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So thanks to all of you for your understanding, and thank you again to our wonderful patrons,

and now on with the show. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 451,

Those Swept Away.

Today I want to tell a story about one of my favorite periods of Japanese history,

the Bakumatsu era and the Meiji Restoration.

That fascinating few decades of transformation from feudalism and reckoning with ideas of empire and modernity.

But I want to do it by telling a story about a person who usually does not get more than a footnote

in tales of this time. In large part, that's because of their rather unusual social status.

Where most of the major actors of the Bakumatsu era were samurai, particularly from the

kashi, the lowest ranks of the samurai class, who were often deeply dissatisfied with

the limits, set on their ability to climb above those with better

birthright but less talent, this person was a peasant. Admittedly, they were a gono, a wealthy

...