The Sankin-kōtai System – Feudal Control in the Tokugawa Era

During the Sengoku period (戦国代) or the “Warring States Period”, which lasted for around one hundred years (1500 to 1603), Japan was plagued by endless civil wars. Feudal warlords fought for supremacy in Japan. Finally, Ieyasu of the Tokugawa family was able to gain the upper hand in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and the extinction of the Toyotomi line with the successful siege of Osaka Castle in 1615. Under Ieaysu the Warring States period ended and Japan was unified and pacified under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate , for the next 250 years.

To ensure peace and undisputed rule by the Tokugawa Shogunate , he established a sophisticated system to keep the local feudal lords weak and in check, and the Sankin Kotai参覲交代were the main instrument to achieve this goal. The details of Sankin Kotai changed over the decades.

At the beginning of the Edo Period, some daimyo had to “rotate” their place of residence every 6 months, others every year, which made the trips last from one to more years. When the daimyo had to return to their own fiefdom, by law his wife and heir remained in Edo while he was away, to ensure their loyalty to the Shogunate .

The precise route of travel and travel time were arranged and regulated in detail. With approximately 150 processions of feudal lords arriving in Edo (Old Tokyo) each year with an average of 150 to 300 people in the retinue, precise timing was needed to prevent chaos and disorganization in Japan’s medieval road and transportation system.

Sankin Kotai is usually translated as ” alternate attendance or service ” where feudal lords were required to establish permanent residence in Edo with a permanent personal presence of damiyo himself or first degree family members such as his wife or eldest son. This “attendance” at the Edo residence was compulsory and subject to annual or even shorter periods of alternating movements between the feudal lord’s residence in his territory and in Edo, the capital of the Shogunate. Each movement was accompanied by a formal procession with bells and whistles and often a staff of several hundred people, including a suitable number of soldiers of the daimyo, the samurai.

Sankin kotai was a political maneuver to maintain control of the previously powerful lords of the different regions. The high costs of two lush residences and the frequent moves accompanied by processions were meant to weaken them financially and prevent them from building castles or making weapons and waging war against the shogun’s central government. It is estimated that the financial burden on the feudal lords for ‘ Sankin Kotai ‘ was found to be 25% of their income.

The Sankin Kotai system and the need for frequent travel between the capital Edo and the provinces of the daimyo made it the most important source of information and up-to-date knowledge at that time and had a significant effect on the culture and economy. from Japan.

The first effect was the construction of roads, the most famous of these was the Tokaido, road between Tokyo and Kyoto, the former capital of the Emperor. Along these paths, so-called stations were established, which were rest houses where travelers could eat and rest at night, a kind of rest area for the medieval road.

The other effect was on the entertainment industry and commerce. The permanent residences of the daimyo were occupied by people who were idle but with a lot of money. Being times of peace, the service of the samurai was no longer necessary, so they had nothing to do and spent their time in the kabuki theaters, tea houses and the so-called licensed neighborhoods (brothels) in Edo, which were prospering. And with them flourished the craft of ukiyo-e, woodblock prints, depicting this floating world of entertainment.

The main market for Ukiyo-e was kabuki theaters, restaurants, teahouses, and so-called pleasure quarters like Yoshiwara. Imagining that these places of amusement were populated in large numbers by idle but financially well-off people, most of whom had nothing to do and whose only reason for being in Edo was ‘ sankin kotai ‘, it is obvious that it must have been a impetus for the production of ukiyo-e . The large number of ukiyo-e designs and copies of Japanese prints in existence today is largely due to “sankin kotai”.