Taisei Hōkan (Return of Political Power)

Taisei Hōkan was the historic event in which, on the 14th day of the 10th month of Keiō 3 (November 9, 1867), Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th shogun of the Edo shogunate, returned political power (taisei) to the imperial court (hōkan). With this single act, 265 years of Tokugawa shogunal rule came to a nominal end, and the doors to the Meiji Restoration and the formation of the modern Japanese state were opened.

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

Since Perry's arrival in Kaei 6 (1853), the Edo shogunate had continuously faced a double crisis: domestic conflict over opening the country and expelling foreigners, and pressure from the Western powers. The Ansei Purge, carried out by Great Elder (Tairō) Ii Naosuke over the conclusion of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States (1858), led to the executions of many activists, including Yoshida Shōin and Hashimoto Sanai. In the Sakuradamon Incident of Man'en 1 (1860), Ii Naosuke himself was assassinated by masterless samurai (rōnin) from Mito and Satsuma. This assassination, in which a samurai of a daimyo household struck down the highest authority of the shogunate, was an unprecedented event that showed the loss of shogunal authority both at home and abroad.

After that, the movement to revere the Emperor and expel the foreigners became increasingly radical. In the 1st month of Keiō 2 (1866), the Satsuma–Chōshū Alliance was formed (mediated by Sakamoto Ryōma and others), and the defeat of the shogunate's forces in the Second Chōshū Expedition in Keiō 2 (1866) decisively destroyed the shogunate's military authority. In the 7th month of the same year, the 14th shogun Tokugawa Iemochi died suddenly at Osaka Castle, and in the 12th month, Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu assumed the post of the 15th shogun.

Yoshinobu's Political Intent and the Tosa Domain's Mediation

In Keiō 3 (1867), the momentum to overthrow the shogunate rose rapidly. The Satsuma and Chōshū domains secretly resolved to overthrow the shogunate by force and worked to obtain a secret imperial edict to overthrow the shogunate from the court. Meanwhile, Yamauchi Yōdō and Gotō Shōjirō of the Tosa domain adopted the Taisei Hōkan theory and sought a path to a change of government without the use of force.

The concept was for the shogunate to voluntarily return political power to the Emperor and then build a new national governance structure through a council of daimyo. It presented a realistic landing point at which the Tokugawa house could continue to survive as a leading daimyo house. On the 3rd day of the 10th month, Yamauchi Yōdō submitted a memorial (petition) on Taisei Hōkan to Yoshinobu through senior councillor (rōjū) Itakura Katsukiyo, and Yoshinobu himself deliberated over it repeatedly.

There are various theories about why Yoshinobu accepted this proposal, including a political calculation to preempt an armed overthrow of the shogunate by Satsuma and Chōshū, a realism that gave top priority to the survival of the Tokugawa house, and a strategy to retain real power as the leader of a council of daimyo. In any case, on the 13th day of the 10th month, Yoshinobu summoned about 50 senior retainers from 40 domains residing in the capital to Nijō Castle, and on the 14th, the following day, he submitted a formal memorial to the throne to the court. On the 15th, the following day, the court granted imperial sanction (approval) for this, and the shogunate's authority to rule was nominally returned to the Emperor.

Shock Among the Shogunal Retainers and Confusion in the Satsuma and Chōshū Domains

This decision was received with shock within the shogunal council as well. Many shogunal retainers had not believed in the return until just before it happened, and not a few learned of the situation only after it was established. The anti-shogunate faction of the Satsuma and Chōshū domains was also bewildered that a fait accompli of 'Restoration' had been created by Yoshinobu's 'first move.' However, they quickly reorganized their system and linked it to the Proclamation of the Restoration of Imperial Rule on the 9th day of the 12th month of Keiō 3.

Points of Contact with Sword Culture: Famous Blades of the Late Shogunate Activists

The Bakumatsu period was also the era in which the Japanese sword shone for the last time as the 'soul of the samurai.' The activists who carried the movement to revere the Emperor and expel the foreigners wore famous blades and staked their lives on the great cause of the Restoration. The blade incidents involving the Tosa Loyalist Party, the Shinsengumi, and the Jigen-ryū swordsmen of Satsuma deeply engraved the memory of the blade into late Tokugawa history.

Sakamoto Ryōma, the Tosa domain samurai who promoted Taisei Hōkan, is also known as a man who loved swords. The sword 'Yoshiyuki' that Ryōma favored, a sword handed down in the Sakamoto family and given to him by his elder brother Sakamoto Gonpei, symbolizes the connection between Restoration activists and famous blades. Ryōma was assassinated at the Ōmiya inn in Kyoto on the 15th day of the 11th month of Keiō 3 (December 10, 1867), just after witnessing the realization of Taisei Hōkan. The sword he had worn was left beside his body and was passed down to later generations as a relic of the greatest tragedy of the late shogunate.

Tragedy Immediately After the Return: The Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma

About one month after the establishment of Taisei Hōkan, on the 15th day of the 11th month of Keiō 3 (December 10, 1867), Sakamoto Ryōma, who had worked to realize the return of power, was assassinated at the Ōmiya inn in Kyoto. As for the perpetrators, theories have been proposed naming samurai of the Kishū domain, the Mimawarigumi, and the Shinsengumi, but the theory that the Kyoto Mimawarigumi carried out the attack is currently considered the most likely. The sword 'Mutsu-no-kami Yoshiyuki' that Ryōma wore has been passed down as a relic of that night's tragedy. It is said that Ryōma, with no time to draw his blade, blocked the assassin's sword with his sheathed sword, and that Yoshiyuki was cut through its scabbard down to the blade.

Ryōma's death was the greatest tragedy that came immediately after the achievement of Taisei Hōkan, and in Restoration history the question 'What if Ryōma had lived?' has been raised repeatedly. However, his concept was realized as the concrete result of Taisei Hōkan and had a profound influence on the design of the modern Meiji state. The 'Eight-Point Plan' that Ryōma is said to have shown Gotō is often described as the forerunner of the Charter Oath, but there is also a theory that it was a later fabrication.

Reactions of the Shogunal Senior Councillors and the Transition to the New Government

After Taisei Hōkan, the senior councillors of the shogunate were forced to make various choices. Matsudaira Katamori, lord of the Aizu domain, consistently maintained his loyalty to the shogunate, and later, although branded an 'enemy of the court,' he fought the Boshin War together with the samurai of the Aizu domain. Meanwhile, Katsu Kaishū survived the late shogunate as a realistic spokesman of the shogunate and led the negotiations for the bloodless surrender of Edo Castle. The return of power was not achieved by force; it moved the times while the sword remained sheathed. It can be said that this 'power of the sword that is never drawn' is the greatest cultural and spiritual legacy left by Taisei Hōkan.

Historical Significance: A Peaceful Transfer of Power in World History

Taisei Hōkan is a rare event even in world history in that it made a bloodless transfer of power possible. The armed anti-shogunate faction of the Satsuma and Chōshū domains had already obtained the secret imperial edict to overthrow the shogunate, and if Yoshinobu had not returned power, civil war would have been unavoidable. Yoshinobu's decision at least avoided immediate large-scale bloodshed. Although it was followed by another bloodshed in the Boshin War the following year, it ultimately connected to the historic turning point of the bloodless surrender of Edo Castle.

The return of power at Nijō Castle is now honored as one of the most important historical scenes of the World Heritage site Former Imperial Villa Nijō Castle. In Keiō 3, Japan stood at the entrance to the most rapid modernization in East Asia, and Taisei Hōkan was its first step. It cannot be denied that this peaceful transfer of power functioned as one of the remote causes that allowed Japan, after modernization, to remain independent while confronting the Western powers. Moreover, Tokugawa Yoshinobu himself, although he afterward adopted a posture of withdrawal and submission, lived out his remaining years as a member of the House of Peers and a prince (kōshaku), and died in 1913 (Taishō 2) at the age of 77. About 46 years after Taisei Hōkan, the man who had made the decision witnessed modern Japan of the Meiji and Taishō periods, when photography, bicycles, and automobiles appeared. Yoshinobu's late years, after he had set down the burden of the shogunate himself, are widely told among history enthusiasts as the quiet remaining years of one warrior who survived the upheavals of history. Taisei Hōkan is one of the most divisively evaluated events in Japanese history, but in terms of its contribution to averting civil war, later generations rate it highly as the greatest 'political decision by intellect' of the late shogunate.