page_title: Late modern period
section_title: Meiji Japan
hierarchical_section_title: Late modern period / European dominance and the 19th century / Meiji Japan
caption_attribution_description: English: 1865 Photographs Albumen print, hand-colored Unframed: 8 1/4 x 10 1/2 in. (20.96 x 26.67 cm) Gift of Mrs. Ruthe Feldman in memory of Philip Feldman (M.91.377.8) Photography
context_page_description: In many periodizations of human history, the late modern period followed the early modern period. It began approximately in the mid-18th century and depending on the author either ended with the beginning of contemporary history after World War II, or includes that period up to the present day. Notable historical milestones included the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence, and the Russian Revolution. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.
context_section_description: Around the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, the Meiji era occurred during the reign of the Meiji Emperor. During this time, Japan started its modernization and rose to world power status. This era name means "Enlightened Rule". In Japan, the Meiji Restoration started in the 1860s, marking the rapid modernization by the Japanese themselves along European lines. Much research has focused on the issues of discontinuity versus continuity with the previous Tokugawa Period. It was not until the beginning of the Meiji Era that the Japanese government began taking modernization seriously. Japan expanded its military production base by opening arsenals in various locations. The hyobusho (war office) was replaced with a War Department and a Naval Department. The samurai class suffered great disappointment the following years.
  Laws were instituted that required every able-bodied male Japanese citizen, regardless of class, to serve a mandatory term of three years with the first reserves and two additional years with the second reserves. This action, the deathblow for the samurai warriors and their daimyōs, initially met resistance from both the peasant and warrior alike. The peasant class interpreted the term for military service, ketsu-eki ("blood tax") literally, and attempted to avoid service by any means necessary. The Japanese government began modelling their ground forces after the French military. The French government contributed greatly to the training of Japanese officers. Many were employed at the military academy in Kyoto, and many more still were feverishly translating French field manuals for use in the Japanese ranks. Japan's modernized military gave Japan the opportunity to engage in Imperialism with its victory against the Qing Empire in the First Sino-Japanese War Japan annexed Taiwan, Korea and the Chinese province of Shandong.
  After the death of the Meiji Emperor, the Taishō Emperor took the throne, the Taishō period was a time of democratic reform granting democratic rights to all Japanese men. Foreigners would be instrumental in aiding in Japan's modernization.  A key foreign observer of the remarkable and rapid changes in Japanese society in this period was Ernest Mason Satow.
caption: Kobe Japan and its harbor, 1865. Hand colored.
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