The court aristocracy around the emperor included a few capable men and in time produced some important statesmen, such as Prince Saionji and, later, Prince Konoye, two descendants of branches of the ancient Fujiwara family who were to become Premiers of the new Japan. But for the most part the Kyoto courtiers lacked the experience and the drive to become forceful in the new government. Some of the “outer Daimyo” participated in its work, but few of them were truly important political figures. High posts of government were largely held by imperial princes, court nobles, and Daimyo, but the leadership of the new regime actually was taken by a group of young and often relatively poor samurai who had come to dominate the politics of Satsuma, Choshu, and other “outer Daimyo” fiefs in western Japan, and for a decade had been intriguing against the Tokugawa at Kyoto and in the capitals of their own domains.
By tradition these young samurai of western Japan were all hostile to the Tokugawa, and they rallied to the imperial cause as the best way to attack Edo. At first they were also bitterly anti-foreign, and until the Tokugawa collapse they echoed the popular cry, “honor the emperor—expel the barbarians.” But long before they came to power in the final months of 1867 they had come to realize that it was impossible to “expel the barbarians.”
In 1863 a British squadron had bombarded Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma, in retribution for the murder of an Englishman by unruly Satsuma warriors. The next year American, British, French, and Dutch warships bombarded Shimonoseki in reprisal for the attack