by Daniel Xiao Wang

Created on: August 06, 2011   Last Updated: August 09, 2011

The Meiji (translated as “enlightened rule”) period proved a major transformation in Japanese history. Prior to the Meiji period, the Tokugawa Shogunate was the driving political force in Japan, establishing a strict class-based hereditary hierarchy.

The emperor was the ruler of Japan, but the shogunate was the one actually in control of the country. Administration was performed at a more local level by daimyo. Under the daimyo were the military class samurai, followed by traders, artisans and farmers. The Shogunate established a tax rate that remained consistent and did not account for things like inflation. As time went on, the powerful daimyo became more and more impoverished and the farmers more well to do.

When Japan was faced with foreign attempts to open its ports- including threats of military action - in the 1850s and forced into “unequal treaties.” The emperor started to take matters into his own hands, urging Japan to fight off the foreign barbarians.

The Tokugawa shogunate was on a decline and in the 1867 Tokugawa Yoshinobu, leader of the Tokugawa Shogunate, resigned the shogunate from power and submitted to the emperor.

Emperor Komei had died in 1866 and Prince Mutsuhito, at age fifteen, succeeded him to the throne. The new government was named Meiji, or “enlightened rule.”

The goals of the new government were to end the hierarchy system in place under the Tokugawa shogunate and to set up a more democratic system of administration, while restoring the emperor to power. The Meiji also sought to learn everything it could from foreign powers and to modernize the country and military.

The new Meiji government broke up the hierarchical feudal system and instituted private ownership over land. The role of the daimyos was assumed by governors loyal to the emperor. By 1875, the emperor established a council of elders and ordered them to draft a constitution. The idea of a constitutional monarchy had been long agreed upon as the appropriate way forward in the Meiji government.

In 1889, the Meiji constitution was signed and the House of Representatives and the House of Peers were established. They were given the authority to initiate new laws and approve legislation, but the Emperor was still technically the final say.

Through the Meiji period however, political problems were often met with a spirit of compromise. Although the emperor still held the power, representative government was given a voice and listened to.

Japan also made a conscious decision to “leave Asia.” The Meiji saw Japan's Asian neighbors as hopelessly backwards and decided to orient itself with Western nations, modernizing its military and economy.

So the Meiji period saw a major industrial revolution. The two driving reasons for this were:

1) Bringing in foreign workers and specialists to modernize Japanese industries

2) Sending Japanese students abroad to learn in Western universities

The result was a boom in Japanese industry, making Japan Asia's first modernized nation. This contributed greatly to Japan's future military successes, and its detachment from Asia made it eager to colonize its neighbors as the Western powers did.

The Meiji period saw a move towards representative government, an abolishment of the feudal system, the establishment of a unified economic system, power returned to the emperor, the modernization of industry and the military, and a move towards a Western option, away from the Asia option. It was a major turning point in Japanese history that affected Japan for many years to come and has made Japan - until recently - the world's second largest economy.

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