Han (Japan)

Han (Japanese: 藩) were the fiefs of feudal clans of Japan that existed during all the Edo period and for a few years after the Meiji Restoration. The number of han varied; typically, there were around 300 han in the Edo period. Most han were led by a daimyo with an assessment of 10,000 koku or more. The daimyo swore loyalty to the shogun. Sometimes a powerful daimyo let a man govern a domain over 10,000 koku. Those men were definitely not daimyo but their domains were sometimes called han.

Relation between Han and Bakufu

The structures of a han and the shogunate were principally similar because Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the bakufu, kept the governmental structure which his ancestors had developed when they were a small local daimyo in Mikawa province. Some daimyo, especially those whose ancestors had served the ancestors of the Shogun, were lords of the han and also bureaucrats of the bakufu. Most of them governed fiefs rated from one to twelve koku. Other daimyo had no permanent office in the bakufu but were appointed a temporary office.

Related Topics:
Tokugawa Ieyasu - Mikawa province

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Each daimyo served the Shogun and received the right of governance from the Shogunate. The heir of each daimyo should have been admitted in advance by the Shogunate. When a son of blood or an adopted son of a daimyo was determined as a heir of his father, the son went to the Chiyoda castle in Edo, the Shogun's castle and met the Shogun to receive the permission to succeed and his recognition. Principally if this procedure was ignored, the succession was cancelled by the Shogunate, and a han was abolished in a practice called toritsubushi (scrapping) in Japanese.

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Though every daimyo was a swore loyalty to the Shogun, their relationships were varied. Without personal reliance, the relationship of each han and the bakufu was determined and influence the relationship between the founder of the han and the shogunate or the ancestors' of the Tokugawa. Roughly there were three classifications, named Shinpan (Tokugawa's relatives), Fudai (those who had been friendly to Tokugawa since before Sekigahara) and Tozama (those who were against Tokugawa at the time of Sekigahara). There was another classification by size of domain.

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