riest from Takayama appealed fro the protection of their temples from the Christians, Hideyoshi not only decline to intervene on their behalf but also ordered that the sacred images, which they had brought with them, be burnt for firewood at Kyoto. Hideyoshi did not convert to Christianity because it prevented him from having many women more ever, he asked the Jesuits to change this rule, and then will he convert to Christianity.Nevertheless, Japan soon came under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogun. The Shogun was sure that the introduction of Christianity was designed to serve as a preliminary conquest by Europe. Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo later known as Tokyo his capital. I short time the city became the greatest in the empire, developing culturally and economically. Tokugagwa brought the feudal organization that had been planned by Hideyoshi to fulfillment. The daimyos and administrators, as well as the emperor and his court, were put under the strict control of the shigunate. Social classes became rigidly stratified. The form of feudalism established by the Tokugawa and the succeeding Tokugawa shoguns endured until the end of the feudal period in the late 19th century.Another result of Tokugawa domination was the impose isolation of Japan from the Western world. The first Europeans to visit Japn were the Portuguese traders who had landed on an island near Kyushu about 1543. Saint Francis Xavier, who I mentioned above the Jesuit missionary, had brought Christianity to Japan in 1549. During the remainder of the century about 300,000 Japanese were converted to Roman Cat holism, despite disapproval and persecution by Hideyoshi. In 1612 Christians became subject to official persecution, and various massacres occurred. The Spanish were refused permission to land in Japan after 1624, and a series of edicts in he next decade forbade travel abroad, prohibiting even the building of large ships.In 1626-1633 the savage persecutions had driven Chris...
