Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

==Meiji Revolution ==
{{topquote|智識ヲ世界ニ求メ大ニ皇基ヲ振起スべシ (Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundation of imperial rule.)|Meiji Charter Oath}} 
[[Image:Meiji era Train.jpg|Railways come to the land of the Rising Sun, memorialized in Woodcut|thumb|right|300px]]
During the Age of Exploration, Japan had closed its borders to most of the outside world to prevent foreign influence (even going so far as to kill castaways, missionaries and their converts - even Japanese sailors who were rescued by foreign ships were prevented from returning home), and for a time, the Shogunate was successful in preventing Europeans from encroaching on Japan like they had in so many other parts of the world. This came to a crashing halt over 200 years later on the 8th of July 1853. The USS ''Mississippi'' and some other American ships arrived in Edo to deliver a message from US President (at the time of the Mississippi's departure) Millard Fillmore requesting the reopening of trade. The ''Mississippi'' and its companions returned on the 12th of February 1854 and led to the Convention of Kanagawa in March (funny enough, Fillmore's term in office was over before this). There were other developments like the British bombing a port in revenge for a murdered businessman, said port's rulers in the Satsuma domain agreeing to pay reparations by buying warships, having been thoroughly impressed by their firepower, the assassination of the Shogun's number two Ii Naosuke and an attempt to burn the Imperial Palace. This led to a weakening of the ruling Shogunate that allowed Emperor Meiji to seize back power in the violent but swift Boshin War in 1868, permanently ending the Shogunate and the feudal system that had ruled Japan for centuries. The die-hard Shogunate loyalists briefly declared a Republic but they were defeated at Hakodate in the final weeks of the war. One of the foremost Imperial samurai and part of the ruling triumvirate under the Emperor, Saigo Takamori, led his home domain of Satsuma into a brief rebellion after disagreeing with some of the reforms and the triumvirate falling apart with one of them dying of illness and Saigo being rivals with the other guy. During the Battle of Shiroyama Saigo's last charge, mortal wounding and assisted seppuku, followed by the final charge of his 50 remaining followers marked the end of the samurai in the face of conscripted peasants with rifles and cannons. With the last of the big three being assassinated by ex-samurai after the Rebellion, ironically not far from where Naosuke had been shot and decapitated, it was over.

The new Meiji government, not wanting to be consumed and dismembered by the Western powers as many other Asian countries already had, undertook a rapid adoption of Western technology and, eventually, started doing some empire building of its own. On the one hand, the fact that a formerly isolated nation could go from a feudal backwater to a competitive modern nation in just a scant few decades was remarkable. On the other hand, the need to maintain Japan's power to prevent Western imperialism from getting all up in their shit directly led to Japan's own growing military autocracy. Military success against China in 1894, and against Russia in 1905 combined to put Japan on the world stage. The latter conflict especially put the West on notice; everyone had expected Russia to curb-stomp the Japanese, only for the Japanese to kick the shit out of the Russians on land and win an absolutely crushing victory at sea in the Battle of Tsushima. Nearly the entire Russian fleet was wiped out in exchange for three Japanese gunboats and a handful of casualties, one of whom was future admiralissimo Isoroku Yamamoto (he lost two fingers to a bit of shrapnel and would have been discharged if he'd lost a third). The architect of this grand victory, Admiral Heihachiro Togo, was celebrated as a national hero, and his flagship ''Mikasa'' is preserved as a museum in Yokosuka. While the samurai as a class lost their traditional power of free money and being able to execute disrespectful peasants, enough of them saw the writing on the wall that they found positions in the new order, using the wealth and education that their families had accumulated to enter politics, the military academy, or found many modern institutions one would recognize today, such as Mitsubishi.