photo #2616055

During the first century of shogun rule, political, economic, and social rules emerged which provided for the primacy of the bakufu over the han. This was ensured by the military superiority of the central authority at the Edo; by its large land holdings, heavily concentrated around Edo, but also spread throughout the rest of Honshū and Kyūshū and Shikoku; and by the political and social rules issued in its name which favored the shogun's power. Thus, for about one hundred years, the Tokugawa shoguns maintained tight control over the han. Japan's economy at this time was based on rice, and Tokugawa had by far the greatest area under rice cultivation. It also maintained the largest number of samurai, the military component of the system, and demanded and received allegiance from the 270 or so daimyō, and their samurai vassals, who lived in the established han. Through the mid-nineteenth century this system, though faltering significantly, continued to guarantee peace.In its ideal form, the bakuhan system provided for central authority with power over the lives and livelihood of everyone residing in each han and the daimyō who was in charge. At the same time the daimyō had considerable power within his own lands as long as he did not break any of the rules sent down from Edo. In actuality, however, by 1840, this system had become only a shell of its former self, and much which remained on paper and was plastered on placards and declared in proclamations was no longer working in fact.