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Japan Decline of the Tokugawa
The Tokugawa did not eventually collapse simply because
of
intrinsic failures. Foreign intrusions helped to
precipitate a
complex political struggle between the bakufu and a
coalition of its critics. The continuity of the
anti-bakufu
movement in the mid-nineteenth century would finally bring
down the
Tokugawa. From the outset, the Tokugawa attempted to
restrict
families' accumulation of wealth and fostered a "back to
the soil"
policy, in which the farmer, the ultimate producer, was
the ideal
person in society. Despite these efforts to restrict
wealth, and
partly because of the extraordinary period of peace, the
standard
of living for urban and rural dwellers alike grew
significantly
during the Tokugawa period. Better means of crop
production,
transportation, housing, food, and entertainment were all
available, as was more leisure time, at least for urban
dwellers.
The literacy rate was high for a preindustrial society,
and
cultural values were redefined and widely imparted
throughout the
samurai and chonin classes. Despite the
reappearance of
guilds, economic activities went well beyond the
restrictive nature
of the guilds, and commerce spread and a money economy
developed.
Although government heavily restricted the merchants and
viewed
them as unproductive and usurious members of society, the
samurai,
who gradually became separated from their rural ties,
depended
greatly on the merchants and artisans for consumer goods,
artistic
interests, and loans. In this way, a subtle subversion of
the
warrior class by the chonin took place.
A struggle arose in the face of political limitations
that the
shogun imposed on the entrepreneurial class. The
government ideal
of an agrarian society failed to square with the reality
of
commercial distribution. A huge government bureaucracy had
evolved,
which now stagnated because of its discrepancy with a new
and
evolving social order. Compounding the situation, the
population
increased significantly during the first half of the
Tokugawa
period. Although the magnitude and growth rates are
uncertain,
there were at least 26 million commoners and about 4
million
members of samurai families and their attendants when the
first
nationwide census was taken in 1721. Drought, followed by
crop
shortages and starvation, resulted in twenty great famines
between
1675 and 1837. Peasant unrest grew, and by the late
eighteenth
century, mass protests over taxes and food shortages had
become
commonplace. Newly landless families became tenant
farmers, while
the displaced rural poor moved into the cities. As the
fortunes of
previously well-to-do families declined, others moved in
to
accumulate land, and a new, wealthy farming class emerged.
Those
people who benefited were able to diversify production and
to hire
laborers, while others were left discontented. Many
samurai fell on
hard times and were forced into handicraft production and
wage jobs
for merchants.
Western intrusions were on the increase in the early
nineteenth
century. Russian warships and traders encroached on
Karafuto
(called Sakhalin under Russian and Soviet control) and on
the Kuril
Islands, the southernmost of which are considered by the
Japanese
as the northern islands of Hokkaido. A British warship
entered
Nagasaki Harbor searching for enemy Dutch ships in 1808,
and other
warships and whalers were seen in Japanese waters with
increasing
frequency in the 1810s and 1820s. Whalers and trading
ships from
the United States also arrived on Japan's shores. Although
the
Japanese made some minor concessions and allowed some
landings,
they largely attempted to keep all foreigners out,
sometimes using
force. Rangaku became crucial not only in understanding
the foreign
"barbarians" but also in using the knowledge gained from
the West
to fend them off.
By the 1830s, there was a general sense of crisis.
Famines and
natural disasters hit hard, and unrest led to a peasant
uprising
against officials and merchants in Osaka in 1837.
Although it
lasted only a day, the uprising made a dramatic
impression.
Remedies came in the form of traditional solutions that
sought to
reform moral decay rather than address institutional
problems. The
shogun's advisers pushed for a return to the martial
spirit, more
restrictions on foreign trade and contacts, suppression of
Rangaku,
censorship of literature, and elimination of "luxury" in
the
government and samurai class. Others sought the overthrow
of the
Tokugawa and espoused the political doctrine of
sonno-joi
(revere the emperor, expel the barbarians), which called
for unity
under imperial rule and opposed foreign intrusions. The
bakufu persevered for the time being amidst growing
concerns
over Western successes in establishing colonial enclaves
in China
following the Opium War of 1839-42. More reforms were
ordered,
especially in the economic sector, to strengthen Japan
against the
Western threat.
Japan turned down a demand from the United States,
which was
greatly expanding its own presence in the Asia-Pacific
region, to
establish diplomatic relations when Commodore James Biddle
appeared
in Edo Bay with two warships in July 1846. However, when
Commodore
Matthew C. Perry's four-ship squadron appeared in Edo Bay
in July
1853, the bakufu was thrown into turmoil. The
chairman of
the senior councillors, Abe Masahiro (1819-57), was
responsible for
dealing with the Americans. Having no precedent to manage
this
threat to national security, Abe tried to balance the
desires of
the senior councillors to compromise with the foreigners,
of the
emperor who wanted to keep the foreigners out, and of the
daimyo who wanted to go to war. Lacking consensus,
Abe
decided to compromise by accepting Perry's demands for
opening
Japan to foreign trade while also making military
preparations. In
March 1854, the Treaty of Peace and Amity (or Treaty of
Kanagawa)
opened two ports to American ships seeking provisions,
guaranteed
good treatment to shipwrecked American sailors, and
allowed a
United States consul to take up residence in Shimoda, a
seaport on
the Izu Peninsula, southwest of Edo. A commercial treaty,
opening
still more areas to American trade, was forced on the
bakufu
five years later.
The resulting damage to the bakufu was
significant.
Debate over government policy was unusual and had
engendered public
criticism of the bakufu. In the hope of enlisting
the
support of new allies, Abe, to the consternation of the
fudai, had consulted with the shinpan and
tozama daimyo, further undermining the
already
weakened bakufu. In the Ansei Reform (1854-56), Abe
then
tried to strengthen the regime by ordering Dutch warships
and
armaments from the Netherlands and building new port
defenses. In
1855 a naval training school with Dutch instructors was
set up at
Nagasaki, and a Western-style military school was
established at
Edo; by the next year, the government was translating
Western
books. Opposition to Abe increased within fudai
circles,
which opposed opening bakufu councils to tozama
daimyo, and he was replaced in 1855 as chairman of the
senior
councillors by Hotta Masayoshi (1810-64).
At the head of the dissident faction was Tokugawa
Nariaki, who
had long embraced a militant loyalty to the emperor along
with
antiforeign sentiments, and who had been put in charge of
national
defense in 1854. The Mito school--based on neo-Confucian
and Shinto
principles--had as its goal the restoration of the
imperial
institution, the turning back of the West, and the
founding of a
world empire under the divine Yamato Dynasty.
In the final years of the Tokugawa, foreign contacts
increased
as more concessions were granted. The new treaty with the
United
States in 1859 allowed more ports to be opened to
diplomatic
representatives, unsupervised trade at four additional
ports, and
foreign residences in Osaka and Edo. It also embodied the
concept
of extraterritoriality (foreigners were subject to the
laws of
their own countries but not to Japanese law). Hotta lost
the
support of key daimyo, and when Tokugawa Nariaki
opposed the
new treaty, Hotta sought imperial sanction. The court
officials,
perceiving the weakness of the bakufu, rejected
Hotta's
request and thus suddenly embroiled Kyoto and the emperor
in
Japan's internal politics for the first time in many
centuries.
When the shogun died without an heir, Nariaki appealed to
the court
for support of his own son, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (or Keiki),
for
shogun, a candidate favored by the shinpan and
tozama
daimyo. The fudai won the power struggle,
however,
installing Tokugawa Yoshitomi, arresting Nariaki and
Keiki,
executing Yoshida Shoin (1830-59, a leading
sonno-joi
intellectual who had opposed the American treaty and
plotted a
revolution against the bakufu), and signing
treaties with
the United States and five other nations, thus ending more
than 200
years of exclusion.
The strong measures the bakufu took to reassert
its
dominance were not enough. Revering the emperor as a
symbol of
unity, extremists wrought violence and death against the
bakufu and han authorities and foreigners.
Foreign
naval retaliation led to still another concessionary
commercial
treaty in 1865, but Yoshitomi was unable to enforce the
Western
treaties. A bakufu army was defeated when it was
sent to
crush dissent in Satsuma and Choshu han in 1866.
Finally, in
1867, the emperor died and was succeeded by his minor son
Mutsuhito; Keiki reluctantly became head of the Tokugawa
house and
shogun. He tried to reorganize the government under the
emperor
while preserving the shogun's leadership role. Fearing the
growing
power of the Satsuma and Choshu daimyo, other
daimyo
called for returning the shogun's political power to the
emperor
and a council of daimyo chaired by the former
Tokugawa
shogun. Keiki accepted the plan in late 1867 and resigned,
announcing an "imperial restoration." The Satsuma, Choshu,
and
other han leaders and radical courtiers, however,
rebelled,
seized the imperial palace, and announced their own
restoration on
January 3, 1868. The bakufu was abolished, Keiki
was reduced
to the ranks of the common daimyo, and the Tokugawa
army
gave up without a fight (although other Tokugawa forces
fought
until November 1868, and bakufu naval forces
continued to
hold out for another six months).
Data as of January 1994
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