Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 597, Colmé's World, Part 4.

One of the odd things about looking at history from the point of view of just one person

is that sometimes you get something you wouldn't quite expect.

The story of Japan in the early 1860s is, in a word, chaotic.

From late 1858 on, when the young Shogun and former Daimyo of Kishu Domain, Tokugawa Iamochi,

put his name on a new unequal treaty with the United States that opened up yet more ports

and gave yet more rights to foreign

residents in Japan, the nation was racked with violence.

Growing numbers of radicalized samurai turned against the government and began to call for the

overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate itself, some even calling for the somewhat outlandish-sounding notion of restoring power

to Japan's long, irrelevant emperors. This in turn led to a wide-ranging crackdown on

descent led by the Shogunate against its detractors, which lasted until the spring of 1860, when the most prominent

architect of said purge was tracked down by anti-Sogunate radicals and was himself assassinated.

What followed was a period of incredible political tumult, as the shogunate was left leaderless

and rudderless, young Yamochi, not exactly the

right person in the right place at the right time, and none of his advisors were capable

enough to step in for him.

Meanwhile, the sleepy city of Kyoto, home to the long irrelevant court of Japan's emperors,

became the focal point of these activist samurai, so to speak, who flocked to the city, sensing that something was in the

offing and wanting to be part of it, and engaging in vigilante violence against anyone they saw

as opposed to the great change they felt was in the air.

The violence only came under control when an unexpected leader emerged, the Emperor

...