What is the Meiji Restoration of Japan

The Meiji Restoration was a political and social “revolution” in Japan between 1866 and 1869 that ended the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and reinstated the Emperor as the political and cultural center of Japan. It owes its name to Mutsuhito, the Meiji Emperor, who was the greatest symbol of this movement.

Background to the Meiji Restoration

When United States Navy ships led by Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay (present-day Tokyo) in 1853 demanding the Tokugawa government allow Western powers access to Japan, he unwittingly set off a chain of events that would lead to the uprising. of Japan as an imperial power. Japanese elites realized the disadvantage Japan was in terms of military technology vis-a-vis Western powers, and justifiably felt threatened by Western imperialism. After all, Qing China had been defeated by the British 14 years earlier during the First Opium War.

Intending to avoid a similar fate, some people in the Japanese elite began to work on a plan to modernize Japan, where the Emperor played a central role as a political figure.

The Alliance between Satsuma and Choshu

On November 19, 1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned his position as shogun, officially transferring his power to the young emperor, although the former would not relinquish practical control of Japan so easily. When Meiji issued an imperial decree with the support of the Satsuma and Choshu leaders, dissolving the Tokugawa house, the shogun had no choice but to respond with arms. He sent his army to the imperial city of Kyoto to capture the emperor.

In 1866, the daimyo of two provinces in southern Japan, Hisamitsu of Satsuma and Kido Takayoshi of Choshu, formed an alliance against the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had ruled Japan in the name of the emperor since 1603. The leaders of Satsuma and Choshu planned to remove the Tokugawa shogun and establish Emperor Komei in a true position of power. Through the Emperor, they believed that they could deal with the foreign threat more effectively. However, Komei died in January 1867, and his son Matsuhito ascended the throne as Emperor Meiji on February 3 of the same year, still a teenager.

The Boshin War

On January 27, 1868, Yoshinobu’s troops clashed with the samurai of the Satsuma and Choshu alliance; The Battle of Toba-Fushimi lasted 4 days and culminated in the defeat of the bakufu troops, starting the Boshin War (“war of the year of the dragon”). This lasted until May 1869, in which the advantage of the imperial troops that had modern weapons was notorious.

Tokugawa Yoshinobu surrendered to Saigo Takamori of Satsuma and handed over Edo Castle on April 11, 1869. Some samurai and daimyo loyal to Tokugawa continued to fight for another month from their strongholds in the north of the country, but by now it was clear that the Meiji Restoration was irrepressible.

Radical changes during the Meiji Era

Once his power was secured, the Meiji Emperor, or more precisely his advisers who included former daimyo and powerful oligarchs, began their work of transforming Japan into a modern power. Among its changes are:

• The abolition of the 4 feudal social classes hitherto in force. Among these ancient social classes were the samurai.
• The establishment of a modern army using uniforms, weapons, and tactics based on Western styles.
• They mandated universal elementary education for the boys and girls of Japan.
• A change in the productive sector of Japan, going from textiles and crafts, to heavy machinery and weapons production.

In 1889, the emperor promulgated the Meiji Constitution, which made Japan a Constitutional Monarchy based on that of Prussia.

Within a few years, these changes took Japan from a semi-isolated country, threatened by Western imperialism, to an imperial power capable of competing with European powers. He defeated Qing China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, and defeated Tsar forces in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904.

The old and the modern to create something unique

The Meiji Restoration is often characterized as a coup or revolution that ended the shogunate system, bringing Japan to a more Western-like system of government and military. Historian Mark Ravina suggests that the leaders who led the Meiji Restoration from 1866 to 1869 did so not just to “copy” Western ways, but to reinstate and revive ancient Japanese institutions. Rather than a clash between the ancient and the modern, or between Western and Japanese practices, Ravina indicates that it was the result of a struggle to find a point of balance between the Japanese and the Western, creating new institutions and ways to function in Japan.

And it didn’t happen in a vacuum, during that same time there was a global transformation in the political system, where nationalism and new states were growing. The long-standing multi-ethnic empires, the Ottoman, Qing, Romanov, and Hapsburg, were crumbling, being replaced by nations that responded to their own cultural identity. A Japanese nation was necessary to defend against Western predators.

Although the Meiji Restoration caused many difficulties for the population in adapting to changes, it allowed Japan to grow rapidly and take its place among the world powers at the beginning of the 20th century.