sankin-kotai
Feudal attendance system
Sankin-kotai was a policy in Tokugawa Japan requiring feudal lords (daimyo) to spend alternating years in the capital city of Edo, leaving their families as permanent hostages.
The system kept lords financially drained by the expense of maintaining two households and traveling with large retinues, preventing them from amassing resources to challenge the shogunate.
It remained in effect from 1635 until the fall of the Tokugawa in 1868.
- leviesMandatory governmental charges
- shogunateMilitary dictatorship in Japan
- itinerancyHabitual movement between places
- centralizationUnifying control in one place
- castle townsSettlements surrounding fortresses
tribute · vassalage · expense · hostage · alternating · infrastructure costs · trade routes · wife · taxation · domicile · retinue · inn · bureaucracy · palanquin · feudal · sovereignty · loyalty · submission
- Edo Japanshogun, shogunate, daimyo, Tokugawa, sakoku
- Shogunate Japanshogun, shogunate, daimyo, Tokugawa, bushido
- Edo roadscheckpoints, Kyoto, Shinjuku, mountain passes, ferry crossings
- Shogunateshogun, shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Tokugawa, military rule