Term · Japanese culture
Shogun
For seven centuries Japan had an emperor who reigned and a general who actually ran the place.
In Otakana the clue reads: Military ruler who governed in the emperor's name
- Type
- Term
- Series
- Japanese culture
- Letters
- 6 · Easy
The full title translates as barbarian-subduing great general, and it began as a temporary command for campaigns in the north. Minamoto no Yoritomo took it in 1192 and made it permanent by keeping his government in Kamakura, far from the court in Kyoto. The emperor still appointed him, which is the elegant part: every shogun held power that was formally granted from above and practically taken from below.
Three dynasties followed, with a long stretch of civil war in the middle when the title meant almost nothing. Tokugawa Ieyasu won at Sekigahara, took the office in 1603, and built a system that held for over two and a half centuries by keeping regional lords expensive, watched and required to leave their families in Edo as hostages.
It ended in 1868. Foreign warships, a collapsing budget and rebellious western domains pushed the last Tokugawa out, and the Meiji Restoration returned formal power to a teenage emperor and real power to the men who had won. James Clavell's novel put the word into English, and every anime with a castle and a scheming court is standing somewhere in that history.
Spelling SHOGUN
SHOGUN hides a long vowel in its first half, shou, and English drops it as usual. Six letters, SH counting as a single sound, and both vowels are different: O then U. The word has been in English dictionaries since the seventeenth century, so it is one of the few here where the familiar spelling and the correct one match.