Seikanron
The Seikanron split the Meiji government and the restoration coalition that had been established against the bakufu,[5] but resulted in a decision not to send a military expedition to Korea.
[7] The Imperial side did not pursue its objective to expel foreign interests from Japan instead adhering to the treaties signed during the bakumatsu period with the ultimate goal of revising them and building up the nation's strength by continuing with reforms begun under the shogunate.
After the defeat of the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei, he had fled farther north to Hokkaido where he occupied the city of Hakodate and set up the Republic of Ezo.
[9] Enomoto Takeaki's refusal to surrender and his escape to Hokkaido with a large part of former Tokugawa Navy's best warships embarrassed the Meiji government politically.
[11] During the Edo period Japan's relationship and trade with Korea were conducted through intermediaries with the Sō family in Tsushima,[12] A Japanese outpost, called the waegwan, was allowed to be maintained in Tongnae near Pusan.
[15] To an extent, this was a consequence from the abolition of the domains in August 1871, whereby it meant that was simply no longer possible for the Sō family of Tsushima to act as intermediaries with the Koreans.
[16] Another, equally important factor was the appointment of Soejima Taneomi as the new minister of foreign affairs, who had briefly studied law at Nagasaki with Guido Verbeck.
[16] The south western domains of Satsuma, Chōshu, Tosa and Hizen were the backbone of the Meiji regime and that gave the government its power, authority and its money.
[7] Political divisions in the form of feudal domains, lord-vassal relations within the samurai elite and separation of social classes within Japanese society were major impediments to centralization.
[7] However, in Japan's historical memory there was an era of unification under a central government headed by the emperor and the Tokugawa years had spurred economic and cultural integration.
By the time the court formally accepted the four-domain petition on July 25, 1869, and made it compulsory, most of the nearly three hundred domains had submitted similar requests.
Below him were three Great Councillors (Dainagon); these positions went initially to two Court nobles - Iwakura Tomomi and Tokudaiji Sanenori and one former daimyo, Nabeshima Naomasa of Hizen.
During the next two years the number of Sangi varied, from a minimum of two to a maximum of seven, and six other samurai held office at one time or another - Kido Koin of Chōshu, Ōkuma Shigenobu of Hizen, Saigō Takamori of Satsuma, and Sasaki Takayuki, Saito Toshiyuki, and Itagaki Taisuke, all from Tosa.
[22] Another decree issued at the same time, brought Court nobles and Daimyos together in a single order of nobility, to be called kazoku which also divided the samurai into two broad segments, shizoku (gentry) and sotsu (foot-soldiers).
According to orthodoxy, "Saigō himself volunteered to go to Korea as a special envoy, inviting an assassination attempt that would provide justification, if any were needed, for a punitive expedition.
