How Alternate Attendance Brought the Rise and Fall of the Tokugawa Period

The turn of the seventeenth century ushered in a new era in Japanese history when the emperor of Japan appointed Tokugawa Iesyasu to shogun. To ensure that his family would retain this power, Tokugawa implemented measures to prevent the overthrow of his shogunate. One of these measures was sankin kotai, or alternate attendance, which assisted in perpetuating his family’s power for two-hundred fifty years. This system would also contribute to the demise of Tokugawa dominance as well as preparing Japan for the future.
The system of alternate attendance required the daimyo from each han to journey to Edo to meet with the shogun every two years. Tokugawa initiated this system to keep an eye on the daimyos and keep them from planning and preparing for an overthrow of his power. To ensure that the daimyos would come to Edo, he commanded that the wives and kids of each daimyo must reside in Edo. Tokugawa used his power to control when each daimyo would have to arrive in Edo to make sure that two of them would not meet up on the way. The daimyo’s procession to Edo was a very elaborate affair with hundreds of samurai and personal attendants accompanying him to flaunt his wealth. These grand processions would show that the daimyo have great respect for Tokugawa and they would commonly bring gifts such as horses or swords.
The alternate attendance system also established Edo as the political center of Japan turning the emperor in Kyoto into a ceremonial figure. With all of the daimyo traveling to Edo regularly, all of the high-ranking officials would be congregated and able to meet with Tokugawa. Since the daimyo spent a lot of their time traveling, their power was minimized while the power of the shogun was reinforced, setting up the Tokugawa family to rule for two-hundred fifty years.
While the system of alternate attendance strengthened Tokugawa’s power early on, it would also contribute to the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate. With daimyos constantly on the move, merchants and artisans would take advantage of the massive influx of people into their towns by setting up restaurants, inns, and shops. The daimyo would spend a considerable portion of their wealth just traveling to and from Edo as well as paying for their residence in Edo and the salary of the samurai. Over time, the daimyo, and therefore the samurai, lost their wealth while the merchants and artisans became rich. This effectively inverted the caste system making the warrior class disgruntled and in debt to the merchant class. Many of the samurai were converted to administrators, scholars, and bureaucrats. The normal social order was breaking down and the warrior class was starting to question the power of the shogun.
Another unintended result of Tokugawa’s alternate attendance system that led to the downfall of his shogunate was the Charles Richardson Affair in 1862. Richardson and three other British civilians were on an outing near Yokohama when they came upon the procession of the daimyo of Satsuma, Shimazu Hisamitsu. They approached the side of the road to get a closer look and Richardson was killed by one of the warriors who was infuriated with the foreigner’s disrespect to the daimyo. Britain demanded reparations for the murder from the shogun but none was given. In response, Britain sent ships to Choshu and bombarded the coast and held the leading port for ransom. The shogun failed to fulfill its duty to protect the Japanese from foreign attacks and has lost loyalty from many of the hans in the southern portion of Japan. These hans would be key in toppling the Tokugawa shogunate just four years later.
One positive result of alternate attendance that helped pave the way for the future of Japan was that the routes the daimyo took to Edo became major highways that allowed for faster communication and transportation. The route between Edo and Kyoto was paved with gravel and sand with an average width of twenty feet to accommodate the large processions. This road, called the Tokaido Highway, would become the economic corridor of Japan. Along the highway were fifty-three towns where travelers could rest and eat. Merchants set up an express messenger system between Kyoto, Edo, and Osaka that could deliver packages and letters in six days. Later the system was expanded to cities like Nagasaki, Kanazawa, and Sendai and could get a package there in two to three days. The faster transportation helped allow Japan’s commercial and industrial businesses flourish by distributing goods throughout the country from a centralized location like Osaka.