Edo Period History

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So as preparation for my midterm this week, and also to inform you guys on some Japanese history, I've decided to write a little summary of the Edo-period history, the Edo-period architecture & urban planning schemes, and even some history about the "opening" of Japan to the rest of the world in the seventeenth century. This entry might be a little more boring, but hopefully I can supplment the more textbooky stuff with some photos and stories about what we've seen first hand. I will also try to write about some contemporary social organization of the Japanese workplace as many of the practices are rooted in historical tradition. Basically I have three classes (History of Tokyo, Architecture & Urban Planning of Tokyo, and Social Organization of Japan) which have information that corresponds and overlaps. So I will do my best to tie it all together neatly. I'm back to my usual habits of procrastination, but I've got to just buckle down and do this! whoo hoo, so here we go! (note: the organization of this summary corresponds to the syllabus for my history class. In general it is chronological.)

Introduction
AHHHH So I just wrote about an hour worth of stuff and then my internet broke. So here I go again. The speed version of what I just wrote. This time I’m doing it in a word processing thing and then pasting into the internet site. Ugh. So annoying.
Ok, so. The Edo period basically encompasses the 17th-19th century of Japanese history. This time period is generally thought of as a very peaceful time and there was very little contact or interaction with the outside world (remember all that high school history about Commodore Perry “opening” up Japan? Well, he came along at the very end of the Edo period...). During the Edo period the Japanese culture (arts, cuisine, literature, etc.) flourished, and during these few centuries there is quite a bit of creative work that occured. There was a very specific social structure and a kind of caste system that was prevalent during this time, all of which contributed to a very organized society.
Directly leading up to the Edo period there were three great “unifiers” of Japan. These men, while sometimes being quite forceful and opposing to established ways of life and institutions, can be accredited with organizing Japan into a connected nation. They ended the power of the imperial system (think: emperor had the ultimate control and demanded the utmost respect) and started the new shogunate system of rulership. The first guy was Oda Nobunaga. He was kind of a brute and started the unification of Japan by force. He basically “conquered” the middle 1/3 of the country (the outside 1/3's, on the periphery of the island, were low in population) and forced everyone into cooperation. He abolished the local toll stations along major trade routes and effectively freed up domestic commerce. He also killed a bunch of monks in a Buddhist temple because the monks were, indirectly, helping people opposing unification.
After this guy came Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He was the first guy to start up the social stratification system, delineating groups of people according to their occupation. He omitted social mobility and also disarmed the peasant class so as to eliminate any risk of rebellion from the lower classes. He established a standing army to protect and facilitate operations within the country and he started a tax system based upon the social orders which he had created. He also tried to invade Korea and so even today Koreans hate this guy. Johanna, you should ask your mom what she thinks about Hideyoshi.
Hideyoshi’s successor was Ieyasu. For awhile the two shared power, but Ieyasu was eventually the head-hancho, and Ieyasu’s son’s ruled Japan for several generations following Ieyasu’s death. Ieyasu was so devoted to his nation that he killed both his wife and one of his sons. I forget why this was proof of his loyalty, but I guess it was a pretty dramatic act. Ieyasu did a lot of things which in my opinion were very helpful in creating a working, coordinated country. He started up 15-year building projects to create Edo (Edo was the shogunate’s governmental capital of Japan, it is present day Tokyo. Meanwhile, Kyoto was where the emperor hung out... basically the shogun and the imperial capitals were separated until after the Edo period). He also set up a structured administration (the shogun system) and taxation system. Ieyasu’s first real claim to power an fame was his victory in the Battle of Sekigahara.
Alright, so that is kind of a little context leading up to the Edo period.

The Political Mechanisms of Edo
The Bakuhan System was the social and political structure system of the Edo period. I think that the name Bakuhan System is synonymous to calling the system the Shogun System, but I’m not 100%!s(MISSING)ure. I guess I will have to ask someone. Anyway, there was a whole “pyramid” of loyalty and power. At the very very top was the shogun. He was the super head-hancho of the whole operation. Below him (and loyal to him) were the various Bakufu who were in charge of lots of stuff and were able to delegate various powers and tasks to lords (called daimyo) below them. Each daimyo was in charge of taking care of various regions of the country. The whole bakuhun system is kind of like a commonwealth system (Pennsylvania, for example, is a commonwealth in the United States); ultimate loyalty was owed to the Bakufu, but each region was kind of independent and loyal to the regional daimyo and han (han was the domain). Within this structure of power, there were more refined divisions of power. For example, within the daimyo class, there were other levels of distinction. The family members of the Tokugawa family were called the Fudai, and these daimyo were the most trusted and thus were given the most desirable regions to govern. Below the Fudai were the Shinpan. These families were not related to the Tokugawa family, but were given special distinction and were rewarded with various powers and lands. And below the Shinpan were the Tozama, who were the least trusted and thus were given areas at the distant peripheries of Japan. The Tozama were at a huge disadvantage when it came to the alternate attendance policy which I’ll write about a little later as they had to travel far to get to Edo (the capital city).
Ok, so more about the class system. Under the daimyo were four other groups of people: Samurai, Peasants, Artisans, and Merchants. Each distinction was made based on occupation, and once you were born into a certain class there was no leaving. There was, of course, mobility within the classes, but there was no “switching” classes. In this way it was as rigid and as confining as the caste system in India. However, things were a little funny and sometimes there could be a merchant who was wealthier and in better standing than a samurai, who was generally considered more respectable. This class system has some grounding in Confucian teachings, I think I have to study more about this though so ask me later if you want to know.
Ok, so the subtitle of this section is “The Political Mechanisms of Edo.” Basically there were three “mechanisms” with which the shogun maintained control over Japan. The first was the class system (which I just wrote about), the second was the exclusion policies (called Sakoku), and the third was the alternate attendance policy (called sankin-kotai). Sakoku basically was a response to the fear of Christianity spreading through and corrupting Japan. Under Iemitsu (one of Ieyasu’s successor sons), Sakoku was enforced; no ships were allowed to leave or enter Japan (except I think there was like one port which was an exception, and only Dutch people and goods could use it... but I’m not 100%!s(MISSING)ure). Also, anyone who was found guilty of being somehow related to Christianity was imprisoned or punished. Other people, who were in favor of opening Japan, were also imprisoned or executed.
The third thing, Sankin-Kotai, is super cool. Well, the policy itself is kind of whack, but all of the implications and responses to the policy are pretty cool. Ok, so Sankin-Kotai (developed in the 1630s by Iemitsu) was the alternate attendance policy, which basically declared that every other year, daimyo had to live in the city of Edo. They had to pack up from their han (home regions) and have a procession to the capital. These processions (often made up of hundreds of people) would walk hundreds of miles (often more than 60 days of fast-paced travel) to the city. It was an incredible expense on the daimyo family as they had to provide for all of the travelers for the entire trip. In addition, the daimyo had expensive mansions in Edo. As I was saying before, the Tozama (the least trusted daimyo) had the farthest to travel and thus their expenses were even greater. The processions cost millions of yen and all of this money was dispersed across intermediate areas of the country. Thus the Sankin-Kotai policy helped to circulate the economy across the entire nation. And of course another impact of the policy is that the transportation systems were established and improved in order to provide for the travelers. Another provision of the Sankin-Kotai policy was a kind of “hostage” system. Iemitsu declared that all the wives and children of the Tozama daimyo had to live in Edo. Thus there was yet another check on the power of the daimyo. Basically the whole idea of the Sankin-Kotai was to weaken the power of the daimyo and keep them loyal to the shogun. But physically making them walk to Edo, there was a kind of psychological loyalty to the capital, and of course by incurring such a high expense to travel, the economic power of each daimyo could only get so high as most of the income had to be used to prepare and provide for the processions.

Alright, I'm running out of steam although I have a lot of other stuff that I should have/could have written about. Ah! I need a break thouhg. So this will have to do for now, but I think I will write another entry about what I've been learning as it helps me motivate to write if I know someone might be reading it.

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Photos

school kids
My history class went on a trip to the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Ryogoku (where the sumo stadium is) and we saw all these little kids who kept waving at us.

Model
The museum had lots of displays about life during the Edo period. Here are a bunch of us students looking at a model.

palanquin
Thally sitting in a recreation of a palanquin. In the processions to Edo, the daimyo and his immediate family were carried in these boxes (they rested on the shoulders of strong guys).

Samurai hanging out
Here is a painting on a handscroll of a few men of the Samurai class (I think) enjoying themselves leisurely. There wasn't actually a whole lot of work for the samurai, so they spent much of their time pursuing the arts and other activities.

balloon bomb
These bombs have nothing to do with the Edo period, it was in an exhibit about world war II. But I thought they were so cool, they were balloons made from paper and some kind of weird glue and the Japanese would send them up to air currents and they would fly over the ocean to the US and bomb us. I thought it was pretty ingenious to be able to rely entirely on wind power.

Bridge
Here's a model of a bridge showing where a lot of activity accumulated. I didn't get a chance to write about the spacial structure of Edo, but these water-way junctions were very crucial to society.

Edo-Tokyo Museum
The museum building is HUGE. In order to enter the used space, you have to travel up a big red tube. The whole buiding is elevated dozens of feet into the air (maybe 75 feet?) and the space underneath is at a huge scale.

Red tube
Here's a kind of crappy picture of the tube that you ascend into the building.

Ueno Station
Here's a picture of the inside of Ueno station.

Comments

[Jeanne]

Walk to Texas
Just think how different our gov't might be if Bush had to walk thru real America between DC and Texas periodically.