Taisei Hōkan (Return of Political Power)

The Taisei Hōkan—the "Return of the Great Administration"—took place on the fourteenth day of the tenth month of Keiō 3 (November 9, 1867), when the fifteenth shogun of the Edo period, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, formally surrendered political authority (the Great Administration) to the imperial court. This single act brought 265 years of Tokugawa shogunal rule to a nominal end, and opened the door to the Meiji Restoration and the formation of modern Japan.

**Historical Background: From Perry's Arrival to Bakumatsu Turmoil**

Since Commodore Perry's arrival in the sixth year of Kaei (1853), the Edo shogunate had faced a double crisis: internal conflict over opening the country versus expulsion of foreigners, and unrelenting pressure from the Western powers. In the course of negotiating the Japan–US Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1858), the Senior Councillor Ii Naosuke ordered the Ansei Purge, in which numerous loyalists such as Yoshida Shōin and Hashimoto Saishi were executed. In the second year of Man'en (1860), the Sakuradamon Incident saw Ii Naosuke himself assassinated by rōnin from Mito and Satsuma. This assassination—the unprecedented killing of the shogunate's supreme authority by samurai of a daimyo house—signaled the loss of shogunal authority both at home and abroad.

The sonnō jōi movement grew ever more radical. The Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance, which began in the first year of Keiō (1865) and was mediated by figures such as Sakamoto Ryōma, and the shogunate's defeat in the Second Chōshū Expedition in the second year of Keiō (1866), decisively stripped the shogunate of military prestige. In the same year, in the twelfth month, the fourteenth shogun Tokugawa Iemochi died suddenly, and Tokugawa Yoshinobu was elevated to the fifteenth shogunal position.

**Yoshinobu's Political Intentions and the Tosa Mediation**

By Keiō 3 (1867), momentum for overthrowing the shogunate was rising rapidly. The domains of Satsuma and Chōshū resolved in secret to launch an armed assault and worked to obtain a covert imperial rescript authorizing overthrow. Meanwhile, Yamauchi Yōdō and Gotō Shōjirō of the Tosa domain, adopting the "Theory of the Return of the Great Administration" articulated by Sakamoto Ryōma, sought a path to a change of power without force.

Ryōma's vision was that "the shogunate would voluntarily return political authority to the emperor, and a new system of national governance would be constructed through a council of daimyo." This offered a realistic resolution: the Tokugawa house could continue to exist as a prominent daimyo. Gotō worked tirelessly to have Senior Councillor Itakura Katsushige and others submit a memorial on the return of the Great Administration to the shogunate, and Yoshinobu himself undertook careful deliberation.

Scholars offer various interpretations of Yoshinobu's reasons for accepting this proposal: "a political calculation to preempt the Satsuma-Chōshū armed overthrow," "realism prioritizing Tokugawa survival," or "a strategy to retain real power as leader of a council of daimyo." In any case, on the thirteenth day of the tenth month, Yoshinobu summoned more than forty senior retainers from the domains in Osaka and nearby, and on the fourteenth day formally submitted a memorial to the court. The court granted imperial sanction that same day, and the governing authority of the Edo shogunate was nominally returned to the emperor.

**The Shogunate Officials' Shock and Satsuma-Chōshū's Bewilderment**

This decision struck the shogunal council with profound shock. Many shogunate officials had not believed in the return until the very end, and only after the fact did they comprehend the situation. The pro-overthrow faction of Satsuma and Chōshū was likewise bewildered by Yoshinobu's preemptive move—they found the ground of "imperial restoration" already established. Yet they swiftly reorganized and proceeded toward the Great Announcement of Imperial Restoration on the ninth day of the twelfth month.

**Points of Contact with Sword Culture: The Famous Blades of Bakumatsu Activists**

The bakumatsu was the final era in which the Japanese sword burned with its last brilliance as the "soul of the warrior." The loyalist activists who undertook the sonnō jōi movement wore famous blades and staked their lives on the great enterprise of the Restoration. The clashes and deaths inflicted by the swordsmen of the Tosa Loyalists, the Shinsengumi, and the Satsuma Jigen-ryū practitioners left indelible marks of the blade upon the history of the period.

Sakamoto Ryōma, the prominent figure who advanced the return of power, was himself known as a devotee of the sword. The blade called Yoshiyuki—presented to him by the Tosa domain—symbolizes the bond between the Restoration activists and their blades. Ryōma was assassinated at the Ōmiya in Kyoto on the fifteenth day of the eleventh month of Keiō 3 (December 10, 1867), shortly after witnessing the realization of the return of power. The sword he carried remained at his side, and that blade has been transmitted to posterity as an artifact telling of the greatest tragedy of the bakumatsu.

Yoshinobu himself, as the head of the samurai house, possessed ancestral famous swords. The Tokugawa shogunal house had inherited for generations works by Sōshū Masamune, Sōshū Yoshihiro, and the Bizen Osafune school. Nijō Castle, where Yoshinobu decided upon the return of authority, contained these celebrated blades. One may say that the swords of the shogunal house, symbols of authority, impressed their brilliance upon history at this turning point of the return of authority.

**Tragedy Immediately After the Return: The Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma**

Approximately one month after the establishment of the Taisei Hōkan, on the fifteenth day of the eleventh month of Keiō 3 (December 10, 1867), Sakamoto Ryōma—the man who contributed most to the realization of the return of power—was assassinated at the Ōmiya in Kyoto. Various theories surround the assassin: speculation about samurai from the Kii domain, the Metsuke surveillance agents, the Shinsengumi, and others have been offered, but no definitive conclusion has been reached. The "Mutsu no Kami Yoshiyuki" that Ryōma carried has been preserved as an artifact bearing witness to that night's tragedy. It is said that when Ryōma attempted to draw the sword for self-defense, it was already wounded; this anecdote, coupled with Ryōma's dying words—"I did take precautions"—lives in memory as a tale illustrating the inseparable bond between the sword and the samurai's fate.

Ryōma's death arrived as the greatest tragedy immediately following the great achievement of the Taisei Hōkan, and in the history of the Restoration, the question "What if Ryōma had lived?" has been asked repeatedly. Yet his vision bore fruit in the concrete accomplishment of the Taisei Hōkan and exerted profound influence upon the design of the later Meiji state. The ideals of the "Eight Clauses from the Ship," which Ryōma advocated, were reflected in the basic policies of the Meiji government and are regarded as the spiritual precursor to the spirit of the Five Charter Oath.

**The Reactions of Shogunate Senior Officials and the Transition to the New Government**

Following the Taisei Hōkan, the senior officials of the shogunate faced various choices. Matsudaira Katamori, daimyo of the Aizu domain, maintained consistent loyalty to the shogunate, and despite later bearing the stigma of being an "enemy of the court," fought in the Boshin War alongside his Aizu retainers. The sword Katamori carried stands as a symbol embodying the loyalty of the samurai, etched into the legends of Aizu warriors. By contrast, Katsu Kaishu, as the shogunate's pragmatic spokesperson, survived the bakumatsu era and led the negotiations for the bloodless opening of Edo. The return of authority, achieved without force, with the sword left sheathed, marks a turning point. This "power of the undrawn sword" represents the greatest cultural and spiritual legacy left by the Taisei Hōkan.

**Historical Significance: A "Peaceful Transfer of Power" in World Historical Perspective**

The Taisei Hōkan is a rare event in world history insofar as it enabled a bloodless transfer of power. The armed pro-overthrow faction of Satsuma and Chōshū had already obtained a covert imperial rescript authorizing overthrow; without Yoshinobu's return of authority, civil war would have been inevitable. Yoshinobu's decision at least avoided immediate large-scale bloodshed, and although it led to the distinct violence of the Boshin War in the following year, it ultimately became a turning point toward the bloodless opening of Edo Castle.

The Taisei Hōkan at Nijō Castle is today enshrined as one of the most important historical moments of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Former Imperial Palace of Nijō. In the third year of Keiō, Japan stood at the threshold of the most rapid modernizing transformation in East Asia, and the Taisei Hōkan was its first step. That this "peaceful transfer of power" functioned to enable modern Japan, even as it stood against the great powers, to maintain its independence in the years thereafter, cannot be denied. Tokugawa Yoshinobu himself, maintaining afterward a posture of restraint and deference, lived out his remaining years in the Meiji period and later as a peer and member of the House of Peers, passing away at the age of seventy-seven in 1913 (Taishō 2). Nearly forty-six years after the Taisei Hōkan, the man who had decided upon it witnessed the advent of photography, the bicycle, and the automobile in modern Japan of the Meiji and Taishō periods. The later years of Yoshinobu, who had laid down the burden of the shogunate of his own accord, are transmitted widely among history enthusiasts as the quiet remaining life of a warrior who survived the tumults of history. The Taisei Hōkan is among the most variously evaluated events in Japanese history, yet for its contribution to averting civil war, it stands highly assessed by posterity as the greatest "political decision made through intellect" of the bakumatsu age.