Crisis of Tokugawa Regime in Japan

Crisis of Tokugawa Regime in Japan

In what ways did the political, social, and economic system of the

Tokugawa lead to the disintegration of the Bakuhan system?

From years 1603 to 1869, the country of Japan was under the rule of the

Tokugawa Shogunate. During this period of Japanese history, the country

suffered from a feudal military dictatorship under the rule of the shoguns

of the Tokugawa family. The Feudal period in Japan, also known as the

Edo period, was a time when the caste system was very firmly fixed and

only the feudal lords and the samurai stood on top. Japan also became

isolated because of foreign policies rejecting any offers from western

nations to trade with the exception of the Dutch. Eventually due to the

strict social orders and the exploitation of the peasant class by the

government Japan became socially unstable. It was until the arrival of the

United States naval ships led by Commodore Matthew Perry that Japan

was forced to end its isolation from the western empires. This event

created crisis within the country leading to the downfall of the Tokugawa

Shogunate. Opposition forces in Japan used the humiliating intrusion of

foreigners as an excuse to overthrow the discredited shogun and the

Tokugawa bakufu.


The Tokugawa Shogunate consolidated its power during the reigns of

Ieyasu (1603-1605), his son Hidetada (1605-1623), and his grandson

Iemitsu (1623-1651). The Tokugawa Shogunate was the most effective

government that Japan had experienced so far in its history, but it was not

a centralized monarchy. The shogun shared power and authority with the

local daimyo in a system known as Bakuhan. Bakuhan was a combination

of the bakufu, which functioned as the central government, and the han,

feudal domains under the control of the daimyo. The Tokugawa family

had direct control over one quarter of the productive land in the country.

The rest were dominated by the daimyo, who had their own governments,

castle towns, warrior armies, tax and land systems, and courts.

The fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate was a result of many events such as

wars, rebellion, and treaties that caused the end of the Tokugawa

rule. Historians of Japan and modernity agree to a great extent that the

history of modern Japan begins with the crise de regime of the Tokugawa

Shogunate, the military rulers of Japan from the year 1600. It is therefore

appropriate to explore the relevant themes of political instability, foreign

contact and inner contradictions that eventually led to the decline and

subsequent collapse of this regime, while at the same time giving these

factors a closer look in order to understand whether the bakuhan system


could have been preserved had the Tokugawa leaders followed an

alternate policy.

Historians debate the importance of the events that occur during the fall

of the Tokugawa but they all agree that foreign invasion, economic crisis,

and revolutions are major reasons for the collapse of the feudal

government. The Tokugawa Shogunate was abolished in year 1868 when

the imperialist rebels defeated the Shogunate forces and restored the

power to the emperor of Japan.

There has been a debate regarding the nature of the Tokugawa Shogunate,

i.e., whether it was feudal or not. Most historians, such as Barrington

Moore Jr. and others have argued that Tokugawa Japan was a feudal

state, which came to an end due to Western influences, leading to

modernization.

E.H. Norman opines that a society in which political power derived

exclusively from control over agricultural produce and the agricultural

producer, regardless of the extent of sub-infeudation, might fairly be

called feudal, even though he disagrees with regard to the impact of the

West.


However, recently some Western scholars like Andrew Gordon and some

Japanese historians such as Asakawa and Fukuda Tokuzo have denied

that a state so highly centralized as Tokugawa Japan could be described

as feudal.

Fairbank has adopted the terminology of the Japanese social historian,

Professor Honjo, who spoke of early or ‘decentralized feudalism’ and late

or ‘centralized feudalism’ to describe the nature of the Tokugawa state as

‘centralized feudalism’. He says that in Japan, a centralization of political

power occurred in the late 16th century but through the use of a basic

feudal pattern.

The real power was in the hands of a dynastic military leader or shogun

(bakufu). The political system of the bakufu was called the bakuhan

(military government). The shogunate implied a distinctly separate set of

government for the Emperor and his court, and exercised supreme

administrative authority. This office had been hereditary in the Tokugawa

family since 1603.

The Tokugawas also set out to create institutions that would stabilize

political and social conditions and thereby prevent a lapse back into


feudal warfare. Among their officials, the most powerful were the

councillors of the state (Roju), called the “elders”, who were responsible

for national policy and for supervision of the court and the shogun’s own

domain. The shogunate classified the various daimyo into categories in

terms of to the lord’s relationship to the Tokugawa family.

The Tokugawa society was Confucian based. Confucian concepts of

natural law and social hierarchy were applied in determining not only

social control and status, but also a moral order and code of conduct for

all classes. This also became the basis of the four-fold class system,

known as shi-no-ko-sho (warrior-farmer-artisan-merchant), which placed

samurai, farmer, artisan, and merchant in a natural order of merit and

importance.

Samurai were at the top stage of the social hierarchical order. The

samurai were part of the ruling class consisting of shogun, daimyo, and

his retainers. The samurai enjoyed consistency of status, wealth, and

power. There were three ranks of samurai— upper, middle, and lower.

Below them were the peasants, who were accorded second place in

society because they produced the basic essential food. However, they


were exploited and were deprived of many privileges. The peasants had

been regarded by the rulers as tax-producing machines, whose surplus

crops were to be swallowed by those in power. They were even forbidden

to drink tea of superior quality.

The peasants were followed by artisans. The carpenter, the mechanic, the

weaver, artist, sculptor, crafts-worker, were all included in this class. The

artisans mostly were in the same kind of predicament as the peasants.

The chonin (merchants) were at the lowest stage of the social ladder. The

chonin were not given a high status because according to Confucian

ethics, a trader lived on the labour of others. They were not allowed to

used palanquins, wear silk or carry swords.

All the four classes were assigned their distinct roles and were not

allowed to interact with each other. Each class was facing social,

economic, and psychological problems and were unhappy in the

Tokugawa regime.

Samurai was unhappy because he held superior social status but had

declined financially. In order to cope up with the increasing economic


difficulties, the daimyo-samurai had become dependent upon the rich

peasants and merchants. This indebtedness of the top social class to the

lowest class obviously undermined the whole theory and spirit of the

Tokugawa system. Artisans and peasants were unhappy because of

poverty and shortage of food. The chief cause of chonin's discontent was

their inferior social status and the richest of them suffered from various

interferences, high taxes and other restrictions by the bakufu.

Thus, the rise of a daimyo-ronin-chonin alliance with a distinct anti-

bakuhan character and a common cause to end the Tokugawa regime,

according to Barrington Moore Jr., represented a breakdown of the rigid

social hierarchies that was part of the system of what John K. Fairbank

called ‘centralized feudalism’.

Nathaniel Peffer claimed that the nice balance of the Tokugawa clan, the

lesser feudal lords and their attendant samurai, the peasants, artisans and

merchants could be kept steady only as long as all the weights in the scale

were even. However, according to him, the emergence of the Japanese

version of the European bourgeoisie from amongst the merchant classes

was the real deal-breaker in the entire precariously balanced equation.


According to W.G. Beasley, the immediate background to the threat

Japan faced from the Western powers was the latter’s trade with China.

The isolationist policy of the Tokugawa regime with regard to foreign

trade was envisaged in the policy of sakoku which aimed to show

hostility and aggression to any foreigner in Japanese waters.

Among historians, there have been two main schools of opinion on what

really caused the downfall of the Shogunate.

The first school believed that the Tokugawa system of government might

have continued essentially unchanged had it not been for the forcible

opening of the closed door by the United States and other countries. It

had been customary for these historians to refer to the primitive nature of

Japan's economy before 1867 and to treat the Tokugawa period as though

it were an era of almost stagnation. Therefore, the school of opinion

argued that it was only the coming of the foreigners that undermined the

authority of the Tokugawa government and so ruined it.

The second school of opinion, however, emphasized the undoubted fact

that the whole regime had been under indirect attack from many

directions inside Japan long before Perry arrived.


In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, rapid economic growth had produced

an advanced economy capable of ready transformation into an entirely

new political and social order.

By the middle of the 19th century, the antiquated political system and

absurd political and social philosophy of the Tokugawa were more than

200 years out of date. The simple concept of the division of classes into

rulers, warriors and commoners had little relation to Japan of the 19th

century with its crowded cities, rich merchants, restless samurai and

discontent peasantry.

Despite the division of the land into a large number of feudal fiefs, the

people had developed a strong sense of national consciousness. The

growth of nationalism and the development of a modern commercial

economy had made Japan ready for the more efficient political forms of

the modern nation.

The coming of the foreigners, symbolized by the Perry expedition, merely

provided the final impulse towards a collapse that was unavoidable.


The theory that the main cause of the Shogunate's collapse was the forced

opening of Japan to foreigners cannot be accepted, but the 2nd school of

opinion has inclined to go too far in underestimating the impact of

successful Western pressure on Japan in the 1850's. It is hardly believable

that the Shogunate would have collapsed had it been able to resist the

demands made by the United States, Russia, Great Britain and other

countries of the West. The early Tokugawa succeeded in creating a

system capable of preserving political stability that the machine was still

running relatively smooth. It was therefore necessary for an external

pressure to disrupt it. This pressure provided by the foreigners was

consequently fatal to the power of the Tokugawa which had already been

weakened by other forces.

The economic weakening of the Tokugawa feudalism had been serious by

the early 18th century. Moreover, the Shogunate itself was on the whole

better off than most of the daimyo. It could debase the currency to its own

advantage and it controlled all the great cities and most of the

economically advanced parts of the country. It would be hard to argue

that the Shogunate fell from the economic difficulties, all the easier. The

downfall of the Tokugawa regime was thus the result of the conjunction

of 2 processes:


the internal decay of feudal society

pressure from the Western nations

The defeat of the Tokugawa government was a result of the anger

Japanese people had of the western invasion, economic crisis, and abuses

of their Shogunate rulers. In 1853 a fleet of U.S. warships steamed into

Tokyo Bay and demanded permission to establish trade and diplomatic

relations with Japan. This event is considered by John Whitney Hall to be

critical to the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan.

The 19th century ‘Western impact’ on Japan led first to the opening of the

country to foreign commerce and then in 1868 to the end of the

Tokugawa hegemony. According to Hall, “the western pressure was

acutely felt first as a threat to national security and secondly as a stimulus

to reform”. The Japanese at that time felt that seclusion from foreign

policies was good because they needed nothing from the western nations.

They also feared that the western nations would invade their nation and

colonize their territory. The Japanese knew what happened to the Chinese

and how they were forced to sign unequal treaties during the Opium

Wars. For these reasons, the people of Japan saw this western invasion as


dangerous for their country and they blamed the Tokugawa Shogunate for

being weak.

It was only through the coincidence of these forces of internal decay and

external pressure that contributed to the so-called Meiji Restoration in

1868.

However, before Japan could come to a firm policy one way or another,

the West intervened to decide the issue. The United States, by taking

California in the Mexican War (1846-48), had become a Pacific power

practically overnight. In 1853, a fleet of American warships commanded

by Commodore Perry delivered a conciliatory letter from the president to

the Japanese head of state and a more belligerent letter written by Perry

himself. The gist of Perry's message was that Japan had better open its

doors to the West or the United States would kick down those doors and

force Japan to trade.

Conclusion

The bakuhan system was created with flaws from the outset, and the

precarious position that the Tokugawa’s enjoyed was bound to collapse at

some point. Compounding these were various other factors – financial


instability, the arrival of Western powers, the unequal treaties, feudal

nature of society, the daimyo-ronin-chonin alliance, the sankin-kotai

system and the opposition of certain daimyo to Tokugawa rule – led to a

situation where it was only a matter of time for the Tokugawa to fall. It is

unsure whether or not the Tokugawas would have survived had events in

the two decades prior to the deposition been handled differently.

However, it does not seem likely that such a significant difference would

have been made, as the Tokugawa Shogunate dug its own grave as events

continued on course. Hence, the fall of the Tokugawa bakuhan system

was the result of a variety of internal and external factors, at some points

working together while at others being especially distinct in themselves,

and paved the way for the eventual ‘Meiji’ Restoration.

Crisis of Tokugawa Regime in Japan

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