A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (28 page)

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unranked persons should not ride in palanquins.

Ieyasu clearly believed that enforced stability and orthodoxy were important to continued control. Change was undesirable because it was hard to predict. Mobility was a threat. The more people acted in a settled and prescribed manner, the less of a threat they posed. Failure to act as expected was even punishable by death. Ieyasu is said to have defined ‘rude behaviour’ – for which a samurai could lop off the miscreant’s head – as ‘acting in an other-than-expected manner’.
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Ieyasu died of illness the following year, 1616, and was deified as the manifestation of the Buddha of Healing. How much he had healed the nation was a matter of some debate, but he had certainly helped keep it unified.

His policy of orthodoxy and stability was pursued by his son Hidetada and most of his successors, all of whom were Tokugawa. In many cases it was possible simply to build on policies already put in place by Hideyoshi.

The regulations for military families were soon followed by regulations for other classes. These prescribed not only such matters as type and place of work and residence, and type of clothing, but such minute details as what kind of present a person of a particular class could give to their offspring of a particular sex and age, what type of food they could eat, and even where they could build their toilet.
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Hideyoshi’s freezing of the classes was an important means of enforcing orthodoxy and stability. It was now extended to a formal Chinese-inspired hierarchical system known as
shi-n
-k
-sh
, meaning ‘warrior-peasant-artisan-merchant’, in descending order of status.
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Peasants ranked higher than artisans and merchants because in Confucian terms they were seen as essential producers. Within each class, particularly the samurai class, there were numerous sub-rankings.

Court nobles, priests, and nuns were outside the classes, while below the classes were two ‘outcast’ sub-classes,
eta
(‘great filth’, nowadays
burakumin
, or ‘hamlet people’), and
hinin
(‘non-persons’). They were engaged either in despised ‘impure’ activities
⁵
such as butchering, leatherwork, and burial, or in ‘suspicious’ activities such as peddling and acting.
Burakumin
continue to this day to be segregated from mainstream society.

Class was in theory determined by birth, and movement between the classes was difficult – though in practice not impossible as is popularly believed.
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A main division was between the samurai and the non-samurai. Samurai accounted for only about 6 per cent of the population, and included most bureaucrats since in effect that is what they became. Non-samurai were basically divided into those who lived in the country and those who lived in the towns.

The Tokugawa also valued Hideyoshi’s policy of domain (
han
) redistribution. The sh
gun himself owned about one-quarter of cultivated land, along with major cities, ports, and mines. The remaining land was strategically divided between the 275 or so
daimy
on the basis of whether they were
shinpan
(relatives),
fudai
(traditional retainers), or
tozama
(‘outer
daimy
’ of questionable loyalty). Though numbers fluctuated, typically there were around 25
shinpan
, 150
fudai
, and 100
tozama
.

Nor could a
daimy
relax after being given a domain. Although in theory they were allowed considerable autonomy in matters such as taxation rights and internal administration, including law enforcement, in practice they were expected to follow the examples and guidelines established by the sh
gunate. In effect, local government became their responsibility, and they had to carry out their responsibilities to the sh
gunate’s liking. The sh
gunate constantly monitored their behaviour. At the least suggestion of insubordination they were punished. In the first 50 years of Tokugawa rule no fewer than 213
daimy
– the great majority – lost all or part of their domain for offences either real or alleged. In the same period 172 new
daimy
were given domains as rewards for loyal service, there were 206 instances of domains being increased as a similar reward, and on 281 occasions
daimy
were relocated.
⁷