Bakumatsu

The major ideological-political divide during this period was between the pro-imperial nationalists called ishin shishi and the shogunate forces, which included the elite shinsengumi swordsmen.

The first related to those lords whose predecessors had fought against Tokugawa forces at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, after which they had been permanently excluded from all powerful positions within the shogunate.

To reinforce Japan's capability to carry on the orders to repel Westerners, some such as the Nagasaki-based Takashima Shūhan managed to obtain weapons through the Dutch at Dejima, such as field guns, mortars and firearms.

[5] After the humiliating defeat suffered by Qing China in the First and Second Opium Wars, many Japanese officials realized that their traditional methods would be no match for western powers.

[6] A theoretical synthesis of "Western knowledge" and "Eastern morality" would later be accomplished by Sakuma Shōzan and Yokoi Shōnan, in view of "controlling the barbarians with their own methods".

Students of Western sciences were accused of treason (Bansha no goku), put under house arrest (Takashima Shūhan), forced to commit ritual suicide (Watanabe Kazan, Takano Chōei), or even assassinated as in the case of Sakuma Shōzan.

Lacking consensus, Abe compromised by accepting Perry's demands for opening Japan to foreign trade while also making military preparations.

In March 1854, the Treaty of Peace and Amity (or Treaty of Kanagawa) maintained the prohibition on trade but opened the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American whaling ships seeking provisions, guaranteed good treatment to shipwrecked American sailors, and allowed a United States consul to take up residence in Shimoda, a seaport on the Izu Peninsula, southwest of Edo.

In the Ansei Reform (1854–1856), Abe then tried to strengthen the regime by ordering Dutch warships and armaments from the Netherlands and building new port defenses.

Opposition to Abe increased within fudai circles, which opposed opening shogunate councils to the tozama daimyō, and he was replaced in 1855 as chairman of the senior councilors by Hotta Masayoshi (1810–1864).

At the head of the dissident faction was Tokugawa Nariaki, who had long embraced a militant loyalty to the emperor along with anti-foreign sentiments, and who had been put in charge of national defense in 1854.

Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula was struck by the Tōkai earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, and because the port had just been designated as the prospective location for a US consulate, some construed the natural disasters as demonstration of the displeasure of the gods.

The court officials, perceiving the weakness of the bakufu, rejected Hotta's request, resulting in his resignation, and embroiling Kyoto and the Emperor in Japan's internal politics for the first time in centuries.

The fudai won the power struggle, however, installing the 12 year old Tokugawa Iemochi as shōgun whom it was perceived Tairō Ii Naosuke would have influence over, ultimately placing Nariaki and Yoshinobu under house arrest, and executing Yoshida Shōin (1830–1859, a leading sonnō-jōi intellectual who had opposed the American treaty and plotted a revolution against the bakufu) known as the Ansei Purge.

Tairō Ii Naosuke, who had signed the Harris Treaty and tried to eliminate opposition to Westernization with the Ansei Purge, was himself murdered in March 1860 in the Sakuradamon incident.

Belligerent opposition to Western influence further erupted into open conflict when the Emperor Kōmei, breaking with centuries of imperial tradition, began to take an active role in matters of state and issued, on March 11 and April 11, 1863, his "Order to expel barbarians" (攘夷実行の勅命, jōi jikkō no chokumei).

Openly defying the shogunate, Mōri ordered his forces to fire without warning on all foreign ships traversing Shimonoseki Strait.

The order was forwarded to foreign legations by Ogasawara Zusho no Kami on June 24, 1863: The orders of the Tycoon, received from Kyoto, are to the effect that the ports are to be closed and the foreigners driven out, because the people of the country do not desire intercourse with foreign countries.Edward Neale, the head of the British Legation, responded on very strong terms, equating the move with a declaration of war: It is, in fact, a declaration of war by Japan itself against the whole of the Treaty Powers, and the consequences of which, if not at once arrested, it will have to expiate by the severest and most merited chastisementAmerican influence, which had been of high importance in the beginning, waned after 1861 due to the advent of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that monopolized all available U.S. resources.

Satsuma military leaders Saigō Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi were brought together with Katsura Kogoro of Chōshū, notably through the efforts of Sakamoto Ryōma.

In the morning of July 16, 1863, under sanction by Minister Pruyn, in an apparent swift response to the attack on the Pembroke, the U.S. frigate USS Wyoming under Captain McDougal sailed into the strait and single-handedly engaged the U.S.-built but poorly manned fleet.

On the heels of McDougal's engagement, two weeks later a French landing force of two warships, the Tancrède and the Dupleix, and 250 men under Captain Benjamin Jaurès swept into Shimonoseki and destroyed a small town, together with at least one artillery emplacement.

The conflict actually became the starting point of a close relationship between Satsuma and Great Britain, which became major allies in the ensuing Boshin War.

Although the Namamugi Incident was seen as unfortunate, it was taken not to be characteristic of Satsuma's policy, and was instead branded as an example of anti-foreign sonnō jōi sentiment, as a justification to a strong Western show of force.

Naval forces from Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States, planned an armed reaction against Japanese acts of violence against the citizens with the Bombardment of Shimonoseki.

The Allied intervention occurred in September 1864, combining the naval forces of the four nations, against the powerful daimyō Mōri Takachika of the Chōshū Domain based in Shimonoseki, Japan.

The structural weaknesses of the Bakufu however remained an issue, and the focus of opposition would then shift to creating a strong government under a single authority.

In the Kinmon Incident on 20 August 1864, troops from Chōshū Domain attempted to take control of Kyoto and the Imperial Palace in order to pursue the objective of Sonnō Jōi.

By the end of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, the Japanese navy of the shōgun already possessed eight western-style steam warships around the flagship Kaiyō Maru, which were used against pro-imperial forces during the Boshin War, under the command of Admiral Enomoto.

After Keiki had temporarily avoided the growing conflict, anti-shogunal forces instigated widespread turmoil in the streets of Edo using groups of rōnin.

With the turning of the battle toward anti-shogunal forces, Keiki then quit Osaka for Edo, essentially ending both the power of the Tokugawa and the shogunate that had ruled Japan for over 250 years.