1906-7.] A Sketch of Japanese National Development. 337 
being a petty lord of Owari brought the whole of central Japan under his 
power. After he was attacked and killed by one of his generals, another 
of his generals, Hideyoshi, better known by his subsequent title of the 
Taiko, succeeded him in power and established his authority over the whole 
country. After his death in 1598, Tokugawa Iyeyasu, who had been 
gradually strengthening himself, biding his time and patiently waiting 
for his opportunity under Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, became the Sei-I-Tai- 
Shogun in 1603, and established his government in Yedo, where his 
successors ruled for fifteen generations until 1868. 
By the defeat and death of Hideyori, Hideyoshi s son, in 1615, Iyeyasu’s 
authority became undisputed, and the country enjoyed profound peace for 
two centuries and a half, during which the feudal system of government 
received its most perfect development, and the Bushidd or “the Way of 
Samurai ” was fully elaborated. 
The first three Shdguns of the House of Tokugawa, all three men of 
great capacity, assisted by many followers of devoted loyalty and highest 
ability, succeeded in thoroughly consolidating their authority and in 
completing the organisation of government. As an example of the method 
by which the Shogunate kept the daimyos completely under their power, I 
may take the case of Maeda, the daimyo of Kaga. As this was a powerful 
house, whose territories extended over the three provinces of Kaga, Noto, and 
part of Echizen, and whose annual revenue exceeded one million holm of 
rice, a cadet of the Tokugawa house was made the Lord of Echizen, to 
block the route of Maeda to Kydto, and several faithful retainers of 
Tokugawa were made to be daimyos in Echigo, to the north ; thus 
completely shutting in Maeda. A similar policy was pursued towards all 
daimyos who were likely to be a cause of anxiety to the Shogunate. 
Another device was that of requiring the sojourn in Yedo of every daimyo 
at fixed intervals and for a fixed period ; while their wives and children 
were obliged to reside in Yedo, thus serving as hostages. Thus, although 
daimyos enjoyed almost complete autonomy within their territories in 
almost everything, financial, military, judicial, educational, and industrial, 
the Shogunate seldom interfering except in extreme cases, yet this device 
effectually obviated too dangerous independence. 
So well was this policy towards the daimyos planned, that the shutting 
up of the empire from all foreign intercourse, which, as you are aware, was 
deliberately ordered by the third Shogun, and consequent absence of all 
external competition and stimulus, was compensated for by the balance of 
power, as it were, between the different daimyos, and did not give rise to such 
stagnation and decline as were likely to happen to a nation situated in such 
vol. xxvii. 22 
