Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/13



was in 1590 that Tokugawa Iyeyasu, Lord of the Eastern Provinces, entered the little castle of Yedo which had been built in 1457, and enlarged and fortified it into a great stronghold. When he assumed, thirteen years later, the Shogunate, or military suzerainty of the country, his castle-town became the military and administrative capital of Japan. Here he elaborated the system of feudalism which had already been in existence for four centuries and brought it to such perfection that, in spite of the corruption and decadence of the central power, it remained in force for two hundred and sixty-five years longer. By the compulsory residence of the two hundred and seventy territorial lords of the country for half the year in Yedo, the city soon rose to opulence and prosperity. Towards the end of last century, its civilian population alone was close upon half a million, while the military class, with their families and dependents, probably far exceeded that number, so that the total population of Yedo must have been upwards of a million. Upon the abolition of the Shogunate and the Restoration of the Imperial authority in 1868, the seat of the Imperial Government was transferred from Kyoto, the old capital, to Yedo, which was thereupon renamed Tokyo, or the Eastern capital.

As the leader of Occidental civilisation in Japan, Tokyo has since continued to increase in prosperity; and in this city we find in the most marked degree the contrast between the old and new regimes, the conflict of progress and conservatism, which is more or less observable throughout the country. Though even the most conservative nation cannot be said to be absolutely stationary, no other country is in a greater state of transition than Japan, where that advance from feudalism to modern life which in Europe took four centuries is being attempted in as many