What's Sankinkotai?

In 1603, Japanese ruler were finally decided and after that, Japanese society had been for approximately 250 without any battle. However, it was not sure when, where or somebody threatened the peace. So Japanese government introduced the system, Sankinkotai, to avoid rebellion.




this was the marching for every representatives of regions seeing the general in Tokyo, and 1000 or more samurai must have engaged with their owners. Publicly, each representatives and the general built good relationship by meeting face to face once a year, but actually the purpose was to make them spend money and prevent to prepare weapon. this system gave people benefit but not only government, so it activated Japanese economics as maintaining the peace.

https://goo.gl/maps/5JnP6FDRZVn

This was the most longest march in all of representative's and had 1357 kilometers. Furthermore, the representative that ruled this region had to take approximately 1500 samurai and go over the sea once, so they took 60 days for even one Sankinkotai. if I were one of the representatives, I definitely hate the government but because of this, the government at that time could keep the peace.


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