kotai

Updated: May 15, 2025

This system was technically called sankin kotai, that is "alternate residence in capital."

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Nominally, these payments took the form of loans, but in reality the amount was deducted from the salaries of vassals. This pernicious habit remained in vogue among a section of the feudatories, even after the sankin kotai had been restored to its original form.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Moreover, female searchers were constantly on duty whose business it was to subject women travellers to a scrutiny of the strictest character, involving, even, the loosening of the coiffure. All these precautions formed part of the sankin kotai system, which proved one of the strongest buttresses of Tokugawa power.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The influence of the sankin kotai system upon the prosperity of Yedo, as well as upon the efficiency of the Tokugawa administration, has already been noticed. Indeed, Yedo in the middle of the seventeenth century was one of the most populous and prosperous cities in the world. But very little intelligence had been exercised in planning it.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But his ministers opposed the project on the ground that it would dangerously loosen the ties between the feudatories and the Bakufu, and inasmuch as events proved that this result threatened to accrue from even the moderate indulgence granted by the shogun, not only was no extension made but also, in 1731, the system of sankin kotai was restored to its original form.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But, from the days of Ietsuna, the wives and children of the daimyo were allowed to return to their provinces, and under the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, the system of sankin kotai ceased to be binding. This was because the Tokugawa found themselves sufficiently powerful to dispense with such artificial aids. There were certain general divisions of the feudatories.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But when the system of sankin kotai had been in operation for some time, and when the power of the Tokugawa Bakufu had been fully consolidated, this practice of exacting hostages became superfluous and vexatious. It was therefore abandoned in the year 1665 and the hostages were all suffered to leave Yedo.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But subsequently he fell into habits of violence and lawlessness, culminating in neglect of the sankin kotai system. His uncle, the shogun Hidetada, sentenced him as above described. Under the administration of Iemitsu this unflinching attitude towards wrongdoers was maintained more relentlessly than ever.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

By way of compensation for this levy he reduced to half a year the time that each feudal chief had to reside in Yedo. This meant, of course, a substantial lessening of the great expenses entailed upon the feudatories by the sankin kotai system, and the relief thus afforded proved most welcome to the daimyo and the shomyo alike.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era