ooc; history
Italics are the especially interesting bits.
Japan: Maybe It's Time to Not Live Under a Rock
After two and a half centuries of isolation, the "hermit kingdom"of Japan was opened to outsiders in 1854, by an intrepid American naval officer who wouldn't take no for an answer.
Beginning in 1603, the first Shogun, Tokugawa, decided that European sailors and traders represented too much of a threat to the island kingdom's traditions. Foreigners were banned from the islands, and Japanese were forbidden from leaving them. Even the "hands-off" United States, which sought only trade and places to buy coal for refuelling, was rebuffed--until Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in 1852 with a squadron of steam-powered frigates armed with late-model canons.
When Japanese officials at Yokohama refused to let Perry come ashore to deliver a letter to the Shogun from U.S. president Millard Fillmore, Perry said he would bombard the defenceless port. Unsurprisingly, the officials changed their minds.
Perry then went ashore with an escort of two hundred U.S. Marines. According to one American witness, to intimidate the Japanese, Perry selected as his personal guards two tall, muscular black sailors who were "armed to the teeth". Meanwhile, the local Japanese governor mobilised thousands of soldiers and cavalry to encircle Yokohama and prevent the foreigners from invading Japan. Silk screens were erected everywhere to make sure the foreigners saw as little of Japan as possible, and the only building they were permitted to enter was a temporary silk tent.
Perry then entered the tent to deliver Fillmore's letter to the Japanese officials, but when they all sat down together, there was an awkward silence lasting several minutes, as neither side wanted to "go first". Through an interpreter, Prince Toda of Idzu finally told Perry to put the letter in a ceremonial wooden box; aside from that, the Japanese didn't say a single word during the half-hour meeting. The letter called for a treaty providing free trade at two Japanese ports, the establishment of a U.S. consulate, and the safe return of American sailors shipwrecked on the Japanese coast.
Perry's visit threw the Japanese government into turmoil. Realising that Japan had fallen far behind the West, high-ranking officials grew dissatisfied with the Shogun and planned a massive modernisation program. These nationalist reformers also secretly plotted a restoration of the Japanese emperor Meiji as a figurehead for their new government.
The Mental Floss History of the World, Eric Sass and Steve Wiegand
Japan: Maybe It's Time to Not Live Under a Rock
After two and a half centuries of isolation, the "hermit kingdom"of Japan was opened to outsiders in 1854, by an intrepid American naval officer who wouldn't take no for an answer.
Beginning in 1603, the first Shogun, Tokugawa, decided that European sailors and traders represented too much of a threat to the island kingdom's traditions. Foreigners were banned from the islands, and Japanese were forbidden from leaving them. Even the "hands-off" United States, which sought only trade and places to buy coal for refuelling, was rebuffed--until Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in 1852 with a squadron of steam-powered frigates armed with late-model canons.
When Japanese officials at Yokohama refused to let Perry come ashore to deliver a letter to the Shogun from U.S. president Millard Fillmore, Perry said he would bombard the defenceless port. Unsurprisingly, the officials changed their minds.
Perry then went ashore with an escort of two hundred U.S. Marines. According to one American witness, to intimidate the Japanese, Perry selected as his personal guards two tall, muscular black sailors who were "armed to the teeth". Meanwhile, the local Japanese governor mobilised thousands of soldiers and cavalry to encircle Yokohama and prevent the foreigners from invading Japan. Silk screens were erected everywhere to make sure the foreigners saw as little of Japan as possible, and the only building they were permitted to enter was a temporary silk tent.
Perry then entered the tent to deliver Fillmore's letter to the Japanese officials, but when they all sat down together, there was an awkward silence lasting several minutes, as neither side wanted to "go first". Through an interpreter, Prince Toda of Idzu finally told Perry to put the letter in a ceremonial wooden box; aside from that, the Japanese didn't say a single word during the half-hour meeting. The letter called for a treaty providing free trade at two Japanese ports, the establishment of a U.S. consulate, and the safe return of American sailors shipwrecked on the Japanese coast.
Perry's visit threw the Japanese government into turmoil. Realising that Japan had fallen far behind the West, high-ranking officials grew dissatisfied with the Shogun and planned a massive modernisation program. These nationalist reformers also secretly plotted a restoration of the Japanese emperor Meiji as a figurehead for their new government.
The Mental Floss History of the World, Eric Sass and Steve Wiegand