Meiji Restoration

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The Meiji Restoration

For two centuries Japan had been locked away from the outside world. By 1615, after a century of civil war, the powerful Lord Tokugawa had defeated his enemies and declared himself Shogun, ruler of all Japan. Tokugawa divided society into four ranks: at the bottom were the merchants; then came the artisans; just above them were the farmers, who gave up half their rice harvest to those at the top, the Samurai.
Only Samurai had the right to carry swords. The law of the land set them apart. The Tokugawa Shogunate was a kingdom built for war that began to crumble after 200 years of peace.
It was the most orderly place imaginable. It was a completely schematized society where everybody knew who he was and what he had to do. But, in fact, because it was so idealized and so orderly and so tidy, history got away from it. The Samurai were the elite in the Tokugawa system - had not been allowed to raise its swords for 200 years. In between, had become civil servants, swords rusting propped up against their desks as they kept the accounts of their lords.
Many of these Samurai ceased being able to make a reasonable living so they went into debt to the merchants. The merchants, who were at the very bottom of the Confucian hierarchy, began to have more and more power over the Samurai who were in their debt. Merchants, once scorned under the Confucian hierarchy, became more powerful as Japan’s barter economy gave away to a new money economy.
The hustle of the merchants turned the world of the Samurai upside down. Japan was a society about to explode. The coming of the West had struck the spark. In 1853, four American war ships steamed up the bay near Yedo. Commanded by Commodore Perry, the Americans had come to open up Japan. They wanted water and coal for their whaling ships and china trade.

The Japanese were astounded at the power of Perry’s vessels. They called them black ships for the ominous smoke that billow...