During the rule of Tokugawa dynasty, Neoconfucianists were valued court advisers. This was also the time of gradual emergence of Japanese national identity. This identity was not yet formed, not even clearly set, but still in development. An important part in its development payed the Confucian view on the decline of Chinese Ming dynasty in 1644, and various Confucian and non-Confucian critics of Neoconfucianism, who each in his way always strived to return to what they perceived as the only real and authentic japanese. What started with a Confucianist Tokugawa Ieyasu took to his court and dressed as Zen-Buddhist monk, in a century and a half resulted in a state apparatus that more and more valued meritocracy, and less and less heredity. But as time passed it became apparent that all the reforms strived to return to a Golden age, that never truly was, but was instead a creation of historians and philosophers. This culminated in the formation of Japanese national identity.
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