United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Tsunayoshi was then the shogun in Yedo. He showed great consideration for the interests of the Imperial Court. Thus, he increased his Majesty's allowance by ten thousand koku of rice annually, and he granted an income of three thousand koku to the ex-Emperor.
During this long period, the Mikado seems to have been regarded by the common people with reverence as a holy personage, but he was allowed no voice in affairs, was treated with contempt by the Shogun, was sometimes deposed if he misbehaved, and was often kept in great poverty.
Commodore Perry delivered to the Shogun in Yedo the autograph letter to the Emperor of Japan, from the President of the United States, and none of the Ambassadors of the Western Powers seem to have entertained any suspicion that in dealing with the authorities in Yedo they were not approaching the throne.
Tsunayoshi died of small-pox in 1709, after a brief illness. Having been born in 1662, Ienobu was in his forty-seventh year when he succeeded to the office of shogun. His first act was to abolish Tsunayoshi's legislation for the protection of animals.
In this strait the people of Sakai appealed to a celebrated Buddhist priest named Kennyo, and through his intercession Hideyoshi agreed to ransom the town for a payment of twenty thousand ryo. The funds thus obtained were devoted to the repair of the palaces of the Emperor and the shogun, a measure which won for Nobunaga the applause of the whole of Kyoto. Oda Nobunaga was now in fact shogun.
Thus, in effect, the government of the country, taken out of the hands of the shogun and the feudatories, fell into those of their vassals. There were exceptions, of course, but so rare as to be mere accidental. . . The revolution which involved the fall of the shogunate, and ultimately of feudalism, may be called democratic with regard to the personnel of those who planned and directed it.
From its earliest period this country was under a feudal system of government, with the Mikado as its supreme and sacred head. The Divine nature of this being separated him from the temporal affairs of the nation, which were in the hands of the Shogun, who represented the strong arm of the state.
In the year 1600, however, Tokagawa Iyoyasu, with an army composed of the clans of the east and north defeated the combined forces of those of the west and south at the battle of Sakigahara and proclaimed himself Shogun. The feudal lords of the various clans throughout the country then became his vassals and paid homage to him.
The new shogun, Yoshinori, belonged to a very different category of men from his immediate predecessors. He conquered the Kitabatake family in Ise; repressed the remnants of the Southern Court league; crushed the military monks by capturing Nara and Hiei-zan; put an end finally to Kamakura's intrigues; obtained control of the west, and quelled his enemies in all directions.
Some of his work was done; for already there had been Dutch teachers admitted into Nangasaki, and the country at large was keen for the new learning. But though the renaissance had begun, it was impeded and dangerously threatened by the power of the Shogun.