On 27 January 1868, tensions between the shogunate and imperial sides came to a head when Tokugawa Yoshinobu marched on Kyoto, accompanied by a 15,000-strong force, some of which had been trained by French military advisers.

With the court in Kyoto firmly behind the Satsuma-Chōshū-Tosa coalition, other domains that were sympathetic to the cause – such as Tottori (Inaba), Aki (Hiroshima), and Hizen (Saga) – emerged to take a more active role in military operations.

[6] The imperial court told the domains to restrict the size of their local armies and to contribute to funding a national officers' training school in Kyoto.

Headquarters in faraway Kyoto often proposed plans at odds with the local conditions, which led to tensions with officers in the field, who in many cases ignored centralized direction in favor of unilateral action.

Although the nascent Meiji government achieved military success, the war left a residue of disgruntled warriors and marginalized commoners, together with a torn social fabric.

[13] In March 1871, the War Ministry announced the creation of an Imperial Guard (Goshinpei) of six thousand men,[14] consisting of nine infantry battalions, two artillery batteries and two cavalry squadrons.

The military ministry (Hyōbushō) was reorganized in July 1871; on August 29, simultaneously with the decree abolishing the domains, the Dajōkan ordered local daimyos to disband their private armies and turn their weapons over to the government.

[17] Although the government played on the foreign threat, especially Russia's southward expansion, to justify a national army, the immediately perceived danger was domestic insurrection.

[19] There were several exemptions, including criminals, those who could show hardship, the physically unfit, heads of households or heirs, students, government bureaucrats, and teachers.

It took a year for the new army to crush the uprising, but the victories proved critical in creating and stabilizing the Imperial government and to realize sweeping social, economic and political reforms that enabled Japan to become a modern state that could stand comparison to France, Germany, and other Western European powers.

The Chinese, since the beginning of May had taken steps to prepare the mobilization of their forces in the provinces of Zhili, Shandong and in Manchuria, as a result of the tense situation on the Korean peninsula.

[23] On June 9, a formation of 420 rikusentai, selected from the crews of the Japanese warships was immediately dispatched to Seoul, where they served temporarily as a counterbalance to the Chinese troops camped at Asan.

Consequently, General Oshima in Seoul and commanders of the Japanese warships in Korean waters received orders allowing them to initiate military operations if any more Chinese troops were sent to Korea.

At the same time, in the early morning of July 23, the Japanese had taken control of the Royal Palace in Seoul and imprisoned King Gojong, forcing him to renounce ties with China.

The army's 5th Division would land at Chemulpo to prevent a Chinese advance in Korea while the navy would engage the Beiyang fleet in a decisive battle in order to secure control of the seas.

[27] Lastly, if the navy was defeated and consequently lost command of the sea, Japanese forces in Korea would be ordered to hang on and fight a rearguard action while the bulk of the army would remain in Japan in preparation to repel a Chinese invasion.

[28] Clashes between Chinese and Japanese forces at Pungdo and Seongwhan caused irreversible changes to Sino-Japanese relations and meant that a state of war now existed between the two countries.

The navy's stunning victory in the Yalu on September 17, was crucial to the Japanese as it allowed the Second Army with three divisions and one brigade to land unopposed on the Liaodong Peninsula about 100 miles north of Port Arthur which controlled the entry to the Bohai Gulf, in mid-October.

An international force consisting of British, French, Russian, German, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, American, and Japanese troops was eventually assembled to relieve the legations.

A small, hastily assembled, vanguard force of about 2,000 troops, under the command of British Admiral Edward Seymour, departed by rail, from Tianjin, for the legations in early June.

[32] The army general staff in Tokyo became aware of the worsening conditions in China and had drafted ambitious contingency plans,[33] but the government, in light of the Triple Intervention refused to deploy large forces unless requested by the western powers.

[33] On June 17, with tensions increasing, naval Rikusentai from Japanese ships had joined British, Russian, and German sailors to seize the Dagu forts near Tianjin.

Prime Minister Yamagata likewise concurred, but others in the cabinet demanded that there be guarantees from the British in return for the risks and costs of a major deployment of Japanese troops.

[33] Japanese troops involved in the fighting had acquitted themselves well, although a British military observer felt their aggressiveness, densely packed formations, and over-willingness to attack cost them excessive casualties.

During the Siberian Intervention, following the collapse of the Russian Empire after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Imperial Japanese Army initially planned to send more than 70,000 troops to occupy Siberia as far west as Lake Baikal.

The army general staff came to view the Tsarist collapse as an opportunity to free Japan from any future threat from Russia by detaching Siberia and forming an independent buffer state.

[39] After a heated debate in the Diet, the government of Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake agreed to send 12,000 troops, but under the command of Japan, rather than as part of an international coalition.

Subjected to intense diplomatic pressure by the United States and Great Britain, and facing increasing domestic opposition due to the economic and human cost, the administration of Prime Minister Katō Tomosaburō withdrew the Japanese forces in October 1922.

Japan had set its military sights on Soviet territory as a result of the Hokushin-ron doctrine, and the Japanese establishment of a puppet state in Manchuria brought the two countries into conflict.

The Japanese authorities seized or ordered surrendered all other bank notes in territories under their occupation and provided compensation at an "exchange rate" as they saw fit, in the form of JMYs.