Tokugawa System

Looking at this ranking becomes immediately obvious that the rigidity and preciseness of the divisions would cause economic and social difficulties as time passed. How would a samurai who couldn't handle money maintain his livelihood? How could the society demand the services of the merchant, especially as more commerce developed, and assume that he would expect that he would accept as his reward a position which was almost the lowest on the scale? How would a samurai pass his time when a century and then two passed without war and there was no job for him commensurate with his status? How could rigidly defined legal status remain unchanged when actual roles had become so much more complex? In fact, over these two centuries it became increasing clear that in many instances power had reversed itself. For example, the lowly merchant became more important to the daimyō and the shogun than the exalted samurai. Finally, if the samurai did have a military reason for his status, how would he react to the confrontation with 19th century foreign commercial intrusion and imperialism? Two centuries without military action left the samurai out of practice and without modern weapons, and the country in general well behind the West in technological knowledge.

Changing times, ca. 1800

Tokugawa power over its own vessels and the approximately 270 han began to wane by the early 18th century. The system was simply too rigid to accommodate the economic changes which assaulted the status of these class divisions, especially those between the samurai and merchants. The beginnings of commercial enterprises throughout Japan, but particularly in central and western Honshū, as well as the disappearance of adequate employment for the disused military class, passed by the bakufu, which required all samurai to live in castle towns and all peasants to remain on the land in villages, so further separating the samurai from gainful employment in most han.

While the samurai continued to collect his stipend, this too was out of step with the times. His wealth was counted in koku of rice (one koku is a little over 5 bushels) based on the formula which calculated one koku would feed an adult for a year. But there was a catch here. The number of koku which any particular samurai received was based on production which could be expected from lands owned by the han and distributed on paper to each samurai member of the han according to his particular status. That might have sufficed even for the lowliest samurai, except for the fact that the stated number of koku, the 50% to 60% which would cover expenses and consumption of the cultivating peasants, often left a lower status samurai without enough rice for his family to live on, let alone to exchange for currency to spend on other needs.

Meanwhile the merchant who provided the services which exchanged the rice for currency and who kept track of the exchange was beginning to see his wealth increase, at least on paper. And yet, he remained stuck on the lowest rung in the class system. The merchants lived in castle towns and the three major cities, Edo, the political capital, Osaka, the "kitchen," and Kyoto, the imperial capital, keeping track of everyone's rice, developing new commercial ventures, and lending more and more money to the impoverished samurai, the daimyō and the shogun.