THE RULE OF THE TOYOTOMI, THE EARLY TOKUGAWA REGIME AND THE KAWATA/CHŌRI

IN THE FOURTH month of 1585 the rebels who had been confined to Ōta castle in Kii finally surrendered to Hideyoshi's army having been flooded out. Hideyoshi then subjugated Shikoku and Kyushu, in 1590 he overthrew the Hōjō family, made Dateshi surrender and united the country under his rule. Immediately after defeating Akechi Mitsuhide and following a survey carried out in the Yamashiro region, Hideyoshi enforced a land survey on the entire country, called the Taikō land survey. Although there were some differences in the way it was carried out in different parts of the country, basically it promoted the separation of the soldiers from the farmers in the countryside and the merchants from the farmers in the towns. In the Taikō land survey reports we can see entries that use such titles as kawata (seen all across the country), kawaya (frequent in the Ise region), kawaramono, saiku and chōri (in the Kanto area, Fujisawa 2013).

In the seventh month of 1588 the Sword Hunt decree was issued with the twin aims of disarming the farmers in order to prevent peasant revolts and tying them more firmly to their land. In 1591 in anticipation of the invasion of the Korean peninsula a status regulation was issued and the following year the ‘Sixtysix Country Edict’ was produced which enforced status distinctions between farmers and merchants. Throughout the Warring States period until the late sixteenth century castles had been constructed across the country and merchants and craftsmen had gathered in the towns that formed around them. Meanwhile farmers continued to live in the villages thus further promoting this separation of classes although there were some merchants and craftsmen who also remained in the countryside.

Under the Tokugawa regime, no distinction was made between how regions were governed whether they be under the rule of the central Bakufu government, local lords, or temples and shrines. As well as applying almost the same policies to control the mass of the people, a religious census was introduced as a way of suppressing the Christian religion and this gradually came to have the character of a census of individuals.