The new leaders of the Meiji government (an oligarchy) believed that Japan needed a centralized government. They prepared carefully for a constitutional government and didn’t rush to implement it. In 1868, they moved the imperial capital from Kyoto to Edo and renamed it Tokyo. This was chosen as Tokyo was more centrally located and made it easier to govern the country from a geographical point of view. Since the emperor moved into the former shogun’s castle it showed that the shogun and Bakufu were no longer in power. The government had decided that to accomplish this they would have to achieve several goals. These goals were to unify the territory of Japan and to look for a government model that could be adapted to suit Japanese needs. The social order would have to be changed also so that all Japanese citizens would have the same obligations and loyalty to the state. Their final goal was to create a constitution so that the most important values and beliefs would guide Japan into the future. It also reflected a new worldview as they were deciding to move from a feudal like class structure and into a centralized non-class like structure where everyone was loyal to the state as a whole and everyone was a part of the country.
How Did Modernizing the Japanese Political System Reflect a New Worldview?