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In 1868 samurai leaders from the domains of Satsuma and Chōshū overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate and restored formal power to the young Emperor Meiji. Driven by the threat of Western imperialism, the new government abolished the domains and the samurai class, created a conscript army, built railways and factories, and set up universal schooling. In 1889 it issued a constitution modeled partly on Prussia's. Within about forty years Japan had become an industrial power, ended its unequal treaties, defeated China and Russia, and begun building its own colonial empire.
Compare Japan's response to Western pressure with Qing China's in the same decades, using the Opium Wars as a reference point. Read the Charter Oath of 1868 and track which of its promises the government carried out. Make a list of borrowed institutions and the country each came from, such as a German-style constitution and army and a British-style navy, to see how selective the borrowing was.
You saw how the Tokugawa shogunate kept Japan at peace for two and a half centuries and limited contact with Europeans. When US warships arrived in 1853 and forced Japan to sign unequal treaties, the shogunate seemed unable to defend the country. Samurai from the southwestern domains of Satsuma and Chōshū turned against it. In early 1868 they seized the imperial palace in Kyoto and announced the restoration of rule by the emperor, a teenager known by his reign name, Meiji. After a short civil war, the new government moved the emperor to Edo, which it renamed Tokyo.
The leaders of the new government were young former samurai, and they had watched China lose the Opium Wars. Their slogan was "rich country, strong army." In the Charter Oath of 1868 the emperor promised that knowledge would be sought throughout the world. In 1871 the government abolished the old domains and replaced them with prefectures run from Tokyo. It ended the samurai class's special status, introduced conscription in 1873 and created a national land tax paid in money. When the samurai leader Saigō Takamori led a revolt in 1877, the new conscript army crushed it.
The state also drove economic change. It built railways and telegraph lines, opened model factories and hired foreign experts. The Iwakura Mission of 1871 to 1873 toured the United States and Europe to study their institutions. Later, many state firms were sold to business families, whose groups, such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi, grew into powerful zaibatsu. A national school system, begun in 1872, spread literacy and taught loyalty to the emperor.
In 1889 the emperor granted a constitution influenced by Prussia's. It created an elected Diet, but only a small group of property-owning men could vote, and the emperor's ministers kept great power.
By 1900 Japan had a modern army and navy. It defeated China in 1894–1895 and took Taiwan. By 1899 Western powers had agreed to give up the right to try their citizens in their own courts in Japan. In 1904–1905 Japan defeated Russia, and in 1910 it annexed Korea. Japan had escaped Western domination by becoming an imperial power itself.
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