ON THIS DAY ·
Battle of Toba–Fushimi
27–30 Jan 1868 — South of Kyoto, about 5,000 troops from Satsuma and Chōshū fought under the imperial banner against a shogunal army roughly three times their size. They won. The former shogun Yoshinobu escaped by sea to Edo, and the war was politically decided within days.
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The moment in context
The struggle over Japan’s future centered on a court that had little power of its own. After 1860, young activists called shishi, ‘men of high purpose’, invoked the emperor against the shogunate. Most were samurai from Chōshū, Tosa and Satsuma, outer domains whose lords governed almost independently. Like student radicals in later revolutions, they assassinated officials they considered traitors and attacked foreigners they called barbarians. Whoever could direct the court in Kyoto could issue commands in the emperor’s name. Chōshū’s leaders gained influence there and pressed him to order foreigners expelled by 25 June 1863.
From Meiji Restoration and Boshin War, chapter 3 of Remaking the State: Meiji Japan 1600–1912 and Post-Soviet Russia 1964–2000 (1868).
The place: Battle of Toba–Fushimi — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — The emperor gave the opposition a higher loyalty. The court’s refusal of the 1858 treaty gave opponents grounds to accuse the shogun of defying the emperor. Ideas from the Mito school had urged…
- The turn — Toba–Fushimi, 27–30 January 1868. The palace coup of 3 January had settled control of the court, but its opponents could still reverse it. At Toba–Fushimi, south of Kyoto, the court…
- What it changed — Edo surrendered and was renamed Tokyo. Saigō and Katsu Kaishū’s negotiated handover of Edo Castle in May 1868 spared a city of about a million from siege. It became Tokyo, ‘eastern…
Then ask the room: Was the Meiji Restoration made by ideas, by guns, or by the shogunate’s own mistakes? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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