| When Hidetada
abdicated later in 1612, his nineteen-year-old son became the third Tokugawa
shogun
(1623-1651). Iemitsu devoted all his time to the study and perfecting
of government methods introduced by Ieyasu.
In 1621 fire leveled all of Edo (old Tokyo), including structures in the castle compound. Within two years fortress-like city mansions were being built and more tideland area was being reclaimed. Iemitsu achieved dual influence in 1630 when his seven year-old niece became Empress Myosho in Kyoto. Five years later his Sankin-kodai law decreed that all 270 daimyo (lit., "Great Name") or feudal lords build mansions in Edo, leave their families there at all times (well attended to by close to 80,000 retainers and servants), and the daimyo themselves spend every other year in Edo in attendance at the shogun's court. (Perhaps Iemitsu took a hint from China's Qin Huang Di, who eighteen centuries earlier had similarly decreed his nobles to stay nearby.) Another great burst of building took place in Edo. The Tokaido highway was the great road which connected Kyoto and Edo. The daimyo's processions were elaborate and very expensive affairs with a large number of retainers in attendance keeping the highway congested. Some of the daimyo, impressed with the landscapes travelled through and nearby on their way to their Edo residences and back every other year, contracted to have these scenes reduced in scale and reproduced along the pathways of their gardens in Edo and/or in their administrative jurisdictions. (Perhaps they also used these "maps" to update family members upon the daimyo's return to Edo.) As the Edo period progressed, the building of artificial miniature mountains, copies of actual mountains such as Mt. Fuji, became popular. Iemitsu closed Japan entirely to most foreign commercial transactions, permitting only limited numbers of Dutch and Chinese, the former because they were not Catholics. In 1641 the Dutch were assigned to the six hundred by two hundred and forty foot heavily guarded island of Deshima. The hardships of virtual imprisonment by the severe and strict government of Nagasaki and avoidance of all outward signs of Christianity were felt to be a small price for the continued Japanese trade. Deshima was a three-acre fan-shaped artificial island in Nagasaki harbor built in 1635 and connected only by a bridge to the city. The Dutch, who had uncovered evidence of a traitorous plot by the Portuguese, were installed as the sole European exception. On the island was a street of two-storey buildings whose bottom levels were for warehousing and upper levels for the living quarters. There were over a hundred Interpreters assigned to Deshima, so that it would be unnecessary for the Dutch to learn Japanese, and by this means the Dutch could be kept ignorant of local conditions, commerce, history, and so forth. Any Dutchman who showed progress in learning the language would, under some pretext or other, be put on board the next outbound ship. In the best years there were perhaps seven trading ships annually dropping anchor at Nagasaki, and each was searched upon arrival and before departure. The Japanese officers were solemnly bound neither to talk to the Europeans except as trade required, nor to make any disclosures regarding domestic affairs of Japan, its religion, or its politics. These stringent regulations were somewhat relaxed in such matters as the Dutch language, astronomy, natural history, and medicine, especially if orders came from high official circles to make specific enquiries of the Western Barbarians. Three Chinese temples with monks were founded in Nagasaki after the Catholics were expelled. In the seventeenth century, monks of Japanese Zen Buddhist temples visited China and brought back paintings -- including some actual Chinese literati ones -- and many books. Some of these monks even painted in Chinese-derived styles. Also, a few relatively minor Chinese painters visited Japan during this time -- were they allowed past Nagasaki? Japan cut back trade with China when it was discovered that the Jesuits were favorably treated at the Chinese Court, by whom the missionaries had liberty granted them to preach and propagate the Gospels through all the vast dominions. 1 Iemitsu, the fiercely nationalistic
third Tokugawa shogun was -- possibly surprisingly -- an enthusiast
of hachi-no-ki,
horticulture in general, painting, and the tea ceremony. He planted
seedling trees in tiny pots, lined up the trees on shelves he had set up
in the flower garden of his castle, and toyed with their well-ordered,
delicate leaves.
During the twentieth century
Pacific War, the shortage of fertilizers and even of water affected the
Imperial Palace's Collection, as well as those almost everywhere else.
Some trees outside of that Collection perished, and many others inside
and outside were almost killed off.
"Although the center of [this famous tree's] trunk is now totally hollow, it has been carefully nurtured for generations, and gazing at its gnarled form today, a sense of awe is felt at the forceful destiny that has allowed such a small piece of life to survive for so many centuries." 3 There is also the story that a samurai's gardener killed himself when his master insulted a hachi-no-ki of which the artisan was especially proud. 4 (Tradition holds that Iemitsu planted a certain gingko tree on the grounds of the Toshio-gu Shinto shrine in Shiba Park, south of the Imperial Palace. The large landscape tree was still standing in 1941.) 5 |
