Tokugawa Yoshimune and His Kyoho Reform - Research Paper Example

The major characteristics of the new period were more definitely illustrated than ever before during the Kyoho era, when the general reform initiatives of Tokugawa Yoshimune, the eight shogun, and the difficulties that resulted in to them, took over the scene. The severest of these new difficulties involved the personal finances of the shogunate, which had been unsuccessful in matching national growth. The agricultural production of Japan by the 18th century was approximately 60% more than it had been a hundred years prior; though, on the contrary, the financial status of the central government was dropping annually (Hauser 2010).

In a country teeming with all forms of commercial and agricultural enterprise, the central government was plainly not capable of securing enough for its own. According to Hauser (2010), beginning from 1722, having relieved from the possibility of resistance from the Senior Council and strengthened the economy, Tokugawa Yoshimune focused on financial reform. Tokugawa Yoshimune and his Kyoho Reform Tokugawa Yoshimune was born in 1684 in Wakayama, child of a daimyo of Kii. Yoshimune was assigned daimyo of Sabae han thirteen years after, but after the death of his elder brother in 1705 he was relocated to Kii (Hall 1991).

In 1716, after the demise of Ietsugu, bakufu heads designated Yoshimune his heir, rewarding Edo a ruler knowledgeable in supervising a large area. The newly assigned shogun did not have any connections in the bakufu, yet he was able to slowly appoint his own people in important positions and by the 1720s was firmly in charge (Hall 1991). Particular attributes of his regime were notable. While Tsunayoshi had conformed to rules based on a powerful principle, Yoshimune moved fluidly in reaction to situations; his flexibility is indicative of the political ideology of Ogyu Sorai (Titsingh 1834).

His restructuring started vigilantly, encouraged by problems left by the prior regimes of Tsunayoshi, Ienobu, and Ietsugu, respectively. Nevertheless, since the 1720s the array of reform increased significantly in obvious response to the joint effect of recoinage plans previously in force and a wave of social disorder and crop declines (Hall 1991). That enhanced array, which marked the 1720s the glory days of the Kyoho reform, engaged the bakufu more profoundly into public and political administration than ever before.

Governing the vast, intricate, environmentally limited, and highly monetized civilization of 18th-century Japan was extremely difficult. In 1728, after attaining the zenith of progress, Yoshimune committed a number of years to combating unforgiving agricultural problems, the Kyoho food crisis, and uncontrolled fluctuations of the price of rice that seriously upset samurai way of life (Hall 1991). The difficulties pushed Yoshimune to reevaluate core strategies and in 1736 to enforce a major change in monetary policy.

The change led to a 15-year phase of governmental strength that was attained in spite of, or, more accurately, at the cost of, long-term agricultural failure. The economic troubles of the government was very severe, and a solution had to be determined at once to ease the hardship. The shogunate, in 1722, informed the daimyo about its problems and obliged them to bring in rice to its stockrooms at the pace of ‘one hundred koku for each ten thousand koku of domain assessment’ (Hall 1991, 449)—koku is a Japanese term for ‘