| Dai-Mio’s Clan | Family Name | Residence | Income | At present value | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| koku | £ | ||||||
| Mostly sprung from the Governors appointed by, or the personal connections or vassals of Tokugawa Iyeyasu, A.D. 1603-16 | |||||||
| Kaga | Mayeda | Kanazawa | 1,027,000 | = | 1,284,000 | ||
| Satsuma | Shimadzu | Kagoshima | 710,000 | = | 887,000 | ||
| Sendai | Date | Sendai | 625,000 | = | 780,000 | ||
| Echizen | Matsudaira | Fukui | 320,000 | = | 400,000 | } | Close Relatives of Iyeyasu |
| Aidzu | Matsudaira | Wakamatsu | 230,000 | = | 280,000 | } | |
| Higo | Hosokawa | Kumamoto | 540,000 | = | 655,000 | ||
| Chikuzen | Kuroda | Fukuoka | 520,000 | = | 650,000 | ||
| Geishiu (Aki) | Asano | Hiroshima | 426,000 | = | 535,000 | ||
| Choshiu & Suwo | Mori | Hagi | 369,000 | = | 462,000 | ||
| Hizen | Nabeshima | Saga | 350,000 | = | 463,000 | ||
| Inaba | Ikeda | Tottori | 350,000 | = | 463,000 | ||
| Bizen | Ikeda | Okayama | 315,000 | = | 419,000 | ||
| Ashiu (Awa) | Hachisuka | Tokushima | 258,000 | = | 323,000 | ||
| Tosa | Yamanouchi | Kochi | 242,000 | = | 304,000 | ||
| Chikugo | Arima | Kurume | 210,000 | = | 267,000 | ||
| Descended from Hachiman Taro | |||||||
| Akita (Ugo) | Sataki | Akita | 206,000 | = | 258,000 | ||
| Nambu (Mutsu) | Nambu | Morioka | 200,000 | = | 250,000 | ||
| Yonezawa (Uzen) | Uyesugi | Yonezawa | 150,000 | = | 188,000 | ||
At the time of Iyeyasu the total revenue of the Empire was calculated to be equal to 28,900,000 koku of rice, out of which he distributed 20,000,000 of koku among those daimios and other dignitaries who were closely attached to the Tokugawa house, and retained 8,900,000 koku for the support of his own household and the maintenance of Government in Yedo. From this immense sum he also had to make, it must be borne in mind, suitable grants to the Court at Kioto, including the privy purse, and it was incumbent on the Shogun at all times to secure to the Emperor ample funds for the support of the imperial dignity and honour. In former years this duty had not invariably been executed on a fitting scale of liberality, the Ashikaga Shoguns in particular having made it a point to keep the Emperors poor. Under the regime of the Tokugawa, however, this had never been a cause of complaint, and in the days of Iyeyasu especially the apportionments of revenue to the service of the Court were made on a satisfactory basis. The repair of roads, and the cost of local administration in general, were matters to which the Daimios were expected to give attention without any allowances beyond those made from headquarters, their own incomes having in the majority of cases been ample for all purposes.
Following these eighteen “kokushiu daimios” ranked the eighteen “Ka-mon” (Members of the family) who were all relatives of the Tokugawa house, and bore the name of Matsudaira, the revenues they enjoyed ranging from 10,000 to 200,000 koku.
Next to the Ka-mon were the “To-sama” (outside lords) with incomes of 10,000 to 100,000 koku. They numbered from 90 to 100. These were representatives of collateral branches of the Kokushiu or greater barons, but were “outside” the Tokugawa.
After the “To-sama” ranked the “Fu-dai” (successive generations) and of these there were 115 families, with revenues ranging from 10,000 to 350,000 koku. The fu-dai were the main support of the Tokugawa house under the Shogunate regime.
It is not surprising to know that the feudal castles of these numerous barons were at one time to be counted by the hundred, or that many are still extant.
Among the Fudai families ranked two which became exceptionally conspicuous in the later days of the Tokugawa Shogunate,—as will presently appear, one for the defection of its chief to the opposing side in the battle of Fushimi in 1868, the other, on the contrary, for the sturdy loyalty which the head of the house exhibited to the engagements which on behalf of the Tokugawa Shogun he, as Regent, had entered into with the nations of the West. The first was Todo, the chieftain of Tsu, in Isé, whose followers went over to the imperialists and turned the scale against the Tokugawas,—the other the famous Ii Kamon-no-kami, who was killed in Tokio by political assassins in 1860. These two barons were the richest of the Fu-dai, each having a rent roll valued at half-a-million sterling.
When Iyeyasu the Law-giver died in 1616 his first resting-place was at the temple of Kunozan, in the province of Suruga, which adjoins his own native province of Mikawa. The mount of Kuno is close to the port of Shimidzu, in Suruga Gulf, and the temple is approached by many flights of stone steps, and looks out immediately on the broad Pacific, the impressive solitude of the spot being broken only by the occasional visits of bands of pilgrims coming from far-distant parts of Japan to pay their respects at the shrine. The wooden structures betray the ravages of time, notwithstanding that the contributions of the faithful are devoted to the preservation of this and like edifices which possess for the Ten-shi’s subjects deep historic interest, and the peculiar sanctity of the fane in Japanese estimation is doubtless heightened by the claim made for it by the attendant priests that it still holds the heart of the great Shogun though the rest of his remains were transferred to Nikko in 1617. Nikko, the incomparable Nikko, lit.: Sun’s Effulgence,—is so well known to Occidental travellers that a lengthy description of its glories would here be superfluous, and it need only be mentioned, perhaps, that the splendid cryptomeria-bordered highways met with on the journey thither were equally with his code of laws a part of “Iyeyasu’s Legacy” to the nation, inasmuch as it was with a wish to afford the millions who in after years might traverse the roads of Niphon that protection from its fierce summer suns which might be derived from spreading shade trees that the founder of the Tokugawa house caused those magnificent avenues to be planted and maintained. The tomb at Nikko to which his body was removed from Kunozan in March 1617 was regularly visited by the occupants, each in his turn, of Yedo Castle, but only the founder’s grandson Iyemitsu, who completed the work of building Nikko, and also of the original Uyeno temples at Yedo, rests beside Iyeyasu in this sacred spot. The other Shoguns of the Tokugawa line were interred in the capital, six at Uyeno, and six at Zozoji in Shiba, and on the “Rock of the Dead,” as the hill at Nikko is named on which these heroes of Old Japan repose, only the mausolea of the First and Third of the Tokugawa Shoguns are to be found. But there is that in the surroundings of the lonely graves on the crest of Hotoké-Iwa that is absent even in the gorgeous edifices which stand within those famous groves of pine and cedar that envelop the base of the mountain, and in the simplicity of the unadorned tombs, with their moss-covered approaches, and the time-worn balustrades which surround the peaceful courtyard, with its few bronze urns and incense-burners, there is grandeur unmistakable, and a dignity which no wealth of embellishment ever could confer. Iyeyasu in his lifetime wielded practically regal sway, and he and his successors of the Tokugawa dynasty of Shoguns were de facto rulers in Japan, and obtained their investiture direct from the Ten-shi who was de jure ruler at the ancient capital of Kioto, while they, as vicegerents, held their semi-imperial courts at Yedo.
The rise of the military power dates from the days of Hideyoshi, whose ambition it was to subjugate Korea and add the peninsula to the Empire of Japan. But all his efforts, from one cause and another, were frustrated, and when in 1598 he died, after six years of ineffectual strife, the idea was for a time abandoned, his successor, Iyeyasu, as we have already seen, choosing the path of internal reform as that by which he would seek fame, rather than that of foreign conquest. Hideyoshi had restored order to the land, and it was for his successor in the exalted office to consolidate and strengthen the influence which the Taiko had acquired with the feudatory chiefs, and to carry onward to complete fulfilment the work of centralisation so boldly begun. Hidetada, as the second Shogun, followed in his father’s footsteps, though his tastes lay rather in the direction of art, but it was reserved for Iyemitsu to perfect Iyeyasu’s policy, and it was by Iyemitsu that Japan was closed for the time to foreign intercourse. In 1617 all Japanese ports excepting Hirado and Nagasaki were barred to strangers, and four years later the subjects of the Ten-shi were forbidden to visit foreign lands. In 1624 all foreigners save the Dutch and the English were banished from Japan;—and in 1637 there took place the terrible massacre of Christian converts at Shimabara in Kiushiu. By 1638 aliens of every sort save the Dutch had been expelled, and the Hollanders remained only on promise of faithful compliance with severe restrictive laws, and at the sacrifice in great measure of their personal liberty. Christianity, it was supposed, had been rooted out, but it was found in after years to have survived to some degree, in the vicinity of Nagasaki, the persecution to which its adherents were subjected.
Thus though the Anti-Christian edicts were promulgated during the latter part of Iyeyasu’s life it was by his grandson, who succeeded Hidetada, that the policy of extermination was resolutely carried into effect. How far the action of the Shogunate was prompted at this time by the dread of foreign encroachment is to be gathered from the proclamations issued at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Hideyoshi, moreover, is said to have paid more attention than it deserved to the idle boast of the Portuguese that it was the practice of their monarch to first send missionaries to convert the natives of a country to his own religion and next to send an army which, aided by the converts, contrived to overrun the land and add it to his dominions. Iyemitsu said in reference to this report:—