Episode 529 – Bakumatsu, Part 2

May 3, 2024

This week on the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: the sudden assassination of the tairo Ii Naosuke sparks the rapid ascension of imperial loyalism, an ideology devoted to the undoing of the unequal treaties and the overthrow of the shogunate. How did loyalism come to be a dominant force in the politics of the early 1860s, and how did its following collapse in just a few years?

Sources

Jansen, Marius. The Making of Modern Japan

Jansen, Marius. Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration

Beasley, Craig. The Meiji Restoration

Craig, Albert M. Choshu in the Meiji Restoration.

Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World

Images

The March 26th, 1860 assassination of Ii Naosuke, also sometimes called the Sakuradamon Jiken (Cherry Blossom Field Gate Incident) after its location.
The death of Charles Richardson (also called the Namamugi Incident) as depicted in an early Meiji woodcut.
The Kinmon/Hamaguri Gate Rebellion, as depicted in a woodcut from 1890.
The storming of the Shimonoseki defenses, as depicted in the Illustrated London News. The headline reads “The War in Japan.”
Photo of French and British marines after spiking the guns at Shimonoseki