Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
fought in the Crimea, Britain and France warned Japan against giving safe harbor to the
Russian Far Eastern Fleet.
In the face of Perry's threat along with the consequences of the Opium Wars, in 1858
the Shogun signed an agreement with the United States to open six ports to trade and to
permit Americans to live in Japan. Other powerful lords seized upon the Shogun's failure
to keep barbarians out, and they conspired to seize the person of the emperor and, in his
name, to create a new social and political regime organized around him.
According to tradition, lore, and Shinto teachings, the emperor was descended from a
god. As such, he was divine. His divinity had been acknowledged and protected for more
than 1,000 years, but his political authority had been far less than absolute. Now in 1868,
the emperor was restored as divine head of government, surrounded by powerful lords and
samurai who ruled with him and through him. Prince Mutusuhito became emperor taking
the name Meiji—“Enlightened Rule.”
[238]
WHAT WERE THE MEIJI REFORMS?
The Meiji reforms remade Japan. Effective government now resided in the imperial court
and its ministries. The great lords returned their land registers to the central government
and became provincial governors. Samurai were either pensioned off or given posts in the
new civil service. Unlike the knights of feudal Europe, samurai were literate, deeply im-
mersed in esthetic pleasure and appreciation. First, of course, they were required to change
their hairstyle by lopping off their traditional topknots. More important, they were forbid-
den to carry their swords. Peasants were required to take surnames and to assume the status
of the emperor's subjects rather than serfs forbidden even to look upon lords and samurai.
Of more far-reaching effect, study groups were dispatched around the world to learn
how western countries were run. From Prussia, Japan adopted aristocratic titles and forms
of address (Baron So and So, not the British use of Lord So and So). Army organization
and administration also followed Prussian models. National military conscription began in
1873. Great Britain became the model for the new Japanese navy. The Parliament in West-
minster was the legislative model. The new legal code was patterned upon the Swiss. Sig-
nificantly, little if anything was modeled upon the United States—too egalitarian and too
populist was the explanation!
WHAT WAS THE NEW SHINTOISM?
A transformed Shinto became an important component of the Meiji transformation. The
emperor's divinity was incorporated into Shinto liturgy, and government officials and
members of the military swore absolute obedience to their ruler as a person and as a god.
This manifested itself in most unusual ways. In 1912, at the emperor's death, an important
government official killed himself out of reverence for his ruler, the same reverence that
Search WWH ::
Custom Search