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Updated: May 3, 2025
The prince at once took a remarkable step. For over two centuries the daimios had been forced to reside in Yedo. With a word he abolished this custom, and like wild birds the feudal lords flew away. The cage which had held them so long was open, and they winged their way to their distant nests. This act was fatal to the glory of Yedo and the power of its sovereign lord.
Several of the daimios were converted to the new faith, and Nobunaga, who hated and strove to exterminate the Buddhists, received the Christians with the greatest favor, gave them desirable sites for their churches, and sought to set them up as a foil to the arrogance of the bonzes.
But the repressive might had been gradually weakened, and contact with Western powers had rendered still more odious a feudality which men felt to be out of date. The revolution which has ended in the triumph of the Daimios over the Tycoon, is also the triumph of the vassal over his feudal lord, and is the harbinger of political life to the people at large.
This memorial was signed by the Daimios of Kago, Hizen, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and some other Daimios of the west. But the real author of the memorial is believed to have been Kido, the brain of the Restoration. Thus were the fiefs of the most powerful and most wealthy Daimios voluntarily offered to the Emperor. The other Daimios soon followed the example of their colleagues.
These examples will suffice to show the nature and purpose of these councils of Kuges and Daimios. Let us next consider how these councils originated. The political development of Japan gives another illustration of one of the truths which Mr. Herbert Spencer unfolds in his Principles of Sociology.
It may be safely said that only a handful of students, who had made themselves familiar with the ancient native records, and with that remarkable body of native literature produced in the first half of this century, could see clearly through the maze, and explain the origin and meaning of the movement of the great, southern clans and daimios against the Tycoon.
The disposition and purposes of the daimios being uncertain, the diplomatic bodies thought best to remove to Kobé, a step which caused the exodus of all the new foreign population. Chiosiu and Satsuma, the leaders in what was still a rebellion, had not yet arrived, nor was there any assurance felt as to their attitude towards the foreign question.
The land was divided between the great lords or daimios, who possessed strong castles and large landed estates, with a powerful armed following, and into whose treasuries much of the revenue of the kingdom flowed. These powerful princes of the realm were conciliated by the conqueror.
Though the Revolution took place in 1868, it was not until 1871 that the Daimios were deprived of all their administrative authority. The whole of the country was then divided into districts under the control of the central Government, and all relics of feudalism and class privileges, which had been numerous, were ruthlessly swept away.
European collectors have denuded the country; the treasures of the Daimios, which were almost recklessly sold when they were disestablished, and to a large extent disendowed, have been distributed all over the globe, and a large quantity, perhaps the largest quantity, of the lacquer work now made in the country is manufactured solely for the purpose of being sold as curios either at home or abroad.
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