what made up the three tiers of the japanese political system around 1600
Edo society The Tokugawa government intentionally created a social order called the Four divisions of society (shinōkōshō), that would stabilize the country. This system was based on the ideas of Confucianism that spread to Japan from China. By this system, society was composed of samurai (侍 shi), farming peasants (農 nō), artisans (工 kō) and merchants (商 shō). Samurai were placed at the top of society because they started an order and set a high moral example for others to follow. The system was meant to reinforce their position of power in society by justifying their ruling status. Peasants came second because they produced the most important commodity, food. According to Confucian philosophy, society could not survive without agriculture.[1]:45 Third were artisans because they produced nonessential goods.
Edo Neo-Confucianism Neo-Confucianism was brought to Japan during the late Kamakura period. It was spread as basic education for monks in training and others among gosan (Zen temples highly ranked by the government), while its theory was completed by annotations brought by the monk Yishan Yining, who visited Japan in 1299 from the Yuan Dynasty,[1][4] in the form of the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism. Moreover, Neo-Confucianist thought derived from the works of Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, and Zhu Xi, and the then-orthodox ideology of China and Korea.[5] The rise of Neo-Confucianism in Japan was aided by state support from the Tokugawa government, who encouraged the establishment of national secular ideology as a method of strengthening political rule over the country.[1] The philosophy had arrived earlier in the 14th century, but knowledge of it was limited to Zen monasteries, who saw Confucianism as intellectually interesting, but secondary to Zen,[5] and some schools like the Ashikaga Gakko.