Russia—who followed in Perry's train, and he consented to open Yokohama, Hakodate, and certain other ports to foreign trade and residence (1857—9). He even sent embassies to the United States and to Europe in 1860 and 1861. The knowledge of the outer-world possessed by the Court of Yedo, though not extensive, was sufficient to assure the Shōgun and his advisers that it were vain to refuse what the Western powers claimed. The Court of Kyōto had no means of acquiring even this modicum of worldly wisdom. According to its view, Japan, "the land of the gods," should never be polluted by outsiders, the ports should be closed again, and the "barbarians" expelled at all hazards.
What specially tended to complicate matters at this crisis was the independent action of certain Daimyōs. One of them, the Prince of Chōshū, acting, as is believed, under secret instructions from the Court of Kyōto, fired on ships belonging to France, Holland, and the United States,—this, too, at the very moment (1863) when the Shōgun's government, placed between foreign aggression and home tumult, as between hammer and anvil, was doing its utmost to effect by diplomacy the departure of the foreigners whom it had been driven to admit a few years before. The consequence of this act was what is called "the Shimonoseki Affair," namely, the bombardment of Shimonoseki, Chōshū's chief seaport, by the combined fleets of the powers that had been insulted, together with Great Britain which espoused their cause on the ground of the solidarity of all foreign interests in Japan. An indemnity of $3,000,000 was exacted,—a last blow, which broke the Shōgunate's back. The Shōgun Iemochi attempted to punish Chōshū for the humiliation which he had brought on Japan, but failed, was himself defeated by the latter's troops, and died. Hitotsu-bashi (also called Keiki), the last of his line, succeeded him. But the Court of Kyōto, prompted by the great Daimyōs of Chōshū and Satsuma, suddenly decided on the abolition of the Shōgunate. The Shōgun submitted to the decree, and those of his followers who did not were routed,—first at Fushimi near Kyōto (ryth January, 1868), then at Ueno in
