Ten Minute History - The Meiji Restoration and the Empire of Japan (Short Documentary)

1853 and the Americans are here. Where? Japan. Why? To open up the country. The man leading the American expedition was a certain Commodore Matthew Perry who essentially told the Japanese to allow American imports or face war. For the previous 200 years Japan had been closed to all foreigners under the pain of death because as far as the Japanese were concerned foreigners were a tad meddlesome. The orders to close the borders had come from the Bokufu also known as the Shogunate. The Bokufu was the central government of Japan which was led by a shogun who lived in Edo. Technically he was appointed by the emperor who lived in Kyoto but frankly the emperor was just a puppet. Japan at this point was very decentralized with regional daimyo able to set their own tax rates. It was also undergoing a period of major economic stagnation and there were social tensions bubbling away under the surface. Inflation and famine swept the countryside and many were noticing the increased wealth of the merchant class despite them being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. It was within the context of this period of tension that the Americans had arrived and they pledged to return a year later to hear the Japanese response. Apparently Commodore Perry couldn't wait that long and so returned about six months later this time with more ships and the Japanese signed a treaty to allow trade and soon after that the British arrived and gained a similar deal. By 1858 Japan had established formal relations and trading agreements with the US, Britain, the Russian Empire, the Netherlands and France. These concessions to foreign powers made the Bokufu look weak. There were major splits among Japan's daimyo about how to respond to outside threats. To make things worse the Shogun was also dying and an heir had to be selected. So in order to promote unity the chief counselor of the Bokufu, Hota Masayoshi, asked the Emperor Komai to give his approval to the trade deals and the Shogun's heir. Well the Emperor said no and Hota resigned in shame. Some daimyo such as that of Chosu rallied against the Shogun and by 1866 Japan was in crisis. The new Shogun Yoshinobu attempted to crush Chosu and to restore order but was defeated when the daimyo of Satsuma refused to help. The Bokufu's defeat led Chosu and Satsuma to march on Kyoto which they captured in 1867. Whilst there the new Emperor Meiji announced the restoration of the Emperor as the ruler of Japan. This kick-started what is known as the Boshin War which the Shogun had quickly lost. This was coincided with the modernization of Japanese military tactics and both sides had received help from the west. Having been victorious Emperor Meiji moved from Kyoto to Edo which was renamed Tokyo from where he would run Japan. Over the next couple of decades the Imperial government began the process of nation building such as by building a new shrine in Tokyo for Japan's war dead and by dismantling the social hierarchies of the past. The late 19th century also saw the creation of Japan's first political parties who argued over important new issues such as representation or whether or not Korea should be immediately invaded. The Japanese military went through a period of reform as well. For a start Japan now had a national military which fought under one flag. At first it consisted exclusively of samurai but was reformed by Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo who introduced national conscription for all men over 20. Also during the closing decades of the 19th century Japan underwent a period of massive industrialization. Railways started to spring up from 1872 alongside numerous textile factories much of which was paid for by the state. Of course the state had other expenses such as paying off samurai who up until this point received an annual payment from the local daimyo. This payment called a stipend was carried over to the new imperial government and was very expensive. Needless to say the government spending almost half of its income paying a bunch of samurai was controversial and beginning in 1871 the government started to phase it out. So the samurai at this point were becoming quite upset. They were no longer at the top of the social strata, stopped receiving free money and weren't even seen as the honorable defenders of Japan since any old peasant could join the army now. This resentment led to the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 which the new conscript army was able to crush quite handily. The major changes Japan underwent during the second half of the 19th century culminated in the 1889 constitution. This constitution created a western style government with a prime minister who served under the emperor and with an elected lower house although the vast majority of men and no women could vote. Culture at this time also underwent massive changes and the people of Japan had the difficult task to define what it meant to be Japanese. The government attempted to aid the creation of a Japanese identity through the new education system. This alongside conscription was used to promote and foster a shared sense of identity. So Japan quickly found itself becoming an ambitious modern nation state. And what was the one thing that all the great nation states of the world had at this point? They had empires which meant Japan wanted one too. This kickstarted a period of imperial expansion. In 1875 Japan took the Ryukyu island, the best known being Okinawa. After that Japan turned its eye to Korea which at this point was a puppet of China. To people like Aritomo Korea was going to be conquered eventually so it may as well have been by Japan. At first using some good old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy the Japanese signed their own treaty with Korea. Eventually the Japanese presence in Korea led to what is known as the Donghak Rebellion. This massively destabilized Korea and so both Japan and China sent troops in to protect their interests. These troops clashed and thus begun the first Sino-Japanese war. Because of the modernization of the military as well as a huge naval boot up the Japanese thoroughly stomped the Chinese. As a result Korea formally entered Japan's sphere of influence and Japan also seized Taiwan. China also ceded here the Laodong peninsula but after threats from Russia Japan gave it up. Japan wanted to be seen by westerners as their equal. This didn't happen despite the fact that Japan actually provided the most troops and ships for the eight-nation alliance which put down the Boxer Rebellion in China between 1899 and 1902. The Boxer Rebellion was essentially an uprising designed to remove foreigners from China but these countries intervened and eventually the rebellion was crushed. The long-term effects were that Europeans were less meddlesome in China except for Russia who took the opportunity to seize Manchuria. So the only European country that took Japan seriously was Britain who in 1902 entered an alliance with them. Importantly Britain became the first western nation to acknowledge the Japanese claim to Korea. In 1905 Japan sought similar acknowledgement from Russia which they refused. In response they launched a sneak attack against the Russian fleet in Port Arthur thus starting the 1905 Russo-Japanese war in which the Russians were firmly defeated. As a result Japan gained this territory and Russia agreed to leave Manchuria. Very little happened in the next decade unless you were Emperor Meiji because that was when you died or unless you were Korea because that was when you were annexed. In 1914 Britain called Japan into World War I which Japan used as an excuse to grab all of these German territories. It also used the chaos to issue the 21 demands to China. These were rejected and eventually only 13 of these demands were agreed upon. Japan gained influence over Manchuria but it sowed division between Japan and Britain as well as upsetting the United States. For its help during the war Japan was invited to join in drafting the Treaty of Versailles and in Japan asked for the League to consider all races as equal. This was rejected formally by the Americans but it was mostly because of Britain since it would have meant that Britain had to consider its colonial subjects as equals which wasn't going to happen. In 1920 Britain abandoned the Anglo-Japanese alliance and the next year alongside the United States convened the Washington Naval Conference. This sought to limit the number of large ships each country's navy could have with only Britain and the United States being allowed the most. The next year things wouldn't get much better for Japan due to a major earthquake which killed 150,000 people. Furthermore the Japanese economy collapsed and the military became much more influential in politics. In 1926 Emperor Showa better known in the west as Emperor Hirohito ascended the throne and his reign saw the continued growth of Emperor worship. On September the 18th 1931 a detachment of the Japanese army in Manchuria attempted to destroy a piece of railway. They blamed Chinese rebels and this was used as pretext for invasion and by February the next year Manchuria was a Japanese puppet state. This was condemned by the League of Nations and in response Japan withdrew isolating itself. The army in Japan was becoming more ambitious and in 1936 there was even an attempted coup by one of its factions. This was crushed by the emperor who had given his support to another faction but either way the military was effectively in control of Japan's government. The army wanted to further expand Japanese power and this led to what is known as the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 where Japanese and Chinese troops exchanged fire. The new prime minister Fumimaro Konoe who was originally appointed to reign in the army authorized an invasion. Within a few months the Japanese had advanced all the way to Nanjing where the infamous Nanjing Massacre occurred whereby tens of thousands of civilians were raped and murdered. In 1941 the United States under Franklin D Roosevelt began an oil embargo against Japan. Japan refused to back down to what they saw as American meddling and on December the 7th 1941 launched the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor which saw 4,000 American casualties compared to Japan's 65. At the same time Japanese forces attacked the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. Initially Japan did very well winning major victories over the European powers notably the Battle of Singapore in 1942 which saw 80,000 British soldiers surrender. By mid 1942 Japan held all of this territory but its advances were stolen because it was too much territory to hold. Many of the European territories seized by the Japanese had puppet governments installed. Importantly these governments were run by the native peoples there which helped spur on independent movements even after the war. Japanese luck began to change when the American strategy of island hopping as well as some major naval defeats such as the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Late Gulf meant that Japan could no longer adequately project power. By the time the war in Europe was over Japan had been pushed back all the way to here and on August the 6th 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima and three days later another one on the city of Nagasaki killing an estimated 150,000 people. On September the 2nd Japan formally surrendered to the allied forces and was occupied by the United States. The Americans financed the period of reconstruction and a new constitution was completed in 1947 which still holds today and it famously prevents Japan from declaring war. In conclusion the Meiji Restoration saw the birth of a truly unified Japan. This Japan was a victim of many humiliations by western powers who despite Japan's achievements refused to see it as an equal. The close relationship between military and politics in Japan led to an expansionist state whose ambition saw it even attack the United States, a decision that would ultimately lead to its destruction. It should also be noted that the Japanese occupation of many European colonies was the catalyst for those colonies seeking their own independence in the following decade. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching.