The Feudal State of Japan

Feudalism and the Shogunate

• Early Japan was ruled by wealthy, powerful families. Each family controlled a large estate of land. The lord of each estate was called a daimyo.

• The majority of Japanese people were poor farmers who were ruled by the daimyos. This system of government is known as Japanese feudalism.

• Early Japan did have an emperor, but his power was limited. He was really just a figurehead.

• The real control was held by the powerful families (daimyos).

• By the late 1100s, the family who ruled Japan was the Minamoto family. The head of the Minamoto family was Minamoto Yoritomo.

• In 1192, Yoritomo was named the first shogun, or general, of Japan.

• The daimyos came under the control of the shogun.

• In theory, the emperor ruled Japan. But the real power was held by the shogun and his family. After 1192, the goal of every powerful family in Japan was to provide (be) the shogun.

• The Japanese government under the control of a shogun was called the shogunate. The period during which the Minamotos controlled the shogunate is called the Minamoto shogunate.

• The shogunate lasted in Japan from 1192 to 1867.

The Samurai• The shogun was the most powerful person

in Japan. But he could not control everything on the local level. At this level, the daimyos held power. The daimyos were military lords who ruled the various regions of Japan.

• The warriors who worked for the daimyos were the samurai. Actually, most daimyos were samurai themselves.

• The word samurai refers to these individual warriors and to the group, or class, to which they belong.

• At the height of the shogunate period, about five percent of all Japanese people, or 1 in 20, were members of the samurai class.

• Most samurais were land-owning diamyos who held power over the poor peasants on their land. Samurai lived according to a strict code of bravery and honor, called Bushido.

The Last Samurai: Bushido

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9XyCwmh-5Q

• To a samurai, dishonor was worse than death. To avoid it, he would commit seppuku, or hara-kiri. Both terms refer to the ritual form of suicide in which the samurai killed himself by cutting open his abdomen with a sword.

The Last Samurai: Seppuku

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRbFB-kIEX8

• The samurai are legendary for their bravery. A true samurai was suppose to be able to withstand incredible pain and hardship without complaint.

• Samurais were also expected to put loyalty above all else.

• Bushido called for absolute loyalty to one’s family and daimyo, no matter what the cost.

• A samurai wore a special headdress and carried two swords. Their swords were works of art, made by a special, ritualistic process that made them as strong as the warriors who wielded them.

The Tokugawa Shogunate• In 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu became the

shogun. He established a new capital at Edo, which is present day Tokyo.

• Tokugawa Ieyasu wanted a unified Japan without civil war. He divided Japan into 250 domains, or regions. Each domain was ruled by a daimyo loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate.

• Tokugawa shogunate controlled Japan for the next 250 years. The shogunate lasted until the end of the shogunate period in 1867. During most of this time, there was no civil war or rebelion in Japan.

• So the period from 1603-1867 is called the Great Peace of the Tokugawas.

Life During the Great Peace • Many things changed in Japan over

the course of the Tokugawas rule. One of the major changes was in the way the country was governed.

• To help create a stable government, the Tokugawas reduced the power of the diamyos. They prohibited diamyos from entering into alliances with each other. They also stopped the daimyos from building new castles. They even went so far as holding the families of daimyos hostage.

• The Tokugawas forced the families to live in the capital, and the diamyos themselves were required to spend every other year there.