Page 46 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

Satsuma of the Shimazu family and Choshü of the Mori family that had
been defeated in battle and had been stripped of some of their earlier
holdings had relatively large numbers of samurai in their populations.
The mid-nineteenth-century challenge to Tokugawa rule that led to the
collapse of the bakufu and the Meiji Restoration was mounted by samu-
rai from these powerful tozama domains that had been excluded from
power by the Tokugawa.
Of the great tozama, the Maeda (Kaga domain, Honshu), Shi-
mazu (Satsuma domain, Kyushu), Hosokawa (Higo domain, Kyushu),
and Date (Sendai domain, Honshu) are all represented by objects in the
exhibition. The Maeda were second only to the Tokugawa in scale of fief
(102,000,000 koku). Their castle town of Kanazawa was renowned for
Kutani pottery, fine lacquer, and the painted silk fabrics known as kaga
yüzen. Their great wealth enabled them to be major patrons of the arts,
especially the tea ceremony and No, and it is said that they sponsored
craft workshops within Kanazawa Castle itself. The Shimazu were a
long-established warrior family from Satsuma in southern Kyushu. While
many domain economies languished under heavy debts in the Edo pe-
riod, Satsuma enjoyed profitable control of the Ryukyu Islands, which
gave it a monopoly of the precious commodity sugar. Satsuma was fa-
mous for its ceramics, a tradition developed by Korean craftsmen cap-
tured during Hideyoshi's invasions. Several Shimazu daimyo were noted
administrators, scholars, and patrons of the arts. Shimazu Shigehide
(1745-1833) was interested in Dutch studies and botany. Nariakira (1809-
1858) developed this interest in Western learning into naval and industrial
innovations.
The Hosokawa also flourished during the Edo period. For his
services on the Tokugawa side at Sekigahara, Hosokawa Sansai was
awarded the ^ 7ooo-koku fief of Kokura. In 1632 his son was appointed
castellan daimyo of Higo (Kumamoto) Castle, a larger fief with an as-
sessed yield of 540,000 koku. Placed in a position to block any threat from
Satsuma to the south, the Hosokawa, although tozama, enjoyed the trust
of the Tokugawa. Hosokawa Shigekata (1720-1785) was an administrator
and scholar who reformed domain finances, instituted land surveys, en-
couraged local craft industries, and established a domain school for the
education of samurai. Date Masamune (1567-1636), known as the "one-
eyed dragon," also fought with the Tokugawa at Sekigahara, where he
defeated Uesugi Kagekatsu, and in the Osaka campaign. The Date had
built up their power in northeastern Japan, and during the sixteenth
century Masamune was awarded a fief of 605,000 koku by leyasu and
from 1603 began building a new castle in Sendai. The northeast pro-
duced some of the finest horses and swords in Japan. Masamune was a
flamboyant figure, famous for his military prowess and elaborately
worked armor. Sendai quickly became a northern outpost of cultural
style derived from Kyoto and Edo. In 1868 the Date led an alliance of
northern daimyo in support of the Tokugawa against the anti-bakufu
forces led by samurai from Satsuma and Choshü. Like the Tokugawa, the
northern alliance was crushed and the Sendai han reduced to 280,000
koku before its abolition in 1871.
Having won a clear-cut victory on a national scale, leyasu was in a
position to reward or punish every daimyo in the realm. In the interests
of Tokugawa hegemony and long-term political stability he and his imme-
diate successors completely transformed the political map of Japan. The
Tokugawa held as their direct domain (tenryô), a huge block of territory
(with one quarter of the assessed yield of the whole country) centering on
Edo and the Kanto region. They also directly controlled the great cities
of Kyoto, Osaka, and Nagasaki and held the major gold and silver mines.
Other parts of the country were allocated to daimyo in a carefully gradu-

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