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Unlock This CourseAfter The Perry Mission and the Opening of Japan's Ports, the Tokugawa shogun still ruled from Edo, but his position was shaky. The shogun was the military ruler with the real power. The daimyo were the lords of the regions, and the samurai were the warrior class. Opening the ports to foreigners had been the shogun's decision, and many Japanese people hated it.
The biggest problem was the emperor. He lived in Kyoto and had little real power, but he was greatly respected. In 1858 the shogun's chief minister, Ii Naosuke, signed the trade treaty with the USA without the emperor's approval. Many saw this as disrespectful and as proof that the shogun was putting foreigners first. Ii also punished his critics. In 1858-59 he had a number of daimyo and officials forced from their posts, and some of his opponents were executed.
In March 1860 a group of angry samurai killed Ii Naosuke outside the gate of Edo Castle. It was a shock. A chief minister had been cut down in the capital and the shogun's government could not protect him. In 1862 the shogun's government also relaxed the rule that daimyo must spend alternate years in Edo. This had been one of the main ways the Tokugawa kept control, so letting it go showed how weak they had become.
Key terms:
Opponents of the treaties joined together under the slogan sonno joi. It had two parts. "Revere the emperor" meant that the emperor, not the shogun, should be the centre of Japan. "Expel the barbarians" meant that foreigners should be driven out. The idea had been growing for years in some schools of thought, but the treaties made it popular.
Emperor Komei was against the treaties and against foreigners. This gave the movement a powerful symbol. For the first time in over 200 years, people were openly asking whether the emperor should have more say than the shogun. In the early 1860s the shogun, under pressure, even promised the emperor that foreigners would be expelled. He could not keep that promise, because Japan's weapons were far weaker than those of the Western powers.
So the movement had a trap built into it. It was against the shogun for giving way to foreigners, but it asked for something the shogun could not deliver.
In Japan, gold was worth only about five times as much as silver. In the rest of the world it was worth about fifteen times as much. Foreign traders could swap silver for Japanese gold coins and make a huge profit abroad. Large amounts of gold left Japan. The government tried to fix the problem in 1860 by making new gold coins with less gold in them.
The new coins, together with growing foreign demand, pushed up prices. Japan began to export goods such as raw silk and tea. Foreign buyers paid well, so less was left at home and prices rose. The result was inflation, and the poor suffered most because food cost more.
Trade also hurt some Japanese producers. Cheap foreign cotton goods were allowed in under the low tariffs (taxes on imports) set by the unequal treaties, which gave Japan fewer rights than the foreign powers, and this damaged people who made cloth at home. Some merchants did well from the new trade. But many ordinary people in towns and villages only saw that life had become harder since the foreigners arrived. They blamed the treaties, and so the shogun who had signed them.
Anger often turned to violence. Foreigners were attacked in the ports opened to trade and on the roads, usually by samurai who followed sonno joi. Two examples are the killing of Henry Heusken, the Dutch-born interpreter and secretary to the American diplomat Townsend Harris, in Edo in January 1861, and the killing of the British merchant Charles Richardson in September 1862. Richardson was cut down by samurai after he rode across the path of a daimyo's procession near Yokohama.
These attacks did two things. They made life dangerous for foreigners, and the Western powers demanded money and punishments from the shogun. The Western powers demanded money and punishments from the shogun, and he had to pay. The attacks therefore made the shogun look weaker still: he could not keep foreigners safe, and he could not drive them out either.
The samurai were hit hard. Most were paid a fixed amount of rice from their lord. When prices rose, the same rice bought less, so many samurai became poorer even though they were still at the top of society. Some fell into debt. Others lost their position altogether and became ronin. Lower-ranking samurai were often the angriest, because they had little to lose and felt the shogun had failed Japan.
Many of these men joined the sonno joi movement. They carried out the assassinations and attacks, and they later became leaders in the fight against the shogun. This is a key link: the effects of opening the ports (weakness, falling living standards and anger) pushed some of the most skilled fighters in Japan against the Tokugawa.
What changed: the shogun's authority fell sharply, and the emperor became a symbol around which opponents could gather. Foreign trade brought inflation and a loss of gold, and violence against foreigners grew. What stayed the same: up to 1867 the Tokugawa shogun was still in power, the daimyo still ruled their regions and the samurai were still the top class. The next lessons look at how the shogun finally fell.
Explain TWO causes of the attacks on foreigners in Japan in the early 1860s. [8 marks]
Remember: if you give only one cause, you cannot score more than half marks.
One cause was the anger of those who followed the slogan "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians". Emperor Komei opposed the treaties, and in 1858 Ii Naosuke had signed the American trade treaty without his approval. Samurai who followed this movement believed that foreigners were polluting Japan and weakening the emperor. They therefore attacked them, for example in the killing of the interpreter Henry Heusken in 1861 and of the British merchant Charles Richardson in 1862. So the belief that foreigners should be expelled directly led to the attacks.
A second cause was the economic hardship that followed foreign trade. Foreign merchants took Japanese gold out of the country, the government made new coins with less gold in 1860 and prices rose. Samurai were paid a fixed amount of rice, so their income bought less and many became poorer or turned into ronin. These men blamed foreigners and the shogun who had signed the treaties, and some used violence against foreigners as a way to protest. This hardship made the attacks more likely.
What lifts this to the top level: each cause is backed by precise facts (dates, names, the 1860 coins, fixed rice pay) and explains how it led to the attacks.
Pick two causes from different areas, such as political and economic, and finish each paragraph with "This led to the attacks because...".