of rice farmers, a small minority of merchants,  who benefited from their hard work, and the  

elite class of samurai, who, as peace continued,  exchanged their swords for calligraphy brushes,  

working in a variety of administrative positions.  Both the farmers and the samurai were indebted to  

the merchants and this, coupled with increasing  peasant unrest and foreign interventions,  

threatened to destroy the status quo of the  Tokugawa Shogunate. And yet, almost four decades  

later, the Japanese Empire established itself  as a regional power in the Far East, going so  

far as to defeat the Russian behemoth. How did  Japan achieve this? How did it undergo such a  

transformation from a poor isolationist state  into a modern military powerhouse? Today, we are  

going to answer all these questions and talk about  the Meiji restoration and the Russo-Japanese War.

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As we stated before, it was a small minority  composed of merchants and artisans that was  

fundamental in the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate  in the 19th Century. This minority was despised by  

the Japanese class system that followed the  precepts of Neo-Confucianism, as they sold  

rice and cash crops in commercial centers, and  lent great sums of money to samurai and daimyos.  

For the Shogunate, taxation of commerce was  inconceivable because it would give prestige  

to the merchants and would lower the status of  government. This state of affairs often left the  

treasury empty and forced the Shoguns to debase  the coinage to pay debts, thus causing inflation;  

and as the impoverishment of the  samurai put their loyalty in question,  

the government risked a fully armed insurrection. But it wasn't just the class system that brought  

the collapse of the Japanese state; an increase in  foreign intervention contributed harshly as well.  

Since the year 1633, the Shogunate had strictly  regulated commerce with foreign countries,  

especially European ones, issuing their Sakoku  isolationist policy. But at the start of the 19th  

Century, Russian explorers arrived in Sakhalin  and the Kuril Islands, foreign whalers started  

to navigate Japan's waters and a British gunboat  even threatened to attack Nagasaki. In response to  

these persistent visits, the Shogunate issued in  1825 an order to expel by force any foreign ship  

in Japanese waters; a policy that was supported  by the Japanese population, experiencing a general  

sense of distrust and paranoia towards Western  powers after their actions in the Opium Wars. 

Meanwhile, the United States was  expanding its presence in the Pacific,  

sending the Shogunate a number of proposals to  establish diplomatic and commercial relations.  

Because the Japanese refused each time,  Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan  

in 1853 to enforce trade with the United  States. The Japanese population was alarmed  

and the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi, knowing  that war was futile, sought a compromise.  

The Americans succeeded in opening trade with the  Japanese, and soon, the Western powers pressed  

their advantage in a series of unequal treaties  that further opened commerce in the region.  

This left Japan in a semicolonial status,  politically and economically subordinate  

to foreign governments making the fall of the  Tokugawa Shogunate inevitable. As anti-Western  

sentiment throughout the country began to rally  around the Sonnō jōi movement, which translates  

as “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians”, a  series of incidents involving attacks on foreign  

shipping and the assassination of Westerners  occurred. In response, the Western powers  

retaliated with the bombardment of Kagoshima  and the occupation of Shimonoseki in 1863,  

but these actions only strengthened the resolve of  the rebels. In the end, the last Shogun, Tokugawa  

Yoshinobu, had no other choice but to approve  the restoration of Imperial power in Japan. 

Yet some dissatisfied and rebellious daimyos,  aided by the Sonnō jōi movement, got ahead of  

Yoshinobu and seized the Imperial Palace in Kyoto,  thus announcing their own Imperial Restoration  

in 1868. The Tokugawa loyalists fought against  these rebels in the Boshin War, but in the end,  

they were defeated, resulting in the ascension  of Emperor Meiji to the throne. Meiji would  

quickly go on to issue a series of reforms,  increasing the opportunities of commoners,  

abolishing the class system, transforming the  feudal domains into prefectures, renaming the  

capital at Edo to Tokyo, and centralizing the  government into an oligarchy. The new Imperial  

government would also shift towards a more  progressive policy in regards to foreign powers,  

continuing the modernization of the country,  renegotiating some of the unequal treaties  

and embarking on a series of military reforms  that sparked a variety of samurai insurrections. 

The new Imperial Japanese Army,  trained in Western tactics and weapons,  

easily defeated these rebellions and prompted the  end of the samurai class, while the new Imperial  

Japanese Navy consolidated and modernized  thanks to foreign support. The modernized  

Japanese military saw its first opportunity  at being deployed after the Mudan Incident.  

In response to the murder of 54 Ryukyuan  sailors at the hands of Taiwanese natives,  

a punitive expedition was launched in 1874,  resulting in the temporary occupation of Taiwan  

and the official annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom.  A year later, Japan signed the Treaty of Saint  

Petersburg with Russia, in which the Japanese  ceded South Sakhalin in exchange for the Kuril  

Islands that Russia controlled. The Japanese would  also go on to colonize the Ogasawara Islands in  

1875, the Volcano Islands, including Iwo Jima, in  1889, and the Minami-Tori-shima island in 1898. 

By the 1890s, the IJA had grown to become the most  modern army in Asia, while the IJN had expanded  

with the acquisition of French and British ships.  Tensions with the Qing Dynasty had also risen  

after Japan returned Taiwan to them, but the  Japanese successfully pursued their interests  

in Korea even despite the Chinese opposition.  Yet Korea remained inside the Chinese sphere of  

influence during this time, helped by the Qing  Dynasty to crush rebellions in the country.  

All of this, however, would change in the early  months of 1894, when the Donghak Rebellion broke  

out in southern Korea and spread across the  country. The Chinese intervened again to defend  

the Korean government, but the Japanese also  did so on the side of the rebel army. Soon,  

Japanese forces occupied Seoul and established a  pro-Japanese government that broke their ties with  

China. The first Sino-Japanese War had thus begun. For their strategy, the Japanese planned to defeat  

the modernized Beiyang Fleet early on in the  war so that they could gain command of the sea  

and land the 5th Division to push the Chinese out  of Korea. While the IJA consolidated its position  

on the Korean Peninsula and advanced towards  Pyongyang, the IJN set out to lure the Beiyang  

Fleet to engage it in a decisive battle.  On September 17, as the Japanese soldiers  

were occupying Pyongyang, the Beiyang Fleet was  decimated in the Battle of the Yalu River, and  

the remains of the Chinese navy would be destroyed  later on at Weihaiwei. Having control of the seas,  

the Japanese invaded the Liaodong and Shandong  Peninsulas, where they managed to occupy Dairen,  

Lüshun and Weihaiwei, leaving the way to Beijing  open and forcing the Chinese to surrender at last. 

With the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Japanese  Empire annexed the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan and  

the Senkaku and Penghu Islands, and the Chinese  acknowledged the total independence of Korea,  

leaving it inside Japan's sphere of influence.  The war had been a great success for the Japanese,  

yet their gains would face staunch opposition: a  rebellion in Taiwan established the independent  

Republic of Formosa, and the intrusion of Russia,  France and Germany in the Triple Intervention  

ousted the pro-Japanese government in Korea and  forced the Japanese to relinquish the Liaodong  

Peninsula. Although Taiwan would be finally  reconquered after a Japanese invasion in 1895,  

the Russian Empire soon occupied the Liaodong  Peninsula and pressured the Qing Dynasty to  

lease them this territory, as Tsar Nicholas I  desired an ice-free natural harbor in the Pacific.  

The Russians would then go on to build a railway  in the region and to rename the city of Lüshun to  

Port Arthur, leaving the rest of Manchuria inside  their sphere of influence. But the Russian show of  

force had an unexpected consequence: the Japanese  Empire felt cheated by the Triple Intervention  

and saw the intrusion of the Russians into what  they considered their own sphere of influence as a  

humiliation. In result, military and expansionist  factions inside Japan were strengthened, forcing  

the Imperial government to heavily industrialize  and to build up its naval strength for future  

conflicts. Japanese diplomacy also sought to avoid  another coalition of Western powers against them,  

leading directly to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of  1902 that protected Japan from the interference of  

foreign powers, and from Russia in particular. Furthermore, since the Boxer Rebellion,  

most of Manchuria had been occupied by Russian  forces that refused to leave the region; yet  

the Russian position in the Far East was actually  very weak, as the Trans-Siberian Railway was still  

incomplete, the Russians didn't really know the  region, and there was social unrest in Manchuria.  

The Japanese also had spies all across  the region, so they knew the way around  

these lands and estimated in 1903 that Japan's  forces outnumbered the Russians in the Far East.  

This information prompted Meiji to approve  preparations for war against Russia,  

and after the Russian refusal to leave occupied  Manchuria, Japan declared war on February 8, 1904.  

Led by legendary Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, the IJN  managed to keep the Russian Pacific Fleet at bay  

while the IJA landed at Chemulpo and  quickly occupied Korea, then crossing the  

Yalu River to start the siege of Port Arthur. Meanwhile, the Russians sent a second squadron  

from the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets to reinforce  the defenders at Port Arthur, but the long journey  

across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans caused  them to arrive too late, as in January 2, 1905,  

Port Arthur surrendered after most of the Pacific  Fleet was destroyed by an inland bombardment.  

Not only did the 2nd Pacific Squadron arrive late,  but they also arrived in a very poor condition  

due to the necessity to get to the Pacific  as quickly as possible. At the same time,  

the IJA advanced through the rest of the  Liaodong Peninsula, occupying the cities of  

Liaoyong and Mukden, and essentially expelling  the Russian Manchurian Army from the region. 

On May 27, the 2nd Pacific Squadron attempted to  cross the Tsushima Strait towards Vladivostok, but  

the Russian reinforcements were quickly engaged  by Admiral Tōgō in a decisive battle. The Japanese  

were spectacularly victorious, practically  annihilating the Russian fleet and shocking  

the Western world with their naval prowess. If you  want a more in depth look at this naval conflict,  

don't forget to check out our video on the  Russo-Japanese War and the Battle of Tsushima;  

you won't be disappointed. Defeated, Tsar Nicholas  continued the war to preserve the dignity of his  

Empire, but the disaster at Tsushima was a heavy  blow to the prestige of the Romanov Dynasty,  

eventually leading to the Russian  Revolution and the fall of Imperial rule.  

In the last months of the war, Japanese  forces also invaded the island of Sakhalin  

and managed to occupy it with few losses. Nicholas would finally have to concede defeat  

in August, signing the Treaty of Portsmouth in  September 5, which forced the Russians out of  

Manchuria, left Korea inside the Japanese sphere  of influence, and ceded South Sakhalin and the  

Chinese leases of Port Arthur and Talien to Japan.  Although Russian losses had been low, Japan's  

victory solidified its position as a regional  power in the Far East and proved that the Japanese  

could successfully fight against any Western  power. The newfound military superiority of the  

Japanese Empire also allowed them to establish  economic and military dominance over Korea,  

becoming a Japanese protectorate in 1905 and being  outright annexed in 1910. Born from the engulfing  

flames of Russian battleships, the Japanese Empire  would continue to expand through the 20th Century,  

becoming a dangerous threat to Western rule in  the East. Next week, we're going to cover how the  

First World War affected the Eastern world and how  Japan initiated its road towards the Pacific War.