Class of daimy? (warlords) considered outsiders by the rulers of feudal Japan
Tozama daimy?
(
外?大名
,
"outside
daimy?
"
)
was a class of powerful magnates or
daimy?
(大名) considered to be outsiders by the ruler of
Japan
during the
Edo period
(江?時代).
[1]
Tozama daimy?
were classified in the
Tokugawa shogunate
(江?幕府) as
daimy?
who became
hereditary
vassals
of the
Tokugawa
after the
Battle of Sekigahara
(?ヶ原の?い).
Tozama daimy?
were discriminated against by the Tokugawa and opposed to the
fudai daimy?
, who were allies or vassals of Tokugawa before Sekigahara.
Origins
[
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]
Originally, the concept of
tozama daimy?
emerged in
Japan
along with the
daimy?
after the rise of the
Kamakura shogunate
(鎌倉幕府) in the 12th century.
Tozama
applied to a
daimy?
who was considered an "outsider" by successive
Sh?guns
,
Emperors
, and
shikkens
(執?) that ruled over Japan at any given time. Typically, a
tozama
had a loose or indirect relationship with the current ruler, and this definition remained intact during the subsequent
Ashikaga shogunate
(足利幕府, 1336?1573, also known as the Muromachi (室町幕府)), and the
Sengoku period
(??時代, 1467?1615, "Age of Warring States").
Edo period
[
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]
The establishment of the
Tokugawa shogunate
in 1600 redefined
tozama daimy?
as the
daimy?
who submitted as
vassals
to the
Tokugawa
only after the decisive
Battle of Sekigahara
, including those who fought for the Tokugawa at the battle but were not official vassals.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
had treated the great
tozama
amicably, but his grandson
Tokugawa Iemitsu
was less tolerant of them during his rule between 1623 and 1626.
Tozama
and their descendants were distrusted and the Tokugawa discriminated against them in favor of the
fudai daimy?
.
Tozama
were largely excluded from the shogunate government, the
Bakufu
, and their numbers were limited compared to the
fudai
who filled the administration's ranks. Many of the largest and wealthiest
han
?the personal
feudal
domains of the
daimy?
?were ruled by
tozama
, including the
Maeda clan
of the
Kaga Domain
with a value of 1,000,000
koku
under the
Kokudaka
system. However, this was a deliberate Tokugawa plan to keep the
tozama
in check, as
fudai daimy?
were stationed in smaller domains in strategic locations, including along major roads and near important cities. Many notable
tozama
families, including the
Shimazu
, the
Mori
, the
Date
, the
Hachisuka
, and the
Uesugi
, were based in western and northern
Honshu
and
Kyushu
in contrast to the Tokugawa based in the eastern city of
Edo
. Most, but not all, of these families had been living in roughly the same regions for centuries before the Tokugawa shogunate.
Tozama daimy?
heavily profited from trade in the 17th century, particularly in western Japan where most of the country's important
ports
were located. The shogunate responded in
Sakoku
policies of
isolationism
, preventing the ports of western Honshu and
Ky?sh?
from trading with foreigners and sending Japanese vessels abroad.
The
Tozama daimy?
had higher levels of independent power and local autonomy, and conducted their judicial, administrative and military affairs in the name of the local daimyos like sovereigns. The
Tozama
domains' relationship to the Shogun was one of paying tribute, military levy and guard duty obligations.
[2]
The decline of the Tokugawa shogunate during the
Bakumatsu
period from 1853 led to lessening discrimination against
tozama daimy?
. In November 1864,
Matsumae Takahiro
, the
tozama daimy?
of the
Matsumae clan
, was appointed as
r?j?
, one of the highest-ranking government posts in the Tokugawa government.
Tozama
formed the nucleus of the growing anti-Tokugawa movement, with the
Satsuma
and
Ch?sh?
(Shimazu and Mori clans respectively) primarily responsible for the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in the
Meiji Restoration
. Rallying other
tozama
and even
fudai
to their cause in support of the
Imperial Court
, they fought against the shogunate,
Aizu Domain
, and the
?uetsu Reppan D?mei
during the
Boshin War
of 1868 to 1869. Many people from Satsuma and Ch?sh? dominated politics of the
Empire of Japan
in the ensuing decades, and well into the 20th century, as part of the
Meiji oligarchy
. The distinction between
tozama
and
fudai
became obsolete when the
daimy?
were morphed into the new
kazoku
aristocracy.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary,
ISBN
4-7674-2015-6
- ^
Scalapino, Robert A. (2023).
Democracy and the Party in Prewar Japan
. University of California Press. p. 9.
ISBN
9780520318052
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Ooms, Herman (1975).
Charismatic Bureaucrat
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.