The Bakufu-Han System: Feudal Government Structure in Edo Period Japan
When the last of Japan’s three great unifiers, Tokugawa Ieyasu, came to power, he had a problem. His predecessors, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had both failed to establish a lasting regime that could endure after their deaths. In 1603, Ieyasu created the Edo bakufu—also known as the Tokugawa Shogunate—to legitimize his rule. Thus the…