Warring States and Unification
Key terms
- wakō 倭寇
- Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 (1534-82)
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 (1536-98)
- "sword hunt"
- ban on change of status
- Hideyoshi's Invasion of Korea (1592–1598)
- Bunroku Keichō campaigns 文禄・慶長の役 Bunroku Keichō no eki
- Imjin War 壬辰倭亂 Imjin waeran
- Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1542-1616)
- Foreign policy
- Chosŏn Korean and Tsushima 対馬 Sō family 宗
- Conquest of Ryūkyū (1609) and Ming/Qing China
- Expulsion of Spanish (1624) and Portuguese (1639)
- Domestic policy
- Ban on overseas travel (1635)
- Sankin kōtai and urbanization
- Control over daimyo
- Division of power with emperor and European parallels
Summary of Ashikaga shogunate
- Founder Ashikaga Takauji betrays Emperor GoDaigō (1333-38)
- Shogun has legitimacy problems
- Shogunate does not achieve decisive dominance over rival lords
- Shoguns must always work with alliances of lesser lords -- marriage and family politics
- Major allies are Hosokawa, Shiba, Hatakeyama
- Ashikaga Yoshimitsu 3rd shogun (1358-1408)
- Master of this balancing act
- Took investiture from Ming emperor
- Brokered truce between rival factions in the imperial line
- Styled his own son as a possible emperor
- Ashikaga Yoshinori
6th shogun (1394-1441)
- Assassinated by Akamatsu Mitsusuke
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki 15th shogun (1537-1597)
- Has no real power
- Installed by Oda Nobunaga in 1568
- Banished from Kyoto by Nobunaga in 1573
- Resigned as shogun 1588
Ōnin War (1466-1477)
- Starts as shogunal succession dispute (Hosokawa, Hatakeyama)
- Leads to collapse of central authority -- "the low defeat the high" gekokujō 下克上
International turmoil
International impact
- Lack of central control in Japan means surge in international piracy -- known in China and Korea as wakō 倭寇
- Korean court attempts to work with coastal daimyō
- Attacks Tsushima in 1419 to demand suppression of wakō - Ōei invasion 1419
- Ming dynasty attempts to work with Ashikaga、but also issues ban on private international trade
- 1523 conflict in Ningbo between Ōuchi and Hosokawa
- Western foreigners do not understand who is in charge
- Missionaries cannot find anyone in charge in Kyoto
- Work to convert daimyō
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Christianity
Arrival of Westerners
- first arrived in Japan in 1543 -- Tanegashima
- formal introduction of Christianity is 1549
- arrival of Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier
- later canonized
Early missionary activities
- convert elite -- Japanese rulers
- responses of daimyo
- opportunistic acceptance
- missionaries can bring foreign trade
- foreign weapons
- appeal of doctrine
- Ōtomo Yoshishige (daimyo of Bungo)
(1530-87)
- Yoshishige did not accept baptism until
he had studied Christianity for over twenty years
- Miyoshi Nagayoshi (daimyo of Awa)
- conveerted as a result of public debate
National policies
- Hideyoshi's erratic pragmatism
- initially he allows Christianity
- ban it in 1587
- fails to enforce ban
- asks priests to prays for success of this
Korean expedition
- BUT punishes daimyo who force conversion of their
vassals
- Hideyoshi's concerns
- political impact of Christianity
- Jesuits talk of a league of Christian daimyo
- precedent of True Pure Land Buddhism
- arrival of Franciscans (1596) compounds concerns
- Hideyoshi bans Christianity in 1597 -- but the impact is
diminished by his death the following year
The Three Unifiers
- Oda Nobunaga (1534-82)
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616)
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Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 |
Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 |
Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 |
- Oda Nobunaga
- Origins
- an astute military commander with, by traditional standards, virtually no claim
to higher political authority
- he was the son of a deputy shugo
- Rise to power
- rise to power begins defensively in 1560
- defeats Imagawa Yoshimoto who is seeking to reach Kyoto
- forges alliances with his neighbors (Takeda and Tokugawa) to secure his own rear
so he can attack Kyoto
- March on Kyoto
- by 1568 Nobunaga is prepared to claim national authority
- he leads 30,000 men into Kyoto
- and claims that he has arrived to save Ashikaga Yoshiaki (one of two claimants
to the shogunal succession)
- he installs Yoshiaki as shogun, but he has all the power - in essence he is Yoshiaki's
regent
- he banishes Yoshiaki when they disagree
- Unification
- Nobunaga defeats many warrior rivals but his fiercest competition comes from religious
institutions
- 1571 attacks Enryakuji temple -- burning 3000 buildings
- Enryakuji had controlled much of Kyoto, hiring samurai, protecting and licensing moneylenders
- 1570-1580 moves against Ikkō ikki 一向一揆 in northeastern Japan: "There are so many corpses that there is no room for more."
- 1574 he moves against the center of Amida Buddhism -- he encircles Ishiyama honganji
(near Osaka) and destroys it
- Institutions and innovations
- political
- asserted nationwide control over trade
- begins policy of transferring retainers to break their times to the land -- as response to jizamurai and Ikkō ikki
- begins disarming peasantry
- begins demanding land surveys of subordinate lords
- military
- used armored ships to attack Ishiyama honganji
- new uses of firearms (introduced by Portuguese in 1543), esp. at Battle of Nagashino 1575 - destroys Takeda -- one of the most powerful daimyō families
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi
- Origins
- came from peasant class
- rose through the ranks in Nobunaga's army
- avenges Nobunaga's assassination in 1582
- Policies
- Continues Nobunaga's wars of subjugation
- Brings the far southwest to heel, defeating Shimazu 島津 in 1586
- Defeats last main rival (Hōjō) in 1590
- Demands systematic land surveys of Japan
- All daimyō are supposed to report their land holdings
- Hideyoshi moves them around to reward or punish them
- Tokugawa Ieyasu is "rewarded" in 1590 with a large parcel in the Kantō (western Japan)
- Claims control over all gold mines in Japan
- Mints coins for the first time since 900s
- Bans changes of status
- Peasants are not to join warrior bands -- two sword rule
- Warriors are not to leave vassal bands to become cultivators
- Collects weapons from commoners
- Merciful ruler
- Does NOT take the title shogun
- Instead pretends to be a courtier
- Becomes retired regent to the Emperor
- Helps the emperor have expensive court ceremonies
- Allows Ashikaga Yoshiaki to return to Kyoto
- Allows Ishiyama honganji to be rebuilt (1591) as non-fortified site in Kyoto
- Invasion of Korea
- Hideyoshi seems to have believed that he was destined to rule
the world
- First Stage of Invasion
- Invasion begins in May 1592, over 158,000 samurai deployed to Korea
- the Japanese initially have enormous success
- Pusan falls in one day -- many Korean commanders abandon
their posts
- Seoul falls three weeks after the invasion -- the Korean
King flees from Seoul
- by July, Japanese forces had reached Pyeongyang (P'yôngyang)
- the Japanese forces treated conquered areas of Korea as
though they were Japanese territory
- they taxed the peasants
- confiscated their weapons
- ruthlessly put down any insurrections
- Why were Korean defense so poor?
- Hideyoshi had warned Korean court -- asking for passage through Korea in 1592 letter
- BUT Korean court is torn by factionalism, King Sonjo ignores advice to prepare
- Problems with invasion
- the rapid Japanese expansion led to several weaknesses in
Japanese control over Korea
- their troops were spread out -- this left their lines of
communication and supply vulnerable to attack
- they did not have sufficient force to deal with guerilla
resistance
- Ming dynasty China responds
- cannot respond immediately because of problems with
Mongols in western China
- AND factional disputes at home: Wei Zhongxian (魏忠賢)(1568-1627)
- but they are able to enter the Korean theatre in force in
February 1593
- Japanese are completely surprised
- driven out of Pyeongyang (P'yôngyang) -- within a week they
are driven back as far as Seoul
- they hold onto Seoul for another week and then set
fire to city rather than let it fall into Chinese hands
- Japanese forces regroup and retake Seoul, but cannot
move north -- retreat again to Busan
- Ming and Hideyoshi agree to truce
- Problems with negotiations
- China views Japan as either a vassal state or a
barbarian state
- Hideyoshi thinks the Ming emperor should be HIS
vassal
- Hideyoshi has seven key demands
- a peace treaty between Japan and China would be
signed
- a daughter of the Chinese emperor was to become a
consort (not wife) of the Japanese emperor
- trade between Japan and China will resume
- Korean is never again to oppose Japan
- Korean will send hostages to Japan to guarantee
it compliance
- two Korean princes held by the Chinese will be
freed
- the four southern provinces of Korean would be
restored to the King of Korea (annexed to Japan)
- Hideyoshi's ambassadors conceal his demands in order
to start negotiations
- Chinese ambassadors arrive at Hideyoshi's Osaka
castle in 1596
- BUT the Chinese refuse all of Hideyoshi's demands
- Hideyoshi considers killing all his ambassadors
- Second stage of invasion
- Hideyoshi attacks again in 1597
- briefly retakes Seoul but then fall back to SE coast
- Korean admiral Yi Sunsin destroys Japanese fleet
- with 12 armored ships destroys 300 Japanese vessels
- stalemate until September 1598 when Hideyoshi dies
- the invasion is extremely unpopular with daimyo -- all
troops are gone by December 1598
- Legacy of Invasion of Korea
- for Korea
- at least 2 million dead
- population does not recover for a century
- poor showing of Korean army intensifies factionalism
- BUT Joeson dynasty is a survivor
- for China
- defeating Japan was extremely expensive
- defending Korea helped weaken the Ming
- compounds problem of wakō
- for Japan
- Hideyoshi's legacy is compromised by his defeat
- later leaders are suspicious of foreign entanglements
- Japan is a pariah in East Asia
Founding of the Tokugawa Regime
- Stabilizing a new regime
- Ieyasu quickly established the succession of his house
- he becomes shogun in 1603 -- he retires in 1605 and makes
his son (Hidetada) shogun
- Ieyasu becomes retired shogun
- Hidetada hates his father's meddling BUT this immediately
established the heritability of the title shogun in the
Tokugawa house
- Ieyasu eliminates rivals
- neutralizes Hideyoshi's heir (Hideyori 1593－1615) through marriage
with Ieyasu's granddaughter
- attack and destroys Hideyori in 1615
- Redistributes land
- eliminates opponents
- rewards allies with large land grants
Tokugawa holdings |
4.2 million koku |
hatamoto 旗本 |
2.6 million koku |
fudai 譜代 and shinpan 親藩 |
10 million koku |
tozama 外様 |
10 million koku |
imperial house |
0.141 million koku |
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Institutions of sustained control
- Elimination of Christianity of limits of contact with outside
world
- 1612 -- bans Christianity and destruction churches in Kyoto
- 1624 -- ban on trade with Spain
- 1635 -- ban on overseas travel with death penalty for attempting to return
- Cuts off Japanese overseas communities
- 1639 -- further injunctions against Christianity & ban on Portuguese ships
- 1640 begin use of shūmon aratame
- WHY such hostility to Christianity?
- Spanish and Portuguese bad mouth each other
- Early problems with religious institutions
- 1637 Shimabara rebellion
- Constraints on diplomatic relations
- Break with Hideyoshi's imperial aspirations
- Officially sanctioned diplomatic ties
- Ryukyu 琉球 through Satsuma 薩摩
- Yi-dynasty Korean through the Sō 宗氏 on Tsushima 対馬
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Ryukyuan embassies had roughly 100 members and were linked to shogunal succession |
Korean embassies had over 400 members and were enormously expensive |
- Non-diplomatic ties
- Ezo 蝦夷(Hokkaidō) through Matsumae
- Dutch and Chinese through Nagasaki
- BUT -- fallacy of Japan as "closed country"
- Large trade volume continues
- Dutch in Dejima
- Chinese in Nagasaki enclave
唐館図（龍踊図） 川原慶賀筆 19世紀
- Diplomacy remains important
- Power of attainder: shogun can seize all or some of daimyō's holdings for:
- violation of shogunal order
- failure to get approval for succession
- failure to properly govern domain
- System of inspectors
- can check for illegal castle modifications
- can check population registers
- can demand tax registers
- Formalization of sankin kōtai
- this was made mandatory by Iemitsu for tozama in 1635
- for all daimyō (including fudai) in 1642
- leads to explosion of urban culture
- Special levies on daimyō
- river works
- castle construction
- Control over currency
- shogunate reserves for itself the right to strike coins
- it seizes all the major gold, silver and copper mines in
Japan
Language of Tokugawa Rule:
Although historians commonly refer to the Tokugawa rulers as shoguns, this was a relatively rare title in period documents. Much more common were the following:
- Kubō 公方: Perhaps the most common terms used to refer to the shōgun: it appears both in official government documents and popular language. The term might be best translated as "highness" because it was used to refer to many different lords. In classical Japan (794-1185) it commonly meant the emperor, then it was used for the Kamakura shoguns, and after the 1300s it referred to regional lords, such as daimyō. After 1600 it almost always meant the Tokugawa shōgun.
- Taikun 大君: This term was invented in 1635 in order to facilitate diplomatic relations with the Yi-dynasty 李王家 Korean court. The full title was 日本国大君 "Nihonkoku taikun," or "Taikun of Japan." This was commonly used by foreign diplomats to refer to the shōgun, not by Japanese representatives themselves. The 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the US and Japan is an agreement between "The President of the United States of America and His Majesty the Tycoon of Japan."
- Tōshōgū 東照宮: More fully Tōshōdaigongen (東照大権現), or the "Great shining deity/Buddha/Bodhisattva of the East." This is the posthumous name of Tokugawa Ieyasu as a deity. This name was chosen over other candidates such as "Great deity/Buddha/Bodhisattva of Japan" and "August deity/Buddha/Bodhisattva." The simpler form comes from the shrine at Nikkō.
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