Everything about Daimyo totally explained
The were the most powerful
feudal rulers from the
10th century to the early
19th century in
Japan following the Shogun. Though the term "daimyo" literally means "great name," the Japanese word actually comes from the words dai, meaning "large," and myo (shortened from myoden) meaning "name-land" or "private land." From the
shugo of the
Muromachi period through the
sengoku to the daimyo of the
Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history. The term "daimyo" is also sometimes used to refer to the leading figures of such clans, also called "
lord". It was usually, though not exclusively, from these warlords that a
shogun arose or a
regent was chosen.
The daimyo usually wore rich purples, ranging from dark to light depending on how high ranked they were. Dark and light purple preceded dark and light green, dark and light red, and finally black. The very highest daimyo were considered to be nobles.
Shugo daimyo
The were the first group of men to hold the title "daimyo." They arose from among the
shugo during the
Muromachi period. The shugo daimyo held not only military and police powers, but also economic power within a
province. They accumulated these powers throughout the first decades of the Muromachi period.
Major shugo daimyo came from the
Shiba,
Hatakeyama, and
Hosokawa clans, as well as the
tozama clans of
Yamana,
Ōuchi, and
Akamatsu.The greatest ruled multiple provinces.
The
Ashikaga shogunate required the shugo daimyo to reside in Kyoto, so they appointed relatives or retainers, called
shugodai, to represent them in their home provinces. Eventually some of these in turn came to reside in Kyoto, appointing deputies in the provinces.
The
Ōnin War was a major uprising in which shugo daimyo fought each other. During this and other wars of the time,
kuni ikki, or provincial uprisings, took place as locally powerful warriors sought independence from the shugo daimyo. The deputies of the shugo daimyo, living in the provinces, seized the opportunity to strengthen their position. At the end of the fifteenth century, those shugo daimyo who succeeded remained in power. Those who had failed to exert control over their deputies fell from power and were replaced by a new class, the "sengoku daimyo," who arose from the ranks of the
shugodai and
kokujin.
Sengoku daimyo
Among the were many who had been shugo daimyo, such as the
Satake,
Imagawa,
Takeda,
Toki,
Rokkaku,
Ōuchi, and
Shimazu. New to the ranks of daimyo were the
Asakura,
Amago,
Nagao,
Miyoshi,
Chōsokabe,
Jimbō,
Hatano,
Oda, and
Matsunaga. These came from the ranks of the
shugodai and their deputies. Additional sengoku daimyo such as the
Mōri,
Tamura, and
Ryūzōji arose from the
kokujin. The lower officials of the shogunate and
ronin (
Late Hōjō,
Saitō),
provincial officials (
Kitabatake), and
kuge (
Tosa Ichijō) also gave rise to sengoku daimyo.
Daimyo in the Edo period
After the
Battle of Sekigahara in the year 1600 that marked the beginning of the
Edo period,
shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu reorganized roughly 200 daimyo and their territories, into the
han, and rated them based on their production of rice from rice paddies. Daimyo were those who headed
han assessed at 10,000
koku (50,000 bushels) or more. Ieyasu also categorized the daimyo according to how close they were to the ruling Tokugawa family: the
shinpan were related to the Tokugawa; the
fudai had been vassals of the Tokugawa or allies in battle; and the
tozama who hadn't allied with the Tokugawa before the battle (did not necessarily fight against the Tokugawa).
Around 1800, there were approximately 170 daimyo in
Japan.
The
shinpan were collaterals of Ieyasu, such as the
Matsudaira, or descendants of Ieyasu other than in the main line of succession. Several
shinpan, including the Tokugawa of
Owari (
Nagoya),
Kii (
Wakayama) and
Mito, as well as the Matsudaira of
Fukui and
Aizu, held large
han.
A few
fudai daimyo, such as the
Ii of
Hikone, held large
han, but many were small. The shogunate placed many
fudai at strategic locations to guard the trade routes and the approaches to
Edo. Also, many
fudai daimyo took positions in the Edo shogunate, some rising to the position of
rōjū. The fact that
fudai daimyo could hold government positions while
tozama, in general, couldn't was a main difference between the two.
Tozama daimyo held large fiefs, with the
Kaga han of
Ishikawa Prefecture, headed by the
Maeda clan, assessed at 1,000,000 koku. Other famous
tozama clans included the
Mori of
Chōshū, the
Shimazu of
Satsuma, the
Date of
Sendai, the
Uesugi of
Yonezawa, and the
Hachisuka of
Awa. Initially, the Tokugawa regarded them as potentially rebellious, but for most of the Edo period, marriages between the Tokugawa and the
tozama, as well as control policies such as
sankin kōtai, resulted in peaceful relations.
Sankin kōtai
Sankin kōtai ("alternate attendance") was the system whereby the Tokugawa forced all daimyo to spend every other year at the Tokugawa court in Edo, and maintain their family members in Edo when they returned to their
han. This increased political and fiscal control over the daimyo by Edo. As time went on in the Tokugawa period, many other systems of controlling the daimyo were put into place, such as mandatory contributions to public works such as road building. In addition, daimyo were forbidden to build ships and castles, and other shows of military power were often tightly controlled.
Upset by these controls, and often in bad economic situations because of things like
sankin kotai, forced support of public works, and extravagant spending, several daimyo sided against the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Meiji Restoration.
After the Meiji Restoration
In 1869, the year after the
Meiji Restoration, the daimyo, together with the
kuge, formed a new aristocracy, the
kazoku. In 1871, the
han were abolished and
prefectures were established, thus effectively ending the daimyo era in Japan. In the wake of this change, many daimyo remained in control of their lands, being appointed as prefectural governors; however, they were soon relieved of this duty and called en masse to Tokyo, thereby cutting off any independent base of power from which to potentially rebel. Despite this, members of former daimyo families remained prominent in government and society, and in some cases continue to remain prominent to the present day.
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