1. Part 4 Meiji Restoration
East meets West: Japan
Part 4 Meiji Restoration

2. Essential Question
How do you create a nation out of 250 domains?

3. What is nationalism? Write your answer here:
Most Japanese had only the vaguest impression of the Emperor. Their loyalty was to their region or village. What can unify them?

4. A zen moment: centre yourself

5. Review: the Tokugawa era
Power was in Edo (Tokyo), the home of the Tokugawa family
Emperor lived in Kyoto
Isolation from the West but Perry forces Japan to open up ports
Samurai the elite but becoming administrators
Daimyo lords rule regions (han) but are becoming more independent

6. Baku-han system – decentralised power
Over 250 Daimyos have great autonomy
Many are ignoring directions from Edo
Do you know other countries where politics is decentralised?
Advantages and disadvantages of decentralisation?

7. After Perry: foreign traders and the Yokohama Treaty
After the Tokugawa treaties opened Japanese ports to European powers, many ronin become xenophobic - the result of feelings of:
threat,
lost culture,
fierce pride,
social change, and / or
new commercial values

8. Great number of foreigners arrived to Yokohama, their arrogance and independent behaviour gave rise to trouble with the samurai
Murders of foreigners and collaborative Japanese occurred

9. Japan learns from China
In 1862, Tokugawa sent officials and scholars to China to study the situation there.
A Japanese recorded in his diary when in Shanghai…
“The Chinese have become servants to the foreigners. Sovereignty may belong to China but in fact it's no more than a colony of Great Britain and France.”

10. China’s “Unequal Treaties”
After the Opium Wars many in the Shogun’s government were convinced that it had to open up to the West or face the fate of China

11. The Shi-shi (“Men of High Purpose”)
Highly idealistic samurai who felt that the arrival of Westerners was an attack on the traditional values of Japan.
They believed that:
Japan was sacred ground.
The Emperor, now a figurehead in Kyoto, was a God.
Were furious at the Shogun for signing treaties with the West without the Emperor’s consent.
Their slogan 
Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians!

12. Ryoma was one of these Shi Shi.
They feared European colonisation of Japan.
They believed the Tokugawa were to blame for Japan’s weakness.
The young Emperor agreed with these xenophobic views – that Japan had been humiliated by foreigners – and encouraged policies to expel them.

13. Of what does this remind you?
Compare and contrast Cixi and the Boxers

14. 1860s: increasing instability
Ronin killed the pro-foreign official for signing a treaty with the US
Then committed seppuku
Very dangerous in Edo for Shogun officials and foreigners

15. Expel the barbarians!
Shi shi woodblock print

16. The murder of a British merchant
Charles Richardson murdered in 1863 when he failed to dismount from his horse when passing a procession of Satsuma samurai.

17. The Satsuma and Choshu Clans
Saigo Takamori of the Satsuma clan

18. The Meiji Revolt
An alliance of low ranking samurai from Satsuma and Choshu plot to overthrow the Shogun
The Sat-Cho Alliance
Sakamoto Ryoma and Saigo Takamori played a key role

19. What needs changing?
Write down the three most important changes Japan needs to make to avoid the fate of China
Explain why these are the most important changes

20. The Shogunate Is Overthrown!
The Sat-Cho alliance with the court is too strong
Tokugawa Yoshinobu forced to resign

21. These Satsuma samurai fought for the Imperial Army in the Boshin War

22. 1868: The Emperor restored to power
The Emperor moves with Sat-Cho armies to conquered Edo
It is renamed Tokyo (eastern capital)
MEIJI 
“Enlightened Rule”

23. The Meiji Emperor moves from Kyoto to Tokyo
Source:"Le Monde Illustre", February 20th, 1869.

24. Centralisation of power
How can the new Imperial government unite Japan?

25. Review: Tokugawa to Meiji
Satsuma and Choshu clans unite to rebel against Tokugawa
“Expel the barbarian, restore the Emperor”
1867 the Emperor is “restored” to power
Civil war between Tokugawa and Sat-Cho forces
Sat-Cho clans win 1868
The new Imperial government drops promise to expel foreigners
They accelerate modernisation!

26. Emperor Meiji