Catesby and Percy had escaped the executioner,…

...then to Edo for a formal audience with Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, and ...

The Tokugawa not only consolidate their control over a reunified Japan, they also have unprecedented power over the emperor, the court, all daimyo, and the religious orders.

The emperor is held up as the ultimate source of political sanction for the shogun, who ostensibly is the vassal of the imperial family.

The Tokugawa helps the imperial family recapture its old glory by rebuilding its palaces and granting it new lands.

To ensure a close tie between the imperial clan and the Tokugawa family, Ieyasu's granddaughter is made an imperial consort in 1619.

Like Hideyoshi, Ieyasu encourages foreign trade but also is suspicious of outsiders.

He wants to make Edo a major port, but once he learns that the Europeans favor ports in Kyushu and that China has rejected his plans for official trade, he moves to control existing trade and allows only certain ports to handle specific kinds of commodities.

A code of laws is established to regulate the daimyo houses.

The code encompasses private conduct, marriage, dress, and types of weapons and numbers of troops allowed; requires alternate-year residence at Edo; prohibits the construction of ocean-going ships; proscribes Christianity; and stipulates that bakufu regulations are the national law.

Although the daimyo are not taxed per se, they are regularly levied for contributions for military and logistical support and such public works projects as castles, roads, bridges, and palaces.

The various regulations and levies not only strengthened the Tokugawa but depletes the wealth of the daimyo, thus weakening their threat to the central administration.

The han, once military-centered domains, become mere local administrative units.

The daimyo does have full administrative control over their territory and complex systems of retainers, bureaucrats, and commoners.

Loyalty is exacted from religious foundations, already greatly weakened by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, through a variety of control mechanisms.

The "Christian problem" is, in effect, a problem in control- ling both the Christian daimyo in Kyushu and trade with the Europeans.

By 1612 the shogun's retainers and residents of Tokugawa lands have been ordered to foreswear Christianity.

More restrictions come in 1616 (the restriction of foreign trade to Nagasaki and Hirado, an island northwest of Kyushu), 1622 (the execution of one hundred and twenty missionaries and converts), 1624 (the expulsion of the Spanish), and 1629 (the execution of thousands of Christians).

Finally, in 1635, an edict prohibits any Japanese from traveling outside Japan or, if someone leaves, from ever returning.

In 1636 the Portuguese are restricted to Deshima, a man-made islet—and thus, not true Japanese soil—in Nagasaki's harbor.

The Tokugawa Shogunate expels all Spanish traders from Japan in 1624 and ends trade with the Philippines.

Yamada Nagamasa visits Japan in 1629 with an embassy from the Thai king Songtham.

Iemitsu had been able to assume real power with the death of Hidetada in 1632.

Worried that his brother Tokugawa Tadanaga might assassinate him, however, he has ruled carefully until that brother's death by seppuku in 1633.

Hidetada had left his advisors, all veteran daimyo, to act as regents for Iemitsu.

He dismisses these men after his brother's death in 1633.

In place of his father's advisors, Iemitsu appoints his childhood friends, creating a strong, centralized administration with their help, Iemitsu.

This makes him unpopular with many daimyo, but Iemitsu simply removes his opponents.

Chen Hongshou, a native of Zhuji, ZheJiang province, had once trained under Lan Ying, and is skilled in painting peculiar human figures, landscapes, flower-and-bird.

He utilizes plump, profound brushwork and precise color, creating a unique style.

His two masterpieces,"Shui Hu Ye Zi" and "Bo Gu Ye Zi", are the rare examples among the Ming and the Qing dynasties.

Together with Cui Zizhong, who specializes in human figure painting, he is very famous at this time: the two painters are known colloquially as "Chen in South and Cui in North".

He also is skilled in calligraphy, poetry and prose.

The Tokugawa Shogunate in 1635 forbids merchants to travel abroad under penalty of death.

A Japanese imperial memorandum from this year decrees: "Hereafter entry by the Portuguese galeota is forbidden.

If they insist on coming, the ships must be destroyed and anyone aboard those ships must be beheaded."