In 1868 Japan was an economically underdeveloped
country that had been controlled since 1600 by the
Tokugawa family, whose ruler had taken the title shogun
(commander) in 1603. The Japanese emperor was
sidelined and assumed a purely ceremonial role. The
Tokugawa shoguns were the dominant members of a class
of feudal lords who ruled and taxed their own domains,
among them those of Satsuma, ruled by the Shimazu
family. These lords, along with their military retainers, the
famous samurai, ran a society that was similar to that of
medieval Europe, with strict occupational categories,
restrictions on trade, and high rates of taxation on farmers.
The shogun ruled from Edo, where he monopolized and
controlled foreign trade and banned foreigners from the
country. Political and economic institutions were extractive,
and Japan was poor.
But the domination of the shogun was not complete.
Even as the Tokugawa family took over the country in 1600,
they could not control everyone. In the south of the country,
the Satsuma domain remained quite autonomous and was
even allowed to trade independently with the outside world
through the Ryūkyū Islands. It was in the Satsuma capital of
Kagoshima where Ōkubo Toshimichi was born in 1830. As
the son of a samurai, he, too, became a samurai. His talent
was spotted early on by Shimazu Nariakira, the lord of
Satsuma, who quickly promoted him in the bureaucracy. At
the time, Shimazu Nariakira had already formulated a plan
to use Satsuma troops to overthrow the shogun. He wanted
to expand trade with Asia and Europe, abolish the old
feudal economic institutions, and construct a modern state
in Japan. His nascent plan was cut short by his death in
1858. His successor, Shimazu Hisamitsu, was more
circumspect, at least initially.
Ōkubo Toshimichi had by now become more and more
convinced that Japan needed to overthrow the feudal
shogunate, and he eventually convinced Shimazu
Hisamitsu. To rally support for their cause, they wrapped it
in outrage over the sidelining of the emperor. The treaty
(Ōkubo Toshimichi had already signed with the Tosa
domain asserted that “a country does not have two
monarchs, a home does not have two masters; government
devolves to one ruler.” But the real intention was not simply