The Japanese emperor had an important symbolic power but it was largely ceremonial. He didn´t have real power. The emperor was seen as a divine being and a link with the past and the tradition of the empire. The real political power was in the hands of the top military commander of Japan, the shogun. Since Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), the first shogun, the shogunate had imposed its preeminence on all the Japanese feudal lords (daimyos), forcing them into subservience and putting an end to long feudal wars and bringing peace and stability.
