2.2.3 Japan: The Emperor, Feudalism (Shogun, Barons, Knights), andthe Meiji Restoration of 1868

The emperor (tenno): from the Yamato line (660 BC legendary founding; the sun-goddess Amaterasu's descent) — sacred kingship, usually reigning without ruling (the paradox of Japanese history: legitimacy above, power below). Feudalism (the syllabus's three-tier):• Shogun — the "great general" holding actual power as the emperor's "barbarian-subduing generalissimo" the Kamakura (1185–1333 — feudalism's start), Ashikaga/Muromachi, and longest Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868) — the Edo state;• Daimyo — the barons: domain lords with their own castles, retainers and revenues (the Tokugawa system freezing 260-odd domains under the shogun's supervision — the sankin-kotai hostage attendance draining the lords' purses);• Samurai — the knights: the warrior class under bushido (the way of the warrior — loyalty, honour, death before disgrace), sword-bearing, rice-stipended;• Beneath: peasants (the taxed base), artisans, merchants (the rich pariahs of the hierarchy) — a closed country (sakoku: foreign trade and Christianity banned, 1630s–1853). The MeijiRestoration (1868) — the hinge: Commodore Perry's "black ships" (1853) forced the ports; the crisis discredited the shogunate; the domains of Satsuma and Choshu "restored" the young Meiji emperor to power (the charter oath — deliberative assemblies and modernisation promised) — and then industrialised a nation in a generation:• The reforms: abolition of the domains and the samurai stipends (the class order dismantled); conscription (a national army); universal education; land tax reform; state-led industry (model factories, zaibatsu…