United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Thus, during the shogunate of Hidetada, no less than forty changes are recorded to have been made among the feudatories, and in the time of Iemitsu there were thirty-five of such incidents. History relates that to be transferred from one fief to another, even without nominal loss of revenue, was regarded as a calamity of ten years' duration.
Doubtless, in furthering this plan, Iemitsu had for ultimate motive the association of an Imperial prince with the Tokugawa family, so that in no circumstances could the latter be stigmatized as "rebels." Through many centuries it had been the custom of the Imperial Court to worship at the great shrine of Ise and to offer suitable gifts.
Not until 1634, on the occasion of a visit made by Iemitsu, was this glaring contrast corrected: the shogun then increased the ex-Emperor's allowance to 7000 koku, and his Majesty continued to administer public affairs from his place of retirement until 1680, when he died hi his eighty-fifth year. This sovereign was a brother of the Empress Myosho but of a different mother.
In bequeathing the administrative power to a youth in his tenth year, Iemitsu clearly foresaw that trouble was likely to arise.
Iemitsu, whether obeying his own instinct or in deference to the advice of his ministers, Sakai Tadakatsu and Matsudaira Nobutsuna, summoned the feudal chiefs to his castle in Yedo and addressed them as follows: "My father and my grandfather, with your assistance and after much hardship, achieved their great enterprise to which I, who have followed the profession of arms since my childhood, now succeed.
The last-named reason seems to have been what prompted the revolt of 1651, when Ietsuna, aged ten, had just succeeded in the shogunate his father Iemitsu who had exalted the power of the Tokugawa at the expense of their military houses. The ronin headed by Yui Shosetsu and Marubashi Chuya plotted to set fire to the city of Yedo and take the shogun's castle. The plot was discovered.
Nevertheless, on the whole Iemitsu must be regarded as an economical ruler. As for his successor, Ietsuna, he had to deal with several calamitous occurrences. After the great fire in Yedo, he contributed 160,000 ryo for the relief of the sufferers; he rebuilt Yedo Castle, and he reconstructed the Imperial palace of Kyoto twice.
Anyone whose name did not appear on these lists was assumed to belong to the alien faith. This organization was completed in the time of Iemitsu. Ietsuna, the fourth Tokugawa shogun, eldest son of Iemitsu, was born in 1642 and succeeded to the office in 1651, holding it until his death in 1680.
Every Japanese patriot believed when he refused to admit foreigners to his country in the nineteenth century that he was obeying the injunctions handed down from the lips of his most illustrious countrymen, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, and Iemitsu believed, in short, that to re-admit aliens would be to expose the realm to extreme peril and to connive at its loss of independence.
It has already been related that a shrine of Confucius was built in Ueno Park by the Tokugawa daimyo of Owari, and that the third shogun, Iemitsu, visited this shrine in 1633 to offer prayer. Fifty years later, the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, followed that example, and also listened to lectures on the classics by Hayashi Nobuatsu.
Word Of The Day