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Y217: Japan 1853–1937

Westernisation and nationalism in Meiji Japan 1868–1912: the end of samurai power and early Meiji reforms

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on the abolition of the domains, the dismantling of the samurai and the Satsuma Rebellion, conscription, land tax reform, the Iwakura Mission and the model for the constitution.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why was the land tax reform unpopular with many peasants?

Who and when

What did the abolition of the domains in 1871 achieve?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What did the abolition of the domains in 1871 achieve?

    Model answer

    The daimyo surrendered their han and were pensioned off, and the country was reorganised into prefectures run by centrally appointed governors, creating a unified national state for the first time.

  2. 2

    How did the Meiji government dismantle the samurai class?

    Model answer

    It removed their legal privileges, opened military service to commoners, banned the wearing of swords in 1876, and converted their hereditary rice stipends into one-off government bonds that were often worth little.

  3. 3

    Who led the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 and what did its defeat prove?

    Model answer

    Saigō Takamori led it, and the destruction of his samurai army by the conscript force proved that peasant soldiers with modern weapons had made the samurai militarily obsolete.

  4. 4

    What did the Conscription Law of 1873 introduce?

    Model answer

    It required three years' military service from men of all classes at the age of twenty, replacing the samurai monopoly of arms with a national army.

  5. 5

    Explain the Land Tax Reform of 1873 and why the government wanted it.

    Model answer

    Tax was reassessed as a fixed cash percentage of the registered value of the land and paid by the recorded owner, giving the state a predictable annual revenue instead of a rice income that rose and fell with the harvest.

  6. 6

    Why was the land tax reform unpopular with many peasants?

    Model answer

    The cash demand fell due whatever the harvest, so a bad year or low rice prices could force a family to borrow or sell, and tenancy grew as a result.

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