The Samurai, the Daimyo and the Shogun
The Samurai
The Samurai is today one of the most iconic figures of Japan. The kanji 侍, which reads samurai, means ‘those who serve in close attendance to the nobility’. Bushidō, the collective term for the codes of samurai way of life, is analogous to the concept of chivalry in Europe. Otherwise known as ‘The Way of the Samurai’, Bushidō was the samurai moral values, stressing the combination of sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honour until death. As far as history goes, samurai came into light in the Asuka period (538 CE – 710 CE), when the Taihō Codes classified most of the imperial bureaucrats into 12 ranks and the samurai were placed on 6th and below and were mere civilian public servants, not associated to any military function. During the Heian period (794 CE – 1185 CE), some samurais were deployed by the Emperor Kanmu in military campaigns to consolidate his power and fight the belligerent Emishi people, who lived in the northeast and in the area known today as Hokkaidō. Financial crisis of the Court at that time, had polarised the country, placing at one end the Imperial magistrates who imposed heavy taxes on farmers and in many cases usurped their lands; and at the other end, the farmers themselves, who got organised into clans and adopted armours and weapons to protect themselves from the Imperial magistrates, initiating thus, a sort of warrior class.
By the late Heian era, during Fujiwara’s regency the capital of the Court had become an enclave of pleasure and ostentation. The metropolitan culture nurtured style, refinement and a taste for capricious extravagance. This indulgence created the delusion in the Court that it did not need a regular army, as everything was in order at home. Meanwhile, the domains beyond this insulated-carousal-paradise were in a troubled state. Rebellions rose up in the provinces, the seas were swarmed with pirates, crime was rife, and disorder had engulfed the country. The security of the nation had been seriously neglected. When at last the ruling class were knocked out of their reverie by the disgruntled society they had to rely more and more on the warriors to keep order in the country. The influence of the warrior clan rose, they displaced the aristocrats and stepped into the political arena. The Imperial House were by then sharing the political fray with the warrior aristocracy; who took control of the political power from Kamakura to Edo periods (1185 to 1868).
With the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s massive U.S. Navy steamships in 1853, Japan who had closed its borders to foreigners since 1639, was forced to open the country to international trade, resulting in the Emperor Meiji reinstatement to power and resignation of the Shōgun. It was a new era for Japan and its military system. The arquebus technology was introduced and a modern western-style conscripted army was established. The samurais’ right to be the only armed force were abolished and their status dissolved. It was the end of hundreds of years of enjoyment of a privileged status, power, and ability to shape the government of Japan. Nonetheless, the samurai class was not only responsible for influencing the history of Japan in the military-political arena. During their existence of almost eight centuries, the Bushidō philosophy was very respected and many aspects of the samurai lifestyle adopted by the ordinary people and lower classes. Throughout the Muromachi period (1333 – 1568), the Japanese art saw the flourishing of practices adopted initially by the samurais that shaped the culture of the country until nowadays; naming a few – the tea ceremony (sadō), landscape gardens (karesansui), the art of flower arranging (ikebana), the cultivation of nano-trees (bonsai) and the Noh drama theatre.
Seppuku, sometimes referred to as harakiri (abdomen/belly cutting), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for the samurai class, but was also practiced by ordinary people later in history to restore honour for themselves or for their family. The practice of seppuku was either voluntary, the samurai preferred to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture), or as a form of capital punishment for the samurai who had committed serious offences, or because they had brought shame to themselves. The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consisted of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the abdomen and drawing the blade from left to right, slicing the abdomen open. If the cut was performed deeply enough it severed the descending aorta, causing massive blood loss inside the abdomen, which resulted in a rapid death by loss of blood. Usually, the samurai would have a kaishakunin (suicide assistant), who stood next to him with a sharp katana to cut his neck as soon as the knife entered his belly to minimise his suffering. It is understood that this practice had the belly as its target because in ancient times it was believed that the main organ was located in the abdomen. The female equivalent practice is enacted by cutting the arteries of the neck with one stroke of a short knife. She should first tie her knees together in order to not look undignified when her dead body is found.
Onna–bugeisha (female martial artist) was the female equivalent of samurai. These women engaged in battle, commonly alongside samurai men. They were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honour in times of war. Significant icons such as Tomoe Gozen, Nakano Takeko, and Yamamoto Yaeko are famous examples of onna-bugeisha. Gozen lived in the late-twelfth century and was married to a Minamoto; thus, took an active role during the Genpei Wars. Takeko and Yaeko belonged to the stock of warriors of the Aizu Domain and fought alongside their male warriors to protect the shogunate during the Boshin Wars. Takeko was killed in the Aizu Battle, but Yaeko lived to marry Joseph Niijima, a Protestant Priest, and together they founded the Doshisha University in Kyōtō. She later became a nurse and served the Russo-Japanese War and Sino-Japanese War, and became the first woman outside of the Imperial House of Japan to be decorated for her service to the country.
The Daimyo
The Daimyō were powerful Japanese feudal lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. In the term, dai (大) means large, and myō stands for myōden (名田), meaning private land. In the wake of the shogunate regime in Japan, gradually, the daimyos’ fiefdoms acquired independence from the central government, empowering themselves to usurp the nobility’s political power. They built colossal castles as fortresses, from where they commanded strong armies of samurais and battled between themselves to seize the lands of the opponents and ultimately to become the shōgun. When Tokugawa Ieyasu was appointment the new shōgun in 1603, about 200 daimyōs were brought under the hegemony of the Tokugawa family. In 1871, four years after the reinstatement of the Meiji Emperor, the han (feudal domain) system was abolished and replaced by prefectures, hence returning the control of the lands to the central government. Some former daimyōs were appointed as prefectural governors, but the remaining were called en masse to Tōkyō and converted into noble pensioners, ensuring thus the eradication of any independent base of power that could rebel against the Emperor.
Two of the most prominent daimyōs and archrivals where Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin. After applying a coup d’état to his own father at the age of twenty one, Takeda Shingen became the leader of Takeda clan and Daimyō of the Kai Province (modern-day Yamanashi Prefecture). At the age of twenty-six, he conquered the coveted Shinshū lands by defeating his powerful enemy and installed there a kunoichi academy. When Shingen was forty-nine years old, he was the only daimyō with the necessary power and tactical skills to stop his adversary, Oda Nobunaga’s rush to rule Japan. However, he died in 1573 at the age of fifty when he was engaged in a battle with Nobunaga in the Mikawa Province. Respected and admired by his enemies, one of the most lasting tributes to Shingen’s prowess was that of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who borrowed heavily from Shingen’s governmental and military innovations of Kai, after its leadership passed from Shingen to him during Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s rise to power.
Uesugi Kenshin was another powerful lord of the Sengoku Jidai . He was born Nagao Kagetora, but changed his name to Uesugi Kenshin when he inherited the Uesugi clan leadership, won by his father who was also a warlord. Kenshin was only seven years old, when his father was killed in battle. He was relocated to Rinsenji temple, where he stayed until he was fourteen, dedicating his time to Buddhist studies. Urged by his late father’s acquaintances, the young Kenshin, aged only fourteen, defeated his ineffective older brother and gained the command of the Echigo Province (nowadays the Niigata Prefecture). Echigo was almost at the point of being torn apart by enemies, as his brother, a weak leader, had failed to exert control over the land. Thus, the young-highly astute Kenshin became the Daimyō of the Echigo Province at the age of seventeen. Besides being hugely renowned as the most formidable warrior of the era, Kenshin was also regarded as an extremely skilful administrator who fostered the growth of local industries and trade. His government saw a striking rise in the standard of living of the population of Echigo. His death in 1578 at the age of forty-eight, marked the collapse of the second anti-Oda Nobunaga coalition.
The karamushi plant is a blue perennial that grows wild in the mountains of the Echigo Province. Its flax has been used since the Heian Period to manufacture a highly profitable cloth, named after its provenance – the Echigo-jofu. The textile is produced in relatively low quantities as it requires a tremendous concentration of highly skilled labour and, as the region is covered in snow for six months of the year, the growth of the plant is only possible during summer and spring. Since antiquity, the Echigo-jofu has carried a ritual significance; hence, it figures prominently as an indispensable cloth to be used in ceremonial vestments, which increases its value even further. Its manufacturing and commercialisation has for many years been the source of the riches of the Echigo Country and its transport by sea played a catalytic role in the creation of the port of Kashiwazaki. The proceeds from its trade was one of the greatest sources of revenue for Uesugi Kenshin.
The years spent in Buddhist monasteries, made Kenshin an enthusiastic Buddhist. Kenshin believed that he belonged to the realm of Vaisravana, the guardian of the north and one of the four protectors of the holy places where Buddha expounded his teachings. Also known in Japan as Bishamonten, Vaisravana was considered to be the god of warriors. Kenshin had built a temple at the top of Kasugayama Castle in his homage and prayed to him for victory prior to going to a battle and in exchange, had sworn him celibacy. His troops carried banners into the battles displaying the Chinese character ‘Bi’ – 毘, in honour of Bishamonten (毘沙門天).
Upon Shingen’s death, Kenshin reportedly cried at the loss of one of his strongest and most deeply respected rivals. Five major battles (Fuse in 1553, Saigawa in 1555, Uenohara in 1557, Hachimanbara in 1561, and Shiozaki in 1564.) were fought between Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin in the plain of Kawanakajima (the Island Between the Rivers), located in Nagano, in the north of Shinano Province. The best known and most severe fight among them was fought on October 18, 1561 (Hachimanbara). The trigger was the conquest of Shinano by Shingen, who expelled Ogasawara Nagatoki and Murakami Yoshikiyo, who turned to Kenshin for help. The battles became one of the most cherished tales in Japanese military history, the epitome of Japanese chivalry and romance, mentioned in epic literature, pictured in woodblock printing and portrayed in movies.
The Shogun
Shōgun (将軍) is the short form of Sei-i Taishōgun, meaning ‘Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force Against the Barbarians’. Ōtomo no Otomaro was the first military commander to hold this title, granted by Emperor Kanmu in the late Heian Period (793 CE). Though, until the start of Kamakura Shogunate in 1192 CE, the responsibilities and powers of the shōgun were limited to commanding the army. With the ascension of the samurai, the Imperial House started to share the political fray with the warrior aristocracy, instead of bureaucratic courtiers; with one difference – the Crown and its capital of Kyōtō retreated to the background and the Shōgun and its Bakufu (the shogunate – meaning literally the ‘Tent Government’) became the core of the country’s power. Thus, although the emperor officially appointed him, the shōgun wielded more power than his reigning superior, to whom he even dictated orders. Throughout the country, feudalism had become the national polity and internal wars intensified.
Minamoto Yoritomo
Minamoto Yoritomo became the first shōgun and de facto ruler of the country, after he and his half-brother Minamoto Yoshitsune defeated the Tairas in the Battle of Dan no Ura. He established his government in Kamakura and his shogunate lasted from 1192 to 1333. In 1467, the period known as the Sengoku Jidai started. The function of the shogun fell temporarily in disuse and the country became divided, engulfed in internal conflicts. From then until the reinstatement of the Imperial House to the political power in 1868 (the Meiji Restoration), there had been three shōguns worth mentioning in the history of Japan: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Oda Nobunaga
Oda Nobunaga was born in 1534 and was the second son (first legitimate) of Oda Nobuhide, a deputy shūgo (military governor) and a minor feudal lord, who had some land holdings in Owari Province (modern western half of Aichi Prefecture). When young he was a brash and a rude man who disgraced his mentor and loyal retainer – Hirate Kiyohide with his behaviour. Ashamed, Kiyohide committed kanshi (disapproval through suicide), which had a dramatic effect on young Nobunaga and made him to mend his ways. His was a very fragmented family, with many fights and treacheries among brothers, uncles and cousins in the dispute for the control of Owari. But ultimately, Nobunaga managed to bring the entire province under his sway. He lived a life of continuous military conquest, eventually conquering a third of Japan and initiating the process of its unification. These conquests were achieved mainly thanks to his military prowess and innovations like the extensive and expansive use of firearms and long pikes and improved castle fortifications, notably Azuchi Castle.
Nobunaga introduced the system of meritocracy, rewarding his retainers and subjects based on performance and ability, rather than on rank and family relationships. His brilliance also extended to the sector of economy. Nobunaga stimulated business and overall economy through supporting the free trade and abolition of monopolies. A great ruler and military strategist, he forged many influential alliances. Under the patronage of Nobunaga, Christianity had its heyday in Japan, in the 1570s and 1580s, mainly in Kyūshū. The City of Nagasaki was once known as the Asia’s little Rome and as many as 300,000 converts, including daimyōs and samurais, were given Christian names and baptised. Though, Nobunaga was a staunch Shintoist. Many of his feats while he was in power got him known as the devil who had tried to eradicate Buddhism in Japan. He loathed the Buddhist monks, as he deemed them impostors and rule-breakers of their own sacred dogmas.
His ulterior motive for supporting Christianity might had been to get access to firearms; but he also thought Christianity would help him to purge Japan of Buddhism. Had Nobunaga had more time in life, the odds are that he would had unified Japan and restored the power of Shintoism; which meant returning back the sovereignty to the emperor. Nobunaga was never given the title of shōgun. Instead he was appointed Naidaijin – the Great Minister of the Interior. This is because the custom of that time proscribed the honour from being given to a non-Minamoto. Nobunaga stemmed from the Taira. In 1582, he was ultimately betrayed by one of his top generals Akechi Mitsuhide. Mitsuhide surrounded the temple Honnō-ji in Kyōtō where Nobunaga was staying off guard with a large army and set fire to it forcing Nobunaga and his son to commit seppuku (suicide by disembowelment). His death is shrouded in mystery, as his dead body, or the remains of it has never been found. Oda Nobunaga was forty-eight years old.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the successor and one of the most loyal supporters of Oda Nobunaga. He was the leader who unified Japan, bringing an end to Sengoku Jidai. Nevertheless, Hideyoshi was perhaps the most controversial ruler Japan has ever had. Born in 1537, he was the son of a peasant-ashigaru (foot soldier) of Owari Province, named Yaemon. When he joined the Oda clan he was a humble servant and becoming Nobunaga’s sandal-bearer, his talents were first noticed by the Daimyō in the Battle of Okehazama, when Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto to become one of the most powerful warlords in the Sengoku period. From then on Hideyoshi climbed the ladders of political classes very fast, causing jealousy and hostility among other members of the clans and courtiers of higher birth. At the end, he was unable to receive the title of shōgun by the Emperor because of his lowly birth, he was instead appointed Kampaku (Regent) and also Dajō-Daijin (Chief Minister), and then awarded the family name Toyotomi, becoming Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi is noted for a number of cultural and political legacies, including the imposition of katana kari (sword hunting), which decreed that only the samurai class could bear swords; which resulted in the confiscation of the arms of farmers, merchants and monks. He decreed a land survey, reviewed the taxation rule of properties, developed a code of maritime law, and encouraged international trade.
Among the three hegemons of Sengoku Jidai, Hideyoshi was the one most devotedly involved with the arts. He erected many monuments – Momoyama Castle was one of his masterpieces – and reconstructed the cities of Kyōtō and Ōsaka. According to recent archaeological researches, the temple of Ishiyama Hōngan-ji had been built atop the ruins of the old Ōsaka Imperial Palace, and the temple, on its turn, served as the foundation to the extant Ōsaka-jō (the Ōsaka Castle). The Ishiyama Hōngan-ji was the stronghold of the movement known as Ikkō-ikki, formed by mobs of peasant farmers and warrior monks who revolted against the daimyō rule in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Ōsaka Castle became the emblem of the power and fortune of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who started its construction in 1583 and completed it in 1597; a year before his death. It comprised a golden tea room, in which not only the walls, the pillars and the ceiling, were finished with gold, but also the tea ceremony utensils. Feeling threatened by Hideyoshi’s heirs, Tokugawa troops attacked and destroyed the castle and terminated the Toyotomi lineage in 1615. Then the castle was rebuilt by Tokugawa Hidetada in the 1620s, but following sundry incidents, it was burn down soon after. It was not until 1931 that the current ferro-concrete reconstruction of the castle main keep was built. It is surrounded by secondary citadels, gates, turrets, impressive stone baileys and moats.
Lady Chacha, later known as Yodo-dono joined Hideyoshi as his concubine at Yodo Castle in 1590. She was the niece of Oda Nobunaga and became the mother of Hideyoshi’s only son and heir, Hideyori, in 1593. In 1594, the family moved to Fushimi Castle, but tragedy befell upon them, when Hideyoshi died in 1598 at the age of sixty-one, and the Toyotomi clan lost much of its influence and importance. Yodo-dono moved to Ōsaka Castle with her son Hideyori and plotted the restoration of the Toyotomi clan, becoming the true head of Ōsaka Castle. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who seized control from Hideyori after the death of his father, now viewed Hideyori as an obstacle to his plans for unification of Japan. He laid siege to Ōsaka Castle in 1614, but the attack fell through, and subsequently he signed a truce with Hideyori. However, in 1615, Ieyasu broke the agreement and once again attacked the Ōsaka Castle, and this time he succeeded.
Surrounded by the enemy, with no hope for any sort of rescue aid, Yodo-dono and her son Hideyori committed suicide inside the castle, thus ending the Toyotomi legacy. In 1592, Hideyoshi resigned as Kampaku on behalf of his nephew and heir Hidetsugu. Instead he took the title of Taikō (retired regent); as then, he could pursue his ultimate dream which was to conquer China. This attempt ended with a badly defeated in Korea, which he used as a passage to reach the Ming Dynasty of China. Hideyoshi’s views on Christians had grown to a very hostile level, and by 1587 he ordered the expulsion of all Christian missionaries on Kyūshū and the crucifixion of six shipwrecked Spanish Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits, and seventeen Japanese Christians at Nagasaki. Nevertheless, Hideyoshi’s most controversial measure was the shinōkōshō policy, which froze class mobility in Japan’s society by rigidly separating warriors, farmers, artisans, and tradesmen. It decreed each class to live in different areas of a town or village to promote the orderly establishment of a feudal society. Destroying hence, the very system that allowed him, who came from a very lowly beginning, to become the Great Ruler.
Lost in the translation of history, the enslavement of Japanese people throughout the latter half of the 16th century and into the 17th by the Portuguese is an obscure and dark chapter of Japan’s history. The first acquaintance with Portuguese traders of Japan happened in 1543. A storm blew a Chinese ship with Portuguese traders on board to the outlying island of Tanegashima, part of the modern day Kagoshima Prefecture. This encounter introduced to Japan the firearms and Christianity. However, before long, Japanese slaves, likewise the already existing Chinese were being bought and sold by the Portuguese not only throughout Asia but also as far afield as Portugal and other European countries. Many captives of the internal civil wars and children of peasant families in the state of crushing poverty were sold to Portuguese traders as slaves.
Highly regarded for qualities like intelligence and industriouness, the Chinese and Japanese slaves were used in many cases as concubines and housekeepers. In five decades of this practice, the trade had grown by ten folds since it started. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi became the Great Ruler, he learned from his generals that the Portuguese traders were selling Japanese people as slaves. He was so disgusted with this new finding that he wrote a letter to Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho to demand the Portuguese to stop purchasing and enslaving Japanese people and return them to the country. Portuguese royals, bureaucrats and religious were also uncomfortable with this traffic, as it brought Portugal and Christianity into low reputation, curbing the potential for trade and religious conversion. In 1595, a law was passed by Portugal banning the selling and buying of Chinese and Japanese slaves. Hideyoshi blamed the Jesuits for the practice of the slave trade and banned Christian evangelising from the country. He executed many Christians and outlawed Christianity in Japan.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu, the successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was the founder and first shōgun of the celebrated Tokugawa Shogunate. His shogunate, virtually ruled Japan for almost three centuries, ending with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu was born in 1542 as Matsudaira Takechiyo in Okazaki Castle, in Mikawa Province (eastern half of Aichi Prefecture). His father – Matsudaira Hirotada – the Lord of the province was married to Odai-no-kata, the daughter of a neighbouring samurai lord.It was an era when Japan was convulsed by civil war, with violent feuds between territorial lords. At very early age, Takechiyo became one of the victims of this endemic civil strife. When aged two, his mother was separated permanently from his father due to change in alliances between families. When he was four, following an alliance agreement made by his father, the young Takechiyo was sent to the Imagawa family, an influential neighbour, headquartered at Sumpu (nowadays city of Shizuoka), as a hostage. Unfortunately, the foe Oda Nobuhide was informed of the deal, and saw to it that Takechiyo’s entourage was intercepted. Takechiyo was instead sent to Owari and confined to Kowatari Castle for three years. There, the young Takechiyo met Nobunaga, the son of Nobuhide and the two became friends.
Once returned to the Imagawa clan, still as a hostage, he was raised at their court and given an education suitable for a nobleman. He was finally released at the age of thirteen. Takechiyo remained loyal to the Imagawa clan, but in 1561 openly broke his alliances, swearing allegiance to the new leader of the Oda clan and his friend – Oda Nobunaga. Ieyasu spent the next decade-and-a-half campaigning with Nobunaga while expanding his own influence and wealth. He had by now gained considerable military skills and increased reputation as a warlord. Concurrently, he changed his name to Tokugawa Ieyasu, claiming descent from the Minamoto clan. After Nobunaga’s death, Ieyasu allied with his successor – Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Despite theirs being an alliance of suspicion and mistrust, Ieyasu supported Hideyoshi until his death in 1598. There were no children born to Hideyoshi by his formal wife, but he had a son, Hideyori, by a concubine, Yodo-dono, who was only five-years old at the time of Hideyoshi’s death. After fighting many battles for the succession, the decisive one being the Battle of Sekigahara, (80 km northeast of Kyōto), Ieyasu defeated the eastern army and took the reins of the government in 1600, aged fifty eight.
In 1603, the Emperor Go-Yōzei, gave Ieyasu the historic title of Shōgun to confirm his supremacy. Japan was now united under Ieyasu’s sway. In 1605, Ieyasu resigned on behalf of his son – Tokugawa Hidetaka – but remained the effective ruler of Japan until his death on 17th April 1616. By the time of his death, Ieyasu had fought in ninety battles, either as a warrior or a general and had nineteen wives and concubines, by whom he had eleven sons and five daughters. Although Oda Nobunaga undertook the unification of Japan and Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed it, Tokugawa Ieyasu made it enduring. Ieyasu understood the meaning of the word patience. Patience meant to him restraining one’s inclinations and find fault with oneself rather than with others. Ieyasu was careful, bold and calculating. Switching alliances when he thought he would benefit from the change, he then chose the right time and right places to strike.
Born and brought up in an era of violence, sudden death, and betrayal; Ieyasu knew that popularity would not take him to where he wanted to be, so he made himself feared and respected for his leadership and cunning. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate the stratification of society – shinōkōshō – initiated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi was codified and strictly enforced. At the top of the system were the warrior class, followed by farmers, artists and craftsmen and finally merchants. Ieyasu had a high degree of tolerance towards foreigners and embarked in many diplomatic approaches to establish contact with European crowned heads. He had even nominated the British pilot William Adams (aka Anjin-san – romanticised in the Shōgun novel by James Clavell) as his foreign affairs minister.
Although, Ieyasu’s successors did not show the same degree of interest. In 1639, sakoku (literally ‘closed country’) policy was imposed. Enacted by Shōgun Tokugawa Iemitsu, the grandson of Ieyasu, it banned all foreigners from Japan (principally Christians) and prohibited anyone from leaving the country with the death penalty applied, should they return. International trade was no longer allowed with the exception of China and Korea; and with lesser extend with the Netherlands. On the flip side, this was no longer a government that swayed the country with military power. Peace had been restored. The economy grew significantly supported by innovations in the agricultural production and expansion of trade and manufacturing. There was accumulation of capital, a widening of the currency usage and a vibrant urban culture developed in cities like Kyōto, Ōsaka and Edo (Tokyo). Kabuki and Bunraku Puppet theatres became accessible to townspeople and merchants and literature and poetry (haiku) flourished.
Nevertheless, where there are winners, there are losers. The noble warrior classes of daimyōs and samurais, who now lived on a fixed stipend tied to the agricultural production of their lands, became a financial strain to the shogunate and parasites to the society. Beginning to experience financial difficulties and discontent with their predicament, the warrior classes started to question the continued existence of the shogunate regime. Combine it with the pressure Japan was under by foreign countries to open the trade with the West; the shogunate form of government started to collapse. Many factions developed in the country and political unrest prevailed again for two more decades. Civil wars were fought between parties who supported the reinstatement of the Emperor; parties who disagreed with the abolition of sakoku policy; and parties who wished to preserve the sovereignty of the shōgun. This conflict concluded with the Imperial victory in the Boshin War and the sitting Shōgun – Tokugawa Yoshinobu, abdicated political power to the Emperor in late 1867. It was the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, that is, the reinstatement of Emperor Mutsuhito to the power – the 122th Tennō of Japan.
