6. Tokugawa Shogunate

Osaka

The major port of Japan and a prominent castle town. Reached a population of 400,000 during the Edo period.

Kyoto

Remained the imperial capital during the Edo period. The imperial court was respected and a Tokugawa deputy was assigned to Kyoto. Reached a population of around 300,000 during this period.

Han

The domains of the daimyo. Remained under the control of the daimyo after Tokugawa’s victory. However, this was only the case as long as the daimyo continued to show their allegiance to the Tokugawa.

Shimpan

Daimyo that were relatives to the Tokugawa. They were given large lands in strategic locations across Japan (especially surrounding the Bakufu’s own holdings).

Fudai

Daimyo that had supported the Tokugawa before the Battle of Sekigahara. Had their own han spread across Japan and served as high officials in the Bakufu.

Tozama

Daimyo who only supported the Tokugawa after the fudai. Received large, relatively unproductive holdings in the country’s periphery and were not given positions in government.

Sankin kotai

System of alternate attendance. All daimyo had to maintain two households, one in their home province and one in Edo. Their families were held as quasi-hostages in Edo. Every other year, the daimyo was summoned to Edo to fulfill tasks for the Tokugawa and had to remain in the city for around one year.

Christianity and the Shimabara Rebellion

The Tokugawa shogunate threw out Christian missionaries in 1612. Then a series of anti-Christian edicts were written starting in 1633.

In 1637-1638 Christians in northern Kyushu gather and rebel against the shogunate during the Shimabara Rebellion. However, the rebellion is put down with a huge massacre and used as proof of the subversive nature of Christianity.

In 1642 Christianity is declared illegal in Japan and all people are required to register with their local Buddhist temple.

The Dutch

Replaced the Portuguese as Japan’s preferred Western trading partner. Trade was restricted to a single trading mission a year at Nagasaki. The Dutch are also allowed to visit Edo occasionally to give reports on outside affairs and pay respects to the Shogun.

Dutch learning (aka rangaku) grows during the Edo period. Western books can be imported as long as they are not about Christianity.

Tsushima

During the Edo period, it was illegal for Japanese people to leave Japan. However, the Japanese could trade with Korea through the So warlord family of Tsushima. This made Tsushima increasingly wealthy.

Satsuma and the Ryukyu Islands

The Ryukyu Islands are a chain of islands south of Kyushu stretching to Taiwan. They were an independent kingdom but they were defeated by the Shimazu warlord family of Satsuma during the Sengoku period.

Due to their victory, the Satsuma warlords receive tribute and get the right to administer trade. However, Ryūkyūans also send tribute missions to China.

The Ainu and Hokkaido

The Ainu are driven out to the northernmost island of Hokkaido by the mainland Japanese. The Matsumae daimyo family settles in southern Hokkaido and receives the right to trade with the Ainu.

The Ainu were known as Ezo by the mainland Japanese and Hokkaido was known as Ezochi.

The House of Mitsui

A large company created by the Mitsui merchant family that included stores and businesses involved in brewing, retail, and banking.

The House of Sumitomo

A large company created by the Sumitomo merchant family that included stores and businesses involved in copper smelting, shipping, and banking.

Ukiyo

Translated as “The Floating World.“ Refers to a world of entertainment, shopping, restaurants, tea houses, drinking houses, and brothels that was enabled by increasing urbanization and prosperity in major cities. The concept of ukiyo is meant to refer to a transitory world of sensations.

Kabuki theatre

Involves elaborately designed costumes, eye-catching make-up, outlandish wigs, and arguably most importantly, the exaggerated actions performed by the actors. Emerged during the Edo period. Male actors play all parts. Popular with the lower classes.

Plots are usually based on historical events, warm hearted dramas, moral conflicts, love stories, tales of tragedy of conspiracy, or other well-known stories.

Bunraku

Puppet theatre that emerged in the Edo period. Popular with the lower classes. Shared a common corpus of plays with Kabuki.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon

Widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatist. He wrote plays for bunraku and kabuki during the Edo period.

Terakoya

Private educational institutions attached to Buddhist temples that taught reading and writing to the children of Japanese commoners during the Edo period.

Gonin Gumi

Groups of five households that were held collectively responsible during the Edo period. All households in the shogunate were members of such a group, with all members of the group held responsible for the good conduct of all of the other members, and of their dependents.

Miyamoto Musashi

Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels.

Wrote the Book of Five Rings which is a text on kenjutsu and the martial arts in general influenced by Zen Buddhist traditions.

Ihara Saikaku

Writer of erotic stories such as The Life of an Amorous Man, The Life of an Amorous Woman, and The Great Mirror of Male Love. Some of his stories depicted male-male love in the Edo period.

Matsuo Basho

The most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period.

Bushido

Bushido or Way of the Warrior is a catch-all term referring to a collection of martial valuesviewed as important by samurai. During the Edo period martial values remain important (mostly in the form of household codes) but there is a growing debate about the place of warriors in long periods of peace.

Junshi

The medieval Japanese act of vassals committing suicide for the death of their lord. i.e., following one’s lord into death.

Yamaga Soko

Japanese military writer and philosopher under the Tokugawa shogunate who applied the Confucian idea of the "superior man" to the samurai class. He claimed that the aim of samurai in peacetime was to serve the state and lead the country to virtue.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo

A samurai that became a Zen Buddhist priest after his lord’s death when he was forbidden from committing junshi.

Wrote Hagakure, a spiritual guide for samurai. The text displays a fascination with death and highlights the importance of knowing how to die as an essential part of bushido.

Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan

Fujiwara Seika was a Japanese Neo-Confucian philosopher and writer during the Edo period. His disciple Hayashi Razan was an advisor to the shoguns of the Tokugawa Bakufu who advocated for a modified version of Neo-Confucian hierarchy that placed samurai at the top followed by peasants and farmers, then merchants.

The virtue of knowing one’s place was also emphasized (which discouraged social mobility).

Chonindo

Aka the Way of the merchant. It was a modified version of Confucianism that tried to justify the importance and value of trading (in a society that viewed it as lesser). It used unorthodox interpretations of Confucian principles to emphasize loyalty and hard work.

Shingaku (Teachings of the Heart)

Movement meant to legitimize the role of merchants in society. Defined profits from trade as a stipend received by merchants by providing a useful service rather than the result of greed. It also rejected class distinctions between samurai and the other classes, claiming that the only difference between them was the work they performed.

Yamagata Banto

A scholar who had emerged from the merchant class, also recognized the superiority of Western science and adopted a materialistic, atheist point of view. He noted the prevalence of conflict between the ruler and the people in Japanese history and, like Shiba Kōkan, asserted that all people were equal.