Daimyo By Ieyasu And His Successors example essay topic

Midterm Question-1 Tokugawa Ieyasu was a great samurai fighter and cunning politician. In battle of Sekigahara Tokugawa defeated his major rivals and established Tokugawa government. His headquarter was established in village of Edo away from the imperial families in Kyoto. Ieyasu and successors choose to rule as shoguns, or feudal lords, demanding loyalty from the daimyo and exercising direct control only over their own territorial domains. The people saw the emperor as divine descent of sun goddess Amatersau, however, established the emperor as the ultimate source of political authority and surrounded the imperial throne with thicket of taboos that protected it from usurpation.

Tokugawa and his politicians created some policies to keep japan from rebelling and try to control over the society. They divided the feudal lords into three categories: Funai, Shim pan and Tozama daimyo's. The fud ai daimyo, descended from members of the original tokugawa vassal band or men who had been made daimyo by Ieyasu and his successors, identified most closely with the interests of. Their territories frequently abutted Tokugawa lands, protecting their flanks, and the's highest officials were drawn from their ranks. The Tozama daimyo were descended from allies of Ieyasu too strong to be considered his direct vassals or from daimyo that submitted to his suzerainty only after battle of Sekigahara. Their domains were large, on average twice the size of the fud ai daimyo, and usually located on the periphery of the archipelago.

The shim pan daimyo was newly created by the family, their houses were branch houses set up to placate the sons of elderly shoguns who did not inherit the office and to provide collateral successors to the main line. In 1615, Tokugawa pass the law for military housing. Ieyasu created Sank in-Kota i or alternate attendance system. This required that each lord of daimyo to spend 6 months year spent in Edo. Policy kept daimyo lords on move and made them financial unstable. Tokugawa basically kept the lords in hostage while they were on move; this kept them from plotting against him.

His government established Kyoto deputy. No one could visit the Tokugawa without the deputy's approval. Marriage between imperial and emperor was to be approved by deputy too. There was class system that divided people into four categories: samurai, farmers, artist and merchants.

Only samurai were allowed to carry the swords. When high-ranking officials walked down the street all the peasants had kneel to give him respect. Farmers came after samurai because they provided people with food. Merchants were all the way at bottom because they were considered greedy and samurais saw them as dishonest people. In 1700, Peasant rebellion against government was lead by the missionaries and Roman Catholics.

This was threatening to government because they saw the foreign ideology. All foreigners were barred to enter Japan. Only Chinese and Dutch were allowed to stay and allowed to do business, Dutch people had to stay in confined island outside of Nagasaki. They were under careful observation and they weren't allowed to meddle with anything.

American government started to put pressure on merchants to open up trade with japan. Matthew Perry general commodore carried letter from president to japan requesting open up commercial trade. Japanese government wasn't sure what to do with. Russians and British had come to them with same offer but they turned it down. Japanese knew how china was humiliated by westerners and was forced to open trade.

They knew resistance was futile. In 1854, Japanese signed treaty of kanazawa; they agreed to open up two ports two ports. After that, Tow send Harris came and he convinced Japanese government to open up more ports. By this time you have foreigners living and doing business freely. In 1867, japan signed treaty with Holland, Russia, British and US. All this unequal treaties was humiliating to many Japanese and especially the samurais.

Opening up japan only helped merchants and many people felt that foreigners were kind of using them. Japanese government itself was not making profit in this trade business and foreigners got to use cheap labor for their purpose. Tokugawa government kind of gave head start to japan on modernizing and industrializing its economy. It exposed people to foreign ideas, science, and mathematics etc. the consequences were: it made people inferior because foreigners using them and kind of ruling japan. There was Tranquility and peace while Tokugawa and his successors ruled. Of course, the government was monarch but it helped to keep the peace intact.