356 THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONSFrom 1633, Japanese vessels needed official authorization to leave
the country; three years later, all Japanese ships were confined to home
waters. From 1637, no Japanese was allowed to leave the country by
whatever means—no exit. What's more, no return, on penalty of death.
Those Japanese who had moved abroad for trade, some tens of thou-
sands to the Philippines and Southeast Asia, were now shipwrecked in
exile. Then, in 1639, after suppression of the Christians at Shimabara
(what the Japanese call the Shimabara rebellion), no foreigners were
permitted to come and trade, except for Koreans at a small island off
Honshu (the main island), and Dutch and Chinese on the artificial is-
land of Deshima in Nagasaki Bay. Except when summoned, the Dutch
were held under house arrest. They had two streets of warehouses and
offices to promenade in. Their food, drink, servants, and sex came in
to them from the mainland. They drank, smoked, played cards, and
languished in boredom and stupefaction. Not a good assignment. The
Japanese wanted it that way.
All of this was part of a larger process of self-petrification. Japan had
had enough of discovery and innovation, enough fire and blood. The
aim now: freeze the social order, fix relations of social and political hi-
erarchy, prevent disagreement and conflict. Lines were drawn between
statuses, and status was fixed from birth. As in medieval European
schémas, each group had its social function. Samurai no longer owned
land and ruled over its inhabitants. Once seigneurs, they now became
stipendiaries, a service aristocracy charged to serve their lord; but no
more to fight, because there would be no fighting. This stripped them
of their raison d'être and promoted bluster. Strutting about with two
swords, long and short (no one else was permitted to wear a sword),
the samurai grunted their superiority to commoners. Many did noth-
ing but live on their stipends and cherish vainglory and a military code
(busbido) that entailed strenuous self-discipline and could be turned to
better ends. A few devoted themselves to domanial (han) administra-
tion and cultivated an ethic of function that would one day turn per-
sonal loyalty into national duty. The poorer ones even took up the
hoe; a samurai had to eat, and like his European counterpart (the
French hobereau), he felt little shame in tilling the soil.
Peasants meanwhile were to stay put and grow food; merchants
would trade and make money; artisans would create objects of use and
value. Unions across status lines were forbidden, and even among
samurai, high were not to marry low. Order and appropriateness above
all, and this meant no change: "Generally speaking in all things the an-
cient laws must be followed. New practices must be prohibited." This