Development of industry
For about 250 years there was no big war inside Japan. In peace, people could invest in the land and in trade.
- Farms: farmers opened new fields and used better tools, such as a heavy hoe and a tool for threshing. They added fertiliser like dried sardines and oil cake. Rice yields went up.
- Cash crops: many farmers also grew cotton, rapeseed, indigo and mulberry to sell. Money, not only rice, began to move in villages.
- Crafts and mines: weaving, pottery, sake brewing, paper and mining grew. Workshops hired workers who were paid for their time.
- Merchants: guilds (kabu-nakama) controlled who could trade, and money changers kept the money system working.
Osaka was called the kitchen of the nation because rice and goods came there first. Edo grew to about one million people. Kyoto stayed famous for fine crafts.
Transport: roads and ships
Goods and people need paths. The shogunate built five main highways (Gokaido) that started at Edo, such as the Tokaido along the sea. On the road were post towns with inns and horse stables, and checkpoints where officials checked travellers.
Roads helped the daimyo's alternate attendance trips to Edo. They also helped merchants and pilgrims.
For heavy goods, ships were cheaper. Cargo ships sailed between Osaka and Edo, and along the northern coast, carrying rice, cotton, oil and sake. Water travel needed good ports, so port towns grew too.
Spread of education
Learning spread widely in Edo Japan.
- Temple schools (terakoya): children of farmers and townspeople learned reading, writing and the abacus (soroban), plus manners. A teacher might be a priest, a samurai or a townsperson. Thousands of these schools existed by the 1800s.
- Domain schools (hanko): each domain ran a school where samurai sons studied Confucian books, writing, martial arts and later medicine.
- Higher study: scholars studied Japan's own old books (kokugaku) and, through Dutch books, Western science (rangaku), such as medicine and astronomy. A Japanese book on anatomy came out in 1774.
Cheap printed books and lending bookshops let many people read. This is one reason Japan could learn new things quickly later.
Townspeople's culture
In towns, merchants and craftsmen (chonin) became rich, though they were low in the status order. They spent money on fun, and a new culture grew for them.
- Genroku culture (c. 1688-1704): centred in Osaka and Kyoto. Chikamatsu wrote plays for puppet theatre and kabuki, Ihara Saikaku wrote funny stories about merchants, and Matsuo Basho made haiku (17-syllable poems) famous.
- Kabuki: a lively stage art with music, make-up and big gestures.
- Ukiyo-e: woodblock colour prints of actors, beautiful people and views. Prints could be made in many copies, so they were cheap.
- Bunka-Bunsei culture (c. 1804-1830): centred in Edo. Hokusai and Hiroshige made famous landscape prints, and comic stories were popular.
Try it: draw the chain
Draw four boxes in a line: farms, roads and ships, schools, townspeople culture. Between boxes write one reason the first helps the next, for example: more food and cash leads to trade. Then tap each part in the 3D free-play step and check yourself.
Key formulas and definitions
- Farms: new fields + tools + fertiliser + cash crops
- Five highways (Gokaido) from Edo; post towns and checkpoints
- Osaka = kitchen of the nation; Edo about one million people
- Terakoya = temple school for commoners; hanko = domain school for samurai
- Genroku culture (c. 1700, Osaka and Kyoto); Bunka-Bunsei (early 1800s, Edo)
Worked examples
1. A village grows 200 koku of rice. The tax is 35 percent of the yield. How much rice is left for the villagers?
Tax = 0.35 x 200 = 70 koku. Left = 200 - 70 = 130 koku. Extra cash crops give villagers more to sell.
2. Why were cargo ships often better than roads for rice?
A ship can carry far more weight at lower cost than horses or porters. Rice is heavy, so sea routes between Osaka and Edo were very useful.
3. Why did townspeople, low in the status order, shape new culture?
They were wealthy from trade and had spare money and time. They paid for plays, poems and prints, so artists made things for them.
Common mistakes
- Thinking only samurai could study. Commoner children went to temple schools.
- Mixing Genroku (c. 1700, Osaka and Kyoto) with Bunka-Bunsei (early 1800s, Edo).
- Believing farmers grew only rice. Many grew cotton and other cash crops.
- Saying merchants were the top class. In the status order they were lower, even if rich.