Shizoku

class privileges, and the title was solely on the register. The Shizoku were abolished in the revised civil code in 1947 after the Japanese defeat in World War II.^[1]

tax collection. In 1871, the Meiji oligarchs abolished the 270 remaining domains of the daimyo and established the prefectures in their place as new administrative divisions. All the shizoku received were small stipends which were later changed to government bonds, and the Meiji oligarchs urged them to find other lines of work in agriculture, forestry, business and the colonization of Hokkaido

Otaguro Tomoo, appealed to regional shizoku to join their cause. The Shinpūren rebellion was defeated by the next morning, but the surprising number of casualties inflicted on the Imperial Japanese Army and Kumamoto Prefecture officials inspired other shizoku to rebel. The Akizuki rebellion was launched on 27 October and the Hagi Rebellion on 28 October, both of which were defeated. The Satsuma Rebellion, the largest and last of the shizoku rebellions, occurred in Satsuma Domain under the leadership of Saigō Takamori. The massive rebellion required the mobilization of 65,000 Imperial Japanese Army troops and took eight months to suppress. Saigō committed seppuku after being mortally wounded and defeat of the rebellion effectively ended the samurai as an unofficial class. In 1878, the shizoku counterrevolution ended with the assassination of the oligarch Ōkubo Toshimichi, also from Satsuma, because he had opposed invading Korea and reforms installed by the Meiji state.^[1]