History - Early Modern Japan: Azuchi–Momoyama and Edo
What this domain tests
How the unifiers built a governed state - land survey, status separation and controlled foreign relations - and how the Edo economy and culture shifted from Genroku to Kasei.
Unification
Oda Nobunaga promoted free markets and abolished guild monopolies. Toyotomi Hideyoshi carried out the Taikō land survey, measuring output in koku, ordered the sword hunt in 1588 and separated warriors from farmers, freezing society into warrior, farmer, artisan and merchant. The 1600 battle of Sekigahara led to the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603.
Tokugawa control
Rules on warriors limited castle building and marriage alliances, and alternate attendance, formalised in 1635, kept daimyō families in Edo in alternate years. National isolation followed the 1639 expulsion of the Portuguese, but four gateways stayed open: Nagasaki for Dutch and Chinese trade, Tsushima for Korea, Satsuma for the Ryūkyū kingdom and Matsumae for the Ainu.
Economy and society
Villages governed themselves; headmen paid tribute in rice. New-field development raised output, cash crops spread, Osaka became the marketing centre, and licensed guilds regulated trade. Famines and heavy tribute produced uprisings and urban riots.
Culture and reform
Genroku culture produced Chikamatsu and Saikaku; Kasei culture produced Hokusai, Hiroshige and Bakin. National learning, represented by Motoori Norinaga, and Western learning, marked by the 1774 anatomical translation, both grew. The three great reforms are Kyōhō under Yoshimune, Kansei under Matsudaira Sadanobu and Tenpō under Mizuno Tadakuni.
Worked example
"Why did alternate attendance weaken the daimyō?" Reasoning: maintaining two residences, financing processions and spending in Edo drained domain finances, cutting the capacity to rebel - while the same spending stimulated Edo's economy and the five highways.
Traps
Dating the closure of the country to 1639 alone; swapping the Kansei and Tenpō reforms; and placing Genroku culture in the nineteenth century.