5.6 Edo Period 1830 – 1867: Tenpō Reforms to the Black Ships
The Tenpō era (1830-1844) marked the time between a great fire in Edo and an earthquake in Kyoto. Tenpō means “heavenly imperial protection.” However, ongoing crop failures and famine, high rice prices, continuing fiscal problems, and the fear of colonialism resulted in the Tenpō Crisis.
When Tokugawa Ieyoshi (1793 –1853), became shogun, his senior advisor, Mizuno Tadakuni (1794 –1851), instituted the Tenpō Reforms, which were a series of sumptuary laws attempting to stabilize the economy and end the excesses of the urban culture. They banned most forms of entertainment and displays of wealth. They also dealt with military, agricultural, and religious systems, and domestic unrest.
Urban culture came under attack. Unlicensed prostitution was dealt a severe blow by the closing of tea houses. Women could not dress men’s hair, teach them music, attend archery ranges, or perform onstage in public. Men and women could not share public baths. Gambling, romantic novels, lotteries, and full-body tattoos were forbidden. Commoners could not eat, dress, or house above their stations. Rangaku (Dutch studies) was suppressed.
Prices were regulated. Absconding peasants were ordered to return to their farms. To consolidate Tokugawa control in Edo and Osaka, the local daimyō were to surrender their holdings for land elsewhere. New coinage was issued. Immigration to Edo was prohibited and the formation of societies was banned.
Shinto received new support. Families were required to register at the nearest Shinto shrine. A Shinto festival, meeting, or pilgrimage was scheduled each month. By contrast, Buddhism was excluded from the religious calendar and the government revoked its support for Buddhist institutions.
Around this time writers and thinkers started to play a greater role in society.
Ninomiya Sontoku preached diligence, fortitude, and frugality. He started his own financial institutions the forerunners of credit unions. He also taught compound interest and the use of the abacus in daily management.
Takizawa Bakin wrote about traditional virtues of samurai.
Hirata Atsutane criticized current Confucian and Buddhist scholars, advocating a revival of the “ancient ways” where the emperor was revered. He attracted many students and influenced the samurai in the Sonnō jōi movement.
To add to the writers who espoused a return to rule of the emperor, there was Mitogaku, a school of Japanese historical and Shinto studies that arose in the Mito Domain. The school began in 1657 when Tokugawa Mitsukuni commissioned the compilation of Dai Nihonshi (The Great History of Japan). While heavily influenced by Confucianism, Dai Nihonshi focused on Japanese classics not Chinese classics and emphasized respect for the court and Shinto deities and that Japan was ruled by the emperors who were superior to all others because they were descended from the sun goddess. Under Tokugawa Nariaki (1800 –1860), it greatly expanded. One of its most influential scholars was Aizawa Seishisai.
Aizawa Seishisai was involved in the Dai Nihonshi and in 1825 wrote Shinron (New Theses). He popularized the term the word kokutai (“national polity”) writing that Japan needed a national unifying theme, the restoration of the monarchy, and elevation of Shinto. It was to be an important work in the later Sonnō jōi. He rejected Buddhism as a foreign religion and an impediment to the connection between the people and their sacred land, Japan, the land of the gods (shikoku).
In 1853 Japan changed forever with the arrival of the Black Ships.
The United States was interested in developing trade and relations with Japan. President Millard Fillmore assigned Commodore Matthew C. Perry the task of opening up Japan.
Commodore Perry (1794-1858) was well suited for the task. He had vast naval experience. He brought along the American Sinologist Samuel Wells Williams and the Dutch-born American diplomat, Anton L.C. Portman, who translated into Dutch. His flotilla of four ships reached Edo Bay on July 8, 1853.
The bakufu was incapable of acting decisively because of the incapacitation of Ieyoshi. The bakufu had no precedent. The senior counselor (rōjū), Abe Masahiro tried to balance the demands of those who wished to compromise, the emperor who demanded the foreigners leave, and the daimyō who wished war. Abe suggested that it would not hurt to accept a letter from the Americans. Perry gave the Japanese a letter with American demands, but in order to save face, he promised to return the following year.
Ieyoshi died on July 27, 1853 and was succeeded by his third son, Tokugawa Iesada (1824-1858), who was physically weak and basically unfit to be shogun.