Tokugawa

**Tokugawa** **Kolby Sherman** **Dylan Delaney** **Aaliyah Roberts** **Nate VanEvra**

 While Europe was busy with expansion and the Renaissance, Japan was in the middle of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Tokugawa Shogunate took place in the sixteenth century from 1603 to 1868. Tokugawa bought over 150 years of stability to Japan. Japan’s cities grew substantially. In the 1800s, Europeans invaded and Japan gained many ideas from their western neighbors.
 * Introduction: **

 Tokugawa was based from Edo,Tokyo. This also accounted for Tokugawa’s nickname, The Edo Period. Japan was geographically isolated from regions outside of Japan. In early Tokugawa, soil was rich and agriculture bought large amounts of income. Roads were built to make trade easier and rest stations along roads turned into towns where people gathered and lived.



** __Political Section-__ ** The country was in turmoil during the 1400 and 1500s. Eventually a new political system camearound, called the Tokugawa Shogunate. It combined a central government with feudalism. In the n ew political system the shogun was just a mere figurehead and the emperor only participated in religious functions. The daimyos who owned land waged wars against their neighbors. Finally, the warriors had no chivalry and loyalty. So the lack of loyalty to their rulers could cause the warriors to defy them and stop fighting. So those are the different functions in the Tokugawa Shogunate political system.

There were a few different rulers during the Tokugawa Shogunate period. The first military leader to begin uniting the warring daimyos was Oda Nobunaga. He finally took over the country in 1573 after leading his army against the capitol and deposing of the Ashikaga shogun. After Nobunaga took over he became the most powerful man in Japan and allowed more people to follow and lead Japan. He was later killed by a treacherous soldier and was replaced by his top general Toyotomi Hideoshi. He followed Nobunaga and forced the daimyos of Japan to pledge loyalty to him. This allowed him to control them easier and reduce wars. He also disarmed the peasants, preventing them from both becoming warriors and revolting. Finally, he imposed law preventing warriors from leaving daimyos service to become farmers or merchants and vice versa.This stopped people from being able to have the chance to rebel and have uprisings. The final leader was Tokugawa Ieyasu. His major accomplishment was completing Nobunaga’s work of unification. He also defeated all his opponents and became shogun; his family retained shogunate for 250 years. This allowed his family to have power for years to come. He also reassigned daimyos land into three categories: Tokugawa relatives, longtime supporters of the Tokugawa family, and those who came to the Tokugawa side after the battle of Sekigahara. Finally, he created a system called “sankin kotai” (attendance by turn) which forced daimyos to bring a tribute every other year to serve the shogun for a year. This kept the daimyos close, to make sure that they didn’t team up to rebel. So the few rulers of Japan accomplished many things to help it rise. ** __Economic Section-__ ** The Japanese had stayed to themselves for the most part, trading silver, copper, and artisan products for things such as firearms, clocks and printing presses with traders from Europe since 1543. Slowly people from Europe began converting Japanese people to Christianity. Enough people converted to crush Buddhism in Japan, angering the shogunate Tokugawa Ieyasu. He b elieved that the Christians were trying to take over Japan, and that these new found converts would give their loyalty to their religion and not their land. To stop this from happening he began Japan’s self isolation, banning overseas trade, Christianity, and forcing all Christians to leave the country.

After the banning of all christians and overseas trade the Japanese only traded at one island, Deshima island, and only with the Chinese and Dutch. They only traded raw materials for processing inside the country and only making things in Japan. They didn't want any pre made items coming into the country to provide outside influences to the people. They didn't want to be influenced by the western world and all it's developing ways and cultures that were affecting all the other civilizations in the world. So in the end the Tokugawa were not very affected by the western revolution much, if any. They denied all new cultures, ways, and religions from affecting their ways of life by shutting themselves out. Therefore the little trading that they did with China and the Dutch for raw materials didn't create any substantial change in their culture or ways of life, and they received little to no influence from the new western civilizations.

__**Social Section- **__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Social life in the cities converged on bathhouses restaurants, and theaters. They had Geishas in their cities which were women who were professional entertainers. Geishas were trained in the arts of singing, dancing, and conversation. They also had amusement centers which provided employment for playwrights, artists, and poets. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tokagawa's religion was formalism & renewal. Formalism was another name for buddhism and Renewal was another word for confucianism & shinto. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tokugawa had 4 social classes they were warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Peasants made up 80%of the population. The system of sankin-kotai also helped merchants to prosper and trade to increase, because merchants provided the goods and services that the daimyos needed on their twice-yearly trips to edo. People in tokagawa wrote alot of poetry so a new form of oetry had formed and it was called haiku. In only 17 syllables, the haiku was to express a thought that would surprise the reader.

__**References-**__ Works Cited

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