The Tenpō Reforms, an array of economic policies introduced in 1842 by the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, are efforts to resolve perceived problems in the nation’s military, economic, agricultural, financial and religious systems.
The changes are intended to address problems in local politics, but they are also addressed more broadly to "domestic unease."
The perceived need for change leads to the arrest of many prominent political figures and writers.
The reforms become a precursor of reforms that will be initiated after the Meiji Restoration two decades later.
New coinage is issued and commodity price controls are lifted.
Immigration to Edo is prohibited and the formation of societies is also banned.
Rangaku (”Dutch Learning”) is banned.
An annual calendar (nenchuu gyouji) is set up during this period to bring order to Japanese society.
Families are required to register themselves at the nearest Shinto shrine annually on the 16th of the first and seventh months.
A Shinto festival (muramura jingi), meeting (jingi kasihuu) or pilgrimage (muramura kamimoude) is scheduled once a month.
The popular Obon festival is rewritten as Sensosai, the Ancestor Festival, and is to be held twice a year.
Buddhism is written out of this religious calendar; the government revokes its support for existing Buddhist institutions.
