1867 The new Meiji government was born by the great command of the restoration of the royal government.
The new government that was established is Tosa / Echizen / Owari . It was a coalition of male feudal lords, including the lords of the Kogi Seitai sect. However, with the victory of the Satcho Alliance of the armed defeat group in the Boshin War, it will take the initiative within the political affairs.
After that, it was a coalition government centered on Satsunaga Dohi until the abolition of the feudal clan.
The birth of the new Meiji government
While such a new government suppressed the movement of the rebels by force, it was trying to create a unified nation with a high degree of tyrannical centripetal force centered on the emperor in order to catch up with other countries.
After the crackdown on the rebels has subsided, we will begin to control the territories under the direct control of the former shogunate and other clan.
The new government is April 1868 Political book Is issued to establish the Daijo-kan system, and local administration is prefecture / clan / prefecture Golden Age It was made. In western Japan, the establishment of prefectures and prefectures was carried out smoothly, as it was settled about a month after the battle of Toba and Fushimi. However, it was difficult to establish a control system because the settlement of eastern Japan was delayed.
Therefore, the new government Tokyo in the land of Edo to suppress and control the Kanto region. Renamed as.
Also, in October, Emperor Meiji, who just took the throne, entered Tokyo . Let me make Edo Castle Imperial Palace I changed it. By becoming the first emperor to enter the Kanto region, he impressed the people with the emperor as the supreme authority. As a result of these new government efforts, prefectures have been successfully established in the Kanto region.
In 1869 (Meiji 2), the capital of Japan was changed from Kyoto to Tokyo . Succeeded in separating the emperor from the imperial court forces. In this way, the emperor was made a monarch of the modern nation and promoted the modernization policy.
Repatriation of version registration and abolition of the feudal clan
The new government leaders were thinking of reforming the land and people's sovereignty of the daimyo. Takamitsu Kido (Choshu), Toshimichi Okubo (Satsuma), Itagaki Taisuke (Tosa), Shigenobu Okuma (Hizen) The celebrities of Satcho Dohi discussed and persuaded the feudal lords, and the four feudal lords of Satcho Dohi decided to return the land and the people to the emperor.
Following the male feudal clan of Sat-Chō Dohi, the feudal lords of the whole country also repatriated the version in June 1869. Will be done. Repatriation of version By returning the land and people owned by the former feudal lords to the emperor, he denied the feudal rule and homage, and the new government is the owner of all the people and land. It is to institutionalize and confirm that.
However, the reality was that the former feudal lord became the prefectural governor as it was, so the conventional lord rule system did not disappear, and it was far from the centralization envisioned by the new government.
To overcome this situation, the new government has a secret plan.
1871 (Meiji 4) First of all, we will gather soldiers from the Satsuma, Choshu, and Tosa domains to prepare our armaments.
And let this military power say something, Abolition of the Clan Was carried out.
As a result, more than 260 clan were abolished in the form of succumbing to military power and became a prefecture.
The former feudal lords were dismissed and moved to Tokyo. A prefectural governor and a prefectural ordinance were dispatched from the central government to the new prefecture to serve as local administration.
With these thorough institutional reforms, the feudal daimyo's rule was completely over and a centralized system was put in place.