earticle

영어

During the last period of Tokugawa Bakuhu, foreign powers threatened Japan to open ports. Because of these foreign threat, Mikado's court suddenly became another opinion decision organization parallel with Bakuhu. But to overcome the foreign crisis and domestic disorder, it was necessary to unite two opinion decision organizations into one stable and powerful organization. Therefore various efforts and concepts to form a new organization were suggested. Edo's party, like Tokugawa Yoshinobu and Nishi Amane, had plan to bring court and bakufu together in a new and more cooperative structure, and it meant a bolstering of bakuhu authority by the use of the imperial prestige and the preservation of bakufu's vested rights. On the other hand, the lower samurais and lower court officals, like Sakamoto Ryoma and Iwakura Tomomi, wanted to overthrow the shogunate and to create new Mikado-centric monarchism. But various plans to form a new organization had the community of thought. Every plans stressed the divinity of Mikado, the importance of polity(公議) and the necessity of the feudal lords(藩主), sometimes including activists(志士), participating into opinion decisions. Moreover, the adoption of the separation of three powers began to be considered seriously. In the result, these communities were the base of the Meiji government's power structure.