The Great Emperor Meiji
Japan was also confronted with the Western development and power too when four American naval warships under the commodore Matthew Perry entered Tokyo Bay in 1853 to enforce American demands to open up Japan to trade. His steamships were a new threat, and under renewed naval pressure in 1857, Japan accepted American demands. Other powers followed the American lead. The resulting pressure for the change led to a civil war in 1868-1869. That displaced the Tokugawa Shogunate and restored the power of the emperor. The new system in turn saw off a rebellion in 1877. The Meiji emperor (born in 1857 and died in 1912) oversaw a period of rapid governmental change and economic transformation, which included the promulgation of an ideology of modernisation. Japan was divided into prefectures, a centralised bureaucracy was created, and new industries were introduced in Japan, including shipbuilding. The number of steamships rose from 26 in 1873 to 1,154 in 1913. A rail system was constructed. To strengthen its view of national identity, the government established a dominant national language and called it the “standard language”.
The new state actively pursued territorial expansion, in particular seeking to profit from the weakness of China, which had traditionally overawed Japan culturally. Japan defeated China in 1894-1895; a conflict followed by Japanese annexation of Formosa (Taiwan), while victory over Russia in 1904-1905 led to the annexation of Korea and the spread of Japanese power in northern China. The last was a dramatic demonstration of European weakness.
What I like about Meiji the emperor is how low the country goes; as a king, he developed his country and made it into a flourishing state.
Gowtham
VIII-D
Mahatma Global Gateway (CBSE)