Boshin War

The Boshin War was a civil war fought in Japan from January 1868 to June 1869 between the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition, led by the domains of Satsuma and Chōshū, that seized power in the name of the emperor. The imperial side won, the last shogunate loyalists surrendered in Hokkaido, and the war completed the military phase of the Meiji Restoration, which placed Emperor Meiji at the head of a centralised modern state.

For about two centuries Japan had kept contact with the outside world to a minimum. After the Perry Expedition forced the country open in 1854, the treaties signed with Western powers were widely resented as unequal, and a movement under the slogan sonnō jōi, "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians", turned against the shogunate. Attacks on foreigners brought Western reprisals, including the British bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863. Both sides armed themselves with foreign help: the shogunate turned to France, which sent a military mission in 1867, while Satsuma grew close to the British.

In the summer of 1866 the shogunate was defeated by the rebellious Chōshū domain, which had secretly allied with Satsuma, and it lost much of its prestige. Late that year the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi and Emperor Kōmei both died, succeeded by Tokugawa Yoshinobu and the young Emperor Meiji. In November 1867 Yoshinobu formally handed his authority back to the emperor, hoping that the Tokugawa family would keep a leading role in the new order.

Hard-liners from Satsuma and Chōshū would not accept that outcome. On 3 January 1868 they took control of the imperial palace in Kyoto, and the next day the fifteen-year-old emperor proclaimed the restoration of his full powers. Yoshinobu rejected the proclamation and, after arson attacks in Edo blamed on Satsuma agents, decided to march on Kyoto. On 27 January his army of about 15,000 met the much smaller but better-armed Satsuma and Chōshū forces at Toba and Fushimi, south of the city. On the second day the court gave the defenders the imperial banner, making them officially the emperor's army, and several daimyo who had backed the shogun changed sides. Yoshinobu left his troops and sailed back to Edo, and his forces fell back.

Imperial forces under Saigō Takamori advanced on Edo, and in May 1868 the city surrendered unconditionally after negotiations with the shogun's army minister, Katsu Kaishū. Yoshinobu submitted and was put under house arrest. Resistance continued in the north, where a coalition of domains led by Aizu, Sendai and Nagaoka fought on. Imperial troops took Nagaoka and then besieged Aizu-Wakamatsu, where a band of young samurai of the White Tiger Corps killed themselves; Aizu surrendered on 6 November 1868. In October Edo had been renamed Tokyo.

The shogun's naval commander, Enomoto Takeaki, refused to hand over most of his warships and sailed north to Hokkaido with his remaining ships and men and a few French advisers, among them Jules Brunet. There the loyalists set up the Republic of Ezo, with Enomoto as its elected president, and fortified the new fortress of Goryōkaku at Hakodate. No foreign government recognised it. In April 1869 an imperial fleet and some 7,000 troops landed, won the naval battle in Hakodate Bay and surrounded Goryōkaku. Enomoto surrendered on 27 June 1869.

Estimates of the troops mobilised range from about 69,000 to 120,000; about 8,200 were killed and more than 5,000 wounded. The victors dropped their aim of expelling foreigners and instead pursued rapid modernisation. In 1871 the old domains were replaced by prefectures, and the samurai class was gradually abolished. Through the influence of Saigō and others, defeated leaders were treated leniently, and Enomoto later served the new government. Discontent among former samurai led in 1877 to the Satsuma Rebellion.

Our 1815 map shows Japan under the Tokugawa shoguns, and the 1878 map shows the new Empire of Japan created by the Meiji Restoration.