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The importation of books from the Occident having been strictly forbidden by the third shogun, Iemitsu, Yoshimune appreciated the disadvantage of such a restriction, and being convinced of the benefits to be derived from the study of foreign science and art, he rescinded the veto except in the case of books relating to Christianity.
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.
But in the days of Yoshimune, the rules and regulations issued by the Bakufu from the time of Ieyasu downwards were found to have fallen into such confusion that the difficulty of following them was practically insuperable. The shogun himself evinced keen interest in this undertaking.
Matsudaira Norimura, prime minister, recognizing that Ieshige, who was weak, passionate, and self-willed, would not be able to fill worthily the high office of shogun, suggested to Yoshimune the advisability of nominating Munetake. But Yoshimune had his own programme.
By the death of Ietsugu, in 1716, the Hidetada line of the Tokugawa family became extinct, and a successor to the shogunate had to be sought from the Tokugawa of Kii province in the person of Yoshimune, grandson of Yorinobu and great-grandson of Ieyasu. Born in 1677, Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun, succeeded to office in 1716, at the age of thirty-nine.
The latter had created the Sanke, and Yoshimune created the Sankyo; Ieyasu had resigned in favour of his son and had continued to administer affairs from Sumpu, calling himself 0-gosho; Yoshimune followed his great ancestor's example in all these respects except that he substituted the western part of Yedo Castle for Sumpu. Ieshige's most salient characteristic was a passionate disposition.
By his orders a mathematician named Nakane Genkei translated the Gregorian calendar into Japanese, and Yoshimune, convinced of the superior accuracy of the foreign system, would have substituted it for the Chinese then used in Japan, had not his purpose excited such opposition that he judged it prudent to desist.
He gave himself up to debauchery, and being of delicate physique, his self-indulgence quickly undermined his constitution. So long as Yoshimune lived, his strong hand held things straight, but after his death, in 1751, the incompetence of his son became very marked.
Looking through a window, one saw dead bodies lying without anyone to bury them, and sometimes skeletons covered with quilts reposed on the mats, while among the weeds countless corpses were scattered." Among these terrible conditions the tenth shogun, Ieharu died, in 1786, and was succeeded by Ienari, a son of Hitotsubashi Harunari and a great-grandson of Yoshimune.
In 1745, Yoshimune resigned his office to his son, Ieshige, who, having been born in 1702, was now in his forty-third year. Yoshimune had three sons, Ieshige, Munetake, and Munetada. Of these the most promising was the second, Munetake, whose taste for literature and military art almost equalled his father's.
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