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- well as by many roads dotted with large post stations. The governments prohibition of wheeled vehicles, with the exception of ox-drawn carts, made land transport rather primitive. There were basically only three ways to travel by road: on foot, on horseback or by kago (palanquin or sedan chair) carried by two or four human porters. The plush palanquins for daimyo were called norimono. [51, 52] There were strict rules on types of transportation and the number of accompanying porters to ensure that everyone knew who was superior or inferior. A good percentage of Edo Japan s workforce was employed in the transportation business as porters (kumosuke), ferrymen, oarsmen and sailors.
The Emperor and his retinue, who were largely figureheads with no real power, were confined to the old capital of Kyoto and allocated adequate revenues to live well. In return, they were expected to only be involved in traditional ceremonial and religious matters, not political ones. By recognizing the Tokugawa family as the ruling shoguns, the Imperial court provided the family with the political legitimacy required to rule the country. Although it was not the seat of political power, Kyoto remained a city of great social prestige and a centre of classical culture and religion throughout the Edo period.
In order to protect their social and political structure, in 1639 the Tokugawa shogunate took the drastic step of isolating Japan from the rest of the world by virtually closing the country's doors to foreigners, prohibiting the construction of large ships for overseas trade, and forbidding any citizens from traveling abroad under penalty of death. The first Westerners, the Portuguese and Spanish who had landed on the shores of Japan during the Muromachi period (1392-1573), had introduced firearms and Christianity to the Japanese. The early Catholic missionaries had been so successful at converting the Japanese to Christianity that the military rulers viewed them as a threat, potentially as dangerous as the firearms that accompanied them. Therefore, the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu (1604-51), outlawed Christianity, brutally wiped out all its believers, and banished Portuguese and Spanish missionaries. The only foreigners allowed to remain on Japanese soil were the occasional delegations from Korea and the Ryukyu Islands, and a handful of Dutch and Chinese traders who were confined to a small man-made island called Deshima off Nagasaki harbour. Great care was taken to make sure they didn't get involved in domestic matters.
The Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to stay in Japan because they were prepared to trade without conducting missionary activities. The Dutch provided a small window on the world through which some knowledge of European sciences and technology filtered through to Japanese scholars (primarily by translated Western books) on such subjects as shipbuilding, linear perspective in art, cartography, navigation, gunnery, botany, chemistry, anatomy, medicine and astronomy. Interest in Western technology was termed rangako or Dutch learning. Unfortunately for Japan, being sealed off from the rest of the world meant they were virtually untouched by
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