rule, siding instead with the perspec-
  tive that Hakuseki had presented. History should be studied to show
  how and why the present was an inevitable outflow of the past and that
  absolute moral judgments were therefore abstract and improper. Daini
  remained adamant that a government based on military norms that
  punished people on the ground that it possessed the legal authority to do
  so was in fact committing illegitimate and criminal acts and ought to be
  attacked relentlessly from within. Executed by the bakufu in 1767 for
  teaching this principle of treason, Daini believed that the future would
  vindicate him.
  The historical interpretation argued by Yamagata Daini and Nakai
  Riken was turned into a persuasive history by Rai San'yo (1780-1832)
  and aimed at the politically articulate strata of the times. A frequent
  visitor in Osaka, San'yo derived the main thesis of his masterpiece
  from Riken. Called innocuously "A General History of Japan" (Nihon
  gaishi), this elegantly crafted opus would become the single most influ-
  ential interpretive history of late Tokugawa. An immediate sensation,
  it was read by all reformers and activists of that era. And as with Daini
  and Riken, the received present and the history underlying it were cast
  in terms of betrayal, broken trust, and chicanery. True history was
  shown to have belonged to the defeated cause identified with the fallen
  imperial forces. The rise of the aristocracy of the sword was not inevita-
  ble, undergirded by some irrepressible force or energy as Hakuseki
  had narrated, but a process of passionate and illegitimate usurpation of
  power.53
  The theme of rebellion and withdrawal evidenced in Daini's and
  Nakai Riken's works requires some interpretation. This theme was far
  more widespread than historians tend to report. We are reminded of
  53 Rai San'yo's Nihon gaishi is in Rai Tsutomu, ed., Rai San'yo, vol. 28 of Nihon no meicho
  (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1972). See also Nakamura Shinichiro, Rai San'yo to sono jidai
  (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1971).
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  such well-known intellectual eccentrics of the time as Shiba Kokan
  (1738-1818), Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841), and Takano Choei (1804-
  50), and more broadly of the three or four out of every ten aristocrats
  who went to Edo and chose to cut their ties with their domain.
  Many of these aristocrats entered the "classless" status of being
  Confucian scholars (jusha) which was often synonymous with being a
  physician, in short, a mixed group of itinerant teachers and healers
  eking out a life outside the formal status system and seeking intellec-
  tual adventure out of a sense of dissatisfaction with the present. They
  romanticized their freedom as entering the world of eccentric play and
  dreams, which meant leaving the universe of bureaucratic rule. The
  intellectual significance of play and dreams, however, should not be
  misunderstood. These are mediating metaphors that suggest minds
  searching for detachment and hence truer objectivity. The intention
  was to gain closer and stricter epistemological control of the observa-
  tion of things, without the intercession of received history or, in the
  language of Miura Baien, custom and accumulated habit.
  In this respect, the eccentrics were very much part of the eighteenth-
  century discourse on history and nature even as they sought ways to
  escape the constraints of their age. The quest for sure epistemological
  control of knowledge, whether the object was in the past or in nature,
  remained central to the intellectuality of the late eighteenth century.
  And the faith remained that this knowledge would contribute in some
  direct manner to a surer understanding of history in process and thus of
  what the future might hold. This optimism remained essential to many
  of the eccentrics.
  The functional relationship between play and objectivity might be
  illustrated by the example of Kaiho Seiryo (1755-1817).54 A high-
  ranking domainal samurai of ministerial rank, Seiryo declassed him-
  self from the aristocracy and sought intellectual refuge in Osaka and
  west-central Japan among merchants and enterprising peasants. De-
  scribing his separation from Edo, the city of aristocracy and the uni-
  verse of fixed statuses, as entering the world of play, Seiryo journeyed
  among the commoners in search of a new principle that might explain
  more objectively the meaning of history as it appeared before him. He
  rejected ancient models of genesis and drew on Shundai's perception
  54 Tsukatani Akihiro and Kuranami Seiji, eds., Honda Toshiaki - Kaiho Seiryo, vol. 44 ofNihon
  shiso laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970). See Hiraishi Naoaki, "Kaiho Seiryo no shisozo,"
  Shiso 11 (1980): 47-65; and my "Method and Analysis in the Conceptual Portrayal of Toku-
  gawa Intellectual History," in Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, eds., Japanese Thought in the
  Tokugawa Period - Methods and Metaphors (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp.
  3-83.
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  of the crucial significance of trade or, more fundamentally, the princi-
  ple of economic exchange, agreeing with him that land alone could no
  longer sustain society. Seiryo therefore entered the world of play to
  uncover the reasons for the merchants' effectiveness in controlling the
  process of commerce.
  As he journeyed in Osaka and the countryside lecturing on Taoism -
  the philosophy of play - Seiryo formed a perspective on the historical
  present that said that the future belonged to the merchants and, more
  specifically, to the economic epistemology they controlled. The so-
  called way of the merchants contained a principle of mathematical preci-
  sion that served as a controllable norm. The very idea of an exact
  interest rate was calculated so as to be fair and beneficial to the exchang-
  ing parties. The emotional reading that trade was a passionate act moti-
  vated by greed, Seiryo therefore contended, was irrational and indeed
  arbitrary, determined by the customary views of Confucian ethics. The
  calculation of profit, he emphasized, was in fact the exercise of universal
  mathematical reason (sansu). From this observation that commoners in
  fact dealt with their world in terms of universal norms of knowledge,
  Seiryo decided that the future belonged to the merchants, as men in
  government did not govern in terms of that principle. The principle of
  exactitude, of precise measurability (menokozanyo), a term widely used
  among merchants, must indeed be the dynamic in the present. It was a
  principle, moreover, that accorded with nature in the sense that peas-
  ants calculate accurately what is to be derived from nature in accordance
  with what is given to it. That principle of exchange applied to society
  was trade as measured in mathematical terms.
  The iconoclasm issuing from this excursion into the world of play is
  quite clear. It did not mean for Seiryo doing nothing, as Shundai
  suggested ironically. It meant, rather, uncovering, through severance
  from the existing structure of authority in the world of play, epistemo-
  logical certitude with which the present, as received from the past,
  might be objectively assessed. The system of social classes that was
  justified in ethical historical terms, Seiryo now argued to be errone-
  ous. Classes were functional and internally defined as terms of the
  universal principle of exchange so that, in the end, classes were not
  moral but economic in character. Although the aristocracy may have
  more bureaucratic responsibilities, Seiryo argued, merchants and peas-
  ant entrepreneurs knew this principle far better than do those in posi-
  tions of power.
  Seiryo thus challenged the existing conceptions of virtue. Virtue was
  not pinned to a universal moral norm, but to a principle of calculation.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  A virtuous individual was one who had a better knowledge of that
  principle of exactitude. Because the extent to which a class knew this
  determined its relative superiority, it followed that the aristocracy
  should not be at the top of the status structure in society. What history
  had determined to be superior was not to be found in chartered domain
  land or in guaranteed status supported by fixed stipends; not in histori-
  cal scholarship in Confucian ethics or in possessing the sword. The
  present and the future would be determined by that principle of exacti-
  tude as it was applied to the exchange of things of value through trade.
  Holding firmly to this economic view of the future, Seiryo re-
  addressed the problem of politics and governability, the concerns of the
  class he had abandoned. Politics, he observed, must adapt to the princi-
  ple that shaped history at the ground level of economic actuality. First,
  the aristocracy must surrender its privileged position that it holds as a
  birthright. Next, the polity must be reconstituted so that the high and
  low are united in a community that agrees on knowledge and are dedi-
  cated to the peace and well-being of the whole. The future must be seen
  less in terms of house or domain but in terms of an entire national
  society that interacts according to the universal principle of exactitude.
  The interplay between principle and play provides us with a key
  perspective into late-eighteenth-century syncretism. Critics such as
  Riken and Seiryo reveal self-conscious struggles to gain a new objectiv-
  ity vis-a-vis a Tokugawa world ostensibly under control yet in appar-
  ent disarray. Within the boundaries of rationality and romantic re-
  treat, related conceptual fragments were assembled to project creative
  visions very much within the conceptual universe outlined so far:
  Honda Toshiaki (1744-1821) conceptualized a new political center
  armed with technology; Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856) taught peas-
  ants to order their lives in accordance with the principle of exactitude;
  Yamagata Banto (1748-1821) formulated a comprehensive statement
  of the rationality of principle against dreams; and Oshio Heihachiro
  (1793-1837), at the end, objected to reason and also to play in favor of
  a theory of active revolt. These extraordinary figures took eighteenth-
  century thought to the outer limits of its discoursive range.
  Among the eccentrics, Honda Toshiaki formulated perhaps the most
  provocative theory of political economy.55 Although Shundai pre-
  scribed reform within the domain to create wealth, as did the scholars of
  Mito, Toshiaki challenged all of the existing political and social arenas as
  55 Tsukatani and Kuranami, eds., Honda - Kaiho, pp. 9-212. See also Nakazawa Morito and
  Mori Kazuo, Nihon no kaimei shiso (Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 1970), pp. 134-84.
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  anachronistic. He rejected the status system, the domain, the house,
  and the overall conception of noncentralized governance (hoken) on
  which the regime rested. Indeed, the bakufu's policy of territorial seclu-
  sion, of limiting political space in order to exercise virtue, Toshiaki
  believed to be, in the long run, self-defeating. To create wealth and save
  the nation, political spaces must be thoroughly redefined, a fact that in
  turn would require the acquisition of new knowledge and the selection
  of talent based on this knowledge. In short, the ideas of reform con-
  ceived within the domain and of principle as systematic calculation were
  now, in the hands of Toshiaki, rearticulated in terms of a restructured
  and centralized nation state and state interest.
  The crisis in Japan, Toshiaki reasoned, was not attributable to moral
  decline but to the contradiction between fixed land area and hence the
  limited production of goods, relative to the natural growth of the
  population. The problems afflicting the nation could not be resolved
  until that elemental relationship between land and population was first
  grasped. The very concept of territorial seclusion was untenable. As
  this contradiction was not peculiar to Japan and all nations faced it in
  relative degrees, the problem was best seen as being not merely domes-
  tic but also international in character. The provocative appearance of
  Western ships in Asian waters in the 1790s Toshiaki interpreted as
  extensions of that very contradiction in European nations. The aban-
  donment of the static idea of splendid isolation, moreover, entailed the
  added consequence that the nation must pursue its interest as a com-
  petitive trading nation on the high seas. Whereas Shundai had earlier
  urged that domains involve themselves in active interdomainal trade,
  exchanging surplus for scarce goods, Toshiaki now extended this idea
  to the international level.
  The creation of wealth through international trade, however, must
  include the adoption of new knowledge appropriate to a dynamic, as
  opposed to a static, conception of space. Here Toshiaki pointed to the
  vast scientific and technological knowledge of Western trading na-
  tions, compared with that of Japan which still relied on moral apho-
  risms drawn from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shinto, all of which
  Toshiaki denounced as pedantic, superstitious, or ludicrous.
  In his Keisei hisaku (Secret proposals on political economy, 1798),
  Toshiaki explained what he meant by the kind of new technological
  knowledge and the specific uses for it that he had in mind.56 First, he
  56 Tsukatani and Kuranami, eds., Honda - Kaiho, pp. 12-43. See also Donald Keene, The
  Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830 (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1969),
  pp. 59-122, 175-226, for translations of Honda.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  urged the incorporation of the technology of manufacturing explo-
  sives, not only for the obvious military uses but also to create new
  ports, waterways, and rice fields - in general to pursue projects that
  could not be achieved through human energy. His second proposal was
  the institution of mining engineering to extract strategic and precious
  metals to reinforce the nation's wealth and power. As metals were the
  "backbone" of the nation, they should be held in concentrated
  amounts by the central government and not squandered as an item for
  export. Third, he urged the construction of a national merchant ma-
  rine so that trade could be carried out through centrally owned and
  managed ships. And fourth, he advocated the application of technol-
  ogy to explore and survey neighboring islands for defensive purposes.
  Expansive naval powers from the West fueled by the contradiction of
  growing population and limited land would invariably impinge on
  Japan, Toshiaki reasoned, and so it behooved Japan to meet that chal-
  lenge on the high seas well beyond the existing parameters of the
  national coastline.
  Toshiaki's conception of the nation state is clearly that of a mercantil-
  ist. The production and accumulation of wealth were the responsibil-
  ity of the central government, whether this wealth was acquired
  through trade or mining. Given this clear endorsement of centraliza-
  tion over noncentralized governance, Toshiaki unequivocally criticized
  the history from the eleventh century onward that had produced the
  existing bakuhan system, sharing a historical perspective consistent in
  this regard with that of Yamagata Daini, Nakai Riken, and Rai San'yo.
  It followed from this too that Toshiaki would be impatient with the
  aristocracy, which he saw as ineffectual and parasitic, totally out of
  step with the momentum of the times. Toshiaki legitimated his radical
  mercantilism with the ethical idea that all government owed their
  existence to the agreement {yakusoku) to provide peace and well-being
  for the general populace. Drawing on Sorai and Shundai, Toshiaki
  denned the imperative of the prince, by which he meant the central
  government, as being, above all else, the alleviation of the people's
  suffering.
  As part of this agreement, governments were obliged to seek talent
  throughout society and not the aristocracy alone. Reminiscent of
  Nakai Chikuzan's thinking, Toshiaki advocated the establishment of a
  centralized educational system headed by a "great school" (dai gakko)
  that would train the most talented in the nation without regard to class
  and to oversee the study and application of new scientific knowledge.
  To facilitate the incorporation of new knowledge, moreover, the cus-
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  65I
  torn of relying on Chinese characters would be abandoned, as memoriz-
  ing the tens of thousands of them was intellectually distracting and
  anachronistic. Just as Europe made creative achievements in science
  by ending its relationship with Roman civilization, so too Japan must
  now end its cultural ties with China and, by relying on the Japanese
  syllabary, set out to study the sciences of mathematics and physics.
  Toshiaki's vision should not be seen as an isolated one. In other
  parts of society, too, as in the villages, the issue of organization and
  knowledge had become pressing issues. At stake were peasants saving
  themselves without relying on the exercise of benevolence from above.
  Perhaps the most revered and influential sage to emerge from this
  development was Ninomiya Sontoku, a self-educated peasant who
  created a vision of peasants controlling their destiny through system-
  atic knowledge. Whereas Toshiaki's vision called for a reorganized
  political center "saving" people, Sontoku addressed his to peasants
  saving the nation. These were parallel yet related visions emerging out
  of the late-eighteenth-century intellectual history of political economy.
  Sontoku drew from a variety of sources to form a coherent body of
  ideas oriented to peasant action in the expanding universe of commer-
  cial agriculture.57 Consistent with the tradition of agronomy begun by
  Kaibara Ekken and Miyazaki Yasusada, Sontoku emphasized the im-
  portance of action vis-a-vis nature as the universal absolute. One did
  not study history to act in nature, although history may provide sugges-
  tive insights into the attitude that one might adopt. History more
  basically was resolving the immediate problems of poverty in relation
  to nature as a given.
  All human beings, Sontoku believed, were endowed by nature or
  Heaven with a virtue (toku) that was unrelated to the status distinc-
  tions made in society. As this virtue was a universal blessing (on), it
  was the responsibility of all human beings to act it out in works of
  thanksgiving. And because the gift was neither haphazard nor arbi-
  trary, people must likewise respond in a manner that was systematic
  and principled, regardless of the particular function. For farmers,
  Sontoku elaborated, the engagement with nature must be objective
  and based on firm knowledge, never on guesswork. It involved know-
  ing precisely what nature could or could not yield. Forms of knowl-
  edge that did not contribute to this exercise of virtue ought to be
  57 Naramoto Tatsuya and Nakai Nobuhiko, eds., Ninomiya Sontoku - Ohara Yugaku, vol. 52 of
  Nihon shiso taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973), pp. 10-234; and Yokokawa Shiro, ed.,
  Ninomiya Sontoku shu, vol. 5 of Kinsei shakai keizai gakuseisu taikei (Tokyo: Seibundo
  shinkosha, 1935). See also Bellah, Tokugawa Religion, pp. 127-30.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  discarded - for example, moral homilies, fairytales, gossip, and super-
  stition. The exercise of virtue, in other words, required the objective
  observation of principle and the use of this knowledge to annihilate
  poverty first in one village and ultimately throughout the nation. The
  alleviation of poverty and suffering among the populace was not to
  come as benevolence from above but as the exercise of virtue from
  below.
  In viewing the exercise of virtue in human or social space, Sontoku
  distinguished between natural principle, or the way of Heaven (tendd),
  and society, or the way of humankind (jindo). Reminiscent of Ogyu
  Sorai, he argued that the utilization of nature was not natural and that
  the artifacts that they produced were no longer of nature. Men fash-
  ioned the wheel with natural elements, but the wheel was no longer
  natural. The wheel was used to draw the energy of the flowing stream,
  but the energy produced from it was not of nature, this being a result
  of men's use of natural principle. Similarly, men relied on this princi-
  ple to induce the apricot to bear fruit annually rather than in alternate
  years, by applying fertilizer to enhance the richness of the soil. These
  acts were part of the way of humankind and not of nature itself.
  Like Sorai, Sontoku did not see humanity in opposition to or in a
  superior relationship over nature, but in an infinite relationship of
  nourishment. But unlike Sorai, Sontoku viewed nature as the ultimate
  object of knowledge and felt a deep reverence for it as the universal
  reality within which people everywhere shaped their social existence.
  This reverence he translated into acts of thanksgiving to that universal
  source of life itself; he did not lecture about relying on the benevolence
  of the ancient kings.
  What is important is that Sontoku emphasized the virtuous use of
  nature to realize social ends that could be distinguished from the
  natural order. The realization of peace and well-being meant the cre-
  ation of wealth through increased agricultural production and com-
  merce, not to enrich the state, but to realize the ends that politics had
  failed to achieve, the alleviation of famine and poverty in the country-
  side. Accordingly, Sontoku organized the peasantry around him in
  "mutual trust cooperatives" (hotoku shin'yu) to manage the local politi-
  cal economy.
  To be distinguished from the villages per se, these cooperatives were
  in fact economic resources from which members could draw support
  in emergencies. All participants were thus required to contribute a
  certain amount of money as their right to membership. The commer-
  cial principle operating here is extremely important. Over the long
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  THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
  653
  term, these cooperatives came to function as commercial banks for
  commoners. Sontoku personally shunned the use of the mutual trust
  fund for personal ventures, and he insisted that all members agree to
  the principle of virtuous action in relation to nature. Yet he also encour-
  aged the use of that fund for communal advantage, as in enhancing the
  exchange of agricultural and manufactured goods to increase the capi-
  tal fund of the cooperative and in charging interest in these transac-
  tions. It is clear that he saw the commercial uses of the cooperative as
  enhancing the agricultural community's economic viability and hence
  its survival. In Sontoku's cooperative, all of the members were given a
  voice in establishing its governing rules, and loans to individual mem-
  bers were determined by the entire group. Here we see that virtue was
  not restricted to working with nature for social ends. It also was an
  economic community based on mutual trust to manage capital gener-
  ated among the membership in the countryside. Knowledge of natural
  principle and of trade mesh in the ideal of thanksgiving that would
  guide commoners to save the people.
  The idea of saving the people from below also found expression
  among merchant intellectuals such as Kusama Naokata (i753-1831)
  and especially Yamagata Banto.58 A financier of Osaka, Banto, more
  than any other late-eighteenth-century thinker, refashioned the re-
  ceived discourse on history and nature into a comprehensive statement
  of knowledge. His tour de force, Yume no shiro, (In place of dreams,
  ca. 1805) is a thorough summation of eighteenth-century epistemol-
  ogy. A student of Nakai Chikuzan and Riken, Banto totally rejected
  dreams of all forms imagined or artificially fabricated. Between princi-
  ple and play, Banto unequivocally grabbed the former and not the
  latter. He was in this sense closer in temperament to Chikuzan and his
  single-minded institutional vision of a new educational system for the
  future. But in his fascination with Western science, he was closer
  intellectually to Riken.
  As the branch manager {banto) of the Osaka banking house of
  Masuya, Yamagata Banto had gained considerable visibility and pres-
  tige managing the finances of the Sendai domain. He served unbe-
  knownst to himself as one of the primary examples on which Kaiho
  58 See Suenaka Tetsuo, Yamagata Banto no kenkyu, 2 vols. (Osaka: Seibundo, 1971 and 1978);
  Mizuta and Arisaka, eds., Tominaga Nakamoto - Yamagata Banto (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
  1973); and Matsumoto Sannosuke, ed., Kindai no hoga vol. 1 of Gendai shiso taikei (Tokyo:
  Chikuma shobo, 1966). See also Albert Craig, "Science and Confucianism in Tokugawa
  Japan," in Marius B. Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese Altitudes Toward Modernization (Prince-
  ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 133-60. I discuss Yamagata Banto and
  Kusama Naokata in Visions of Virtue, pp. 222-84.
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  Seiryo based his theories about the principle of mathematical exacti-
  tude that merchants seemed to him to have mastered. Seiryo, on the
  other hand, was unaware that the branch manager of Masuya whose
  ideas he extolled was himself a scholar of considerable intellectual
  power who had begun to pen his famous compendium on knowledge,
  which echoed his own ideas about how to order history and save the
  general populace.
  Yamagata Banto's epistemology was based on the theory of natural
  ontology, which was in keeping with the teachings of Ranju, as handed
  down to him through the Nakai brothers. He used this premise, how-
  ever, to synthesize all other forms of knowledge known to him, while
  maintaining without compromise his intellectual commitment to the
  rationality of all things, and the potential that he identified with vir-
  tue. His book thus begins with a comprehensive statement on the
  universe and the universality of principle, claiming all human knowl-
  edge to be preastronomy or postastronomy; moving from that to geog-
  raphy, the variety of physical spaces occupied by people, creatures,
  and things; prehistory, the era of oral tradition and the reliance on the
  divine; history, the documentation of human events with formal lan-
  guage; the formation of a political order within that history; the cur-
  rent status of political economy; and finally, as an overall conclusion,
  the affirmation of the rationality of all phenomena and the unreliability
  of a priori moral abstractions and superstitions, including tales of
  strange spirits, goblins and gods, faith in religious claims about heaven
  and hell, and speculations about the divine origins of national society,
  all of which could be summed up under the metaphor of dreams.
  Banto's proposition that all objective knowledge must proceed from
  the premise of a science of the universe, or astronomy, informed his
  entire treatise. Having studied science with Riken and Asada Goryu
  (1734-99), Banto began by affirming the Copernican theory of the
  universe. Just as the earth was not the center of the universe, so too on
  that earth, no geographical location was logically the center or the
  source of the entire globe. By thus proceeding from the universality of
  science, Banto could then, through comparative geography, address
  himself to the particularity of Japanese history, denying its having
  divine privilege, as claimed by Motoori Norinaga and his colleagues in
  national studies, especially regarding the character of the Japanese
  people and their culture. Universal principle, Banto argued, did not
  exist to favor one country or region over another. The universe, in
  short, was ontologically before physical land, society, history, religion,
  hierarchy, language, culture, and so forth. It was only out of this
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  recognition of the relativity of human experience and knowledge vis-a-
  vis universal nature, Banto believed, that human reason could gain
  objectivity, for this allowed the mind to see history and custom as
  relative.
  Using natural ontology as his premise, Banto thus could turn to
  relative history and bring that history down to the imperfect present
  and his relative view of the state of the national economy. Banto pre-
  sents an unequivocal affirmation of the knowledge that merchants
  possessed as crucial to the goal of saving people. If Shundai at the
  beginning of the century had posited a political view of the economy
  and trade in particular, Banto at the close presented, in this carefully
  constructed piece against dreams, a case for an economic view of
  politics, claiming knowledge of the former as a precondition for
  proper governance, regardless of the relative merit of the political
  structure that might be received from history.
  The two central sections of the treatise are thus termed "econom-
  ics." And here, while referring to agricultural production as the base
  of society, because it supplies food for the populace, Banto concen-
  trated on the relationship among money, price, and trade that had
  thrown the economy into disarray and caused famines and uprisings
  among the people. Political leaders had failed to grasp certain basic
  principles of political economy from which to regulate the economy.
  By minting money with uneven metallic content, for example, they
  had brought on inflation and price instability.
  The politicality in Banto's thinking is striking. Merchants must see
  their work not merely as the extensions of their virtue but as funda-
  mental to the well-being of the nation. Politics, he contended, could
  no longer rely on military norms, or on cultural ones either. The
  ongoing historical crisis called for emergency action as being the nor-
  mal course to take. This constant need for emergency action also called
  for merchants to alter their view of the political world and see their
  knowledge of wealth as essential to promoting the national well-being.
  Here then was yet another vision formulated in the late eighteenth
  century, parallel and distinct from Toshiaki's and Sontoku's, and ar-
  ticulated from the perspective of the merchant leaders. It is a vision
  that clearly anticipates the status given to wealth as a key ideological
  component to the modern polity.
  What is impressive about Banto's claim for merchant knowledge is
  that it is placed in the broadest possible conceptual framework. He
  used the Copernican theory, in particular, to state from the outset that
  the center of the universe was elsewhere and not in the immediately
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  656 
  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  inhabited globe or in received history. This construction, which Ranju
  had used as a basis of syncretism, to choose relatively insightful texts,
  Banto now used to decentralize the globe and other presumably fixed
  objects, such as national history and its language, and the status struc-
  ture received from history that placed the aristocracy at the top and
  merchants at the bottom. Banto's rejection of this in the sections on
  economics is angry and insistent and reveals his use of natural ontol-
  ogy, in a radical manner consistent with the thinking of Seiryo,
  Toshiaki, and Sontoku.
  EPILOGUE
  The eighteenth century left in its wake a profound ambivalence regard-
  ing the integrity of the aristocracy as the custodians of political history.
  From Sorai and Shundai on down through the Nakai brothers, Seiryo,
  Toshiaki, and Daini, there is a consistent theme of skepticism regard-
  ing the validity of the aristocracy that was contained in general discus-
  sions about history and nature. Sorai had expanded the discourse by
  arguing that because virtue was distributed randomly by Heaven, the
  social institution of aristocracy was at odds with this general theory.
  His prescription that the samurai be returned to the soil was a prag-
  matic consequence of his view that the aristocracy was at once concep-
  tually unstable - as it was not an extension of nature - and, more
  importantly, economically disruptive. This view was echoed in the
  thinking of the Mito scholars, who were not devotees of Sorai studies,
  and it was also in the ideas of the Nakai brothers who, as teachers
  among merchants, were staunchly opposed to the elitist and restrictive
  implications of Sorai's conception of political virtue. Whether ad-
  dressed from the historicist perspective of Sorai or of Motoori Nori-
  naga in his national studies or in the scientific perspective of Ekken,
  Joken, Ranju, Baien, and Banto, the idea that the aristocracy had a
  special claim on virtue steadily lost credibility during the eighteenth
  century. The study of national history no longer provided a secure
  projection for the ruling aristocracy.
  Throughout the eighteenth century, then, the reliance on hoken as a
  comprehensive representation of virtuous noncentralized rule in Japa-
  nese history became increasingly problematical. For thinkers such as
  Yamagata Daini and Nakai Riken, the rejection of it was firm, but for
  Yamagata Banto there was an ambivalence based on a deep-seated
  reservation about the viability of centralized bureaucratic rule. Viewed
  earlier as a glorious achievement in indigenous history, hoken by the
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  EPILOGUE 
  657
  end of the century had come to convey the opprobrious implication of
  betrayal, in which ambitious and passionate men seized power totally
  contrary to the values of loyalty and benevolence. The positive evolu-
  tionary flow of history over some six hundred years was now shown to
  be one of steady decline to the ineffectual political present. The think-
  ing of men in the countryside resonated with this perception. Ando
  Shoeki, Miura Baien, and Ninomiya Sontoku shaped epistemologies
  and communal strategies that called on the peasantry to seize their
  own history by acquiring firm knowledge without anticipating the
  benevolent mediations of domain lords.
  Somewhat analogous to the fate of feudalism as a broad characteriza-
  tion of Western history, hoken underwent a similar transformation.
  Entirely positive and celebrative at the beginning of the century,
  hoken, like feudalism, acquired the negative implication of aristocratic
  privilege gained at the expense of both the emperor and the people as a
  whole. (We shall only mention in passing that the term hoken would be
  used to translate feudal in modern Japanese, thereby infusing into
  feudalism much of the late-eighteenth-century understanding of hoken
  as a stage in history belonging to a failed past and embodied in the
  Tokugawa aristocracy of the sword, outwardly proud and autocratic
  yet ineffectual in its leadership.)
  Yamagata Banto's synthesis of eighteenth-century thought also pro-
  vides suggestive insight. Though situating his ideas clearly in the
  tradition of natural ontology as articulated by Ranju, his summation is
  innovative. Instead of emphasizing the choice of different texts based
  on their relative perspective on universal nature, Banto imposes catego-
  ries of knowledge arranged from the most universal to the particular:
  astronomy, geography, prehistory, history, and political economy. Al-
  though the various fields are relative to the universe as the ultimate
  reference, the entire force of reasoning is to bring the problem of
  knowledge down from the universal to the theoretically decentralized
  yet immediate world of cognition, which was the concrete reality of
  political economy in the Tokugawa present and his own perception of
  it as a merchant intellectual. There is here an ideological force in the
  entire conceptual procedure that is informed throughout by an austere
  dedication to principle and the self-conscious denial of play, faith, and
  dreams as mediations to objectivity. It was indeed this relentlessness
  that marks Banto's treatise against dreams as a radical consummation
  of eighteenth-century thought.
  If Banto took eighteenth-century epistemology to such an extreme,
  the other side of that closure, during the Tempo era that ends the
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  HISTORY AND NATURE IN TOKUGAWA THOUGHT
  eighteenth century, was the idealism of his younger contemporary,
  Oshio Heihachiro.59 In an equally radical fashion, he rejected the
  supremacy of rational principle. In contrast with Banto's polemic
  against dreams and irrational thinking of all kinds, Oshio attacked
  reason as the source of deception. A low-ranking bakufu official in
  Osaka who studied at the same merchant academy that Banto had,
  Oshio shaped an idealistic philosophy of action that denounced the
  epistemology of rational observation as having failed to address the
  problem of action against perceived injustice. The very claim to objec-
  tivity, Oshio lectured, was the source of distinctions on which human
  prejudices rested, so that the entire discourse on history and nature
  was useless as a moral resource for action in the present. While agree-
  ing with his friend Rai San'yo that received history revealed a pattern
  of disloyalty and betrayal, he did not find in the writing of history the
  resolution to the problem of action against that history.
  Convinced, then, that the corruptions of received history could not
  be rectified through observing nature or studying that history itself,
  Oshio turned his philosophy into a moral theory of active resistance
  and revolt. He called this radicalism the way of truthfulness. Earlier,
  Tominaga Nakamoto had used this ethical concept of truthfulness to
  indicate, from his historicist stance, action that was reasonable, mean-
  ing accurate and fair, without reference to classical language and text.
  And Ishida Baigan used this to teach commoners about their inner
  spiritual worth, regardless of their function or status in life. Oshio
  transformed it to mean action against received history. Whereas
  Nakamoto advised men to ignore the past as unreliable, and Baigan, to
  select from the various great religious traditions, Oshio called on them
  to attack the past as a corrupt present.
  Oshio's theory of action, therefore, called for the anarchic leveling
  of the present as morally unacceptable and recommended directly
  saving the people. Unlike Ando Shoeki, who urged a withdrawal to the
  natural community at the periphery of the nation, Oshio revolted
  against the public order in his shocking uprising in Osaka in 1837.
  Expecting the beleaguered peasants in the area to respond in a populist
  revolt, Oshio in fact met defeat in a tragic and violent end, one to
  which Rai San'yo had anticipated his philosophy would take him. Yet
  with Oshio the possibility of revolt was forcefully introduced in the
  59 Miyagi Kimiko, Oshio Heihachiro (Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha, 1977); Miyagi Kimiko, ed.,
  Oshio Chusai, vol. 27 of Nihon no meicho (Tokyo: Chud koronsha, 1978); and my "Oshio
  Heihachiro (1793-1837)" in Albert Craig and Donald Shively, eds., Personality in Japanese
  History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 155-79.
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  EPILOGUE 
  659
  political discourse of the day. If the eighteenth century may be said to
  have begun in 1702 with the forty-seven ronin carrying out the ven-
  detta against a single wicked bureaucrat in the name of loyalty, in 1837
  Oshio struck against the reason of that century that Banto epitomized
  and called for a public revenge against the political order on behalf of
  the suffering populace. This theme was repeated even after the eigh-
  teenth century in the tumultuous end of Tokugawa rule, known as the
  Bakumatsu.
  The interfacing of Oshio's radical commitment to idealism and
  action with Banto's singular faith in reason marks the end of the
  eighteenth century. Banto remained within the outer limits of the
  eighteenth century because he held to the optimism of that period.
  Even as his sense of crisis and historical decline deepened, Banto did
  not surrender the view that through the effective control of knowl-
  edge, history could also be brought under intelligent management.
  This conviction was shared by thinkers before him such as the his-
  toricists Sorai and Shundai and by Baien, Sontoku, and others who
  based their ideas on nature. Toward the end of the century, this
  conviction often was mediated by emotive metaphors such as dream,
  play, and death.
  Although despairing of their present, eighteenth-century thinkers
  created autonomous spaces to better control knowledge and to live
  their lives as eccentrics. Kaiho Seiryo, it will be recalled, abandoned
  the aristocracy to seek a principle of knowledge among commoners,
  and he called this arena the world of play. And although death to
  Oshio meant the ultimate sacrifice of the moral sage, to Miura Baien
  and Yamagata Banto it was a phenomenon in nature about which
  people had imperfect knowledge and should not use, therefore, as an
  emotive metaphor. Death was part of a universe that the human mind
  would continuously gain more knowledge about but never exhaust.
  People in the present, these thinkers were convinced, knew more
  about nature than the ancient sages did, and future minds would
  correct the misconceptions of the present. In short, nothing in the
  universe, including death, was to be treated as being beyond the uni-
  verse of reason. It was the eighteenth-century faith in reason that
  Baien and Banto embodied that would now flow into a new era of
  idealistic political activism and the concurrent quest for a new political
  order.
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  CHAPTER 13
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY:
  MATERIAL CULTURE, STANDARD OF
  LIVING, AND LIFE-STYLES
  Our material possessions, however mundane or trivial, are extremely
  important to determining the quality of our lives. Indeed, the houses
  we live in, the possessions that provide our creature comforts, and
  what we eat and drink - which combine to create what can be called
  our material culture - are of more immediate concern and interest in
  our day-to-day existence than is our higher culture, namely, our reli-
  gion, ideology, and arts. Also, our material possessions and our percep-
  tions of them are essential elements to the formation of our values,
  goals, philosophy, and much of what we consider to be culture. A
  study of the material aspects of life is also more capable of illuminating
  the lives of the majority of most populations, the common people who
  form the backbone of the economy but about whom little is written in
  most historical documents.
  The level or quality of our material culture can also serve as a
  principal measure of what we refer to as our standard of living, an
  abstract concept determined by the quantities of goods and services we
  consume and the amount of leisure we enjoy. The level of material
  culture, codetermined by income (flow) and wealth (stock), can also
  be used as an indicator or proxy for the standard of living in societies
  for which reliable statistics on income and wealth are not available.
  Both material culture and standard of living are, in turn, major
  components of what we term lifestyle, the way of life or the patterns of
  how people live. Not only does material culture influence life-style,
  but conversely, life-styles help determine which mix of material goods
  people choose to obtain and how they divide current disposable in-
  come between consumption and savings. The nature of the material
  culture also affects well-being as defined by quality of life. For exam-
  ple, different kinds of foodstuffs or housing may cost approximately
  the same - and hence will be regarded as similar in measuring the
  standard of living - but they can result in very different levels of
  health and therefore stamina and energy (hence productivity) and life
  expectancy. These three aspects of life - material culture, standard of
  660
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY 
  66l
  living, and life-style - all are affected by the availability of resources,
  the levels of technology and interregional trade, the social and political
  systems that determine the pattern of income distribution and the
  level of government imposts, and a host of other factors.
  Until the 1970s, few professional Japanese historians regarded mate-
  rial culture and life-styles as subjects of serious inquiry. Of the three
  topics, only the premodern standard of living was of academic con-
  cern, because it was an integral part of the debate between Marxist and
  non-Marxist economic historians. That is, scholars using a Marxist
  framework of analysis emphasized a low standard of living for com-
  moners in the Tokugawa period, focusing on what they saw as exploita-
  tion of the cultivators and others at the bottom of society. Their ques-
  tions centered on distribution, or who gets how much.
  In the last two decades, however, the small but growing group of
  Japanese economic historians trained in neoclassical economic theory
  have found increasing evidence to support the view that total output
  was growing ever larger (though not at a fast rate compared with
  twentieth-century growth rates) and that the shares of all grew as the
  economy grew. In the 1980s, Marxists and non-Marxists alike found
  evidence that during the Tokugawa period the standard of living did
  rise. Finally, the material culture and life-styles of the common folk
  have become acceptable as objects of academic inquiry, just as they
  have in the West, and now research on all three topics is being pursued
  in Japan.
  Although numerous sources, such as government records, diaries,
  novels, household budgets, and laws, reveal how people lived in Toku-
  gawa times, these tend to be partial, random, and specific to regions,
  so that it is difficult to obtain a comprehensive picture of the life-styles
  and levels of living of larger groups and classes. Nor are there suffi-
  cient data from which to compile statistics, except for limited times
  and locales. The records, though far better than those for earlier centu-
  ries in Japan, are not so good with regard to life-styles as are those for
  eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe or the United States. Nev-
  ertheless, there is sufficient evidence from the seventeenth century on
  to enable us to discover how people must have lived.
  Because of the nature of the sources, arguments over interpretation
  are to be expected. For instance, rice is considered to have been the
  staple food, but many histories report that rice was a luxury for most
  people and was consumed only infrequently, for ceremonies and dur-
  ing festivals. Then how many Japanese actually ate rice as the staple of
  their diet? Also, historians have usually considered that life for most
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  662 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  people improved with industrialization in the late nineteenth century,
  which has caused them to underestimate the standard of living in the
  preceding centuries. However, recent studies on the course of industri-
  alization in Japan suggest that the standard of living and quality of life
  may instead have fallen for many Japanese during the early years of
  industrialization.1 Arguments about the standard of living and quality
  of life are as heated for early modern Japan as they are for Western
  Europe in the century following industrialization.2
  Not only does a study of the material culture fill out our picture of
  Japan from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, but it also
  changes some of the accepted outlines. Because the formal sociopoliti-
  cal structure did not change for over two centuries, we tend to assume
  that life, too, was unchanging. However, a study of the material cul-
  ture and living standards provides evidence that Japan was always
  changing, albeit more slowly than in the twentieth century. Although
  many "traditional" life-styles had their origins in the Sengoku and
  early Tokugawa periods, and even earlier, many of the key elements of
  the material culture were developed, refined, and diffused as late as
  the second half of the Tokugawa period. Examples of these elements
  are wooden houses with raised floors covered with rush matting
  (tatami); meals of white rice with soup, pickles, and possibly a simple
  side dish; and bedding consisting of quilts filled with cotton batting
  and spread directly on the flooring.
  The civil wars of the sixteenth century and the concurrent social
  and economic developments were catalysts in the transformation of
  the material culture and life-styles of the common folk. Artisans and
  merchants were increasingly drawn into the towns and cities, as were
  the samurai. Farmers and fishermen, left in the rural areas, were
  organized into formal governmental entities called mura (villages)
  which were also the major social and economic units. This develop-
  ment led to the creation of the three main social classes - the villager,
  the urban commoner, and the samurai - from which developed the
  three major life-styles and patterns of consumption of the Tokugawa
  period. The civil wars affected the material culture as well: Daimyo
  1 For an analysis of change and continuity from the late Tokugawa through the Meiji periods,
  see Marius B. Jansen and Gilbert Rozman, eds., Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji
  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), especially the chapters by Hayami Akira,
  Nishikawa Shunsaku, Saito Osamu, Kozo Yamamura, and Susan B. Hanley.
  2 For two examples, see Susan B. Hanley, "A High Standard of Living in Nineteenth-Century
  Japan: Fact or Fantasy?" Journal of Economic History 43 (March 1983): pp. 183-92; and
  Yasuba Yasukichi, "Standard of Living in Japan Before Industrialization: From What Level
  Did Japan Begin? A Comment," Journal of Economic History 46 (March 1986): 217-24.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY 
  663
  imported cotton for military use - sails, uniforms, and fuses - and it
  was produced domestically and spread throughout the population in
  the following centuries. During the late sixteenth century, the sweet
  potato was introduced into western Japan, and by the early eigh-
  teenth century it provided a bulwark against famine in years of poor
  rice crops.
  With the Tokugawa peace, the new institutional arrangements en-
  couraged economic development, which in turn spurred on social
  changes.3 Freed from the need to be ever-prepared for war, domains
  could allocate more effort and resources to economic development.
  Large engineering projects to reclaim land for cultivation and provide
  flood control and irrigation were sponsored by both daimyo and the
  bakufu during the seventeenth century. The amount of arable land is
  estimated to have doubled during the Tokugawa period, and much of
  the increase occurred during the seventeenth century. New agricul-
  tural techniques also enhanced productivity. Paralleling the increases
  in output and productivity in agriculture was the accelerated commer-
  cialization of the economy. By the early eighteenth century, the major
  goods traded included rice, cotton, rapeseed oil, sake, silk, fertilizer
  (dried fish cakes), draft animals, salted and dried marine products,
  and scores of regional specialties. The rapid urbanization in the seven-
  teenth century stimulated the demand for products of all kinds in the
  towns and cities.
  The first peak of this economic growth was reached by the late seven-
  teenth century, in the Genroku era (1688-1703), noted not only for
  economic prosperity but even more for the cultural flowering of the first
  mass culture centered in the metropolises of Kyoto and Osaka. The new
  commoner prosperity and cultural boom were not confined to the me-
  tropolises but spread to the castle towns throughout Japan, and then to
  the towns that grew up in the countryside and even to the villages. The
  sankin kotai system, which had many samurai traveling to Edo and
  living there for part of the time, the growing trade, regional specializa-
  tion, and increasing participation by villagers in the national economy
  all contributed to the economic growth. Villagers not only traded over
  wide areas, often national in scope, but themselves traveled to find work
  and to make religious pilgrimages. The growing contact among Japa-
  nese gradually brought about cultural unification.
  With the lasting peace and the economic development of the early
  3 For an analysis and description of both the economic and the accompanying social changes, see
  Susan B. Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial
  Japan, 1600-1868 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977).
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  Tokugawa years, the population grew, though no one is certain by how
  much. The national population survey of 1721, the first of its kind in
  Japan, gave a figure of just over 26 million for the commoner popula-
  tion. Estimates for the population in 1600 range from just over 10
  million to 18 million, but whichever figure is accurate - and the latter
  is probably closer - the population growth rate was considerable dur-
  ing the seventeenth century.4 Part of this growth may be accounted for
  by the absence of warfare, but at least part was due to the trend for
  landowners to shift from managing the labor themselves to parceling
  out their land to tenants, who were then free to marry.5
  During the Tokugawa period, patterns of income distribution in city
  and countryside alike changed as a result of economic growth, led by
  continued growth in the agricultural sector and the accelerated growth
  of commerce. Both farmers and merchants benefited by the inability
  of the samurai elite to tax commercial activities effectively or to cap-
  ture the productivity gains in agriculture. By the early nineteenth
  century at the latest, the social groupings no longer indicated income,
  as the samurai elite would have liked. Also, the transmission of ideas
  and goods flowed across class as well as regional boundaries, and by
  the end of the Tokugawa period, commoners were imitating the life-
  styles of the samurai and had adopted many of their values. By the late
  eighteenth century, some well-to-do farmers lived in houses resem-
  bling samurai residences, and the lowest-ranking samurai in most
  respects lived the life-style of an ordinary townsman. There were poor
  among the samurai as well as among the commoners, and a small
  number of merchants rivaled or even exceeded many high-ranked
  daimyo in personal disposable income. Thus there were differences in
  standard of living and life-styles by social class, by income stratum
  within each class, and by region and locale as well as by city and
  village.
  Material culture, as defined by Japanese scholars, is composed of
  three basic elements: i-shoku-ju, or clothing, food, and housing. In this
  chapter, we shall examine these three major components and then
  analyze how the material culture differed by class and income, what
  daily life was like, and how the material culture affected the physical
  well-being of the Japanese. Finally, we shall look at the implications of
  4 The population figures can be found in Sekiyama Naotaro, Kinsei Nihon nojinko kozo (Tokyo:
  Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1958), pp. 137-9. A discussion of these figures and the various esti-
  mates can be found in Hanle'y and Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change, chap. 3.
  5 For a discussion of these changes and the effect of the market on agriculture, see Thomas C.
  Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modem Japan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
  1959)-
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  HOUSING: SAMURAI, TOWN, AND FARM 
  665
  the changes in the material culture and life-styles and attempt to assess
  the changes in the living standard over the Tokugawa period.
  HOUSING: SAMURAI, TOWN, AND FARM
  Housing is the least difficult of the three aspects of material culture to
  study, not only because many houses have been preserved, at least
  those belonging to the well-to-do, but also because we still have floor
  plans and paintings for numerous buildings that no longer exist. It is
  also easier to examine architecture because buildings and floor plans
  can be dealt with as a whole, a unit, in contrast with an isolated article
  of clothing or a household utensil. Furthermore, in many ways, hous-
  ing influenced the life-style of a family, to a great extent determining
  how members carried out their daily work, related to one another, and
  learned their place in the world. Housing is probably the best indica-
  tor of family wealth, as it is the major investment for most households.
  All Tokugawa housing shared certain basic characteristics, owing to
  the scarcity or availability of resources on the Japanese islands. The
  scarcity of usable space was certainly a major determinant in housing,
  life-style, social behavior, and communication. By the early eighteenth
  century, there were nearly thirty million people in an area the size of
  Montana, and only 15 percent of Japan is flat enough to be arable. The
  population was crowded into the few plains and along the coasts. Farm
  housing was in clusters - hamlets or villages - either along a road or a
  river or nestled up in the foothills where it would be difficult to create
  a paddy. However, the large metropolises of Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto
  were less densely populated per square mile than the European capi-
  tals were, because the Japanese did not build up; few buildings were
  more than one and a half or two stories high.
  Premodern Japanese buildings were built of tensile materials such as
  wood, bamboo, and thatch. Most of the land was forested mountains,
  and so these materials were plentiful, but their use also meant that
  houses had to be rebuilt more frequently than did those of brick or
  stone. However, tensile materials were an advantage in a country
  plagued by earthquakes. Safety seems to have been a major consider-
  ation in the development of Japanese architecture; hence the limita-
  tions on height, the lack of cellars, and the use of foundation stones on
  which support posts merely rested, permitting lateral movement with-
  out the destruction of the building. The primary drawback to this type
  of architecture is that it was subject to fires, particularly in the
  densely-packed cities. Fires were the "flowers of Edo": The worst, in
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  666 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  1657, destroyed over half the city and part of the castle. The main
  mansion of the Oda domain of Tamba burned down sixteen times, and
  most domains had to rebuild their mansions several times during the
  Tokugawa period.6
  Over the course of Japan's history, the main floor level of the house
  was gradually elevated. A prehistoric house was basically a thatched
  roof over a circular hole in the ground a couple of feet deep. Only the
  elite lived in houses with raised flooring. But by the sixteenth and
  seventeenth centuries, raised flooring was the standard for the well-to-
  do and the samurai, whereas the common folk and poor had houses
  with earthen floors. As people could afford it, they put in flooring of
  various kinds, but only in the section of the house that was used for
  sitting, eating, and sleeping. The gradual change represents both a rise
  in the living standard and a healthier environment, as people moved
  up off the damp ground.
  By the Tokugawa period, virtually every house that was not a mere
  hovel was divided into two parts: a "living" area and a "service" (or
  work) area. The service area was used for preparing meals, as a
  workplace, and for storage. Privies and stables were part of the ser-
  vice area, and often all were under the same roof. The floor of the
  service area in every house (the doma), no matter how wealthy the
  occupants, was invariably packed earth, though it was an integral
  part of the house. The floors of living rooms were made of boards,
  split bamboo, or tatami, or a combination of these in houses that had
  raised flooring. In those houses in which flooring was beyond the
  family means, the living section of the dwelling was separated from
  the work area by a sill, and the ground was covered with husks,
  hulls, and straw which were then covered with straw mats for sitting
  and sleeping.
  Posts hold up a traditional Japanese house, so that walls are not
  structurally necessary. Depending on the architectural style, posts are
  located throughout the house where necessary to hold up the building.
  These structural elements are not hidden, even in the most luxurious
  of houses, but become part of the design and decoration of the rooms.
  Because supporting walls are not necessary, Japanese have freedom of
  use of space not only within the building but also with regard to the
  outside walls. Large doors can be built into the service area for ease in
  bringing work materials and supplies inside. Whole walls can be
  6 Toshio George Tsukahira, Feudal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kotai System, Har-
  vard East Asian Monographs, no. 20 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966), p.
  93. Tsukahira provides good examples of daimyo expenses and hence life-styles.
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  667
  opened up to let in the sun and air the house. However, in the mid-to-
  late Tokugawa period this usually was possible only in the houses of
  the well-to-do who could afford sliding doors of translucent paper, and
  flooring.
  The most striking element in traditional housing is the development
  of tatami flooring. This may be one feature of Japanese culture that is
  truly unique. In the Heian period, the floors in aristocratic buildings
  were wooden, and mats were used for sitting and sleeping, as they
  were in China. But the Japanese progressed to putting rush mats in
  wooden frames for use in various parts of the room and, finally, to
  covering an entire floor with matting. From the Muromachi period on,
  tatami were made of a base of straw covered by woven rush in rectan-
  gles of approximately three by six feet. The size was gradually stan-
  dardized by region, with the mats made to fit between the set intervals
  of the support posts. Finally, they became the modules for designing a
  room, and the dimensions of Japanese-style rooms are still based on a
  set number of tatami, usually three, four and a half, six, eight, ten, or
  twelve. Tatami performed a number of functions: (1) They provided a
  firm yet comfortable floor covering for both sitting and sleeping that
  obviated the need for most furniture; (2) they made it possible to use a
  room for multiple functions when necessary, with minimum adjust-
  ments; and (3) they provided a uniform measure for constructing
  buildings of all types. Although tatami date from medieval times, their
  extensive use as standard flooring among the elite, their gradual adop-
  tion by commoners, and the role they played in the standardization of
  the basic components of housing all took place during the Tokugawa
  period. Scarce resources may have played a part in the development of
  this type of flooring: Mature forests were becoming scarce during the
  Tokugawa period, but rush could easily be grown throughout much of
  Japan.
  Despite common housing characteristics and similarities in housing
  at both ends of the income scale, whatever the class, people in differ-
  ent occupations had different housing needs. Samurai required recep-
  tion areas, whereas families in commerce had to have a store front for
  selling foods, storage space, and a delivery entrance for wares and
  materials. Farmers needed space for farm work and draft animals.
  There also was a wide variation by region in housing styles, but these
  occupational requirements resulted in similar floor plans for each class
  throughout Japan.
  Samurai housing was the ideal for housing during the Tokugawa
  and even the Meiji period. It was the most innovative and the best
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  adapted to new life-styles as incomes rose for all classes. The basic
  elements of the style date from the late Muromachi period when
  Japanese began to build shoin into their house plans. Shoin refers to
  the writing table that was built into one wall of the room. Later it
  became a general designation for the style of a house that had this
  feature.7 This built-in desk, combined with the tokonoma (an alcove
  for decorative display) and the chigaidana (stepped decorative shelves)
  are usually considered basic to the shoin type of architecture. By the
  Tokugawa period, other essential elements added to this style of archi-
  tecture were a formal entrance known as a genkan, raised floors cov-
  ered with tatami, fusuma (built-in sliding room dividers covered with
  thick paper on both sides), shdji (sliding panels with wooden frames
  covered by translucent paper and used between a room and the out-
  side corridor), and often square pillars instead of round for the sup-
  porting posts. Very few of the formal buildings in the shoin style
  survive. What many consider to be the epitome of shoin style can be
  seen in the Katsura Detached Palace, which was built in the seven-
  teenth century just outside Kyoto.
  Samurai housing is also known for incorporating gardens as an
  integral part of the architecture, rather than merely adding them on
  as decoration. Rooms for guests were situated so that views of the
  garden became the backdrop for the room when the shoji and outside
  protective wooden sliding doors were removed. There was usually an
  engawa, or veranda, several feet in width, between the room and the
  outside of the house. Shoji divided the room from this corridor, and
  wooden shutters, called rain doors (amado) usually enclosed the
  engawa. On fine days, both sets of sliding doors could be opened to
  let the sun and cool breezes into the house, which had the effect of
  bringing the outdoors into the house. Westerners had to resort to
  house plants to achieve this effect, and then less successfully.
  Because the Japanese climate is humid nearly year-round, good
  ventilation is essential to both comfort and health, as dark, damp
  houses promote lung infections. Japan has a month-long rainy season
  beginning in mid-June, followed by a very hot summer with high
  7 For information on the shoin style of architecture, see ltd Teiji with Paul Novgorod, "The
  Development of Shoin-Style Architecture," in John Whitney Hall and Toyoda, eds., Japan in
  the Muromachi Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 227-
  39; Fumio Hashimoto, Architecture in the Shoin Style (Tokyo: Kodansha and Shibundo, 1981);
  and Kiyoshi Hirai, Feudal Architecture of Japan (New York: Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1973). A
  variation of the shoin style is the sukiya, which developed in buildings in which the tea
  ceremony was performed. The sukiya style is simpler and less formal and allows for more
  variation in the placing of the elements that make up the shoin style. Most residences in the
  Tokugawa period were in fact in this sukiya variation.
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  humidity, a typhoon season in the early autumn, and a winter that
  ranges from usually snowless in the west to areas in the north and east
  where snow accumulates up to the first story of houses for months at a
  time.
  Throughout medieval Japan, housing fulfilled the primary function
  of providing shelter from the elements, but samurai housing during
  the early modern period shifted to a design that emphasized summer
  comfort rather than merely shelter from rain, snow, and cold. This
  development began in central and western Japan where protection
  from the winter elements was not a major consideration. During the
  Tokugawa period, samurai built their houses above the damp and
  dusty ground, open to the winter sun but protected from the high
  summer sun, making them more comfortable in the summer months
  and less damp in the rainy times of the year. What they sacrificed was
  warmth in winter, but how much colder the Japanese were than the
  Europeans in stone or brick houses is debatable.
  Although most samurai houses were simple, independent struc-
  tures, the mansions of high officials were built as a series of rooms or
  small buildings connected together in and around various courtyards,
  which enabled many rooms to have garden views. They were usually
  asymmetrical, so that from the Western standpoint the floor plans of
  daimyo mansions look almost as if the rooms and buildings were
  tacked on at random when additional space was required. This all was
  carefully planned, however, for both functions and aesthetics, with a
  good deal of traditional wisdom - and not a little superstition - about
  where the toilets, kitchen, gate, and well should be located.8 When
  building large houses, it was easier to construct a number of smaller
  buildings connected to one another so that one large roof did not have
  to be engineered. The style of a number of buildings or rooms strung
  together was also a legacy of the palace-style architecture of the Heian
  period, in which each room had a separate roof and covered corridors
  led from one room to the next. By Tokugawa times the rooms were
  connected so that the houses were all part of one floor plan inside, and
  this trend toward more compact buildings accelerated as urban popula-
  tions soared and space was at a premium.
  The shoin style was used as the model for the formal audience halls
  8 The Japanese have followed the Chinese art of geomancy in designing buildings, from at least the
  seventh century until today. The positioning of the front gate, the toilet, the kitchen, and the like
  all are considered, and this sometimes results in what seem to be unlikely positioning of rooms.
  See Bruno Taut, Houses and People of Japan (London: John Gifford, 1937), pp. 26-8, for an
  explanation of how geomancy is applied in the twentieth century. Taut's reaction to Japanese
  architecture is revealing both of the Japanese and the Westerner and is highly recommended.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  of the shogun and daimyo, where the emphasis was on size and splen-
  dor to denote status, and for residences and teahouses, where there
  was a more relaxed and gracious atmosphere. By the late Tokugawa
  period, the homes of the upper-strata samurai were built in this style,
  and even the tiny two-room apartments of the lowest echelons of
  samurai had one room in which guests were received that had some of
  the elements of the shoin style. Commoners were forbidden to build
  houses in the samurai style, but by the late Tokugawa period,
  tokonoma and other shoin features could be found in the houses of well-
  to-do farmers and village headmen who had to have formal guest
  rooms for the reception of samurai officials. It is the samurai style that
  became the preferred style of housing in the Meiji period, the forerun-
  ner of modern Japanese architecture. Status symbols were certainly a
  factor in this preference, but so were the drier, lighter, more healthy
  environment and the increased comfort that became available as the
  standard of living rose.
  In contrast with the samurai residences, which were typically de-
  tached houses situated on their own grounds, the houses of merchants,
  artisans, and other commoners in a town or urban setting were usually
  row houses. Lots were priced by the amount of frontage, as it was
  crucial for a merchant to have access to the street, hence the long
  narrow shape of the lots. Business was carried out in the part of the
  building facing the street, the living quarters were usually in the
  midsection, and a small courtyard and any storehouses were located in
  the rear of the lot. In western Japan in particular, city houses were
  usually one room in width and two to three rooms in depth, with a
  dirt-floored passage called the toriniwa running along one side from
  front to back. The toriniwa not only served as a corridor, but had the
  same function as the doma in farmhouses. Along one side were the
  cooking facilities and often a well and, a short distance from these, the
  privy.
  The commoner sections of cities were usually laid out in large
  blocks, whose outer edge faced the main streets. Lots fronting these
  main streets were more expensive than back lots reached by narrow
  alleyways. In the center of these blocks were built the nagaya (long
  houses) or tenements that housed the daily laborers and the poor. Most
  nagaya were in effect one-story apartment houses, with the families
  sharing a well or other access to water and the privies. Typically,
  families lived in one room, often only nine feet by nine feet. The
  entrance was an earth-packed area three feet by nine, which also
  served as the kitchen, the work area, and the place to store any tools
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  and equipment. These nagaya were the forerunners of today's small
  apartments, in which people carry on all daily activities from eating to
  sleeping in one small room with virtually no furniture.
  The majority of houses in the Tokugawa period, however, were
  farmhouses, which were sufficiently different from samurai and urban
  housing that architects categorize them separately.9 The main differ-
  ence between samurai and farm housing is that the floor plan of the
  farmhouse was designed to fit into the framework of the building,
  whereas the floor plan of the samurai house could be drawn to taste
  and the structure designed to fit these plans. The most common farm-
  houses throughout the period were essentially rectangular boxes with
  roofs of thatch or wooden shingles. These wooden dwellings had few
  openings except for a large door and some slatted windows to let in a
  bit of light and air. Presumably they were divided into doma and living
  space, but in the early part of the period, few would have had raised
  floors. As people could afford them, they built larger houses, and
  those with sufficiently large houses added floors of wood or bamboo
  slats and later, when they could, tatami. Dwellings with no flooring
  could be found in poor rural areas even after World War II, but the
  trend for the past several hundred years has been to build houses with
  flooring in the living areas.
  Because of the lack of extant examples, little is known about how
  the farm housing - that is, housing for 80 percent or more of the
  Japanese - changed from medieval Japan into the Tokugawa period. It
  is known that up until the seventeenth century, foundation posts were
  usually set directly into the ground, which eventually caused them to
  rot. In short, houses were not built to be long lasting, even if they
  withstood warfare, fires, typhoons, and other disasters. There were
  wider regional variations during the seventeenth century and earlier,
  but evidence from archaeological digs and historical records suggests
  that in many parts of Japan the various activities of a major landholder
  took place in separate buildings. Even in smaller households, there
  were two buildings: one for family life and a second for cooking and
  related activities. Examples exist for such widely separated areas as the
  present Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu and in Ibaraki Prefecture in
  the northern Kan to plain. Sunken pit dwellings, characteristic of late
  9 Farmhouses from the early modern period through about the end of the nineteenth century are
  termed minka (literally, "commoners' houses"). Minka refers to no one particular style but
  usually applied only to the larger farmhouses. For a discussion in English of this style of
  housing, see Teiji Itoh, Traditional Domestic Architecture of Japan (New York: Weatherhill/
  Heibonsha, 1972).
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  prehistoric times, could also still be found in the very early seven-
  teenth century.
  By the seventeenth century, foundation stones were starting to be
  used in new buildings, so that the posts did not directly touch the
  ground. Thicker and higher-quality materials were used; braces were
  fitted between the posts; and walls were covered with mud plaster or
  boards. Increasingly, doors were made of.wood rather than split and
  woven bamboo, and they were built to slide open in frames, rather
  than as a part of the wall that would open upward. Wooden floors
  gradually became more common than earthen ones. These develop-
  ments reflected the new techniques in carpentry and also a rise in the
  standard of living that enabled commoners to build houses of higher
  quality.
  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, commoner housing un-
  derwent further change, reflecting developments in samurai housing
  made possible by new carpentry techniques. For those who could
  afford it, houses were transformed from dark boxes to the open style
  that we think of as characteristic of Japanese domestic architecture.
  The engawa, translucent shoji, and wooden rain doors sliding on tracks
  opened up the entire side of a house. The engawa progressed from a
  projection on the outside of the house to an integral part of the house
  as the rain doors were moved to enclose the engawa. Wood floors
  became standard, and many houses had tatami in at least one room. As
  people could afford to, they erected ceilings over all of the living
  rooms except, of course, the area over the hearth (irori). The well-to-
  do also began installing tokonama and other features of the shoin style.
  By the late Tokugawa period, the average house size was larger than
  that in the seventeenth century. However, the trend was probably not
  one of steady, gradual increase. An analysis of house sizes in the village
  of Kosugaya in Owari Province in central Japan for the seventeenth
  and eighteenth centuries reveals a decrease during the eighteenth cen-
  tury.10 The average house size increased between 1646 and 1684 from
  27.65 square yards to 32.78 square yards but then fell to 29.23 in 1734.
  During the same period, the number of houses in the village increased
  from fifty-six to sixty and then seventy, but because the population
  was growing, the average amount of floor space per person fell by
  more than 25 percent between 1684 and 1734. Kosugaya is a very
  small and isolated sample, but it indicates that house size varied
  10 Hayami Akira, "Kinsei Chita chiho no jukyo to kazoku keitai," Shakai keizai shigakkai dai-
  gojuni-kai laikai hokoku-shu, 1983, pp. 7—9.
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  greatly in accordance with economic position and that the average
  house was very small by modern standards. A house of 27.65 square
  yards, the 1646 average, measured approximately 12 by 21 feet. Other
  evidence that seventeenth-century houses were small comes from re-
  strictions on building sizes. For example, in 1656, in a newly re-
  claimed area in Musashi Province, just outside Edo, the magistrate in
  charge of the area issued specifications for the kind of housing that
  newcomers could build. The size of house permitted depended on the
  size of the family. A couple could build a house only 12 feet by 21,
  whereas a family with four to five members was allowed a house 15 by
  27 feet."
  However, from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, both the
  size of dwellings and the average amount of space per person rose.
  Houses not only contained more rooms and living space, but the
  number of members per family also decreased. In Okayama, for exam-
  ple, the average household size decreased from seven in the early
  eighteenth century to five by the turn of the nineteenth century. The
  most important factor was that families had fewer children. Although
  the government tried to regulate house sizes, given the changes in
  family size over time because of changes in the members' life cycles, it
  would have been impossible to regulate house size by the number of
  family members for more than the year in which the house was built.
  The Japanese were also very clever in circumventing regulations:
  Usually the distance between the main posts holding the roof was
  limited by statute, but farmers could build larger houses by adding
  space under the eaves. Because most roofs were high, whole rooms
  could be added in this way, while keeping the size of the house within
  the letter of the law. City regulations often included a provision that
  commoner housing be no more than one and one-half stories high.
  Townsmen circumvented this clause, however, by building houses that
  were precisely one and one-half stories at the front, but with a rising
  roof that slanted up from the street front which made it possible to
  construct full-sized rooms in the middle and rear of the house, even on
  an upper floor. The authorities must certainly have been aware of this
  mass flouting of regulations, but clearly the need, the desire, and the
  means to build larger-than-legal structures, with the growing com-
  merce and rising incomes, led the officials to ignore anything but the
  most flagrant violations.
  11 Kimura Motoi, "Nomin seikatsu no shoso," Seikatsu shi, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Yamakawa
  shuppansha, 1965), pp. 207-8. This is not only the best summary article on the farmer's life-
  style in the Tokugawa period, but it is replete with contemporary examples.
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  THE HOUSE AND LIFE-STYLES
  Just as the size and style of housing changed during the Tokugawa
  period, so did the use of the house. Some of the changes were due to
  advances in technology, growing incomes, and the availability of re-
  sources for building better-constructed housing, but many resulted
  from a change in life-styles and then in the function of houses. Resi-
  dence indicated both occupation and status in premodern Japan. Thus
  status as well as function was a concern of all classes when designing or
  renovating houses.
  At the top of the social hierarchy, daimyo were required to maintain
  formal residences in Edo to be used during their stay at the capital,
  and the specifications for these mansions depended on the status and
  size of the respective domains. High officials, as well as daimyo, had to
  have rooms suitable for meetings, for receiving important guests, and
  for entertaining anyone of high rank. Thus, a major consideration in
  the houses built for officials was these formal guest rooms, and so the
  floor plans of samurai housing indicate that what might seem to be an
  inordinate amount of space was devoted to ostentatious rooms that
  may have been infrequently used.
  In a society so ruled by status, the treatment of guests was both
  governed by etiquette and often prescribed in regulations.12 This
  meant that certain features became a necessary part of samurai resi-
  dences. The one that is stressed most by Japanese scholars is the
  genkan, or formal entrance, where guests were received and which led
  to the formal guest or reception rooms of the buildings. The number,
  size, and decoration of the reception rooms depended on the wealth
  and status of the homeowner. To the untutored eye, most of the rooms
  in a samurai residence are indistinguishable from one another, covered
  as they are with tatami and all leading one into another through sliding
  room dividers (fusuma). However, viewing empty rooms in a Japanese
  house is as misleading as looking at an unoccupied Western house.
  Each room had a separate function, and how the rooms were used by
  persons of which status was clearly delineated. Originally, those per-
  sons with the highest status were seated on the tatami, but when the
  entire floor was covered with this matting, distinctions had to be
  made, either by raising the floor several inches in the section of the
  room in which the person of superior status would sit, or by designat-
  12 Hirai, Feudal Architecture, p. 151.
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  THE HOUSE AND LIFE-STYLES 
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  ing a special part of the room for guests or the master. Usually guests
  or those of high status were seated in front of the focal point of the
  room, the tokonoma or other decoration, facing the others and with
  their backs to the art objects displayed.
  A samurai house can be divided into three basic uses of space:
  formal, family, and service. Typically, the largest percentage of space
  in the building was devoted to the formal area which had larger rooms
  than did the rest of the house and a separate formal entryway and
  entry hall, which were not used by family, tradesmen, or callers of low
  status. The family rooms were usually in an inner section, and the
  master's private room had the same decorative elements - tokonoma,
  fixed writing table, and the like - as the formal reception rooms. The
  third area can aptly be termed the "service area" because this was
  where the work of the house was carried out. A large doma would
  adjoin a wooden-floored kitchen, storage areas, and maids' rooms. In
  former times the formal, family, and service areas were housed in
  separate buildings, but by the Tokugawa period they all were part of
  the same structure.
  Even in the tiny apartments of the lowest-echelon samurai, the same
  division of space can be seen, although clearly the living space was so
  small that most areas had to serve dual functions. But there was always
  a work space {doma) and usually a wooden-floored area, as well as a
  main room designed to receive guests and a second, smaller, tatami
  room for sleeping and storage. This type of housing became the pre-
  dominant pattern for all classes in Japan in the nineteenth century and
  was the model for Japanese dwellings until the last few decades, with
  clear divisions among service areas, family living quarters, and sepa-
  rate reception areas for guests.
  Farmhouses looked very different from samurai residences from the
  outside, but even in the seventeenth century, the houses built by well-
  to-do farmers had floor plans indicating uses similar to those of the
  samurai. Gradually other features of samurai housing were adopted as
  well. The biggest and most frequently used entrance was through the
  doma. Though headmen often put in formal entries for their reception
  rooms, many farmhouses that had formal guest rooms had access to
  them only through the doma and family rooms. Styles of farmhouses
  were so varied that it is impossible to depict a representative model.
  Those who could afford three- or four-room houses - and the number
  increased during the Tokugawa period - typically had one or two
  rooms used by the family, usually with a wooden or bamboo floor with
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  an open hearth in one of them, an inner room used for sleeping and
  storage, and a room for guests. These rooms were, of course, in addi-
  tion to the doma.
  Scholars of Japanese architecture and aesthetics have made much of
  the point that there is not as clear a demarcation between inside and
  outside in traditional Japanese housing as there is in Western houses.
  One reason is that sliding doors often fill an entire wall, and when the
  doors are open, the garden seems to become part of the room. An even
  more important reason is the tradition of building engawa onto rooms.
  These long, narrow wooden passageways are built either as walkways
  between the main rooms and the outside of the house or as shelflike
  projections onto the outside of the house at floor level. In either case,
  when the storm doors and inner sliding doors are opened up, the
  engawa become extensions of the rooms inside. On sunny days, occu-
  pants can move to the engawa to chat or work. On the other hand,
  persons in the garden can rest a few moments by sitting on the edge of
  the engawa. Informal calls can even be made without entering the
  house, for a visitor can sit on the edge of the engawa and chat with a
  family member sitting inside. In modern times the engawa can accom-
  modate chairs and a small table.
  Despite this seeming tradition of blurring the distinction between
  inside and outside, Japanese in fact make as clear distinctions as West-
  erners do. One is that any part of a Japanese house that can be closed off
  from the outside, including the doma, is part of the house, even though
  footgear is worn in this area. But outer footgear is removed when enter-
  ing any section of the house covered by flooring or mats. A social equal
  or superior, for example, would enter a house through the formal en-
  trance if there was one. But a neighbor, friend, or social inferior faced a
  two-stage process when entering a house. First he would make his
  presence known at the entry to the doma, and if the visit was to take
  some time or involve the serving of food, he would next be invited to
  come up to the living quarters (two or three feet above ground level),
  whereupon he would remove his footgear. In informal situations, a
  guest could sit casually on the edge of the raised floor of the living
  quarters with his feet on the doma, or he could stand in the doma.
  A major reason that the engawa becomes an extension of the house is
  because so little furniture is used in traditional housing. Decoration is
  largely built into the structure itself, and thus support posts are chosen
  for aesthetic as well as practical reasons. The shelves and space to hold
  ornaments are built into the room itself in the form of the tokonoma
  and chigaidana. Walls are not hung with heavy paintings, nor are large
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  THE HOUSE AND LIFE-STYLES 
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  pieces of furniture like dining tables and sofas used, as in the West.
  The Japanese elite ate from individual tray tables while sitting on
  cushions on the floor, and thus virtually the only furniture necessary
  were chests for storing clothing, bedding, and other household goods.
  The poor, as in any country, had few possessions and often ate sitting
  around the fire on which their pot of food cooked.
  Because they used tatami, the Japanese needed neither chairs nor
  beds. The well-to-do slept on either tatami or the rush matting that
  was its forerunner, covering themselves with their outer garments for
  warmth. The rich used silk for their quilts; the rest of the population
  used anything available. Paper bedding was common; heavy paper
  made of mulberry bark, hemp, or other fibers was used as a quilt cover
  stuffed with straw. But many people simply slept in or under their
  clothing. There is even the record of a samurai who did not have
  bedding made for several years but instead slept under his garments.
  The Japanese began to use quilts stuffed with cotton batting only
  during the Tokugawa period, but it is difficult to trace the history of
  futon, as these were called, because the Japanese wrote little about the
  commonplace and private aspects of their lives. We do know that these
  quilts gradually evolved from clothing. Ieyasu was said to have used an
  early version, and there is increasing mention of cotton quilted bed-
  ding from the 1620s on. The term futon originally referred only to the
  quilt spread on the floor for sleeping. In eastern Japan, the top quilt
  clearly evolved from the kimono, and even nineteenth- and twentieth-
  century examples can be found that are roughly the shape of a kimono
  with a neck and sleeves. The neck was covered with a cloth collar that
  could be removed for washing, as this was the only part of the covering
  that would come into contact with the sleeper's face.
  It is probable that most people slept with little or no bedding during
  the Tokugawa period. Although it would have been cold, it is conceiv-
  able for people in western Japan to have used little or no bedding. In
  colder regions in the north, people slept near the fire. When and
  where it was really cold, they used bedding made from whatever mate-
  rials were at hand. A traveler to Akita in 1789 noted that people dried
  seaweed and wove it into quilts. Hemp was also used, and even straw.
  An 1835 document from the Toyama-Niigata area reports that people
  in Akiyama just slept in their clothing, even through most of the
  winter, but when it was really cold, they slept in straw bags, one
  couple to a bag.13
  13 Ogawa Koyo, Shinjo to shingu no rekishi (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1973), p. 171.
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  The poorest people slept in a corner of their one-room earthen-
  floored cottage, but those who had the space, sectioned off a portion of
  floor, dividing it from the work space by a wooden sill. They filled the
  sleeping space with hulls or straw and spread straw mats on top for
  sleeping and sitting. People who could afford floors used the inner-
  most corner - the farthest from the entrance to the doma - as the
  sleeping room (nando). This room had walls on three sides and was
  entered through a door from the living room, and hence it was dimly
  lit at best. Usually there was a sill at this door to keep the straw and
  hulls spread out on the floor from spilling into the next room. During
  the Tokugawa period, as tatami were gradually installed in sleeping
  areas, this door lost its function and was often eliminated from new
  houses.
  For the well-to-do in the Tokugawa period, samurai and commoner
  alike, ostentation seems to have been more important than comfort in
  designing housing. The Japanese make much of the point that their
  houses are built for summer rather than winter and how open they are
  to gardens. But in fact, the Japanese shut up their houses at night with
  sliding wooden doors, even during the heat of the summer, and some
  of the inner rooms in the largest and most extravagant buildings were
  dark and gloomy inside because light could not penetrate them. In
  contrast with the light and airy housing that came into fashion among
  those with money, the huts of the poor and even the ordinary farm-
  houses of early Tokugawa had no windows save a few barred spaces for
  light and air, and thus the dwellings would have been cold and smoky
  in winter and hot and stuffy in summer. The sleeping room was often
  six by nine feet or even smaller, and as it was enclosed it would have
  been a dark, dank place. Although the addition of bedding added
  warmth, it was also likely to attract bugs, and when cotton was used,
  the bedding would have become damp as well. The small, unventi-
  lated construction of these sleeping rooms attests to the use of body
  warmth for heating purposes.
  Most farmhouses did not have ceilings, and though this allowed the
  smoke to escape through a hole in the roof made for ventilation, it also
  meant that the heat, too, went into the rafters. The only means of
  heating houses, samurai and commoner alike, were the open hearths,
  and for those who could afford them, hibachi (charcoal braziers). By
  the latter half of the Tokugawa period, fuel was hard to come by, and
  so in central and western Japan many people in the cities and the
  poorer in the countryside went without heat altogether. The lack of
  sufficient fuel may be one reason for the development of raised floor-
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  THE HOUSE AND LIFE-STYLES 
  679
  ing in Japanese houses. The introduction of floors of raised bamboo
  slats meant that people no longer had to sit or sleep near the cold,
  damp ground. Moreover, such flooring would be cool in the summer.
  One of the factors in the development of the Japanese bath must
  certainly have been the need to warm the body in winter.14 Their
  primary purpose was, of course, to cleanse the body. The original bath
  was a type of steam bath that used little water but produced a sweat
  that was intended to open the pores and rid the body of dirt. After
  leaving the steam bath, bathers would pour water over their bodies to
  rinse off the dirt. Baths for the well-to-do, and the first public baths in
  the early Tokugawa period, were steam rooms that could be enjoyed
  by a number of people simultaneously. The less elaborate, individual
  bath that commoners could afford was the forerunner of the modern
  Japanese bathtub, but until the early part of the twentieth century,
  these too were more commonly steam baths, rather than tubs of hot
  water. The bather would enter through a small door in the side of the
  bath, shut the door, and cover the bath with a woven straw lid. In the
  Tokugawa period, the Japanese distinguished between furo, the pres-
  ent term for baththub, which referred to the steam bath, and oyu,
  which means hot water and referred to actually getting into a tub full
  of hot water.15
  It is difficult to determine how prevalent bathing was in the seven-
  teenth and eighteenth centuries. The public bath in Japan is consid-
  ered to date from the construction of Edo in the late sixteenth cen-
  tury. Public baths in urban areas during the Tokugawa period enjoyed
  the same sort of reputation that Roman baths did; they combined
  hygienic functions with socializing. Various styles of bathtub are ex-
  tant from diverse regions in Japan, and many can be found in the
  surviving farmhouses, but precisely when these were built and what
  percentage of the population used them are completely unknown.
  European visitors to Japan from the sixteenth century on were so
  impressed by the cleanliness of the Japanese that the standards must
  surely have been higher in Japan than in the West, but certainly the
  standards of cleanliness in both parts of the world were lower than
  they are today.
  In the farmhouse the bath was in a corner of the doma. Also located
  14 Although the Chinese and Koreans developed methods of heating houses, mainly heating the
  floors from below, the Japanese did not. Despite all the elements of material culture the
  Japanese adopted from the continent, they did not borrow the concept of central heating.
  Instead, they developed a system of bathing that thoroughly heated the entire body.
  15 Shiraki Kosaburo, Sumai no rekishi (Osaka: Sogensha, 1978), pp. 54-5.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  in the doma were the well, if inside the house, the hearth, and later the
  stove (katnado). The cooking, cleaning up, and quick meals or snacks
  all took place in the doma, as did various types of farm work, especially
  in inclement weather. At least in southern Japan, activities related to
  food preparation were undertaken in a separate building, but the typi-
  cal Tokugawa pattern was for all household activities to take place in
  the same structure. Over time, some of these activities moved to the
  family room next to the doma, which usually had an open hearth and
  wooden flooring. This family room became the location for relaxed
  family meals and food preparation, and it later held the sink. There
  was thus a gradual shift toward using a raised, wooden-floored room
  for household tasks, which culminated in the modern houses in which
  the earthen-floored area is nothing more than a few square feet of
  space immediately inside the back door.
  FOOD, NUTRITION, AND OTHER DIETARY FACTORS
  For some two thousand years, rice has been the preferred staple of the
  Japanese diet, but how much of it was consumed by whom in any
  given period is undergoing intense debate. Rice was first introduced
  into the Japanese islands in prehistoric times. By the Tokugawa period
  it was the staple of the elites and well-to-do and also was consumed to
  some extent by most commoners. It was also the unit by which daimyo
  domains were valued, samurai stipends were calculated, and taxes
  were assessed. Because rice occupied such a dominant place in the
  Japanese economy and diet, it may seem puzzling that there is so much
  debate on who consumed how much rice during the Tokugawa period.
  First, it is clear that rice was only one of many grains consumed
  during the Tokugawa period and earlier. The government recognized
  that rice was a luxury food, and in a famous ordinance the bakufu in
  1649 exhorted peasants not to give rice to their families at harvest
  time. Instead they were to eat vegetables, millet, and other coarse
  grains. They were also not to buy sake, a wine made from rice.16 Even
  after the economic prosperity of the late seventeenth century, not
  everyone was eating rice. Frequently quoted is the report from the
  Kyoho period (1716-36) stating that farmers living in the flatlands
  where rice was grown regularly ate rice in the form of gruel (zosui), but
  16 Keian nofuregaki, described in Watanabe Minoru, Nihon shoku seikatsu shi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
  kobunkan, 1964), p. 244.
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  FOOD AND NUTRITION 
  68l
  those in the mountainous regions who had to purchase it could afford
  to eat it only on the first three days of the New Year.17
  Unfortunately, nearly all scholars who touch on the subject of diet in
  the Tokugawa period cite little more than these two sources, and most
  are doing so in order to support the position that commoners lived
  badly in premodern Japan. Other scholars, who must rely on late-
  ninteenth-century figures if they are to use any data at all, probably
  overestimate the amount of rice consumed. In all probability, during
  the Tokugawa period the consumption of rice steadily increased, but
  most of the population ate many other staple foods as well.
  The argument for the widespread consumption of rice comes from
  both the beginning and the end of the period.18 If rice had not been the
  staple by an overwhelming proportion in the early seventeenth cen-
  tury, it would not have made sense to have an economy in which rice
  was the basis for calculating salaries, taxes, and land values. More than
  two and a half centuries later, in 1874, rice comprised 63 percent of the
  value of all farm products. One of the few estimates we have on output
  and food consumption for any part of the Tokugawa period is for
  Choshu in western Honshu for 1840.19 An estimate based on output
  and population places the average daily consumption of rice in 1840 at
  53 percent of the grains consumed.
  It would be unusual to find any premodern society that depended on
  one grain crop for its staple; not only would it make poor use of human
  and natural resources, but it also would be dangerous, for a crop
  failure would cause widespread starvation. The Japanese, like most
  peoples, relied on a number of staple foods. The preferred grains were
  rice, barley, and wheat, but a number of others were consumed as
  well. The oldest cultivated grains in Japan were two kinds of millet
  (awa and kibi) and deccan grass (hie). By the Tokugawa period the
  Japanese also ate buckwheat (soba) and sorghum (Indian millet, called
  morokoshi). From prehistoric times, nuts, roots, and various tubers
  have been part of the Japanese diet. But rice, introduced into Japan
  some two thousand years ago, is the preferred staple, and other grains
  have been considered merely substitutions, supplementary foods, or
  foods to be eaten in times of famine.
  17 Tanaka Kyugu in Minkan seiyo, cited in Kito Hiroshi, "Edo jidai no beishoku," Rekisht koron
  89 (April 1983): 43. Tanaka, first a local and then a bakufu administrator, published Minkan
  seiyo in 1721. An astute observer and an expert on conditions in the Kanto region, he is
  widely cited because of his insight and detail.
  18 The best article on this subject is Kito, "Edo jidai no beishoku," pp. 43-9.
  19 Shunsaku Nishikawa, "Grain Consumption: The Case of Choshu," in Jansen and Roztnan,
  eds., Japan in Transition. See Table 16.4, p. 435.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  The most important new food crop was the potato which arrived in
  both Asia and Europe from South America in the sixteenth century.
  The sweet potato is thought to have been introduced to Japan in 1605,
  and the white potato at about the same time. The reaction of the
  Japanese was the same as the Europeans: to grow potatoes for the
  pretty flowers and then to use the tubers for horse fodder. But by the
  second quarter of the seventeenth century, people in western Japan
  had begun to eat them. White potatoes became valued as a versatile
  food but were also used in the production of sake, miso (bean paste),
  and soy sauce. However, it is the sweet potato that is credited with
  reducing the death rate from famine in Japan. In 1732, locusts caused
  a major crop failure in Kyushu, but the death rate was low in both
  Satsuma and Nagasaki because people were not relying entirely on
  grain; now they had sweet potatoes to fall back on. Sweet potatoes
  could be grown upland, in contrast with rice, and they produced more
  calories per acre than did almost any other crop. Sweet potatoes may
  well have been an important factor in maintaining a dense population
  in Japan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and also in explain-
  ing why the population of western Japan grew faster than did that of
  the rest of the country.20
  The Japanese also relied on a wide variety of beans, greens, and
  other vegetables, in addition to wild plants, mushrooms, bamboo,
  and the like. Included in what would have to be a very long list of
  Tokugawa foods were white radishes, green onions, soybeans, mel-
  ons, turnips, ginger, eggplant, cucumbers, and many more that do
  not translate into English. Wild plants eaten included a variety of
  ferns, burdock roots, and, in times of famine, bark and tubers that
  would not be considered food in normal times. Fruits included per-
  simmons, peaches, plums, Japanese pears, and various kinds of cit-
  rus fruits.
  For protein, the Japanese relied primarily on plant protein plus
  protein from the sea. Meat from four-legged animals was proscribed
  by Buddhism, but those who could afford to hunt ate wild birds, and
  the outcast classes are known to have eaten animal flesh. Tofu (bean
  curd) is a good source of protein but was a luxury for many. Unless
  they lived near a source of seafood, commoners would rarely if ever
  have had fresh fish in their daily diet; dried or salted fish was more
  usual. The sea provided the Japanese with protein and also greens, as
  20 Watanabe, Nihon shoku seikatsu shi, pp. 246-9; and Adachi Ivvao, Nihon shokumotsu bunka no
  kigen (Tokyo: Jiyu kokuminsha, 1981), pp. 257-9.
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  FOOD AND NUTRITION 
  683
  seaweed was dried and used widely in a variety of ways, from adding it
  to soup, brewing it as tea, and even using it as medicine.
  Although it is possible to add to the list of foods known to have been
  eaten in Japan in any period, calculating who ate how much of what
  and in what combination is impossible. Estimates based on the amount
  of rice paddy and population - which are in themselves only very
  rough estimates - indicate that Japan was not producing sufficient rice
  to feed everyone but that probably most people in cities were eating
  rice and that most farmers were eating rice mixed with other grains.21
  In every social class from samurai down to commoners, the amount of
  rice in the diet depended on income. The amount of arable land,
  including irrigated paddy, was substantially increased in the seven-
  teenth century, and the flourishing rice market combined with the
  greater number of farmers paying their rice tax in cash instead of in
  kind from the 1660s and 1670s into the eighteenth century all tell of a
  surplus in rice for cultivators and the establishment of a rice diet.
  Just as farmers ate more rice over time, so did they eat better-milled
  and more highly polished rice. In the seventeenth century, people ate
  rice that was partially polished; it appeared whitish, but part of the
  bran remained. Late in the century, a process was developed that
  would completely remove the hull but leave the bran. White, or pol-
  ished, rice was considered the highest quality, and this tended to be
  eaten in cities. But those who could afford white rice tended to de-
  velop a vitamin B deficiency, and thus beriberi became known as the
  "Edo affliction." People who became ill while working as servants in
  Edo found that when they went back to the country, they improved,
  but it was not until the early twentieth century that the cause of this
  disease was discovered.
  In the countryside, the diet consisted of mixed grains and vegeta-
  bles. Rice was often the "glue" that held together the coarse grains,
  and it was added to create the desired consistency. Often various
  seasonal greens were added to make a kind of vegetable-grain stew.
  This type of dish might be eaten only once a day; at other meals there
  would be gruel, according to a description of the diet in Kawasaki
  along the Tokaido.22 In Musashino, on the outskirts of Edo, the diet
  from the mid-Tokugawa period on was said to consist mostly of coarse
  grains, usually a mixture of three parts millet (awa) and seven parts
  barley.
  21 See Kito, "Edo jidai no beishoku"; and Nishikawa, "Grain Consumption."
  22 Tanaka Kyugu, cited by Kimura, "Nomin seikatsu no shoso," p. 201.
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  684 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  What people ate and how they prepared it depended to a large
  extent on the utensils and technology available.23 This not only varied
  by region but also changed over the course of the Tokugawa period,
  and these changes transformed the Japanese diet. Traditionally the
  Japanese had two basic methods of cooking: One used the irori, an
  open hearth with a pot set over it on a hook suspended from the
  ceiling; and the other used the katnado, an enclosed stove with pots set
  into the top. The kamado used less fuel, but by the same token it could
  not be used for warming the family. In families depending on the irori
  for cooking, one-pot dishes were popular because the various ingredi-
  ents could be added at the appropriate times and just left to cook in the
  pot, as could gruels. Families who could afford a kamado, which usu-
  ally had more than one place for a pot, could use it to cook more
  complicated meals, including the rice or grain as a separate dish from
  the soup and vegetables.
  By the Tokugawa period, the kamado was widely used in towns and
  cities where it was difficult and expensive to obtain fuel, whereas the
  irori predominated in the cold regions of the north. In mansions and
  monasteries, a kamado was used in the doma for cooking, and a hibachi
  provided what little heat there was for at least warming the hands.
  Farmhouses of the well-to-do often had a kamado in the doma and one
  or more irori in the living rooms. The smoke from the irori could also
  be used to dry and preserve foods - and it also preserved the roof -
  but it damaged the eyes of the people gathered around the fire for light
  and heat.
  A related development was an iron ring on which to rest a pot in the
  irori so that it did not rest directly on the fire. The use of this ring
  meant that earthenware pots, instead of precious iron, could be used
  for cooking and that less heat was necessary. Charcoal, which used
  fewer resources than burning wood directly did and which could be
  more readily transported, was sufficient for this new method of cook-
  ing. By the late Tokugawa period, the methods that used less fuel and
  iron were increasingly popular, particularly in urban areas.
  The present method of steaming polished rice is a relatively new
  technique. The method gradually developed from the mid-Tokugawa
  period but was perfected and became widespread only a century ago.
  Originally two methods were used. One was the same as the present
  method, in which exactly the right amount of water is used from the
  23 For good descriptions of cooking utensils and methods, see Ekuan Kenji, Daidokoro dogu no
  rekishi (Tokyo: Shibata shoten, 1976).
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  FOOD AND NUTRITION 
  685
  start and the rice is steamed until the liquid is completely absorbed.
  The second was to start with more water than was needed. The excess
  was removed during the cooking process, and then the rice was left to
  steam. The first method is the more difficult because the temperature
  must be gauged precisely; the rice must be cooked at a high tempera-
  ture at first; and after the midpoint, the heat must be lowered but the
  top not opened until the cooking is completed and the rice has sat for
  some time. The rice can easily be burned and ruined, and thus consid-
  erable cooking skill was needed to prepare rice using this method, in
  contrast with boiling it in a pot on the iron. Clearly only the elite and
  well-to-do had the resources, time, and skill to prepare rice using this
  method, but the growth of its popularity over time clearly attests to a
  rise in the standard of living.
  The development of Japanese cuisine accompanied these changes in
  rice preparation methods from the mid-Tokugawa period on. As cities
  grew, the first restaurants began to appear. By the late Tokugawa
  period numerous cookbooks had been written and circulated, and the
  chefs for the rich were even experimenting with exotic new spices,
  such as cinnamon, that were introduced to Japan in the early nine-
  teenth century. Clearly, many Japanese had reached a level of culture
  and income at which they could afford a varied diet and wished to
  experiment with food.
  The main seasoning for most Japanese was miso, a paste based on
  soybeans. Although this was commercially produced during the Toku-
  gawa period, most families made their own, usually once a year, in
  February or March. This seasoning was used daily in soup and could
  be used to flavor vegetables or fish. Soy sauce was also available but
  was seldom used. It was hard to make, and the quality varied consider-
  ably. Thus it was only an upper-class seasoning. It was not until the
  last century that the quality of soy sauce was perfected to the point
  that it could be used without cooking. As in every other premodern
  society, salt was both a seasoning and a preservative. Mountain villag-
  ers seldom saw fish that had not been dried and salted, and any green
  vegetables eaten in the long winter months were in the form of pickles.
  To summarize, the center of the Edo period diet was staple grains.
  The word for cooked rice is the same word for meal in Japanese:
  gohan. Everything else was considered a side dish (okazu). Most fami-
  lies ate miso soup and pickles at meals at which the main dish was not a
  gruel or grain-based stew. At ceremonial occasions, bean curd and
  salted fish were served, and when the technique was known, steamed
  white rice with red beans cooked in it was a special treat.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  From the evidence available, it is possible to argue either that the
  Japanese had a very poor and boring diet in the Tokugawa period or
  that the diet was rich and varied. Even samurai families were often
  restricted to a daily diet of coarse grains or rice and other grains with a
  side dish of fish or something special for the master but only soup,
  pickles, and possibly boiled vegetables for the rest of the family and
  the servants. Accounts can be found of mountain villages in which
  virtually no rice was eaten because none was grown and the villagers
  were too poor to buy it. Oral histories tend toward this picture of daily
  life in the late nineteenth century, but diets reconstructed from mem-
  ory are notoriously unreliable.
  On the other hand, there are numerous accounts of meals at inns,
  feasts on special occasions, and the delicacies given to the elite and
  wealthy that lead to the conclusion that the diet for at least some was at
  the gourmet level. For instance, in Yonezawa in the mid-Tokugawa
  period, a group of men who formed the governing body of a village
  held a meeting after the fall harvest at which they ate the following
  foods: salted salmon, tuna, bean curd, dried bonito, squid, herring
  roe, and dried herring - all purchased in a nearby town - eggs, dried
  nameko (a kind of mushroom), sea bream, fried bean curd, ayu
  (sweetfish), horseradish, and the list goes on.24 Clearly many of the
  items were not part of the daily diet, and certainly not in this combina-
  tion, but they all were available, and farmers had the income to pur-
  chase them for special occasions. Sugar was a luxury item and pur-
  chased only in small quantities, but it is significant that even people in
  the northern, poorer sections of the country could buy it and did by
  the mid- to late Tokugawa.
  Sake, rice wine, was the most popular drink and was produced all
  over the country. The best was Nada sake, made in Settsu (just west of
  the modern Kobe), and this was shipped to Edo from Osaka in such
  quantity that special ships were developed for this purpose. Farmers
  produced in their own homes a "home brew," an unrefined version of
  sake. Sake was in such demand that when regulations ordered a reduc-
  tion in sake production in times of famine, many disobeyed. This is a
  clear indication that by the Tokugawa period not everyone suffered in
  times of crop failure.
  At least two attempts have been made to ascertain the nutritional
  level during this period. This is an overwhelming task, given the lack
  of information to determine even what the typical diet was. The most
  24 Kimura, "Nomin seikatsu no shoso," p. 204.
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  FOOD AND NUTRITION 
  687
  successful efforts so far are based on data from the mid-nineteenth
  century. This evidence, though scattered, seems to indicate that nutri-
  tion probably improved over time, and so the quantitative studies
  would represent the highest levels that nutrition probably reached
  during the Tokugawa period. The most ambitious studies are for the
  Hida area of Gifu and for the domain of Choshu in western Honshu.
  The data for Hida are for 1874 and include the amounts of 168
  foodstuffs produced and the amount of food imported and exported
  from the area.25 By dividing the total amount of food retained in the
  region by the total population and by 365 days, one can obtain a rough
  estimate of the nutrition available to the "average" person in 1874.
  The results of the study of Hida indicate a heavy dependency on rice
  and millet, which led to a deficiency of certain essential vitamins and
  minerals, notably vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron. The diet was
  somewhat lacking in protein and very high in salt content. This evalua-
  tion is borne out by the leading causes of death as analyzed from the
  records of a local temple. Among the major causes were childbirth
  complications (in which calcium deficiencies can play a part), cerebral
  hemorrhage (connected to a high salt intake), and epidemics (whose
  incidence is worsened by a low level of nutrition). The Hida estimates
  are for a mountainous area, and the authors of the study admit that
  some items known to have been consumed were not included in the
  survey, such as sweets, eggs, seaweed, some kinds of mushrooms, and
  certainly wild greens that individuals could gather from the mountain-
  side. These would never be included in the figures on output, but they
  may have contributed to raising somewhat the vitamin content of the
  diet. From the data available for Hida, the average daily caloric intake
  has been estimated at roughly 1,850 calories.
  The Hida estimate can be considered at the same nutritional level as
  Choshu's diet, which in the 1840s contained an average per-capita
  intake of 1,664 calories from staple foods, including rice, barley,
  wheat, millet, buckwheat, soybeans, red beans, and sweet potatoes.26
  This does not include fish, seaweed, vegetables, fruit, or sweets. Even
  though fish and vegetables were a minor part of the diet, they would
  almost certainly have added a couple hundred calories per day and
  been significant in balancing the diet. By the 1890s, the Japanese in
  25 The implications of this study with regard to the diet for the people in this area can be found
  in Fujino Yoshiko, "Meiji shoki ni okeru sanson no shokuji to eiyo: 'Hida go-fudoki' no
  bunseki o tsujite," Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubuisukan kenkyu hokoku 7 (September 1982):
  632-54-
  26 Nishikawa, "Grain Consumption," pp. 435-6.
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  688 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  this region obtained on the average i ,902 calories from the staples, just
  above the Hida estimate for a decade earlier. What is significant about
  both the estimates is that the number of calories would probably have
  been sufficient for the body stature of the time, given that the army
  recruits in the last two decades of the nineteenth century had an
  average height of 156.5 centimeters, or 5 feet 1.5 inches.27 Also, the
  very young and the elderly would have consumed less, leaving more
  calories for the adult males.
  Many members of the samurai class and well-off commoners in the
  prospering flatlands of Japan almost certainly had a better diet than
  the average diet in either Hida or Choshu. One lower official in the
  bakufu, who was something of a gourmand, kept a travel diary in 1856
  that listed the menus of the inns he stayed in while making an official
  tour to the north of Edo.28 Based on these menus, the diet of travelers
  would have been adequate, with the possible exception of vitamin A.
  But because sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and squash, plus numerous
  greens, were eaten in the home, many would have had a well-balanced
  diet.
  It would be difficult to argue, of course, on the basis of fragments of
  evidence that the Japanese as a people were well nourished or that they
  were better nourished than the Europeans were during the seven-
  teenth and eighteenth centuries. However, the rapid growth of the
  Japanese population during the seventeenth century and the relatively
  few famines and deadly epidemics reported during these centuries
  corroborate the conclusion that the Japanese must have been fairly
  well fed. By 1700, Japan not only contained three of the world's largest
  cities but was over 10 percent urbanized by conservative estimate. It
  was also one of the most densely populated countries in terms of the
  man-land ratio. Yet two major crop failures of multiple-year duration
  (in the 1730s and 1780s) plus other poor harvest years did not decrease
  the population of this already-crowded country. The Japanese had
  sufficient surplus in normal or good years so that food could be stored.
  A single year of poor harvest thus could be weathered without the loss
  of life recorded for earlier centuries.
  The new foods introduced during the late medieval period, rises in
  agricultural productivity during the Tokugawa period, improvements
  27 The heights of military recruits from the Meiji period on can be found in the Nihon teikoku
  tokei nenkan of the Naikaku tokei kyoku. These are cited in Carl Mosk, "Fecundity, Infanti-
  cide, and Food Consumption in Japan," Explorations in Economic History 15 (July 1978): 279.
  28 Hayami Akira, "Bakumatsu-ki 'Kemi nikki' ni mini tabiyado no shokuji," Rekishi koron 73
  (December 1981): 80-87.
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  CLOTHING 
  689
  in transportation, and a more varied diet for much of the population
  during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries not only meant a
  lower incidence of disease and less fear of starvation but also an in-
  crease in longevity for many Japanese.
  CLOTHING
  Clothing in any society is a reflection of the standard of living and the
  quality of life, as well as the structure of society. The Tokugawa period
  saw a distinct rise in the quality of life, owing to the introduction of a
  new fiber for cloth. In addition, changes in clothing styles resulted
  from both the occupational class structure and the new distinctions in
  wealth. The most striking development was the introduction of cotton
  in the late Sengoku period, which transformed clothing and bedding
  for commoners and samurai alike over the next two hundred years.
  The introduction of cotton was so unspectacular that it has almost
  been ignored by historians. It was first imported from the continent,
  mostly Korea, by the Sengoku daimyo, who were interested in it for
  three reasons: for sails, for fuses for the newly introduced firearms,
  and for uniforms. Canvas was more durable than straw for sails and
  more resistant to weather; cotton fuses were more reliable than those
  made of cypress bark or bamboo; and cotton uniforms were more
  durable than paper, warmer than hemp, and wore and looked better in
  battle. The Japanese had known of the superiority of cotton to other
  fabrics from the fifteenth century, but it took about a century and the
  military needs of the civil wars leading to unification before the Japa-
  nese managed to grow it for themselves.
  In the seventeenth century, when the Japanese learned how to grow
  their own cotton, it came to be the preferred material for clothing for
  commoners. Because it was superior to hemp, it gradually replaced the
  coarser fiber for all who could afford it. Its popularity is indicated by the
  fact that in Osaka in 1736 the value of all cotton products far exceeded
  the value of rice traded in this major transshipment center.29 It may well
  have had the same kind of impact on the Japanese population that it had
  in the West, in terms of making life more comfortable and more
  hygienic - possibly even helping lower mortality, thereby being a factor
  in the rapid population growth of the seventeenth century.
  Silk remained the preferred material for the rich as it had been for
  over a millennium. Though fashions varied widely over time, women's
  29 Kimura, "Nomin seikatsu no shoso," p. 200.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  formal dress from the eighth century on and men's formal wear from
  about the twelfth were versions of the kimono. The basic garment was
  made of straight pieces of cloth, rectangular in shape and with rectan-
  gular sleeves. To hold the garment on, the left front panel was closed
  over the right one and some kind of belt or sash was wrapped around
  the waist. In earlier periods, court dress and even the everyday dress
  of the aristocrats was often extremely impractical, with the length of
  the garment several feet longer than the person wearing it, so that
  walking was next to impossible. By the Tokugawa period, even formal
  dress was simplified so that the longest garments were floor length or
  shorter. Social distinctions were made by style, type of material, and
  impractical fashions such as very long sleeves that would preclude any
  kind of manual work for wealthy young women. Little jewelry was
  worn other than hair ornaments; instead brocade, richly dyed materi-
  als, and gold and silver embroidery were used by the wealthy.
  By the seventeenth century, the basic garment for formal and casual
  wear of all classes was the kosode, which fits the description of what
  Westerners envision when the word kimono is used. The kosode was so
  widely adopted that by the eighteenth century, people were calling it
  kimono, which literally means clothing. Originally an undergarment,
  the kosode became the article of clothing worn immediately under
  outerwear, such as rain gear or the formal outer garments worn for
  public ceremonies. Until the seventeenth century, a sash tied above the
  hips held the clothing together - no buttons, ties, or hooks were used.
  But in the Tokugawa period, women started using a wide, stiff band,
  called an obi, that encircled them from under the breasts to the top of
  the hips, giving them a rather tubular look. As cotton became widely
  used, both men and women added cotton underwear and men usually
  wore a loincloth. A Japanese of any period could tell the status,
  wealth, and age of any other Japanese merely by looking at his or her
  clothing, but the basic pattern of the kosode changed little over time.30
  All kimono for adults are made even today from one long, rectangu-
  lar length of cloth that is cut into eight pieces. The pattern and length
  of the bolt of cloth is the same for every adult. Because the pieces are
  cut in straight lines, there is no waste. Adjustments for variations in
  size are made by tucking up the kimono under the sash. Kimono are
  sewn together with basting stitches. Thus the thread can be removed
  and the garment taken apart when it is washed.
  30 For illustrations and fuller explanations of what people wore, see the entry "clothing" in the
  Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), pp. 329-33.
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  CLOTHING 
  69I
  This type of clothing was extremely economical in a premodern
  society in which clothing was expensive. No material was wasted in the
  cutting and sewing, and the standard kimono size meant that fabric
  could be produced in standard lengths. Clothing could be passed from
  one person to another without alteration, as the garments were one-
  size-fits-all. And when a garment was taken apart for laundering, it
  could be refurbished by bleaching and redyeing if necessary. Chil-
  dren's clothing was made in the same way, with huge tucks taken at
  the shoulders and the waistline which could be let out as the child
  grew. Finally, when a garment was too old to be worn any longer, it
  would be taken apart one last time and the material cut up for diapers,
  rags, and other household items. Clearly, Japanese clothing was de-
  signed for making maximum use of scarce resources. Even for the rich
  who wore elaborately woven and dyed materials, the standardization
  meant minimum waste.
  Footgear was also standardized. The poor wore sandals of straw
  called waraji which could be woven very quickly and cheaply. Waraji
  were also the basic footgear for travelers. Wooden clogs (geta) of vary-
  ing heights were useful in the mud and rain but were difficult to wear
  when walking long distances. For dress the Japanese wore zori, a kind
  of thonged sandal. The only form of stocking worn was a short sock
  (tabi) with a mittenlike separation for the big toe so that it could fit
  into both sandals and geta. All footgear could be easily slipped on and
  off, as they had to be removed before entering any building with
  floors.
  None of the clothing described was very useful for working in the
  fields or at heavy manual labor in the towns. One of the most detailed
  descriptions of village life dates from 1857 but portrays the conditions
  prevailing from the mid-Tokugawa period on.31 In a village in Tosa in
  southern Shikoku, the daily working garb for both men and women
  was a type of pants said to have been derived from the Portuguese
  outfits of the sixteenth century, over which was worn a short type of
  jacket. Over this might be worn a protective bib and an apron, and
  some workers wore fingerless gloves. In summer the outfit was much
  abbreviated; often only a brief undergarment and an apron were worn,
  plus a sun visor or hat to protect the head and face from the sun. The
  hachimaki - a towel tied around the forehead to catch sweat - was
  popular as well. The official who wrote about the Tosa village was
  much impressed by the diligence of the people, but not with their
  31 Kimura, "Nomin seikatsu no shosho," p. 199.
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  692 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  sense of cleanliness or etiquette. He also commented that most slept in
  their working clothes directly on the floor.
  The Japanese did not have the sense of shame regarding their bodies
  that Westerners were taught. Because clothing was expensive, many
  people worked nearly naked during the summer, and women doing
  manual labor often stripped to the waist, particularly middle-aged and
  older women. Those with social pretensions would not have appeared
  in anything less than full dress, and neither would farmers on a formal
  occasion, but being caught naked was not something to worry the
  ordinary person. Houses had little privacy, and people were brought
  up to ignore anyone not in proper dress.
  Although the well-to-do Japanese did not wear jewelry in the form
  of bracelets, brooches, or earrings, women often wore elaborate
  hairstyles and hair ornaments. In fact, these were so elaborate that
  hairdressers were called in once or twice a week to create the styles. In
  order not to displace the hair, women began to sleep on neck rests that
  supported only the base of the head and so kept the hairdo from
  mussing. This meant that women had to sleep on their backs and train
  themselves not to roll over in their sleep. Men, too, wore fairly elabo-
  rate though more practical styles, the most conspicuous being that of
  the chommage which was originally a samurai style. The head was
  shaved on the top, but the rest of the hair was allowed to grow long
  and was pulled into a topknot that was either folded forward onto the
  top of the shaven head or tied so that it stuck out from the back of the
  head like a stiff pony tail. The hairstyles clearly varied by class and
  status, so that one could tell at a glance the person's age, social status,
  and wealth and, for women, marital status as well.
  Many women also wore elaborate makeup. The customs that of-
  fended the taste of Westerners were women's shaving their eyebrows
  and blackening their teeth with a mixture made of iron shavings and
  an adhesive. Women also wore face powder and rouge, according to
  social status. The geisha and prostitutes were distinguished from other
  women not only by their dress but also by their makeup, both of
  which were in the extreme of fashion. Farm women, on the other
  hand, had neither the time nor the money for makeup or elaborate
  hairstyles.
  Although one would expect to find that dress varied by class and
  income in a highly stratified society, what is remarkable for Tokugawa
  Japan is how similar the basic cut of the clothing was for each class.
  Samurai clothing, even for the most formal occasions, was a much
  simplified version of that worn in earlier periods, and much more
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  693
  practical. At the same time, commoners gradually became better off
  and started wearing simplified versions of the same basic style. The
  daily wear of men of both the samurai and merchant classes was
  remarkably similar in basic style. And though one could determine the
  status of women from their clothing, again the basic pattern was simi-
  lar for all. Thus, during this period when many historians emphasize
  class distinctions, dress in fact was gradually being standardized and
  class differences minimized.32
  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES IN THE MATERIAL CULTURE
  AND LIFE-STYLES
  Because the institutional structure remained much the same from the
  early seventeenth until the mid-nineteenth century, the Tokugawa pe-
  riod is usually viewed as a time when the Japanese life-style underwent
  little if any change. But recent studies of the material culture, particu-
  larly in relation to economic, demographic, and social conditions,
  reveal much about change in the standard of living and the quality of
  life, as well as in the relationships among the social classes and in their
  lifestyles.
  Two of the most important influences on all aspects of life in the
  Tokugawa period were Japan's large population combined with a rela-
  tive scarcity of resources. The Japanese therefore made a virtue of
  necessity and created a material culture that focused on the simple -
  on one or a few rather than on the many. The result was an almost total
  elimination of waste. The unifiers and especially the early shoguns
  patronized luxurious art and architectural styles, but even in the early
  seventeenth century they continued to follow an earlier tradition of
  simplicity. Katsura Detached Palace near Kyoto is a prime example of
  this merging of traditions.
  One can find simplicity and economy in the material culture of all
  classes. Houses, by Western standards, were almost without furniture.
  The decorative focus of the main room was an alcove in which were
  usually displayed only two objects: a ceramic vase and a hanging
  scroll. The rich owned many objects of an, but these were stored and
  brought out to be appreciated only one at a time. Japanese flower
  32 Mon, the crests adopted by families as emblems, differed from the European coats of arms, in
  that although they originated as warrior insignia, they also functioned as design and their use
  was never monopolized by the ruling elites. All daimyo and samurai had family crests, but
  crests also served as commercial trademarks, even those designs associated with the ruling
  families.
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  694 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  arrangements were elaborate, but they were created from what are
  actually only a few flowers plus leaves, branches, and materials that
  would be thrown out in the West.
  The scarcity of resources affected housing, the diet, and daily life,
  as well as aesthetic traditions. Houses and their furnishings were made
  from what was available, not just wood, but often bamboo, rush, and,
  for the poor, even straw and husks. Even clay for pottery was often
  unobtainable, given Japan's volcanic soils. Metals were used only
  when there was no substitute; one can even find wooden knives from
  the Tokugawa period. The well-to-do Japanese built their houses for
  summer and chose to ignore when possible the winter cold. When they
  did use heat, it was efficiently to heat bodies rather than entire rooms.
  The Japanese ate almost every kind of plant and seafood. Many of
  the foods appreciated for their delicate flavor and eaten in small quanti-
  ties are not considered edible in Europe and in fact have little or no
  nutritional value. The sea was especially important as a source of
  foodstuffs. Not only was it readily accessible from many parts of Ja-
  pan, but by the sixteenth century, Japan could no longer afford the
  land it took to raise livestock for food - pasture land and grain fields
  could be better used to provide food for people rather than feed for
  animals. One could argue that the Japanese were following Buddhist
  proscriptions against the eating of meat, but why did the Chinese not
  follow such strictures? As their population grew denser, the Japanese
  began to rely almost exclusively on grains, whenever possible rice,
  along with sweet potatoes for their calories.
  One can see that almost every element of the Japanese life-style
  resulted from an attempt to live well using the least amount of re-
  sources. Despite the Japanese emphasis on economy of resources, or
  perhaps because of the Japanese aversion to waste, the average stan-
  dard of living rose during the Tokugawa period. That the Japanese had
  an economic surplus during these centuries is suggested by the fact
  that the country as a whole was able to support an urban population of
  between 10 and 20 percent of the total population.
  Urban demand stimulated rural production. No one disputes that
  the economy was growing at a good pace during the seventeenth cen-
  tury, but some controversy still exists among Japanese historians as to
  whether the economy continued to grow in the eighteenth and nine-
  teenth centuries and who the beneficiaries were. Marxist scholars still
  write of burdensome taxes, harvest failures, lack of savings, and exploi-
  tation of the peasants by other classes, all of which led to famines, to
  peasants who were forced off their land when they could not pay rent
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  695
  or taxes, and to lives of poverty and hardship in the villages. But even
  historians in this school offer evidence to the contrary, even for the
  poorest regions of the northeast. They acknowledge an increase in the
  consumption of sugar (which had to be imported from western Japan)
  and fresh fish, an increase in the consumption of white rice and sake,
  and much improved clothing. Even in Morioka, in the extreme north,
  the deaths reported to the bakufu in the famine of the 1780s were
  largely fictitious; certainly such vast numbers are not to be found in
  the domain's own books.33
  Economic historians trained in modern economic theory are publish-
  ing a growing number of quantitative studies that demonstrate that the
  economy continued to grow in the eighteenth century, even if not at the
  rate of the seventeenth, and that the standard of living by the early to
  mid-nineteenth century was at Meiji levels in many respects.34 Those
  doing the quantitative studies have yet to obtain results that support the
  Marxist case. This is not to say that no one died from lack of food or as a
  result of malnutrition but, rather, that during this period the Japanese
  were not only able to support their large population - well over 25
  million by the eighteenth century - but also to improve the life of the
  average Japanese as well.
  Dramatic evidence of the improvement in the rural standard of
  living can be inferred from regulations governing goods permitted to
  be sold in the rural districts of the daimyo domain of Okayama.35 In
  order to prevent the cultivators from wasting on small luxuries any
  cash they might have, the domain first tried to place a total ban on
  rural peddlers, but this was so openly violated that by 1666 peddlers
  were allowed to sell eleven items considered necessities: fishing nets,
  dried fish, salt, dried seaweed, tea, rapeseed oil, kindling, wooden
  water dippers, oars, basket tops, and farm tools. As demand grew, the
  rules had to be relaxed accordingly, and by 1705, thirty-one items were
  permitted to be sold, including pottery, cotton, pans, rice pots, straw
  mats, paper, fans, and rulers. The number of peddlers more than
  doubled between 1652 and 1707, and by the 1720s the domain discov-
  33 For elaboration on Morioka, see chap. 6 of Hanley and Yamamura, Economic and Demo-
  graphic Change, pp. 126-60.
  34 These economic historians have organized a group for the study of quantitative economic
  history. Key members include Hayami Akira and Nishikawa Shunsaku of Keio University,
  Umemura Mataji and Saito Osamu of Hitotsubashi University, and Yasuba Yasukichi and
  Miyamoto Matao of Osaka University.
  35 Discussions of the regulations, their violations, and what was sold and how in the villages are
  found in Ando Seiichi, Kinsei zaikata shogyo no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1958),
  pp. 125-8; and in Okayama shiyakusho, Okayama shishi, sangyo keizai hen (Okayama:
  Okayama shiyakusho, 1966), pp. 164-5.
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  ered that many merchants were selling in farm villages without bother-
  ing to obtain a license.
  By the eighteenth century, the castle town no longer controlled all
  commerce in Okayama. Rural towns had sprung up and many ped-
  dlers were based in them, and by late in the century many villages had
  their own stores, making goods available on a daily basis. To cite one
  example, by 1813, a much-cited shop in the village of Oi sold, among
  other things, ink, paper, writing brushes, pots, needles, pipes, tobacco
  and pouches, teapots, various containers and dishes, vinegar, soy
  sauce, bean paste, salt, noodles, kelp, sake, cakes, tea and teacups,
  rice crackers, grain, oil, candles, hair oil, hair cords and hairpins,
  cotton, towels, socks, various kinds of footgear, funeral necessities,
  and "other everyday necessities." Other shops in the same village sold
  various kinds of food and farm necessities, such as tools and fertiliz-
  ers.36 All of these goods were common items in traditional Japanese
  material culture, and they had long been available in towns and cities.
  What is significant is that during the Tokugawa period, rural villagers
  were gradually able to buy goods that had been previously available
  only in urban centers or to purchase items that had formerly been
  made in the household, such as bean paste and soy sauce.
  By the nineteenth century, goods sold in Okayama included prod-
  ucts made all over Japan, and the domain itself was producing an
  impressive number of goods that it sold within the domain as well as
  exported to other parts of Japan. This area was particularly well
  known for its cotton products and rush for tatami covers. It pro-
  duced sake, pottery, tobacco, paper, tea, sugar and sweets, medicine,
  dyes, furniture, and household goods made of iron. By this time,
  some people even in the farming villages were able to afford linen,
  medicines, and furniture, specialty goods imported from distant
  parts of Japan.37
  Although Okayama is a domain in the more advanced area of west-
  ern Japan, even the domains considered the most "backward" showed
  clear evidence of a rising standard of living. In Morioka in the north-
  east, people in the mountainous regions and poorer villages were eat-
  ing fresh fish by the late eighteenth century, and candies made with
  sugar imported from the west were sold widely. Clothing improved, to
  the point that the domain began to issue decrees admonishing the
  36 Ando, Kinsei zaikata shogyoi p. 95.
  37 Okayama-ken, Okayama-ken no rekishi (Okayama: Okayama-ken, 1962), pp. 392-5; and
  Ando, Kinsei zaikata shogyo, pp. 95, 125.
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  697
  peasants and prohibiting "luxuries."38 The most luxurious consumer
  goods were, of course, available in the large cities, and the stories and
  histories of the pleasure quarters provide ample evidence of what
  could be purchased.39
  The rising standard of living both brought the Japanese more goods
  and some luxuries and also improved the quality of their life. The
  changes in housing that made life more comfortable often made the
  people healthier as well. Cotton was as much a boon to the Japanese as
  it was to the Europeans. But the quality of life was also affected by the
  Japanese social customs and personal patterns of behavior, particularly
  by the Japanese response to scarce resources. Despite the high value
  that Japanese place on the group, many items in daily life were given
  to one individual for private use, in contrast with shared utensils used
  in the West. For example, chopsticks, rice bowls, and teacups were
  portioned out to the family members, and no one used anyone else's.
  Thus it did not much matter that these were not washed carefully
  between meals, if at all. In merchant houses with numerous employees
  resident, each person took his or her own meal on a separate tray table,
  and often the dishes and chopsticks were wiped off after each meal and
  stored in a drawer at the bottom of the tray until the next meal. Lower
  on the economic scale, family meals were more casual, with individu-
  als picking bits of food out of the communal pot or pickle dishes. Also,
  it was not customary to drink water; a kettle was kept on the fire with
  cheap tea in it, and family members dipped into it when thirsty. These
  customs almost certainly helped limit the spread of disease.
  Resource scarcity had an unexpected effect on sanitation. Even in
  the early Tokugawa period, fertilizer was in inadequate supply. With
  little animal manure available, the Japanese resorted to human waste,
  and in the farming areas surrounding the largest cities, night soil was
  transformed from a waste to a "good," one that was bought and sold.
  For example, in the seventeenth century, vegetables brought by boat
  to Osaka were exchanged for night soil. But by the early eighteenth
  century, the demand for this type of fertilizer had risen so much that
  farmers had to pay for night soil in cash, and groups of villages fought
  over collection rights.40 Under these circumstances, city dwellers were
  unlikely to dispose of human wastes by throwing them out on the
  38 Mori Kahei, Nihon hekichi no shiteki kenkyu, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Hosei daigaku shuppankyoku,
  «969). PP- 519. 524. 536-40, 572-
  39 See Chapter 14 in this volume.
  40 Wakjta Osamu and Kobayashi Shigeru, Osaka no seisan 10 kotsu (Osaka: Mainichi hoso,
  1973), P- 127-
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  street, as many Europeans did, nor were there the problems with
  cesspools that many American cities faced. Although bath and dish-
  water ran through uncovered drainage ditches in the middle of or
  alongside the road, this did not produce either the stench or the un-
  healthy conditions that prevailed in London and other cities because of
  their open sewers. Thus, because wastes were useful in Tokugawa
  cities, they were collected, rather than allowed to seep into the water
  table and contaminate wells and underground pipes. By the late nine-
  teenth century, the quality of the water in Edo was higher than that in
  London was in the same period.41
  The net result of Japanese customs with regard to sanitation was a
  much lower incidence of epidemic diseases than in Europe and other
  parts of the world.42 Cholera was absent until the mid-nineteenth
  century and then was readily contained, and typhoid seems not to have
  been a problem. Both of these diseases are spread through polluted
  water. Even dysentery, which almost certainly affected the death rate
  of the very young in Japan, was not the killer of children that it was in
  the West in the nineteenth century. The closing off of Japan from
  anything but the most limited contact with other countries certainly
  helped keep cholera and bubonic plague from the Japanese popula-
  tion. Japan's rapidly running and short rivers did much to prevent
  water pollution. Equally important were waste disposal, boiling of the
  drinking water, and other sanitation measures routinely practiced by
  all Japanese.
  The data do not exist to enable a direct comparison between the
  Japanese standard of living and quality of life with those of European
  or other countries, but information on the population can be used for
  comparison. Many of the estimates of mortality and life expectancy are
  for small samples, but the studies made by various scholars have such
  consistent results that they can be considered to apply to a much larger
  area, in fact much of central and western Japan.43 The crude death
  rates in village samples dating from the late eighteenth century to the
  end of the Tokugawa period indicate that most crude death rate aver-
  ages were in the twenties per thousand, even in years of hardship.
  Death rates were more frequently below twenty than above thirty. The
  41 R. W. Atkinson, "The Water Supply of Tokio," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 6
  (October 27, 1877-January 26, 1878), from the reprinted version of 1888, pp. 87-105.
  42 For an excellent study of diseases and their causes and incidence in the Tokugawa period, see
  Ann Bowman Janetta, Epidemics and Mortality in Early Modem Japan (Princeton, N.J.:
  Princeton University Press, 1986).
  43 For a summary and analysis of many of these studies, see chap. 11 of Hanley and Yamamura,
  Economic and Demographic Change, pp. 292-319.
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  699
  sole exception for these samples is for the period of the Tempo famine
  in the 1830s, when the death rate for a village in the northeast rose to
  thirty-seven per thousand and that for the city of Takayama was nearly
  forty-five. Estimated life expectancies for the same samples are higher
  than many Japanese scholars find believable, but the challengers have
  not been able to furnish contradictory evidence. Estimated life expec-
  tancies of over forty years meant that two-year-olds in the late Toku-
  gawa period had a life expectancy similar to those in Western Europe
  in the mid-nineteenth century, and one not much different from that
  in Japan in the early twentieth century.
  Japan's birthrates from the eighteenth century on were in the same
  range as the death rates. The effect of the low birthrates combined
  with low death rates was to create a very slow rate of population
  growth for the latter half of the Tokugawa period. Neither famines nor
  epidemics had the devastating effect on the population that they did in
  earlier times or other countries. The question, then, is why the Japa-
  nese had low birthrates during centuries of gradual but clear upward
  growth of the economy, a rise in income, and an improved standard of
  living. The answer is that Japanese were limiting family size through a
  variety of measures, and they were doing so to maintain and improve
  their standard of living, rather than as a means of coping with dire
  circumstances, as the older generation of Japanese scholars (that is, the
  ones writing in the 1930s to the 1960s) has contended. All scholars
  agree that the Japanese resorted to abortion and infanticide as a means
  of limiting the number of children within marriage, but studies in
  historical demography at the village level reveal that these methods
  were practiced equally in good times and bad, in villages with growing
  economies, and in those with limited resources for growth.44
  Farmers sought to optimize the size of their families. In rural village
  samples, the average number of children in the completed family from
  the end of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth was
  only three and a half children. This would have ensured a male heir for
  most but would have prevented numerous children who would have
  been a burden on the family and village when grown. Families used a
  number of means to regulate family size, of which birth control was
  only one. Some methods were in the form of generalized social cus-
  toms enforced through social and economic pressure. Women married
  44 See especially the studies by Hayami Akira and Susan B. Hanley, cited in Hanley and
  Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change; Thomas C. Smith, Nakahara (Stanford, Calif.:
  Stanford University Press, 1977); and Susan B. Hanley and Arthur P. Wolf, eds., Family and
  Population in East Asian History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985).
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  70O 
  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  in their early to mid-twenties, which delayed childbearing and reduced
  the number of childbearing years. It was also the custom for only one
  son in each household to marry. And in periods of economic hardship,
  marriages were postponed until better years.
  Within marriage, one of the methods used to limit children seems to
  have been sex-selective infanticide, although there is limited statistical
  evidence for this practice.45 However, descriptions of abortion, abor-
  tionists, and the effects of this practice are abundant, and this form of
  birth control is known to have been widely practiced throughout Ja-
  pan. Abortion was an undesirable practice but not a "sin." Infanticide
  was even condoned by the euphemism that it was a means of "return-
  ing" an infant at birth before it had become an individual and a part of
  society. That is, it was thought of as a form of postpartum birth
  control. Though these were considered undesirable practices by con-
  temporaries, they were possibly less cruel than the premodern Euro-
  pean custom of doing away with unwanted children through careless-
  ness, or gin and laudanum, or abandoning them at church doors.
  The social pressure to compel the Japanese to limit family size in a
  growing economy can be understood only by examining Japan's social
  values. Although the Japanese are noted for being group oriented, and
  certainly the Tokugawa village formed a tightly knit group, within
  each social unit or level the competition was intense. The measures
  taken to lower to the minimum the number of nonproductive mem-
  bers in the household lead us to conclude that Japanese were seeking
  to create a population favorable to economic production.
  At the heart of Japanese society, rural or urban, commoner or samu-
  rai, was the house or family unit, called the ie. The ie was conceived of
  as a corporate body, and its members were expected to sacrifice per-
  sonal desires for the benefit of the group as a whole. The goals of the
  current members of the ie, whether they had been born in the family
  or were married or adopted into it, were to maintain the current level
  of prosperity and, if at all possible, to increase its future wealth and
  status.
  Wealth and family status were important at all levels of Japanese
  society. Few samurai, from the middle of the Tokugawa period on,
  could expect to improve the family status, and even with intense
  competition by all, they had to struggle merely to maintain their pres-
  ent position. In the village, there was strong incentive to maintain the
  kakaku, the status of the house. There were no explicit rules governing
  45 See the studies cited in the preceding footnote for evidence.
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  701
  how status was determined, but there was implicit consent as to how it
  was assigned. The status the family had in past generations held some
  weight, but the primary determinant was economic position within the
  village. Status determined who became village headman, who assumed
  the other posts of village government, and even who sat where at
  village meetings.46
  To maintain status, it was not enough merely to maintain the same
  standard of living as in the past; families had to maintain their relative
  position vis-a-vis other families in the village. When ranks began to
  change within a village, often conflict would break out as people jock-
  eyed for power. In the tightly knit Tokugawa village, the struggle to
  maintain position was felt continually - at weddings, funerals, and at
  times of crisis, such as in a year of poor harvest or when a family in the
  village needed aid. As more goods came into the village and were
  purchased by a few, the rest of the people would feel a need to own the
  same items.
  From Tokugawa times comes the propensity for formal gift giving
  on every conceivable occasion, but especially to superiors and those to
  whom one owes something. There was an equal emphasis on giving a
  gift in return for one received, a focus on entertaining in order to
  maintain business and status relationships, and a penchant for con-
  spicuous consumption. People might eat boiled grains with greens day
  after day but then splurge at a level unthought of in the West when
  entertaining guests who had to be impressed, or even at an annual
  village meeting attended by one representative from each household.
  Daily life might be very simple and austere so that at appropriate times
  the family could spend large sums to maintain its status and not dis-
  honor the ie.
  Actual household budgets dating from the Tokugawa times are hard
  to find, but a number of case studies have been pursued by modern
  historians. For example, one farmer in the 1840s spent 29 percent of
  his cash income on social obligations. A carpenter in Kyoto in the
  1820s who was spending two-thirds of his income on food and fuel
  spent 7.5 percent of his income on social obligations. An upper-
  income samurai in the service of the bakufu who was spending just
  over half of his income paying off loans, debts, and interest spent
  nearly double the carpenter's annual income in 1779 on social expenses
  connected with the birth of a daughter.47 Thus, the Japanese econo-
  46 Kodama Kota, Kinsei nomin seikatsu thi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1957), p. 277.
  47 For a fuller description and analysis of these examples, see Hanley, "A High Standard of
  Living in Nineteenth-Century Japan."
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  mized on creature comforts for themselves but spent large proportions
  of their incomes on status goods, gifts to maintain and enhance their
  social network, and payments or donations to maintain and advance
  their social status within the community.
  A study of the material culture of Tokugawa Japan provides over-
  whelming evidence that people of all classes sought to improve their
  social position. Everything from style in dress and housing, appropri-
  ate forms of recreation, and even who was officially permitted to drink
  tea was set down in law. However, a look at the changes in these
  regulations over time indicates that a lot of people were not strictly
  conforming to the class codes. Class distinctions were violated, both
  overtly and covertly, but the violations were so widespread that it was
  impossible for authorities to enforce compliance. The first violations
  were subtle; no one wanted to flout the law openly. For example,
  townsmen might wear fine silks, but only as linings to cotton outer
  garb.
  Because the size, design, and decoration of residences denoted sta-
  tus, it was important to prevent persons of low status from adopting
  the status symbols of their betters. Commoners were forbidden to use
  styles that belonged to the samurai, and regulations spelled out what
  was prohibited. In Osaka, as late as 1843, a set of regulations forbade
  commoners from making doors of cryptomeria, installing fixed read-
  ing tables (the shoin or, more properly, the tsuke-shoin), using silver
  and gold foil on their fusuma, and putting lacquer on posts in the
  house.48 However, it was impossible for the authorities to police what
  people installed in their private residences, and more and more of the
  well-to-do violated such sumptuary regulations.
  Just as residences denoted status among the samurai, so they did
  among the farmers. The most important family in the village was sup-
  posed to have the grandest house, with the largest roof and the longest,
  thickest, and most beautiful posts and rafters. In some villages, status
  was shown by the number of decorations on the ridge post of the house.
  In the Niigata area, the chumon-zukuri, an L-shaped plan containing
  living quarters, work area-cum-kitchen, and stable, seems originally to
  have been a style used by the samurai. Despite seventeenth-century
  regulations banning the use of this plan for lower-level samurai and
  commoners, in time the chumon-zukuri became the favored house style
  for the upper levels of the farming communities. However, this style
  does not seem to have been used by those of low socioeconomic status in
  48 Shiraki, Sumai no rekishi, p. 135.
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  793
  the villages, but by designated farmers who owned their own land.49
  Examples of sumptuary laws and status symbols from all parts of Japan
  testify to the imitation of samurai status symbols by commoners and
  also to the observance of status differences within local communities.
  What was occurring during the Tokugawa period was a mingling of
  status symbols to reflect income and wealth as well as social group.
  Those not born into the samurai class could not hope to govern, but if
  they became rich, they could afford many of the luxuries of life that
  were supposed to be limited to the samurai. Even by the early eigh-
  teenth century a Confucian adviser to the shogunate was opposed to the
  "increase in consumers [that] has come about because there are no
  regulative institutions." Country people who migrated into Edo quickly
  adopted a style of life not considered suitable for commoners: drinking
  sake, purchasing clothes instead of making them, and installing shoji,
  ceilings, and mosquito nets in their houses.50
  The authorities not only knew of the violations of the sumptuary
  laws and unwritten behavior codes, they themselves helped bring
  about the loss of clear class distinctions, by the late Tokugawa period,
  many domains were in financial difficulties and therefore allowed com-
  moners to purchase the privilege of wearing swords and using a sur-
  name. The major reason for the blurring of class lines, however, was
  the growing discrepancies in the income of samurai and commoners,
  more so in the various daimyo domains than in the lands controlled by
  the bakufu. Even in Edo, the commoners' incomes were steadily rising
  while the samurai in the service of the bakufu found themselves with
  more or less constant incomes and facing a rising tide of goods and
  services that the townspeople could afford but they could not. Real
  wages were rising throughout Japan, so that samurai families gradually
  had to let most of their servants go, and many of the lower-ranked
  samurai had to take in piecework to supplement their stipends. For
  example, in the domain of Odawara, samurai produced lanterns, dyed
  paper, fishhooks, toothpicks, and umbrellas, and seven hundred samu-
  rai in Mito notified their domain that they were engaged in part-time
  work.5'
  If we look only at how Japanese society was supposed to operate, we
  will find a rigid class society in place throughout the Tokugawa period.
  49 Itoh, Traditional Domestic Architecture, pp. 118-20.
  50 Ogyu Sorai, translated into English by J. R. McEwan, The Political Writings ofOgyu Sorai
  (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 44.
  51 For an analysis of this topic, see Kozo Yamamura, A Study of Samurai Income and Entrepre-
  neurship (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).
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  TOKUGAWA SOCIETY
  But Japan lost its class distinctions far more quickly and far more
  thoroughly than England did, and much of the reason has to be a
  blurring of class lines before the Meiji Restoration. Commoners were
  aping samurai in material culture and in cultural ways as well. Text-
  books for children provided a common Confucian philosophy and
  ethic for samurai and commoners alike, and a "samuraization" of
  society was at work. But the influence was not just in one direction:
  The samurai were fascinated by the townspeople's culture and were
  avid theatergoers and readers of popular fiction, even though they
  were not supposed to lower themselves to this level.
  A major cause for the blurring of class lines was economic. From the
  eighteenth century on, if not earlier, social class determined occupa-
  tion, but it did not determine income. Although the average income of
  samurai was higher than that of commoners, vast numbers of both
  townspeople and villagers had higher incomes than did the lowest
  ranks of the samurai. In fact, in some domains, samurai and common-
  ers worked side by side in the same jobs. In Okayama, for example, a
  listing of persons working in the castle for the daimyo for the 1840s
  reveals that both samurai and commoners were filling the same posi-
  tions at the lower supervisory levels.52 Above all, it is important to
  emphasize the point made in Chapter 3 that the samurai were not a
  landed gentry whose presence in the village might have reinforced the
  social differences on a personal level. Nor did they constitute a class of
  urban absentee proprietors. This separation of the samurai from the
  rural population meant that there was virtually no daily contact that
  would reinforce class differences. Instead, members of the farming
  communities competed among themselves for wealth and position -
  tenants aspiring to become landowners, and landowners village lead-
  ers. People were well aware that they might move up the social and
  economic ladder within their own class or occupation, but they also
  knew that being born a samurai was no guarantee of high income.
  Although the standard of living gradually increased over the Toku-
  gawa centuries, the changes took place within the framework of the
  traditional economy and in the context of the indigenous Tokugawa
  culture, with little foreign influence. Thus the increases achieved are
  apparent if this period is studied in isolation, but when contrasted
  with the West, which was undergoing industrialization, Japan seems to
  have been very backward by the mid-nineteenth century. Westerners
  who visited Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
  52 Ibid., pp. 126-7.
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  IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES 
  705
  much impressed by the Japanese government, society, cleanliness,
  housing, and technology. But by the nineteenth century, the Industrial
  Revolution had so transformed the West that visitors saw little in
  Japan to impress them, despite improvements that had in fact taken
  place over several centuries.
  The views of these nineteenth-century Westerners, along with the
  Japanese who themselves felt Japan to be backward in comparison
  with the Western powers, have continued to color our view of tradi-
  tional Japanese life. Although the Japanese may have been relatively
  poor by Victorian standards, the record indicates that they may have
  been just as healthy; Japanese life expectancy in the nineteenth cen-
  tury was similar to that in the advanced Western industrial nations.
  And although the Japanese are resource poor by any standard, they
  have developed a material culture and an aesthetic tradition that are
  admired throughout the world today.
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  CHAPTER 14
  POPULAR CULTURE
  INTRODUCTION
  Among the developments of the early Edo period that distinguish it
  most clearly from preceding eras is the emergence of a distinctive
  popular culture among the urban commoners. From Nara times the
  imperial court had been the fountainhead of poetry, literature, the
  arts, and scholarship. After the court's decline in resources and
  strength in the twelfth century, members of the military elite increas-
  ingly came to serve as patrons for cultural and intellectual develop-
  ments in their mansions and in Buddhist monasteries. In the Edo
  period, while the shogun and daimyo continued their patronage of the
  higher culture and learning, the most original and lively developments
  took place among the populace of the cities. For the first time, com-
  moners, the nonelite, became culturally important.
  Major economic and social changes followed political unification
  and the establishment of a stable political order under the Tokugawa
  in the years after 1600. The rapid development of trade and commerce
  was accompanied by the dramatic growth of the three major cities -
  Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo. Much of this growth came from the function
  of these cities as national markets for goods from all areas. Because the
  increase in population was largely among those engaged in commercial
  activities - merchants, craftspeople, shopkeepers, rice brokers, build-
  ers, and laborers - and because it was they who benefited most from
  the economic expansion, the social composition of cities and also the
  distribution of wealth took on entirely new patterns. The rise in in-
  come of many chonin, as the urban commoners were called, brought an
  increasing demand for goods and services, as they had leisure to en-
  gage in a more active social and cultural life and to seek entertain-
  ments. The requirements of business led to a rise in literacy that, in
  turn, encouraged the writing and publication of a variety of books for
  the edification and entertainment of city residents. The interest in
  popular entertainment and culture in the major cities developed rap-
  706
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  INTRODUCTION 
  707
  idly, especially in the second half of the seventeenth century, culminat-
  ing in a brilliant flowering of popular culture known as the golden age
  of Genroku. Although Genroku is the era name for the years 1688 to
  1704, the name is used more broadly to designate the cultural period
  that encompasses the half-century centered on the rule from 1680 to
  1709 of the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi.
  These years spanned the careers of a remarkable number of creative
  writers, performers, and artists who are among the most celebrated
  names in the history of Japanese culture. The novels and short stories
  of Ihara Saikaku (1642-93) provide the most incisive accounts of the
  merchants' business methods and the life of the prostitutes' quarters.
  Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote for both the kabuki and
  puppet theaters and was the first playwright to give plays a dramatic
  structure, especially in the domestic tragedies he composed. A third
  literary figure of great creativity and influence was Matsuo Basho
  (1644-94) who reshaped the aesthetics of haiku composition.
  Kabuki became a full-fledged dramatic form during these years,
  thanks in part to the appearance of its first great actors, Sakata Tojuro
  (1647-1709) and Ichikawa Danjuro I (1660-1704), and the develop-
  ment of the art of playing female roles by Mizuki Tatsunosuke (1673-
  1745) and Yoshizawa Ayame (1673-1729). Performers of puppet plays
  rivaled kabuki in popularity because of the artistry of the reciters of
  jdruri texts, most notably Takemoto Gidayu (1651-1714), whose name
  came to designate the new style of gidayu recitation. During the same
  years the ukiyoe (pictures of the floating world) style of painting and
  woodblock illustration emerged from the brushes of Hishikawa Mo-
  ronobu (d. 1694), Torii Kiyonobu (1664-1729), and many others. The
  pleasure quarter of the city, with its prostitutes of celebrated beauty
  and cultural accomplishments, was the social stage for much of the
  new urban culture. The quarter was the main subject of ukiyoe prints
  and Saikaku's stories.
  This new popular culture, which had wide appeal to urban common-
  ers, is the focus of this chapter. In addition, however, there were
  artistic achievements in the Genroku that responded to the interests of
  a more exclusive number of wealthy commoners. These were the coun-
  terpart to the high style produced by officially patronized artists for
  the upper bushi (samurai), imperial court, and Buddhist clergy - a
  style epitomized by the paintings of the Kano and Tosa schools, the
  metal craft of the Goto, the colored porcelain of Nabeshima, and
  lacquer in the Kdami and Igarashi traditions. Ogata Korin (1658-
  1716) developed a rich, decorative style of painting and lacquer work
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  POPULAR CULTURE
  and also designed textiles for affluent commoners. His brother Ken-
  zan (1663-1743) and another Kyoto ceramist, Nonomura Ninsei (fl.
  1660s), made works of great originality. Miyazaki Yuzensai pioneered
  the yuzen style of intricate dyeing which provided commoners with a
  substitute for the brocade and embroidered garments that were forbid-
  den to them. The woodcut artist Moronobu and Hanabusa Itcho
  (1652-1724) painted screens and handscrolls for urban clients. Most
  of these men came from families of craftspeople, but when they cre-
  ated new styles they had a keen consciousness of their identity as
  master artists; Ninsei and Kenzan, for example, freed themselves
  from the tradition of earlier craftsmen by signing their work. Mo-
  ronobu was the first artist to put his name on woodcuts {Buke hyakunin
  isshu, 1672), and Chikamatsu was the first popular playwright to claim
  authorship.
  Underlying the conspicuous successes of this popular culture was a
  new audience, a large number of urban commoners who were not only
  literate but increasingly discriminating. They were informed by popu-
  lar books, simply written and published for their consumption. Their
  demand for entertainment was met not only by brothels and theaters
  but more commonly by many other diversions that leisure and city life
  offered. For the first time, commoners discovered the pleasure of
  reading, and many went beyond popular books to classical and medi-
  eval literature or Chinese texts. The study and enjoyment of cultural
  pastimes was open to them: tea and flower arrangement, composition
  of poetry, recitation of noh plays, playing of musical instruments, and
  singing of kouta.
  Popular culture developed first in the three great cities. It is usually
  referred to as chonin culture — suggesting that it was made by urban
  commoners for urban commoners - to distinguish it from court cul-
  ture and bushi culture. This is a simplification, as of course the new
  culture drew on traditions existing in the upper classes, and moreover,
  some of its creators, such as Basho and Chikamatsu, were of samurai
  background. Furthermore, there was great interest in this culture
  among other classes as well.
  From the early Edo period, the government recognized the order of
  the four classes as samurai (shi), farmer (no), craftsman (ko), and
  merchant (sho). Although Confucianists often spoke of this class order,
  it was never given a legal basis, and its artificiality and imprecision
  must be kept in mind. Indeed, the system served primarily to separate
  the rulers from the ruled. In principle, the bushi were paid stipends,
  and the other classes had tax obligations. The class system distin-
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  INTRODUCTION 
  709
  guished the proper samurai of substance - with his rights to bear a
  surname, wear two swords, occupy a larger residence, and receive
  deference - from the rest of the population. But for administrative
  purposes, even foot soldiers and the servants of proper samurai were
  considered as belonging to the bushi class. Including wives and chil-
  dren, the bushi made up about 6 or 7 percent of the national popula-
  tion, which stood at approximately thirty million by the end of the
  seventeenth century.
  Farmers ranked second, in recognition of their labors that provided
  the sustenance of the country. This ranking derived from the physio-
  cratic principle that land was the source of the country's wealth. Farm-
  ers were followed by craftsmen (or artisans), many of whose products
  in pre-Edo times were weapons, military equipment, and buildings
  required by the bushi. In practice, no attempt was made to distinguish
  craftsmen from merchants: Both were treated as a single group and
  referred to as chdnin, "people of the blocks," the term usually being
  translated as townsmen or townspeople. They made up 5 to 6 percent
  of the population.1
  The four-class designation, when first applied by warlords, did have
  some rough correspondence to the relative usefulness of the groups to
  the bushi. The honor accorded farmers was an empty one, as they were
  treated far more harshly than the other classes were. Because income
  from the bakufu's agricultural lands (tenryo) was the government's fi-
  nancial basis, careful attention was given to the systematic collection of
  taxes and to restricting the movements of farmers. The bakufu's 1649
  regulations for farmers exhorted them to work hard in the fields from
  sunrise to sunset and to spend their evenings making straw rope and
  sacks. They were told to eat coarse grains rather than the rice they
  produced, not to buy tea or sake, and to divorce wives who were overly
  fond of tea and excursions to temples.2 In the early Edo period, ped-
  dlers were prohibited from entering villages in some districts, in an
  attempt to protect farmers from being tempted by nonessential articles.
  In some regions, village stores were actually forbidden to sell books, so
  as to prevent farmers from wasting their time reading.3
  By comparison, the treatment of the city commoners was milder
  1 The estimate by Harada Tomohiko includes commoners resident in cities, castle towns, and
  ports, but artisans, tradesmen, innkeepers, and so on in rural areas are counted as farmers. See
  his entry "Chonin" in Nihon fuzokushi jiten (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1979), p. 416.
  2 Hoseishi gakkai, ed., Tokugawa kinreiko (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1959-61), vol. 5, pp. 159-64.
  3 Kodama Kota, Kinsei nomin seikatsu shi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1951), p. 9; Donald H.
  Shively, "Sumptuary Regulation and Status in Early Tokugawa Japan," Harvard Journal of
  Asiatic Studies 25 (1964-5): 153-5.
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  POPULAR CULTURE
  and more diplomatic. The third shogun, Iemitsu, remitted the land
  taxes of Osaka, Sakai, and Nara in 1634 (those of Edo and Kyoto had
  been canceled earlier), a gesture of psychological importance to encour-
  age the residents to cooperate with the bakufu. The Tokugawa kept
  the major cities and ports under direct control because of their com-
  mercial importance. They were interested mainly in the essential ser-
  vices that the chonin supplied: shipping and marketing rice and other
  produce from the shogunal and daimyo domains, and making and
  distributing goods of all kinds. Furthermore, because the provinces
  around Edo lagged behind the Kyoto-Osaka region in both agricul-
  ture and manufacturing, the government was constantly concerned
  that the needs of Edo's enormous population be met and that short-
  ages not occur. The bakufu, therefore, placed few restraints on trade
  and was concerned with providing security of person and private prop-
  erty for the commercial populations of its cities. Because Kyoto and
  Osaka served increasingly as national markets, the wealth of the coun-
  try flowed into the hands of urban businessmen. However, the bakufu
  was unable to tax this wealth effectively, deterred not only by the
  physiocratic notions of economics but also by a lack of understanding
  of the new commercial processes.
  The Tokugawa honored - or perhaps we should say took advantage
  of - the traditions of self-rule that had developed in commercial towns
  under the chaotic conditions of the sixteenth century, by assigning to
  the merchant families of Kyoto and Osaka considerable responsibility
  for self-administration. Under the direction of two hatamoto (ban-
  nermen) sent as city magistrates (machi bugyo) to each of these cities,
  the bakufu appointed the heads of old merchant families as city elders
  to arrange and oversee the necessary administrative work. Although
  this self-administration placed a considerable burden of time and
  money on the urban commoners (effectively negating before long the
  advantage of remitting land taxes), it minimized the intrusion of bushi
  into the daily lives of the people and fostered an atmosphere of consid-
  erable freedom for the chonin, especially in Kyoto, Osaka, and other
  primarily commercial cities.
  Chonin were not subject to as much regimentation as were the sho-
  gun's samurai vassals, nor were they in constant jeopardy of the demo-
  tion or expropriation suffered by many daimyo during the seventeenth
  century. Samurai were required to be ready to perform military or
  administrative services, and their personal conduct was governed by
  an ethical system. The chonin, however, were free to follow their self-
  interests in making money and spending it. They had the freedom of
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  INTRODUCTION 
  711
  the city - with its shops and sights and pleasure quarters - where
  money talked. Their lack of political and social status was not, there-
  fore, without its compensations.
  The meaning of class is diminished also by the vast differences in
  level within each class. Bushi included not only the shogun and the
  daimyo but also the humble servants of samurai. Farmers ranged from
  rich landowners and village headmen to tenants and agricultural ser-
  vants. Chonin included privileged purveyors to the rulers and mer-
  chants of fabulous wealth but also large numbers of poor laborers.
  The meaning of class was undercut most of all by the gradual ero-
  sion of the financial position of much of the samurai class in the
  middle of the seventeenth century, while at the same time the income
  of urban commoners was rising. The real income of samurai declined,
  for they were living on fixed stipends paid in rice, the price of which
  fluctuated and, in general, did not keep pace with the prices of other
  commodities. Samurai were required to live in cities and towns, where
  everything had to be purchased. The variety of goods available in-
  creased constantly, and more and more articles came to be regarded as
  necessities. It was the government's belief that to maintain the proper
  relationship between the bushi and the other classes, there should be
  hierarchal distinctions, not only in their functions, but also in the
  quality of their dress, food, and housing, in behavior and speech, and
  in intellectual and cultural activities. (For example, noh drama, which
  had been adopted by the courts of the Ashikaga and Hideyoshi, was
  the appropriate "music" of the bushi and hence was not to be public
  entertainment for commoners.) It became more and more difficult for
  ordinary samurai to keep up appearances. To preserve at least the
  outward distinctions among classes, chonin were chided in sumptuary
  laws not to dress in expensive silks (ordinary silk was allowed), to
  decorate their rooms with gold and silver leaf, or to furnish them with
  objects of gold lacquer.4 It is apparent that the authorities had already
  conceded a level of luxury that was remarkably at variance with the
  living style prescribed for farmers.
  Intermarriage between samurai and commoners was considered in-
  appropriate, but bushi were permitted, not uncommonly, to take com-
  moner wives, doubtless for reasons of financial advantage. A kind of
  cultural leveling occurred, especially in the case of bushi who were
  permanent residents of large cities and lived in daily contact with
  chonin. Many family members were attracted to the popular novels,
  4 Shively, "Sumptuary Regulation and Status," pp. 123-31.
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  POPULAR CULTURE
  plays, music, and fashions considered more appropriate to chonin,
  whereas commoners aspired to the education, ethical values, and cul-
  tural pastimes of their betters. The elite among the commoners -
  privileged merchants, government contractors, city elders - adopted a
  style of life similar to that of the bushi. The most affluent enjoyed
  more luxuries than the minor daimyo did.
  Social class meant less in Kyoto than elsewhere, for there the popula-
  tion was more diversified, and machishu residences had long been
  scattered throughout even the upper city (kamigyo), the preserve of the
  aristocracy. A few merchant houses, prominent long before the rise of
  the Tokugawa, associated in social circles or salons with court nobles,
  high clergy, cultivated bushi, and poets and artists. Some amassed
  important collections of tea bowls and utensils, paintings, and rare
  Chinese books. The skill of some merchants in cultural accomplish-
  ments such as waka and renga, poetry and tea, painting, and noh, also
  speaks to the social position of these individuals.
  During the Hideyoshi and early Tokugawa years, some samurai
  became purveyors or commercial agents for their daimyo in Kyoto and
  other cities. Others became merchants to seek a better fortune, and as
  they came from bushi stock, they were more congenial contractors for
  government and daimyo business. The presence of former samurai
  among the merchant houses served to enhance the status of the upper-
  class merchants.
  Kyoto had a richer diversity of residents than did the other cities.
  The proportion of bushi was far smaller than in Edo or other castle
  towns. Among the samurai were the bakufu representative (the
  shoshidai) and his staff, the Nijo Castle guard, the two city magistrates
  and their samurai staffs, the eighteen Kamigata daikan who adminis-
  tered the tenryo, and so forth. Also in the city were samurai hired as
  guards and retainers by court nobles and by some Buddhist temples.
  Most daimyo continued to post retainers in Kyoto as agents, especially
  to procure clothing and other fine articles from the city's artisans and
  to borrow money from wealthy merchants. At least eighty-five daimyo
  maintained official residences (yashikt) there in the 1680s, even though
  they themselves could not ordinarily enter the city.5 Countless ronin
  drifted to Kyoto, samurai who had lost employment because their
  daimyo lords were attainted by the bakufu; this confiscation of daimyo
  domains continued unabated until at least 1651 and, to a lesser degree,
  until the end of Tsunayoshi's rule.
  5 Kyoto no rekishi (Tokyo: Gakugei shorin, 1968-76), vol. 5, p. 19.
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  INTRODUCTION 
  713
  Among those not included in the four classes were both the nobles
  and the monks and nuns of Kyoto. The upper city accommodated the
  imperial family and members of the court nobility- 150 families
  which provided officials for the imperial government - and their atten-
  dants.6 There was, in addition, a large religious establishment associ-
  ated with fifteen hundred temples and shrines in the capital and its
  immediate environs. Kyoto's population further included many physi-
  cians, scholars, teachers, artists and noh performers, and masters of
  other arts, some of whom did not fit exactly into class categories. They
  were among the best educated residents of the city. Those descended
  from noble or religious or samurai families regarded themselves as
  distinct from the commercial class. From this kind of background
  came many of the writers of seventeenth-century popular books -
  romances, edifying texts, and travel stories and guides.
  The development of popular culture, during its early stages, took
  place largely within the urban environment of Kyoto. Although this
  capital had long been the country's only real city, it was not repaired or
  restored to prosperity until the Hideyoshi years. It had been largely
  destroyed during the Onin War of 1467-77 and did not recover fully
  during the following century, as one warlord after another failed to
  establish a durable regime. If Kyoto had ever had as many as 200,000
  people, it had certainly fallen far below that number. The main urban
  area in these years, the economic heart of the country, was the Kyoto-
  Sakai-Nara triangle. Osaka was not a city until Hideyoshi began to
  rebuild the Ishiyama Honganji market town in 1583. Edo was a very
  small castle town when it became the Tokugawa headquarters in 1590.
  In this situation there was no hint of the enormous surge of urbaniza-
  tion that was about to begin. In just over a century, by 1700, Kyoto,
  Osaka, and Edo each had a chdnin population of 350,000.7 Edo had, in
  addition, a bushi population at least as numerous as the chdnin. In
  another two decades it probably embraced 1 million people and had
  become larger than any Western European city. During these years,
  some regional cities reached considerable size: Kanazawa, Nagoya,
  Kagoshima, Hiroshima, Sendai, Nagasaki, and Sakai all were in the
  range of 50,000 to 100,000.8
  The three large cities (santo, or three capitals) each were of a rather
  6 Ibid., p. 509.
  7 Nakabe Yoshiko, Kinsei toshi no seiritsu to kozo (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1967), p. 637; Wakita
  Osamu, Genroku no shakai (Tokyo: Haniwa shobd, 1980), pp. 154-68.
  8 Wakita, Genroku no shakai, pp. 155-9; Takeo Yazaki, Social Change and the City in Japan
  (Tokyo: Japan Publications, 1968), pp. 103-37, 237-78, 255-6.
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  714 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  different type, and they played different roles. Kyoto, which had
  already been the imperial capital for eight hundred years, was the
  home of the court aristocracy, the repository of the classical arts, and
  the source of most high-quality articles. It had changed from a
  Chinese-style rilsuryo capital, to shogunal headquarters under the
  Ashikaga, to castle town under Hideyoshi. It was also the religious
  center of the nation as the headquarters of most Buddhist sects, the
  principal commercial market until late in the seventeenth century, and
  it continued even longer as the fountainhead of culture.
  Osaka under the Tokugawa was almost exclusively a commercial city.
  There were even fewer bushi than in Kyoto, and these were concen-
  trated in the east near the castle. There were, of course, no court nobles
  and far fewer members of religious and cultural professions. Some of its
  populace had been drawn from Kyoto, but much more from other
  nearby commercial towns such as Sakai, Nara, and Fushimi. Function-
  ing as the principal market to which most daimyo shipped their rice,
  Osaka also became the chief market for trading special products from all
  parts of the country. Before 1700, Osaka displaced Kyoto as the leading
  national market.9 With its energetic, prosperous chonin population, this
  city began to make major contributions to popular literature and drama
  by the last decades of the century.
  If Osaka came to function as a purely commercial city, Edo became
  the political center. It was the Tokugawa's castle town, the bushi
  administrative headquarters where samurai always outnumbered cho-
  nin. Edo's growth to great size came with the formalization of the
  sankin kotai after 1635, which required the daimyo, then almost three
  hundred in number, to spend half their time in Edo and maintain large
  residential compounds there. The land occupied by the shogun and his
  vassals and by the daimyo establishments covered between 60 and 70
  percent of the city area. Because temples and shrines occupied hah0 of
  the remainder, the chonin had only 15 to 20 percent of the city land
  area for their residences and businesses.10 They were crowded into
  districts that were segregated from the far more spacious and greener
  areas assigned to the bushi for their residences. The numerical and
  geographical superiority of the bushi, not to mention their monopoly
  9 William B. Hauser, Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan: Osaka and the Kinai
  Cotton Trade (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 11-32, 38-40;
  Wakita, Genroku no shakai, pp. 179-86; Wakita Osamu, Kinsei Osaka no machi to hito (Kyoto:
  Jimbun shoin, 1986), pp. 112-3; Kodama Kota, Genroku jidai, vol. 16 of Nihon no rekishi
  (Tokyo: Chud koronsha, 1966), pp. 260-76.
  10 Koda Shigetomo, Edo to Osaka (Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1942), p. 17.
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  EDUCATION 
  715
  on political power, gave a coloration to city life in Edo that differed
  markedly from the freer atmosphere of Kyoto and Osaka. It took time
  for Edo to outgrow its raw, frontier personality. Because it was a new
  city, teachers and masters of the arts had to be drawn from Kyoto. The
  development of popular culture also lagged until the last decades of the
  seventeenth century. But as the city matured, stimulated by the traffic
  of commoners as well as bushi from all parts of the country, it gradu-
  ally replaced Kyoto in the middle of the Edo period as the creative
  center of popular culture.
  EDUCATION
  The increase in literacy during the seventeenth century among both
  samurai and urban commoners was an important factor in the function-
  ing of the administration and the expansion of commerce. It brought a
  profound change in the level of knowledge and cultural life of both
  classes. As evidence of the spread of literacy, writers have pointed to
  the accumulation of village archives, administrative and legal docu-
  ments of all kinds, and commercial records. More impressive, how-
  ever, are the founding and rapid growth of a large publishing industry,
  offering not only serious books but also, from the middle of the cen-
  tury, popular books on a wide range of topics. The brisk sales of
  Saikaku's books of stories from 1682 on, for example, informs us that
  the number of sophisticated readers among the commoners had al-
  ready grown impressively.
  During the century of warfare preceding the establishment of the
  Tokugawa bakufu, there was little time or necessity, even among the
  daimyo, for extensive formal education. Most members of the military
  elite were literate, but it was the exceptional daimyo who received
  much tutoring in the Japanese literary or historical works or in the
  Chinese classics. For the most part, military men relied on Zen monks
  to draft important documents and records and also to provide political
  advice based on their knowledge of Japanese and Chinese history and
  Chinese works on statecraft.
  Tokugawa Ieyasu was aware that the peace he had finally attained in
  a lifetime of military campaigns would not be lasting unless the
  daimyo and their vassals, brutalized by generations of warfare, could
  be tamed. He thus took steps to civilize them, by promoting education
  among their ranks through supporting libraries and subsidizing the
  publication of books on law and administration and military statecraft.
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  7l6 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  His design to encourage the education of the upper samurai was made
  clear in the article placed first in the Buke shohatto (Laws for the
  military houses) issued to the daimyo in 1615 for their own guidance
  and the direction of their retainers. This article expressed the principle
  that the samurai should be prepared equally well in the literary arts
  (bun) and in the military arts (bu). Bun means not only "writing" or
  "literature" but, in its fullest sense, means "civilization" and includes
  the moral teachings that are handed down in texts. If bu is the art of
  war, bun is the art of peace. In later revisions of the Buke shohatto, as
  in 1635, 1663, 1683, and 1710, the principle of bumbu was always
  given primacy."
  There was a powerful incentive for the daimyo to acquire the knowl-
  edge to govern wisely. On many occasions during the first century of
  Tokugawa rule, daimyo were transferred to lesser domains or lost their
  domains entirely as punishment for maladministration, such as taxing
  farmers unfairly, failing to avert succession quarrels, or causing dishar-
  mony within their own houses. The Tokugawa made it clear that the
  world had changed: Daimyo and hatamoto who could not learn to
  administer benevolently or practice moderation in their expenditures
  and in the conduct of their personal lives were in jeopardy.
  In a nation at peace, ordinary samurai had little opportunity to
  advance their careers through military prowess. The advantage of an
  education for gaining appointment to supervisory or administrative
  work was a strong incentive for study. Both the bakufu and daimyo
  encouraged education, but rather than establish schools, they were at
  first more inclined to attract and subsidize scholars under whom their
  retainers could study. Acquiring an education was a personal matter,
  undertaken as an act of self-cultivation.12
  Most bushi children were educated at home by tutors or were taught
  in small groups by a Buddhist monk or a samurai man or woman. By
  the end of the seventeenth century, almost all samurai probably had
  some ability to read and write. Saikaku, writing about 1690, stated:
  "There is nothing in the world as shameful as being unable to write."
  He followed this with an anecdote about a samurai with a stipend of
  11 The laws appear in Gotoke reijo: Ishii Ryosuke, ed. Kinsei hosei shiryo sosho (Tokyo: Sobunsha,
  •959)) v°l- 2> PP- 1—11. The Buke shohatto of 1615 is translated in Ryusaku Tsunoda,
  William Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene, comps., Sources of the Japanese Tradition
  (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 335-38.
  12 Tsuda Hideo, "Kyoiku no fukyu to shingaku," in Iwanami kbza Nihon rekishi, vol. 12 (kinsei
  4) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1976), pp. 149-51. By 1715 only 20 official domain schools
  (hanko) had been established, but there were 215 by the end of the Edo period. Ishikawa
  Matsutaro, Hanko to terakoya (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1978), pp. 18-29.
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  EDUCATION 
  717
  two hundred koku who, remarkably, did not know characters: "a re-
  tainer who does not fit the times.'"3 Bushi who sought more than a
  basic education continued their studies with a tutor in the domain or
  sought permission to study under a scholar in Edo or Kyoto.
  Readers and copybooks made up of edifying quotations from the
  Chinese classics and histories were the basic texts used in learning to
  read. Chinese moral and humanistic ideas were absorbed in the pro-
  cess. These books served well to strengthen the ethics of loyalty to
  lord, devotion to parents and family, and other Confucian social princi-
  ples that had long been the premises of conduct among samurai. It was
  in the interest of shogun and daimyo alike to propagate this value
  system as a formal code of personal conduct to maintain discipline in
  an age when feudal relationships were no longer cemented by personal
  loyalties formed on the battlefield.
  The education of a samurai boy was to include the military arts and
  training to read and write both Chinese and Japanese and to extend as
  well to other accomplishments expected of a gentleman. A model
  program of study is set forth in a 1670 work called Shison kagami (A
  mirror for sons and grandsons):
  Those born to a bushi family should have lessons in sequence as follows: first,
  from ages seven or eight, practice in writing the first characters; from eleven,
  twelve, or thirteen, reading the words of the Four [Confucian] Books, and
  also learning tea ceremony, deportment, recitation of noh, and playing the
  noh hand drum; from fourteen to seventeen, defensive fencing [iai], sword-
  manship, handling the spear, horseriding, archery, musketry, and next fal-
  conry and board games [go, chess, and backgammon]; and from eighteen or
  nineteen, military administration, tactics, the composition of Chinese and
  Japanese poetry, and medicine.14
  This ideal regime, perhaps designed for sons of upper-class bushi
  families, included instruction in etiquette and deportment according
  to the rules handed down by the Ogasawara family since the fifteenth
  century; these rules prescribed the proper formal postures, ways of
  greeting, manners at mealtime, and graceful movements in archery,
  swordsmanship, and other martial arts.
  The authorities may at first have seen little purpose in the education
  of the common people, but they did not discourage it, at least in the
  cities. It was, of course, necessary to have headmen of villages and city
  13 Saikaku nagori no tomo, in Teihon Saikaku zenshu (Tokyo: Chuo kdronsha, 1951), vol. 9, p.
  370; cited by Ronald Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
  sity of California Press, 1965), p. 22.
  14 Quoted by Munemasa Isoo, Kinsei Kyoto shuppan bunka no kenkyu (Kyoto: Dohosha, 1982),
  p. 22.
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  718 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  quarters (cho) who could record and transmit the regulations and or-
  ders passed down to them and maintain accurate tax and property
  records. Some writers expressed the view that farmers should not read
  or engage in any activities that would take time from farm work, but
  generally the warnings were only against too much learning that might
  distract from essential tasks. Nishikawa Joken (1648-1724), a bakufu
  scholar of astronomy, wrote in his Hyakusho bukuro (A bag of advice
  for farmers, 1721): "Even farmers should follow the trend of the times
  and, as appropriate to their status, learn to write. They should listen to
  the explanations of learned people so as to rectify their minds."15
  Although no steps were taken in the seventeenth century to encour-
  age literacy among urban commoners, officials were mindful that read-
  ing was useful for encouraging respect for the laws and inculcating
  ethics. It became common in the middle of the century to post a few
  basic laws on notice boards mounted on posts (kosatsu) at major cross-
  roads and at the ends of bridges. The practice also arose of prefacing
  both the annual registers of the village or quarter population (shushi
  nimbetsu cho) and the oaths of the five-family groups (gonin gumi) with at
  least the text of the basic three-article law forbidding gambling, unli-
  censed prostitution, and Christianity. The noted Confucian scholar Ito
  Jinsai (1627-1705), himself the son of a lumber merchant, observed:
  "It will not do for chonin and farmers not to have learning."16 Literacy
  was taken for granted in a book for merchants: "It goes without saying
  that those of low status should also learn writing and arithmetic and
  should also learn to read a little.'"7
  The impetus to acquire an education came from the urban common-
  ers themselves who wished to prepare their children to engage in
  business and participate in the social intercourse related to success in a
  trade. In addition to professional advantages, there was the desire to
  acquire something of the culture and values of their betters - the
  bushi and privileged merchants - in the hope of moving upward
  within chonin society. But the danger of too much education, if it led to
  an enthusiasm for scholarship or a passion for the dilettantish pursuit
  of polite accomplishments, was feared by parents in merchant fami-
  lies. Books of advice to merchants and the ukiyo zoshi of Saikaku and
  Ejima Kiseki (1666-1735) provide many cautionary tales of mer-
  15 Takimoto Seiichi, ed., Nihon keizai sosho (Tokyo: Nihon keizai sosho kankokai, 1914), vol. 5,
  p. 182.
  16 Quoted by Konta Yozo, Edo no hon'ya san (Tokyo: Nihon hoso shuppan kyokai, 1977), p. 51.
  17 Quoted from Akindo heijo ki (1738), in Ishikawa Ken, "Terakoya" entry in Sekai daihyakka
  jilen (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1966), vol. 15, p. 626.
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  EDUCATION 
  719
  chants' sons who neglected the family business because of elegant
  avocations and, in the end, brought financial ruin.
  The educating of commoners in the Edo period calls to mind the
  image of the terakoya, the small, one-room schools in the cities and
  villages. By the end of the Edo period there were more than ten
  thousand of these institutions. Almost nothing is known about such
  schools in the seventeenth century, however, and the name terakoya
  has not been found in literature until 1716. Yet there are several book
  illustrations and paintings that depict schools of this type in the de-
  cades before 1700.18 The teacher was most frequently a commoner,
  but sometimes a samurai, ronin, monk, doctor, or Shinto priest, who
  wished to supplement his income by teaching a dozen or more stu-
  dents in his home or in rooms provided by the community. Often
  commoner and samurai children were taught together. Much of the
  study time was taken up with learning to write characters and char-
  acter phrases with a brush, copying over and over the fair copy pro-
  vided by the teacher. There was also reading aloud and memorization
  of the maxims in the copybook and, for commoners, instruction in the
  use of the abacus.19
  Even at the end of the Edo period, several of the most frequently used
  school texts were surprisingly ill suited to the needs of either samurai or
  chonin. The classic was the Teikin orai, a text that had been used since
  the early Ashikaga period. It was made up of pairs of letters and answers
  (orai), ingeniously working in the vocabulary of various subjects. Unfor-
  tunately, some of the words were obsolete and even incomprehensible
  by the seventeenth century. Nonetheless, this text was printed at least
  170 times in the Edo period. Two other works frequently used were the
  Jitsugo kyo and the Doji-kyo, dating from the Heian period and written
  in Chinese. Their content was largely Confucian in tone - urging the
  virtues of fidelity, reverence for teacher, and so forth - but with a gener-
  ous admixture of popular Buddhist thought: the ephemerality of the
  present life, the horrors of the hells, the possible rewards of paradise,
  and even the prospects for happiness and wealth in this world.
  One of the most frequently used texts was the Shobai orai (Mer-
  chants' orai), written in 1693. Abandoning the letter format, it is
  merely a list of business vocabulary, names of commodities, and techni-
  18 Three examples are Sumiyoshi Gukei's handscroll, "Tohi zukan," detail reproduced in
  Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, p. n ; illustration from Nan chohoki (1693) reproduced in Dore,
  Education in Tokugawa Japan, facing p. 267; and Saikaku's Munesan'yo (1692), in Noma
  Koshin, ed., Saikaku shu, pt. 2, vol. 48 of Nihon koten bungaku taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami
  shoten, 1957), p. 299.
  19 Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan, pp. 258-9.
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  720 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  cal terms of commerce. Similar orai (the term came to mean simply a
  primer) appeared for farmers, craftsmen, warehousers, carpenters,
  seamen, booksellers, clothiers, and so on. Yet other orai took a geo-
  graphical theme, describing, for example, a journey along the Tokaido
  from Edo to Kyoto, listing the names of places along the highway, the
  local products, scenic places, and legends or historical incidents associ-
  ated with them.20 In all, some seven thousand books compiled during
  Edo times have been classified as orai in its broad sense.21
  Many other books appeared in print that, like some of the orai, were
  probably not intended as schoolroom texts but, rather, for use in the
  home to aid in preparing the young for adult life. Such books had the
  word chohoki (record of accumulated treasures) in their title, as in
  "Gathered things one needs to know for living in the world."22 Some
  listed useful words accompanied by an illustration - household uten-
  sils, furnishings, items of clothing, proper dress and objects for cere-
  monial occasions, and the like. Among some twenty chohoki published
  in the last decade of the seventeenth century, when they were most in
  vogue, was the Nan chohoki (1693), designed to teach boys, especially
  of the bushi class, what they should know: the qualities of men of
  noble and daimyo rank, the skills of calligraphy, poetry in Chinese,
  waka, renga, haikai, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, board games,
  and model letters to be written when offering condolences and con-
  gratulations and when presenting gifts.23 The author wrote a compan-
  ion volume for women, the Onna chohoki (1692). There was also
  chohoki designed to instruct the bridal couple. Others provided special-
  ized information on human relations, weapons and equipment of
  bushi, medicine, geomancy, spell casting, correct language usage, let-
  ter writing, Chinese poetry, character learning, and other topics. As
  these works became more detailed, the word mampo (myriad trea-
  sures) was prefixed to the title (Mampo chohoki, Mampo zensho, and so
  on), and they served as encyclopedic household reference works.
  Another variety of educational book was the illustrated lexicon,
  such as the Kimmo zui (Illustrations and definitions to train the untu-
  tored) of 1666 in fourteen slim fascicles or stitched volumes. Arranged
  in the topical categories of Chinese and Japanese encyclopedias, it
  provided for each of its twelve hundred words the readings, a syn-
  20 Ibid., pp. 278-83.
  21 Ishikawa, "Terakoya," p. 318. Seventeen volumes of orai texts appear in Ishikawa Ken,
  Nihon kyokasho taikei: orai-hen (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1968-77).
  22 Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, p. 38.
  23 These works by Namura Johaku, once a bushi physician, appear in Kinsei bungaku shiryo
  ruiju: sanko bunken hen, vols. 17-18 (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1981).
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  EDUCATION 
  721
  onym or line of definition and, in most instances, a drawing.24 During
  the last two decades of the seventeenth century, kimmo zui were pub-
  lished also to teach the vocabulary and rudiments of special subjects:
  military equipment, noh drama, the occupations, and flower arrang-
  ing; there was even one on sex (Koshoku kimmo zui, 1686) with ample
  illustrations of practitioners and equipment.
  A more substantial dictionary was the Setsuyo shu, originally com-
  piled about 1444. It was frequently revised and expanded, and some
  eight hundred editions were printed between the late sixteenth cen-
  tury and the early Meiji period. A 1680 edition, Setsuyo taizen, had
  thirty thousand words. By 1704 at the latest, publishers added a great
  deal of prefatory material concerning the geography and history of
  Japan: maps of the three cities, lists of famous places, a who's who,
  and a chronology of Japanese history. Next came practical information
  for daily life: sample letters and legal documents, instruction in eti-
  quette, a calendar of annual events, correct methods of dressing and
  folding clothes, the proper ways to present food, rules of mourning,
  and so forth. These elements of a household encyclopedia grew succes-
  sively until they occupied almost as many pages in a book of nine
  hundred pages as did the dictionary itself.25
  Learning to read and write at a terakoya or at home was only part of
  a child's education for life. It was assumed that boys would follow in
  the family trade. The son of a merchant or craftsman began to learn
  the trade from about the age of ten by becoming an apprentice (detchi),
  either at home or, more commonly, in another household. If he were
  apprenticed out, the term was usually ten years. He would live as a
  member of his master's household with the other apprentices and
  servants and would receive only his meals and, twice a year, a seasonal
  change of clothing. His own family was expected to provide pocket
  money and any other necessities. In the first years the boy would work
  as a servant, sweeping and cleaning, helping in the kitchen, and run-
  ning errands, but his education in reading and writing would be contin-
  ued. This was a hard life for a young boy, but its hardness was training
  for life: "You should think of the hard time you have as an apprentice
  as sowing the seeds for getting on later in life - for growing the flowers
  of success."26
  24 By Nakamura Tekisai (1629-1702), reproduced in Kinsei bungaku shiryo ruiju: sanko bunken
  hen, vol. 4 (1976).
  25 Toshio Yokoyama, "Setsuyoshu and Japanese Civilization," in J-P. Lehmann and Sue Henny,
  eds., Themes and Theories in Modem Japanese History (London: Athlone, 1986).
  26 Quoted from Choka shikimoku bungen lama no ishizue by Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan,
  p. 267.
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  722 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  At about the age of fifteen the apprentice would have his gembuku
  ceremony and advance to semiadult status; his hairstyle would be
  changed and he would be given a proper name in place of his child-
  hood name. He would be taught the proper words and polite expres-
  sions to use and how to handle merchandise and tell good coins from
  poor. Gradually he would be sent on more responsible errands and
  would accompany senior clerks on purchasing and bill-collecting trips
  about the city. At about eighteen such a young man became a clerk
  (tedai). At a ceremony recognizing his adulthood, he received a set of
  adult clothes, a pipe, and a tobacco pouch. He now became fully
  involved in the business, dealing with clients and suppliers. Within a
  few years he faced opportunities to make important decisions, to gain
  experience, and to test his business judgment. He was expected to stay
  on for about five years after his term of indenture had ended, as an
  expression of gratitude for the training he had received. An especially
  promising clerk might be promoted to banto (manager) and given the
  responsibility of supervising all the clerks and overseeing the day-to-
  day operation of the business. A further advancement was sometimes
  possible: He might be given his own shop as head of a branch family
  (bunke). Should the master lack a male heir, a marriage might be
  arranged between a daughter of the house and a banto or tedai who
  would be adopted as heir to the business and house.
  The system of apprenticing had the advantage for less prosperous
  families of providing to second sons the opportunity to learn a trade and
  gain achievement. They would also acquire something of the culture of
  better families. For richer merchants (and rural landowners also), ap-
  prenticeship was a way to make a man of a son who might be spoiled at
  home. He would be exposed to the realities of life - hard work and
  discipline, getting along with strangers, the value of money - as well as
  the experience of learning a business in operation.
  There were also opportunities for a daughter to be apprenticed in
  the household of a wealthy merchant, court noble, daimyo, or upper
  samurai as a servant or a companion for children. There she could
  acquire something of the feminine culture of the upper classes and
  improve her chances of marriage into a bushi or upper chonin house.27
  Most manuals of advice on raising daughters gave attention to moral
  guidance, and there were many books devoted solely to this subject.
  27 The description of the apprentice system is based on Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan, pp.
  266-9; Sakata Yoshio, Chonin (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1939), pp. 61-6; and Charles David Shel-
  don, The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan, 1600-1868, Monographs of the
  Association for Asian Studies, no. 5 (Locust Valley, N.Y.: J. J. Augustin, 1958) pp. 52-3.
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  EDUCATION 
  723
  Among the best known were Honcho onna kagami (1661), a collection
  of biographies of exemplary women of China and Japan, and Onna
  daigaku (Greater learning for women, 1715). A work called Onna
  shisho (The four books for women, 1656) was an adaptation of four
  minor Chinese classics. The author, Tsujihara Gempo, in explaining
  the purpose of his work, wrote that one should not let children read
  licentious and amorous stories like the he and Genji monogatari; in-
  stead they should be taught accounts of the chaste and virtuous
  women of China.28
  Whether or not daughters were taught to read and write, all learned
  the basic skills of making clothes and sewing bedding, cooking and
  cleaning, taking care of children, and properly greeting and serving
  guests. The illustrations as well as the text of manuals such as the Joy6
  kimmo zui (1700) and the Onna chohoki (mentioned earlier) taught
  them the correct names for different articles of clothing, furniture,
  household utensils, how to wear garments and apply cosmetics, and
  how to wrap a present and attach the correct knots and presentation
  message. The latter book went further, giving instruction in develop-
  ing the proper mental attitude toward life, taking care of one's health,
  and being attentive to mind and body during pregnancy. Depending
  on the family's status and ambitions, there were accomplishments that
  could be learned as preparation for marriage or going into service in a
  good household, such as flower arranging, tea, painting, calligraphy,
  composition of waka and haikai poems, singing and dancing, or play-
  ing a musical instrument. Some skills might be learned from accom-
  plished relatives or friends, others from professional teachers.
  Some of these arts, and others such as noh singing (utai), were often
  studied by men as well, not only for personal pleasure, but also to
  acquire performing skills (gei) desirable at parties, on such occasions as
  entertaining prospective clients, attending meetings of guild and frater-
  nal groups, and in social intercourse with restaurant waitresses or
  prostitutes.
  The preceding discussion of education and training in the arts has
  been concerned with only the elementary stage of instruction for both
  samurai and commoners. For those proceeding to a more advanced
  level of proficiency, there were teachers offering private instruction,
  and in Kyoto, in particular, there were master practitioners. The first
  good list appears in a guide to Kyoto, the Kyo habutae (1685), which
  28 "Onna shisho" entry in Nihon koten bungaku daijiten henshu iinkai, ed., Nihon koten
  bungaku daijiten, 6 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1983-5), vol. 1, p. 536c.
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  724 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  lists the names of 241 masters in 47 specialties in the city. Twenty-eight
  scholars are listed: 6 Confucians, 6 lecturers on Confucian books, 4
  lecturers on medical books, 1 in Chinese phonology, 2 in Chinese
  poetry, 1 in the calendar, 2 in Shinto, 1 in court practices, 2 in mathe-
  matics, and 3 in calligraphy. The masters of poetry numbered 5 classi-
  cal, 3 renga, and 12 haikai. A list of Kyoto masters compiled by the
  Tokugawa city administration not later than 1717 mentions 440, of
  whom 288 were in the arts: 4 go, 4 chess, 11 flower arrangement
  (rikka), 3 tea, 5 kickball (kemari), 17 painting, 1 cuisine, 4 massage,
  116 music (probably mostly blind biwa players), 11 noh recitation, 35
  noh acting, 15 noh flute, 19 noh small hand drum, 20 noh large hand
  drum, 7 noh stick drum, and 16 kyogen actors.29 Some of the masters
  (especially scholars, physicians, teamen, and noh actors and musi-
  cians) received residential land and stipends from court nobles or
  daimyo. The upper-class chonin were also prominent among the pa-
  trons and students of these practitioners. The names of the masters
  indicate that the greater number were from commoner background.
  This is confirmed by Nishikawa Joken, writing in 1692, who said that
  chonin became masters of the arts because prosperity provided them
  with leisure time: "Since the last hundred years has been an age when
  the realm is at peace, many of the Confucian scholars, physicians,
  masters of poetry, and those accomplished in tea and other elegant arts
  have come from among the chonin."30
  The teachers who had the most far-reaching influence were the new
  generation of Confucian scholars who gave instruction in the explica-
  tion of classical Chinese texts and lectured on their inner meaning. In
  the past, this knowledge had been the special province of court nobles
  and Zen monks, but now it became accessible to samurai and common-
  ers as well. The first and most important of the private academies were
  established by men who studied under Fujiwara Seika (1561-1619),
  the founder of Edo period Confucianism. Hayashi Razan (Doshun)
  (1583-1657) opened a private school in Edo in 1630. (Razan had
  entered the employ of Ieyasu in 1607 as a scholar and researcher, and
  the Hayashi house continued as one of bakufu scholars until the end of
  the Tokugawa period.) Matsunaga Sekigo (1592-1657) and Kan
  Tokuan (1581-1628) began to teach in Kyoto in the 1620s. Many of
  29 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 509-10. Kyo habutae, in (Shinshu) Kyoto sosho (Kyoto: Rinsen
  shoten, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 200-4. The official source is Kyoto oyakusho-muki taigai oboegaki, a
  collection of official memoranda and reports, revised to 1717, edited by Iwao Seiichi (Osaka:
  Seibundo, 1973), vol. 2, pp. 121-44.
  30 Chonin bukuro (1692), in Nihon keizai sosho, vol. 5, p. 65; Takeshi Moriya, "Yugei and Chonin
  Society in the Edo Period," Acta Asiatica, no. 33 (1977): 44.
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  BOOKS AND PUBLISHING 
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  their followers were employed by daimyo as Confucian scholars; oth-
  ers opened their own schools in Kyoto, Edo, and other cities. Among
  the most distinguished of Sekigo's "five thousand followers" were
  Kinoshita Jun'an (1621-98), the most influential teacher of his genera-
  tion, and the commoner I to Jinsai who, with his son Togai (1670-
  1736), attracted large numbers of students. Yamazaki Ansai (1618-
  82), who opened a school in Kyoto in 1655, is said to have had six
  thousand followers.31 Yamaga Soko (1622-85) in Edo also taught
  many students.
  The impressive progress among bushi in study of the Chinese clas-
  sics and in cultural accomplishments from early in the seventeenth
  century was given by far its greatest official encouragement during the
  time of Tsunayoshi. He was the most scholarly of the Tokugawa sho-
  guns. He attempted to spread knowledge of the Chinese texts by
  requiring daimyo and officials to join him in attending lectures of
  textual exegesis. In fact, he himself delivered hundreds of lectures to
  captive audiences. These were antic performances, but his intentions
  were serious. Tsunayoshi even built a large Confucian shrine at
  Yushima, close to Edo Castle, in 1690, and converted the Hayashi
  school into the official bakufu school.32
  Although fewer commoners than samurai pursued advanced stud-
  ies, their numbers and achievements were significant. The Itos' acad-
  emy in Kyoto is said to have had over three thousand students. In
  Osaka, a group of benefactors founded the Kaitokudo in 1724 as a
  school of Chinese studies for commoners. It soon received government
  recognition and continued to prosper until the beginning of the Meiji
  period.
  BOOKS AND PUBLISHING
  The spread of knowledge and culture could not have taken place at
  such a pace without a flourishing publication trade. Before 1590
  there was almost no printing except in Buddhist monasteries. Except
  for some editions of the Confucian classics and collections of Chinese
  poetry, they printed only Buddhist works, all in very small editions.
  31 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 419-37; Robert Rubinger, Private Academies of Tokugawa Japan
  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 42-56. The remarkable intellectual
  achievements of these and other Confucian scholars during the seventeenth century are
  discussed in Chapter 8 in this volume.
  32 Donald H. Shively, "Tokugawa Tsunayoshi: The Genroku Shogun," in Albert M. Craig and
  Donald H. Shively, eds., Personality in Japanese History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
  sity of California Press, 1970), pp. 85-126, esp. pp. 114-17.
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  POPULAR CULTURE
  Not a single work of the large corpus of Japanese literature had been
  put in print. But within a century, well over ten thousand books were
  in print, sold or rented by more than seven hundred bookstores. The
  availability of books on all subjects, including illustrated and easy-to-
  read books written mostly in kana, was a stimulus to learning to
  read.
  Hideyoshi's military campaign in Korea in 1592 helped bring about
  the end of the monastic monopoly on printing. The Japanese generals,
  and the Zen monks who served as their secretaries and interpreters,
  found collections of beautifully printed, large-format books in the
  homes of the Korean gentry. Korean libraries were seized as prized
  booty, and fonts of copper movable type and even presses were
  brought back to Japan.
  Printing private editions in movable type became a pastime at the
  imperial court and among daimyo. Doctors, scholars, and other edu-
  cated men in their entourages, fascinated by the novel technology, also
  began to print the Chinese classics and books on military tactics,
  statecraft, and medicine. The most dramatic development was the
  printing of the classics of Japanese literature which had perilously
  survived for many centuries in manuscript. The first to be printed in
  movable type from about 1601 were works most desired by the bushi:
  collections of noh texts and military epics such as the Taiheiki and
  Heike monogatari. At last the notion was overcome that Japanese prose,
  with its flowing kana syllabary, could be copied only by brush. The
  cursive style was laboriously replicated in the most inefficient medium
  of movable type. In rapid succession the great works of Heian and
  Kamakura prose came into print, and they appeared in edition after
  edition - as many as eighteen of some works - as no preferred text
  had yet been established.
  During the first two decades, publication was a cultural activity of
  the privileged, not unlike the manuscript copying of scribes, for only a
  few impressions were made for distribution as gifts. Buddhist monas-
  teries were also active in printing in their workshops but soon engaged
  publishers who began to appear in the city blocks of Kyoto to carry out
  the work. These shops also printed Chinese texts required by Confu-
  cian scholars and their pupils. As publishing became increasingly a
  commercial enterprise, the more economical method of printing from
  woodblocks, used in Japan for at least six hundred years, soon re-
  placed movable type. Of the five hundred works known to have been
  printed between 1593 and 1625, 80 percent were printed by movable
  type, but movable type accounted for less than 20 percent of the
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  BOOKS AND PUBLISHING 
  727
  printing occurring during the next quarter-century, and for virtually
  none after 1650.33
  Until 1650 the three most numerous categories of books aimed at
  the serious reader: Chinese classics and commentaries and works on
  Chinese history, governance, and poetry; Buddhist works, mostly in
  Chinese; and classical Japanese literature. The number of these edi-
  tions is remarkable. A fourth category of increasing importance em-
  braced books of instruction, the earliest of which addressed samurai:
  the seven books of military science, texts of feudal law, the Azuma
  kagami (important for its lessons on Minamoto governance), samurai
  etiquette according to the Ogasawara school, and aids to the composi-
  tion of poems in Chinese. Other instructive works were of practical
  interest to chonin as well: dictionaries, lexicons, drai mono and other
  elementary textbooks, books of moral instruction and deportment for
  women, and illustrated household reference books. In 1670, the same
  year that Shison kagami (A mirror for sons and grandsons) prescribed
  the ideal regime of instruction for a young samurai, a booksellers' list
  (shojaku mokuroku) noted publications that could serve as texts for
  cultural studies as well: 27 collections of noh plays, 31 of dance pieces
  (mainohon), 4 on the noh hand drum, 12 on board games, 7 on tea, and
  77 on calligraphy and stone rubbings. Among the many works on
  Chinese poetry, waka, and renga, there were 133 titles on haikai po-
  etry.34 Many of these books would appeal to chonin families as well.
  The next two decades saw the addition of practical books on many
  other subjects such as the playing of musical instruments, flower ar-
  ranging, garden design, teahouse architecture, clothing design, the
  care of birds, cooking, mathemathics, descriptions of scenic and his-
  torical places, and travel accounts and guidebooks.
  A fifth category of books included popular publications, written
  mostly in simple language for easy reading, which appeared in large
  33 Kawase Kazuma, "Kokatsuji-ban kanko nempyo," in his (Zoho) Kokatsuji-ban no kenkyu
  (Tokyo: Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Japan, 1967), vol. 2, appendix. In addition,
  the following books were consulted on early Edo printing: Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, pp. ii,
  21-26; Suwa Haruo, Shuppan koto hajime: Edo no hon (Tokyo: Mainichi shimbunsha, 1978),
  pp. 24-39, 49-55, 61-73; Kawase Kazuma, (Nyiimon kowa) Nihon shuppan bunka shi (To-
  kyo: Nihon edita sukuru shuppambu, 1983), pp. 99-155, 178-79, 199-200; Okano Takeo,
  Nihon shuppan bunka shi (Tokyo: Shumpodo, 1959), pp. 3-15; and David Chibbett, The
  History of Japanese Printing and Book Illustration (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1977), pp. 67-85. The
  Jesuit Mission Press in Hirado printed over thirty works in roman script using European
  techniques, beginning in 1591, but there is no evidence of influence on Japanese publishing
  (Chibbett, The History of Japanese Printing, pp. 61-67).
  34 Munemasa, Kinsei Kyoto shuppan, pp. 23-24. The 1670 list appears in Shido Bunko, ed.,
  (Edojidai) Shorin shuppan shoseki mokuroku shusei (Tokyo: Inoue shobo, 1962-4), vol. 1, pp.
  53-109.
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  POPULAR CULTURE
  numbers from the middle of the century. Using far more kana than
  Chinese characters, they are known as kana zoshi, and they were made
  up in several slim volumes or fascicles of twenty to thirty leaves each.
  They were intended to be entertaining reading - romances, miscella-
  nies of unusual tales, stories of the supernatural, humorous anecdotes -
  but too often the story form was really a device to make the didactic
  message palatable.35
  A few kana zoshi had begun to appear in the first decades of the Edo
  period. These were mostly old-fashioned romances, probably written
  by court nobles or physicians and storytellers attached to military
  houses. Composed for amusement, some came out in movable-type
  editions for circulation among friends. They were soon reprinted com-
  mercially, but the readers at first may have been mainly from the
  upper classes. These books included contemporary touches - settings
  at famous temples of Kyoto, descriptions of the city's sights, and the
  mention of living persons - and differed from their medieval models
  in being specific as to time and place. Urami no suke, written just after
  1612, is a disguised account of a scandal of 1606, an illicit liaison
  between a hatamoto and a lady of the imperial court.36 The stories
  came to reflect changes in society as the young gallant was transformed
  from courtier to samurai, and the beautiful lady of the court was
  replaced by a prostitute. When the role of the lover was given to a
  chonin, in Zeraku monogatari of about 1658, the kana zoshi had become
  part of the popular culture.37
  Another type of kana zoshi that began to appear just before 1640 had
  the purpose of presenting in popular form ethical ideas for a new age.
  Some propagated Confucian morals; others offered Buddhist teach-
  ings; and still others argued for a unity of the doctrines. The authors
  were not of the privileged circle who anonymously wrote the romances
  but, rather, were men of samurai background who, in most cases, had
  become Confucian teachers or monks or remained rbnin. They wrote
  for commercial publication, attempting to make their message more
  35 On kana zoshi, see Richard Lane, "The Beginnings of the Modern Japanese Novel: Kana-
  zoshi, 1600-1682," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20 (1957): 644-701; Donald Keene,
  World Within Walls (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), pp. 149-66. For texts
  and discussion, see Maeda Kingoro, in Maeda Kingoro and Morita Takeshi, eds., Kana zoshi
  shu, vol. 90 of Nihon koten bungaku taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1965), pp. 3-12; Noma
  Koshin, in Ichiko Teiji and Noma Koshin, eds., Otogi zoshi. Kana zoshi, vol. 26 of Kansho
  Nihon koten bungaku (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1976), pp. 133-42; Kishi Tokuzo, in Jimbo
  Kazuya et al., eds., Kana,zoshi shu, ukiyo zoshi shu, vol. 37 of Nihon koten bungaku zenshu
  (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1971), pp. 7-19.
  36 Noma, Otogi zoshi, pp. 221-7; Maeda, Kana zoshi shu, pp. 14-15; Keene, World Within
  Walls, pp. 150-1.
  37 Lane, "The Beginnings of the Modern Japanese Novel," pp. 661-4.
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  BOOKS AND PUBLISHING 
  729
  attractive by presenting it in literary form: short stories, conversa-
  tions, or exchanges of letters. The message typically emerged in a
  dialogue between a knowledgeable person (the author) and his hapless
  companion. These books had the patronizing air of a man of education
  introducing the traditions and morality of educated society to a newly
  literate strata of bushi and commoners.
  The Kiyomizu monogatari (1638) by Asayama Irin'an (1589-1664),
  later to become a prominent Confucian teacher, was one of the most
  widely known of these books. It is said to have sold two or three thou-
  sand copies, considered a large number at that time.38 The Iguchi
  monogatari of 1662 has a double-page illustration, a scene of ten people
  seated in a parlor looking at kana zoshi of this didactic genre, the titles of
  which are clearly legible: Kashoki (1642), Kanninki (1659), Inga
  monogatari (1661), and the Iguchi monogatari itself. Among the readers
  we can identify are a monk, samurai, ronin, court lady, and catamite, all
  but the last of whom are people of a status expected to read traditional
  literature rather than popular works. But this illustration is more likely
  promotion by the author than a reliable record of readership.39
  The most proflific writer of kana zoshi was Asai Ryoi (i6i2?-9i). At
  about the time of his birth, his father was expelled from his position as
  head of a Jodo Shinshu temple near Osaka, and the child seems to
  have grown up under trying circumstances. He did manage to acquire
  a good education, however, and while supporting himself as a physi-
  cian and by writing popular books, he harbored the ambition of becom-
  ing head of a Shinshu temple, a goal that he achieved in his late years.
  The twenty or more kana zoshi he wrote ranged from books of moral
  guidance to collections of comic stories, adaptations of Chinese stories
  of the supernatural (Otogi boko, 1666), and three well-known guide-
  books: Tokaido meishoki, Edo meishoki, and Kyo suzume.*0 Because
  these works were written for publication and in part, at least, to make
  a living, he has been called Japan's first professional writer.41 In his
  later years he became head of a Shinshu temple in Kyoto and wrote
  voluminous commentaries on Buddhist texts as well as popular expla-
  nations of Shinshu doctrine.
  Ryoi's best-known work, Ukiyo monogatari (A tale of the floating
  38 According to the Gion monogatari (c. 1644), a critique of Kiyomizu monogatari. See Tenri
  toshokan shisho kenkyubu, ed., Kana zoshi hen, vol. 1 of Kinsei bungaku mikambon sosho
  (Nara: Yotokusha, 1947), p. 51.
  39 Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei kashihon'ya no kenkyu (Tokyo: Tdkyodo, 1982), p. 22. The illustra-
  tions appear in a facsimile edition of the text, Kana zoshi hen, vol. 33 of Kinsei bungaku shiryo
  ruiju (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1977), pp. 312-13.
  40 Noma, Otogi zoshi, pp. 271-3. 
  41 Keene, World Within Walls, p. 156.
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  73O 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  world), appeared about 1665. The book traces the experiences of a
  man by the name of Hyotaro (hyd means gourd) as he is carried
  through life as by a current. His adventures are prefaced by an explana-
  tion of the change in meaning of the word ukiyo, which in medieval
  stories had meant the transient world of suffering and misery. In the
  new meaning of "floating world," the character uki, meaning "sad," is
  replaced by one meaning "floating" or "drifting." The floating world
  is the up-to-date, fashionable, carefree life of pleasure lived by the new
  urban sophisticates:
  Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the
  moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maples, singing songs, drinking
  wine, and diverting ourselves just in floating, floating, caring not a whit for
  the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd
  floating along with the river current: This is what we call ukiyo.*2
  Hyotaro's father, who abandoned the samurai profession out of de-
  sire to make a fortune as a merchant, and his son, who carelessly
  squandered the wealth he inherited, exemplify the new age. The
  young rake dresses extravagantly in the latest style and devotes himself
  completely to the pleasures of the Shimabara prostitutes' quarter in
  Kyoto. His family and friends try to save him from his excesses,
  lecturing him on the fate of financial ruin and recourse to crime that
  awaits him. The author, in this first expression of the hedonistic aban-
  don of the floating world and the odyssey of the rake, appears to
  anticipate by two decades the first of the ukiyo zoshi, Saikaku's The
  Man Who Spent His Life in Love. But from this suggestive beginning
  Ryoi turns to a heavy-handed detailing of the selfishness and greed in
  society that extends from daimyo to merchant. His moralizing over-
  whelms the plausibility of his main character.43
  Whatever the limitations of kana zoshi as literature, these books
  were a vital stage in the transition from medieval to early modern
  society. Books for the first time were written for publication. The
  books were popular, and they sold immediately to waiting readers.
  Although only 54 are known to have been printed by 1655, 178 ap-
  peared in the next eighteen years.44 They differed from the received
  literature, which described an aristocratic society of a different age or
  42 Adapted from Lane, "The Beginnings of the Modern Japanese Novel," pp. 671-2.
  43 Keene, World Within Walls, pp. 156-60; Lane, "The Beginnings of the Modern Japanese
  Novel," pp. 671-5; Maeda, Kana zoshi shu, pp. 18-19, t e x t PP- 241—354; Taniwaki
  Masachika, in Jimbo et al., eds., Kana zoshi shu, pp. 28-33.
  44 Akai Tatsuro, "Genroku ki no tosbi seikatsu to minshu bunka," Iwanami koza Nikon rekishi,
  vol. 10 (Jkinsei 2) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), p. 334.
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  BOOKS AND PUBLISHING 
  73I
  stories underlain by Buddhist concerns for the next world and the
  intercession of deities in human affairs. Writing for a contemporary
  audience changed the focus to the this-worldly, to the conveying of
  information that was of interest to those living in contemporary soci-
  ety. With the additional step to Saikaku's stories and Chikamatsu's
  plays, literature began to acquire the realism of everyday life.
  By 1659 the publication and sale of books had so expanded that
  Kyoto dealers began to publish, for the benefit of booksellers, lists of
  works currently available. Starting with 1,600 titles in twenty-two
  subject categories, the classifications expanded to seventy-two as more
  and more different kinds of books were published. The fourteenth of
  these lists, published in Edo in 1696 (Zdeki shojaku shomoku daizeri),
  ran to 674 pages and listed author, number of volumes, publisher, and
  price for its 7,800 titles.45 Yet this was far from a complete list of
  current books, because not all publishers were included and because
  most scripts of the puppet and kabuki theater, haikai poetry, picture
  books (ukiyo ehori), kusa zoshi, and a number of other types of light
  books were excluded. Books published privately also were not in-
  cluded: publications of the bakufu, daimyo, temples, and other
  nontrade books.
  Publishing houses, like other craftsmen's workshops, were family
  concerns. Members of the family and a few apprentices directed the
  entire process: They had a calligrapher write out the manuscript in an
  elegant hand, commissioned illustrations, had an engraver cut the
  woodblocks, and then printed the pages and sewed the bindings. The
  same shop handled retail as well as wholesale marketing. From the
  1660s, most books included colophons bearing the date of the wood-
  blocks, the name and address of the publisher, and, in later decades,
  the names of participating publishers or distributors in other cities. By
  about 1720 there were 200 publishers in Kyoto who were members of
  the publishers' association, 47 in Edo, and 24 in Osaka. For the entire
  Edo period, 3,753 publishers have been identified.46 Some concerns
  continued in business for as long as two hundred years, but keen
  competition drove others out after a short time. The publishers in each
  of the three cities organized themselves into trade associations (na-
  katna or ton'ya) in an attempt to protect exclusive claims to books they
  45 Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, p. 12; Munemasa, Kinsei Kyoto, p. 32; Suwa, Shuppan koto hajime,
  pp. 116-18, 189-94. Fifteen of the twenty-three lists are reproduced and indexed in {Edo
  jiiai) Shorin shuppan shoseki mokuroku shusei, 4 vols.
  46 Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, pp. 75-7; Suwa, Shuppan koto hajime, pp. 51-2. Sakamoto
  Muneko added 2,613 publishers to Inoue Kazuo's list of 1,140, compiled in 1916, in reprint-
  ing his book as {Zolex) Keicho irai shoko shuran (Osaka: Takao shoten, 1972).
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  POPULAR CULTURE
  had already published and to deter newcomers from entering the
  trade. Although these associations, like most other trade groups, were
  illegal at this time, they gained recognition between 1716 and 1723 as
  the authorities realized their usefulness in policing the trade and en-
  forcing censorship.47
  Most bookstores, whether or not they published books, were known
  to favor certain types of publication: imported Chinese editions, Bud-
  dhist books, literature, poetry, noh texts, old books, light popular
  zoshi or picture books, maps, and so forth.48 Many also rented out
  books, extending greatly the number of readers who could enjoy books
  at a quarter or a third of the retail price. Peddlers went about the
  streets and into the countryside with book frames on their backs piled
  high with books for sale or rent.49
  Who were the commoners who bought books, and what kind did
  they buy? Little evidence has been found for the city residents of this
  period, but there are data of great interest concerning three families in
  villages in the prosperous hinterland of Kawachi Province, about fif-
  teen kilometers east of Osaka. We have the surviving library of the
  merchant Sugiyama of Tondabayashi, with books dating from the
  1660s on; a book inventory of the fertilizer dealer Sanda of Kashihara,
  compiled about 1730, listing the 803 volumes acquired in the previous
  two generations; and the diary of Mori Chozaemon, headman of
  Kusaka village, recording books he bought, rented from, or sold to
  four energetic book peddlers from Osaka who visited him every month
  or two from 1727 to 1729. The Great Learning and several other Confu-
  cian classics were found in these households, as well as Buddhist texts,
  early Japanese prose and poetry, noh texts, and many educational and
  practical books: advice for merchants, textbooks for school or home
  instruction, guides for women, and household reference works such as
  the chohoki. Because two of Saikaku's collections of stories about mer-
  chants also were found, we know that these rural families read of the
  pleasures and travails of Kyoto and Osaka businessmen. Sugiyama
  was an enthusiastic performer of noh plays. Sanda Jokyu is mentioned
  by Saikaku as a haikai poet; in 1679 he compiled and published in a
  fine edition an illustrated guide to notable places of Kawachi Province
  {Kawachi kagami meishoki) and in the appendix listed the names and
  addresses of 260 associates who contributed poems to the book. Mori,
  47 Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, pp. 75-7, 80.
  48 Nagatomo, Kinsei kashihon'ya no kenkyu, pp. 4-11.
  49 Ibid., pp. 6, 19-22, 26-33, 61-2; illustrations of book peddlers, pp. 25-31, 247-8; Suwa,
  Shuppan koto hajime, pp. 213-20.
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  KYOTO THE SOURCE 
  733
  the village headman, recorded that he stayed at home all one day to
  read a book he had rented, Naniwa gunki, probably an account of the
  Tokugawa's attack on Osaka Castle. Among Mori's purchases was the
  Wakan sansai zue, a Sino-Japanese encyclopedia in eighty-one vol-
  umes, compiled by an Osaka physician in 1712.50
  KYOTO THE SOURCE
  Kyoto continued as the center of learning and culture during the
  seventeenth century. It was also the model of what a city should be,
  as for many centuries the imperial capital had remained the only real
  city in the country. In early Tokugawa times, Kyoto came to be
  thought of as a place to be enjoyed, rich in attractions and entertain-
  ments, not for the elite alone, but for residents and visitors of all
  classes.
  Kyoto enjoyed a virtual monopoly on places and sights with cher-
  ished historical or literary associations. These were celebrated in large
  painted screens of the cityscape - with its palaces, Buddhist temples,
  and Shinto shrines - that were made for daimyo to carry off to their
  castles in locales far from the capital. Also depicted in the screens were
  places of scenic beauty around the city, popular for excursions and
  picnics and dance performance under flowering cherry trees or au-
  tumn maples. The screens provided a continuous narrative of the
  pleasures of the capital that the viewer could tour vicariously. The
  panoramic design and the conventions used in the pairs of screens
  called rakuchu rakugai zu (pictures of the capital and its environs) were
  already fully evolved in the Machida pair of the 1520s, the earliest of
  these works to survive. A magnificent pair by Kano Eitoku was sent
  by Nobunaga as a gift to Uesugi Kenshin in 1573; the names of 223 of
  the buildings and scenic places that appear on the screens are identi-
  fied by inscriptions.51
  So great was the appeal of the capital that some sixteenth-century
  daimyo reproduced in their provincial castle towns certain distinctive
  features of Kyoto: streets laid out in a grid, shrines with the name Gion,
  or temple buildings duplicating Kyoto models, such as Kiyomizu-dera.
  50 Konta, Edo no hon'ya san, pp. 41-48; Nagatomo, Kinsei kashihon'ya no kenkyu, pp. 21, 78—
  101; Noma Koshin, "Ukiyo zoshi no dokusha so," Bungaku 26 (1958): 66-7.
  51 The screens are illustrated and discussed in Ishida Hisatoyo, Naito Akira, and Moriya
  Katsuhisa, comps., Rakuchu rakugai zu taikan, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1987), vols. 1,2;
  Fuzoku ga: Rakuchu rakugai, vol. 11 of Nihon bydbu-e shusei (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1977-80);
  Kyoto kokuritsu hakubutsukan, comp., Rakuchu rakugai zu (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten,
  1966).
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  734 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  Some named the hills outside their castle towns Higashiyama or Hiei
  and Atago; some likened their rivers to the Kamo and Oi. Yamaguchi,
  Hida Takayama, and Tosa Nakamura are among the Sengoku cities now
  referred to as "Little Kyoto" (Sho-Kyoto) because such traces can still
  be found.52
  Kyoto had undergone extensive changes in the last years of the
  sixteenth century. For example, Hideyoshi ordered more than a hun-
  dred temples removed to temple "zones" along Teramachi, Tera-
  nouchi, and Shimo Teramachi. He rebuilt the imperial palace, razed
  blocks in the commoner district to create a new palace compound for
  the retired emperor, and constructed the Daibutsu-den of Hokoji to
  house a colossal statue of the Buddha. He also built an earthen wall
  around the city, the odoi, the only city wall to be completed in Kyoto's
  history, which defined the boundary between city and country. The
  growth of the city and its prosperity began again during Hideyoshi's
  years and continued unabated under the Tokugawa. Ieyasu had Nijo
  Castle constructed and required many daimyo to establish residences
  nearby. Visitors came in increasing numbers for commerce, pilgrim-
  age, and tourism once the coming of peace made travel safe.
  Detailed information about this larger and more complex city be-
  came available for the first time when maps and guidebooks were
  published for the convenience of both residents and visitors. But even
  earlier, kana zoshi had begun to enumerate the pleasures of life in the
  capital.
  Inu makura (c. 1606) was one of the earliest books by a contempo-
  rary author to be printed. In imitation of Sei Shonagon's catalogs in
  her Pillow Book, to which the title refers, the author makes ninety-
  odd lists. Starting with contrasting categories of likes and dislikes, he
  notes under "Things one likes to do": "(possessing) stylish articles
  fashionable today," "constructing a teahouse," and "outings and see-
  ing sights." Under "Things one likes to see," he lists "skillful noh,"
  "articles for a teahouse," and "famous sights, famous sights" (meisho,
  meisho). On the other hand, under "Things one hates to do," he
  includes "going with one's master on outings and to see sights."
  "Things that make one rejoice" includes "finding a great bargain in
  an [antique] shop."53 Such boons of life in the capital are those
  depicted in the screen paintings: sightseeing, watching performances
  of noh, and shopping.
  52 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 3, pp. 663-73.
  53 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, p. 289; Moriya Takeshi, Kyo no chonin (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1980), pp.
  19-20. The text appears in Maeda and Morita, eds., Kana zoshi shu, p. 35.
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  KYOTO THE SOURCE 
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  Famous sights in the capital are also mentioned in early kana ro-
  mances, even when they have no relevance to the story. In Urami no
  Suke there is a long passage describing the lacquer design on the sound
  box of an "up-to-date samisen" which depicts some thirty-seven sights
  of the capital and Osaka, each one lovingly listed.54 In a comic travel
  account (Chikusai monogatari, printed in the early 1620s), the quack
  doctor Chikusai, before setting off for the provinces, first makes a tour
  of ten or more of Kyoto's most famous places, composing poems at
  each. Near Kitano Shrine he comes upon a series of scenes largely
  unique to the capital: Chikusai glimpses an elegant court lady in her
  carriage (which reminds Chikusai of the Tale of Genji), and then he
  sees a renga-composing party, young samurai playing kickball, prosti-
  tutes playing the samisen and fiddle, actors performing noh plays,
  men gambling at backgammon, an incense-judging party, sumo wres-
  tling, and a bevy of ladies-in-waiting from the palace having a drinking
  party. These scenes too are like the subjects of the rakuchu rakugai
  screens. Chikusai also witnesses a self-indulgent abbot attempting to
  seduce the ladies from the court, and his description of the abbot's
  costume becomes a catalog of shops: "His sash is from Mukade-ya on
  Nijo, famous through the realm," his cap from Karamono-ya Jinkichi
  on Sanjo, his rosary from Ebi-ya at Shijo and Teramachi, and his fan
  from the capital's Tawara-ya. The last named is the house of the
  painter Sotatsu.55
  The first of the proper guidebooks to Kyoto was the Kyo warabe
  (The Kyoto youth), written in 1658 by a physician, Nakagawa Kiun.
  The account starts with the palace and proceeds to shrines, temples,
  famous sights, and historical remains, in all 88 places in the capital and
  its environs. This guide describes the places to which Kyoto people
  flocked - the temples and shrines they visited in the appropriate sea-
  son, the new pleasure quarters at Shimabara, the riverbank at Shijo
  and its kabuki theaters, and the Kamo Shrine where horses were
  raced. Each place is illustrated with a drawing and capped with a
  poem.56 Another much larger work written the same year (Rakuyo
  tneisho shu) lists 307 famous places to see in and about the capital.
  Following the example of Kyoto, a guidebook to Edo, Asai Ryoi's Edo
  meisho ki, was published in Kyoto in 1662. A guide to Osaka followed
  54 Moriya, Kyo no chonin, pp. 20-21; text in Maeda and Morita, eds., Kana zoshi shu, pp. 55,
  481-3.
  55 Moriya, Kyo no chonin, p. 21; Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 4, pp. 647-8, vol. 5, pp. 290-1; Maeda
  and Morita, eds. Kana zoshi shu, pp. 89-159, esp. pp. 94-101. There is a partial translation
  by Edward Putzar, "Chikusai monogatari," Monumenta Nipponica 16 (1960-1): 161-95.
  56 (Shinshu) Kyoto sosko, vol. 1, pp. 1-88.
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  736 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  in 1675. Most of the guidebooks appearing in the next decade or two,
  like those just mentioned, are sprinkled with poems, anecdotes, and
  historical asides, with attempts at literary flourishes. Others, more
  substantial and scholarly, appeared shortly: The Yoshu fushi (1686),
  for example, was written in Chinese and modeled on Chinese gazet-
  teers that provide information on topography, local products, and
  customs of the area. Another contemporary guide records 1,138 tem-
  ples and 105 shrines in the city and its environs.57
  One genre of guidebook, the machi kagami (mirror of the quarters),
  concerned itself with explanations of the city streets and the kinds of
  shops and artisans that could be found on each of them. The preface to
  Kyo suzume (Kyoto chatterbox, 1665) announces that the work will
  canvas the entire city from Ichijo to Kujo, from Suzaku to Higashi
  Kyogoku. The account covers the history and enterprises of each
  street and the trades assembled there; it includes illustrations of streets
  and shop fronts, indicating where one can buy dry goods, paper, fans,
  toys, lumber, tombstones, and so forth. A sequel, Kyo suzume atooi
  (1678), provides an even more detailed guide to the establishments of
  craftsmen and merchants. The trades are first listed in alphabetical (i-
  ro-ha) order, followed by addresses. A second list classifies enterprises
  into ninety trades, and a supplement lists the trades in yet a third
  fashion, by address, cho by cho.sS A pocket version of a shopping
  guide, Kyo hitori annai tebiki shit (The self-directed guide to Kyoto,
  1694), lists the clothiers of Kyoto under the name of the daimyo who
  patronized them.59 Although these guides to shops were certainly valu-
  able to buyers and wholesalers who came to the city, they also served
  the window shoppers who browsed not merely to buy essentials but
  also to seek amusement.
  That Kyoto's shops deserved their fame is corroborated by the
  German physician Engelbert Kaempfer, who visited the city (which he
  refers to as Miaco [capital]) in 1691. To quote from the 1727 English
  translation of his account:
  Miaco is the great magazine of all Japanese manufactures and commodities,
  and the chief mercantile town in the Empire. There is scarce a house in this
  large capital, where there is not something made or sold. Here they refine
  copper, coin money, print books, weave the richest stuffs with gold and silver
  57 Kojima Tokuemon's Kyo habmae, in (Shinshu) Kyoto sdsho, vol. 2, pp. 93-154. The govern-
  ment compilation gives 1,430 temples and 138 shrines in 1715 (Kyoto oyakusho-muke taigai
  oboegaki). Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, p. 509.
  58 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 291-2; Moriya, Kyo no chonin, pp. 23-5; (Shinshu) Kyoto sdsho,
  vol. 1, pp. 173-270, 271-386.
  59 (Shinshu) Kyoto sdsho, vol. 3, pp. 1-50.
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  KYOTO THE SOURCE 
  737
  flowers. The best and scarcest dies, the most artful carvings, all sorts of
  musical Instruments, pictures, japan'd cabinets, all sorts of things wrought in
  gold and other metals, particularly in steel, as the best temper'd blades, and
  other arms are made here in the utmost perfection, as are also the richest
  dresses, and after the best fashion, all sorts of toys, puppets, moving their
  heads of themselves, and numberless other things, too many to be mention'd.
  In short, there is nothing that can be thought of, but what may be found at
  Miaco. . . . There are but few houses in all the chief streets, where there is
  not something to be sold, and for my part, I could not help admiring, whence
  they can have customers enough for such an immense quantity of goods.60
  The pleasure of finding a bargain in a stall or even coming upon a
  treasure (already mentioned in the Inu makura), is described in the
  diary of the priest Horin of Rokuonji. Strolling one day in 1638 at
  Kitano, not far from his temple, he came upon an antique dealer
  from whom he bought an Iga vase, an old Seto tea caddy, and a
  Korean jar. He then stopped at the home of a physician friend, and
  they called in a dealer who lived in that quarter to appraise his wares
  as well. Horin went on to make purchases from this dealer and from
  yet another whose shop he visited in the Juraku district. He con-
  cluded in his diary: "I passed judgment on the pieces. Did I not find
  great bargains?"61
  The addition of many new streets and the continuing changes in
  street names created a demand for maps and street guides. Publishers
  began to print sheet maps of Kyoto from woodblocks from about
  1624. The earliest surviving of these maps are confined to the grid of
  the city proper, but they bear the name of every street and cho.62
  Around 1641, maps began to show the Buddhist temples and Shinto
  shrines around the periphery of the grid. They are shown pictorially,
  as they were added for the benefit of tourists and pilgrims. By 1654,
  publication commenced of large, attractive maps with three colors
  applied by hand. These included more and more information useful
  to both tradesmen and visitors. In addition to the names of streets,
  now listed in a table keyed to the streets, there were also tables
  identifying the residences of 119 court nobles and the incomes of
  each. The residences of bakufu officials, their names and incomes,
  60 Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, Together with a Description of the Kingdom ofSiam
  1690-92 (Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1906), vol. 2, pp. 3, 21-2.
  61 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, p. 278; Moriya, Kyo no chonin, pp. 26-7.
  62 "Heian-jo machinami zu" (116.7 x 55.6 cm), before 1641, described and illustrated in
  Yamori Kazuhiko, Toshizu no rekishi: Nihon hen (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974), pp. 129-30 (fig.
  37), p. 147; also in Nakamura Hiroshi, ed., Nihon kochizu taisei (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974), p.
  166 (fig. 80). A similar map, probably earlier, appears in Kyoto-shi, comp., Kyolo-shi shi:
  Chizu hen (Kyoto: Kyoto shiyakusho, 1947), p. 47 (fig. 14).
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  738 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  and the location of daimyo mansions appeared as well. Temples,
  shrines, and palaces came to be boldly marked and color coded. The
  word rakugai added to the title informs us that famous temples and
  historical sites in the environs of the capital have been crowded into
  the margins.63
  A new generation of large, five-colored maps began in 1686. In these
  maps, Hideyoshi's Great Buddha was clearly the prime tourist attrac-
  tion: The dimensions of all of its parts and other trivia were also listed
  in map tables.64 Tourists could find, too, in the northeast corner of
  some of the maps, a description and history of Enryakuji on Alt. Hiei.
  Additional lists and tables accounted for the major Buddhist sects, and
  the number of their branch temples and landholdings, the names of
  the entrances to the city, the distances to other towns and cities in the
  vicinity, the length and width of major bridges, and so forth. In fact,
  maps of Kyoto became a type of guidebook. In the eagerness to in-
  clude factual information, the effectiveness of the map was somewhat
  compromised: The tables obscure, for example, streets and roads on
  the west side of the southern suburb of Fushimi. When drawing roads
  outside the grid, any notion of scale was abandoned in favor of includ-
  ing the outlying sights of Mt. Hiei, Uji, and Yodo within the corners of
  the map. Indeed, the attention to illustration and artistry was so keen
  that publishers employed recognized artists to embellish their maps
  and, so, to tempt buyers. Like the multivolume guidebooks, the large,
  attractive maps had lasting appeal as precious souvenirs of the capital
  and entertainment for the vicarious traveler. Several Kyoto publishers
  reissued their maps every few years, recarving sections of the wood-
  blocks to update information. Evidently there were map collectors, for
  one shop advertised a supply of old maps for antiquarians.65
  As some of the tables on maps suggest, interest in Kyoto's notable
  people was as intense as interest in Kyoto's notable places. Thus it is
  not surprising that a guidebook called Kyo habuiae (Warp and woof of
  Kyoto, 1685) devotes its last two fascicles to a who's who of the city's
  important residents. Under the name of each imperial prince and court
  noble we find his rank, crest, annual income, address, age, and the
  names of his main retainers. Following a similar catalog of daimyo,
  this guide lists the bakufu officials stationed in Kyoto. In addition, to
  63 "Shimpan Heian-jo tozai namboku machinami rakugai no zu" (134.9 x 87.0 cm), published
  by Muan (1654), in Yamori, Toshi zu no rekishi, pp. 141-5. A 1662 revision is reproduced in
  Kyoto-shi shi: Chizu hen, pp. 52-3 (fig. 18).
  64 "Shinsen zoho Kyo oezu" (165.2 x 124.8 cm), 1686, in Yamori, Toshi zu no rekishi, p. 144
  (fig. 47), p. 146. Reproduced in Kyoto-shi shi: Chizu hen, pp. 54—55 (fig. 19).
  65 Yamori, Toshi zu no rekishi, p. 148.
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  KYOTO THE SOURCE 
  739
  the catalog of 241 master-teachers described earlier, there is also a list
  of leading artisans and dealers.66
  Information concerning the names and addresses of bushi resident
  in Edo was of particular importance to the tradesmen of that city, and
  as early as 1647 and 1651, registers of buke (warrior) houses, called
  bukan ("mirror of the buke"), were privately compiled and printed by
  book dealers. The daimyo bukan list name, domain, assessed yield in
  koku, court rank, name of heir, dates of arrival and departure for
  sankin kotai, crest, design of pikes and standards used in processions,
  locations of the daimyo's several residences in Edo, and other informa-
  tion. In later times annual revisions were published. There were also
  bukan of bakufu officials and of hatamoto (bannermen).
  A characteristic of Japanese culture that has found expression in
  literature and painting since Heian times is an awareness of changing
  seasons and a desire to engage in activities appropriate to the phase of
  the calendar. Hence guidebooks included information on which places
  were best visited, and when. Screen paintings had earlier represented
  Kyoto places in their best seasons: Higashiyama and its cherry trees in
  spring, the Kamo River bank with its cool breezes in the evenings of
  summer, Arashiyama to the west with its maples in the fall, Inari on
  the south for the fire festival in winter. In the same way that poems
  since the Kokinshu (the first imperial anthology of 905) had associated
  celebrated sights around the capital with a season, Edo paintings and
  popular songs made seasonal references to Kyoto places.
  Published handbooks, such as the Annaisha (1662), which were
  exclusively guides to the calendar for the Kyoto resident, recorded
  events through the year (nenju gydji) that were observed in the capital.
  Among the more detailed was the Hinami kiji (1685) which listed
  events day by day under seven categories: observances in the imperial
  household, celebrations at Shinto shrines, official ceremonies, prac-
  tices of the common people, memorial anniversaries, the showing of
  hidden treasures by temples and shrines, and Buddhist services. Of
  the 3,100 events recorded in this work, over half are still observed in
  Kyoto today. If the guides described earlier dealt with city space, these
  charted city time - the rhythm of urban life.67 It is evident from popu-
  lar stories as well as guides to the calendar that visiting temples and
  shrines on days of festivals or other special events was a favorite form
  of entertainment. Temples drew crowds by announcing the days on
  66 (Shinshu) Kyoto sosho, vol. 2, pp. 155-238; Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 508-10.
  67 Akai, "Genroku ki no toshi seikatsu to minshu bunka," pp. 335-6; Moriya, Kyo no chonin,
  pp. 30—1; Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 293-6.
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  74° 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  which their most sacred treasures would be shown. Called kaicho, or
  opening the curtain, it involved unveiling a secret statue or painting of
  the principal deity or founder of the temple or some other treasure.
  For temples lacking scenic locations or impressive buildings and
  grounds, the kaicho was a rare opportunity to attract visitors. As the
  practice became popular in the seventeenth century, temples from all
  over Japan sent their treasures to Kyoto where large numbers of peo-
  ple would see them and make offerings. In later times, when Edo had
  become the crossroads of the country, that city became the center for
  de-kaicho.
  Another entrepreneurial activity favored by temples was the designa-
  tion of touring routes through the city that would lead the pilgrim to
  the fifteen places where Hachiman was worshiped, or to the twenty-
  nine places were Benzaiten was worshiped, or to the thirty-three
  Kannon, the thirty-six Jizo on Teramachi, the forty-eight Honganji,
  and so on and so on. Five such tours are described in Kyo habutae
  (1685). Among the eighteen tours in Miyako suzume annaisha (1708),
  one passed eighteen temples that were associated with Gansan Daishi
  (the Tendai monk, Ryogen 911-85).68 The route, described as cover-
  ing three ri (twelve kilometers), proceeded south along Higashiyama,
  passed the Gion entertainment quarter, crossed west through the Shijo
  and San jo commercial districts, and north to Sembon Imadegawa, and
  ended near the Kitano Shrine and its amusement quarter. If the show-
  ing of secret icons and the prescribing of tour routes by the temples -
  abetted no doubt by shopkeepers among their parishioners - was in-
  spired not solely by the religious mission of the Buddhist institutions
  but also by their financial needs, the appeal to laymen might also have
  been more than pilgrimage: Such excursions were group social outings
  that combined pious acts with sightseeing and visiting shops and
  might conclude with a picnic or a visit to a teahouse of whatever
  variety.
  Shinto festivals played a larger role in the life of the community than
  such Buddhist pilgrimages. In particular, the Gion matsuri (festival) of
  the main business district, which continued for more than two weeks
  of celebrations during the summer, was one of the most enjoyable
  occasions of the year. Its parade of colorful floats, famous throughout
  the country, drew crowds of visitors to the city.
  The glory of Kyoto in the seventeenth century is most ideally de-
  picted in paintings, beginning with the Funaki rakuchu rakugai zu
  68 Moriya, Kyo no chonin, pp. 31-4; Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 297-8.
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  KYOTO THE SOURCE 
  741
  screens of the 1620s and followed by handscrolls by Sumiyoshi Gukei
  (1631-1705) and other artists in the last decades of the century. The
  Funaki screens show the city of the new guidebooks.69 Between the
  Toyotomi's Daibutsuden on the right (southeast) and the Tokugawa's
  Nijo Castle on the extreme left (northwest), we see dramatic perfor-
  mances in progress at two noh, two kabuki, and two puppet theaters.
  The Misuji-machi prostitute quarter appears prominently, and the
  Gion festival procession passes through the streets. The entrance cur-
  tains (noreri) and merchandise of dozens of stores and craftsmen's
  shops are shown in detail. The scroll and screen paintings seem to
  bring together all of the delights and beauties of the bustling city that
  set it a world apart from the countryside. On a single surface painted
  in clear colors, the city opens before us - palace and castle, temples
  and shrines, hills and gardens in foliage and flower of the four seasons,
  theaters and houses of pleasure, and festivals in progress. All the
  buildings are represented in perfect repair; the streets are clean; the
  shops tidy; the people beautifully dressed in bright colors. They pass
  through the streets as in a costume parade. There is no end to the
  interesting things to see and do. Kyoto appears to be a paradise.
  The most sensational attractions of the three great cities were the
  entertainment districts - the brothel quarter and the theaters. Kyoto
  guidebooks gave them as much attention as they did the imperial
  palace and Kiyomizu temple. There were also specialized manuals
  published as early as the 1650s as guides to these districts. The
  bakufu, while deploring as necessary evils the brothels and theaters,
  the "two wheels of the vehicle of pleasure," nevertheless recognized
  their importance in making the cities under its control lively places
  that would attract and accommodate commerce. It adopted a policy of
  concentrating the prostitutes and actors in separate quarters where
  each group could be better supervised and contact between these
  semioutcasts and the rest of society controlled. These enclaves were
  frequently referred to as the two "bad places" (akusho).
  The traveler on a first visit to the great city would not want to return
  home without at least venturing into the streets of these specially
  licensed quarters, in the hopes of having a glimpse of one of their stars.
  The names of the great beauties of the pleasure quarter were known
  throughout the city, and the leading actors were lionized. Prostitute
  and actor were the main subject of ukiyo prints and picture books, and
  69 The Funaki screen is illustrated in Rakuchu rakugai zu laikan, vol. 3; and in the other works
  mentioned in footnote 51.
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  742 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  details of their lives were publicized outrageously. To the end of the
  Edo period, the life of the brothel quarter, especially, was an absorbing
  subject in the ukiyo zoshi and later literary genres such as sharebon and
  gokan. It was a rare kabuki or puppet play that did not locate a scene in
  a brothel. The two pleasure quarters were the source of up-to-date
  fashions, music, song, and other elements of popular culture that
  spread throughout urban society. Both quarters became centers of
  social life, not simply for personal places of recreation, but also for
  wining, dining, and entertaining customers.70
  THE SOCIETY OF PROSTITUTES
  In 1589 Hideyoshi had the brothels in the city of Kyoto brought
  together in one licensed quarter known as Nijo Yanagi-machi, in the
  eastern part of the strip of land that still remained deserted between
  the upper and lower city.71 In 1602, when the Tokugawa built Nijo
  Castle, they moved the brothels away to a quarter known as Rokujd
  Misuji-machi and in 1640 transferred them for the last time to an even
  more remote location, the fields in the extreme southwest corner of the
  city wall, beyond the great compounds of Buddhist temples. This
  quarter, which came to be called the Shimabara, measured 200 by 240
  meters and was surrounded by an earthen wall and a moat 3 meters
  wide. The single entrance, a guarded gate on the east side, made it
  possible to keep under surveillance those entering the quarter -
  fugitives who might seek refuge there and ronin and other troublemak-
  ers. It also prevented prostitutes from leaving to ply their trade outside
  the quarter.72
  A similar policy was followed in Edo. In 1617 the various brothels
  were brought together to form the Yoshiwara quarter on reclaimed
  land a short distance east of Nihombashi. But the business district
  developed around the quarter, and Edo Castle itself was not far away.
  When the Meireki fire of 1657 destroyed this part of the city, the
  bakufu seized the opportunity to move the houses to a location given
  the name Shin Yoshiwara, outside the city in the open fields beyond
  70 Donald H. Shively, "The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki," in James R. Brandon,
  William P. Malm, and Donald H. Shively, eds., Studies in Kabuki: Its Acting, Music, and
  Historical Context (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1978), pp. 1-61, esp. pp. 50-4.
  71 Hideyoshi established a licensed quarter in Osaka in 1585 at the time when he was construct-
  ing Osaka Castle. This is believed to be the first instance of a segregated, licensed quarter.
  Ono Takeo, Yoshiwara, Shimabara (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1978), p. 32. However, there was
  licensing of prostitutes from at least the late twelfth century.
  72 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 4, pp. 590-2, vol. 5, pp. 167-72.
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  THE SOCIETY OF PROSTITUTES 
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  Asakusa Temple, a distance of six kilometers from the center of Edo. A
  walled enclave like the Shimabara was constructed, with the bakufu
  contributing generously to help finance the relocation.73 In Osaka, too,
  the authorities began in 1631 to bring brothels together to form the
  Shimmachi quarter on swampy land on the western edge of the city.
  The licensing of these quarters followed a common pattern. Hide-
  yoshi issued the Kyoto license to two former samurai who organized
  and administered the quarter. Decades later, the Tokugawa contracted
  with individuals of samurai background when the Edo and Osaka
  quarters were established. They received extensive authority to admin-
  ister the quarters and keep order. Because the clientele in the early
  decades of the Edo period was predominantly bushi of all ranks, it was
  essential to take a firm hand to prevent outbreaks of violence among
  the pleasure seekers. The cavorting of samurai, foot soldiers, monks,
  and chonin in the streets and houses of the Misuji-machi quarter is
  clearly recorded in the Funaki screens.74
  Although the quarter offered women of a wide range of rank and
  price to all comers, it was the presence of a few celebrated beauties of
  wit and cultural accomplishments who created the mystique of the
  courtesan. A small number of the highest rank were known as tayu, a
  title (originally meaning "great minister") used by noh actors, but also
  assumed by the kabuki actors and actresses who performed the leading
  roles on the Shijo stages. Some were proficient in dancing, singing, or
  playing musical instruments, of course, and also in classical poetry,
  haikai, tea, and other arts. They dressed in magnificent robes and
  were sought by daimyo, upper bushi, and court nobles who sum-
  moned them to their residences and, in a few instances, even bought
  them from their proprietors. Tayu were, in fact, known as daimyo
  dogu, or daimyo's articles, as though they were tea bowls or other
  treasured objects collected by the great lords.75 Some participated in
  the social life of the elite, according to an early record of the
  Yoshiwara, which says: "During the Keicho and Genna eras [1596-
  1624], men of the most distinguished families invited intimates, tell-
  ing them that a certain tayu, engaged for several days, would make tea
  at a certain person's house."76 There also were reports that tayu were
  73 Ishii Ryosuke, Yoshiwara (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1967), pp. 4-12, 21-7; Gunji Masakatsu,
  Kabuki to Yoshiwara (Tokyo: Awaji shobd, 1956), pp. 96-102.
  74 Rakuchu rakugai zu taikan, vol. 3, pp. 56-9, 64-67; Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 4, p. 590.
  75 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 268-72; Ishii, Yoshiwara, pp. 13-18, 94-5, 119; Gunji, Kabuki to
  Yoshiwara, pp. 140-1.
  76 Sakata, Chonin, p. 20, quoting (Ikon) Dobo goen (1720), Enseki jisshu, III, vols. 27-29 of
  Kokusho kankokai sosho, series 1, 1908, p. 3.
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  744 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  sent to appointments in such fine palanquins that they were mistaken
  for ladies of the highest court nobility.77
  The bakufu endeavored to correct the unseemly behavior of daimyo
  by warnings in the Buke shohatto (Laws for the military houses)
  against extravagance and excesses in drinking and sex.78 Daimyo could
  be punished by reduction or loss of their domains. The successive
  moves of the prostitute quarters in Kyoto and Edo and closer supervi-
  sion also worked to discourage conspicuous patronage of prostitutes
  by the upper bushi. They were replaced as clients of tayu by mer-
  chants of great wealth who appeared in the 1660s. Ukiyo zoshi provide
  many legendary stories of the vast sums spent by these merchants on
  entertainment in the quarters.
  Commoners inherited the quarters in Kyoto and Osaka, in part
  because of the decreasing numbers of bushi in these cities. The situa-
  tion was different in Edo, where bushi outnumbered commoners.
  Tens of thousands of daimyo retainers were there on sankin kotai every
  year, and estimates suggest that bushi (presumably middle and lower
  bushi) made up 70 percent of the customers of the Yoshiwara. Those
  of some stature felt constrained to be discreet about their visits. It was
  their practice, and that of some chonin as well, to rent large woven hats
  near the entrance to the quarter to conceal their faces. Above all, bushi
  were careful to avoid quarrels or behavior that might bring them to the
  attention of the authorities.
  The highest rank of houses in the quarter were much employed as
  places of business entertainment. At these fine establishments mer-
  chants who were purveyors or contractors to the bakufu and daimyo
  could entertain fiscal officials with drink and choice cuisine, followed
  by performances of music and dance and, if desired, sexual pleasures.
  A building appropriate to the entertainment of men of rank and dis-
  crimination still survives in the Shimabara. Constructed soon after
  1640, the Sumiya has large, well-designed parlors - the Fan Room,
  Damask Room, Cypress-fence Room, and so forth, with fusuma
  painted by leading masters, tokonoma alcove and shelves of expensive
  woods, and elaborately designed skoji lattices.79 No less care was taken
  in the design and construction of this building than in the Katsura
  Villa of Prince Hachijo, four kilometers to the east, which dates from
  the same years. In recognition of its architectural and cultural impor-
  tance, the Sumiya has been designated an Important Cultural Property
  by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.
  77 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, p. 172. 
  78 Article 2 of the law of 1615, Gotoke reijo, p. I.
  79 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 207-9.
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  THE SOCIETY OF PROSTITUTES 
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  One of the first descriptions of the Kyoto courtesans appears in the
  kana zoshi entitled Tsuyudono monogatari (c. 1625). When Tsuyu ar-
  rives in Kyoto, his innkeeper shows him a scroll containing descrip-
  tions of thirty-two of the leading women of the Misuji-machi quarter.
  This passage may be the earliest example of this genre, critiques com-
  paring the talents and personalities of beauties of the quarter.80
  The first guide to the pleasure quarter and its inmates, known as
  yujo hydbanki, is the illustrated Azuma monogatari of 1642 concerning
  the old Yoshiwara quarter. It describes the higher ranking among the
  75 women of tayii rank, 31 koshi, and 881 hashijoro.*1 Guidebooks
  produced during the next years, such as the Togenshu (1655) on the
  Shimabara quarter, went into even greater detail in describing the
  houses and women. Because of the wide range of prices charged for
  women of different rank, not to mention differences among them in
  artistic accomplishments and in traits of personality and beauty, infor-
  mation about them could be of practical as well as vicarious interest.
  Sketch maps showing the location of each house in the quarter, and a
  price by the woman's name, were often included. Over two hundred
  books of information on the quarters had been published by 1700.
  The Keisei iro shamisen (1701) lists the names of the prostitutes of
  the major official licensed quarters in eleven cities, reporting their
  rank, fee, and house. For the three cities, the totals by rank are shown
  in Table 14.1.82
  Guidebooks and critiques gave attention mostly to prostitutes of the
  two or three highest ranks and to the best houses. It was the quarter at
  its most elegant and glamorous that became the material of literature
  and kabuki and puppet plays. This picture bore little relationship to
  the sordid work of prostitution to which the great majority of the
  inmates were subjected. But the idealized image in popular culture
  presents the tayii as a cultivated lady living in luxury.
  In addition to beauty and cultural achievements, a tayii was said to
  have qualities of character - spirit (iki) and pride (hart) - that she
  demonstrated in her independence, refusing suitors she did not like.
  Some early tayii were held up as models of womanhood in books for
  80 Jimbo et al., eds., Kana zoshi shu, pp. 95-104. Colored paintings from a handscroll depicting
  Tsuyu's adventures are reproduced in Kinsei fuzoku zukan (Tokyo: Mainichi shimbunsha,
  1973-4). vol. 2, pp. 21-36.
  81 Gunji, Kabuki to Yoshiwara, p. 99; Azuma monogatari, in Asakura Haruhiko, ed., Kana zoshi
  shusei, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tokyodo, 1980), p. 361.
  82 The ukiyo zoshi by Ejima Kiseki (1666-1735) is included in Hakubunkan henshu kyoku, ed.,
  Chimpon zenshu, pt. 1, vol. 31 of Teikoku bunko (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1927), pp. 174-80,
  211-24,248-65; Gunji, Kabuki to Yoshiwara, p. 135; Howard Hibbett, The Floating World in
  Japanese Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 52-3.
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  746 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  TABLE 14.1
  Number and rank of prostitutes in Kyoto, Osaka,
  and Edo, c. 1700
  Shimabara (Kyoto) 
  Shimmachi (Osaka) 
  Yoshiwara (Edo)
  Tayu, 13 
  Tayii, 37 
  Tayu, 5
  Tenjin, 57 
  Tenjin, 91 
  'Koshi, 99
  Kakoi, 54 
  Kakoi, 53 
  Sancha, 493
  Hashijoro, 184 
  Hashijoro, 424 
  Umecha, 280
  Gobun joro, over 150 Gosun tsubone, 426
  Sanzun tsubone, 44
  Other tsubone, over 400
  Total: 308 
  Total: over 760 
  Total: over 1,750
  the education of girls because of their constancy, dignity, and generos-
  ity toward the less fortunate. The tayii's proprietor had her educated
  and trained in deportment to qualify her as a suitable companion for
  men of rank and wealth. The most thorough treatise on the quarter,
  Fujimoto Kizan's Shikido okagami (The great mirror of sex, 1678)
  holds up a standard of ladylike behavior for the tayu, admonishing that
  she should never laugh out loud or open her mouth without covering it
  with her sleeve. Like a great lady she should refrain from mentioning
  the names of foods. She was also to be able to compose poetry. The
  author adds:
  It is unfortunate for anyone not to be able to write, but for a courtesan it is a
  disaster. . . . As long as a courtesan writes well, it does not matter if she is
  incompetent at the samisen, but even for a samisen virtuoso it would be
  unfortunate if people said she wrote a bad hand or that her grammar was
  shaky.83
  A tayu was given an elegant name that evoked figures from classical
  literature, like Yugiri of the Tale of Genji, or places of scenic beauty,
  such as Yoshino and Takao. To enhance her image, she was addressed
  by her maids in the language of formal deference accorded a daimyo's
  consort by her ladies-in-waiting. She was treated as a celebrity in the
  small world of the quarter. The tayu was cultivated as an increasingly
  exclusive product that few could afford. The title was reserved for
  only a few women in Kyoto and Osaka, and although there had been
  83 Quoted by Donald Keene, "Fujimoto Kizan and the Great Mirror of Love," in his Land-
  scapes and Portraits: Appreciations of Japanese Culture (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1971), p. 246, also
  p. 245. Only fascicle 5 out of sixteen (or eighteen) of Kizan's large manuscript was published
  in the Edo period. The complete work was printed by Noma Koshin, (JCampon) Shikido
  okagami (Kyoto: Yuzan bunko, 1961).
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  THE SOCIETY OF PROSTITUTES 
  747
  seventy-five in Edo in 1642, the title was no longer used there by the
  1750s. Tayu and courtesans of the second rank (tenjin or koshi) did not
  meet their clients at their proprietors' establishments, as did the lower
  orders of prostitute, but were sent a written invitation by the propri-
  etor of an ageya such as the Sumiya. The tayiCs transit to the ageya was
  a deliberate parade on which she was accompanied by two young
  kamuro, an attendant, a matron, and, in later times, a parasol bearer.
  The cost of carrying on a relationship as a regular client is discussed by
  Saikaku: It required the wealth of a millionaire.84 It also required
  preparation on the part of the client to know the proper procedures
  and how to conduct himself (showake) in the quarter. Guidebooks and
  novels provided examples of how to act with sophistication and how to
  exhibit savoir-faire (sui and tsu) and, above all, how to avoid being
  taken for a boor (yabd). The rules of etiquette and the rituals that
  applied to the tayu and patron gave a remarkable refinement to the
  business of prostitution. Indeed, the artistic emphasis on the pleasures
  of social and cultural intercourse made the sex act almost incidental.
  Remarkably, a "sex ceremony" (shikido) was created.
  The quarter was a small island free of class restrictions, where a
  hierarchy of services corresponded to what the customer was willing to
  pay. Here, as Saikaku wrote, lineage of birth was replaced by the
  pedigree of money. The affluent commoner could find refuge from the
  humiliation of his position in the samurai world by commanding luxu-
  rious surroundings and the greatest esteem that flattery and enthusias-
  tic attentions could convey. The inflation of the tayu was designed to
  increase the gratification of the merchant who succeeded in command-
  ing her. The ordinary businessman or craftsman, seeking services and
  pleasure within his means, could gain similar, but more moderate,
  attentions from women of lower rank.
  For the chonin the quarter became a refuge from restrictions, not
  only of the class system, but also of family and community. Marriage
  was not governed by expectations of romantic attachment or sexual
  compatibility but was arranged by parents and go-betweens concerned
  with finding optimal arrangements likely to ensure the family's conti-
  nuity and strengthening the family trade. No particular stigma was
  attached to a man's visiting the quarter as long as such dalliance did
  not jeopardize the security of family and business. That is, the chonin
  was not to form a strong emotional attachment in the quarter or spend
  84 Ivan Morris, trans., The Life of an Amorous Woman and Other Writings by Ihara Saikaku (New
  York: New Directions, 1963), pp. 287-8.
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  748 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  too much money there. The freedom of individual action, restricted by
  family responsibilities, was qualified, too, by subordination to corpo-
  rate groups - the residential quarter (cho) and the trade association
  {nakatna or ton'yd). Moreover, the increasing influence of Confucian
  ethics, which emphasized family obligations, loyalty, and harmony,
  added to the underlying controls of Buddhism with its teaching of
  forbearance, suppression of desire, and deferment of rewards until the
  next world. The quarter therefore offered a brief respite from this
  outside world of complex responsibilities and ethical constraints.
  However pleasurable the atmosphere of the quarter or solicitous the
  attentions of its women, it was not possible to shut out entirely the
  harshness of the world. The customer's partner was essentially a slave,
  condemned to prostitution because her parents, unable to pay their
  land taxes or burdened by other debts, had been forced to sell her, to
  indenture her for ten years or more. The underlying sadness of the
  quarter surfaces in the popularity of plaintive songs of homesickness
  and fickle lovers. This mood predominates in scenes of the quarter in
  drama.85
  According to regulations, there was to be no prostitution outside the
  licensed quarters, but this was never the situation. Because of the
  inconvenience of traveling the distance to the Yoshiwara, brothels
  continued to spring up in different parts of Edo. Particularly popular
  were the bathhouse girls (yuna) who scrubbed customers' backs,
  washed their hair, and provided sexual attentions. Hundreds were
  rounded up and moved to the Yoshiwara in 1665, installed in buildings
  that looked like bathhouses to carry on the familiar tradition. Yet
  brothels flourished elsewhere as well - in Shinagawa, Shinjuku, Ita-
  bashi, Senju, and dozens of other locations (oka basho). After periods
  of tacit tolerance, they were closed during the great reforms of Kansei
  and Tempo and their inmates sent to the Yoshiwara. Samurai wives,
  caught in adultery, were also sent there to serve without pay as yakko.
  In Kyoto, brothels continued to reopen in parts of the city where they
  had formerly existed: Gion, Nijo, Shichijo, and Kitano. When the
  popular writer Bakin visited Kyoto in 1802, he found the Gion quarter
  superior to the overly formal Shimabara. In both Kyoto and Osaka,
  where the attitude of the authorities was more lenient than in Edo, a
  number of the informal quarters acquired semiofficial status.
  The yearly issuance of laws banning private prostitution throughout
  the Edo period suggests that little progress was made in stemming this
  85 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 481-2.
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  THE THEATER WORLD 
  749
  practice. The literature also notes, routinely, the presence of accommo-
  dating maids at inns, post stations, restaurants, tea shops, and bath-
  houses. Indeed, the large variety and gradations among sexual practi-
  tioners may best be indicated by the almost five hundred words used
  to designate prostitutes.
  THE THEATER WORLD
  The second type of district for entertainment and pleasure seeking -
  the quarter of kabuki and puppet theaters and the teahouses that
  surrounded them - also flourished in the Genroku period. Kabuki is
  conventionally dated in origin to 1603, when a woman called Okuni
  appeared with her troupe on a stage outside Kitano Shrine to perform
  dances and skits. She had appeared there before, claiming to solicit
  funds for Izumo Shrine. For some decades earlier, in fact, troupes of
  female dancers had been coming to Kyoto from the provinces to per-
  form exuberant dances called furyu odori or to put on kyogen and noh in
  a not very proper style. What distinguished Okuni's act in 1603 was
  her miming and dancing the role of a dandy visiting a brothel. Her skit
  caused a sensation. The word kabuki had originally meant "inclined"
  or "tipped," suggesting deviant, wild behavior, and it was used first
  for kabuki mono, gangs of young men dressed in outrageous clothes,
  carrying overly long swords, who swaggered about the streets of
  Kyoto causing trouble.
  Okuni went on to perform at Edo Castle in 1607, and other troupes
  of women were quick to imitate Okuni's skits. Brothel owners at
  Misuji-machi and Fushimi set up stages on the east bank of the Kamo
  River near Shijo in order to show their women. Painted screens record
  these performances of women's kabuki {onna kabuki) and prostitutes'
  kabuki (yujo kabuki). The most talented performers, the tayu, are
  shown seated in the middle of the stage on stools covered with tiger
  skins, playing the samisen, while dancers circle them, swinging their
  hips and throwing their arms about with great abandon.86 In the
  prostitute-accosting skits, the role of the rake was often played by a
  86 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 4, pp. 697-714; vol. 5, pp. 250-8. On early kabuki, see Donald H.
  Shively, "Bakufu versus Kabuki," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 18 (1955): 326-56,
  reprinted in John Whitney Hall and Marius B. Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional History
  of Early Modern Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 231-61;
  Keene, World Within Walls, pp. 230-43; Benito Ortolani, Das Kabukitheater: Kulturgeschichle
  der Anfdnge, Monumenta Nipponica Monographs no. 19 (Tokyo: Sophia University Press,
  1964); Gunji Masakatsu, "Kabuki no rekishi to honshitsu," in Gunji Masakatsu, Kabuki
  ronso (Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1979), pp. 12-26; Hattori Yukio, Kabuki seiritsu no
  kenkyu (Tokyo: Kazama shobo, 1968), pp. 168-82, 214-34.
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  75° 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  woman sporting a man's name, and the prostitute's part was played by
  a man, providing the opportunity for a great deal of confused and
  indecent pantomime. The shogun's scholar, the Confucian Hayashi
  Razan, reports:
  The men wear women's clothing; the women wear men's clothing, cut their
  hair, and wear a man's topknot, have swords at their sides, and carry purses.
  They sing base songs and dance vulgar dances; their lewd voices are
  clamorous, like the buzzing of flies and the crying of cicadas. The men and
  women sing and dance together. This is the kabuki of today.87
  An earlier diary entry of 1608 notes: "I saw women's kabuki at Shijo.
  Several thousands of people flocked there. It was something that as-
  tounded the eyes."88
  We even have an Englishman's testimony about the female kabuki
  players. Richard Cocks, head of the English trading post at Hirado
  from 1615 to 1622, referred in his diary to the local variety of per-
  former as "caboques or Japan players (or whores)." He mentions being
  entertained by a Japanese merchant who "provided caboques, or
  women plears, who danced and songe; and when we returned home,
  he sent eavery one one of them."89
  In the first decades, the star performers of the Kyoto and Edo stages
  were the first tayu prostitutes described in the preceding section of this
  chapter. Kabuki troupes of women performed from time to time be-
  tween 1612 to 1615 at the imperial court, and Yoshiwara women per-
  formed kabuki at Nihombashi and Nakabashi.90 Troupes also toured
  the provinces and were even engaged by the daimyo of Kumamoto and
  Sendai.
  The first kabuki "theaters" to be licensed in 1617 in Kyoto resembled
  noh stages surrounded by a simple fence. Most were in the Shijo river-
  side amusement district which sprang up across the Kamo River on
  undeveloped land just outside the formal boundaries of the city as
  defined by Hideyoshi's wall. This area, close to the business district,
  along the extension of Shijo that led to Gion Shrine, became a lively
  quarter and a favorite theme of paintings on screens and handscrolls. In
  addition to kabuki, puppet and noh stages, they show arenas for sumo
  wrestlers, and a large variety of sideshows. There are performances of
  87 Razan sensei bunshu, quoted in Dai Nihon shiryo, series 12 (Tokyo: Tokyo teikoku daigaku,
  1901), vol. 1, pp. 260-1.
  88 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 4, p. 708.
  89 Edward M. Thompson, ed., Diary of Richard Cocks (London: Hakluyt Society, 1933), vol. 1,
  pp. 156, 177, 180, 193, 211, vol. 2, p. 27.
  90 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 250-1.
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  THE THEATER WORLD 
  751
  dance and music, storytellers, reciters of military epics, fortunetellers,
  magicians, jugglers, acrobats, tightrope walkers, and freaks - the fe-
  male giant and the armless woman archer. Exhibitions of exotic animals
  such as tigers, bears, porcupines, eagles, and peacocks appear in the
  paintings, as do performing monkeys and dancing dogs. Barkers in
  outlandish costumes - Portuguese hats and pantaloons - call to the
  passing throngs; samurai, ronin, and town gallants parade about.
  Among the stalls offering food and drink saunter women from the
  nearby unlicensed houses of Gion and the riverbank to the south. Men
  and women in colorful summer kimono dance in a circle on the river-
  bed, and swimmers splash in the stream.91
  Excitement over the kabuki women sometimes ignited brawls and
  duels among hot-blooded bushi, and daimyo's retainers were killed.
  To avoid such volatile incidents, the government banned women from
  the stage permanently in 1629. The Misuji-machi prostitutes were
  confined to their quarter and in 1640 were moved to the Shimabara on
  the opposite side of the city from the theaters.92 Prostitutes and actors
  were separated in other cities as well. The removal of Edo's Yoshiwara
  in 1657 left kabuki, limited to four playhouses, in the business district
  at Sakai-cho and Kobiki-cho. In Osaka the authorities designated a
  separate theater district at Dotombori.
  Even before the women were banned, at least as early as 1612, there
  emerged troupes made up entirely of boys performing wakashu kabuki
  (youths' kabuki). Following the tradition of young noh actors of the
  Ashikaga period, they too were available as sexual partners. Homo-
  sexuality, long associated with monasteries, became prevalent among
  the upper bushi during the military campaigns of the fourteenth and
  fifteenth centuries. In the early Edo period, some shogun and daimyo
  and Buddhist clergy continued to show a preference for their beautiful
  pages, and even chonin emulated their betters who had bestowed on
  pederasty a certain prestige. There is an extensive literature in the Edo
  period, in addition to guides to actors, which debates the relative
  romantic and sexual merits of "the two ways of love."
  The playlets performed in youths' kabuki were designed to display
  the beauty and allure of the young actors: The skits featured homosex-
  ual love (shudo goto) and the accosting of prostitutes. Assignations of
  91 For late-seventeenth-century paintings of the amusement quarter by the Kamo River, see the
  two handscrolls, "Shijo-gawara zukan," in Kinsei fuzoku zukan, vol. 2, pp. 73-122; Shijo-
  gawara, vol. 5, and Kabuki, vol. io, of Kinsei fuzoku zufu (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1982-4);
  Ichitaro Kondo, Japanese Genre Painting: The Lively Art of Renaissance Japan, trans. R. A.
  Miller (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1961), plates 4,66-71, pp. 22, 24.
  92 Kyoto no rekishi, vol. 5, pp. 167-72, 271-73.
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  752 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  bushi with actors and quarrels over them repeated the experience with
  the tayu. Although even the shogun Iemitsu patronized kabuki, sum-
  moning troupes to Edo castle to divert him during the last months of
  his fatal illness, directly after his death the bakufu banned all kabuki
  in 1652.
  Following repeated entreaties by theater operators, an agreement
  was reached that permitted kabuki performances to be staged again.
  Thereafter, laws required female impersonators to dress their hair in
  the masculine fashion, shaving the forelock. At first prohibited from
  covering the bald area, which diminished their appeal, they were later
  permitted to cover it with a small patch of purple silk. By late in the
  century, they wore wigs on stage. The effect of government repression,
  which banned women from the stage and placed restrictions on boys,
  was to force kabuki to turn from burlesque skits toward more substan-
  tial plays and to replace (to some extent) the parade of youths with
  mature male actors - men who, of necessity, developed technique and
  skill in dramatic acting. The beneficial results of the reforms of 1652
  were felt only gradually. Drawing material from noh plays, military
  epics, and puppet texts, longer dramas with more plot began to ap-
  pear. In 1664 the prevalent "Shimabara plays" about accosting prosti-
  tutes were banned, and "continuous plays" (tsuzuki kyogeri) of four
  short acts strung together were introduced.93
  In spite of the reforms, the first guides to actors (yard hydbanki)
  found their model in books on prostitutes. The earliest extant guide,
  the Yard mushi (1660), is an illustrated work that describes forty-one
  young actors. Like other early books in this genre, it gives more
  attention to their erotic appeal than to their talent for the stage. Writ-
  ten by men of education who were aficionados, such works bore liter-
  ary pretensions and, like the books on prostitutes, were embellished
  with witty poems in Chinese and Japanese appropriate to each individ-
  ual under discussion. Toward the end of the century, books on actors
  (then called yakusha hydbanki) gave more attention to dramatic ability
  and critiqued performances in plays. They usually rated the kaomise
  performance offered in the eleventh month and the program of the
  seventh month, and some included introductory material on the
  theaters, their locations, and managerial personnel. The system of
  rating performers was modeled on the prostitute booklets. The earliest
  guide to rate actors, dating from 1687, employed only three grades,
  but by 1702 six were in use - from "medium" (chu) up to "superior-
  93 Shively, "Bakufu versus kabuki," pp. 338-44.
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  superior-excellent" (jojokichi). The Yakusha nicho jamisen of that year
  listed 302 actors in the three cities, placing 26 in the highest category
  and 135 in the lowest. Variations on this scheme were used for some
  years, but in time the schedule of ratings was devalued by overuse of
  the higher grades.94
  Kabuki gained greatly in popularity in the last two decades of the
  seventeenth century with the appearance of actors of great ability, it
  seems, who pioneered roles that shaped kabuki. The style of the great
  lover {wagoto, or tender business) was developed in Kyoto and Osaka
  by Sakata Tojuro. He was called the "original master of love scenes"
  and "the first in the line of engagers of prostitutes." In Edo, Ichikawa
  Danjuro developed the aragoto (rough business) style to enact the great
  feats of strength of rash heroes. His bravado suited the impetuous
  temperament of the Edo plebs in the pit.
  The most crucial development of the kabuki theater centered on
  defining techniques that men could use to play women's roles, the
  onnagata parts. Almost all of the onnagata had, of course, been kabuki
  youths, but as they grew older, they needed to develop a more subtle
  and abstract way to play women. They singled out the essential ele-
  ments of a woman's gestures and speech and gave to these a special
  emphasis, in much the same way that puppets exaggerate human ges-
  tures so as to appear alive. A distinctive cracked vocal style was also
  cultivated. The stylized manner of playing women became so well
  established as an integral characteristic of kabuki, particularly in the
  interplay between the onnagata and the male lead (tachiyaku), that
  attempts in modern times by women to take the female roles have not
  been accepted by the audience. The beauty of onnagata acting lies in
  its formalized grace. Women, placed in these roles, appear too natural,
  too realistic. Furthermore, because the male roles are played in a
  strong, somewhat exaggerated manner, women often lack the physical
  stature to project an equal stage presence. And again, women do not
  exude the peculiar eroticism with its homosexual overtones that is
  inherent in kabuki. Actresses thus become suitable for kabuki roles
  only if they play their parts not by miming women but by imitating
  onnagata.
  On the stage, the onnagata portrayed the fidelity, modesty, and
  forbearance of the ideal woman. As models of etiquette in their bows,
  their elegant gestures, and deferential attitudes, the onnagata were
  94 Iizuka Tomoichiro, Kabuki gairon (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1928), p. 238; Shively, "The Social
  Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki," pp. 49-50.
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  emulated by women of the audience. It was common for onnagata to
  lead feminine lives off the stage as well, that is, to live their art. They
  continued to practice the motor habits of women in hand gestures,
  walking, and sitting and to use women's language and intonation.
  Some wore only women's clothes and dressed their hair in feminine
  coiffures. Some, indeed, are said to have entered the women's side of
  public bathhouses, and "no one thought this strange."95 The famous
  actor Yoshizawa Ayame said that an onnagata should continue to experi-
  ence the feelings of an onnagata even in the dressing room, eating only
  the kind of food appropriate to women, and modestly turning away
  from the leading man while eating.96
  The popularity of players of male roles was enhanced by accounts of
  their lives off the stage. Scandal was good publicity. Critical booklets
  cultivated their notoriety as lovers. It was said of the Osaka actor
  Arashi San'emon (1635-90): "There is not a prostitute with whom he
  is not intimate." The details of actors' lives, the astonishingly high
  salaries that the most popular reputedly received, and their extrava-
  gance were matters of endless anecdotes. The craze for actors reached
  extremes among fans in Edo. A delicious scandal occurred in 1714
  when a love affair was uncovered between the handsome Ikushima
  Shingoro (1671-1743), who played love scenes "realistically and pro-
  vocatively," and Ejima (1681-1741), a ranking lady official in the
  service of the shogun's mother. The authorities reacted with another
  attempt to reform kabuki; among other steps they demolished the
  Yamamura-za theater and limited the number of licensed kabuki play-
  houses in Edo to three for the remainder of the Edo period.97
  From its beginnings, leading players dominated kabuki. Material
  was selected and speeches blocked out to give an actor the best oppor-
  tunity to display his talents. Even when playwrights replaced actors as
  writers, toward the end of the seventeenth century, the actors them-
  selves filled in the chief speeches and action. Hence complete scripts
  of a play were not made, and the sketchy scenarios, which date from
  about 1685, have little literary merit. Talented writers, notably Chika-
  matsu, therefore turned to writing more for the puppet theater than
  for kabuki. As kabuki developed into a more serious dramatic form, it
  drew increasingly on puppet plays for its material, for both plot struc-
  ture and literary language.
  95 Ihara Toshiro, "Kabuki no fuzoku," in Nihon fuzokushi koza, Vol. 11 (Tokyo: Yuzankaku,
  1929), p.17; Shively, "The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki," pp. 34-42.
  96 In Ayame gusa, translated by Charles J. Dunn and Bunzo Torigoe, The Actors' Analects
  (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1969), pp. 61-2.
  97 Shively, "The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki," pp. 29-45.
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  Puppet texts in their origin were more like literary narratives than
  plays. They developed out of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century narra-
  tives known as joruri which were recited to the accompaniment of a
  lute called the biwa. In the late sixteenth century the samisen replaced
  the biwa, and soon after, puppets were added to accompany the recita-
  tion. These performances became popular with all classes, and troupes
  were frequently summoned to the imperial court and the residences of
  daimyo. The texts, which could be read as storybooks, were published
  from the 1630s on, and more than four hundred printed between 1625
  and 1686 are extant.98
  Takemoto Gidayu created a bold new style of recitation. Chika-
  matsu, who enjoys a reputation as Japan's greatest playwright, wrote
  particularly for Gidayu and for his successor, Masadayu (1691-1744).
  He composed in a rich, literary style for the rhythmical narrative
  portions of the text and gave to his plays more plot structure. From
  Chikamatsu's time on, an especially beneficial exchange of influences
  developed between the puppet and kabuki theaters. Most of the classi-
  cal pieces of the kabuki repertoire today are adaptations of mid-
  eighteenth-century puppet plays. Puppet performances were made
  more theatrical by increasing the portion of recitation delivered in
  dialogue, rather than in third-person narrative form. Also, the pup-
  pets came to command more attention as they became more lifelike,
  increasing to two-thirds human size. The principal puppets had mov-
  able parts - eyes, eyebrows, mouths, and fingers - and three men
  manipulated them.
  Most puppet plays were jidaimono, or period pieces. They concerned
  heroes of earlier ages, and facts and legends about them were drawn
  from military epics, noh texts, and popular stories. Occasionally the
  playwright located a scene in an Edo-style brothel or commoner's
  home, anachronistically placed in the twelfth century. From these be-
  ginnings, Chikamatsu developed the sewamono - a domestic piece or,
  better, a gossip piece - of three acts which was added to the more
  serious five-act period piece to fill out the all-day program. Sewamono
  concerned commoners - shopkeepers, farmers, prostitutes - and were
  often based on a recent incident - a murder, theft, swindle, or arson
  case. The subject matter was similar to Saikaku's stories, in several
  instances the same event, but was treated with more emotion and sympa-
  thy for the plight of the simple protagonists.
  The most representative of the sewamono concern a hopeless love that
  leads to a double suicide (shinju). In most of these plays, the girl is a
  98 Charles J. Dunn, The Early Japanese Puppet Drama (London: Luzac, 1966), pp. 42, 70-2.
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  prostitute and her lover a chonin who lacks the money to buy her free-
  dom. As neglect of his family business responsibilities threatens disas-
  ter, the imprudent young couple embraces in desperation the belief that
  by killing themselves they will be reborn together in Amida Buddha's
  Western Paradise. Yet, they are torn by a sense of duty {girt) that con-
  flicts with their personal feelings (ninjo). The effectiveness of these
  plays depends on the author's skill in spinning around the thwarted
  young couple a web of circumstances that makes death the only escape,
  at least in the minds of the audience. Beginning with Sonezaki shinju in
  1703, thirteen of Chikamatsu's twenty-four domestic pieces were shinju
  plays. The romantic, poetic treatment of these suicides was suggestive
  to rash young men and women who anticipated that their deaths would
  be publicized, if not immortalized. The bakufu thus proscribed both
  the suicides and plays and stories about them in 1723."
  The staple of both the puppet and kabuki theaters continued to be
  the period piece, but it was increasingly enriched by sewamono-like
  scenes. With the better development of plot structure by Chikamatsu
  in the last of his nearly one hundred period plays, the story lines
  became more and more complicated, the unexpected twists and turns
  in the plots more astonishing. Jidaimono usually dealt with historical
  events familiar to the audience. Most concerned samurai exploits of
  long ago: the heroic struggles of the Taira and Minamoto clans in the
  twelfth century, the revenge of the Soga brothers, and the fourteenth-
  century battles and intrigues recorded in the Taiheiki. The occasional
  play treated remote figures of the imperial court or great religious
  leaders. Sources for the plays included not only early histories and
  military epics but later, and highly fictionalized, literature of the
  Muromachi period as well: noh plays, kowakamai, otogi zoshi, and old
  joruri. Needless to say, such materials added only legend and fanciful
  embellishment to the original histories. The dramatic products con-
  tained as much folklore as fact.
  Most performances in both the puppet and kabuki theaters were not
  revivals of earlier hits but adaptations of those plays that traded on
  their popularity while adding new complications to their plots. Rival
  theaters often staged plays on the same familiar theme in the same
  month, competing ingeniously in exploiting scenes that had won ac-
  claim, adding new love affairs or revelations that, for example, famil-
  iar characters were actually long-lost relatives.
  99 Donald H. Shively, The Love Suicide at Amijima, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph
  Series, no. 15 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 12-29; Keene, World
  Within Walls, pp. 253-63.
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  Kabuki and joruri plays were written primarily for the entertain-
  ment of chonin, although samurai and members of their families went
  as inconspicuously as they could to see performances. Catering to
  commoners of less cultivated taste, popular plays lacked the restraint
  of the samurai's noh dramas and piled one emotional event on another,
  to agonizing effect. The separation of families, the sacrifice of an only
  child, the identification of the severed head of a son or parent, the
  seppuku (harakiri) of a hero found to have been unnecessary only mo-
  ments after the fatal dagger was thrust into the belly - all such scenes
  were played in a cathartic style. For commoners, the theater was a
  place of escape where they could fantasize about the superhuman feats
  of brave men and the noble sacrifices of virtuous women, the palaces
  of shogun and emperor, the quarrels and love affairs in the families of
  great lords, and high living in the finest houses of assignation.
  The topics that most excited the curiosity of people in the seven-
  teenth century were the dramatic events of the wars of unification: the
  intrigues and battles of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi and, above all, the
  steps by which Tokugawa Ieyasu broke solemn oaths and stole the
  nation. The Tokugawa were so sensitive on the issue that they forbade
  any plays or stories that discussed bushi houses in the sixteenth cen-
  tury. Of course, no events of Edo times involving bushi could be
  mentioned. Thus playwrights and storytellers could feed the common-
  ers' fascination only by making up stories about succession quarrels in
  daimyo houses (otesodo) and vendettas (katakiuchi) that bore no recog-
  nizable parallels to the actual outbreaks of violence in the seventeenth
  century. In time, however, resourceful authors developed ways of treat-
  ing sensitive events, even the affairs of the unification years, by elabo-
  rately camouflaging the stories. They moved events to earlier centuries
  and folded into the familiar cycles of the period piece twelfth-century
  heroes who represented Ieyasu and other great generals. Historical
  anachronisms and jumbled chronology were already characteristic, in
  any case, of the stock period piece.100
  The first forbidden topic to be treated successfully in this way was
  the revenge of the forty-seven ronin. The affair began in 1701 when
  Asano, daimyo of Ako, drew his sword in the shogun's court against
  Kira, an official of the bakufu. Evidently provoked by Kira, Asano
  slashed at him but inflicted only a slight wound. To draw a sword at
  court was a capital offense,' and Asano was sentenced immediately to
  100 Donald H. Shively, "Tokugawa Plays on Forbidden Topics," in James R. Brandon, ed.,
  Chushingura: Studies in Kabuki and the Puppet Theater (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
  Press, 1982), pp. 29-33.
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  perform seppuku. Thereupon his retainers plotted revenge against
  Kira. Waiting twenty-two months to the day for the opportune mo-
  ment, forty-seven of the ronin made a night raid on Kira's mansion in
  Edo. They killed or wounded a number of his retainers and, after a
  desperate search of the premises, at last found Kira hiding in the
  charcoal storage room. They cut off his head and carried it through the
  streets of Edo to their lord's tomb.
  The problem of how to deal with the Ako men posed a dilemma for
  the Tokugawa government. The ronin exemplified traditional feudal
  virtues, but they had violated the government's regulations for the
  preservation of law and order by secretly forming a league and carry-
  ing out a revenge without authorization. Almost two months after the
  attack, following extensive debate within the bakufu councils, the
  shogun sentenced the ronin to seppuku.
  After generations of peace throughout the country, the bold raid on
  the mansion of one of the shogun's officials within the city of Edo was
  an electrifying event. In these Genroku years of prosperity and plea-
  sure seeking, when feudal values were said to have gone soft, the
  courage and dedication of the ronin - their resolve to sacrifice their
  lives to uphold honor and atone for what they regarded as the unjust
  sentencing of their lord - won the admiration of samurai and com-
  moner alike. It seemed to some that the old virtues of loyalty and
  sacrifice, which survived only in idealized form in textbooks and sto-
  ries, had unexpectedly reemerged.
  Although the government issued a special order warning writers not
  to touch this story, in the following years playwrights and storytellers
  gingerly hinted at parts of it. But it was not until 1748 that all of the
  major ingredients were finally included in a masterful eleven-act pup-
  pet play, Kanadehon Chushingura (A copybook of the treasury of loyal
  retainers). This became the most famous play in the history of both
  the kabuki and the puppet theater and has since inspired countless
  modern plays, films, and television dramas. It is significant that the
  commoners' most beloved play should be a story of samurai loyalty.101
  The purpose of playwrights in venturing into forbidden territory
  was not to criticize the regime but, rather, to excite the spectators by
  their daring. Nor was their purpose to instruct their listeners but,
  rather, to entertain them. In fact, however, the theater was a class-
  room. It taught through performances and also through the many
  101 Ibid., pp. 23-4, 33-44. The play has been translated by Donald Keene, Chushingura: the
  Treasury of Loyal Retainers (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971).
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  different publications of joruri texts, synopses of kabuki plays, and
  many genres of storybooks that drew their material from the stage.
  The theater taught historical names and facts, however unreliably.
  More important, it taught the common people a consciousness of the
  past and the culture's inherited traditions.
  The plays taught ethics more effectively than they taught history.
  Exemplifying the values taught to bushi was the stuff of the period
  plays, even if in vulgarized form. The heroes emerged as models of
  self-discipline, uprightness, honesty, and compassion. Plots revolved
  around conflicts that arose in maintaining loyalty to one's lord and
  obedience to one's father, or around the necessity to sacrifice one's
  wife, child, or friend in the service of the supreme loyalty. Never
  questioned was the inevitability of capitulation to the ethical code,
  which supported the political and social system. In the clash between
  (girt) and personal wishes (ninjo), giri always prevailed in the period
  piece. There could be no suicides for love among bushi. Evil was
  defeated and good triumphed, sometimes in a glorious death.
  The theater was also a peculiar classroom of etiquette, the arts,
  fashion, and music. It fed the curiosity of the commoners with an
  approximation of the dress and deportment of their betters. And it
  provided, too, an example of the proper way for persons of every
  station and both genders to walk, sit, bow, and speak in different
  social situations. In portrayals of daimyo ladies and courtesans, view-
  ers also learned something of poetry composition, calligraphy, and
  playing musical instruments. Not least important, the stage became a
  showroom for the display of what was new in fashion - clothing de-
  sign and fabrics, weaving, dyeing, embroidery, hairstyles, combs,
  bodkins, makeup, and personal ornamentation. Some styles origi-
  nated in the prostitute quarters and were introduced through plays to a
  wider public, even as moralists decried the adoption of these fashions
  by merchants' wives and daughters and, more seriously, by bushi
  women as well. Trading on their mounting popularity, actors gave
  their names as endorsements for cakes, cosmetics, sashes, and clothing
  material for sale in the city's shops.
  Artistically, both the prostitute and theater quarters shared in the
  creation of music, popular songs, and styles of recitation. The stan-
  dard instrument of both quarters was the samisen, introduced from
  the Ryukyu Islands in about 1570. The samisen of the kabuki and
  the pleasure quarters was higher pitched than that of the puppet
  theater and had a plaintive, sensuous quality scandalous to Confucian
  scholars, who considered it the most harmful of "licentious music."
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  The two worlds were also linked by styles of dance. Female dancers
  from the prostitute quarter adopted stage movements, whereas ka-
  buki performers promptly assimilated new material developed in the
  brothel.
  The interconnection between the two worlds appears most fully in
  those acts of kabuki plays set in houses of assignation. There the
  glamorous, mysterious life of a fine establishment is revealed for an
  audience to savor what only a rich man could afford. The manner of
  speaking of the inhabitants of the quarter - the jargon of their trade,
  the unique honorific verb endings, the peculiar intonation - all at-
  tracted great interest. The cultural accomplishments of the tayu, focus
  of so many improbable claims, could be "proved" on the stage as she
  answered the challenge of a guest to perform virtuoso pieces on a
  zither or samisen and to compose poems in a skillful hand. The drama-
  tization of a customer's first meeting with a courtesan, its protocol and
  witty banter, emerged as the ultimate refinement of the prostitute-
  accosting skits of primitive kabuki.102
  The common people, while regarding actors and prostitutes as some-
  what disreputable, found them endlessly intriguing; they admired
  their beauty and splendid clothes, their poise and savoir-faire. The
  fame of the leaders of both professions was spread by prints, picture
  books, and critical guides. Indeed, woodcuts developed in technique
  and sophistication in the effort to cope ever more imaginatively with
  subjects so voraciously consumed by the public. Hishikawa Moronobu
  who, more than any other artist, shaped the early development of
  ukiyo painting and prints, divided his work largely between the two
  quarters in Edo. Torii Kiyomoto pioneered the professional style of
  drawing actors, producing his first poster for the Ichimura-za in 1690.
  From the middle of the eighteenth century, prints displaying actors
  posed in their roles were regularly issued with the change of the Edo
  programs. The depiction of a single bold figure against a plain ground
  was also used in courtesan paintings and prints of the Kaigetsudo
  school from early in the eighteenth century. Although actors were
  usually identified by name in prints by 1700, it was not until the
  middle of the century that the courtesan of the single print was speci-
  fied by name and house.103
  The intimate connection between the two worlds in the public mind
  may be best illustrated by prints that pose actor with prostitute. The
  102 Shively, "The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki," pp. 42-5, 50-4.
  103 Ibid., pp. 45-9.
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  consummate works on this theme were those erotic prints, delicately
  called "spring pictures" (shunga), which showed in breathtaking detail
  a popular actor and a prostitute in the act of love. Considered neither
  libelous or invasions of privacy, the prints simply depicted leaders of
  the two professions behaving as the public expected.
  THE CHONIN
  The observer who left the most revealing record of chonin life in the
  Genroku period was Saikaku. An Osaka merchant by birth, a haikai
  poet most of his life, he turned in his last twelve years to writing short
  stories, the first of the ukiyo zoshi. In more than twenty books written
  between 1682 and 1693, Saikaku was eloquent on the topics that most
  attracted his fellow residents in Osaka: making love and making
  money. His best stories were on the affairs of rakes, the love lives of
  prostitutes, the adventures of forward young maidens of the town, and
  the making and breaking of fortunes. Saikaku also met the demand for
  critiques of actors, stories of homosexual affairs among young actors
  and samurai, accounts of travel in the provinces, and detective stories
  about judicial cases.
  Saikaku's most memorable passages were quick sketches of the city
  people he knew best. In a few deft phrases he brought to life the
  hardworking merchant who made a fortune but spoiled his children,
  the merchant's son who was interested only in the pleasure quarters,
  the daughter who thought only of clothes and actors. Saikaku's lovers
  were profligate and dissipated, his shopkeepers tightfisted to the ex-
  treme. They were, alike, single-minded, in the pursuit of either profit
  or love. Still other characters were interested neither in business nor in
  lovemaking, instead pursuing with great dedication such inappropri-
  ate avocations as playing the samisen, studying Chinese classical texts,
  or learning the martial arts of the samurai, all to disastrous ends.
  Always in a hurry, Saikaku never had time to develop his characters
  fully. His are not moderate or balanced individuals. But from Sai-
  kaku's overdrawn characters emerges the picture of the Genroku
  chonin: energetic, spirited, unconcerned by his position as commoner,
  and reveling in the enjoyment of the floating world or an ability to
  accumulate wealth.
  Saikaku aimed to dazzle his readers with his style and wit. He wrote
  swiftly, carrying over to his prose his technique as an avant-garde poet
  of the Danrin school of haikai, who competed for speed records in
  composition. He was acclaimed the ultimate champion for his improba-
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  ble record of composing 23,500 verses in a twenty-four-hour mara-
  thon. Excelling in unexpected twists and turns within his sentences,
  Saikaku substituted word associations or pivots on a pun for logical
  progression. He could not resist the ironic turnabout - things were
  not as they seemed - and he often changed direction before he could
  complete a serious thought. But this irreverent style effectively re-
  flected the brash confidence of the new Osaka chdnin.104
  Saikaku's first book, Koshoku ichidai otoko (The man who spent his
  life in love, 1682), traces the progress of a rake, the son of a wealthy
  Kyoto merchant, from his precocious initiation through escapades
  with women of all classes in brothels throughout the country. By the
  age of sixty, tiring of what Japan has to offer after encounters with
  3,742 women and 725 young men, the rake sails off with his compan-
  ions in search of the fabled Island of Women. In shaping his work in
  fifty-four chapters, Saikaku had in mind the eleventh-century Tale of
  Genji, and he made occasional references to episodes in that classic.
  But in contrast to the leisurely, sentimental affairs of Prince Genji in
  mansions of the court nobility, the Genroku lover hurries along his
  commercial course. The entire book is a celebration of unrestrained
  sex, although it is not explicit in an erotic sense. The work was an
  immediate success, was republished repeatedly, and was followed by
  other books authored by Saikaku with koshoku, meaning "to love love"
  or "to enjoy sex" as the first word of the title.105
  Koshoku ichidai onna (1686) is in form the confession of an old crone
  who reviews a life of lovemaking, first as a girl at court, then as
  concubine to a daimyo, later as a tayit, and eventually as an ever-
  descending prostitute who ends her days as a streetwalker.106 Koshoku
  gonin onna, of the same year, is a collection of five stories of the love
  affairs of commoner women. Contrary to the expectation that women
  are modest and deferential, these young maidens (three of them were
  only fifteen) and indiscreet wives were surprisingly bold and enterpris-
  ing in consummating illicit affairs which led, in all but one instance, to
  104 On Saikaku's works and his style, see Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction, pp.
  36-49, 65-96; Keene, World Within Walls, pp. 167-215; Morris, trans., The Life of an
  Amorous Woman, pp. 15-51. Saikaku's chief works appear in Noma Koshin, ed., Saikaku
  shit, vols. 47-48 oiNihon koien bungaku taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1957-60); and a full
  collection in Noma Koshin, ed., Teihon Saikaku zenshu, 15 vols. (Tokyo: Chud koronsha,
  1949-70).
  105 The work is discussed in Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction, pp. 36-44; Keene,
  World Within Walls, pp.. 167-74; G. W. Sargent, trans., The Japanese Family Storehouse
  (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1959), pp. xli-xlii. There is a transla-
  tion by Kengi Hamada, The Life of an Amorous Man (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1964).
  106 Translated in part by Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction, pp. 153-217; and
  Morris, trans., The Life of an Amorous Woman, pp. 119-208.
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  THE CHONIN 
  763
  their ruin.107 These latter two books, unlike Saikaku's first work on
  the rake, show the unhappy consequences of the thoughtless pursuit
  of love.
  Saikaku's books about merchants, his chonin mono, celebrate the
  pursuit of wealth and are based for the most part on the experience of
  actual tradesmen. Nihon eitaigura (The everlasting storehouse of Ja-
  pan, 1688, with the subtitle The new bible for getting rich), contains
  thirty stories about ingenious or unpredictable ways in which business-
  men made or lost money. The ideal that runs through the stories is
  establishing a fortune or perpetuating a prosperous family enterprise.
  These are the success stories of a rising middle class.108 Seken
  munesan'yo (1692) tells how tradesmen contrive to pay outstanding
  accounts that fall due on New Year's Eve.109 In his stories about busi-
  ness, Saikaku relishes describing how chonin pursue money and the
  effect that wealth has on them. He assumes throughout that the accu-
  mulation of wealth is a proper goal: His chonin are unconcerned that
  their course is antithetical to the values of bushi and are undeterred by
  Buddhist teachings that disapprove of seeking rewards in this world.
  With a characteristic touch of cynicism, Saikaku observes the material-
  ism of his fellow chonin: "People are not so fond of having plum,
  cherry, pine and maple around the house as gold and silver, rice and
  hard cash."110 Saikaku's own background as a merchant is evident in
  his attention to what everything costs - from a pair of chopsticks to a
  night with a tayu - and he makes arithmetical calculations to demon-
  strate costs and profits, showing off his intimate knowledge of how
  business is conducted. He tosses off advice lightly, as in his prescrip-
  tion for the secret of wealth: the "millionaire pill" (choja-gari) is com-
  pounded of early rising (five parts), application to the family trade
  (twenty parts), working after hours (eight parts), thrift (ten parts), and
  sound health (seven parts). Taken twice a day, the pill will make a
  person a millionaire if, during treatment, the user only abstains from
  sixteen specified practices, one of which is "familiarity with kabuki
  actors and with the brothel quarters."111
  107 William Theodore de Bary, trans., Five Women Who Loved Love (Tokyo: Tultle, 1956); and
  in part in Morris, trans., The Life of an Amorous Woman, pp. 53—118.
  108 Sargent, trans., The Japanese Family Storehouse, pp. xlviii-xlix.
  109 Ben Befu, trans., Worldly Mental Calculations (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
  California Press, 1976); and Masanori Takatsuka and David Stubbs, trans., This Scheming
  World (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1965).
  110 Quoted by Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction, pp. 36-7, from Nihon eitaigura,
  in Noma, ed., Saikaku shu, vol. 2, p. 36.
  i n Nihon eitaigura, in Noma, ed., Saikaku shu, vol. 2, p. 87; Sargent, trans., The Japanese
  Family Storehouse, pp. 59—60.
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  764 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  In recording the ways in which chonin enjoy money, Saikaku gives
  particular attention to the ostentation of the wealthy and its con-
  sequences:
  Fashions have changed from those of the past and have become increasingly
  ostentatious. In everything people have a liking for finery above their station.
  Women's clothes in particular go to extremes. Because they forget their proper
  place, extravagant women should be in fear of divine punishment. Even the
  robes of the awesome high-ranking families used to be of nothing finer than
  Kyoto habutae. Black clothing with five crests cannot be called inappropriate to
  anyone from daimyo down to commoner. But in recent years, certain shrewd
  Kyoto people have started to lavish every manner of magnificence on men's and
  women's clothes and to put out design books in color. With modish fine-figured
  patterns, palace-style hundred-color prints, and bled dapple tie-dye, they go
  the limit in unusual designs to suit any taste. Such behavior by wives and the
  marriages of daughters have drained the household finances and impaired the
  family business of countless merchants. Prostitutes make a daily display of
  beautiful clothes toward earning a living. But beautiful wives of commoners,
  when they are not blossom viewing in spring or maple viewing in autumn or
  going to weddings, should forgo these many layers of conspicuous garments.
  Saikaku then goes on to refer to the many sumptuary laws that, in an
  attempt by the authorities to make appearances correspond to social
  status, prescribed the fabrics appropriate to various gradations of class:
  The recent clothing laws are for all the provinces and all the people. If we give
  this some thought we realize that we can be grateful for them. It is distressing to
  see a merchant wearing good silks. Pongee suits him better and looks better on
  him. But fine clothes are essential to a samurai's status, and therefore even a
  samurai who is without attendants should not dress like an ordinary person."2
  The extravagance of the wives of some wealthy merchants is illus-
  trated by an incident of 1680. When Ichikawa Rokubei of Edo visited
  Kyoto, his wife dazzled the residents of the capital with her costumes.
  Not to be outdone, the wife of the Kyoto merchant Naniwa-ya Juemon
  appeared in a satin kimono embroidered with the famous sights of the
  capital. Ishikawa's wife thereupon promenaded through the streets in
  black habutae with an embroidered pattern of nandina. Observers
  thought this a poor match for the kimono of the Kyoto woman until
  they noticed that the red berries of the nandina were coral. Although
  the Edo woman won that round in the interurban rivalry, her displays
  of finery came to the attention of the shogun himself. He confiscated
  all of Ichikawa's property and banished the merchant from Edo.113
  Sumptuary laws were issued continually in the attempt to check
  112 Nihon eilaigura, in Noma, ed., Saikaku shu, vol. 2, pp. 46-7.
  113 Shively, "Sumptuary Regulation and Status in Early Tokugawa Japan," pp. 128-9.
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  THE CHONIN 
  765
  extravagance and display by chonin, both men and women, in clothing
  and articles of personal adornment. Prohibitions also appeared against
  three-story houses, the use of gold and silver leaf and gold-lacquer
  articles, and extravagance in weddings, funerals, memorial services,
  and dining and entertainment. These laws sought, of course, to curb the
  luxurious living of prosperous merchants which, because it was supe-
  rior to the comforts enjoyed by samurai, might provoke jealousy and
  hence undermine morale and discipline. They remained, however, little
  more than outbursts of indignation by the ruling class against the pre-
  sumptuousness of social inferiors. Because the laws were directed at the
  display of wealth - attacking as they did the symptoms rather than the
  economic causes of fundamental changes in society - they were of lim-
  ited effectiveness. But the reminder to chonin that they should live like
  inferiors, together with a few exemplary confiscations and the frequent
  repudiation by daimyo of their enormous debts to merchants, served to
  sap some of the exuberance of the more pretentious chonin. Such devel-
  opments encouraged some chonin to reflect again on their proper role
  and behavior in Edo society, and to bear in mind Saikaku's warning of
  "divine punishment."114
  This theme was taken up by others who wrote words of advice for
  chonin. Nishikawa Joken wrote a practical guide called Chonin bukuro
  (A bag of advice for townsmen, 1692), in which he admonishes:
  Chonin are at the bottom of the four classes. . . . Being at the bottom, they
  should not exceed their superiors. They should not be envious that others
  have prestige and majesty. They should keep to simplicity and plainness and
  be content with their status. If they keep to their kind, like oxen enjoy being
  with other oxen, they will achieve lifelong enjoyment.
  Joken adds the warning: "If lowly chonin wear fine clothes and go on
  outings, they will be accosted by robbers who will strip them. As
  people of humble birth, if they imitate the behavior of their superiors,
  they will bring ruinous misfortune on themselves."115
  Ishida Baigan (1685-1744), who formulated a body of social and
  ethical teachings for chonin, known as shingaku, gave advice on which
  materials should be worn appropriately to reflect one's status. "Be
  grateful for these established forms," he said, "do not violate them, but
  observe them strictly. Know the lowliness of oneself. It is good to
  observe these distinctions.""6 For Baigan, the avoidance of extravagant
  114 Ibid., pp. 126-35. 
  " 5 Nihon keizai sosko, vol. 5, pp. 65, 67.
  116 Tohi mondo (1739), Akabori Matajiro, ed., in Shingaku sosho (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1904),
  vol. 3, p. 206. On Shingaku, see Robert N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The Values ofPre-
  Industrial Japan (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1957), pp. 133-77.
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  766 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  clothing was not merely prudence; it had ethical value: "Lowly chonin
  who are ostentatious are criminals who violate moral principles."117
  The heads of merchant houses also left words of advice and admoni-
  tion to their descendants. Some formulated house laws (kaho) as
  guides to the management of business and personal conduct. During
  the seventeenth century, many merchant houses did not continue to
  prosper long after the death of the founder. They proverbially failed in
  the third generation, putatively because of extravagance or inatten-
  tion. Notable among the families that continued to prosper through
  the Edo period is the Mitsui house (which was, in fact, among the few
  to make the transition into modern times). The Mitsui left the fullest
  record of their commercial history and also of family rules and advice.
  The Mitsui house law of 1695 includes detailed rules for the opera-
  tion of their shops. The instructions concerning hours of rising, dress,
  food, relations with customers, and restrictions on leaving the prem-
  ises provide a picture of a disciplined, austere style of life. The parallel
  drawn between the duty of managers to defend the Kyoto shop as their
  "main castle" and the duty of the shogun's guard to defend Nijo and
  Osaka castles expresses a concern, which runs throughout the docu-
  ment, with the dangers to business lurking on every side and the
  necessity for constant vigilance in an extremely competitive commer-
  cial world."8 Both this law and the 1722 testament of Mitsui Takahira
  (Sochiku, 1653-1737) enumerate business procedures to be followed
  and the types of transactions to be avoided. The documents emphasize
  cooperation and harmony among the nine Mitsui branch shops, and
  they caution repeatedly against extravagance and forgetting one's
  place as a merchant.
  Sochiku's views on merchant imprudence also appear in a work
  called Chonin koken roku (Some observations on merchants) which he
  completed about 1727. This is an account of the downfall of some fifty
  merchant houses, almost all in Kyoto, and the lessons to be drawn
  from the disastrous consequences of lending to daimyo, speculating in
  currency and commodities, living luxuriously, collecting expensive
  antiques, mixing with court nobles or noh actors, becoming too en-
  grossed in religion and giving buildings to temples, and, in any variety
  of ways, forgetting one's proper station. "Never waste your attention
  117 Seikaron (1744), in Akabori, ed., Shingaku sosho, vol. 1, pp. 142-3. Naramoto Tatsuya,
  Chonin nojitsuroku, vol. 17 of Nikon no rekishi (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1966), pp. 396-404.
  118 "Kanai shikiho cho" (1695), in "Kohon Mitsui-ke jigyo shiryo, Dai-ichi gofuku ten no bu,
  Dai-ni hen seido" (microfilm). Oishi Shinzaburo, Genroku jidai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
  197°). PP- 66-71.
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  THE CH6NIN 
  767
  on matters which have nothing to do with your work. . . . Remember
  that it is the family business that must not be neglected for a mo-
  ment."119 Sochiku illustrates here the principles expressed earlier in
  the house laws and testament. But in addition to citing unsound busi-
  ness practices that lead to financial failure, he draws attention to those
  moral failings that contribute to the decline of families. Although
  there can be no doubt that neglect and extravagance were factors in
  some cases, we must surely expect that many business failures of the
  time ensued from unforeseen changes in a rapidly developing econ-
  omy.120 Nonetheless, moralizing and didactic advice were included
  among the practical instructions of even the most hardheaded of Edo-
  period businessmen.
  Just as merchant house laws and patriarchal admonitions followed
  in the traditions of house codes (kaho) and family admonitions (kakuri)
  that had been prevalent in bushi families from the thirteenth century
  on, some chonin writers suggested that there was also a chonin equiva-
  lent to the way of the samurai. To the extent that its elements have
  been articulated, they may be found in the writings of moralists such
  as Joken and Baigan and in the laws and precepts of houses like the
  Mitsui. Such writings sought to bring respectability to the work of
  chonin, especially tradesmen, by asserting their essential role in soci-
  ety. Chonin were to fulfill this role by behaving at all times appropri-
  ately to callings assigned them by Heaven. They were to follow Confu-
  cian teachings in social relationships: obedience to parents, harmony
  in family relationships and in the community, observance of the ruler's
  laws, loyalty to the master, thrift, hard work, honesty in business
  dealings, securing only a moderate profit from work, and so forth. To
  violate these principles was to commit a crime against the government,
  against society, and against Heaven. These teachings express the sober
  and responsible side of chonin behavior, the dedication of the individ-
  ual to the continuation and prosperity of his family trade. And they
  put into better perspective the hedonistic view of chonin life found in
  Saikaku's koshoku books.
  The principles embodied in the way of the chonin fostered social
  discipline and conformity. Although the Tokugawa authorities had
  done little, if anything, to encourage this code, it served their purposes
  admirably. In particular, the code supported official policy of relying
  119 Translated by E. S. Crawcour, "Some Observations on Merchants: A Translation of Mitsui
  Takafusa's Chonin Koken Roku, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 8, series 3
  (1961): 115.
  120 Ibid., p. 25.
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  768 
  POPULAR CULTURE
  on leading merchants to ensure the cooperation of city residents. Al-
  though the government did determine the policies of city government
  and issued urban regulations, authorities appointed established mer-
  chant families to see to the routine, day-to-day administrative work,
  drawing on traditions of self-rule that had evolved in commercial
  towns in the century preceding Tokugawa rule. Unlike their counter-
  parts in Europe during medieval and early modern times, when the
  interests of merchant councils occasioned conflict with aristocratic
  rulers, Japanese merchants of the early period were engaged especially
  in supplying the needs of the ruling class, and their privileged position
  was dependent on patronage by the rulers.
  The government appointed respected merchant families to serve
  under the machi bugyo, both as senior elders at the highest level (for
  example, the sodoshiyori of Osaka) and as headmen (toshiyori or
  nanushi) of the hundreds of quarters (cho) into which the cities were
  partitioned. Within the quarter, a unit of several hundred residents,
  the individual householder was also assigned responsibility for family
  members, servants, employees, and tenants. At each level, therefore,
  from city wide administration down to household management, there
  were chonin who were obliged to ensure conformity by each individual
  within their jurisdictions to official regulations and to foster quiet
  neighborhoods and harmonious relationships.
  Should an individual commit an offense, his family members and
  associates and headman were variously liable for punishment, depend-
  ing on the gravity of the infraction. Further, neighborhoods, and
  sometimes trades, were divided into five-family groups (gonin gumi)
  responsible for the actions of all individuals in the group. Similarly,
  members of a guild or trade association could be held liable for the
  actions of any member. The various lines of accountability formed
  networks of corporate responsibility from top to bottom of commoner
  society. This system put heavy pressure on the individual to conform
  to the interests of the group. Headman urged parties in dispute to
  accept settlement by mediation rather than to take suits to the magis-
  trate's court. People learned to keep a close eye on their relatives,
  neighbors, and business associates in order to deter them from any
  action that would cause difficulties for the group.
  Restrictive as the social and financial obligations that shaped the
  daily life of chonin might have been, they were less severe than the
  constraints on the rural population. City life also differed from life in
  the country in the range of diversions and entertainments that devel-
  oped during the seventeenth century. Nonetheless, as the opportunity
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  THE CHONIN 
  769
  for better earnings increased in the countryside, rural life did become
  less restricted. Better conditions in many areas, accompanied by the
  spread of knowledge through books as well as through travel, worked
  to diffuse more widely the elements of urban culture, from education
  to entertainments. Villagers read popular literature, and they per-
  formed kabuki or puppet theatricals in the village shrine compound.
  Some learned the genteel arts and accomplishments that the chonin
  had derived from samurai culture, such as noh recitation and drum
  playing. Others learned the samisen music and the love songs of the
  brothel and theater. By the end of the Edo period, the urban popular
  culture became the popular culture of the country.
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
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  Zoku zoku gunsho ruija Wi * &ttW<£.. Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai
  1906- .
  Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Crafts/Art/Vol. 4 Early Modern Japan.pdf