The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan

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LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY 105

Toyotomi administration did issue in 1588 the gold coins known as

tensho

oban,

as well as some silver coins, but these were not intended

for practical, everyday use on a mass scale. Nor did the Muromachi

shogunate or the Sengoku daimyo enjoy any success with the ordi-

nances known as

erizeni-rei,

which were issued during the sixteenth

century in an effort to cope with the problems caused by the circula-

tion of coins of differing purities. It was impossible to use the

kandaka

system on a countrywide scale as long as these kinds of difficulties

with coinage continued to exist. On the other hand, rice was a staple of

the Japanese people and was grown nearly everywhere. Rice had other

advantages as well: It was a commercial product that could be readily

converted into cash, and it could easily be stored. Consequently, the

Toyotomi administration adopted the

kokudaka

system, with dues cal-

culated and paid in rice.

In one sense, the rice collected under the kokudaka system was

essentially a land rent paid in produce. The daimyo proprietary lords

could use this rice both for their own consumption needs and as

military provisions. Rice was also a major commercial product, and

the daimyo could expect to sell a certain portion of their tax receipts on

the open market. The fact that Hideyoshi kept records on the market

value - expressed in denominations of gold and silver coins - of the

rice he collected from his own direct holdings shows that he clearly

recognized the commercial value of this crop.

By collecting the land

tax in rice, the daimyo were able to control a very important commer-

cial product and thereby dominate the markets through its sale. On

the other hand, the peasants were now being systematically cut off

from the most easily marketed product that they themselves grew, and

thus they could not improve their living standards by selling their own

surpluses commercially.

The taka, or assessment figure in the registration documents, ex-

pressed the normative production of rice on a plot of land, a theoretical

figure based on the area, type, and quality of the plot.

Some histori-

ans believe that this figure reflected fairly accurately the actual yield,

but, in fact, the two were often very different. Whereas the taka was

14 The market price for a koku of rice in both gold and silver is recorded in the "Toyotomi-ke

kuramai san'yojo." From this we know that the price of rice in Tsuruga and Akita was ten ryo

of gold for 240 koku of rice, whereas in Kyoto j ust 30

koku

of rice cost that much. This price

differential was due to political intervention. Several copies of this document exist. See my

Kinsei

hoken

shakai no keizai kozo (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 1963), pp. 23-36.

15 Having classified the land as paddy, dry field, and house lot, it was customary, if a "superior"-

grade paddy had a theoretical yield of 1.5 koku (per tan), to assign a computed yield of 1.2

koku (per tan) to the dry fields and house lots.

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106 CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION

calculated with reference to the productive capacity and yield, it was

also set in accordance with the historical background of each region

and with the character of the proprietor and his fiscal requirements.'

To arrive at an assessment figure, survey teams inspected fields and

assigned a grade of superior, average, or poor to each plot according to

the overall conditions within the village, the type of grain (rice or some

specialty crop) that was being grown, and the location of the field and

village in respect to transportation routes. Finally, the entire range of

cultivated lands within a village was assigned a quality rating of supe-

rior, average, or poor, and this too played a part in calculating the

computed yield of each individual plot.

The annual tax demand on a village was calculated as a percentage

of the total assessments for all land within that village. As a general

rule,

when setting the tax rate, the Toyotomi administration would

select a sample set of

villages,

inspect the actual productive output of

the fields in those villages, and then declare a local tax that would

amount to approximately two-thirds of the anticipated yield. Of

course, the actual harvest in any given year might vary considerably

from the assessment figure listed in the cadastral record. But inspec-

tion teams could not possibly visit each village every year to ascertain

any discrepancy. Thus adjustments could be made by referring to the

annual inspection of the sample set of villages.

This method of tax assessment differed significantly from the prac-

tices of the medieval period. Most importantly, it permitted the propri-

etary lords to set the rate each year after taking into account the actual

harvest conditions. This could work to the advantage of either the

cultivator or the proprietor. The Toyotomi administration generally

set the land tax at two-thirds of the actual yield, which left only one-

third in the hands of the peasants. This was a much larger proportion

of the farmer's income than generally had been collected during the

medieval period. Within a

shoen,

tax rates had tended to be perma-

nently fixed, and thus the surpluses resulting from any increases in

productivity stayed in the countryside. The new system imposed by

the Toyotomi regime ended this and permitted the overlords to lay

claim to any surplus production. By Hideyoshi's time, the samurai

16 Nakamura, Bakuhan laisei ton; Matsushita Shiro, Bakuhansei shakai to kokudakasei (Tokyo:

Hanawa shobo, 1984); and Omori Eiko, "Daimyo kaieki to bakuhan kankei," in the 1978

special edition of Rekukigaku kenkyu entitled Sekaishi ninshiki ni okeru minzoku to kokka.

(Tokyo: Aoki shoten, November 1978).

17 Previously, historians believed that the takamori was the yield of all village fields, that the

nengu

rate was calculated after a land survey, and that this rate was applied to the takamori

recorded on the survey register.

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LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY 107

government apparently felt that farmers could survive on this lesser

amount, and several notorious sayings became current, such as "farm-

ers should be taxed at a rate that keeps them suspended between life

and death," an apt expression of the essential character of

daimyo

rule

during the early modern period.

But certain other conditions, it must be noted, acted to reduce the

actual amount of taxes extracted from the villages. The

kokudaka

sys-

tem made levies in terms of

rice,

which meant that when commercial

crops such as cotton started to be cultivated on a wide scale from the

middle of the seventeenth century, it was difficult to incorporate this

activity into the

kokudaka

system. During the Tokugawa period, peas-

ant protests and

variety of other factors

also

prompted many daimyo to

reduce the imposts on their holdings. For example, the actual rate paid

by households that grew cotton in the economically advanced area

around Osaka in the middle of the seventeenth century had fallen to

about 10 percent of the average household's total income. Historians

now believe that, on the average, daimyo collected only about 30 per-

cent of the crop in most

areas,

although, occasionally

tax

rate as

high

80 percent of the base assessment was demanded in some domains. In

other

words,

over the course of the early modern period the assessment

figure became increasingly arbitrary, serving only as a base figure on

which the actual tax demand would be negotiated.

The Taiko survey defined not only the proprietor's claims to the

produce of the land but also strengthened the farmer's rights to more

secure possession of the land. As Hideyoshi's magistrate Ishida

Mitsunari (1560-1600) noted, those peasants whose names were re-

corded next to plots on the survey register were recognized as having

claims of possession to those parcels. These procedures have given rise

to problems of historical interpretation. One important question

how

to understand the fact that only one name appears on the survey docu-

ments for each plot of land. In the medieval period several different

persons - the landlord, or the man in whose name the field was regis-

tered

(myoshyu),

the peasant

(hyakusho),

and the cultivator

(sakunin)

each claimed certain specified rights over

given parcel of land. It

not

clear which of these various levels of possession was recognized in the

Taiko survey. Nonetheless, it is certain that the person recorded on the

Taiko survey register was legally assumed to be of peasant status

{hyakusho

mibun).

In other words, even if that person had once claimed

the prerogatives of a local proprietor and had been a member of the

bushi class, he now was assumed to be the cultivator and so was held

responsible for the dues assessed on his holdings.

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108 CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION

There still exist uncertainties regarding the social composition of

the village community that resulted from the enforcement of the Taiko

survey. It is doubtful that Hideyoshi and the daimyo were attempting

to create a single, undifferentiated society of peasants, for even after

the survey, there obviously remained a stratum of wealthy and influen-

tial farmers, just as there were landless peasants and other villagers

who were heavily dependent on the registered cultivators. In fact, two

types of dependent persons resided in the villages. One category lived

as slavelike members of

large

patriarchal families, and in a legal sense,

these persons remained unfree even after the cadastral survey was

enforced. The other group, however, bore names and were recorded

on survey documents as peasants, although they were still considered

to be dependent on landowning patrons

(oyakata)

in the village. De-

pendent cultivators of this type, generally referred to as hikan when

listed on the cadastral register, possessed formally recognized rights as

peasants while still being classified as dependents of

patron to whom

they owed service. Their inclusion in survey documents meant only

that they had become "taxable registrants,"

(naukebyakusho),

but not

full-fledged landholding farmers. In this sense, the cadastral surveys

did not constitute a systematic attempt to fashion a coherent policy

that would create a single class of small, independent cultivators.

Viewed in this light, the purpose of Toyotomi policy concerning land

relationships in local areas

was

to respect superior proprietary rights to

the land while at the same time assigning more secure rights of

posses-

sion to the peasantry.

Because the cadastral survey called into question all land claims and

even jeopardized the rights of some persons, resistance to the survey

could be strong. In Omi and Yamashiro provinces, it is recorded that

"more than half the peasants fled."

Villagers erupted in violence in a

famous incident in Higo, and in 1590 in Dewa, in the north of Japan,

whole villages rose up in widespread revolt and killed the survey

officials. Not unexpectedly, the survey teams often negotiated a com-

promise with local leaders. In some instances, officials exempted cer-

tain paddies from the survey and declared that such parcels would not

be subject to the annual levy. In some other places, house plots were

18 One contradictory example comes from documents concerning the survey on Omi Province

in 1590, which appears to have recognized the land possession rights of this kind of depen-

dent personnel. Miyakawa Mitsuru also claimed that the lower peasants were made indepen-

dent by the Taiko land survey, but he was generalizing from only a few, isolated examples.

Miyakawa, Taiko kenchi ron, vol. 2.

19 From a document in the "Katagiri monjo," as cited in Miyakawa, Taiko

kenchi

ron,

vol. 3, p.

388.

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LAND SURVEYS AND THE EARLY MODERN PEASANTRY IOQ

not included in the land-tax base, and the peasants were also granted

exemptions from corvee levies. Yet Hideyoshi could also be ruthless.

He wanted to send the survey teams everywhere, even to "the deepest

recesses of the mountains and as far to the sea as men might row"

iyama

wa oku, umi wa

rokai

tsuzuki soro

made).

In 1584 Hideyoshi

threatened to crucify peasants who hid fields, and in 1590 he angrily

instructed Asano Nagamasa (1547-1611) - the person responsible for

conducting the survey in Dewa - to put entire villages to the sword if

they joined the revolt in that region, a threat made partially good by

the forces of Uesugi Kagekatsu (1555-1623), who moved in troops to

support Asano.

Because of the difficulty of making informed judgments concerning

land rights in the confusion of almost constant warfare, survey inspec-

tors commonly awarded the rights of possession to those peasants who

had paid the land tax in previous years and to those who were actually

tilling the fields at the time of the survey. These rights of possession

became increasingly strong and secure under the Edo shogunate. Both

shogun and daimyo added regulations governing the division and sale

of land, the best known being the shogunate's "prohibition against the

permanent alienation of land" in 1643 and the decree limiting the

division of land in 1673. The first of these was nearly unenforceable

from the start, however, and was relaxed in 1695 before being totally

abandoned in 1723. The same problems with enforcement occurred

when governments placed restrictions on the cultivation of certain

kinds of commercial crops, and the restraints against growing tobacco

that were issued at the end of the seventeenth century were the last

major limitations of this sort. Similarly, although formal restrictions

were placed on the use and conveyance of land, in fact as long as a

farmer continued to pay the annual imposts and did not commit any

crimes, his rights of possession were secure, and he could generally

buy, sell, and will land.

The requirements of the kokudaka system greatly influenced the

economic development of the village community in the years after the

Taiko survey. Because of the greater importance assigned to rice, its

cultivation spread even into the most remote reaches of the northern

Tohoku region. Moreover, because even dry fields and house plots

were assigned a theoretical output expressed in units of rice when

computing the tax base, the actual percentage of the rice crop collected

was greater than the simple tax rate would indicate. Consequently,

peasants were obliged to cultivate rice more intensively than they

might otherwise have chosen. As mentioned, the collection of the

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110 CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION

annual tax in rice acted to limit the peasants' participation in the

commercial economy. But this limitation was not absolute. As Nakai

and McClain point out in Chapter 11 in this volume, the daimyo often

vigorously promoted a commercialized economy within their domains.

Thus the development of commercial products was to some extent

inevitable, and in the latter half of the seventeenth century, peasants

around the Osaka area began to grow cotton on their fields and actu-

ally had to buy rice on the open market in order to pay their land-tax

obligations.

In turn, the spread of the commercial economy influenced the way

in which farm families organized their labor. The most common type

of farm household contained members of the direct family line, and

these families typically owned about two and a half

acres

of land (one

cho),

an amount that they could farm with family labor. The second

major type of farm unit was managed by wealthier farmers who used

bound servants and other dependent personnel as tenants

(kosaku),

order to cultivate some of the land. During the latter half of the

seventeenth century, these bound personnel disappeared, to be re-

placed as the chief form of farm labor by contract servants (nenki-

hdkdniri)

and day laborers

(hiyatoi).

The dependent tenants

(hikan)

also

gradually acquired independence, and many of them migrated to ur-

ban centers. Ultimately, the style of small-scale management that re-

lied on family labor became the principal mode of production. This

made for a labor-intensive style of agricultural management, one that

also led to the increased cultivation of crops for sale to urban markets.

COMMERCE AND THE EARLY MODERN CITIES

Commerce and urban centers grew together during the sixteenth cen-

tury. At this time Kyoto was still Japan's most important political city,

as well as a center of a superlative tradition of craft and artisan produc-

tion. Strung out like satellites around Kyoto were smaller commercial

towns such as Sakai, Oyamazaki, Tennoji, and Hiranogo. Taken to-

gether these cities constituted what might be termed a capital market-

ing area. Here could be found the commerce and craft production that

formed the heart of the national economy. Merchants in these cities

also engaged in foreign trade with China and Korea. Such activities

made Kyoto into Japan's most important node of trade and commerce

in the Sengoku period.

Outside this central area, the countryside was dotted with communi-

ties that hosted periodic markets

(rokusai-ichi).

These markets were

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COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES III

most often found in embryonic castle towns or commercial areas

around branch castles such as Yamaguchi, Odawara, and Sumpu

(Shizuoka), but even settlements such as Hakata and Nagasaki became

sites for periodic markets. Wherever located, the markets stimulated

the development of a commodity trade that then began to penetrate

the peasant village economy. The periodic markets were also con-

nected with the central markets around

Kyoto.

The outlying communi-

ties sent their specialty products to the capital marketing area and, in

turn, bought up manufactured products such as armor and textiles.

One consequence of this development was the emergence of what

many historians refer to as urban self-government in such commer-

cially based towns as Sakai and Oyamazaki. Many of these towns

owned their economic existence to their place in the Kyoto-centered

marketing structure. Oyamazaki, for instance, was located on the bor-

der between Yamashiro and Settsu provinces, a strategically important

point, and from the tenth century many different powers contested for

control over this area so that they could construct warehouses and

other commercial facilities there. Because there were

many contend-

ers for proprietary control and because proprietary rights in the area

were so confused, no single outside lord or institution could achieve

undisputed control of Oyamazaki. Consequently, several local, influen-

tial persons - who also nominally served as priests of Iwashimizu

Hachiman Shrine - carried out their administrative functions on a

self-governing basis. Their economic base was the processing and sale

of lamp and cooking oil, and they had the right to buy raw materials

and to sell the refined oil in Kyoto.

Many

jinaimachi,

or temple towns, also enjoyed the prerogatives of

self-government. In communities that were considered to lie within

the precincts of temples associated with the True Pure Land and

Nichiren sects, the ultimate political authority remained with the tem-

ple administrators, as was the case with Ishiyama Honganji and Imai

in Yamato. This contrasts with the patterns in other temple towns,

such as Tondabayashi, Daigazuka, and Kaizuka, where the residents

themselves exercised political authority. In the last case, temples of the

True Pure Land sect were the proprietors of record, but in reality local

men of influence, usually referred to as elders

(toshiyori)

carried out all

administrative functions. The sphere of self-administration included

the rights to arrest criminals and adjudicate crimes, to verify the cover-

age of debt cancellation edicts, and to negotiate contracts for rents and

taxes levied on the town as a whole. Private possession of land was also

recognized, and the towns maintained their own defenses. Of special

112 CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION

interest are the records showing that towns like Sakai, Amagasaki, and

Tsukaguchi were given guarantees of neutrality by military command-

ers,

even in times of warfare. Despite its overwhelming importance as

a commercial and shipping center, for instance, Sakai was not attacked

by opposing forces, and peace was guaranteed by all sides.

This medieval proprietary order underwent a basic transformation

at the start of the early modern period. But the changes came slowly.

The Oda regime sponsored many policies that were essentially similar

to those of the Sengoku daimyo, assuming

cautious, prudent attitude

toward the religious and aristocratic establishment in Kyoto. How-

ever, in his home territories of Owari and Mino, Nobunaga adopted

more innovative policies, one designed to enhance his domination of

cities.

For example, as part of

attempt to assert greater control over

trade and commerce within his holdings in the provinces of Owari and

Mino,

Nobunaga appointed Ito Sojuro to the post of

shonin

tsukasa,

position entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing commercial

activity,. In the castle towns of Kano (present-day Gifu) and Azuchi,

Nobunaga pursued a similar goal of encouraging economic activity and

concentrating it in the urban centers by granting special privileges to

castle town merchants and by requiring merchants and artisans to live

together in specified areas according to occupation. Furthermore,

Nobunaga ordered the abolition of toll barriers

(sekisho)

in order to

promote commerce. His "free market" declaration

(rakuichi-rei)

issued

for Kano, together with limited exemptions from land taxes and

corvee levies, provided incentives for merchants and artisans to move

there and set up business establishments. In order to build up his new

headquarters at Azuchi, Nobunaga announced many special policies:

The town was declared an open, free market, and existing monopolis-

tic guilds were prohibited; merchants in the castle town were declared

exempt from debt moratorium edicts, house taxes, and corvee levies;

outside merchants traveling along the Nakasendo highway were re-

quired to stop in Azuchi and conduct some business; and merchants in

the castle town were granted exclusive monopolies on buying and

selling horses within the Oda domain. Nobunaga granted these special

privileges to the merchants in his castle towns because, as their over-

lord, he expected to receive

percentage of the proceeds generated by

their commercial activities. Moreover, Nobunaga was particularly in-

terested in attracting to Omi those merchants and artisans who were

involved in the construction trades or who were otherwise important

from a military point of view, such as swordsmiths, tatami makers,

sawyers, stonecutters, and carpenters. Nobunaga tapped their talents

COMMERCE AND EARLY MODERN CITIES 113

by imposing on them a kuniyaku, a corvee levied for domain-related

construction projects, while exempting them from other kinds of

corvee imposts.

In Kinai and the capital environs, however, Nobunaga was unable

to implement to the same degree the policies he had adopted in his

home provinces. The chief obstacle was his inability to do away with

the special rights and interests of the aristocrats and historically power-

ful religious institutions. For instance, in Kyoto these groups were

continuing to assert their proprietary claims to land and to exercise

local policing and judicial rights. Thus Nobunaga

was

obliged to recog-

nize the special status of the merchants in self-administered cities like

Sakai and Hiranogo, which had come under the patronage of privi-

leged nobles and temples in Kyoto. During attacks on the Ishiyama

Honganji, Nobunaga received aid from the Nichiren sect, a return on

his promise to approve construction of

new temple town at Choenji

in Amagasaki. He even went so far as to guarantee the town's immu-

nity from military attack. Later, Araki Murashige, military governor

of Settsu Province and a direct retainer of Oda Nobunaga, conferred

on the new town the right to investigate and prosecute criminals, a

significant grant of self-governing powers.

The same kind of limitations on Nobunaga's powers can be seen in

his dealings with the rights and interests of medieval merchant organi-

zations. Even after Nobunaga entered Kyoto and gained military con-

trol of the Kinai region, the activities of the guild (za) organizations

remained undiminished. These organizations were accustomed to pay-

ing a kind of licensing fee to aristocratic establishments and religious

organizations in exchange for patronage and protection. Nobunaga did

not touch these. Rather, he reconfirmed the status quo arrangements,

as is evident in his actions toward the Tatebe oil guild. Interestingly

enough, no documents yield conclusive evidence to show that Nobu-

naga destroyed the rights of that guild, although there are several

extant documents in which he affirmed the rights of closed merchant

associations.

These include the acknowledgment to a group at Katata

port in Omi of its right to oversee shipping on Lake Biwa and to assess

port taxes, as well as the confirmation of the rights of an organization

in Echizen that specialized in textiles and another in Sakai that traded

20 The only document stating that Nobunaga abolished the oil guild is the "Rikyu Hachimangu

monjo" of Oyamazaki. And although we know of a decree from the shogun Ashikaga

Yoshiaki that granted rights to the oil guild, there is no document that abolished those

privileges. "Rikyu Hachimangu monjo," no. 313 in Oyamazaki-machi choshi hensan iinkai,

ed.,

Oyamazaki

choshi,

shityohen

(Kyoto: Oyamazaki-machi, 1981), p. 723.

114 CONSEQUENCES OF UNIFICATION

in horses. Nobunaga recognized and guaranteed the historic rights of

these closed associations and, except for castle towns, did not attempt

to impose a "free markets, free guilds" policy.

Nobunaga's recognition of the ancient rights of these guilds was a

compromise. Althought some historians have argued that his policies

masked a deeper intent to eventually abolish the guilds, it is more

plausible that he permitted guilds to continue to function because he

could meet his own supply and trade requirements by relying on these

existing merchant organizations. Because the guilds were able to ship

goods long distances, even through areas controlled by his enemies, it

made sense for Nobunaga to co-opt for his official needs those guilds

and transportation associations

(nakatna)

that specialized in the long-

distance transportation of goods such as the Katata group, the

Kashosen group on the Yodo River, and the Shashaku group in Toba.

Controversy surrounds Nobunaga's policies toward transport barri-

ers.

In medieval Japan, proprietors in most regions established toll

barriers, or checkpoints, called

sekisho,

where they collected fees on

goods transported through those areas. In the tenth month of 1568,

Oda Nobunaga, claiming that he represented public authority

(tenka)

and that he was acting in the best interests of

all

the people, abolished

the toll barriers within his holdings, which at that time officially in-

cluded just the two provinces of Owari and Mino, although informa-

tion contained in documents in the "Shincho koki" show his intention

to extend the measure into the southeastern portions of Omi and the

Kinai as well.

Moreover, he also abolished toll barriers in territories

that he occupied later, such as Ise and Echizen, thus advancing a

policy of encouraging unrestricted trade.

However, Nobunaga's toll barrier policy did not proceed beyond

certain self-imposed limitations. He did not, for example, abolish the

imperial checkpoints at the seven entrances to

Kyoto.

Rather, he recon-

firmed them after his grand entrance into the city. He also confirmed

similar rights on behalf of the Muromachi shogun. Even as late as

1582,

the year of Nobunaga's death, tolls were still being collected on

the shogunate's behalf under the direction of the Yamashina family,

the officials in charge. The transitional and somewhat ambivalent na-

ture of Nobunaga's policy is further reflected in his handling of mer-

chant transport associations. The four famous merchant houses of

Omi, under his patronage, retained the exclusive right to ship goods

along the two routes that lead from Omi through Happu and Chigusa

21 See the "Nobunaga koki," ms copy, Oyamazaki Toshokan.