Tokugawa Social and Intellectual Change

Key Terms

• shinōkōshō 士農工商
• Hayashi school
• Tokugawa Yoshimune
• sankin kōtai
• Motoori Norinaga

Divisions in Tokugawa Society

• Confucian Philosophy (shinōkōshō) 士農工商
  • Samurai 士
  • Farmers 農
  • Artisans 工Toe
  • Merchants 商

• Tokugawa Law
  • Samurai
  • Cityfolk
  • Villagers
  • Monks
  • Outcastes
    • Entertainers (actors and geisha)
    • Prostitutes
    • Unclean peoples (eta 穢多, kawata 皮多, hinin 非人)
• Ambiguous status
  • Priests and Monks
  • Doctors
  • Entertainers and geisha (cf. Saikaku)

Was status heritable? When and why?

Economic implications of the Tokugawa settlement

• Population growth

• Sankin kōtai
  • starts in 1635 for tozama, extended to fudai in 1642
• massive urbanization - the three cities

  Edo by 1700s the population is over one million 600 book stores or lenders 6000 restaurants annual consumption 800,000 casks of sake 100,000 casks of soy sauce 18 million bundles of firewood surge in trade through Osaka development of luxury good production in Kyoto mirrored by concentration of samurai in castle towns

• Rise of kuramoto 蔵元
• initially these are just merchant/warehouse
• help lords convert rice to cash
• as daimyo overspend, they become financiers
• Example Kōnoike
  • Kōnoike began as sake brewers, but grew rich as money lenders to daimyo
  • Co-sponsored Kaitokudō academy
  • by the early 1700 they were supervising the finanaces of over 30 daimyo, including Kumamoto, Okayama, Hiroshima
    • Kumamoto the han was generating deficits of 70,000 to 80,000 koku per annum
    • Kōnoike refuse to extend further credit
    • Domain is briefly insolvent until it gets credit from Kashimaya Sakubei
      • conducted a new cadastral survey
      • began a monopsony on wax fruit
      • introduced new sericulture technique and thread making techniques
• Spread of commercial agriculture
  • daimyo needs new sources of income
  • need markets and demand with urbanization

How was this society justified?

• Hayashi school 林学派 and Zhu Xi 朱子 -- compare Yi Toegye 李退渓 (Yi Hwang 李滉) see "To Become a Sage"
• Yamaga Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622-85)
• Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666-1728)
• Kaiho Seiryō 海保青陵 (1755-1817)
• Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730-1801)
• Wonder
• Good and Evil in the Tale of Genji, DeBary 507-509

Yoshimune (徳川吉宗) (1684-1751, reigned 1716-45)

Period portrait of Yoshimune	Yoshimune saves a woman from toenail fungus

• Reduction of sankin kōtai from one year to six months
• National taxation (agemai 上米) -- voluntary "contribution" to shogunate by daimyo of 1% their tax revenue
• Promotion of low-ranking retainers to higher office through supplemental stipends (tashidaka 足高)
• Encouraged land reclamation
• Reformed tax collection
• Codification of laws and edicts
• Compiled encyclopedia
• Relaxed restriction on imported books
• Premoted development of domestic industries and introduction of new crops (sweet potato)