Page 49 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

describe this joint system ofbakufu and han rule as the baku-han system,
pointing at once to its centralized and decentralized aspects. While the
bakufu represented the centralized power of the Tokugawa the han rep-
resented the local feudal and bureaucratic authority of daimyo. Although
subject to oversight and occasional interference from the bakufu, the
han tended to become semi-autonomous local units. Although daimyo
were forced to bear the burdens of attendance and residence in Edo and
were subject to levies, at the pleasure of the shogun, for the building and
repair of castles, roads, and bridges, the bakufu lived off the taxes from its
own domain and did not tax the fiefs. In return it was relieved of the
burdens of local government outside its own direct domain (tenryo).
Within the han, daimyo and han governments were relatively free to rule
as they thought fit. A few large han had natural resources or were able to
develop monopolies that kept them out of debt. Most were financially
hard-pressed by a rising population and standard of living and by an
increasingly monetized economy, and found it difficult to provide ade-
quate stipends for their samurai. Some han governments were lax and
quickly ran into debt, some were harsh and provoked peasant uprisings
and insurrections. Some daimyo were indolent and given only to leisure.
Others, however, acquired reputations as diligent, concerned administra-
tors of their domains (meikun).
Among these model daimyo were Ikeda Mitsumasa (1609-1682) of
Okayama, Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628-1700) of Mito, Hosokawa Shige-
kata of Kumamoto, Uesugi Harunori (1751-1822) of Yonezawa (150,000
koku), Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758-1829) of Shirakawa (100,000 koku) in
northeastern Japan, and Shimazu Nariakira (1809-1858) of Satsuma.
Common to all of them was devotion to scholarship and Confucian
moral standards of rule, to the building of schools and the encourage-
ment of education for samurai, and to efforts to restore han finances,
bring new lands under cultivation, promote local craft industries, and
alleviate some of the suffering created by natural disasters. Matsudaira
Sadanobu, for instance, gained a reputation for solicitous government
when it was said that nobody in his domain died of starvation during the
bitter Tenmei famine that struck northeastern Japan between 1781-1787.
As a result, he was called upon by the bakufu to serve as councillor of
State (rdju) and led a reform of bakufu finances and administration.
These men could be harsh in their judgments and bear down heavily on
the peasantry but they also represented the Edo-period tradition of ethi-
cal Confucian-inspired feudal rule at its best.

Daimyo Throughout the Edo period shoguns and daimyo par-
culture under ticipated in an elite cultural milieu that expressed the
the Pax political power realities of the age. This high feudal
Tokugawa culture maintained and refined the traditional elite
samurai virtues of bu and bun, with the emphasis
shifting increasingly in the direction of bun, as ex-
pressed in bureaucratization, scholarly activity, and the cultivation of the
arts. As the daimyo settled down under the Pax Tokugawa, and the rash
of attainders of the early decades ended, they came to enjoy a relatively
sheltered and comfortable existence within the Tokugawa power struc-
ture. The poorer among them may have found it hard to keep up appear-
ances, with the result that they grievously exploited their domains or
went heavily into debt. Those with larger disposable incomes, however,
had both the leisure and the wherewithal to enjoy peace and the perfor-
mance of the cultural rituals demanded by their status. Lords of their
domains, bureaucrats, and men of culture, they moved in comfortable
state, cossetted and guarded, from their Edo residences to their castle
towns, and back to Edo. The palanquins in which they were carried were

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