Tokugawa Japan: Isolation with Confucianism

Abstract

In 1600, after nearly two centuries of chronic feudal disorder and local warfare, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) had led a coalition of daimyo (feudal lords) to victory over a rival coalition at the battle of Sekigahara. Three years later, Ieyasu assumed the title of shogun (military general) which gave him the mandate to bring the local daimyo under his political control. Securing the allegiance of the surviving warrior lords, he took over the shogunate. The 265 years following 1603 when Tokugawa Ieyasu established the bakufu or military government in Edo, are referred to as the Tokugawa or Edo period. During the period Japan was basically a unified country, with uninterrupted rule from 1603 onwards. The Tokugawa period is considered to have laid the foundation of present-day Japan in the sense that many elements now considered as characteristic of Japanese society originated then.