The Bakumatsu Period Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tokugawa Ieyoshi

When Commodore Perry's "black ships" arrived in Tôkyô Bay in 1853, Ieyoshi, the 12th Tokugawa Shôgun, was supposedly so shocked that the incident contributed to his subsequent death. He was succeeded by Iesada, who presided over the signing of the unequal treaties.

He held office until his death in 1858, when he was succeeded by the young and sickly Iemochi. He died at the age of 21 and was succeeded by Yoshinobu, the last Shôgun.

Answer: Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians

The early part of the Bakumatsu period was dominated by the shishi, young samurai radicals who believed Japan could deal with the foreign threat by force, united by loyalty to the Imperial house. The shishi campaign of violence, however, ended in the deaths of most of its leaders, and Japan's destiny was taken up by more level-headed and farsighted people, who planned to learn from the "barbarians'" technological prowess and compete with them on their own terms.

Answer: Britain

On September 14, 1862, a British party of four passed through Namamugi village and ran into the retinue of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the power behind the throne in Satsuma Domain. The British, according to the Satsuma account, failed to pay Hisamitsu the respect his rank demanded. One Englishman, Charles Richardson, was killed.

The incident led to the bombardment of Kagoshima by British warships.

Answer: Mito Domain

Mito was one of the earliest centers of sonnô jôi thought. Tokugawa Nariaki, the Imperialist Daimyô of Mito, was one of those purged when Ii Naosuke launched his attack on critics of the Bakufu. Ii was assassinated in 1860 by a group of vengeful shishi, all but one of whom was from Mito.

Answer: Katsura Kogorô

An important leader of the Chôshû radicals, Kido is considered one of the three towering figures of the Meiji Restoration, along with Saigô Takamori and Ôkubo Toshimichi.

Kiyokawa Hachirô was an anti-Bakufu radical who did not survive to see the Restoration. Katsu Rintarô was the former name of Katsu Kaishû, father of the Japanese navy. Kido Kôin is simply an alternative way to read the characters for "Kido Takayoshi".

Answer: The Kinnô-tô

The Tosa Kinnô-tô (Tosa Loyalist Group), under its leader Takechi Hanpeita, was responsible for numerous assassinations of Bakufu officials, and for a brief period took control of Kyôto itself, in alliance with the radicals of Chôshû. When the Chôshû forces were driven out of Kyôto in 1863, the Kinnô-tô's days were numbered.

The Tenchû-gumi was a different shishi group, which was wiped out in 1864 in an uprising in Nara. The Kihei-tai was the revolutionary commoner army founded in Chôshû by Takasugi Shinsaku. The Kaien-tai, regarded as Japan's first corporation, was a company founded in 1865 by the Tosa shishi Sakamoto Ryôma.

Answer: Kanagawa

This was the first unequal treaty, soon followed by agreements with the other major western powers. Its similarity to the unequal treaties that had been forced on China demonstrated to the Japanese that the same loss of sovereignty awaited them unless they could strengthen their economy and their military capability enough to meet the west on its own terms.

Answer: The navy, and coastal defenses

Although the Bakufu was very conscious of the need to strengthen Japan economically, the far flung imperial reach of the Europeans showed them that their first priority had to be to become a naval power. Accordingly, they assigned talented officials to the study and construction of naval defenses, purchased warships and established naval academies.

By definition a feudal institution, the Bakufu was not receptive to ideas about centralized government or mass conscription. It would be left to the modernizers of the Meiji government to introduce these far-reaching reforms.

Answer: Certain cities to be opened to western missionary activities

Perry's treaty of 1854 had paved the way, but had not established the opening of trade with Japan that the western powers desired. This was left to Townsend Harris in 1858. Converting the Japanese to Christianity was at no time a priority for western governments.

Answer: The kôbu-gattai movement

Kôbu-gattai, or "courtiers and warriors together", was an attempt by senior Bakufu figures to save the Tokugawa Shogunate by co-opting the prestige of the Emperor. After the severe setbacks suffered by the shishi in 1863, the proponents of kôbu-gattai had their turn at setting Japanese policy.

It lasted until the obvious weakness of the Bakufu convinced warriors in powerful domains such as Tosa and Satsuma that the Shôguns were no longer capable of defending the country.

Answer: Takechi Hanpeita

Did he ever! Takechi seized control of his native domain of Tosa in 1862 and used it as a base from which to conduct a campaign of bloody assassinations in Kyôto. When the fall of his allies, the Chôshû radicals, weakened his position, his enemies in Tosa took their revenge. He was ordered first to return home, and then to commit seppuku. It is said that he refused to allow his second to deliver the death blow after disemboweling himself, and sliced his stomach open not one, but two more times. We can say this for Takechi: he was over-ready to dish out the violence, but he wasn't afraid to take it himself when the time came.

Okada Izô, Takechi's most effective assassin, was executed. Nakaoka Shintarô was murdered and Takasugi Shinsaku died of tuberculosis.

Answer: Hokkaidô

After the defeat of the Bakufu in the Boshin War of 1868-69, Enomoto refused to surrender his ships to the new government. Instead, he took them to Hokkaidô and established the short-lived Republic of Ezo. Enomoto renounced his side's claim to rule Japan itself; he hoped instead to establish a separate country which his feudal lords, the Tokugawa, could rule.

The Imperial government, however, sent its forces north and overthrew the Republic in 1869.

Answer: No one knows

A visionary who is still one of the most popular figures in Japan, Ryôma had a genius for persuading people to his point of view, and is most notable for bringing about the alliance between the bitter rivals of Satsuma and Chôshû that spelled the Bakufu's eventual defeat.

Ryôma was murdered in Kyôto along with Nakaoka Shintarô on the verge of the Restoration. As an outlaw, who had worked hard for the end of the Bakufu, he was a target of its organized killers, such as the Shinsen-gumi and Mimawari-gumi. The Mimawari-gumi are considered the most likely suspects. To this day, however, no one knows for sure who ended Ryôma's life.

Answer: Katsu Kaishû

Another Tokugawa family retainer, Katsu is considered the father of the Japanese navy, founding a naval academy in Kobe in the early 1860's that sought to reform and modernize the navy in order to meet the foreign threat. Despite his reformist outlook, Katsu remained loyal to the Tokugawa and was put in charge of Edo castle during the Boshin War. By arranging to surrender it to Saigô, he spared Edo an attack by the Imperial army.

Answer: Yamagata Aritomo

Yoshida Shôin, mentor to the other three mentioned here, was executed for his anti-Bakufu activities in Ii Naosuke's Ansei Purge of 1858-60. Kusaka Genzui, one of his most brilliant students, committed seppuku after a failed Chôshû attack on Kyôto in 1864. Takasugi Shinsaku, founder of Chôshû's commoner army, died of tuberculosis in 1867.

Yamagata Aritomo, who fought in Takasugi's army, lived well into the Meiji era and for a while was Japan's most powerful statesman. A believer in military control of the government, he set Japan on the path to the militarist and Imperialist excesses of the 1930's and 40's.