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Keiki, the Last Shogun.

The

Mikado's
Revolu-
tionary
Changes.

Complete Restora

tion of the

Author

ity.

of three months ended in the Shogun's overwhelming defeat; and he died September 19, 1866, worn out with disease and with mortification at his failure.

His successor, Keiki, was the last Shogun. The Mikado's party grew bolder, and in October, 1867, urged the Mikado to abolish the Shogunate and to resume the government himself. This proposal was sustained so generally by the most powerful princes and nobles of the Empire that Keiki resigned the Shogunate, November 9, 1867.

The Mikado's party seized the palace on January 3, 1868, drove out the nobles and established a government under which the highest offices were filled by the kuge, or court nobles of the imperial family; those of the next order by the daimios, or courtiers, and those of the third order by men selected by the Samurai. This gave the whole power of the government of the great Japanese Empire to the Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa and Hizen clans.

The ex-Shogun was highly displeased with this arrangement and appealed to arms to recover his lost power, but he was defeated in a three Mikado's days' battle and fled to Yeddo in a United States steamer. Seeing the hopelessness of further resistance, he surrendered to the Mikado's forces, announced his determination never again to oppose the Mikado and retired to private life. The Shogun's submission fully restored the Mikado's authority throughout the Empire as it had existed previous to A. D. 1184 and gave tranquillity to Japan.

The

Mikado's
New
Foreign
Policy.

Friendly
Inter-

course

Hitherto the Mikado's party had been the most inveterate enemies of the treaties negotiated by the Shogun with the foreign powers. A few men among them had profoundly studied the subject and had perceived the folly of holding their country isolated from the rest of the world. These men now devoted themselves to promoting the intercourse of Japan with the treaty powers and found this an easy task, as the leaders of the Mikado's party now had become convinced of the vast superiority of the foreign system of warfare over the native. They likewise feared that the foreign powers would force Japan to observe the treaties negotiated with the Shogun and were convinced that the Japanese were not able to make a successful resistance. They therefore invited the representatives of the foreign powers to a conference at Kioto.

Many of the Japanese court nobles never had seen a foreigner, and when they saw these foreign representatives at the conference they inwith the stantly abandoned their prejudices against them. The treaties with Western the Western powers therefore were renewed cordially, and the foreign powers recognized the Mikado as the only legal sovereign of Japan. The foundations thus were laid for the cordial relations which ever since have existed between Japan and the nations of Christendom. Foreign

Nations.

[graphic][subsumed]

CATION

J

ideas and customs ever since have been adopted gradually by the Japanese, who are great imitators.

ization of Japan.

Since 1868 the character of Japanese civilization has undergone a Europeantotal change. The government, the army, the navy and the finances are administered on the European plan. The European dress is rapidly taking the place of the old Japanese costume, and many Japanese young men destined for the public service of their country are sent to the schools and colleges of Europe and the United States to be educated in the learning and civilization of the Christian world. In all these measures the young Mikado MUTSU HITO, who ascended the Japanese throne in 1867, has taken an active part; and he has sought constantly to promote the civilization of his Empire and to render its intercourse with the United States and the European powers more intimate.

The Mikado Mutsu

hito.

Abolition
Feudal

of the

System of Japan.

The changes which occurred in the Japanese government since 1868 have been very rapid. In 1871 the Mikado abolished the titles of kuge and daimio, or court and imperial noble, and replaced them with that of kuazoku, or noble families. This decree deprived the great Japanese nobles of their territorial fiefs, which were reclaimed by the crown, thus destroying the feudal system of Japan at one blow. In the same year the Mikado removed his capital from the old sacred city of Kioto to the great city of Yeddo, the name of which was changed to Tokio, Yeddo, or Tokio, meaning “Western capital." The Mikado granted to the daimios onethe tenth of their former incomes on condition of residing permanently at Capital. Tokio.

In December, 1871, Japan sent an embassy to Europe and the United States. This embassy visited each of the Western nations in succession and negotiated new treaties of commerce and friendship with them. The embassy returned to Japan in September, 1873.

In 1874 Japan sent an expedition to the island of Formosa to chastise the natives for their outrages upon Japanese sailors wrecked on their shores. This expedition was successful, but involved Japan in a dispute with China, which claimed Formosa as one of her dependencies. War was threatened, but the firmness of the Japanese ambassadors induced China to enter into a treaty with Japan and to make reparation to that power for her losses.

Japanese

Embassy.

Japan's
Dispute

with

China

with Russia.

In July, 1875, Japan ceded the island of Saghalien to Russia in Exchange exchange for the Kurile Islands. In 1876 a long standing quarrel with Korea was settled upon terms favorable to Japan. In the same year Japan took part in the Centennial International Exhibition at Philadelphia, where that Oriental empire gave satisfactory evidence of Japan in its success in the new national career upon which it so recently had entered.

the Centennial.

Conserv

ative Party.

of 1877.

In the meantime Japan had been making great progress in the adoption of Western civilization, but there still was a conservative party which adhered to the old traditions. In 1877 a formidable rebellion Rebellion headed by the daimio Saigo broke out at Satsuma and Choshiu to check the Europeanizing of Japan, but the rebellion was crushed after desperate fighting. Among great Japanese, Count Saigo, Minister of Eminent Marine and Admiral of the Fleet, and Generals Oyama, Kawakami and Japanese. Kabayama are from Satsuma, while Field-Marshal Yamagata, Count Ito, the Premier, and Count Inouye, the other Chief Minister, are from Choshiu.

Japan's Constitu

tion and

In February, 1889, Japan adopted a new constitution, giving the Empire two legislative Chambers and a Ministry; thus making it a conTransfor- stitutional monarchy and modeling its government upon that of Great mation. Britain. On account of the wonderful and peaceful progress in recent

times by which Japan has turned her back upon the past and taken her place among the most enlightened nations of the world, that Oriental nation has been called the "England of the East."

ChinoJapanese War and

Result.

Collisions

of the Mikado

Parlia

ment.

SECTION III.-THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR
(A. D. 1894-1895).

THE old rivalry between Japan, the representative of Western civilization in the Far East, and China, the champion of the old civilization of Fohi and Confucius, broke out into a fierce and bloody war during the summer of 1894- a war which lasted about nine months and which was characterized by uninterrupted victory on the side of Japan, with her forty million people, and the utter humiliation of China, with her four hundred million population.

In the course of time, for many years past the position of the Mikado's government, face to face with an intractable Parliamentary with His opposition, had been extremely difficult. The lower chamber, or popular branch of the Japanese Parliament, frequently had refused to vote supplies, and the Mikado and his Ministry repeatedly had been obliged to strain their constitutional powers. A particularly acute crisis in December, 1893, and January, 1894, was ended by a dissolution of Parliament; but a general election in April, 1894, left the Mikado and his Cabinet at the mercy of their opponents, who suffered but slight loss in the elections. In this emergency the Mikado and his Ministers resolved to gain popularity and strength by the old device of resorting to foreign war.

In May, 1894, a month after the general elections, public opinion in Japan was excited intensely by the murder of a Korean rebel poli

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