Person1830 – 1878
Ōkubo Toshimichi
Satsuma statesman who led the early Meiji government, pushing through the abolition of the domains and state-led industry, and opposed invading Korea
Where they went
4 related events
- 1
The Meiji government abolished the feudal domains and replaced them with prefectures, creating a centralised state, then drove modernization from above with the end of status distinctions, conscription, land-tax reform, a school system and state-led industry.
- 2
Half of the Meiji leadership spent a year and nine months in the United States and Europe, sounding out revision of the unequal treaties and studying Western institutions and industry.
- 3
Citing the murder of Ryukyuan castaways by Indigenous Taiwanese, Japan sent troops to southern Taiwan — the Meiji government’s first overseas military expedition.
- 4
The last and largest revolt of former samurai, launched by Satsuma warriors who had lost their privileges, with Saigō Takamori at their head. The government’s conscript army crushed it.
People who appear alongside
- Saigō Takamori1828 – 1877
Satsuma leader of the Meiji Restoration who resigned when his call to send a mission to Korea was rejected, and died leading the Satsuma Rebellion
- Emperor Meiji1852 – 1912
Emperor of Japan (r. 1867–1912) in whose name the shogunate was overthrown, the Meiji reforms carried out and the Meiji Constitution promulgated
- Iwakura Tomomi1825 – 1883
Court noble who engineered the imperial restoration and led the Meiji government’s 1871–1873 embassy to America and Europe
- Itō Hirobumi1841 – 1909
First prime minister of Japan who forced the 1905 protectorate treaty and became the first Resident-General; shot by Ahn Jung-geun at Harbin
Themes this person appears in
- The Opening of East Asia1839 – 1901
From the Opium War to the Boxer Protocol — sixty years in which China, Japan and Korea, forced open by Western gunboats, each tried to reform and went separate ways