MEIJI RESTORATION:

The overthrew of the Bakufu was accomplished through the union of anti-tokugawa forces, led by
the lower samurai and ronin, and particularly the western clans, Satsuma, Choshu, together with a
kuge. The leadership was in hands of lower samurai and gradually superseded the upper ranks and
feudal lords. Hence the Restoration not only represented shift from Bafuku to imperial centralized
control, but a shift in the governmental centre of gravity from upper to lower samurai. The imp
aspect to overthrew this regime was the financial support of the great Chonin. The Meiji Restoration
was the outcome of coalition of merchant class with lower samurai were the actual leaders. This
alliance of one section of feudal class with the merchants was the culmination of the tender in feudal
japan for the leading merchants to seek political gain. Thus the political settlement of the Meiji (1868)
and abolition of the feudalism in 1872 was turning point in Japanese history . the first emperor was
Mutishito. Some historians say that this was the national government system that opened japan to
western world and technology.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: In japan, the interests of the feudal ruling class and big merchants
became so closely intertwined that whatever hurt one necessarily injured the other. Since the
merchants lived off the interest on loans to daimyo and samurai, the utter ruin of the latter would
inevitably entail the ruin of the former. The weakness of the Japanese merchants were that they
lacked the opportunities for the accumulation of capital through trade and plunder. The samurai of
the castle towns and the daimyo, who together retainers were compelled of the sankin-kotai system
to spend half their time in Edo, became the chief customers of the Chonin. The daimyo themselves
had to look to the great money lenders of Osaka for financial aid. It often happened that the
exchequer of the clan would fall into hands of a wealthy Chonin who advance money to needy
daimyo at a high rate of interest with the latter’s rice income as security. The gradual infiltration of
Chonin elements into key positions within feudal hierarchy became very important towards the end
of the Bakufu in assuring co-operation b/w the big merchants of Osaka and leading anti-Tokugawa
clans.
MONOPOLY: The economic attachment b/w Chonin and daimyo was created by the system of the
monopoly in trade and manufacture. Each fief or han promoted the manufacture of the the staple
products for the export to other han. At the same time impelled by the underlying motive of
mercantilism and tried its utmost to keep out the imports from the other han. The right of each clan
to issue its own notes created such monetary chaos in the country that it hampered the merchants in
buying or selling transactions outside the clan. As the market gradually expanded along with
increased agricultural productivity and better communications, local economy, and Osaka became
the chief entrepot of the national produce, rice, as well as clearing house for he monopoly products
of clans. The agents who marketed these products were the tonya. The feudal lords to whom local
merchants looked for charters of trade monopoly had in turn to seek connection with the big
merchants and rice-brokers in the central market areas. In this way, clan monopoly system ad
national trade monopoly drove the merchants class and han authority into each others arms.

 To understand the Restoration, one must realize that the continual degradation of warrior class,
the conversion of loyal samurai into embittered ronin was a major factor in shifting the loyalty of
this class from the clan or shogunate to those forces working to overthrow the Bakufu.

The two process accompanying the decay of feudal system were : the Chonin by their economic
power became the most clear sighted pilots who steer the anti-Bakufu forces through the troubled
waters at the end of Tokugawa period; 2dly the feudal rulers always on the brink of the bankruptcy
and to ↑ the income adopted the capitalist methods of production and became tingled with the
capitalist outlook.

The leaders of the new Meiji government in 1868 were thrilled at the ease and speed with which
they overcame the Tokugawa. They remained insulted by the unequal and coerced foreign presence
and worried about the prospect of continued foreign encroachment. Propelled by both fear and
discontent with the old regime, they generated an ambitious agenda, through a process of trial and
error, aiming to build a new sort of national power.

POLITICAL CHANGES: Their first dramatic step was to abolish all the daimyo domains, thus
dismantling a political order .By 1868, almost immediately after the restorationist coup, top leaders
of the new provisional government decided that the politically fragmented system of domains had to
be overhauled and reached their goal in just three years. The move toward an integrated national
polity began in March 1869. The new government convinced key daimyo¯ of prestige and power,
especially those of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen, to voluntarily surrender their lands back to the
emperor.they were all quickly reappointed as domain governors with handsome salaries.
Nonetheless, the “return of lands” established the principle that all lands and people were subject to
the emperor’s rule. By early 1870, all daimyo¯ had formally returned their lands and taken
appointments as governors of their domains, but they retained significant autonomy and got
administrative posts. the government in August 1871 had the emperor announce that all domains
were immediately abolished. They were replaced with “prefectures” whose governors were
appointed from the center. It was a stunning change, with immediate visible consequences. The
central government would now collect taxes from domain lands. The daimyo were ordered to move
to Tokyo. Most of the new governors were not former daimyo. They were middling samurai from the
insurgent domains now controlling the government. This decree was accompanied by a large payoff
to the daimyo themselves. They were granted permanent yearly salaries equivalent to roughly 10
percent of their former domain’s annual tax revenue. Daimyo were simultaneously relieved of all the
costs of governing. In early 1868, the Sat-Cho rebels and court officials placed themselves atop a
provisional government to rule in the name of emperor. Later that year they established the Council
of State as the highest political authority and monopolized its highest posts. At the head of this
government was a prime minister. This structure was codified in the Meiji constitution of 1889.
Although this constitution provided for a deliberative assembly (the Diet), state ministers were
responsible not to the Diet but to the emperor. In 1887 it began a system of civil service
examinations. From this point on, performance on this exam became the primary qualification for
service in the prestigious ranks of the ministries of the Japanese imperial state. they elevated its
prestige by defining the bureaucratic mission as one of service to the emperor. They gave the state a
greater legitimacy and power than it had ever held in the past.
The second great change of early Meiji was that By 1876, less than a decade after the restoration
coup, the economic privileges of the samurai were wiped out entirely. The coup leaders expropriated
an entire social class. They met some stiff, violent resistance, but they managed to overcome it. The
government moved to expropriate the samurai primarily for financial reasons. The government
reduced samurai stipends when it abolished the domains. It took nearly a decade and enraged many
former samurai. In 1869 they reduced the large number of samurai ranks to two, upper samurai
(shizoku) and lower samurai (sotsu). In 1872 a large portion of the lower samurai were reclassified as
commoners (heimin) .In 1873, the government announced that stipends would be taxed. The right to
a stipend could be traded for an interest-bearing bond with a face value of five to fourteen years of
income.The government made this program compulsory in 1876: All stipends were converted to
bonds. They further lost pride and prestige: The right to wear swords was denied to all but soldiers
and policemen.Although the samurai lost their income and social privilege, they were educated and
ambitious. Many landed on their feet. Others invested their bonds in new businesses and failed
miserably.
Government leaders undertook numerous steps to realize the foremost Meiji slogan of building a
“rich country, strong army” (fukoku kyohei). the Meiji leaders decided they had to renovate the
military from the bottom up. Key figures from Choshu were deeply impressed at the superior
performance of their mixed farmer-samurai militias in the restoration wars. They wanted to ensure a
major role for samurai in the new Meiji order. In April 1871 the government created an imperial
army of just under ten thousand samurai recruited from the restoration forces. The government
decreed a system of universal conscription. Beginning at the age of twenty, all males were obligated
to give three years of active service and four years on reserve status. In Japan , a patriotic spirit that
could induce willing military service-a key element of modern nationalism-had to be drummed into
the masses of people over several decades.
The Meiji government instituted a new system of education with remarkable speed. in 1872 it
declared four years of elementary education to be compulsory for all children, boys and girls. At the
outset, the government announced that schools were to encourage practical learning as well as
independent thinking. By this means commoners would find their own way to serve the state. And
for the education the experts were called from the west.
Early Meiji was the decision to put the emperor at the very center of the political order. The
restoration activists carried out their coup in the name of the Meiji emperor. After the emperor’s
triumphal progress from Kyoto to Edo in 1868.The government called the emperor’s Tokyo residence
a “temporary court” until that year, when it officially renamed it the “Imperial Palace”.At the same
time, the constitution greatly elevated the emperor’s legal and cultural authority.
The Meiji leaders were profoundly impressed with the energies unleashed by industrial capitalism.
The concept of “rich country, strong army” (fukoku kyohei) was introduced. Some initiatives were
indirect measures to build the infrastructure of an industrial economy. Others were direct measures
to construct and operate mines and factories as government projects.
The most important economic reform of the 1870s was the new tax system. The new Meiji
government began its life in poverty. In 1873, the government announced a new national land tax It
was intended to stabilize state revenues at a level roughly comparable to the sum total of Bakufu and
domain taxes.
The significance of the new tax system went beyond securing revenue. It changed the economic
relationship of individual landowners to the state and to each other. The tax system of 1873 changed
all this. It provided for a national land survey, conducted in the mid-1870s, that matched an owner to
every piece of land and issued deeds. It also assessed the market value of all plots of land. Finally, it
set the land tax at 3 percent of assessed value. This new system gave the government a predictable
annual revenue. the new government used a portion of these tax revenues for public works and
institution-building projects to create the infrastructure of a capitalist industrial economy. It built
telegraph lines beginning in 1869, and in 1871 it opened a postal system modeled on British practices.
It encouraged the founding of joint stock companies among private investors. By the mid-1880s it
had established a uniform national currency, the yen.Most important of all, the government took the
lead in building a railroad network. The first line connected Tokyo to Yokohama and was completed
in 1872. It was extended as far as Kobe by 1889. The government also encouraged private
investment in railroads. By 1890, Japan boasted fourteen hundred miles of railroad, about 40 percent
owned and operated by the government, the rest in private hands. the Meiji government played an
unusually direct role in building and operating industrial enterprises. Government leaders were
convinced that private investors lacked the initiative and the knowledge to run modern factories.
They were also convinced that foreign investment was dangerous. As a result, the first modern
industrial enterprises in Japan were financed largely from domestic sources, especially from the
national treasury. In the 1870s, the state financed and ran a number of so-called model enterprises:
shipyards, coal and copper mines, engineering works, arsenals, and cotton-spinning, silk-reeling,
glass, sugar, and even beer factories. At great expense in the 1870s, the new government engaged
several thousand “hired foreigners” (oyatoi gaijin) from over twenty nations. These technicians and
experts offered important advice in a wide range of economic and social endeavors. Economic
historians disagree over the importance of the government’s role in orchestrating economic
development in Japan. A first generation of managers and engineers had been trained. A small
industrial wage labor force had been created. These state enterprises constituted an important
launching pad for further growth. The government initially had hoped to encourage private investors
in new industrial fields to take the risk. They generated faith, both within the government and
outside it, in the potential and the importance of the state’s role in supporting economic
development.
As the new government anxiously looked to consolidate its power in early 1868, its leaders knew
very well that such proposals, and the desire to participate, were widespread among allies as well as
potential opponents. One very important brief statement of such a strategy was the Charter Oath of
1868 (also called the Five-Article Oath), issued in March in the name of the emperor after
considerable internal debate by the new government. It read as follows: “By this oath we set up as
our aim the establishment of the national weal on a broad basis and the framing of a constitution
and laws.”. Articles 3–5, expressed a spirit of reform that informed the revolutionary changes
imposed by the new government over the next decade. Equally important were the first two articles.
They promised to involve some portion of the population in a process of “public discussion”.The
government, for its part, later in 1868 built on the vocabulary of the Charter Oath when it founded a
bicameral “national deliberative assembly” (the Kogisho). This body was comprised of two
houses.The assembly was appointed, not elected, but it had legislative powers. The new rulers
modified the governing structure several times over the next two decades. This first assembly was
discontinued early on, by July 1869. A second consultative assembly replaced this body. It lasted for
about a year before it, too, was adjourned permanently. But the early Meiji government had at least
nodded in the direction of “widely established” deliberation by creating such assemblies.

The revolutionary Meiji agenda of the 1870s drew inspiration from a fervent curiosity about
Euro-American technology and ideas. They typically began to change their attitudes by accepting the
foreign presence and foreign technologies as an expedient measure: One had to learn barbarian
tricks to defeat them. But many of the Meiji leaders went on to develop a more profound
appreciation for the enduring power of Western things and ideas. Travel abroad was the most
important educational experience for the young rulers of the Meiji state. In the 1860s both Satsuma
and Choshu, as well as the Bakufu, sent students to study in Europe. These experiences gave future
government leaders.They observed all manner of institutions and practices, from schools and
factories to parliaments. The economic power of modern industry and the social power of the
educated citizens and subjects of the Western nation-states impressed the mission members
profoundly. This new found respect for the value and power of Western ideas coexisted with ongoing
anger at the unequal political relationship between Japan and the Western powers. The primary
reason for sending the Iwakura Mission in the first place was to revise the terms of the unequal
treaties of 1858.The Japanese were told they had to bring their legal and political system up to
European standards before treaty revision could even be considered. the West continued to be seen
as a source of danger as well as opportunity. Dangers included not just foreign armies and navies.
The Meiji leaders viewed democratic political ideas with great concern. They decided that
parliaments could be divisive institutions rather than sources of unity and strength.
This attitude surfaced with a vengeance in 1873 while the Iwakura Mission was abroad. Saigo
Takamori, a zealous patriot from Satsuma, prodded the caretaker government to plan an invasion of
Korea. Japanese traders in the early 1870s were pushing the Korean government to open trade
relations. When the Koreans firmly refused, Saigo proposed an invasion to force the issue.Neither
advocates nor opponents of invasion seemed particularly troubled by the irony that their behavior
replicated that of the offensive Westerners in the 1850s. But the members of the Iwakura Mission
strongly opposed the plan on strategic grounds. Instead, they agreed the next year (1874) to a
smaller action against the island of Taiwan.The new Japanese government sought to include these
islands in its territories, so it had demanded reparations, but the Chinese government also claimed
control of the Ryukyu Islands and had refused to pay. The fact that military action came three years
after the original incident reveals it to have been in part a strategic concession to the continued
strong emotions of the faction in the government that had pushed to invade Korea in 1873. Japanese
leaders were influenced in their thinking by Western diplomatic practice of the time, which justified
colonization when carried out in the name of a mission to civilize native populations. The plan to set
up colonies was not made public, and it was shelved as the expedition began in fear that it might
incite a war with China.
The rulers also established an expanded set of borders to the Japanese nation in this first decade of
nation-building. While people in the newly claimed borderlands thus were recognized as Japanese
subjects from early in the Meiji era, the policies to include them in the nation were ambivalent and
slow to develop.
MODERNIZATION
HISTORIOGRAPHY