Japan’s strength from Tohoku's outlaw past

The Economist's recent outstanding article, about the strength of Japan's regions nicely focuses on the pressure points for change.

While the article states that Tohoku's tight-knit, independent streak dates back centuries, one can add Tohoku's outlaw status stemming out of Japan's Sengoku Period of the 16th and 17th centuries.


When Masamune Date challenged Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Hideyoshi moved Date's clan from the Aizuwakamatsu area to Sendai and replaced it with the Uesugi Clan from the Toyama-Niigata area. The Uesugi Clan had master military strategist Nagatsugu so this move pushed back a threat and a potential threat farther into the Tohoku region.

After the battle at Sekigahara, which initiated the Tokugawa Shogunate, Ieyasu moved the Uesugi Clan farther north into Yamagata. The Uesugi had refused to join Ieyasu's East Army; the move to Yamagata was a compromise over simply obliterating the Uesugi. Ieyasu also moved the Satake Clan, also on the losing side, from Ibaraki's Mito area to Akita and replaced it with his grandson Iemitsu.

Ieyasu later rerouted the Tone River from its original course into the Edo River and Tokyo Bay so that it flowed east into Kasumigaura Lake. This made the Tone River a defensive barrier with the additional benefit of flood control for Edo. Also, while Masamune Date was required to maintain a residence in Edo and occupy it in alternate years, the farms given to him to support this residence were located on the north side of the Tone River in Ryugasaki and Miho, thus reduciing the number of Date Clan people needed in Edo.

This arrangement made Tohoku a repository for outlaw clans with North Kanto as a defensive buffer.