Edo Japan (Radio Edit)

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Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.

My name is Greg Jenner.

I'm a public historian, author, and broadcaster.

And today we are boarding our black ships and sailing back to 17th century Japan to learn all about life in the Edo period.

And to help us distinguish our Kosode from Makimono, we have two very special guests in History Corner.

She's a lecturer in both Japanese and modern Japanese history at SOAS, University of London.

It's Dr.

Satana Suzuki.

Welcome Satana.

Thank you for having me.

I'm really excited to be here today.

We're very excited to have you.

And in Comedy Corner, he's a stand-up comedian, writer, and the winner of the Edinburgh Festival Comedy Award 2023.

Maybe you've heard him on radio for, but you'll definitely remember him from our episodes about Julius Caesar, Julius Kaiser, or the Indo-Civilization.

It's Ahir Shah.

Welcome back, Ahir.

Hello, thank you very much for having me back.

I'm very excited about this.

When I asked if you wanted to do this show, your face lit up with a frenzied zeal I've not seen before.

I was first asked about this when I just finished watching Shogun and was listening to the audiobook.

Or in fact, I may well have been listening to the audiobook when I first got an email about it.

So I was like, right, I definitely know everything about this topic based on what I'm sure was a documentary I recently watched.

So I think we can say we've got two experts in the room today, which is very exciting.

So what do you know?

This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject.

And for listeners outside of Japan, I suspect chances are the answer is not very much, much like me.

Maybe you've seen the Keanu Reeves historical blockbuster, 47 Ronin.

Maybe you're a video game fan and you've played Shogun Total War.

My fave.

But most likely, you'll know the recent TV series that Ahiya has mentioned already: Shogun.

It's based on a novel by James Clavel, which lightly fictionalises the foundation of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

And if you're a real Shogun head, maybe you saw the short-lived 1990 musical, also based on Clavel's novel.

But what's the true story behind this brilliant TV show?

What did samurai really get up to?

Let's find out.

Right, Ahiya, when did the Edo period start?

Is Edo the sort of name that was getting to what we now call Tokyo?

Was called Edo at the time.

I'm going going to go 1647.

Well, the show is set in 1600.

And as Satana, we start the dynasty a tiny bit later.

We start it the same year that in England or Britain we start the Stuart era, 1603.

So how long is the Edo period?

Why do we start it there?

So the Edo period lasted from 1603, so that's when Tokuga Iezu was appointed shogun by the Emperor, to 1867, that's when Tokuga Yoshinobu, that's the last shogun, returned the London register to the emperor.

So 260 years, something like that.

I'm not really good at math, but something like 260 years.

So it's a long time, right?

And this is a time of warfare, instability.

This is not a peaceful era.

No, it's not.

The Edo period was preceded by a period of constant warfare and instability for about 100 years.

But then between 1560 and 1582, Odanovunaga, that's one of my favorite historical figures, he was one of the warring state daimyo and he sort of used force to extend control over two-thirds of Japan.

Unfortunately, one of his subordinates, Akechi Mitsuhide, he assassinated Odanovunaga in 1582.

And after that, his other subordinate, Toyota Hideyoshi, he rose to power.

So Hideyoshi conquered Japan in 1590, died in 1598.

Yeah.

Who takes over from him then?

Toyoto Mihideori.

That's Toyoto Hideyoshi's five-year-old son.

So he was left in charge, but he was managed by a group of five regions.

I am very, very unlikely to conquer Japan.

However, if I did, and eight years later I died, and De jure of not de facto rule passed to my five-year-old son, I would be so gutted.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, after all this effort,

like, only eight years would suck.

So the five-year-old is the new shogun, but not really.

A council is put in charge, and one of the members of that council is a rival of Hideyoshi.

That's right.

Yeah.

One of the regents was Tokugawa Ieyasu.

He thought that he was more qualified to unify Japan than anyone else.

You know, looking back, he was right.

So, yeah, in 1600, at the Battle of Sekigahara, Iyasu sort of destroyed the forces loyal to the Toyodomi family.

And that is the big win that establishes the beginnings of the Edo shogunate.

Yeah,

in 1603, he was actually named a shogun.

Okay, so Tokugawa Iyasu, named shogun, he is the first shogun of our period, of the Edo period.

Ahiya, do you know what it translates to in English?

Shogun?

I don't know.

Or sei Tai Taishogun.

That's the official title.

You should know this.

I should know what.

You should know this, Arken.

Come on.

It's like

the way that you said that, like, I briefly queried whether you had personally taught me Japanese in the past.

You said it with something, like, you said it with the authority of, like, my mum when I miss a bit of grammar in Gujarati or something.

It was like, what are you doing?

How did I raise you?

Like, what's going on?

Shogun, maybe that just means like warlord or something.

I don't know.

That's a good, sensible guess.

The official translation would be barbarian subduing general.

Nice.

What a succinct language.

Toku Iyesu was not the first shogun, but he was the first shogun of all Japan.

Right.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Basically, he unified the country.

What is the relationship between shogun and emperor then?

The emperor's capital was in Kyoto, and then shogun's capital was in Edo.

But Edo was the political and administrative center of Japan.

So during the Edo period, the Emperor had an important symbolic role, but he was essentially a prisoner in his palace.

They are not allowed to step outside of their palace.

They weren't even allowed to take a walk.

Wow.

So the shogun had to keep him happy as the legitimizer of the political power, but also control and restricted the emperor via the law.

Who are the social groups in society at this time?

We have the elite groups, don't we?

So we should start with them.

Yeah, so society was divided into basically four social classes.

So you have the samurai elites and then you have peasants, artisans and merchants.

And at the top of the elite group were the daimyo, the feudal lords, who are rulers of domains, or han in Japanese.

And they autonomously governed these domains, or han, but every alternate year they had to live in Edo and their families were essentially hostages of the Tokuga to ensure their loyalty to the Shogune.

So the family had to stay in Edo.

From my point of view, growing up, I knew a lot about ninjas and samurai, but actually I didn't really.

So what do you think of when you think of samurai?

The image is the image that everyone has in their head, you know, like the armor and the swords and these sorts of things.

I think that it's like a hereditary thing or a family thing.

It's linked to like your family or house or whatever, but it comes with its own set of particular duties, but also its own particular set of privileges, such as basically being able to do whatever you want to anyone who isn't a samurai.

Satana, is that a good summary?

I guess, yes.

I mean, they were elites.

They are not commoners, right?

Samurai basically means warriors, but Edo samurai are different to how they are thought of now because, you know, at the time of peace, they don't fight, right?

Right.

Yeah, and then they're often sort of administrators who are like paid salary with rice stipends.

So they're like salary merchants.

So you just become a civil servant after a while.

Yeah, something like that.

My wife's a samurai?

Amazing.

They're just slicing their way through mountains of paperwork.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So artisans are craftspeople.

They're making things.

Peasants are farmers.

And then merchants are selling?

Yeah, so merchants were like merchants, really, yeah.

So officially at the bottom of this, you know, hierarchy, the social system.

But, you know, they're often sort of despised for handling money.

I don't know why people do that.

I like money.

I mean, we can't do anything with money.

I mean, I don't love it, but

I'm being paid £8,000 to be honest.

You get more than me.

But in reality, though, many became very, very rich and very wealthy.

And they sort of started started to exert power and influence towards the end of the tokuga, you know, because the commerce and transportation develop and they have more jobs, right?

But samurai, on the other hand, especially lower-ranking samurai, they became very, very impoverished towards the end.

And the population too, between 1600 and 1720, something like that, was estimated to have doubled.

But later in the period, the population growth sort of stagnated, so it sort of stopped.

It plummeted every time famine hit Japan.

Satana, you said in the second half of the Edo period, which we're saying is 265 years or so.

In the second half of that period, the economic sort of patterns they change and there's a sort of decrease in population or there's a slowdown.

So what happens at that time then?

So

it's because of this development of commerce and transportation.

It was really kind of really vigorous.

And of course it depends on the region, but some countryside industries really, really flourished, you know, like sake.

You like sake?

I like sake.

Yeah, I got sake, and silk and cotton and ceramics and things like that.

So, it was really, really vibrant.

So, that was life in the kind of rural areas, I think.

Ahir, I want to turn to you and ask you about city life, actually.

So, what do you imagine of the Edo period and the cities in Japan at this time?

Again, I'm listening, I'm going off a documentary that I recently watched.

All right,

but I think that if you were, let's just say, at random, a 17th-century naval explorer who landed from England on a Dutch ship, you would be really struck by both the size and cleanliness of the cities relative to those you were used to in your native Europe.

I think that's a very fair answer.

And of course, that is a, I mean, the character in the show is not a real character, but it's based on a real guy, William Adams.

So

there was an English pilot who arrived in Japan.

We call this the Edo period because of Edo the city, which was huge, wasn't it, Satana?

Yeah, I mean city was really growing and the samurai became mostly city residents and things.

And

not just Edo, but also Kakyoto were like growing as well.

But like you said, the biggest of all is Edo, which was originally a really small castle town, but by seventeen twenty, early seventeen hundred, it had already reached a population of one million, apparently.

Yeah, this marked the largest city in the world at the time by population.

Tokyo still is the largest.

And Osaka was the biggest commercial hub, of course, you know, with many rich rice merchants and things.

There was a shift later in the period to rural industries, which led to the declining economic power of some urban areas.

I mean, economic decline, boo, but I don't know anything about the history of economics, so I'm going to move on to the economy.

Yeah, I like economics the even.

And that's why you're not being paid £8,000.

So let's talk more about culture and entertainment in Edo, Japan.

Ahi, what do you think are the go-to cultural kind of touchstones that people respect and admire?

Huge theatrical tradition.

Yeah.

In Japan, for sure.

Musical tradition, poetic tradition.

Those would be three of my guesses.

Excellent guesses.

Satana, let's talk about theatre.

So Eroculture was really, really thriving, especially those things like theatre, but mainly sort of three major things.

So kabuki, you might know.

It's a traditional theater with a dramatic performance with dance, and then bundaku, that's a puppet theater involving like two-thirds life-size puppets controlled by three men with musicians and singer actions, you know, chanting a narration, and then no.

Do you know?

No, no.

So it's like a musical performance where like masks and sings and danced to musical instruments.

And history or patronage of Noah theater went right back to Hideyoshi, meaning it was closely embedded with the lives of the elites.

At the time you were often expected to patronise the arts.

And how long does a play last?

Is it two hours with an intermission?

Is it...

Well, it could be two hours, but sometimes it could last for days, you know.

That's too much culture.

What other arts and cultural activities are important in Edo, Japan, Satana?

A visual art I want to think about.

Yeah, so woodblock printing became very popular because it could sort of publish literature and art very cheaply en masse.

So this rising commercial printing coincided with the rising literacy rates as well.

And in terms of art, the most significant is ukioe.

You might heard of it, like it's literally translated as floating world pictures.

And culturally, it made it possible to have a vivid glimpse into Edo culture.

You know, people can see that.

From fashion to leisure activities like kabuki and sumo wrestling and tea house and all the brothels.

Right.

Artistically speaking, you know, Ukiyo achieved remarkably sort of detailed and vibrant colours and complex compositions and had a huge impact on Western artists.

So that slide brings us on actually to something I wanted to bring up next actually, is Edo Japan's relationship with the wider world because obviously Japan is a series of islands.

Ahir, what do you know of Japan's attitude towards foreign traders and missionaries in this time?

My understanding was that basically during the Tokugawa shogunate, with the exception of like certain sort of naval trading relationships with, I guess, like China and Korea,

pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, intentionally self-cut off from the rest of the world until the Meiji Restoration.

Very close, yes.

It's very, yeah, it's correct, really.

Yeah, so Tokugawa, Japan had a very sort of limited diplomatic relation with the Dutch, the Chinese, and the Koreans.

So Dutch and the Chinese, they were sort of kind of merchants basically, were confined to this little man-made sort of fun-shaped island called Dejima near Nagasaki, and the Korean through the Tsushima domain.

Japan traded with the Portuguese and the Spaniards and allowed missionary activities, but some daimyo in southern parts of Japan were Christians too.

And rulers, including Hideoshi and Iyasu, restricted missionary activities.

And between 1633 and 1639, Tokuga Iyemisu also issued a series of regulations, including prohibiting Japanese people from you know leaving Japan and coming back to Japan, things like that.

He also banned the export of weapons and the teaching of Christianity in Japan.

But the massive rebellion in the Christian strongfold of Shimabara in 1637-68 was like the last straw.

It was a combination of economic and religious factors, but you know, from 1639 onwards, Japan adopted this national seclusion policy.

But that does not mean that Japan was completely isolated, Satana.

You know, the idea here that they it's not like they shut the door and trapped out the world.

You know, they didn't stop the world getting in, did they?

Well, yeah, I mean, not entirely, but for one, they had the Dutch trading connections, right?

Like, and the Chinese.

But only the Bakuhu had the right to trade.

The Bakuhu means the shogunate.

So it's the military government controlled by the shogun.

So you might have this perception that Edo Japan was closed off completely or isolated, but they're actually very much aware of what was going on in the rest of the world.

And this policy of semi-isolation held until the end of the period, towards the 1850s.

Aha, do you know who turned up in the 1850s knocking on Japan's door?

T'was I!

I have lived in this world long before any of you and will be here long after.

Normally on this show, the default answer is the British Empire.

That's normally what happens, about 80%.

Weirdly in this one, it's America.

Yeah, the United States.

Which I was not expecting.

The Americans show up in the 1850s, and it's a guy by the name of Commodore Matthew Perry.

Not the beloved actor from Friends.

1853.

Tell me the story, Satana.

Commodore Matthew Perry,

his black ship arrived at the Edo Bay in 1853.

So the main objective is to open Japan to American trade, obviously.

The US wanted new market, access to Japanese coal and also secure a safe base for its whaling ships.

And also establishing a presence in Japan was you know strategically very important as one of the rising imperial powers, right?

So Perry persuaded the Bakahu's representatives that it would be better for Japan to sign a treaty with America than the British.

You know how much damage the British Empire inflicted on China.

You know, the Orion Wars and things, right?

As a British Indian man, it's something that I have a passing familiarity with.

There are complex historical reasons between this face and this voice.

Okay.

Ah here, we've got a picture actually we can show you.

This is by an unknown artist.

It's one of Matthew Perry's ships.

Would you like to describe it for us?

It's black.

It's a black ship.

Right.

I would describe the vibe as off.

The ship has a face,

but the face has like a big horn like a gnawal,

but a man's face who does not look like he looks pleased, but in a bad way.

Evil.

Yeah.

Evil pleased.

This is a depiction of a suspicious foreign power, Satana.

Wow,

that's the perception at the time.

And once the Americans are sort of through the door, Britain are like, well, could we come in?

You've done a deal with them.

And we're good at empires too.

So the British, who else Satanai?

All the big boys, you know, the British, the French, and the Dutch and Prussian and sort of Russian also sent ships, you know, these imperial powers with the capital P.

Normally when one imperial power signed a treaty, treaty meaning unequal treaty, others followed.

Ah here, if you were the government of the shogunate of Japan, how would you respond to this influx of Western powers waving treaties in your face?

You can really imagine someone standing to the side just being like, I did tell you that if you gave one, they'd all want one.

Right?

And what's happened?

What's happened?

The Ahir shogunate is very much one of saying, I told you so.

Is that right?

No, no, no.

In this, I'm the sort of like slightly harried shogun being like, yeah, I get it.

I get it.

All right.

Satana, the really interesting thing is that the shogunate at this stage consults the emperor, who for 250 years has been sort of, you know, over there somewhere in Kyoto.

But suddenly the shogun consults the emperor for his advice.

Yeah, because they panicked.

And this act of asking

backfired majorly for the shogunate because emperor at the time was kome, kome ten tenno kome.

He said, no,

you should just fulfill your duty as barbarian subduing general.

But in

1858, sorry, yeah, the shogunate gave into pressure and signed an equal treaty with America without imperial approval.

So that sort of angered many samurai loyalists, leading to this movement called Sonno Joi movement, Undo, that means Sonno is revere the emperor, expel barbarian movement.

Oh, good name for a movement.

Yeah, it is.

Two different policies in one movement.

I like that.

Yeah.

It was not an anti-bakuhu movement to start with, but that sort of radically, you know, becoming anti-bakuhu too over time.

And so we've got all these domestic issues now in the 1860s.

So we've got famines, angry peasants in the countryside, angry people in the cities, a bunch of foreign countries parking their warships on Japan's front lawn.

Ahir, how would you solve this in the the Ahir shargonate?

I'm gonna keep using that, I'm sorry, I'm really happy with it.

I would just be like, do you know what?

Two hundred and sixty is a good run.

you'd say what just sort of farewell thanks very much you you have a go

no no i don't i don't think that i would do that you've got to stand up you've got to stand your ground okay good i mean saturna we're coming towards the the meiji restoration so do you want to talk us through the lead up to that yeah so the meiji restoration of 1868 that brought an end to the shogunate because of a combination of internal external factors but before that there's also ongoing conflict over the succession of the shogunate between Inausuke and Sam Furai Daimyo, who wanted a 12-year-old Tokukai Yoshitomi.

And the 12-year-old Yoshitomi was put forward because he would be controlled by the chief counsellor.

It would be more easy.

Did no one go...

This whole thing started

because someone tried to put a baby in charge?

Maybe let's not do that.

Five was too young, but maybe 12 is just right.

Yes, 12 at the time is

30 years old.

So it's okay.

Do they choose the 12-year-old then?

Is that the decision?

Yes, yes.

But the 12-year-old was the 14th Shogun,

but the other one became the 15th Shogun anyway, so it was just a matter of timing, really.

Yeah.

So things are going really wrong because we're back to the political violence that we started our story with, really.

Yeah.

And you've got ongoing conflicts.

So about 1866, the shogunate military forces,

it's going really wrong for them.

And when is the Meiji restoration?

1860?

January the 3rd, 1868.

Yes, that's when the raw-ranking samurai from Satsuma Choshu, Hizen, and gosh, Satsuma Choshu, Hizen, and Tosa, sorry, my students who have a go at me.

And together with certain progressive courtiers, you know, from the courts, they decided to carry out this coup d'etat, like a really peaceful coup d'etat.

It's just a sort of discussion, but coup d'etat.

That you know, the Meiji Emperor, the 16-year-old, getting older,

Meiji Emperor is the new sovereign, and they established this imperial rule.

Okay, so the shogun steps down, the emperor steps up.

Yeah, it's the endo of the Edo, it's the out, it's done, mission accomplished, 265 years.

Oh, shit!

Edo period, completed it, mate.

worries.

The nuance window!

Okay, well, that's been a fascinating chat.

It's time now for the nuance window.

This is the part of the show where Ahira and I set down our samurai swords and we sit quietly with our rice bowl for two minutes while Dr.

Saturn takes center stage to tell us something we need to know about Edo Japan.

Without much further ado, it's very incredible how long the Edo period lasted.

260 years.

And Edo, Japan, you know, thrived due to political stability and economic growth, and also cultural development.

Political stability was maintained through the, I would say, effective governance of the Toka Shogunet, you know, this carrot and stick strategy and granting autonomy while implementing the hostage system.

So I thought it was quite clever.

The shogunate maintained contact with the rest of the world through the Dutch and the Chinese, albeit in a sort of passive manner.

So that sort of indicated that Edo Japan was still part of the international community, you could say.

But while some may argue that Edo Japan was sort of technologically, culturally and intellectually limited and sort of susceptible to external pressure because of this long period of isolation, you can see the flourishing arts, crafts and technologies during the Edo period and you know they're amazing, so that suggests otherwise.

And personally I'm more drawn to the cultural aspects of the period, you know, like ukiyoe and literature, especially ghost stories.

I recommend that.

You should just read that.

It's great.

And also theatre, you know, these are like still vital components of Japanese culture today.

For example, I don't know whether I can say this, but I'm a huge fan of manga, you know, the comic, Japanese comic.

Do you read this?

I don't know.

I still read a lot of them and spend far too much so a sari on it

because you know whenever I come across references of edoculture which you see a lot it often you know amazes me how how much ero culture still impact Japan today go and read manga

thank you satana for that wonderful lesson thank you really enjoyable listener if after today's episode you want more from Ahir we've got our episodes on the rise of Julius Kaiser and the Indus civilization and for a different East Asian story try our episode on Tang Dynasty China.

That's a medieval story, which I enjoyed very much.

But it's time to just say thank you to our guests in History Corner.

We had the sensational Dr.

Satana Suzuki from SOAS.

Thank you, Satana.

Thank you so much.

I had a great fun.

Yeah, it was real fun.

And in Comedy Corner, we had the always amazing Ahir Shah.

Thank you, Ahir.

Thank you.

And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we restore another topic to its rightful place in history.

But for now, I'm off to go and stage a revival of Shogun the Musical, because every Shogun needs Shogtunes.

Bye!

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