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Updated: June 24, 2025
Meanwhile, to prevent complications and avert dangerous rivalry, Yoshimune assigned to Munetake and Munetada residences within the Tayasu and Hitotsubashi gates of the castle, respectively, gave the names of these gates as family titles, and bestowed on each a revenue of one hundred thousand koku, together with the privilege of supplying an heir to the shogunate in the event of failure of issue in the principal house of Tokugawa or in one of the "Three Families."
Likewise, we order, in a general manner, that foreigners may freely reside in any part of Japan they choose, but we rigorously forbid them to propagate their faith." In the year 1605, the Tokugawa chief granted a permit to the Dutch for trade in Japan, his expectation being that the ships which they undertook to send every year would make Uraga, or some other place near Yedo, their port of entry.
This, however, could be done only by the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate; which was effected in 1867-68 after a short struggle, marked by great clemency.
As for the castle, its enormous strength rendered it well-nigh impregnable, and after weeks of effort the Tokugawa forces had nothing to show for their repeated attacks except a long list of casualties. Ieyasu now had recourse to intrigue. The mother of Kyogoku Takatsugu, daimyo of Obama, in Wakasa, was the younger sister of the lady Yodo.
Each and every man had his assigned and recognized place in the social fabric, and change was not easy. It is doubtful if any European country has ever given feudalism so long and thorough a trial. Never has feudalism attained so complete a development as it did in Japan under the Tokugawa régime of over 250 years.
Old Japan seemed absolutely committed to a thorough-going antagonism to everything foreign. New Japan seems committed to the opposite policy. What are the steps by which she has effected this apparent national reversal of attitude? We should first note that the absolutism of the Tokugawa Shogunate served to arouse ever-growing opposition because of its stern repression of individual opinion.
Although, by its military absolutism, the Tokugawa rule secured the great blessing of peace, lasting over two hundred years, and although the curse of Japan for well-nigh a thousand preceding years had been fierce inter-tribal and inter-family wars and feuds, yet it secured that peace at the expense of individual liberty of thought and act.
This teaching appears to have produced such evil results that the Tokugawa legislated against it. " The residential castles in the domains may be repaired; but the matter must invariably be reported. Still more imperative is it that the planning of structural innovations of any kind must be absolutely avoided. "A castle with a parapet exceeding three thousand feet by ten is a bane to a domain.
A member of his second council went to him and said, "Sir, the only way for you now to retrieve the honour of the family of Tokugawa is to disembowel yourself; and to prove to you that I am sincere and disinterested in what I say, I am here ready to disembowel myself with you." The Tycoon flew into a great rage, saying that he would listen to no such nonsense, and left the room.
It has always to be remembered, too, that Kyushu, the headquarters of Christianity in Japan, did not owe to the Tokugawa shoguns the same degree of allegiance that it had been forced to render to Hideyoshi.
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