In response to these memorials a decree[331] was issued by the emperor August 7, 1869, announcing the abolition of the daimiates, and the restoration of their revenues to the imperial treasury. It was also decreed that the ranks of court nobles (kugés) and of daimyōs be abolished and the single rank of kwazoku be substituted.
Thus at one stroke the whole institution of feudalism which had flourished from the time of Yoritomo was cut away. The government made provision for the administration by creating prefectures (ken) to take the place of daimiates. This was done in 1871. At first the daimyōs were appointed governors of the prefectures. But it was soon found that these hereditary princes were as a class utterly unfit for the chief executive offices of their old provinces. Hence, one by one other competent persons were appointed to vacancies, until it came to be understood [pg 386] that competence and fitness were to be the requisite qualifications for such appointments.
The financial questions involved in the suppression of the feudal system were serious and difficult. When the daimyōs surrendered their fiefs, they did so with the understanding that they themselves should “receive such properties as may serve their wants,”[332] and that the emperor should take “measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due.”[333] It was decided that each ex-daimyō, and each of the suzerains that were dependent on him, should receive one tenth of the amount of their income from their fiefs. The ex-daimyōs received this amount free of any claims upon them for the support of the non-productive samurai, who formed the standing armies of each clan. The central government assumed all the payments to the samurai for services of whatever kind. This heavy charge of the government was met by borrowing $165,000,000,[334] which was added to the national debt. With this sum they undertook to capitalize the pensions, which was finally accomplished by a compulsory enactment. Each claimant received from the government interest-bearing bonds for the amount of his income reckoned at from five to fourteen years' purchase according to its sum. Thus to the great relief of the country the matter of pensions was disposed of.
To many of the samurai this summary settlement had unfortunate results. The lump sums which [pg 387] they received were often soon consumed, and they were left penniless and helpless. The traditions under which they had been trained led them to look down upon labor and trade with disdain, and rendered them unfit to enter successfully on the careers of modern life. In many cases worry and disappointment, and in others poverty and want, have been the sequels which have closely followed the poor and obsolete samurai.
Several minor but noteworthy steps in reform were taken. The ancient disqualifications of the eta and heimin were removed in 1871, and these pariahs placed on the same legal footing as the rest of the population. The first railway in Japan was opened between Yokohama and Tōkyō in 1872. The European calendar, so far as it regarded the beginning of the year and the beginning of the months, was adopted in 1873. The year was still counted from Jimmu Tennō, 1873 of the Christian era corresponding to 2533 of the Japanese era, and also by the Meiji year-period, the commencement of which was from 1868.
Several international events deserve notice here. A number of Ryūkyū islanders (vassals of Japan) had been shipwrecked on Formosa and some killed by the semi-savage inhabitants. To punish this cruelty, and to insure a more humane treatment in the future, the Japanese government sent an expedition under General Saigō Tsugumichi. They made short work of the inhuman tribes and enforced upon them the lesson of civility. China, who claimed a sovereignty over this island, acknowledged the service [pg 388] Japan had rendered, and agreed to pay an indemnity for the expenses of the expedition.
The long-pending dispute between Russia and Japan concerning the boundary in Saghalien was settled in 1875 by a treaty[335] which exchanged the Japanese claims in Saghalien for the Kurile islands (Chishima).
An unexpected attack by the Koreans upon a Japanese steamer asking coal and provisions awakened an intense excitement in Japan. An expedition after the pattern of Commodore Perry's, under the command of General Kuroda Kiyotaka, was despatched in January, 1876, to come to an understanding with the Koreans. The negotiations were entirely successful, and a treaty[336] of amity and commerce was concluded, and thus another of the secluded kingdoms of the East had been brought into the comity of nations. Then outbreaks of this kind in Saga, in Higo, in Akizuki, and in Chōshū occurred, but they were all put down without difficulty or delay. The promptness with which the government dealt with these factions boded no good to the reactionary movements that were ready to break out in other places.
Although the Satsuma clan had taken the most prominent part in the destruction of the shōgunate and in the restoration of an imperial government, there was in it a greater amount of conservatism and opposition to modern innovations than was to be [pg 389] found elsewhere. Indeed, the clan had split into two distinct parties, the one aiding in all the reforms and changes which the government was attempting to carry out, the other holding resolutely to the old feudal traditions which they saw endangered by the present attitude of the emperor's counsellors. The latter party had for its leaders Shimazu Saburō and Saigō Takamori, both of whom had played conspicuous parts in the recent history of their country. The government had tried to conciliate these two influential men and to secure their co-operation in the administration. But both had retired from Tōkyō, and declined longer to share the responsibility of a course which they could not approve.
Saigō, who was the idol of the samurai, after his retirement established near Kagoshima a military school, where the young men of that class were drilled in the duties of the army. Branch schools on the same model were also carried on in several other places in the province. In all it was said that not less than 20,000 young samurai were receiving a training in these dangerous schools. They were filled with the most violent antipathy to the government and were with difficulty restrained, even by their leaders, from outbreaks in sympathy with the uprisings which elsewhere were taking place.