The Great Peace

• In the Edo period Japan flourished in education, architecture, art, and culture and experienced a 200 year period of Great Peace.

• In the 1500s Japan was ruled by an emperor and was divided into 250 small regions. Each small region was ruled by a daimyo.

• These daimyo were always getting into war against each other because they were trying to gain more power or expand the territiory they ruled in.

• Although the emperor was the supreme leader of Japan, the actaul power was with the leaders of the military government which were called the shogun.

• The three shogun's that brought Japan together to create peace in the late 1500's was:

  • Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582)

  • Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598)

  • Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616)