Hello everyone. Before we get into this week's episode, just a quick programming note.

For as long as I've been doing the show, people have been asking me for episode transcripts.

My response has always been the same. The time necessary to take notes and transpose them into a useful transcript would simply be prohibitive, given how much work production already is.

Now, however, thanks to our generous patrons, we can finally start working on this at long last.

It's going to take a while, given 500 episodes, and some of my old notes are no longer with us,

thanks to some issues with my old University of Washington

account, but it's still a fantastic undertaking, and it is only possible because of our patrons,

both for history of Japan and for the Facing Backward Network. So, patrons, one more time,

thank you all so much for your support.

Thank you all so much for your support. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 491, The Nation's Kitchen, Part 5.

Given that the Tokugawa Shogunate was, in a very real sense, built upon the mercantile foundations of Osaka,

one supposes it is only fair the shogunate would come to an end there, too, at least in a certain sense.

For a start, it was in Osaka Castle that the 14th Shogun, Tokugawa Iamochi, made his home

in late 1865, as he prepared to lead the armies of the shogunate on campaign.

Well, I say lead, but that is a bit of a misnomer.

Iamochi was all of 20 when the campaign started in the summer of 1866

and had never led troops of the shogunate much of anywhere outside of a parade ground.

But that was okay. His presence was more symbolic, as his advisors handled everything,

and at any rate, said campaign was only against a single rogue domain.

Cholshu, whose renegade leaders had already been defeated once, but apparently had not learned their lesson.

How hard would it be to do the same thing again?

Well, pretty hard, as it turned out.

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