Foundations of the Bakufu | The Edo Period Episode 1

A sudden calmness. Shouts fade away into night. Blood once spilt now dries. In 1603, just several short years after what can be considered the most significant battle of Japanese history at Sekigahara, a new era began. It was here, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the final of Japan's three great unifiers, was proclaimed the new shogun, ultimate ruler of the warrior class, and effectively the leader of the country. It had been three decades since anyone had held such a title, as the previous shogunate had been dismantled by one of Ieyasu's predecessors, Oda Nobunaga. But now, the title had been reclaimed by arguably the mightiest force to ever wield it. Skillfully, with tremendous tact and grace, Ieyasu had maneuvered his way to the top, destroying his rivals, securing his allies, and cementing his position as the sole ruler of the land. And it was here, from his power base of Edo within the Kanto plain, that his military government dominated the nation and ushered in the era which bore the name of his capital. For almost the past 150 years, Japan had been at war with itself, as autonomous samurai warlords who came to be known as daimyo all vied for power and regional influence. This was to be the Sengoku Jidai, an age of unparalleled violence and evolution which I detailed throughout my past 64-part series. But now, we have at last arrived at a new age of peace and stability. Although one final major conflict was to be fought at Osaka throughout the end of 1614 and into 1615, this being the real true finale of the Sengoku Jidai, the official start of the Edo period overlaps this, thus I chose to cover the Osaka campaigns within my previous series. Now, this new era, which started in 1603, would go on to last for over two centuries before finally coming to an end in 1868. Even still to this day, this remains the longest reigning period of any regime Japan has ever known. It is here, throughout this Edo period series, that we will look to cover its story, from its origins being birthed out of the age of chaos that was the Sengoku Jidai, to its eventual and inevitable conclusion through the fires of the Boshin War. Let us examine this final great age of the samurai, as their authority rose to new heights and their grip was made iron across the land. Let us witness how the Tokugawa shogunate would rule Japan as the mightiest samurai government the country would ever see, but also how they would eventually decline and one day be toppled, bringing about the beginning of modern Japan. Tokugawa Ieyasu had been a patient man. For most of his life he had watched and waited, but it was clear that deep down he always harbored a greater ambition. We saw this in brief and rare moments when he strikingly set out to pursue ambitious aims. Be they rebelling from the Imagawa, against Takeda Shingen at Mikategahara, Toyotomi Hideyoshi at Komaki Nakakute, forging a connection between his family and the old line of the Minamoto, and even standing stalwartly against the notion of sending any of his own troops to the doomed invasion of Korea. But his moves had also been calculated, and by the year 1600 he prepared to embark on the greatest gamble of his lifetime, moving against the Toyotomi regime in the aftermath of Hideyoshi's passing. A risk that would come to pay off at his momentous victory that he would achieve at the Battle of Sekigahara. With this triumph he had won control of the country, and within three years, the Edo period, the Tokugawa period, would officially begin. It is also here that it seems we can logically begin to call him the Third Great Unifier, as after having seized control of the nation, he had formally inherited this distinction which we attribute to him today. Had he failed in this great gamble, there may never have been a Third Great Unifier, lest the title instead perhaps go to one of his rivals at Sekigahara. Instead, it rightly went to him, as for the remainder of his life after his great victory, he would cement the power he had achieved, and establish the final Great Shogunate to ever reign supreme. He would even later come to fight one last legendary war, in which he would crush the remnants of the Toyotomi family in 1615, securing that no one would seek to challenge his family again for generations to come. He would rule from Edo, what today is modern Tokyo, his capital from which he had reigned since the early 1590s when he had been relocated to the region following the capitulation of the Hojo clan, what had been Toyotomi Hideyoshi's final major threat within Japan and step towards unifying the land. It was here Ieyasu had constructed the mightiest power base within the nation, not just through his own ability, but also through the failure of his old rivals. As resources were drained away into Hideyoshi's hopeless war in Korea, Ieyasu had sat back and amassed his power and wealth, and by Hideyoshi's death in 1598, there was no greater power in the land than the Tokugawa. Ieyasu's succession had been written on the wall, and despite those who bravely tried to stop him, in the end he was at last victorious. Influence no longer resided within Osaka or Fushimi, the Taiko and his dominance was no more, for as the dust settled over Sekigahara in 1600, Edo was the only true bastion of power remaining in Japan. From there, Ieyasu's military government continued to rule, yet all that was missing was the official distinction of it being the legitimized government of the nation as a whole, something which of course he was to receive in 1603. It was here, in March, that Ieyasu traveled to Kyoto, and while residing at the fabulous Nijo Castle, would be officially conferred the title of Shogun by the Emperor and the court. Thus, his military government, the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Edo Bakufu, was born. Tokugawa Ieyasu would go down as perhaps the greatest Shogun there ever was, yet he would in fact only rule for a mere two years, eventually handing the title off to his son Hidetada in 1605. Ieyasu had done this to ensure that a stable line of succession was secure while also maintaining true rule over the nation while in retirement. But to compound upon this, Ieyasu was blessed with many sons, and thus he was able to establish additional houses of his family to branch off into their own positions. From this, three main houses of the Tokugawa were born. These were known as the Tokugawa Gosanke. These branches were the Mito branch, the Kishu branch, and the Owari branch. This also worked to ensure that if one line did not have a suitable son to become the next Shogun, another son could be chosen from the other branches. However, not all of Ieyasu's children were allowed to maintain the Tokugawa name, and others were mostly to return to using the old Matsudaira name. With this, he could see to the future of the nation in ways his predecessors could not. Indeed, there have even been several sayings that have arisen over the years regarding Ieyasu's rise to power and political takeover. One such example is that he would have waited patiently for a bird to sing, rather than killing it like Nobunaga or coursing it to sing like Hideyoshi. But in terms of his real ascension to ruler of the nation, a better analogy is that of Ieyasu eating the pie that both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had baked. This was because Ieyasu had succeeded the prior two and cemented the work that they had begun, bringing the country into a new age of peace and stability, unifying Japan out of the chaos of a fractured era. And I know that we have covered Ieyasu's role much throughout the previous series on the Sengoku Jidai, but it is important to retread a bit of it here once more so that we can examine the critical steps he took that truly birthed the Edo period, establishing the real foundation for what was to come. Ieyasu, unlike the future generations of Tokugawa shoguns, can be seen as the greatest not just for his political endeavors, but also that he was really the only shogun of the Edo bakufu who had to be a competent and accomplished military commander. Ieyasu had to survive the end of the warring era and he had to fight his way to the top. No other Tokugawa shogun would ever require the same dual mindset that Ieyasu was forced to possess, one within statecraft and one within warfare. To add to this though, he was also able to capitalize on the key fact that he was able to immediately gauge who his allies and enemies were in the culminating events of the Sekigahara conflict. Through this, he could reward those who had fought in his name, incentivizing their continued loyalty, while also punishing and restricting those who had opposed him. Throughout the country, as a tapestry of Fudai inner lords and Tozama outsider lords was woven, he was able to ensure that pillars of stability and security were established to maintain the new order. An order that Ieyasu had not only inherited from his predecessors, but was now free to perfect. But keeping others in line was only part of the effort. Another important element was ensuring that the Tokugawa family continued to grow more and more wealthy and prominent so that their power may remain absolute. We can see how over the first few generations of Tokugawa shoguns, their wealth, calculated through units of koku, which were volumes of rice produced, exploded exponentially and grew into millions, making their yield the greatest in all the land. One fear among many that Ieyasu must have endured was that of ensuring his family remained on top of the regime he established. He studied how, in shogunate's past, that the ruling family's influence over the government had shifted throughout the years. How the Kamakura shogunate fell away from the original lineage of Minamoto no Yoritomo and instead came to be dominated by the Hojo Regency. And later, of course, how the Ashikaga would come to be dominated by several major powers throughout the years, but in particular, the Hosokawa. Ieyasu wanted to ensure that this fate would never befall his family. So part of his initial efforts were to set in place laws that continued to weaken all the other daimyo and their domains, while the Tokugawa remained mighty above all else. In 1611, just eight years after the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate, a new calm had finally settled over the nation, and many came to adjust into this new period of relative peace. It is here Ieyasu would begin to organize the bukei shohato, the code upon warrior households. These laws would finally come into full effect when they were issued in 1615, but would go on to be further revised throughout the years. As we can see, the laws written within it set the real foundations for how the shogunate would come to formally dominate all the samurai beneath them. It mandated that daimyo spend large portions of the year residing in Edo, away from their domains. It restricted the ownership of castles that daimyo could possess down to one, and further forbid any construction, renovation, or repair upon such castles without expressed permission from the bakufu. It instructed lords to live more frugally so that they did not overindulge in luxury and lose themselves in splendor and greed. It prevented certain samurai from being employed if they had a troublesome past. It also strongly prohibited samurai from engaging in drunken and foolish behavior. It incentivized that samurai should study literature and military arts side by side, and among many other things, it ultimately enforced the rule of the shogunate in all aspects of governance. This was to be the beginning of the real formal chains that were forged to bind the country under the authority of the new Tokugawa regime. It was Ieyasu's efforts coming full circle. He would of course also issue a similar decree that directly set the further precedent for how the emperor and the court was to exist in the new era as well. This would come to be known as the Kinchu Narabini Kugei Shohato, or Law Upon the Emperor and the Court Nobles, which I actually covered in my previous video examining the relationship between the samurai and the nobility. This document is perhaps just as significant as the Bukei Shohato, because while the code of warrior households worked to reign in the samurai lords beneath the shogunate, the Law Upon the Emperor and the Court Nobles was designed to put a stranglehold on the nobility above the shogunate. It consisted of a further 17 articles which laid down the purpose of what the emperor should be, how significant nobles get promoted and dismissed, what the official rank of samurai were in the grand scheme of things, and how to name each new era, as well as so much more. This was to be the first time laws were codified by a reigning shogunate that officially restricted the position of the emperor in the court, and they would come to endure until the end of the Edo period over two centuries later. But while Ieyasu saw fit to put into law that the emperor should really just be a figurehead who focuses on his own learning above all else, there was one very significant ritual that Ieyasu ensured that the emperor would continue to do. This was the emperor being responsible for officially conferring the title of shogun upon each new shogun of the Edo bakufu. It wasn't simply a title to be passed down or inherited from father to son and so on. Instead, when the time came for the next member of the Tokugawa family to rise to the position, either through retirement or death, the new family head would be required to receive the honored title from the emperor himself before officially being considered the shogun. And although this obviously seems like a move that was one forcefully put upon the emperor who had no real say in the matter, the fact that it was still he who was essentially crowning each new shogun put divine legitimacy behind the rule of the Tokugawa. Through actions like these, we can see the steps Ieyasu took to cement the power he had established, for he was not only succeeding the prior two great unifiers, but now he also was succeeding the prior two shogunates. He had to do his best to ensure that everything from the past could be learned, remedying the mistakes and shortcomings of past leaders and regimes to form the strongest and most stable government the country had ever seen. In the end, he would lay the foundations of what would be one of the mightiest authoritarian dictatorships throughout all of history. Of course, much of his efforts would continue on for the final 11 years of his life after he had retired as the shogun in 1605, becoming an ogosho, a retired shogun, handing things off to his capable son Hidetada, who he may have been wary of in the past. But we will really begin to cover Hidetada in the next episode. Not here. Not yet. Instead, as Ieyasu drew near death, and after his final victory at Osaka in 1615, which officially ended the threat of the Toyotomi family once and for all, he must have no doubt felt some semblance of peace at last, knowing that one of his final remaining threats to his family had been dealt with in a grand display. As now, Toyotomi Hideyori was dead. Osaka Castle was burnt to the ground, and the heads of many of those who had stood against him were now fixed atop pikes that lined the road all the way to the capital. This victory, among his many other important decrees, was yet another move towards placing the country firmly under his family's control. But as he neared the end of his days, we can see he would keep close company with certain figures who he found to be of great merit. Prominent monks, famous merchants, powerful and loyal vassals, Confucian scholars, and of course, William Adams, an Englishman who had arrived in Japan at the turn of the century. Adams had become a significant asset to old Ieyasu, a figure who I have covered in a separate video, but very much worth mentioning here. Because what should be noted was that while future generations of the Tokugawa would become suspicious of the outside world, and eventually choose to close the country, that was not entirely the case for Ieyasu, as he instead did keep a great interest on foreign affairs, and specifically what William Adams, later known as Miura Anjin, was able to tell him and help him with. Working with Adams, Ieyasu was able to clear away the deceitful relationship that the Portuguese had established in Japan, and later would go on to build up potential trade relations with England and Spain, though not much would ever truly come of it. In the end, Dutch trade would remain the greatest source of European goods entering Japan, as they would flow in through the port of Dejima in Nagasaki. It is of course important to remember though, that while Ieyasu was still interested in the prospect of foreign trade, he was still suspicious of Christianity, and did what he could to downplay its potential spread in Japan, just as Hideyoshi had done before him. Sadly, these efforts which continued to look abroad would not be kept up after Ieyasu's death, as Hidetada and future generations moved increasingly in the direction of choosing to close the country off, until the age of Sakoku would at last begin, something we will cover at a later date. But for this video, I think we have covered the main elements of the foundation of Ieyasu's great regime. The Tokugawa Shogunate has been born. Begun, the Edo period has. Ieyasu would of course come to die in 1616, a year after his final major triumph, and with his family firmly in control of the nation, all thanks to his brilliant and persistent leadership. He can be defined as one of the greatest and most influential samurai leaders of all time. But as we will come to see, the story of his family has really only just begun, as we will come to examine the reign of his many sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons in the episodes to come, following the fascinating story of the Edo period as it evolves and unfolds, forming into the modern Japan that it will one day be. Thank you for watching, and don't forget to like, subscribe, and ring that notification bell if you enjoyed this video and found it to be most informative.