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Kevin has edited encyclopedias, taught middle and high school history, and has a master's degree in Islamic law.
Imagine, for a minute, that you are the ruler of a small piece of land. Your family has ruled the land for generations, and while you technically report to a great emperor, the fact is that you are really more fearful of the dictator. Now imagine that suddenly the dictator comes along and asks that you give up all of your land to that emperor and says it's for the good of the country. In exchange, you might get permission to be a judge or a governor, but not much else. What would you do? If you were a daimyo, or a local leader in Tokugawa Japan, your answer would probably be very different than what you might expect.
For centuries, Japan had a largely united culture, but was politically very segmented. While the emperor did rule from Kyoto, his influence only carried for a few miles, allowing local rulers more than a few days' journey from the capital to rule largely as they wished. Instead, it was the local daimyos who held the real power.
Needless to say, this did not gain the Japanese a great deal of respect from their neighbors. In a letter complaining about piracy, the Emperor of China goes as far as to call them barbarians, almost at times insinuating that the Japanese should just count their blessings that the Chinese have allowed them to continue on for as long as they have.
The situation only got worse with the arrival of Europeans. Suddenly, Japan started to get an education in just how far behind it was. Japan had a sizeable fleet of merchant ships that sailed throughout the region and came back with tales of how the Europeans were actually a force to be reckoned with.
The Europeans, namely the Portuguese and the Spanish, had also set up bases in Japan itself. From those bases came a number of Jesuit Missionaries, who began converting people to Christianity. Normally, Japan had only allowed foreign influence when it was viewed as beneficial. Christianity had not passed that test, and was causing discord throughout the land.
Meanwhile, a daimyo named Oda Nobunaga began conquering some of the surrounding territories of his domain. Ultimately, he conquered much of central Japan and, upon his death, his top soldier, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, became the ruler of the newly-conquered lands and was soon the Shogun. In theory, the Shogun was the Emperor's chief of staff, but in reality, it was the de facto ruler of Japan.
After failing to conquer Korea, Toyotomi died, to be replaced by one of his top aides named Tokugawa Ieyasu who, after seeing the last two rounds of succession, made his son his heir. Tokugawa's influence would be so important that the years from 1603 until 1867 are called the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Tokugawa worked quickly to limit the power of other daimyos by forcing them to keep a second residence in the capital of Edo. This expense took much of the power away from the local rulers and allowed Tokugawa to consolidate his power. Additionally, by 1587, Tokugawa ordered missionaries out of the country.
It wasn't just missionaries that Tokugawa banned from Japan. He was tired of the endless arguing from the merchants, especially those who argued about Christianity, and wanted stability. After Tokugawa died, other Westerners were expelled, including the merchants. In fact, for decades, the only Western ship permitted in Japan was a Dutch ship, once a year, to Deshima, an island in the Nagasaki harbor.
By expelling the foreigners, the Shogunate was able to mandate a great deal more to its people. In order to placate the local daimyo, the Shogunate banned weapons from all people, except a handful of warriors known as samurai. It was for this reason that martial arts, particularly karate and judo, became so popular in Japan.
However, enough information did slip in from the West to assure the Japanese that they were able to change when it was necessary. However, by the 1850s it was clear that Japan would not be able to survive in isolation indefinitely. Desperately wanting access to Japan's markets, the U.S. Navy sent a fleet into Tokyo Harbor, aimed the guns on government buildings, and demanded the right to trade. Within a year, the Japanese had opened up merchant activity.
However, the writing was on the wall, as the daimyo system was weakening Japan. To be able to survive without having the consequences of other Asian powers, Japan would have to modernize, and that could only be done through political unity.
That brings us back to the opening question: would you do it? For many of us, the idea of giving up everything we'd ever known to be a glorified administrator would be hard to contemplate. However, for the Japanese daimyos, they realized that their only chance at remaining Japanese was through unity, and this was their only chance at unity. This transformation from feudal state to unified empire in 1868 is called the Meiji Restoration and set the tone for Japan's rapid development.
In this lesson, we looked at how Japan was able to both unify and take the first steps towards modernization as a result of the warlords and the Tokugawa Shogunate.
From a disorganized gathering of small holdings under the very loose power of the Emperor, the unification began when three strong leaders, Oda Nobunaga, Toyomoti Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, came to power in rapid succession, ultimately becoming the most powerful rulers in Japan. These men limited the power of the daimyos, or local leaders, and saw the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Ultimately, the Tokugawa would also institute a policy to control who had access to weapons as well as shutting out foreigners from Japan. Finally, in the face of American gunships, the Tokugawa were forced to modernize under the Meiji Restoration.
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