Essay On The Tokugawa Dynasty

The Tokugawa dynasty issued policies and reigned in a manner so as to create a new and more powerful kind of government than had been seen in the past. They built their superstructure of power on twin cornerstones- unassailable armed strength and unquestioned monopoly over the office of the shogun. However, their power was revolved around the shogun’s own lands, which could be considered as a super-daimyo domain. The shogun ruled some important ports and cities like Edo, Kyoto, Osaka and Nagasaki. The Tokugawas also set out to create institutions that would stabilize political and social conditions and thereby prevent a lapse back into feudal warfare, which had existed for several centuries earlier. The activities of the daimyo were keenly observed through a secret police …show more content…
There were social tensions and protests. Financial chaos threatened the stability of the government. Simultaneous to the internal problems was an increase in the external pressures. Established ideas and institutions seemed inadequate to deal with new pressures at home and from outside. Thus, the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate must be seen as conjunction of two forces-the internal crisis of the bakuhan system and the western aggression. The very same factors that was responsible for the success of the Tokugawan system also became responsible for its degradation. Socio-economic realities were moving away from the feudal conditions and the hierarchy imposed from above could not remain stable for long. All the different that constituted the Japanese society of this period including the daimyo, the samurai, the merchants and the peasants underwent changes. Paradoxically, the roots of revolutionary economic and social change lay in the very control measures, which though effectively maintained the political status quo, but at the same time promoted economic changes that slowly undermined the Tokugawa