daimyō

In feudal Japan, a warlord, a major landowner who employed a body of samurai. In wartime these armed forces had to be put at the disposal of the shogun.

A daimyō was a vassal whose landholding was assessed at more than 10,000 koku of rice, this being the chief means of exchange. There were 250–300 daimyō (the number varied with circumstances). Although they acknowledged the rule of the emperor and shogun, they enforced their own law and did not initially pay tax; however, the costs of maintaining the samurai and other obligatory expenses were very heavy and by 1700 the debts of the daimyō were estimated at 100 times the total amount of money in Japan. In 1868–69 the daimyō were officially abolished but in most cases became governors of the provinces they had held.