Japan

Things happened, and the rest is history

1. 01

   The Onin War and the breakdown of order

   Event

   What happened

   In 1467 a dispute over succession in the Ashikaga shogunate and among powerful families breaks into open war in Kyoto. The Onin War lasts until 1477 and destroys much of the capital. Fighting spreads to the provinces.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The shogun's authority never recovered. Local warrior families, many risen from below, took control of their own territories and became the daimyo of the Sengoku period. Historians usually date the age of warring states from this war, though some prefer other start dates. The period lasted until the late 1500s.

   Sources

   1. BookSansom, George. A History of Japan, 1334-1615. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961.
   2. BookHall, John Whitney, and Toyoda Takeshi, eds. Japan in the Muromachi Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
2. 02

   Europeans arrive and guns spread

   Event

   What happened

   In 1543 Portuguese traders reach Tanegashima, an island south of Kyushu, and the local lord buys firearms from them. Japanese smiths quickly learn to copy the matchlock. In 1549 the Jesuit Francis Xavier lands at Kagoshima and begins missionary work.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Guns changed warfare, castle design and the scale of armies in the later Sengoku period. Christianity gained converts, especially in Kyushu, and Nagasaki became a Christian-influenced port. Later rulers came to see the foreign religion as a political danger. This helped lead to the bans of the early 1600s.

   Sources

   1. BookBoxer, C. R. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951.
   2. BookElison, George. Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.
3. 03

   Nobunaga's rise and the battle of Nagashino

   Event

   What happened

   Oda Nobunaga defeats the Imagawa at Okehazama in 1560, enters Kyoto in 1568 and removes the last Ashikaga shogun in 1573. In 1575 at Nagashino his army, using many firearms behind barricades, defeats the Takeda cavalry. He is forced to take his own life in 1582 when his general Akechi Mitsuhide attacks him at Honnoji temple.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Nobunaga conquered much of central Japan and broke the power of armed Buddhist institutions, such as the Mount Hiei monasteries. He did not finish the unification. The scale of the Nagashino volleys, often described as three ranks of gunners, is debated by historians. His death in 1582 left the task to his followers.

   Sources

   1. BookLamers, Jeroen P. Japonius Tyrannus: The Japanese Warlord, Oda Nobunaga Reconsidered. Leiden: Hotei, 2000.
   2. BookBerry, Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
4. 04

   Hideyoshi completes unification

   Event

   What happened

   Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a former foot soldier who served Nobunaga, defeats Akechi Mitsuhide within weeks of Honnoji in 1582. He subdues Shikoku, Kyushu and in 1590 the Hojo of the Kanto, which brings all Japan under one authority. In 1588 he orders a 'sword hunt' to disarm peasants and in the 1590s surveys land across the country.

   ↓ The rest is history

   These measures began to fix the separation of warrior and peasant classes. Hideyoshi also banned Christian missionaries in 1587, though enforcement was uneven. He launched invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597, which failed. He died in 1598, leaving his young son Hideyori.

   Sources

   1. BookBerry, Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
   2. BookHall, John Whitney, Nagahara Keiji, and Yamamura Kozo, eds. Japan before Tokugawa: Political Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500 to 1650. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
5. 05

   Sekigahara and the founding of the shogunate

   Event

   What happened

   After Hideyoshi's death, the lords he appointed as regents split into rival camps. On 21 October 1600 (the 15th day of the ninth month, by the old calendar) Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern army defeats the Western coalition at Sekigahara. In 1603 the emperor names Ieyasu shogun, and he sets up his government at Edo.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Ieyasu rewarded allies and moved or removed rivals, creating a lasting arrangement of domains. He passed the title to his son Hidetada in 1605, to establish a hereditary line. In 1615 the siege of Osaka castle destroyed Hideyori and the Toyotomi line. The Tokugawa line held the office until 1868.

   Sources

   1. BookTotman, Conrad. Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun. San Francisco: Heian International, 1983.
   2. BookBolitho, Harold. Treasures among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.
6. 06

   Controlling the daimyo: alternate attendance

   Event

   What happened

   In 1635 the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu issues revised Buildings of Military Houses regulations (buke shohatto) that require daimyo to spend alternate years at Edo, and to leave their families there when they return home. Earlier rules, first issued in 1615, had already restricted castle building and marriages without permission.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The system, called sankin-kotai, kept the lords under watch and cost them large sums on travel and Edo households. It helped build roads, post towns and Edo itself, which grew into one of the largest cities in the world by 1700. It also pushed money into a commercial economy. The arrangement lasted until the 1860s.

   Sources

   1. BookVaporis, Constantine Nomikos. Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
   2. BookTotman, Conrad. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
7. 07

   The ban on Christianity and the Shimabara Rebellion

   Event

   What happened

   The shogunate banned Christianity across Japan in 1614 and executed missionaries and converts in the following decades. In 1637 farmers, many of them Christian, in the Shimabara and Amakusa areas rise against heavy taxes and harsh local rule. The shogun's forces besiege them at Hara castle and crush the revolt in early 1638.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The rebellion convinced the shogunate that foreign religion was a threat. Portuguese traders were expelled in 1639. Believers survived in secret as 'hidden Christians' (kakure Kirishitan), and the ban lasted until 1873.

   Sources

   1. BookElison, George. Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.
   2. BookBoxer, C. R. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951.
8. 08

   The seclusion edicts and Dejima

   Event

   What happened

   Between 1633 and 1639 the shogunate issues a series of orders that bar Japanese from going abroad, limit foreign ships and finally ban the Portuguese. In 1641 the Dutch East India Company is moved to Dejima, a small artificial island in Nagasaki harbour. Trade with China continues at Nagasaki, with Korea through the Sō family of Tsushima, with the Ryukyu Kingdom through Satsuma, and with the Ainu through Matsumae.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Historians now prefer terms like 'maritime restrictions' because Japan kept real links with its neighbours. Dutch books brought some European science, called Dutch learning (rangaku). The term sakoku itself was coined in 1801 by Shizuki Tadao, translating a work by Engelbert Kaempfer. The system lasted until Commodore Perry's arrival in 1853 and the treaties of 1854.

   Sources

   1. BookToby, Ronald P. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
   2. BookJansen, Marius B. China in the Tokugawa World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
9. 09

   Will Adams, the samurai Englishman

   Popular belief

   The legend

   An English sailor, Will Adams, is shipwrecked in Japan in 1600, becomes a samurai and adviser to the shogun, and is the model for the hero of James Clavell's novel Shogun. He is said to have been trusted so much that he shaped Japan's foreign policy.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The core is true. Adams, pilot of the Dutch ship Liefde, reached Kyushu in April 1600, and Ieyasu valued his knowledge of ships and Europe. He was given the Japanese name Miura Anjin and an estate at Hemi. His actual role was as interpreter, shipbuilder and trade go-between, not a policy maker. He died in Hirado in 1620. Clavell's character is a fictional version.

   Sources

   1. BookMilton, Giles. Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.
   2. BookMassarella, Derek, ed. Letters of William Adams, 1611-1617. Abingdon: Routledge, 2022.
10. 10

    The forty-seven ronin

    Folk tale

    The legend

    In 1701 a lord, Asano Naganori, is forced to take his own life after drawing his sword in Edo castle against the official Kira Yoshinaka. His domain is dissolved, and his retainers become masterless samurai. Led by Oishi Kuranosuke, forty-seven of them wait nearly two years, then attack Kira's house on a snowy night and take his head to their lord's grave.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The attack happened on 30 January 1703 (14th day of the twelfth month, by the old calendar). The shogunate ordered the men to commit seppuku, and they died in 1703. The story became the play Chushingura in 1748, and later plays, prints and films. The real motives and the cause of the original quarrel are not recorded and are debated. The men are buried at Sengakuji temple in Tokyo.

    Sources

    1. BookIkegami, Eiko. The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
    2. BookKeene, Donald. Chushingura: A Puppet Play. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
11. 11

    Japan was sealed from the world

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that for over two centuries Japan was shut off completely, with no foreigners in and no one out, until Perry's black ships forced it open in 1853.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The shogunate did limit trade and travel, and the penalty for leaving without permission was severe. But there were four controlled 'gateways' to the outside world: Nagasaki, Tsushima, Satsuma with the Ryukyus, and Matsumae. Korean embassies visited Edo, and news of the world came through Dutch reports (fusetsugaki). Russian and British ships also approached Japan in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Perry's visit ended a restriction that was already under strain.

    Sources

    1. BookToby, Ronald P. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
    2. BookJansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
12. 12

    Ieyasu and the cuckoo

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Three unifiers are compared by how they treat a cuckoo that will not sing. Nobunaga says, 'Kill it if it does not sing.' Hideyoshi says, 'Make it want to sing.' Ieyasu says, 'Wait until it sings.'

    ↓ The rest is history

    The verses are widely repeated as a summary of the three men's characters. They appear in later writing, not in anything from their own lifetimes. A version is found in the Edo-period collection Kasshi yawa by Matsura Seizan (early 19th century). They reflect later views, not documented sayings. Ieyasu was in fact an active, often ruthless, strategist, and his patience was one part of his career.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryMatsura Seizan. Kasshi yawa. Japanese miscellany of anecdotes, early 19th century.
    2. BookTotman, Conrad. Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun. San Francisco: Heian International, 1983.