Ch 20 - The Awakening of Japan

The Last Shogun

Emperor Komei appointed Tokugawa Yoshinobu the 15th Tokugawa Shogun. Unable to stem the growing power of the Satsuma-Choshu alliance, the Tokugawa Shogunate finally collapsed in January 1868 with the seizure of the Imperial Court, the announcement of end of the Tokugawa bakufu and the resumption of direct imperial rule in Japan.

Following the conclusion of hostilities at Shimonoseki in September 1864, the diplomatic corps in Yokohama moved to ensure future Japanese adherence to international treaties. They finally understood that the conflicts between Japan's two centers of authority - the Emperor and the Shogun - lay at the root of their foreign relations problems. The emperor's intent to abrogate all treaties and expel the foreigners put the Shogun in the position of either disobeying his legitimate superior or, by adhering to the emperor's desires, triggering a major war against four of the world's most powerful nations. Tokugawa Iemochi, who tried to avoid these fatal options by half measures and delay, only angered both the emperor and the foreign diplomatic corps. As a result, first Britain, then Britain, Holland, France and the United States took strong military action against the Satsuma and Choshu domains.

In a radical departure from past protocol, the Western diplomats decided to inform the Shogun that to avoid future problems and put Japan's foreign relations on a more stable footing the emperor had to ratify Japan's international agreements personally instead of leaving them entirely in the Shogun's hands. This new position was addressed in a joint letter to Tokugawa Iemochi in early 1865 that stated, in part,

"The Mikado can no longer be under any illusion, therefore. If he continues to desire the abrogation of the treaties, he must also desire war. It is for the Shogun, who knows all the dangers of the situation, to anticipate and prevent the fatal consequences. The time for half measures has passed irrevocably. The four great Powers having material interests in Japan can no longer suffer their own dignity and the interests of their subjects to be continually called into question. A solution of the difficulty has become indispensable, and the only one that promises either peace or serenity is the ratification of the treaties by the Mikado."

The initial response to the diplomatic letter included the protest that nothing could be done until the matter was presented to the Imperial Court along with the usual promises that it would eventually receive the attention it deserved. Such tactics proved useless. The destructive encounters at Kagoshima and Shimonoseki convinced Lord Shimazu of Satsuma and Lord Mori of Choshu to abandon their anti-foreign stance. Both men reached the same conclusion as the Shogun;  Emperor Komei's obstinate hope that in time the foreigners might be expelled could never be successfully carried out. The Shogun's few remaining options were quickly disappearing.

Ernest Mason Satow (SAY-toe), the twenty-two-year-old son of a Swedish merchant and 1861 graduate of London's University College, was an English-Japanese Student-Interpreter mistakenly assigned to the British Consular Service in Beijing. His superiors, misled by the use of Chinese characters to write Japanese, thought it best he first learn the characters in China. Satow's short tour in Beijing came to an abrupt end with the arrival of a message from Edo containing the original text of a note from the Japanese ministers. No Chinese scholar could read the message, let alone understand it. The young interpreter was reassigned to the staff of the British consulate in Yokohama, Japan.

When Ernest Satow arrived in Yokohama on September 8, 1862, Dutch was still the common language for communication between foreigners and the Japanese, who rarely studied English. The senior linguist at the British Legation in Yokohama was an English-Dutch interpreter and translations had to pass through intolerably inefficient two-man "relays";  Japanese to Dutch, Dutch to English, then English to Dutch and Dutch to Japanese. The number of Japanese-speaking foreigners could be counted on a single hand. Since no samurai would ever consent to speak a foreign language, a kind of "Pidgin English" took root in the business community, just as it had in China. Satow quickly learned that Japanese considered interpreters to be little better than the lowest class of domestic servants and often fought pretty hard with Japanese of rank "to ensure being treated as something better than a valet or an orderly."

Western diplomatic activity in the mid-1860s seemed to revolve around the struggle for dominance between two men:  the energetic, fearless and irascible British Minister Sir Harry Parkes and French Minister Léon Roches, a handsome swashbuckler and former interpreter with the French army in Algeria. Perhaps Parkes' greatest weapon in his struggle with Roches was the young Ernest Satow, who diligently applied himself to learning Japanese from native teachers. Before long his language skills far surpassed those of any member of the consulate staff and in early 1865 he was promoted from Student-Interpreter to Interpreter. Satow's fluency in Japanese swept away the East India Company's legacy at Deshima Island and the musty protocols of Dutch diplomacy. Satow's extraordinary talents revolutionized communication between Western diplomats and Japanese authorities. It enabled the British to quickly and accurately translate verbal and written communications directly into Japanese and allowed them to read and understand all manner of confidential political papers, documents which Dutch interpreters found unintelligible. More significantly, his accurate studies of Japanese history, customs and traditions revealed the true status of the Shogun's position and allowed him to demonstrate to his colleagues that the emperor alone was Japan's sovereign.

Satow's intimate knowledge of Japanese and his "great tact and transparent honesty" enabled him to establish friendly relations with most of Japan's leading figures. He became a privileged observer of traditional society and culture and played a key role in gathering political intelligence for Minister Parkes. His growing list of well-placed connections provided an accurate indication of just which way the political winds blew in Japan. He later wrote;

"I was beginning to become known among the Japanese as a foreigner who could speak their language correctly, and my circle of acquaintance rapidly extended. Men used to come down from Yedo [to Yokohama] on purpose to talk to me, moved as much by mere curiosity as by a desire to find out what foreign policy towards their country was likely to be. Owing to my name being a common Japanese surname, it was easily passed from one to another, and I was talked about by people whom I had never met. The two-sworded men [samurai] were always happy to get a glass of wine or liqueur and a foreign cigar, and they were fond of discussion. They would sit for hours if the subject interested them. Politics afforded the principal material of our debates, which sometimes became rather warm."

As a result of Ernest Satow's efforts, the British ended up backing the winning side in Japan's developing struggle between the old world and the new.

Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi understood the daimyo had always been jealous of his power. He began to fear they might obtain foreign support for their plans to usurp his authority unless he clearly demonstrated he was acting as the foreigners wanted. Not long after receiving the diplomat's joint communiqué, he let it be known he had informed Emperor Komei that, in his opinion, the time had come for the emperor to affix his imperial signature to the existing foreign trade agreements. The presence of a formidable naval squadron at Hyogo (Kobe), scheduled by treaty to open in January 1863, only underscored Iemochi's statements. Emperor Komei refused to agree with such a revolutionary proposal, dismissing any idea that his sacred person should be involved in direct dealings with foreigners. The Shogun persisted and even threatened to resign from office. In his final appeal to the emperor, Iemochi stated,

"For Japan to stand alone among the nations in refusing intercourse with all the others appears to indicate timidity and is detrimental to our power and dignity. A few years ago we concluded a treaty with the United States of which Your Majesty approved, and from that time we have been abandoning old-fashioned ideas and becoming powerful and wealthy. I have especially made it my endeavour [sic] to learn from the foreigners in matters in which they excelled, and to obtain ships and guns such as theirs from the profits of trade. The foreigners have now come to Kobe close to Your Majesty's city of residence, with a strong fleet to request a further extension of these treaties, but Your Majesty wishes to break off all foreign relations and expel the foreigners. I have used every argument with their diplomatists, but they refuse to remain content, and if they cannot get what they want will force their way to your palace.

"To provoke war in our unprepared state would be very dangerous, and even if we were victorious for a time, a land such as ours, which is entirely surrounded by the sea, would be constantly exposed to attacks on every quarter, involving a continual state of war and great misery. ..."

The Japanese, long accustomed to regarding the sea as a protector, now saw it as a great danger, a wide-open approach to potential enemies. Japan's two hundred and fifty years of self-imposed exclusion came to an abrupt end in October 1865, when Emperor Komei reluctantly sanctioned the 1858 agreements.

With its foundation seriously weakened by events since 1863, the whole antiquated power structure of the Tokugawa Shogunate began to disintegrate. Young and ambitious samurai formed new alliances and increasingly took the initiative to outmaneuver and push the daimyo into the background. Kido Koin and Takasugi Shinsaku emerged as leaders in Choshu at the head of anti-bakufu forces. Ito Hirobumi and Inoue Kaoru, both of whom had studied in England in 1863, were employed to buy modern arms from the British through Nagasaki. In March 1866, Satsuma's Saigo Takamori led the creation of an alliance with Inoue and Sakamoto Ryoma of Tosa aimed at the overthrow of the bakufu. Anonymous articles written by Ernest Satow at about the same time in the Japan Times gave many Japanese the impression that British policy was against the Shogun, even though it was officially neutral. As Ernest Satow described the situation years later to a friend, "the Tokugawa regime was ready to break down and dissolve." The arrival of foreign powers was merely "the touch that shook the mass into crystals." In his memoirs, Satow noted Japan's strange political system

was enabled to hold together solely by the isolation of the country from the outer world. As soon as the fresh air of European thought impinged upon this framework it crumbled to ashes like an Egyptian mummy brought out of its sarcophagus.

Tokugawa Yoshinobu had his hands full in Kyoto trying to deal with rebellions in both Mito and Choshu when Shogun Iemochi launched an offensive against Choshu in July 1866. Satsuma took a neutral position in the campaign that succeeded in pushing the shogun's army out of Choshu. Saigo Takamori took advantage of Choshu's victory and secretly met with Lord Mori Motonori to negotiate a truce between the two domains. When the shogunate's plans to deal with Choshu seemed stall, Yoshinobu returned to Edo and demanded the reason for canceling the offensive. Rumors whispered throughout Edo implied that Yoshinobu had ambitions to become the next Shogun and put the blame for the cancellation squarely on his shoulders.

On August 29, 1866, with the foreign alliance pressing to open the treaty port at Hyogo, Shogun Iemochi suddenly fell ill and died shortly after entering Osaka Castle to prepare for an attack against Choshu. For months, the debate over who should be the next Shogun raged throughout the shogunate. Yoshinobu's vassals, including the able retainer Tomomi Iwakura, pushed for him to take over the reins of government, but he refused arguing that accepting the offer too quickly would make him seem ambitious. He decided to wait until the Council of Ministers made him their unanimous choice.

Before year's end, Yoshinobu, the seventh son of Lord Tokugawa Nariaki of Mito, was named to head the main branch of the Tokugawa lineage, just one step short of being named shogun. Anti-bakufu forces in Kyoto strongly recommended against his appointment as shogun, but Emperor Komei had confidence in the young man. On January 10, 1867, the emperor named twenty-nine-year-old Tokugawa Yoshinobu, also known as Keiki, daimyo of Hitotsubashi, the 15th Tokugawa Shogun. With a wisdom and vision far beyond his years and his eyes on the future, Shogun Keiki carefully studied the news coming in from overseas hoping to find a way to stem the mounting revolt against the shogunate.

Shogun Keiki faced a desperate challenge;  how to prolong the life of his seriously weakened dynasty. He was willing to reach an accommodation with the Imperial Court, but not if it meant surrendering the bakufu's powers to the emperor and the other daimyo. With British support for the anti-bakufu forces in Japan becoming more apparent, Keiki was tempted to turn to the French for assistance. French Minister Léon Roches, who had already helped establish a number of industrial facilities in Japan, most notably a major dockyard at Yokosuka, recommended he undertake a radical reorganization of Japan's government. This was too drastic a step for the young Shogun, who found himself unable to forestall the winds of revolution as Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa clamored for change with help from the Imperial Court.

Although Emperor Komei was dead-set against opening up to the West and wanted to take power back from the bakufu, he avidly supported the bakufu because he believed that only they could keep the foreigners out of Japan. With tensions mounting on both sides, the 36 year-old emperor contracted smallpox and died suddenly in early January 1867. Crown Prince Mutsuhito, the 14 year-old heir apparent, ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne on February 13 as Emperor Meiji (Meiji-tenno, "Enlightened Rule"), the first Japanese emperor in centuries to be restored to power.

Throughout the summer of 1867, events in Japan moved rapidly toward the end of an era. The issue of foreign trade took a back seat to the problem of what to do about the growing power of the Satsuma-Choshu alliance that endangered the shogunate's continuity. The discontent which had been brewing between the shogunate and the reformist sonno joi ("Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians") movement dominated Japanese politics. The state council controlled the Imperial Throne and powerful daimyo from the Satsuma, Choshu, Hizen, and Tosa clans controlled the council. Lord Nakayama, Mutsuhito's guardian and grandfather, supported the loyalist cause completely.

The young emperor quickly came under the influence of Saigo Takamori, Toshimichi Okubo, Takayoshi Kido, and the able and influential courtier Prince Tomomi Iwakura, all samurai from Satsuma. Takamori, Toshimichi and Takayoshi effectively rulled Japan were part of the kuromaku, literally, the "black curtain," a bureaucratic term used to describe those who directed the actions of others from behind the scenes. These men, along with other daimyo who supported the imperial court, increasingly demanded a larger voice in future policy decisions. It didn't take long for the pressure to begin.

In May 1867, the bakufu convinced Emperor Meiji to sanction the opening of the port of Kobe to foreign trade. At the same time, daimyo from Satsuma and Choshu began working on the young emperor to issue two decrees. The first would pardon Choshu daimyo and rescind an earlier decree that branded them as enemies of the throne. The second called for a combined Satsuma and Choshu army to overthrow the bakufu.

The emperor's death left Keiki without an ally in Kyoto and left him exposed to the maneuvering schemes of imperial nobles who wanted to end the shogunate. Keiki tried to reorganize the bakufu under the new emperor in a way that would maintain the shogun's leadership role, but more and more daimyo allied themselves with Choshu. While there were still daimyo, such as the Matsudaira brothers in Kyoto, who stood ready to mount an offensive against Choshu, Keiki sensed the bakufu's steady decline and decided to deal with the imperial daimyo first.

In June, Keiki and his ministers traveled to Nijo Palace in Kyoto for a meeting with the daimyo of Satsuma, Tosa, Echizen, and Uwajima to discuss the current political situation and to discuss the implications of opening the port of Hyogo on January 1, 1868. Unable to reach a consensus, Keiki's first move toward creating a new plan for Japan's future was to force his ministers to accept the opening of Hyogo and Osaka to foreign trade. The decision angered Satsuma representatives and only served to heighten the potential for another fight. The meeting quickly disintegrated when the Tosa delegation began to suspect that Satsuma and Choshu were close to declaring war on the bakufu.

Tempers flared on all sides when Tosa samurai were blamed for the murder of two British sailors in Nagasaki in July. A lengthy investigation later proved that the killer was a samurai from Fukuoka, but the incident highlighted Tosa's vulnerability in the looming battle with the bakufu. Tosa's Lord Yamanouchi Yodo and his advisor, Goto Shojiro, were well aware of the political undercurrents within the bakufu. Despite its leanings toward the loyalist camp and the fact that Tosa daimyo were very close to openly joining the Satsuma-Choshu alliance against the bakufu, many still officially supported the bakufu because Tokugawa Ieyasu had made his ancestors daimyo in Tosa.

By September 1867, Satsuma had begun massing troops in and around Kyoto. Choshu and other supporting clans were also gearing up for a fight. Eager to avoid a confrontation, Tosa representatives approached Satsuma in October about a joint declaration in support of the emperor. When their discussions stalled, Lord Yamanouchi acted alone and submitted his own political compromise directly to the bakufu. The Tosa Memorial demanded the restoration of ruling power to the emperor and allowed Keiki to retain the Tokugawa landholdings. Lord Yamanouchi also urged that Keiki resign as shogun to ease the way for the creation of a new council of daimyo, which Keiki would lead.

Satsuma and Choshu received an imperial decree from the emperor in early November that pardoned Choshu and gave the two rebellious provinces the right to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu. Knowing that raising an army against the Satsuma-Choshu alliance would label him an imperial traitor, Keiki accepted the inevitable and refused to fight. On November 9, 1867, he submitted his formal resignation to the Imperial Court with the intention that even after relinquishing the bakufu he would remain one of Japan's most dominant daimyo. The decision deprived anti-bakufu forces of an excuse to sweep away the entire structure of the Tokugawa government, but it changed nothing. Keiki went to great lengths to avoid a confrontation between those supporting the emperor and those supporting the bakufu, but his resignation did not go far enough. The shogunate continued to levy rice harvests and taxes from areas under its direct rule. Japan's younger, more radical samurai wanted to completely relieve the Tokugawa clan of its power and vast land estates.

Tomomi Iwakura exerted his influence on the Imperial Court and laid out his own plans for the demise of the bakufu, plans that included stripping the Tokugawa clan of all their power and real estate holdings. After surmounting objections from Tosa's Lord Yamanouchi, Tomomi pushed through a resolution to restore the Imperial monarchy under Emperor Meiji and to urge the Tokugawa clan to return all of its subjects and properties to the Imperial court. Tomomi's resolution angered the daimyo of Aizu and Kuwana, among others. Encouraged by the burning of Satsuma houses in Edo by Tokugawa soldiers, on New Year's Day 1868, they enticed Keiki to effectively declare war against Satsuma, the one domain they believed was behind the drive to force the collapse of the shogunate. They were eager to a man to take on the Satsuma-Choshu alliance, but Keiki told them he would surrender his position peacefully. He gathered his forces at Nijo Castle to prepare to leave the city and ordered them to follow him to Osaka, where the bakufu had already mobilized a substantial number of troops and the western foreign ministers had gathered for the opening of the Port of Hyogo. Keiki's reaction was exactly what Saigo Takamori had wanted.

On January 3, 1868, the charismatic Saigo Takamori led a coalition of daimyo and samurai from Satsuma, Choshu and some of the outer domains into Kyoto, where they seized control of the Imperial Court. In the name of the Emperor, they announced the end of the Tokugawa bakufu. Shogun Keiki was stripped of all his offices and estates by imperial decree and reduced to the status of a common daimyo. Not all of Keiki's supporters could tolerate this turn of events. When news reached Osaka that Satsuma ronin had set fire to Edo Castle, daimyo from Aizu and Kuwana marshaled nearly 15,000 troops and marched back to Kyoto to challenge the rising Imperial Army on January 26. Fighting between diehard supporters of the Shogun and the Imperial Army of Satsuma and Choshu broke out in the Kyoto suburbs of Toba and Fushimi the next day, beginning the Boshin Civil War, Boshin Senso. The three day Battle of Toba-Fushimi pushed the shogun's troops out of kyoto and back to Osaka Castle. Keiki and a few of his best lieutenants escaped to Edo by ship from the port of Osaka. After seven centuries of military government under the Shogun, imperial rule returned to Japan on February 3, 1868, when the imperial court proclaimed that Emperor Meiji would personally conduct Japan's foreign and domestic affairs.

Following their victory, Prince Taruhito of Arisugawa led the peasant conscript Imperial Army out of Kyoto and moved swiftly east, meeting little resistance. Armed with modern weapons, the army pressed towards Edo carrying banners emblazoned with the golden chrysanthemum, symbol of imperial authority. Anyone daring to challenge them was proclaimed an enemy of Japan. By the time Prince Taruhito and his staff reached Sunpu Castle in Shizuoka Prefecture on March 5, his advance army had already captured the Tokaido Road leading to Edo. They set March 15 as the date for a full-scale assault against the shogunate's stronghold at Edo Castle. The ultimate goal was to raze the city and turn the home of nearly 1.5 million people into a wasteland.

Keiki returned to Edo Castle to consult with his ministers on the best course of action to take. Many advisors, including French Minister Léon Roches, urged him to resist surrendering the castle. The vast majority of Keiki's supporters in Edo were dedicated to fight to the last man, but the former shogun turned to his close friend, Katsu Kaishu, to make one last effort to bring about a peaceful shift in power. Katsu, the driving force behind the creation of the Kobe Naval Training Center, had been under house arrest since 1865, when the training center was charged with breeding anti-bakufu activists. On March 13, just two days before the final assault, Chief of Staff Saigo Takamori arrived in Edo with his Imperial Army. Moved by the shogun's determination to avoid bloodshed, Katsu set up a meeting with Takamori to decide the fate of the Tokugawa clan. Katsu's outspoken nature and realistic vision of an end to the shogunate system impressed Takamori. Katsu saw qualities in Takamori he believed would make him an effective national leader.

Saigo Takamori and Katsu Kaishu agreed the Tokugawa clan would evacuate Edo Castle and that Keiki would be placed under house arrest. Due to the efforts of Tetsutaro Yamaoka, Takamori promised the Imperial Army would not attack the castle and agreed not to put Keiki in the custody of some other clan. The bakufu was abolished, the last of the Tokugawa shoguns was reduced to the rank of daimyo and confined under house arrest in his native domain of Mito, and political power was returned to the emperor, now the unchallenged ruler of Japan. The relatively peaceful transition avoided a major civil war.

The foreign powers, led by the British, quickly recognized the installation of the Mikado as the final act in the centralization of the Japanese government. The limited central government of the bakufu was gone, but there was nothing ready to replace it. A first attempt at defining the goals of the new regime occurred on April 6, 1868, when, in the presence of the daimyo and the Japanese aristocracy, Emperor Meiji took the solemn Five Charter Oath, Gokajyo no Goseimon . This somewhat vague document combined adherence to Confucian principles with recognition of the need to adapt Western ways. It also called for the creation of councils to seek consensus on policy matters and urged the Japanese to devote themselves to the advancement of the national interest.

Just five days later, the new imperial government took possession of Edo Castle and began the process of rebuilding Japan into a modern state. The new government was built on an old system derived from Chinese models. The supreme government body, dajokan, or State Council, held all executive, legislative and judicial authority. Beneath the dajokan were a number of senior and junior councilors along with a deliberative council. Six departments of state were also created to deal with religious affairs, finance, military matters, foreign affairs, civil affairs and the imperial household.

The demise of the Tokugawa shogunate was no democratic reform measure intended to overthrow an oppressive autocracy. The initial goal of the daimyo and the Imperial Court was more practical;  to remove the Tokugawa clan from power and redistribute their vast estates while substituting the emperor for the shogun. Many Japanese feared the sudden fall of the shogunate would result in anarchy, chaos and a dangerous threat to the lives of Western traders in the treaty ports. China provided a grand example of the consequences of a Western intervention under such conditions. Once the true extent of Japan's internal problems became known, the early excitement and enthusiasm for the Meiji Restoration degenerated into acrimonious disagreements over just how these problems should be met. The new Meiji government decided that in order to solve its problems and avoid China's fate, it had to create a new and effective government as soon as possible, develop an industrial base, and build a disciplined and united defense force equipped with modern weapons. So began the Meiji Restoration.

The announcement of the Meiji Restoration did little to ease the emperor's qualms about his own future. Despite the fact that the new ruling coalition claimed that all of Japan would submit to the emperor's rule, the facts indicated that Emperor Meiji would be little more than a puppet. Powerful figures in the kuramaku pulled the strings. They immediately embarked on a major campaign designed to "sell" the emperor to the public. After reinstituting old rituals that had not been used for centuries, they acted as if those rituals had never ceased. With great care, they fabricated an image of the young emperor that made it appear as if he had always been in charge. In a very real sense, they acted to change reality to reassert the monarchy as the only form of government, a government ruled by ancient bloodlines that extended deep into the past.

It took some time, but he campaign worked. The Emperor became, for the kuramaku at least, what he had often been in the past;  a minor distraction that allowed them to continue their power struggles and secret deals behind the scenes, all the while appearing to act in unified service to the throne. Questioning or objecting to any pronouncement from them issued in the Emperor's name was dealt with as an act of treason.

To escape the stultifying atmosphere of Kyoto, which was out of touch with the rest of Japan and ignorant of the outside world, the Imperial Government decided to move the capital to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo, "Eastern Capital," in September 1868. The symbolism of the move was not just that it represented a break with the past, but that it signified the official usurpation of the reins of power from the Tokugawas.

Emperor Meiji took the reigns of a government without financial resources. The far-sighted, younger samurai who had led the move toward restoration took the lead in attacking the decentralized feudal structure to which they attributed Japan's weakness. Beginning in 1868, the daimyo of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa and Hizen submitted a memorial to the throne surrendering their lands and people to the Emperor. Other domains soon did the same.

Even though the Tokugawa army surrendered earlier without a fight, the Aizu domain refused to surrender, forcing the Imperial Army to fight a tough campaign to take their stronghold at Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle. Enomoto Takeaki, Vice Commander-in-Chief of the former Tokugawa Navy and the last of the Tokugawa supporters, commandeered eight warships in November 1868 and escaped to Hakodate along with five French advisors, where they took refuge in the large, star-shaped fortress of Goryokaku, Japan's first western-style fort. On January 27, 1869, Enomoto declared Hokkaido's independence as a new republic. The Boshin Civil War ended five months later on June 27, when an Imperial expeditionary force led by Kuroda Kiyotaka finally captured Goryokaku and put Enomoto Takeaki under house arrest.

Emperor Meiji moved his residence to Edo Castle in mid-1869, although it did not formally become the Imperial Palace for another four years. Meiji reformers took the first step towards the destruction of feudalism by abolishing the domain registers. They standardized administration of the former domains by appointing the former daimyo as governors. To guard against insurrection, the government compelled all the daimyo to reside in Tokyo, where they could be watched. Two years later, after the "governor-daimyo" were summoned to Tokyo, they were told their domains were officially abolished. The 250 former domains had become 72 prefectures and three metropolitan districts, a number later reduced by one-third. In the process, most daimyo were eased out of their administrative positions and gradually removed from political power.

Beginning in 1869, the Meiji leadership moved to change Japan's feudal social structure by abolishing traditional social divisions. The samurai, farmers, artisans and merchants were replaced with a three level system that included court nobles and former feudal lords, who became "peers," kazoku, former samurai, who became "gentry," shizoku, and all others, including outcast groups, who became "commoners," heimin.

Japan's nearly two million samurai, once the soldiers and the scholars of Japan, presented the most difficult problem. The concentration of physical and intellectual power in the samurai class gave them far greater prestige among the people at large than was ever enjoyed by any group of men in any other country at any other time. The unrivaled fear and admiration shown them by the commoners caused a wider gulf between Japan's upper and lower classes than any where else in the world.

An imperial edict issued in 1871 brought the samurai face to face with the danger of falling to the ranks of the lower people, a fate made all the more terrible because of the absurd height to which their pride had elevated them. The edict encouraged men to abandon their traditional topknot hair style, permitted samurai to travel about without wearing the two swords which had historically been their badge of office, and forbid the traditional practice of trying out their swords on living people.

Significant to Japan's future, the Emperor's Five Charter Oath promised to seek knowledge "from wherever it existed" and to use that knowledge to build the foundation for a new Japanese Empire . At precisely this juncture in time, the samurai got their first close look at the West with its higher civilization and its more carefully articulated system of political and social life. Stripped of all its glamour and romance, this was the seed that gave birth to Japan's startling transformation. From a genius born of despair, the military men and intellectuals of the samurai class saw a way to save themselves from falling to the status of commoners. If Japan adopted the Western system of government, all government positions would naturally fall to them. The samurai merely transferred the personal fealty once given to their daimyo, nearly intact, to the new central government. The imperial government gladly seconded this proposition, for it immediately removed the danger of constant disaffection and rebellion among the samurai and welded the state together as nothing else could have done.

Once started on the path to modernization, the Japanese became determined to "out-westernize" the West. With few significant exceptions however, it was a purely selfish movement, conceived in the interests of caste distinction and propagated with anything but an altruistic spirit. Nevertheless, from this historic turning point, Japan accomplished the most remarkable national achievement in modern history by leaping from feudalism to a contemporary world power in a single generation.

Japan opened itself to the West under circumstances far different from those which accompanied the opening of China. China was ruled by a centralized and thoroughly bureaucratic government long accustomed to the idea that China was the heart of civilization. The Chinese government responded to the West with disdain, believing there was little of value to be learned from foreigners. They never really understood the seriousness of the western challenge and could not accept the European concept of multiple international states. Furthermore, China's vast inland populations were frequently unaware of foreign threats.

Japan, divided among more than 250 autonomous feudal regimes united only by the fast declining authority of the Shogun, had learned much over the ages from China, Korea and India and realized there was a great deal to be learned from the West. The Japanese, accustomed to thinking of China as a much larger, much older and more advanced nation, had no ingrained sense of cultural superiority, but rather a nagging fear of inferiority. Even their radically different language proved to be a monumental barrier between the Japanese and other peoples.

Although they derived a large part of their higher culture from China, the Japanese were linguistically, culturally and geographically distinct enough from China to have developed a strong sense of separateness. As a result, they found it much easier to accept the European system of equal and independent states. Whenever the West menanced Japan, nearly every part of the country immediately reacted to the threat with a nationalistic combination of narrow pride, fear and resentment. Once a course of action was decided upon, Japan proved to be far more capable than China of carrying out a unified and effective response and reacted with much greater speed and far more success.

During the entire sweep of history from the sixth to the nineteenth century, the only foreign wars or invasions the Japanese experienced were two attempted Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century and Hideyoshi's attempted conquest of Korea in the late sixteenth century. No other major nation has a record remotely this free of invasions and foreign military adventures. Japan, unlike China, opened its gates to the world without occupation of its territory and without humiliation. No great wars were fought, no smuggling trade developed and no territory was lost.