Whether Japan is a friend or foe to China is not what this article will discuss. But as an important neighbor to China, if we know little about its history and culture, how can we cope with the opportunities and challenges it brings? I created this article in the hope of making a brief introduction to interested friends. Due to space constraints, this article will only be introduced before the Meiji Restoration, because the modern history of Japan since then can be discussed in detail in a special article, rather than an overview.
Japan is an island nation located in East Asia, with four large islands and more than 6,800 small islands distributed from northeast to southwest: Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The history of Japan dates back about 100,000 years, but Japanese civilization emerged very late.
In the 3rd century BC, during the Qin and Han dynasties of China, immigrants from China and Korea brought advanced civilizations, and techniques such as farming, civil construction, pottery burning, copper casting, cast iron, and textile spread in the Kyushu region, the Shikoku region, and the central Honshu region in southwestern Japan. Japan's civilization took a leap forward into the Yayoi period. Before the Yayoi period, Japanese society was still in the primitive clan commune stage, and there was no concept of the state. After entering the Yayoi period, under the influence of foreign civilizations, the concept of state and class began to germinate, and tribal states began to appear in Japan in large numbers. In the middle of the 1st century AD, there were hundreds of such countries in the Kitakyushu region alone, and later more famous are the Evil Matai Kingdom and the Queen of Beimihu seen in many computer games.
Humble Hu in The Legend of the Three Kingdoms
In the middle of the 3rd century AD, a tribal state arose in the central region of Honshu. After a long period of conquest and expansion, by the beginning of the 5th century AD, the country had conquered most of central Japan and established the first unified state power in Japanese history, which was the Yamato Kingdom. The Japanese call themselves the Yamato nation, which is where it comes from. Yamato was a slave state whose chief was called Daiwang (later renamed Emperor), and the power of the state was exercised jointly by the Daimyō and the Hao clan.
Perhaps from the import of civilization in the Yayoi period, Japan has always been active in learning advanced civilizations. Around the 6th century AD, Japan successively sent Sui envoys and Tang envoys to learn politics and culture from mainland Chinese dynasties, especially after being well educated by the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the Battle of Baijiangkou on August 27-28, 663 AD.
In 645 AD, a vigorous movement of socio-political change began in Japan, the first year of Dahua, known in history as the Dahua Reformation. The core content of this innovation was to abolish the previous system of monopoly power by the great aristocracy, learn from the political and economic system of the Tang Dynasty in China, and establish a centralized state. After this change, Japan began to transition from the slave era to the feudal era, and Yamato changed its name to Japan, which means "the country where the sun rises".
The itinerary of the Japanese envoys to the Tang Dynasty
More than 500 years passed slowly, and after the great development of the Asuka period, the Nara period, and the Heian period, with the intensification of land privatization and land annexation, with the decay and degeneration of the central aristocratic ruling group and the rise and growth of the local landlord samurai class, the rule of Japan was transferred from the royal power to the samurai regime. In 1192, the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate officially brought Japan into the feudal era and also opened up more than 600 years of Japanese shogunate history. The leaders of the shogunate would usually ask the emperor to grant him the title of Shogun, equivalent to the current commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Force, who held the actual rule of Japan at that time and carried on the power within the family.
The Kamakura shogunate got its name from the fact that the center of its rule was located in Kamakura. Kamakura is a seaside city in Japan that now belongs to Kanagawa Prefecture, the same Kanagawa Prefecture where the Shonbei High School basketball team participated in the prefectural competition in "Slam Dunk Master". Today, Kamakura has two famous attractions, one is the Kamakura Buddha statue that has a history of nearly 800 years and still retains its original form, and the other is the railway crossing of Kamakura High School Front Station, which is also the filming location of the scene where Sakuragi Hanamichi and Akagi Haruko meet in the opening scene of "Slam Dunk Master".
Kamakura Koku-mae Station Railway Crossing
The founder of the Kamakura shogunate was called GenraiShio. In 815 AD, the Japanese imperial court compiled the surnames of the entire Japanese ruling class, among which a distant relative of the imperial family was given the surname "Gen", and then demoted to a vassal, implying that the origin of the imperial family, which is the origin of genji. Although the Kamakura shogunate was founded by genji, after only twenty years, the actual power was controlled by the Hojo clan, the vassal of the shogunate, and it was called the shogunate of the shogunate. In 1333, a rebellion against the Kamakura shogunate broke out throughout Japan, and the shogunate sent by the shogunate to quell the rebellion, Ashikaga Tsunade, counterattacked and captured Kamakura, the last generation of the Kamakura shogunate, Hojo Takashi, committed suicide, the Kamakura shogunate collapsed, and the ichimachi shogunate was established.
The center of the Ichimachi shogunate's rule was located in Kyoto, and its founder was the Ashikaga Clan that destroyed the Kamakura shogunate. However, the most successful shogun of the entire Ichimachi period was Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the grandson of the Ashikaga clan, who ended the confrontation between the North and the South and realized the unification of Japan. He is also the most famous of the Ashikaga clan in China, but he is famous not because of his exploits, but because he is the Ashikaga shogun who particularly likes to harass the Ichigo monk in the Japanese anime "Smart Ichigo" that swept China in the 1980s. But in real history, when Ichigo became a monk, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu had already given way to his son and then became a monk, and it was his son Ashikaga Yoshinori who really made it difficult for him.
General Ashikaga in The Wise One Break
The central crown was seized by the shoguns who had private fiefs and armed forces, and the powerful Hao clan in the local area also followed suit, so the actual power of the daimyo who was originally sent by the shogunate to all parts of the country slowly fell into the hands of the local hao clan and evolved into the later Sengoku daimyō. Beginning in 1467, as the control of the Muromachi shogunate over the whole of Japan declined greatly, Japan entered the Sengoku period of strife among the princes, and it was from this time that the unique cultural phenomenon of Japan's Shigikaga began to take root and reached its peak in the 20th century. In this era, the princes and the Muromachi shogunate fought each other, and the war was endless.
In July 1573, Oda Nobunaga, a daimyō from the Owari Kingdom who had already controlled the Gyeonggi region, arrested and exiled Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the last shogun of the Muromachi shogunate, and then blackmailed the Son of Heaven to order the princes to end the Muromachi period, which was also the beginning of Japan's modern era. Subsequently, Oda Nobunaga began a campaign to annex other vassal states in search of the unification of the Japanese regime, the biggest of which were Takeda Shingen from the Kai Kingdom and Uesugi Kenshin from the Echigo Kingdom. However, both of them had the same fate, both of which were suddenly ill when Oda Nobunaga was very passive, and then Oda Nobunaga survived the difficulties.
However, although the number of wars in Japan's Warring States period was very frequent and seemed to be very lively, the actual scale of the war was generally not large, usually thousands to tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of people even if it was a very large-scale joint war, compared with the Warring States era when China fought against hundreds of thousands of people more than a thousand years ago, it was not a grade at all, and there was not much praise in tactics and strategy. The modern Japanese films "Heaven and Earth" and "Shadow Warrior" both reflect the war scenes of Japan's Warring States period, which look magnificent, grand and numerous, but in fact, the real history is not that thing at all.
Stills from Shadow Warrior
The fundamental reason for this is that Japan's natural conditions determine that Japan itself cannot carry out large-scale agricultural production, and the grain production is limited, and it is impossible to supply a large-scale army, so the scale of combat in Japan's Warring States period is very limited, which further restricts the use of tactics and strategies. In the 1990s, there was a popular computer game series called Nobunaga Nobunaga, which was developed based on this history. By 1582, Oda Nobunaga had conquered many of the princely states in the central region of Honshu, but it was also in that year that he died in a rebellion initiated by his subordinate Mitsuhide of Honnoji Temple.
In 1584, two years after Oda Nobunaga's death, his right-hand man, Hashiba Hideyoshi, seized the right to inherit his political legacy, and Hashiba Hideyoshi was given the surname by the Emperor and renamed Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi fulfilled Oda Nobunaga's unfulfilled wishes, and finally achieved the unification of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, ending the Sengoku period. However, this unification was only a formal unification, and there were still some daimyo in Japan who were subordinate to him but could not be conquered by him. The following year, he ceded the position of Guan Bai to his adopted son and called himself Taikoku, which led to the creation of another computer game series, Taikoku Rishi.
In order to solve the problem that the domestic land was not enough to meet the needs of the feudal division, and even more to satisfy the ambitions of aggression and expansion, Toyotomi Hideyoshi twice joined forces with other daimyōs in 1592 and 1597 to send troops to Korea in a vain attempt to conquer Korea, then conquer Daming, and annex China. In the face of the battle-hardened Samurai of the Japanese Warring States, the Korean soldiers and civilians who were constantly fighting with the party and the military and the people were beaten to no avail, and almost all the territory was destroyed in more than two months, but Daming decisively intervened and taught Japan to be a man again after the Tang Dynasty. In July 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi fell ill and the Japanese army withdrew to The country. Since during the Korean War, the Toyotomi clan and other Southwest daimyōs had expended enormous manpower, material resources, and financial resources but had not been able to compensate and profit from the war, the Kanto daimyō Tokugawa Ieyasu, who remained on the Japanese mainland, suddenly had a huge advantage in strength.
The Battle of the Ming Dynasty against the Wu Dynasty and Aid Korea
Tokugawa Ieyasu is a chameleon, and the phrase "the timekeeper is Toshige" is perfectly suited to him. He befriended Oda Nobunaga as a teenager, but later became subordinate to Imakawa Yoshimoto and Oda Nobunaga, and after Imagawa Yoshimoto was killed by Oda Nobunaga, he became an ally of Oda Nobunaga. After the honnoji Rebellion, he briefly confronted Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but was forced to submit to him due to the situation, accepted Toyotomi Hideyoshi's subordination, and left his long-term stronghold of Mikawa Province for kanto. Tokugawa Ieyasu is a man who is good at judging situations and making the right choices.
After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was known for his forbearance, began to seek the world. In the end, at the Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu won the victory and crushed the forces opposed to him. In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu opened the shogunate in Edo (now Tokyo), ushering in the last shogunate era in Japanese history, the Edo period. Tokugawa Ieyasu killed his contemporaries Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and eventually unified the world, comparable to Sima Yi during the Three Kingdoms period of China.
During the Edo period, Japan practiced the shogunate system. The shogun was the largest feudal lord in the country, directly administering a quarter of the country's land and important cities, and the rest of the region was divided into more than two hundred domains, large and small, and the chief of the clan, Daimyo, enjoyed hereditary rule, but had to obey the general.
In the Edo period, Japan also divided social classes in this way, but the Japanese "scholars" were not literati doctors, but samurai (shoguns and daimyōs can be regarded as high samurai). Samurai, as shoguns and vassals of the daimyō, were loyal to their masters, forming the basis of shogunate rule and ranking first among the social classes of ordinary citizens. And under the merchants there is also a class of untouchables called "dirty" or "inhuman", and listening to this name shows how much they despise people. This division of social classes is hierarchical and hierarchical.
Japanese taxis, farmers, industrialists and merchants
At the same time that Japan entered the Edo period, Europe had entered the age of great navigation, and merchant ships from Europe brought not only trade, but also religion. In order to prevent the introduction of Western ideas, ensure the stability of domestic politics and monopolize foreign trade, from 1633 onwards, the Edo shogunate issued five orders to close the country and implement a policy of closing the country to the country. In 1639, the policy of seclusion was finally implemented, leaving nagasaki, an easily controllable shogunate, as a small window to the outside world, and allowing only Chinese, Koreans, and Dutch to trade here.
Although a closed country can create a relatively stable internal environment, it is not a long-term solution. In the middle of the 19th century, the end of shogunate rule was already in its infancy, and like many feudal dynasties, the Edo shogunate encountered many problems that were difficult to solve. The exploitation of the peasants by the feudal lords was flourishing day by day, the social contradictions were sharp, and the peasants' revolts and riots arose one after another; the strict social class system of the peasants, peasants, and industrialists, although conducive to social stability in the early stage, was extremely easy to intensify social contradictions in the later stages; the policy of closing off the country caused the backwardness of the whole country, especially for those in the southwest region that traditionally relied on foreign trade, and the call for reform was even greater, especially in the Cheung Chau and Satsuma clans, which were the most active. These two clans were also the strongholds that later formed modern Japanese militarism, the so-called Choshu Army, satsuma's navy.
Moreover, as was the case in neighboring China at the time, japan was no longer the time to solve the fundamental problems of society through the change of feudal dynasties. The emergence of the capitalist economy has caused a great impact and challenge to the natural economy of the feudal small peasants, and the new mode of production has shaken the feudal rule from the economic basis. More importantly, due to the inevitable decay and degeneration of the ruling class, which encroached on a large number of social resources for its own enjoyment, the status of the middle and lower samurai classes deteriorated, the rights were no longer guaranteed, and the idea of rebellion against shogunate rule gradually emerged. The changes in Japan as a whole have become a trend of mountains and rains.
The development of history always has its inevitable trend, but in the process of development, there will always be some key events to play a role in promoting. On July 8, 1853, four ships appeared on the surface of the Uraga Sea in Edo Bay that many ordinary Japanese people had never seen before. Two of the big ships had huge sails erected on them, while the other two were even stranger, with huge wheels on either side of their hulls, which slowly rotated in the water, and strange pillars on the hulls, which were constantly emitting thick smoke. All four ships were painted black, and there were some holes on both sides of the hull, and it was faintly visible that they seemed to be cannons one by one. The Japanese people looked at the ships with a hint of fear, and the only thing on board that was either black was the flag hanging high on the top of the mast, full of stars and stripes.
Black Ship Coming Incident
It was a fleet from the United States consisting of 2 steam-powered paddle cruisers and 2 sail-powered frigates. Ninety-two years later, the American flag that hangs on the flagship on this day will be specially borrowed by General Halsey from the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, which houses it, and hung high on the bow of the battleship USS Missouri, and sailed into Tokyo Bay again to accept Japan's surrender in World War II. The fleet was led by Commodore Matthew Perry, commander of the U.S. East Indies Fleet, who had a special mission to get Japan to open its doors to do business with the United States.
After completing the First Industrial Revolution and the Bourgeois Revolution, the Western powers gradually developed towards liberal capitalism. Under the influence of the law of capitalist production, in order to establish a world capitalist market and seize the commodity market and raw material production areas, the Western powers have extended the tentacles of colonial expansion to the world and carried out fierce competition. At this time, Japan was still closed to the outside world, refusing to trade with Western countries. In 1846 and 1849, the United States made two unsatisfactory requests to Japan for trade, but they did not do so, and now the Americans are ready to use force to open Japan's closed doors.
Perry carried the handwritten letter of state of U.S. President Millard Fillmore and was instructed to ban artillery fire, because what the United States needed at this time was not a military occupation of Japan, but a commercial gain through this open market. Since at this time, the old Western powers such as Britain, France, and Russia have already occupied a large number of their own interests in China and have devoted their main energy to consolidating and maintaining these interests, and they cannot take care of the small Japan next to the huge China, and the United States, as a rising star and cannot compete with the old powers in China, pays more attention to Japan than other Western powers.
Although Japan's land area was small, resources were poor, the productivity at that time was relatively backward, and the value of economic and trade exchanges was not large, but in the steam age, as an intermediate station across the Pacific to China, it played an important role in expanding the interests of the United States in China. In fact, to this day, many flights between China and the United States still make connections or stops in Japan. In addition, Japan's numerous islands were also of great importance to the United States' control of the western Pacific.
Although there were orders prohibiting the firing of artillery, it was only to avoid provoking unnecessary wars. For the Japanese who do not know the power of the cannons, if there are cannons that are not used, it will not help to solve the problem, and the necessary intimidation will still be necessary. On July 14, after several days of fruitless negotiations, Perry ordered the ships to fire their guns in demonstration. More than sixty cannons emitted deafening roars, and the sound of cannons reverberated for a long time on the surface of the Uraga Sea, and the Japanese soldiers and civilians were frightened. There are only about 20 Japanese coastal defense guns in the entire Edo Bay that can be close to the U.S. artillery in terms of range and firepower.
Perry led 300 sailors to land in Kurihama and presented the credentials to the Japanese side. Under the threat of opening fire without opening a country, the Edo shogunate did not dare to refuse the request to open the country, but feared that after accepting the letter of state brought by Perry, it would be attacked by the whole country, so the high-ranking official of the shogunate at the time, Abe Masahiro, under the pretext of obtaining the approval of the emperor, could accept the treaty, and told Perry to reply the following spring. On February 13, 1854, the Americans came again as promised. This time Perry brought with him 7 warships, in addition to the 4 that came last time, 2 other sail-powered frigates, and 1 of the latest and more powerful steam-powered cruisers. This time, the U.S. fleet went deep into Edo Bay until the ship stopped near Yokohama.
Perry landed with his troops
On March 8, Perry landed in Yokohama with 500 sailors and Marines, and Perry asked to negotiate in Yokohama so that the negotiation site was within range of the artillery of the American battleship. Faced with a tougher threat from the U.S. military, the Edo shogunate had to accept the request to open the country. On March 31, 1854, the Edo shogunate and the United States signed the Treaty of Goodwill between Japan and the United States in Yokohama, also known as the Treaty of Kanagawa (Yokohama City belonged to Kanagawa Prefecture), which stipulated that Japan would open the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate and grant the United States one-sided most-favored-nation treatment. This is the famous "black ship sailing" incident in Japanese history, but Perry's reputation in Japan is not bad.
In Kurihama, Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, there is a Perry Park. At the site where Perry led his troops to land, a perry landing monument was erected, which contained the handwritten handwritten letter of former Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi: "Monument to admiralty of the United States of America" In Perry Park, there is an annual commemoration of the founding of the country organized by the people, known as the "Black Boat Festival". In the commemorative performance, the "invaders" of that year appeared as heroes. Although Perry forced Japan to sign the first unequal treaty with the guns of the ship, the Japanese did not regard it as an enemy in later generations. On the contrary, the Japanese have the feeling that Perry has promoted Japan's opening up and reform, embarked on the road of rich countries and strong troops, and regarded them as Japan's benefactors. I have to say that the brain circuits of the Japanese are really different from ours, very strange, this is a nation that the more you ravage it, the more it worships you.
Perry Landing Monument
Throughout the events and in the course of the treaty, in order to reduce the opposition of the various clans, the Edo shogunate wanted to sign the treaty in the name of the emperor, thus changing the precedent of never allowing the emperor to participate in politics for more than two hundred years, and making an exception to invite major names, clansmen, scholars, and even commoners to give their opinions on the founding of the country. As a result, the tide of freedom of thought and expression was launched, and the emperor and his courtiers, daimyōs, and their courtiers raised the banner of national salvation and took the opportunity to jump into the political arena.
Since then, Western countries have followed suit, and Britain, Russia and the Netherlands have signed goodwill treaties with Japan based on free trade. If the previous goodwill treaty was only to allow Japan to open the door to free trade, except that the one-sided most-favored-nation treatment was somewhat harmful to Japan's economic interests, and the meaning of inequality was not so strong, then on July 29, 1858, under the threat of American force, the Edo shogunate signed the "Japan-US Reconciliation Treaty of Commerce" that was not so friendly. Under this treaty, Japan not only wanted to open more trading ports, but also allowed Americans to live in trade places, build houses and free trade, have consular jurisdiction, and impose negotiated tariffs, which was a completely unequal treaty. Subsequently, the Netherlands, Russia, Britain, and France signed similar treaties with Japan, and Japan's policy of closing the country to the outside world collapsed.
The treaties of commerce signed by Japan with other countries have undermined Japan's sovereignty in terms of both the rule of law and the economy. Consular jurisdiction allows citizens of the great powers to enjoy extraterritorial jurisdiction in Japan, and Japanese laws cannot protect the rights and interests of their own countries and their own citizens; the agreed tariffs are equivalent to the great powers controlling Japan's customs, coupled with the one-sided most-favored-nation treatment clause, Japan has lost the means to defend its economy, and the capitalist countries have used it to dump industrial goods and currency speculation on Japan. More crucially, these treaties do not stipulate a validity period, and if they are to be amended, they must be agreed by both sides, which puts a shackle on Japan that it cannot unilaterally untie.
Japan's economy was hit hard, gold was outflowed, prices soared, and the shogunate and various clans had to borrow money from the Western powers by selling out Japan's sovereignty and long-term interests in order to survive the immediate economic crisis.
Under the dual pressure of internal and external troubles, some people of insight in Japan began to realize that only by overthrowing the rule of the shogunate and learning from the advanced countries in the West could we save the crisis facing Japan. Under the impetus of these people of insight, the camp composed of peasants, small citizens, middle- and lower-class samurai, capitalists who advocated the development of industry, and emerging landlords who advocated reform (similar to capitalist farmers) developed and grew, and finally completed the great cause of reform in modern Japan. And the establishment of this camp is not an overnight achievement, it also has a process.
In the beginning, the development direction of Japan's domestic political system and foreign policy was actually divided into two factions: "Sakukai Kaikoku" and "Emperor Shōgun". The "founding of the Shogunate" was that the shogunate still ruled the country, but opened the door to communicate with the Western powers; while the "Emperor Shōgun" demanded that the shogunate return the rule to the emperor and implement a policy of retrospective monarchy and at the same time xenophobia. There is no doubt that the idea of "honoring the king and the king" is actually driving a backwards course of history, and there is no progress to speak of, while although the "founding of the country" seems to be opening up to the outside world and catering to the trend of historical development, its fundamental idea is to use the power of the Western powers to maintain the decadent and decadent rule of the feudal shogunate itself, and fundamentally hinders the progress of social development. But in the fierce collision of social change, the ideas of these two schools are also subtly merged.
The center of the Shōgun faction was located in the southwest, far from the center of the shogunate's rule, and there were still economic and trade exchanges with the outside world in private, and the four domains of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen, which were more economically developed. According to the shogunate system of the Edo shogunate, the domains that were closer to Edo were usually divided into daimyo who were closer to the shogunate, and the more distant the clans were divided into daimyōs who were more distantly related, so the relationship between these clans and the shogunate was the worst. These four clans not only have more contact with the outside world and are more progressive in their thinking, but also hope to gain more political rights and interests through change because of their own economic development.
The Top Four Of the Fallen Curtains
They gradually realized that the greatest root cause of the backwardness and national crisis of the entire Japanese state came from the Edo shogunate, so they put forward the slogan of "Honoring the King", advocating the abolition of the shogunate and the return of the government to the emperor, the essence of which was to overthrow the shogunate. The thinkers, emerging landowners, capitalists, and young samurai of these four clans formed the core force of the fallen, especially the Choshu clan and the Satsuma clan, which later controlled the army and navy of modern Japan, respectively. The fallen force later became the core force for actively promoting militarist expansion, which was also the inevitable result of Japan's inevitable development after realizing social change and leapfrog development and incomplete bourgeois revolution with limited resources and limited markets.
Shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Rapprochement and Commerce between Japan and the United States, dissatisfied with the fact that the shogunate had signed the treaty under foreign pressure and without the emperor's permission, some lords and warriors instigated the emperor to issue an edict through the secretaries of state who had conflicts with the shogunate, refused to approve the signing of the treaty, and preached the honor of the king. From October 1858 to 1859, the shogunate arrested and killed the Shōgun in Kyoto, Edo, and other places, including Yoshida Shoin.
Yoshida Shoin was a politician, thinker, educator, and reformer at the end of the Edo period, as well as the spiritual leader and theoretical founder of the Meiji Restoration, and among his students were Shinsaku Takasugi, Genrui Kusaka, Takayoshi Kido, Hirobumi Ito, and Aritomo Yamagata, who were leaders of the later fallen restoration, as well as heavyweights in modern Japanese military and political circles. On March 24, 1860, 18 ronin of the Mito and Satsuma clans (samurai who had previously left the domain to avoid the involvement of the domain) took revenge on the victims and assassinated Naohiro Ii, a senior shogun at the time, outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle. The shogunate was already economically stretched at this time, and with the signing of treaties and the assassination of high-ranking officials, its prestige plummeted.
Yoshida Matsuma
In late 1862 and early 1863, the Emperor's edicts were instigated by the Emperor, ordering the shogunate to periodically announce shogunates, that is, to abrogate treaties, close ports, and expel foreigners. On January 31, 1863, Takasugi Anderson and others set fire to the British legation. On 6 June, the shogunate was forced to promise Emperor Hyomyō that it would begin on 25 June. On 24 June, the shogunate informed the ministers of various countries that the ports would be closed. On June 25, 1863, and on July 8 and 11, 1863, the Choshu Domain Battery shelled American, French, and Dutch ships passing through the Shimonoseki Strait. On July 16 and 20, American and French warships attacked Shimonoseki in retaliation.
From 15 to 17 August, in order to resolve the Raw Wheat Incident that had occurred on September 14 of the previous year (several British merchants were attacked by Japanese samurai in the village of Raw Wheat on the outskirts of Yokohama), seven British warships attacked Satsuma Domain. The Samoan War ended with a small victory for the British and the submission of the Satsuma clan. After this war, satsuma clan was the first to realize that it was unrealistic to be a shogunate, and instead advocated the founding of the country. The United Kingdom also re-evaluated its strength because of the satsuma clan's tough counterattack, and instead developed a cooperative relationship with the satsuma clan. It is worth mentioning that in this war, the gunner who shot at the British ship, Oyama Rock, later became the earliest marshal of the Japanese army. Among the assistants who carried shells for Oyama Rock were Yamamoto Kwonbei, the father of the Japanese Navy, and Heihachiro Higashigo, the god of japanese naval forces.
The Saxon-British War
On September 30, 1863, the shogunate forces manipulated the Gongwu faction to stage a coup d'état in Kyoto, driving out the people who had fallen behind the curtain and persecuting the Shōgun Faction. On August 19, 1864, Kusaka Genrui and others led the choshu clan's army into Kyoto, where they fought fiercely against the Kyoto Guardian Army controlled by the shogunate.
On August 24, the shogunate instigated the Emperor's edict to pursue the forbidden gate by launching the first war against the Choshu Domain. The combined fleets of Britain, the United States, France, and the Netherlands also attacked Shimonoseki again on September 5, and the Choshu Domain failed under the internal and external attacks, submitting to the shogunate, and the conservative forces regained control of the domain, and Takasugi Jinsaku and others were forced to flee. The defeat of the struggle caused the Zunwang Faction to reconsider its strategy, no longer blindly xenophobic, but to learn from the advanced countries of the West in order to promote the fall of the curtain and the progress of its own country. In the spring of 1865, Takasugi Shinsaku raised his army again, advocating the opening of the port to discuss the curtain, and no longer mentioned the shogunate. At this point, the Zunwang Shogi movement was transformed into an armed collapse and became the driving force for the Meiji Restoration in the future.
In 1866, satsuma and choshu warriors formed an alliance, and at the same time, the British weighed the stakes and changed their tactics to aid the fallens. The shogunate, on the other hand, defected to France and launched the Second War of Conquest of Choshu Domain in July 1866. At this time, the people's uprising was raging, dealing a heavy blow to the shogunate. The Choshu Clan united with the forces of the Fallen Shogunate to fight valiantly, forcing the shogunate to withdraw its troops in September of the same year. The authority of the shogunate plummeted.
After the second war against the Choshu Domain, the shogunate had lost its ability to rule Japan. As a result, most of the reformers felt that Japan's political structure should be rebuilt, or Japan would become a divided country with different divisions. However, Sakamoto Ryoma, a reformist of the Tosa Domain, strongly advocated the "theory of great government and return", and the main contents of the great government were "demanding that the shogunate return power to the imperial court", "establishing two upper and lower councils", and "formulating a constitution". Toyonobu Yamauchi, the former lord of Tosa Domain, believed that the head of the new legislature should still be the shogun, so he wrote a letter to the shogunate. When Tokugawa Keiki received the "Letter on the Return of the Great Government", he agreed to the request of the Great Political Restoration, because the shogunate could regain the power to rule Japan through the fact that the Great Political Blessing was still in the community to calm the dissatisfaction and anger of all walks of life against the shogunate.
On January 30, 1867, Emperor Hyomyō, who advocated the integration of public and military forces and opposed the fall of the curtain, died, and was succeeded by a young crown prince, Prince Muhihito, who was deeply at odds with the shogunate, and became Emperor Meiji. On November 9, forced by the current situation to his own detriment, he was already struggling to deal with the Choshu Domain, in addition to other powerful clans, and on the advice of the Tosa Domain, the 15th shogun of the Edo shogunate and the last shogun, Tokugawa Keiki, played the Meiji emperor and proposed the return of the government to the imperial court for 260 years. Its purpose was thought to be to discredit the tokumi, and the Tokugawa family would continue to wield real power as a political center. On November 10, Emperor Meiji promised to take back the power surrendered by Tokugawa Keiki. Tokugawa Keiki pretended to be the emperor, but gathered elite troops in Osaka in an attempt to rebel.
The great government is still in favor
After the return of the great government, the imperial court ordered the lords of the various clans to come to Kyoto immediately to discuss national policies, but only a few lords of the clan went to Kyoto, and the vast majority of the other lords did not move, because they did not know what the great government was still going on, for fear of offending the shogunate. If this continues, the imperial court will only be able to ask the shogunate to continue to hold power for the time being, because the imperial court will withdraw its power, but it will not be able to order the lords of the various domains throughout the country. The Satsuma and Choshu clans of the Fallen Shogunate faction believed that under these circumstances, only by overthrowing the shogunate by force could the new government be successfully established.
On the night of January 2, 1868, Iwakura, the central figure of the Imperial Household Sect, gathered the important ministers of Satsuma, Tosa, Anyi, Owari, and Echizen in his private residence, and categorically announced the implementation of the imperial government retrospective. The next day, January 3, the last imperial council under the old system was held, and after the courtiers withdrew, Satsuma and other five clan troops, who were waiting for the opportunity, took control of the nine gates of the Kyoto Imperial Palace (imperial palace) and strictly restricted passage. At about nine o'clock, the soldiers of Satsuma, Owari, Echizen, and Anyi went to the various palace gates in a big way to ask for guard work, and the Aizu and Kuwana clan soldiers who had been stationed at the palace gate saw that the other side was threatening, so they had to evacuate the palace gate.
In the afternoon, after all the secretaries of state, lords, and warriors who had received the emperor's edict gathered at the court, the 15-year-old Meiji Emperor read the "Imperial Retro Grand Order" jointly drafted by Okubo Ritsu, Iwakura Andesi, and others. Abolish the regency, sekibai, and shogunate; set up the three positions of president, agreement, and participation; and restore everything to the ideal of the new policy at the beginning of Shenwu's founding. That night, the Emperor presided over a pre-imperial council attended by the Imperial Secretaries, Ministers, and Samurai of the Fallen Curtain Faction. It was announced that the shogunate would be abolished, and the shogun Tokugawa Keiki would be instructed to hand over his domain and property; he would be given authority to the emperor and pro-government; and a new central government would be established.
Tokugawa Keiki saw that he was undermanned in Kyoto, so he pretended to agree to the decision of the meeting, but only after consulting with other senior shogunate officials before replying to the imperial court. On the other hand, in order to avoid armed conflict with the Fallen Faction in Kyoto, Tokugawa Keiki had to temporarily go to Osaka on January 6 with the support of his aizu and Kuwana clans. On 8 and 10 January, Tokugawa Keiki declared the Imperial Retro Grand Order illegal in Osaka, declaring war on the Fallen Faction in the name of the Kiyogun side, and the Japanese Civil War broke out.
On January 27, 1868, 5,000 men of the Fallen Shogunate Army, led by Satsuma and Choshu Domains, under the command of Saigo Takamori, fought a decisive battle with 15,000 shogunate troops in the Toba and Fushimi areas near Kyoto. By January 30, the shogunate army was completely defeated, and the fallen army, which was superior in morale, equipment, and training, had achieved a decisive victory with the active cooperation of the peasants and the urban poor, Andogawa Keiki fled to Edo, and the fallen army took advantage of the victory to pursue, and the "Bochen War" began. The Fallen Shogunate marched all the way to the east, forcing Tokugawa Keiki to surrender control of Edo Castle and the shogunate and army on May 3, 1868, and by early November the rebellion in the Tohoku region had been quelled by the various clans that had belonged to Mutsu, Izuwa, and Echigo, and the war was basically over.
Battle of Toba Fushimi
Among them, the Fallen Curtain Army and the Okuwa-Etsu Allied Forces fought the fiercest battle in Nagaoka Domain, and the Nagaoka samurai Yamamoto was killed after being defeated with a sword. A few decades later, a young man will inherit his Bushido spirit to the long-dead him, and that young man will be called Takano Fifty-Six, which later became Yamamoto Fifty-Six. In the spring of 1869, the Fallen Shogunate army set out for Hokkaido and on June 27 captured the last stronghold of the remnants of the shogunate, ending the Bochen War. In this way, the last feudal shogunate regime in Japan was overthrown. On May 9, 1869, the Meiji Emperor's government moved from Kyoto to Edo, which had been renamed Tokyo the previous year, and began a series of political and economic reforms, the Meiji Restoration.
Because the shogunate ruled for too long, it has left an indelible mark on the hearts of modern Japanese, so after the end of World War II, when the US military occupied Japan, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, MacArthur, like the Emperor Taishang, directed the Japanese government to carry out political reforms, and the Japanese people did not feel any discomfort, in their hearts, MacArthur was a shogun from the West.