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12 - Technology, Military Reform, and Warfare in the Tokugawa-Meiji Transition

from PART II - Economy, Environment, and Technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2024

By
D. Colin Jaundrill
Edited by
David L. Howell
David L. Howell
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

The collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the subsequent rise of the Meiji government were accompanied by the Japanese archipelago’s first large-scale conflict in two centuries. Warfare was not merely a consequence of the social and political upheaval of the restoration era. Rather, organizational reforms and the adoption of new technologies helped accelerate the collapse of the shogunate and shaped the manner of the modern state’s consolidation. Rather than recounting campaigns and battles, this chapter focuses on three interlocking sets of themes: technology, social change, and gender. Each theme relates to a particular story of the restoration era: the replacement of traditional Japanese arms by gunpowder weapons; the decline of the samurai and the rise of the conscript soldier; and the effacement of warrior masculinity by the ideal of the patriotically subservient “serviceman” (gunjin).

Keywords

armynavywarfaretechnologyTakashima ShūhanBoshin WarNorthern AllianceKōbushoChōshūSatsumaAizuconscriptionSatsuma Rebellion
Type
Chapter
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The New Cambridge History of Japan , pp. 397 - 440
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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