Bakumatsu
Bakumatsu ( Japanese 幕末 ) means "end of Bakufu " and the last section of the Tokugawa or Edo period . This period in Japanese history extends from the arrival of the " black ships " ( kurofune ) by Matthew Perry in 1853 and his gunboat policy to the return of rule from the Shogun to the Tenno in 1867 .
It was simultaneously the time of the opening of Japan and the end of the isolation policy and a time of internal unrest, marked by the increasing dissatisfaction among the samurai about the politics of the shogunate, changing alliances in the struggle for power accompanied by a wave of nationalism and xenophobia on the on the one hand and interest in western modernism on the other.
The trigger for the collapse of the bakufu was the opening of the country under threat of violence with so-called unequal treaties by the USA in 1854 and other Western powers from 1858 to 1860. In these treaties, the Western powers were granted extensive rights that were related to trade issues (opening of ports, low tariffs) and the opening of consulates to the extraterritoriality of nationals of the treaty powers. Under the pretext that the bakufu had not sufficiently consulted the Tennō when signing the treaties, it was attacked by its political opponents under the slogan sonnō jōi ("Honor the emperor - drive out the barbarians!"). In the early 1860s in particular, this xenophobic slogan led to numerous murders of foreigners.
The bakufu reacted under the hand of Tairō Ii Naosuke with sharp countermeasures such as the Ansei purges . After the assassination in 1860, however , the bakufu lacked a guiding hand and it increasingly fell on the defensive. The breakaway provinces - above all Chōshū , Satsuma (which initially called for the unification of the imperial house and bakufu under the slogan kōbu gattai ), Tosa and Hizen - increasingly opposed the orders of the bakufu and built with the help of the former enemies England and France ( America was focused on domestic politics in the turmoil of its own civil war) modern armies on. These were soon superior to the troops of the bakufu , as the failed punitive expedition against Chōshū in 1866 showed. In 1867 the Shogun finally returned power to the emperor, and with the accession of the young emperor Mutsuhito under the government motto of Meiji , Japan entered a new era. Only a few faithful to the bakufu tried again to offer resistance in the Boshin War , but were defeated in a short time.
The causes for the collapse of the bakufu are, however, far more complex than the simple arrival of the militarily superior Western powers and lie to a large extent in the social and economic problems of the Edo period.
Decline of the Tokugawa
The Bakumatsu period is also called the Late Tokugawa Shogunate (1853–1867). The reasons for the end of the Edo period are controversial, but it was heralded by the forced opening of Japan to the western world by Commodore Matthew Perry of the US Navy , whose flotilla (known as "the black ships ") fired on Tokyo Bay . Some man-made land masses that were created to block the armada's reach now form the Odaiba District.
Social developments in the Edo period
Tokugawa rule did not collapse simply because of internal defects. Outside influences created a complex political power struggle between the Bakufu and the coalition, their critics. The ongoing anti-Bakufu movement in the mid-19th century overthrew the Tokugawa. From the beginning, the Tokugawa tried to limit the accumulation of wealth in other families and had a "back to earth" policy based on neo-Confucian ideals, in which the farmer, as the ultimate producer, was the ideal person in society. Despite these efforts to curtail wealth, and in part because of the exceptionally long period of peace, the living standards of rural and urban residents rose significantly. Better crop yields, transportation, housing, food and entertainment were available, as well as more free time, at least for city dwellers. The illiteracy was low redetermined for a pre-industrial society, cultural values and broadly taught in the classes of the samurai and Chōnin ( citizens, traders , s. Four occupations ). Despite the reappearance of the guilds and their restrictive nature, economic activities flourished, industry expanded and the money economy developed. Although the government severely restricted the traders and saw them as unproductive and rampant members of society, the samurai, who became more and more severed from their rural ties, became more and more dependent on the consumer goods, loans, and handicrafts offered by traders and artists. There was a subtle overthrow of the warrior class and the Chonin took their place.
A struggle arose in the face of the political restraints the Shogun placed on the business class. The ideal of the government of an agricultural society no longer stood up to comparison with the reality of the importance of trade. A gigantic government bureaucracy had developed, which now stagnated due to the discrepancy with the emerging new social order. Overall, the population increased significantly during the first half of the Tokugawa period. Although the extent and rates of growth are uncertain, the first nationwide census in 1721 found at least 26 million commoners and approximately 4 million members of the samurai families. Drought, followed by crop failures and starvation, led to 20 major famines between 1675 and 1837. Smallholder displeasure increased, and mass protests over taxes and food shortages were the order of the day in the late 18th century. New landless families became tenant farmers, while the displaced peasant poor moved to the cities. When the happiness of the previously well-off waned, others took their place, piled up land, and a new wealthy peasant class emerged. The beneficiaries diversified their production and hired workers, while others remained dissatisfied. Many samurai experienced a difficult time and were forced to do handicraft and contract work for traders.
Influence of the colonial powers
Western interference peaked in the early 19th century. Russian warships and traders invaded Karafuto ( called Sakhalin during Russian and Soviet rule ) and the Kuril Islands , the southernmost islands of which are considered by the Japanese to be the northern islands of Hokkaidō . In 1808, a British warship entered the port of Nagasaki in search of an enemy Dutch ship. Other warships and whalers were increasingly spotted in Japanese waters in the 1810s and 1820s. US whalers and merchant ships also reached Japanese coasts. Although the Japanese allowed minor concessions and some landings, attempts were generally made to keep all foreigners out, sometimes by force ( closure of Japan ). The Rangaku became very important, not only for understanding the foreign "barbarians", but also for repelling them with the help of Western knowledge.
1830s
During the 1830s, Japan was in a serious crisis ( Tempō crisis ). Famine and natural disasters hit the country hard, and in 1837 displeasure led to an uprising by the small farmers against officials and traders in Osaka. Although it only lasted a day, the turmoil made a dramatic impression. Remedies came in the form of traditional solutions that tried to address moral decay rather than institutional problems. The advisers of the Shogun urged a return to the fighting spirit, more restrictions on foreign trade and contacts, suppression of the Rangaku, censorship of literature and the elimination of "luxury" in the government and samurai class ( thrift edicts ). Others tried to overthrow the Tokugawa and supported the doctrine of Sonnō jōi (尊 皇 王 攘夷, adore the emperor, expel the barbarians! ), I.e. H. for unity under imperial rule and resistance to foreign interference. The Bakufu held out amid growing concerns about Western successes in establishing colonial enclaves in China during the 1st Opium War (1839–1842). More reforms were ordered, particularly in the economic area, to strengthen Japan against the Western threat.
Black ships
When the US was in the process of expanding its own presence in the Asia-Pacific region and Commodore James Biddle appeared in Edo Bay with two warships in July 1846, Japan rejected the US request for diplomatic relations. However, when Commodore Matthew Perry's four-ship squadron appeared in July 1853, the Bakufu fell into an uproar. The chairman of the senior council members ( Rōjū ) Abe Masahiro (1819-1857) was responsible for negotiations with the Americans. With no precedent to deal with this threat to national security, Abe tried to strike a balance between the senior councilors' wishes for a compromise with the foreigners, that of the emperor, who wanted to turn away the foreigners, and that of the daimyo after a war hold. In the absence of consensus, Abe reached a compromise: he accepted Perry's call for Japan to be opened to foreign trade while making military preparations. In March 1854 a peace and friendship treaty ( Treaty of Kanagawa ) was signed, two treaty ports opened for American ships requesting provisions, a guarantee given that shipwrecked American sailors would be treated well, and an American consul ( Townsend Harris ) was allowed to join in Shimoda , a seaport on the Izu Peninsula southwest of Edo. A trade treaty to open up further territories, the Harris Treaty , for American trade was imposed on Bakufu five years later.
Response to the opening
The damage suffered by this was immense for the Bakufu. Debates about government policy were unusual and led to public criticism of the government. Hoping to get support of new allies, be advised Abe, to the consternation of Fudai , with the Shimpan - and tozama daimyo , causing the already weakened Bakufu was undermined. In the Ansei Reform (1854-1856), Abe then tried to strengthen the regime by ordering Dutch warships and armament and building new port defenses. In 1855 a naval training school with Dutch teachers was created in Nagasaki and a western-oriented military school in Edo. The following year the government had Western books translated. Within the Fudai circles, who were against the opening of the Bakufu councils for Tozama daimyo, resistance to Abe increased and he was replaced in 1855 as chairman of the senior council members by Hotta Masayoshi (1810-1864).
At the head of the dissident faction was Tokugawa Nariaki , who for a long time welcomed a controversial loyalty to the Tennō with anti-foreign sentiments and was responsible for national defense since 1854. The aim of the Mito school , based on neo-Confucian and Shinto principles, was the restoration of the imperial institution, the turning away from the West and the establishment of a world empire under the divine Yamato dynasty.
Conflict between the imperial court and the shogunate
In the last years of the Tokugawa, foreign contacts increased and more concessions were granted. The Harris Treaty with the United States of 1859 opened additional ports for diplomatic envoys, allowed unsupervised trade at four additional ports and the residence of foreigners in Osaka and Edo. It also embodied the concept of extraterritoriality (foreigners were only obliged to comply with the laws of their country, not the Japanese). Hotta lost the support of the main daimyo, and when Tokugawa Nariaki opposed the new agreement, Hotta asked for imperial measures. The court officials, perceiving Bakufu's weakness, rejected Hotta's request, suddenly embroiling Kyoto and the emperor in Japan's internal conflicts for the first time in centuries. When the death of the ailing shogun Iesada was in sight without heirs, the Nariaki called the court in support of his own son Tokugawa Yoshinobu (or Keiki), who was favored by the Shimpan and Tozama daimyo, as a shogun. However, the Fudai won the competition, installed Tokugawa Yoshitomi , arrested Nariaki and Keiki, executed Yoshida Shōin (leading Sonnō-jōi intellectual who opposed the treaties with the Americans and planned a revolution against Bakufu), signed agreements with the United States and five other nations, ending more than 200 years of isolation.
The tough measures the Bakufu took to regain its supremacy proved inadequate. Extremists who revered the emperor as a symbol of unity brought violence and death to Bakufu, the clan authorities and foreigners. Foreign retaliatory measures such as the bombing of Kagoshima resulted in further franchised trade deals in 1865, but Yoshitomi was unable to enforce the deals against the Sonno-Joi faction. A Bakufu army was defeated in 1866 after being sent to destroy dissidents in the Shimazu and Mōri clans . When the emperor finally died in 1867 and his younger son Mutsuhito inherited him, Keiki reluctantly became the head of the Tokugawa clan and shogun. He tried to reorganize the government under the emperor while maintaining the leadership role of the shogun. Since the growing power of the Satsuma- and Chōshū daimyō was feared by the other daimyō, they demanded the transfer of political power of the shoguns to the emperor and a council of the daimyo, which the former Tokugawa shogun should chair. Keiki accepted the plan at the end of 1867, abdicated and proclaimed the "imperial restoration". However, the Shimazu, Chōshū, other clan leaders and radical courtiers rebelled, occupied the imperial palace and proclaimed their own restoration on January 3, 1868. Bakufu was abolished, Keiki was downgraded to an ordinary daimyo, and the Tokugawa Army gave up without a fight (although other Tokugawa forces fought until November 1868 and Bakufu naval forces held out for another six months).
