HISTORY OF THE SHOGUNATE

Following the Sengoku period (“warring states period”), the central government had been largely re-established by Oda Nobunaga during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu.^[1] While many daimyos who fought against Tokugawa Ieyasu were extinguished or had their holdings reduced, Ieyasu was committed to retaining the daimyos and the han (domains) as components under his new shogunate.^[2] Indeed, daimyos who sided with Ieyasu were rewarded, and some of Ieyasu’s former vassals were made daimyos and were located strategically throughout the country.^[2]

Society in the Tokugawa period, unlike in previous shogunates, was supposedly based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyō (lords) were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyō and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyō might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local rulers. Otherwise, the largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts that did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and less over time. This often led to numerous confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants, ranging from simple local disturbances to much larger rebellions. None, however, proved compelling enough to seriously challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign powers.^{[citation needed]} A 2017 study found that peasant rebellions and collective desertion (“flight”) lowered tax rates and inhibited state growth in the Tokugawa shogunate.^[3]

In the mid-19th century, an alliance of several of the more powerful daimyō, along with the titular Emperor of Japan, succeeded in overthrowing the shogunate after the Boshin War, culminating in the Meiji Restoration. The Tokugawa shogunate came to an official end in 1868 with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, leading to the “restoration” (王政復古, Ōsei fukko) of imperial rule. Notwithstanding its eventual overthrow in favour of the more modernized, less feudal form of governance of the Meiji Restoration, the Tokugawa shogunate oversaw the longest period of peace and stability in Japan’s history, lasting well over 260 years.^{[citation needed]}

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES

1.  Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). “Tokugawa-jidai“ in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 978.
2.  Hall (Editor), John Whitney (1988). The Cambridge history of Japan Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan. James L. McClain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22352-0. OCLC 17483588.
3. ^ Paik, Christopher; Steele, Abbey; Tanaka, Seiki (2017). “Constraining the Samurai: Rebellion and Taxation in Early Modern Japan” (PDF). International Studies Quarterly. 61 (2): 352–370. doi:10.1093/isq/sqx008.