Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 112, The Fall of the Samurai, Part 5.

Before we get started this week, I just want to point out a pair of quick corrections

from listener Ian Rapley.

Ian was kind enough to remind me that Commodore Perry, in fact, did not sail through

the Straits of Magellan, but took the long way

around from Virginia to Japan, passed the Cape of Good Hope, ended up through India, and the

Straits of Malacca.

Also, the interpreter he hired in Hong Kong actually did speak some Japanese, but the negotiations

switched to Dutch because both sides found it easier to use, which makes

sense, since Japanese has a lot of honorifics, gradations of ambiguity, which could be serious

pitfalls if you aren't used to using them in highly complex and formal gunpoint negotiations.

So, thank you, Ian, for pointing those out.

When we left things off last week, the Lords of Japan were divided into rough So, thank you, Ian, for pointing those out.

When we left things off last week, the Lords of Japan were divided into roughly two camps over what exactly should be done regarding pressure from the West.

Those who had submitted to the Tokugawa family, before their final victory in 1600,

wanted to strengthen the power of the central Tokugawa government

to deal with the West and make concessions to buy time for self-strengthening.

The outer Tozama Lords, as well as branches of the Tokugawa family itself,

wanted to decentralize the government and devolve more power to the regional lords

in order to enable more locally driven policies of self-strengthening.

As we discussed, this whole split has more to do with the wealth of individual fiefdoms than anything else.

The domains of the Fudai Dimeo tended to be on the smaller side, and they lacked the wealth to try and independently strengthen their own militaries.

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