The strain of defeating two Mongol invasions at the end of the 13th century weakened the Kamakura Shogunate, which fell to a rebellion led by Ashikaga Takauji. The Ashikaga Shogunate, centered in Kyoto, began around For the next two centuries, Japan was in a near-constant state of conflict between its feuding territorial clans. After the particularly divisive Onin War of , the Ashikaga shoguns ceased to be effective, and feudal Japan lacked a strong central authority; local lords and their samurai stepped in to a greater extent to maintain law and order.
Despite the political unrest, this period—known as the Muromachi after the district of that name in Kyoto—saw considerable economic expansion in Japan.
It was also a golden age for Japanese art, as the samurai culture came under the growing influence of Zen Buddhism. In addition to such now-famous Japanese art forms as the tea ceremony, rock gardens and flower arranging, theater and painting also flourished during the Muromachi period. This period ushered in a year-long stretch of peace and prosperity in Japan, and for the first time the samurai took on the responsibility of governing through civil means rather than through military force.
This relatively conservative faith, with its emphasis on loyalty and duty, eclipsed Buddhism during the Tokugawa period as the dominant religion of the samurai. It was during this period that the principles of bushido emerged as a general code of conduct for Japanese people in general. Though bushido varied under the influences of Buddhist and Confucian thought, its warrior spirit remained constant, including an emphasis on military skills and fearlessness in the face of an enemy.
In a peaceful Japan, many samurai were forced to become bureaucrats or take up some type of trade, even as they preserved their conception of themselves as fighting men.
In , the right to carry swords was restricted only to samurai, which created an even greater separation between them and the farmer-peasant class. The material well-being of many samurai actually declined during the Tokugawa Shogunate, however. Samurai had traditionally made their living on a fixed stipend from landowners; as these stipends declined, many lower-level samurai were frustrated by their inability to improve their situation.
In the midth century, the stability of the Tokugawa regime was undermined by a combination of factors, including peasant unrest due to famine and poverty. The incursion of Western powers into Japan—and especially the arrival in of Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U. Navy, on a mission to get Japan to open its doors to international trade—proved to be the final straw.
The controversial decision to open the country to Western commerce and investment helped encourage resistance to the shogunate among conservative forces in Japan, including many samurai, who began calling for a restoration of the power of the emperor. Feudalism was officially abolished in ; five years later, the wearing of swords was forbidden to anyone except members of the national armed forces, and all samurai stipends were converted into government bonds, often at significant financial loss.
The new Japanese national army quashed several samurai rebellions during the s, while some disgruntled samurai joined secret, ultra-nationalist societies, among them the notorious Black Dragon Society, whose object was to incite trouble in China so that the Japanese army would have an excuse to invade and preserve order. In , the Kamakura shogunate lost control of the country to a rival samurai family, the Ashikaga family.
It controlled — either directly or indirectly — all elements of society, such as the agrarian and commercial sectors. The government legally differentiated four classes of society — samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Edo became a giant urban center because so many people came to make a living by supplying the huge samurai population. By there were about one million people living in Edo. In time, the Edo merchants supplying the military became richer than the samurai, many of whom lived in poverty.
When Commodore Perry came to Japan from the United States in seeking commercial relations, many groups in society were ready for changes in the old legal and economic systems. Japan's feudal period ended shortly thereafter with the Meiji Restoration in A Guide to Samurai Governments, — Kamakura Government The most important feature of the medieval period is that the samurai warrior-administrators replaced the court government in managing local government.
Next to these cities write the years these cities acted as Japan's capital, and write the name of the military family that was the ruling family during those years.
Much of the fighting took place in what is now northeastern China. The Russo-Japanese War was also a naval conflict, with ships exchanging fire in the Born to a minor warlord in Okazaki, Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu began his military training with the Imagawa family. He later allied himself with the powerful forces of Oda Nobunaga and then Toyotomi Hideyoshi, expanding his land holdings via a successful attack on the Hirohito was emperor of Japan from until his death in He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism.
Shrewd at The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80, people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation A treaty with Japan in had assured free immigration, Tokyo began life as a village known as Edo. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Tokugawa Shoguns Close Japan to Foreign Influence Suspicious of foreign intervention and colonialism, the Tokugawa regime acted to exclude missionaries and eventually issued a complete ban on Christianity in Japan.
Tokugawa Period: Economy and Society The Neo-Confucian theory that dominated Japan during the Tokugawa Period recognized only four social classes—warriors samurai , artisans, farmers and merchants—and mobility between the four classes was officially prohibited.
Recommended for you. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. Coroner's Report: Seppuku. Nanking Massacre In late , over a period of six weeks, Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people—including both soldiers and civilians—in the Chinese city of Nanking or Nanjing.
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