Konrad Witz paints his most important work,…

Japan's feudal hierarchy is completed by the various classes of daimyo.

Closest to the Tokugawa house are the shinpan or "related houses."

They are twenty-three daimyo on the borders of Tokugawa lands, daimyo all directly related to Ieyasu.

The shinpan hold mostly honorary titles and advisory posts in the bakufu.

The second class of the hierarchy were the fudai, or "house daimyo" rewarded with lands close to the Tokugawa holdings for their faithful service.

By the eighteenth century, one hundred and forty-five fudai control such smaller han, the greatest assessed at two hundred and fifty thousand koku.

Members of the fudai class staff most of the major bakufu offices.

Ninety-seven han form the third group, the tozama (outside vassals), former opponents or new allies.

The tozama are located mostly on the peripheries of the archipelago and collectively control nearly ten million koku of productive land.

Because the tozama are the least trusted of the daimyo, they are the most cautiously managed and generously treated, although they are excluded from central government positions.

An evolution had taken place in the centuries from the time of the Kamakura bakufu, which exists in equilibrium with the imperial court, to the Tokugawa, when the bushi becomes the unchallenged rulers in what historian Edwin O. Reischauer has called a ''centralized feudal" form of government.

Instrumental in the rise of the new bakufu is Tokugawa Ieyasu, the main beneficiary of the achievements of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi.

Already powerful, Ieyasu profits by his transfer to the rich Kanto area.

He maintains two and a half million koku of land, has a new headquarters at Edo, a strategically situated castle town (the future Tokyo), and has an additional two million koku of land and thirty-eight vassals under his control.

After Hideyoshi 's death, Ieyasu moves quickly to seize control from the Toyotomi family.

The Tokugawa (or Edo) period brings two hundred years of stability to Japan.

The political system evolves into what historians call bakuhan, a combination of the terms bakufu and han (domains) to describe the government and society of the period.

In the bakuhan, the shogun has national authority and the daimyo have regional authority, a new unity in the feudal structure, which has an increasingly large bureaucracy to administer the mixture of centralized and decentralized authorities.

The Tokugawa becomes more powerful during their first century of rule: land redistribution gives them nearly seven million koku, control of the most important cities, and a land assessment system reaping great revenues.

Ieyasu's victory over the western daimyo at the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) gives him virtual control of all Japan.

He rapidly abolishes numerous enemy daimyo houses, reduces others, such as that of the Toyotomi, and redistributes the spoils of war to his family and allies.

Ieyasu still fails to achieve complete control of the western daimyo, but his assumption of the title of shogun helps consolidate the alliance system.

After further strengthening his power base, Ieyasu is confident enough to install his son Hidetada (1579-1632) as shogun and himself as retired shogun in 1605.

The Toyotomi are still a significant threat, and Ieyasu devotes the next decade to their eradication.

In 1615 the Toyotomi stronghold at Osaka is destroyed by the Tokugawa army.

Ieyasu, back in Edo, has received news of the situation in Kansai and decides to deploy his forces.

He has some former Toyotomi daimyo engage with the western forces while he splits his troops and marches west on the Tōkaidō towards Osaka Castle.

Tokugawa Ieyasu redistributes the lands and fiefs of the participants, generally rewarding those who have assisted him and displacing, punishing, or exiling those who have fought against him.

In doing so, he gains control of many former Toyotomi territories.

Following the public execution of Ishida Mitsunari, Konishi Yukinaga and Ankokuji Ekei, the influence and reputation of the Toyotomi clan and its remaining loyalists drastically decreases.

This change in official rankings also reversed the subordinate position of the Tokugawa clan, thus making the Toyotomi clan subordinates of the Tokugawa instead.

Ieyasu proclaims himself shogun in 1603 and retires soon after, abdicating the shogunate to his son Tokugawa Hideie, but he will continue to wield actual power.

The Tokugawa Shogunate, known also as the Edo Shogunate, inaugurates Japan’s Azuchi Momoyama Era, in which culture will once again flourish.

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

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.