Who were the Daimyo in Feudal Japan?

Daimyo were feudal lords during the shogunate in Japan during the 12th to 19th century. Daimyo were powerful landowners who had their own army, hired samurai to protect their property and family.

The word daimyo comes from the Japanese “dai” which means “great or great”, and “myo” which is a term to refer to “names” such as family or clan. It could be translated as “great name” or “great clan”, or as owners of large lands “great landowner”. Its direct equivalence with the West is very flexible, but it would be similar to the English “lord”

From Shugo to Daimyo

The first people called “daimyo” came from the shugo class, who were rulers of the provinces in Kamakura period Japan, between 1192 and 1333. This position was created by Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate.

A shugo was appointed by the shogun to govern one or more provinces on his behalf. These governors did not consider the provinces as their belonging, while the title of shugo was not hereditary. The shugo controlled the provinces at the complete discretion and command of the shogun.

As the centuries passed, the control of the central government over the shugo diminished, increasing their power over their provinces in a notorious way. By the end of the 15th century, the shugo did not depend on the shogun to exercise their authority. They stopped being simple governors to become feudal lords with absolute control in their province, which they considered their property. Each province had its own army, collected taxes from the population and paid their samurai, in their own name and for their own benefit. They became the first royal daimyo.

Civil War and Lack of Leadership

Between 1467 and 1477, a civil war known as the Onin War took place in Japan to decide the line of succession to the shogunate. Various houses of the nobility supported various candidates to occupy the leadership of the shogunate, which resulted in complete chaos throughout the country. At least a dozen daimyo took to the battlefield to seize the post.

A decade of constant warfare left the daimyo exhausted, but did not solve the problem of succession, leading to constant “low intensity” fighting during the Sengoku Period. The latter was 150 years of chaos, in which the daimyo constantly fought for control of territory, for the title of shogun, and even, it would seem, out of “custom”.

The Sengoku period finally came to an end when the “three unifiers” of Japan, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, defeated rival daimyo and returned central power to the shogun. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, the daimyo continued to rule their provinces as if they were their own, but under intense control and scrutiny by the shogunate to keep daimyo power limited.

Prosperity and Fall

An important part of the control exercised by the shogunate over the daimyo was the “alternating presence system”, in which the daimyo was required to spend half of his time in the capital Edo (present-day Tokyo) and the other half in his own provinces. . This ensured that the shoguns could keep them in sight and under control. In addition, the transfer of the daimyo with part of his army and servants meant a huge expense for them, which weakened their ability to finance a possible war.

The peace and prosperity of the Tokugawa period continued until the mid-19th century, when Western powers forced Japan to allow them access to the country. Under threat from Western imperialism and other internal factors, the Tokugawa government collapsed. The daimyo lost their lands, titles and power as a result of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, although some of them were able to remain elite as part of a “new” oligarchy of the wealthy industrial class.