Tokugawa Japan: foundations before the 'opening'

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From the 12th century, shoguns (top military commanders) ruled Japan in the emperor's name. The emperor stayed in Kyoto as a figure of honour, not of power.
Tokugawa shogunate: 1603–1867. Tokugawa Ieyasu took the title of shogun in 1603 and shifted the working seat of government from Kyoto to his base at Edo (today's Tokyo) [3].
Japan was split into 250+ domains ruled by lords called daimyo. Each daimyo was near-autonomous inside his own domain, but bound to the shogun.
This two-level set-up — shogun at the centre, daimyo in the domains — is called the bakuhan system (baku = shogun's government, han = domain) [2].
Samurai (the warrior class) were the ruling elite. They served the shogun and the daimyo and collected the taxes.

① Peasantry disarmed.
Only samurai could now carry swords.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's "sword hunt" (katana-gari) of 1588 was the big step in taking weapons away from villagers [3].
Result: peasant revolts became much harder, and the sword became a status badge, not just a weapon.
② Daimyo made to stay in their domain capitals.
The daimyo left the countryside and lived in their castle-towns. Their samurai followed them there.
So the warrior class stopped being village landholders and became town-dwellers paid in rice stipends.
③ Land surveys.
Surveys fixed three things for every plot: who owned it, who paid the tax, and how productive it was.
Hideyoshi's survey is known as the Taikō land survey (kenchi) [3].
This gave the ruler a steady, countable revenue base — the single most important tool of the new order.
Together these three are called the separation of the classes: warrior, peasant, artisan, merchant each fixed in place [3].

Daimyo were made to reside for long periods at Edo, away from their own base.
The formal system is sankin kōtai ("alternate attendance"), started by shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1635 [2].
How it worked:
Daimyo travelled to Edo in alternate years; their wives and children lived in Edo permanently, in effect as hostages [2].
Each lord had to fund two households — one at home, one at Edo — plus costly processions to and from Edo [2].
Unintended good effects (very exam-useful):
Roads and communications improved because of constant daimyo travel [2].
A commercial economy grew, as merchants gathered in Edo and in the castle-towns to supply these lords [2].
The system was virtually abolished in 1862, as anger against shogunal policy rose [2].

By the mid-17th century, Edo was the world's most populous city.
Osaka and Kyoto were also huge, and several castle-towns crossed 50,000 people.
Big cities → big demand → a real commercial economy:
Credit systems (borrowing and lending on paper).
A rice stock market — rice was traded like a share, with prices set ahead of delivery.
Social effect: merit began to outrank status. A clever merchant or manager could matter more than a high-born samurai — a crack in the fixed class order.

Japan imported silk and textiles (mainly from China). Payment went out in gold and silver, draining the country's precious metals.
Response: the shogunate put curbs on the export of precious metals.
Second response — import substitution: build the industry at home. Nishijin in Kyoto became the famous centre of home-grown silk.
Payoff came later: once trade opened in 1859, silk exports were a major earner for Japan.

Wood-block printing made books cheap and everywhere. In Edo, a book could be rented for the price of a bowl of noodles.
The same wood-block technique produced ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") — the popular print art of the Edo period, developed by artists such as Moronobu [4].
Nativist scholarship (study of what is "truly Japanese"):
Scholars re-read the Tale of the Genji by Murasaki Shikibu — an 11th-century court novel — as proof of a pure Japanese sensibility.
They also pushed the Sun-Goddess myths (the imperial line's descent from Amaterasu).
Their claim: the Japanese essence came before Chinese influence — Japan did not need China to be civilised.
Why this matters for later: this thinking fed the reverence for the emperor that powered the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Tokugawa shogunate: 1603–1867; founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu, seat at Edo [3].
Japan had 250+ domains under daimyo; the shogun-plus-domain structure is the bakuhan system [2].
Sankin kōtai (alternate attendance) was started by Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1635 and virtually abolished in 1862 [2].
Under sankin kōtai, daimyo wives and children stayed in Edo permanently as hostages [2].
The sword hunt (katana-gari) of 1588 under Toyotomi Hideyoshi disarmed the peasantry; only samurai carried swords [3].
The Taikō land survey (kenchi) fixed owners, taxpayers and productivity of land [3].
By the mid-17th century Edo was the world's most populous city; Osaka and Kyoto were also large.
Tokugawa Japan had credit systems and a rice stock market.
Nishijin, Kyoto = centre of home-grown silk; silk became a major export after 1859.
Tale of the Genji was written by Murasaki Shikibu; nativist scholars used it to argue Japanese essence preceded Chinese influence.
Ukiyo-e = "pictures of the floating world", the wood-block print art of the Edo period [4].

Tokugawa "feudalism" already contained modern ingredients. Land surveys gave a countable tax base, castle-towns gave urban markets, and credit plus a rice futures market gave financial depth. So Japan's fast post-1868 industrialisation was not a miracle — the base was laid before Perry arrived. Compare with China, where no comparable centralised revenue and urban-commercial base existed at the same scale.
Control measures produced unintended modernisation. Sankin kōtai was designed to weaken daimyo purses and guarantee loyalty, but it built roads, moved money, and grew a merchant class in Edo and the castle-towns [2]. A classic GS-I point: a political control device became an economic integrator.
Merit versus birth. The class order was legally frozen (samurai-peasant-artisan-merchant), yet commerce made wealth and ability count. This mismatch between rigid status and real economic power was a key internal pressure that weakened the shogunate before 1868.
Cheap print + nativist thought = ready-made nationalism. Wood-block books spread ideas to ordinary readers, while nativist study of the Genji and the Sun-Goddess myths supplied a "Japan first" identity. When the crisis came, reformers could rally people around the emperor rather than around a foreign model — a resource China's reformers lacked.