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To what extent was the coming of Perry the Major cause in bringing down the Bakufu?

hungtakwai

先輩
24 Nov 2008
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The 250-year-old Sakoku policy finally ended with the coming of an US admiral, Matthew Perry. This represented the West's demand for a new market for their industrial boom and the coming of the Western culture and values to Japan. Meanwhile, Japan was facing serious self-deteriorations among the class structure, economic structure and government (Bakufu) structure. In this sense, the coming of the West in some ways imposes pressure on the shogunate, which found it difficult to confront the foreigners with the aged system of feudalism and an agricultural economy. After the coming of Perry in 1853, the Bakufu had to face a series of destructive impacts brought by the interaction between the west and the Japanese.
To a very large extent, the Tokugawa Bakufu was brought down by a series of impacts.

Politically, the shogunate was discredited because of the coming of Perry. US trading interests were brought forth by Matthew Perry, who came to Japan with a US warship in 1853, demonstrating clearly the US determination to open the country's door, even at the cost of using force. The Bakufu was shocked because it had heard of the defeat inflicted on China by the Great Britain in 1842, which had been, for a long time, a supreme power in the Japanese eyes. No doubt, the Bakufu feared Western weaponry for which her military power was no match. To avoid battles destined to being lost, the Bakufu was responsible for working out a policy to meet the US challenge. The Bakufu sent a circular seeking the advice from the officials, daimyos (including the Tozama daimyos whom originally and theoretically cannot involve in decision making.), and later even the Emperor who had been forbidden to engage in political affairs for more than 250 years. It was a rather strange step, generally interpreted as a confession of Bakufu impotence and indecision. Discussion and advice did not bring any consensus or back-up as the Bakufu expected. In 1854, Bakufu was made to sign her fist unequal treaty with foreign states at Kanagawa in Edo Bay, the Treaty of Kanagawa. Treaty of Kanagawa brought more treaties, the Treaty of Edo to the US and treaties with similar content with Russia, the Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Many daimyos, samurais and even chonins and peasants blamed the Bakufu for this issue. The Bakufu also made some mistakes in its policy formulation between1853-54, involving the Emperor and Tozama daimyos in real politics and submitting itself to them for advices. All these problems were caused by the coming of Perry.

In Economic aspect, the Tokugawa Shogunate had been facing serious financial difficulties since the fifth Shogun . The society is luxury but without stable income. Heavy taxes (40% of annual income) are added to peasants. In addition, the Sankin Kotai System stopped the daimyos from making a balance. The Rice economy was upset as for the high demand of high mobility means of exchange, money. Although there had been 3 reforms, situation did not improve much. The last reform, Tempo reform failed out of the unacceptable corruption in Bakufu. Although a lot of riots were started, all these were not able to upset the whole social system. It was because the chonins and merchants were still rich and able to employ a lot of peasants without land and lower class samurais whose salaries were cut by their daimyos. They also loaned to the Bakufu and daimyos in serious financial difficulties. However, the coming of Perry totally destroyed the balance held for more than 250 years. Since the opening of the Japanese market, lots of cheap and good quality western goods produced in mass-productive industries were flushed into Japan. Merchants and chonins along the coast and big cities like Edo, Osaka, and the Southeast Hans like Satsuma and Choshu were now in financial difficulties. Once their financial powers were weakened, the other classes like lower class samurais and peasants would be in even more terrible situation. The anger derived from poverty and hatred due to despair to the Bakufu's inability accumulated for more than 250 years which had been temporarily paused by the economic power of merchants were now broken out. Tozama Hans, lower class samurais, and even merchants. This clearly shows that the coming of Perry and impacts it brought was inviting more resentment for the Bakufu rule.

As I have mentioned on the above paragraph, the economic problems invited lots of resentment to the Bakufu. This led to social instabilities among all classes.
Many common people lacked foods and necessary goods to survive, but the insufficient thing to them was, ironically, job and lands. Many of them became rebels. Some of them sang and danced around the streets and forced the rich families to provide them with foods and drinks, before forcing them to become one of them. The weird trend spread over the whole Japan. Peasants had no land to farm and moved to cities or became insurgents. Merchants were in financial difficulties, they were despair about the ability of Bakufu in defending Japan's society and economy. They preferred to support the Southwest clans whom would like to have reforms. Many lower class Samurais were becoming chonins or ronins or Shishi who actively joined the Joi movement which aimed at killing the foreigners and those friendly to them. Some Daimyos like those in Satsuma and Choshu joined this movement and boomed the Westerners Merchant Ships. They were then revenged by the foreigners but the Shogun could not defend them as he should be doing. Everyone in the 4-classes society was not doing what they should be doing, either made to or wished to. The basic structure of the Bakufu, including the economic and social structure, was broken down by this serious of consequences. No doubt, we can tell easily that the 4-classes social structure had been further upset by the coming of Perry.

Another main factor was the rise of the Southwest Clans and lower class samurais. As mentioned before, the Shogun had no idea how to treat Perry. Therefore, the Bakufu sought advices from the Tozama Clans. To do this, the Bakufu softened the control system. For example, the Sankin Kotai system had been put to a pause. This helped the Southwest Clans to carry out anti-Bakufu movement without any worries, for instance, some of them backed up for the Shishi who tried to kill the Westerners and ronins who assassinated the Elders or officials in of the Bakufu. Despite weakening the Bakufu's control policies, the coming of Perry also indirectly led to the modernizations of the Southwest clans. After Perry forced the Bakufu to open Japan's ports and coastal areas, there were more chances to connect with the Westerners. The Southeast Clans like Satsuma and Choshu thus had serious conflicts with the West. However, after their failure of Joi Movement, they tended to learn more from the West. The Great Britain in fact helped them a lot to improve their economic and military power. If Perry had not come to Japan, the Southwest Clans would not have had those strong military powers to overthrow the Tokugawa Bakufu. The coming of Perry also gave the Southwest clans and lower class samurais' reasons to fight against the Bakufu. The coming of Perry had shown clearly that the Bakufu had no ability to defend Japan. Lacking knowledge of military, diplomacy, and modern world translated the Bakufu from the defender of Japan to burden of modernizing the Japanese society. The coming of Perry had given opportunities, ability, and reasons for the Southwest Clans and lower class samurais to fight against the Bakufu.

However, there are some other reasons for the downfall of Bakufu not related to the coming of Perry. The most important among them was the spread of Nationalism and the self-deterioration of the Bakufu. Nationalism was mainly contributed by 3 ideologies, the Neo-Confucianism, Shintoism and the Mito Schools studies. Neo-Confucianism was an idea promoting respect for the Emperor and against military rule. In the very beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603, the Bakufu promoted Neo-Confucianism for her own goodness. The Neo-Confucians were even more active after the coming of several Chinese Confucians after the downfall of Ming Dynasty. As this idea was promoting respect for the Emperor, it later further developed to Sonno movements which brought down the Bakufu in the late 17th century. Another key factor of development of nationalism was the Shintoism. Shintoism promoted that Japan was specific and supreme to the world, and the Emperor, was in fact a god on the land. Therefore, when the foreigners came, there was a strong hatred of the Japanese to them. This developed the Joi movement. From the Neo-Confucianism and Shintoism, the Japanese were more proud of themselves and more respects are given to the Emperor. At the same time, one of the three shinpan, the Mito Clan tried to study History of Japan and set up schools for samurais to teach them the result of studies. After a series of studying and discovering, the Mito Schools found out that it should be the Emperor to rule the country but not the Military power, like the Shogunate. Therefore, the Mito School slowly developed a trend of Sonno Movement and supported the idea of anti-Bakufu. Although all these had nothing related to the coming of Perry, we can still conclude that the coming of Perry contributed most to the downfall of Bakufu. For more than 200 years, these kinds of ideas had been spread through Japan, but they stilled remains in the level of academic. Perry's coming gave an opportunity for the intellectuals to adopt all these ideas (Sonno-Joi Movement, Anti-Bakufu Movement) by exposing all problems accumulated for more that than 250 years.

To conclude, on one hand, the coming of Perry had discredited the Bakufu by exposing its inability in diplomatic aspect and stabling economic difficulties by signing all those unequal treaties which invited huge amount of western goods. This had upset the basic structure of the 4-classes society. On the other hand, the westerners gave supports to the Southwest Clans and lower class samurais to carry out successful military reforms and industrialization which directly brought down the Bakufu. Despite Neo-Confucianism built up the ideological foundations and self-deterioration of Bakufu weakened itself and invites a lot of resentments, we will still treat the coming of Perry the key factor of bringing down the Bakufu in 1868 for this single issue leads to a serious of destructive impacts to the Bakufu for the coming decades. Therefore, I reckon the coming of Perry the Major to a large extent cause in bringing down the Bakufu in 1868.


(Please give me opinion about it, it is the result of my study. I would like to have some more opinions.) 😌
 
nice to read thogh there are many wrongs
foe example,the Neo-Confucianism was merely learning.
Perry did not know what emperor was...
He knew that Tokugawa was not a true sovereign of Japan for the first time......
 
The bakufu fell before Perry came to Japan, not after.
This is factually incorrect. There certainly was internal strife within Japan - the bakufu had become a very rickety government. Yet, the bakufu was still in control, and no direct challenges to it had yet occurred. Some speculate that it was only a matter of time before it would have fallen anyway, but most agree that the arrival of Perry did accelerate the fall. Within fifteen years of the arrival of the black ships, the bakufu had fallen. It is commonly believed that without the unequal treaties forced upon the Tokugawa shogunate, this process would have been dragged out for a couple more decades. A natural disaster in the area of a planned American consulate just a year after they arrived helped intensify fears of the West and her military power. It also emboldened the daimyo who opposed the Tokugawa, spurring them to plan and move after the extent of the bakufu's weakness was revealed by their submission to the foreign power.
 
after opium war. even poor farmar knew china lost
there were 8 observation books of opium war were popular in Japan at that time..
perry came..
#12 Shogun was sick
Shogun's aide was not able to decide anything
#12 shigun died soon afterwards.
#13 was also weak constitution.
he was not a shogun who was able to do national administration.
Up to now, the shogunate has caused a big mistake that has not been done.
The shogunate widely requested the opinion about that from people even farmer who did not have the right of the shogunate government participation.
It showed the public the shogunate's being getting weak though it looks like democracy
..
Japan concluded an Convention of Kanagawa with them in 1854
黒船来航−幕府の混乱
Townsend Harris brought an information to shogunate
Townsend Harris - Wikipedia
Britain and the France union army that defeated Qing come to attack Japan.
Harris promised that the United States mediated when the problem with another country happened.
The shogunate with the sense of crisis in the movement of Anglo-French signed the Japan-U.S. amity trade agreement without doing the postponement negotiation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amity_and_Commerce_(United_States-Japan)
many samurai group of reverence for the emperor got angry because there was no emperor's approval in that....

Bombardment of Kagoshima
Bombardment of Kagoshima - Wikipedia
Bombardment of Shimonoseki
Shimonoseki campaign - Wikipedia
they realized how strong enemies were

then Sonnō jōi.
Sonnō jōi - Wikipedia
 
I'm not sure caster's version is exactly correct. It is true that after Perry's arrival with the black ships that the shogun asked for counsel from the tozama daimyo and even the emperor, both of whom had had no role in the decision-making process for centuries (as designed by the Tokugawa themselves). Naturally, seeing the previously believed "almighty" Chinese defeated in war with foreign powers shocked the Japanese. But, this alone was not the reason for the shogunate to begin seeking outside counsel. The driving force was the arrival and pressure from the Americans. Certainly it's odd to raise the "mission accomplished" banner over an historical account, as your confrere DoctorP has.
 
I think the early, unexpected death of Tokugawa Iemochi has accelerated the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
 
The bakufu fell before Perry came to Japan, not after.

Perry arrived in 1853, and Tokugawa Yoshinobu handed Edo over in 1868.

I think the early, unexpected death of Tokugawa Iemochi has accelerated the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
I think it's generally held that Yoshinobu was not the right man to handle the multiple crises, but it is conjecture if even Iemochi (arguably a better Shogun that Yoshinobu would ever have been) had survived.
 
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