The sankin kōtai (lit., “alternate attendance”) system was a device of the Tokugawa shogunate, the government of Japan from 1603 to 1868, designed to insure political control by the regime over the daimyo, or territorial lords, who exercised virtually autonomous authority over the more than 260 feudal states into which four-fifths of the country was divided. Under this system most of the daimyo were required to travel biennially [every two years] from their domains to the capital of the Tokugawa at Edo (present day Tokyo) and to spend alternate years in personal attendance at the shogunal court. Each daimyo was also required to maintain residences at the capital where his wife and children were permanently detained. . . . Another important contribution of the operation of the sankin kōtai system to the modernization of Japan was to promote the intellectual and cultural unification of the country. The sankin kōtai served to bring a large part of the leadership elements from the whole country together in one place and to keep a constant stream of leaders and intellectuals moving back and forth between the capital and all parts of the country. This was important in giving Japan the tremendous intellectual unity with which it faced the West in the nineteenth century. It also enabled the people at large to have a stronger sense of national unity than would have been the case had the system not existed. By serving as the vehicle which spread the culture of Edo and Osaka to the countryside, the system influenced the diffusion of a truly national culture. . . . 10. What was an important contribution of the sankin kōtai (alternate attendance)
system to the modernization of Japan?
(1) Japan’s people developed a stronger sense of national cultural unity.
(2) Japan’s government established control over Western intellectuals forced to live in Osaka.
(3) Japan improved its railroad system by connecting the countryside to the cities.
(4) Japan increased the power of the daimyo during the Tokugawa shogunate.