Japan: Endings and Beginnings: From Tokugawa to the Meiji Restoration

1
Japan Endings and Beginnings From Tokugawa to
the Meiji Restoration

• 1787-1873

2
I. Late Tokugawa

• Dégringolade
• Depleted Bakufu treasury
• Indebted Samurai Class
• Famine
• Rural and urban unrest (riots)
• Bakufu Response
• Kyoho Reforms (see Ch. 14)

3
The Bakufu (1787-1841)

• Matsudaira Sadanobu the Kansei Reforms
• Campaign against corruption
• Mandate lower prices restrictions on merchant
  guilds cancel loans
• Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism made orthodox
• Brought only temporary relief

4
Economy and Society

• Several domains pursue market-oriented polices
• Low-ranking samurai impoverished
• Stipends paid in rice fluctuating market
• Frequent reduction in stipend
• Harbored resentment against merchants, govt
  corruption
• Peasants flee rural poverty
• Millennial movements Rural and urban uprisings

5
Reforms

• Mizuno Tadakuni (1793-1851)
• International Context Opium War (1839-42)
• Tempo Reforms
• Recoinage, forced loans, dismissal of officials,
  sumptuary laws
• Agrarian policies and loan cancellations
• Local reform on domain level
• Satsuma Choshu
• Anti-Tokugawa higher than average samurai to
  land ratio
• Family ties to court in Kyoto

6
Satsuma Choshu Reform

• Budget surplus was built up
• Choshu Monopolies abolished
• With the exception of shipping and warehouse
• Taxed merchants
• Satsuma Monopolies allowed
• Sugar monopoly on Ryukyu
• Raised to power young samurai of middle or lower
  rank innovative and energetic
• Crucial role in eventual overthrow of the Tokugawa

7
Intellectual Currents

• Heterodoxy undermines intellectual foundations of
  Tokugawa Rule
• Mito School Kokugaku
• Anti-Foreignism of Aizawa Seishisai combined
  Confucian values and bushido with Shinto to
  create discuss Japan as a unique polity (Kokutai)
• Sakuma Shozan
• Eastern Ethics and Western Science

8
The Opening of Japan

• Commodore Matthew C. Perry
• Gunboat diplomacy
• Bakufu solicited opinions of daimyo
• Undermined its exclusive right to determine
  foreign policy
• Townsend Harris and Unequal Treaty

9
Domestic Politics

• Concessions to western powers provided more
  ammunition for enemies of Bakufu
• Demand for vigorous defense policy
• Ii Naosuke revitalizes bakufu assasinated by
  sonno joi advocates of Mito

10
Sonno Joi

• Mito School emperor centered historiography and
  political thought
• Yoshida Shoin
• Failure to expel the barbarians reflected
  incompetence, dereliction of duty, and lack of
  reverence for the throne
• Concluded bakufu must be overthrown
• Executed for assassination plot

11
Mixed Responses to West

• Reactions varied widely
• Hatred
• Learn from West to defeat the West
• Kaikoku joi open the country to drive out the
  barbarians
• Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901)
• Conditions in the West

12
Last Years of the Shogunate

• Social Chaos
• ee ja nai ka
• Assassinations
• Shogun forced to accept June 25, 1863 as deadline
  to expel foreigners
• Choshu fires on foreign ships returned fire,
  eventually destroy fortifications on Choshu

13
Response to Defeat

• Modernized military units
• Peasant militia organized mixed units staffed by
  samurai and commoner
• Began acquiring Western Ships
• Enrich the country (and/to?) strengthen the army
• Bakufu/Choshu Wars
• November 1866 Shogun resigns in favor of a
  council of daimyo (oligarchy) under the emperor
• January 1868 restoration proclaimed shogunate
  destroyed

14
II. The Meiji Restoration
15
Formation of a New Government

• Meiji Emperor (r. 1867-1912)
• Reign but still not to rule
• Oligarchs
• Shared similar qualities
• Okubo Toshimich (1830-1878)
• Kido Koin (1833-1877)
• Saigo Takamori (1827-1877)
• Emperor moved to Edo (renamed Tokyo)

16
The Charter Oath

• Proclaimed in the name of the emperor (April
  1868)
• End of seclusion acceptance of international
  law openness foreign ideas
• Democratic and international
• Shows gulf between Japanese and Chinese

17
Abolition of Han

• Choshu and Satsuma voluntarily returned lands to
  emperor others followed example
• 1871 all other han abolished reorganized into
  prefectures
• Daimyo allowed to retain a 10th of domain
  revenue government assumed debt
• Daimyo elevated to peerage

18
Modern Military

• Initially dependant on regional forces
• Needed new military freed from local ties
• Rejected Saigos views of a Samurai Army (The
  Last Samurai)
• New army to be built on commoner conscription

19
Samurai

• Undermined status of Samurai
• Anyone could be a warrior
• Commoners allowed to acquire surnames
• Wearing of swords made optional then proscribed
  altogethor
• Samurai pensioned off eventually forced to
  accept bonds

20
Fiscal Reform

• Tax collected by government in money according to
  land value
• Paid by the owner cultivators or wealthy
  villager who paid the tax
• Tenancy perpetuated increased from 25 to 40

21
Disaffection and Opposition

• Some peasant and merchant houses hurt by
  restoration
• Samurai provided leadership but some unable to
  make transition
• Split between conservatives and modernizers

22
Crisis of 1873

• Saigo advocates war with Korea
• Open Korea to modern relations with Japan
• Provide employment for samurai
• Decision made in absence of Oligarchs who were
  touring the West
• Decision to abandon Korean expedition splits
  government
• Advocates of War resigned led discontented
  Samurai (Last Samurai)
• Left government to men committed to modernization

23
Meaning of the Restoration

• Increased openness to West
• Adopt Western dress and food
• Gregorian calendar adopted
• Western architecture
• Revolution From Above
• Destroyed old system
• Created centralized system
• Eliminated old class lines