JAPAN 50 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Emperor Meiji, Satsuma Rebellion, Tokugawa Yoshinobu
Document Summary
Japan"s 19th century (decline of bakufu and meiji. Kansei reforms (neo-confucian principles of loyalty to your lord) Cancellation of samurai loans because they were in heavy debt. Tokugawa shogunate budget deficit, appeared in 1800 but got worse and worse. Satsuma: prosperous trade with china, monopoly on sugar less tension between samurai and other classes, no more peasant uprisings. Both brought in ambitious young samurai, which made them more successful at reform; older more conservative samurai in the bakufu held them back. A lot of rural peasants tried to move to city, destabilized 4 class system, sent back to their land encouraged peasants to produce more. Samurai: high status but many poor a majority were poor because of periodic attendance to edo. Merchants held much greater wealth which caused samurai resentment toward bakufu technically in a higher class but seeing the merchants leading a far more lavish lifestyle despite the social hierarchy, samurai felt it was upside-down.
