Featherston_tokugawa_economic+and+society+changes

=changes in society in tokugawa period

== right after the civil wars that happened in japan, tokugawa rule emerged in 1603 to 1868. tokugawa established a period know as the great peace in japan to prevent any more civil wars. the tokugawa familys domain was edo (or today known as tokyo) when tokugawa ruled over japan it changed many things in their society and economy. tokugawa enforced laws based off of confucian ideas to form a well ordered society. the laws mostly affected these four classes of people in the tokugawa society which was the samurai class, the merchant class, the farmer class, and artisans.

the samurai class was greatly affected during the society changes that have accured during the tokugawa rule. the reason why the samurai class changed was because they were no longer needed during the time of the great peace that tokugawa established to prevent any more civil wars from hapening in japan. so when the great peace was established the samurai class had no one to fight. so samurais couldent get payed in rice so they couldent sell it as much and the demand for rice got more intense! so as a result the samurai class got very poor and they had to borrow money from the merchant class which put the samurais in debt economically.

the merchant class got more rich during the tokugawa period because of the growing development and ubanization of the society made the merchants had more items to sell. the merchants were at the bottom of the social class in the beginig of the tokugawa period then began to rise. the samurais who were some what at the top of the class had to trade there payments of rice to the merchants for cash. the samurais were in debt to the merchants so that they could keep there upper class living styles. the merchants became very rich and powerful by selling the products that consumers and people desired. so the merchants could now live the upper class life with all of the money they got from the tokugawa periods uban rising!

the artisans were another class in the tokugawa society that became rich too. the artisans became famous because of there wood block paintings and other arts that they made in the tokugawa society. their woodblock paintings became popular to sell to travelers and other societys in japan. the wood block paintings that the artisans made of landscapes and major citys in japan sold to people for only as much as two dollars. these wood block paintings of the citys served as a post card in its time, or more of art collection to some people. so the artisans got more famous also by not from there wood block paintings but from there building designs.

the farmers became very wealthy as well in there social class. the reason why that they became very rich in there social class was that framing techniques became more advanced for them and they also had more land to grow crops. thier farming techniques improved because the farmers had more time to experiment with there crops and had time to do it because of the great peace that tokugawa established. the farmers also got more land to farm in because the land was conquerd from the other daimyos from the other parts in japan. so as a result the farmers got more land to farm and farming goods were also required because of the rapid growing urban sociey.

the great peace was the reason for all of these great and sad changes in the japanese society. the great peace was the one reason for all of the great rises of the social class. the great peace mostly hurt the samurai class because the samurai had no one to fight so it brought down there income of rice to trade with people. the tokugawa daimyo made other daimyos move around japan so that they could keep paying to support houses and other types of needs that they needed to support there familys. anothere reason why the tokugawa daimyo made them move was so that they couldnot gain any power to over throw the shogun and start another civil war.