guns of the American ships, the Tokugawa had no choice but to sign a treaty with the United States, opening two ports to American ships and permitting a certain amount of closely regulated trade.
Once the door had been pushed open a crack, there was no closing it. Within two years Edo had signed treaties with England, Russia, and Holland, and in 1856 Townsend Harris, the first American consul general, arrived in Japan to negotiate a full commercial treaty. This he concluded two years later, and the European powers soon made similar treaties with Japan. The door was now wide open. Foreigners were permitted permanent residence at five ports and also at the great cities of Osaka and Edo, and free and unrestricted trade relations were sanctioned. Foreign merchants began to set up their business concerns at the fishing village of Yokohama, which grew rapidly and within a few decades developed into one of the great ports of the world.
The Tokugawa realized that because of their own military impotence they could do nothing to check the foreigners. Rather belatedly they initiated reforms designed to modernize their military establishment, starting with the building of a small occidental-type navy. However, the Kyoto court and the vast majority of the feudal domains, which still had seen nothing of the overpowering military might of the Westerners, showed little interest in military modernization and remained completely unreconciled to Edo’s action in opening up the land to foreigners. The cry of “expel the barbarians” grew in all quarters of the land.
The Tokugawa branch family at Mito led the oppo-