Page 43 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

who became leyasu's vassals. leyasu, a daimyo himself, was therefore not
in a position to eliminate the daimyo, even had that notion ever entered
his head. His problem was to bend them to Tokugawa authority and
integrate them into a "centralized feudal system" of rule. He immedi-
ately set about enlarging his great fortress garrison town at Edo, articulat-
ing enduring institutions of warrior government, and reordering the
structure of feudal society. In 1603 he had himself appointed Seiitai-
shogun by the court, thus formalizing the establishment of a new bakufu.
Although leyasu could not know it, his victory and the hegemony he
established was to endure. The Tokugawa shogunate would survive
through fifteen generations until 1868 and provide Japan with two and a
half centuries of stability. There were intermittent disturbances by mas-
terless samurai (rdnin), sporadic peasant uprisings, and urban riots, but
on the whole Japan under Tokugawa rule enjoyed what has been called
Great peace throughout the realm (Tenka taihei).
The enduring stability was not fortuitous. In large part it derived
from policies deliberately adopted by leyasu and his immediate succes-
sors in the Tokugawa bakufu toward the daimyo and other sectors of
society. Some of these policies, such as the taking of hostages or the
separation of status groups, had been initiated by Nobunaga or Hide-
yoshi but were extended and systematized by the Tokugawa. Other poli-
cies, including the drastic reduction of external contacts and the require-
ment of periodic residence by all daimyo in the shogunal capital, were, if
not entirely new, at least adopted as new by the Tokugawa. Behind all of
the major policies enforced by the early Tokugawa shoguns we can
clearly see a paramount interest in stability and order, and a concern with
the control of volatile factors that might upset a carefully structured
political system and contribute to its downfall.
The long period of peace was to bring other benefits. Although in
the interests of security and domestic stability trade with the outside
world was virtually restricted to Dutch and Chinese trade through Naga-
saki, Korean trade via Tsushima, and Satsuma's trade with the Ryukyu
Islands, domestic trade and commerce flourished. The rebuilding of Edo,
Osaka, and Kyoto and the construction of the several hundred daimyo
castle towns created a national demand for materials and financial serv-
ices. Population increased and urban centers flourished. The population
of Edo reached one million by the eighteenth century, while Osaka, the
great commodity market, and Kyoto, a city of palaces, temples, and
townspeople, each had populations of nearly half a million. In the Toku-
gawa social hierarchy, artisans and merchants ranked beneath the samu-
rai rulers and the peasants whose labor fed the country, but the
merchant's role as broker, provisioner, banker, and moneylender became
increasingly central and a wealthy merchant class developed. Although
looked down upon, the merchant was indispensable to shogun and dai-
myo alike.
The long Pax Tokugawa had another important consequence. As
the prospect of warfare faded from the political consciousness, shoguns,
daimyo, and samurai were imperceptibly but steadily transformed from
warriors into civil officials and patrons of learning and the arts. The
separation of samurai from their village roots and the legal limitations of
mobility among the four classes reinforced the conversion of the warrior
class into civilian administrators based in castle towns. These salaried or
stipended samurai became more dependent on their superiors for their
livelihood than their ancestors had been, and therefore their freedom of
action was more circumscribed. The Tokugawa regime, fully aware of the
dangers posed by unemployed warriors in peacetime, redirected samurai
ideals and energies toward loyal administrative service and the arts of
peace. The right to bear arms remained the defining characteristic of the

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