Bakumatsu

Although these two groups were the most visible powers, many other factions attempted to use the chaos of bakumatsu to seize personal power.[1]^{[page needed]} Furthermore, there were two other main driving forces for dissent: first, growing resentment on the part of the tozama daimyō (or outside lords), and second, growing anti-Western sentiment following the arrival of Matthew C. Perry. The first related to those lords whose predecessors had fought against Tokugawa forces at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, after which they had been permanently excluded from all powerful positions within the shogunate. The second was to be expressed in the phrase sonnō jōi, or "revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians". The turning point of the Bakumatsu was during the Boshin War and the Battle of Toba–Fushimi when pro-shogunate forces were defeated.^{[2][page needed]}

Background

Frictions with foreign powers

Frictions with foreign shipping led Japan to take defensive actions from the beginning of the 19th century. Western ships were increasing their presence around Japan due to

Meanwhile, Japan endeavoured to learn about foreign sciences through

The resulting damage to the shogunate was significant. Debate over government policy was unusual and had engendered public criticism of the shogunate. In the hope of enlisting the support of new allies, Abe, to the consternation of the

Treaties imposed upon Japan

Following the nomination of Townsend Harris as the U.S. Consul in 1856 and two years of negotiation, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed in 1858 and put into application from mid-1859. During the negotiations, Harris had convinced the Japanese negotiators to sign the treaty on the basis it was the best possible terms a Western power would offer.^[14][15]

The most important points of the Treaty were:

• exchange of diplomatic agents.
• Niigata, and Yokohama
  's opening to foreign trade as ports.
• ability of United States citizens to live and trade at will in those ports (only opium trade was prohibited).
• a system of extraterritoriality that provided for the subjugation of foreign residents to the laws of their own consular courts instead of the Japanese law system.
• fixed low import-export duties, subject to international control
• ability for Japan to purchase American shipping and weapons (three American steamships were delivered to Japan in 1862).

Japan was also forced to apply any further conditions granted to other foreign nations in the future to the United States, under the "most favoured nation" provision. Several foreign nations soon followed suit and obtained treaties with Japan (the

• 
  Map of newly opened Yokohama Port 1859-1860
• 
  View of Yokohama in 1859

Crisis

Collapse of the Japanese economy

The opening of Japan to uncontrolled foreign trade brought massive economic instability. While some prospered, many others went bankrupt. Unemployment rose, as well as inflation. Coincidentally, major famines also increased the price of food drastically. Incidents occurred between brash foreigners and the Japanese.

Japan's monetary system, based on Tokugawa coinage, also broke down. Traditionally, Japan's exchange rate between gold and silver was 1:5, whereas international rates were of the order of 1:15. This led to massive purchases of gold by foreigners, and ultimately forced the Japanese authorities to devalue their currency.^[17] There was a massive outflow of gold from Japan, as foreigners rushed to exchange their silver for "token" silver Japanese coinage and again exchange these against gold, giving a 200% profit to the transaction. In 1860, about 4 million ryōs thus left Japan,^[18] that is about 70 tons of gold. This effectively destroyed Japan's gold standard system, and forced it to return to weight-based system with International rates. The Bakufu instead responded to the crises by debasing the gold content of its coins by two thirds, so as to match foreign gold-silver exchange ratios.^[18]

Foreigners also brought cholera to Japan, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths.^[17]

• 
  Foreign ships in Yokohama harbor
• 
  A foreign trading house in Yokohama in 1861
• 
  Allegory of inflation and soaring prices during the Bakumatsu era

Political and social crisis

Tairō Ii Naosuke, who had signed the Harris Treaty and tried to eliminate opposition to Westernization with the Ansei Purge, was himself murdered in March 1860 in the Sakuradamon incident. A servant of the French Minister was attacked at the end of 1860.^[19] On 14 January 1861, Henry Heusken, Secretary to the American mission, was attacked and murdered.^[19] On 5 July 1861, a group of samurai attacked the British Legation, resulting in two deaths.^[19] During this period, about one foreigner was killed every month. The Richardson Affair occurred in September 1862, forcing foreign nations to take decisive action in order to protect foreigners and guarantee the implementation of Treaty provisions. In May 1863, the US legation in Edo was torched.

During the 1860s, peasant uprisings and urban disturbances multiplied. A "World renewal" movement appeared, as well as religious festivals and protests such as the Eejanaika.^{[citation needed]}

From 1859, the ports of

• 
  Attack on the British legation in Edo, July 1861
• 
  Assassination of Tairō Ii Naosuke in the Sakuradamon incident (1860)

Initial efforts to revise the imposed treaties

Several missions were sent abroad by the Bakufu, in order to revise the commercial treaties. However, these efforts remained largely unsuccessful. A

• 
  The members of the First Japanese Embassy to Europe (1862) visiting the 1862 International Exhibition in London, from the Illustrated London News

Sonnō Jōi (1863–66)

Belligerent opposition to Western influence further erupted into open conflict when the Emperor Kōmei, breaking with centuries of imperial tradition, began to take an active role in matters of state and issued, on March 11 and April 11, 1863, his "Order to expel barbarians" (攘夷実行の勅命, jōi jikkō no chokumei).

The Mōri clan of

Under pressure from the Emperor, the Shogun was also forced to issue a declaration promulgating the end of relations with foreigners. The order was forwarded to foreign legations by Ogasawara Zusho no Kami on June 24, 1863:

"The orders of the Tycoon, received from Kyoto, are to the effect that the ports are to be closed and the foreigners driven out, because the people of the country do not desire intercourse with foreign countries."

— Missive of Ogasawara Dzusho no Kami, June 24, 1863, quoted in A Diplomat in Japan, Ernest Satow, p75

Edward Neale, the head of the British Legation, responded on very strong terms, equating the move with a declaration of war:

"It is, in fact, a declaration of war by Japan itself against the whole of the Treaty Powers, and the consequences of which, if not at once arrested, it will have to expiate by the severest and most merited chastisement"

— Edward Neale, June 24, 1863. Quoted in A Diplomat in Japan, Ernest Satow, p77

• 
  An 1861 image expressing the

  Jōi

  (攘夷, "Expel the Barbarians") sentiment
• 
  Japanese cannons shooting on Foreign shipping at Shimonoseki in 1863

Foreign military interventions against sonnō jōi

American influence, which had been of high importance in the beginning, waned after 1861 due to the advent of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that monopolized all available U.S. resources. This influence would be replaced by that of the British, the Dutch and the French.

The two ringleaders of the opposition to the bakufu were from the Satsuma (present day Kagoshima prefecture) and Chōshū (present-day Yamaguchi prefecture) provinces, two of the strongest tozama anti-shogunate domains in Edo-period Japan. Satsuma military leaders

In the morning of July 16, 1863, under sanction by Minister Pruyn, in an apparent swift response to the attack on the Pembroke, the U.S. frigate USS Wyoming under Captain McDougal sailed into the strait and single-handedly engaged the U.S.-built but poorly manned fleet. For almost two hours before withdrawing, McDougal sank one Japanese vessel and severely damaged the other two, along with some forty Japanese casualties, while the Wyoming suffered extensive damage with fourteen crew dead or wounded.

• 
  The USS Wyoming battling in the Shimonoseki Straits against the Choshu steam warships Daniel Webster (six guns), the brig Lanrick (Kosei, with ten guns), and the steamer Lancefield (Koshin, of four guns)
• 
  USS Wyoming sinking the Choshu steamer Lancefield

On the heels of McDougal's engagement, two weeks later a French landing force of two warships, the Tancrède and the

In August 1863, the Bombardment of Kagoshima took place, in retaliation for the Namamugi incident and the murder of the English trader Richardson. The Royal Navy bombarded Kagoshima and sunk several ships. Satsuma however later negotiated and paid 25,000 pounds, but did not remit Richardson's killers, and in exchange obtained an agreement by Great Britain to supply steam warships to Satsuma. The conflict actually became the starting point of a close relationship between Satsuma and Great Britain, which became major allies in the ensuing Boshin War. From the start, the Satsuma Province had generally been in favour of the opening and modernization of Japan. Although the Namamugi Incident was seen as unfortunate, it was taken not to be characteristic of Satsuma's policy, and was instead branded as an example of anti-foreign sonnō jōi sentiment, as a justification to a strong Western show of force.

On 2 May 1864, the Mito rebellion erupted against the power of the shogunate in the name of the sonnō jōi. The Shogunate managed to send an army to quell the revolt, which ended with the surrender of the rebels on 14 January 1865.

First Chōshū Expedition

In the

Following the

• 
  Guns of the Boshin War from top to bottom: a

  Starr, a Gewehr

  .
• 
  Shogunal troops in 1864,

  Illustrated London News

See also

Shōguns

• Tokugawa Iemochi
• Tokugawa Yoshinobu

Daimyōs

• Tokugawa Nariaki
• Ii Naosuke
• Kuroda Nagahiro
• Date Munenari
• Matsudaira Yoshinaga
• Yamauchi Toyoshige
• Shimazu Nariakira
• Hachisuka Narihiro
• Hotta Masayoshi

Matsudaira Yoshinaga, Date Munenari, Yamauchi Toyoshige and Shimazu Nariakira are collectively referred to as Bakumatsu no Shikenkō (幕末の四賢侯).

Other prominent figures

• hitokiri
  , active in assassinations during this time period)
• Takano Chōei – Rangaku scholar
• Iinuma Sadakichi

Foreign observers:

• Ernest Satow in Japan 1862–69
• Edward and Henry Schnell
• Minister-Resident
• Matthew C. Perry
• Joel Abbot

International relations

• Gaikoku bugyō
• Franco-Japanese relations
• Anglo-Japanese relations
• German-Japanese relations

Footnotes

Notes