Meiji Restoration

Commodore Perry's visits of 1853 and 1854 forced the shogunate to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa, and in 1858 the chief minister Ii Naosuke concluded commercial treaties with the United States and European powers without the approval of Emperor Kōmei. Opponents rallied around the slogan sonnō jōi, 'revere the emperor, expel the barbarians'. Ii responded with the Ansei Purge, executing or punishing critics, among them the teacher Yoshida Shōin of Chōshū; in 1860 he was assassinated outside Edo Castle by samurai from Mito.

In the early 1860s activists (shishi) attacked foreigners and officials, and Kyoto became the centre of politics. Chōshū fired on foreign ships in the Shimonoseki Strait in 1863 and was bombarded by a Western fleet in 1864; Satsuma was shelled by the British in 1863 after its samurai killed a British merchant at Namamugi. These defeats convinced both domains that expulsion was impossible and that Japan had to acquire Western technology to resist the West.

After Chōshū forces were driven from Kyoto in 1864, the shogunate sent a punitive expedition against the domain. In 1866, with the mediation of Sakamoto Ryōma of Tosa, the former rivals Satsuma and Chōshū concluded a secret alliance, and a second shogunal expedition against Chōshū failed. The deaths of the shōgun Iemochi and of Emperor Kōmei in 1866–1867 brought new men to power: the last shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, and the teenage Emperor Meiji.

In November 1867 Yoshinobu returned governing authority to the emperor, hoping to lead a council of lords. Satsuma, Chōshū and allied court nobles led by Iwakura Tomomi forestalled him: on 3 January 1868 they proclaimed the 'restoration of imperial rule' (ōsei fukko), abolished the shogunate and demanded that Yoshinobu surrender his lands.

Fighting broke out at Toba and Fushimi near Kyoto in late January 1868, where the new government's forces, carrying the imperial banner, defeated a larger Tokugawa army. Yoshinobu withdrew to Edo and chose not to fight; negotiations between Saigō Takamori and the shogunal official Katsu Kaishū led to the peaceful surrender of Edo Castle in May 1868, sparing the city. A league of northern domains resisted, and the Aizu domain was besieged in its castle town of Wakamatsu until its surrender in November 1868. The last shogunal forces under Enomoto Takeaki held out at the star-shaped fortress of Goryōkaku in Hakodate until June 1869.

On 6 April 1868 the emperor proclaimed the Charter Oath, promising that 'deliberative assemblies shall be widely established', that all classes should pursue their callings, that 'evil customs of the past shall be broken off' and that 'knowledge shall be sought throughout the world'. In the same year the era name Meiji was adopted, Edo was renamed Tokyo, and the emperor moved there. In 1869 the daimyō returned their domain registers to the throne, and on 29 August 1871 the domains were abolished and replaced by prefectures.

A series of reforms followed rapidly: the abolition of status distinctions, a national school system (1872), conscription (1873), a land tax payable in money (1873) and the end of samurai stipends (1876). From 1871 to 1873 the Iwakura Mission, with nearly half the government's leaders, toured the United States and Europe, including Germany, to study modern institutions and seek treaty revision.

The reforms hurt many. Peasants protested against conscription and the new land tax, and former samurai resented the loss of their privileges and income. In 1873 the leadership split over a proposal to send a mission to Korea that might provoke war; Saigō Takamori and others resigned. Samurai uprisings in Saga (1874), Kumamoto, Akizuki and Hagi (1876) were suppressed. In 1877 Saigō's followers in Kagoshima rose in the Satsuma Rebellion, the largest civil war of the Meiji era. After eight months the conscript army defeated them; Saigō died at Shiroyama in Kagoshima in September 1877. A year later his former comrade Ōkubo Toshimichi was assassinated in Tokyo.

The Meiji Restoration is one of the most studied transformations in modern history. Some historians stress continuity with the Edo period – its literacy, commercial economy and administrative experience – while others emphasise the scale of the break. Marxist historians in the twentieth century debated whether it was a bourgeois revolution or an absolutist reorganisation; more recent work emphasises the role of international pressure and of lower-ranking samurai.

Its outcomes were double-edged. The Restoration preserved Japan's independence and began its industrialisation, but it also created an authoritarian emperor-centred state, and many of its leaders later pursued expansion abroad. In the domains that led it – Kagoshima, Yamaguchi and Kōchi – the Restoration and its heroes remain a central part of local identity.