Comment by AlotOfReading
21 hours ago
They very much understood their situation. That was the means of control. Their incomes were directly defined by agricultural productivity, and their expenses largely controlled by the shogun. Daimyo couldn't meaningfully communicate with each other, easily intermarry, or form alliances. They were forced to maintain huge retinues and lavish estates, and the shogun could bankrupt them or kill their family at any point.
The shogunate needed to do some balancing along the way (including the introduction of metallic currency), but the government had enough levers to keep the samurai in line, right up until they couldn't.
To add on to this, the wives and heirs of daimyo had to live semi-permanently in the capital, which gave the shogun a powerful leverage over his subordinates. Any murmuring of an uprising would result in his family (and heirs) being killed. Nor was there freedom of movement across domains; this had to be granted by the shogun, preventing daimyo from easily communicating and organising.
Approximately 50-75% of a daimyo's budget went towards maintenance and boarding costs for when they were in attendance at the shogun's court. "Commerce" was considered a lowly profession not befitting a proud samurai. Most of their wealth was obtained through their right to collect agricultural taxes, which was granted to them by the daimyo.
While the samurai were a caste descended from warriors, after hundreds of years of peace they had largely become "sword-wearing bureaucrats". They weren't all that competent or experienced in warfare. They carried swords and practiced martial arts, but this was just as much a LARP (to use a modern phrase): a means of connecting to their martial heritage.