United States or South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The constables and the stewards despatched by the Bakufu to the provinces interfered irksomely with private rights of property, and thus there was gradually engendered a sentiment of discontent, especially among those who owed their estates to Imperial benevolence. The military families did not wantonly show contempt towards the Court.

The immigrant's name was Cheng Chi-lung, and when the partisans of the Ming dynasty made their last stand at Foochaw, they chose Cheng for general, through him soliciting aid from the Yedo Bakufu. Their request was earnestly discussed in Yedo, and it is possible that had the Ming officers held out a little longer, Japan might have sent an expedition across the sea.

Two years later , there appeared a decree in the name of the Bakufu, ordering that the temples in all the provinces, the farmers, the artisans, and the merchants should send their gold and silver every spring to the Central Government, to the end that the latter might lend this treasure to the feudatories, who would pledge themselves to pay it back after five years.*

"The Rules for Judicial Procedure" originally comprised 103 articles, but, in 1790, Matsudaira Sadanobu revised this code, reducing the number of articles to one hundred, and calling it Tokugawa Hyakkajd, or "One Hundred Laws and Regulations of the Tokugawa." This completed the legislative work of the Yedo Bakufu. But it must not be supposed that these laws were disclosed to the general public.

On learning of the incident, the Bakufu summoned these prelates to Yedo, deprived them of the robes, and sent them into banishment.

He himself contributed large sums for the purpose, and at his instance the Courts of the Emperor and of the Bakufu granted special rights and privileges to bonzes who went about the country collecting subscriptions.

The system of government established by Yeritomo towards the close of the twelfth century and kept in continuous operation thereafter until the middle of the nineteenth, was known as the Bakufu, a word literally signifying "camp office," and intended to convey the fact that the affairs of the empire were in the hands of the military.

About this time several of the feudatories found themselves in such straits that they began to issue paper currency within their dominions, and this practice having been interdicted by the Bakufu, the daimyo fell back upon the expedient of levying forced loans from wealthy merchants in Osaka.

That would have given the sceptre twice in succession to the junior branch, and the Bakufu regent, insisting that the rule of alternate succession must be followed, proposed to nominate Prince Kazuhito, a son of the cloistered Emperor, Go-Fushimi, who belonged to the senior branch.

It contained provisions destined to have disastrous consequences. One clause entrusted to the Bakufu the duty of deciding whether the administrative power should be placed in the hands of the cloistered Emperor, Go-Fukakusa, or in those of the reigning sovereign, Kameyama.