TL;DR: We love the story of the Meiji Restoration: A feudal island becomes an industrial superpower overnight. It sounds like a fairy tale. But history is written by the victors. The real story of 1870s Japan is one of mass unemployment, political purges, and the systematic destruction of the Samurai class. The Meiji Miracle wasn't a shared triumph; it was a modernization built on the backs of the defeated.
James here, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions. Tokyo - February 18, 2026
The Meiji Restoration is the ultimate startup success story. In one generation, Japan pivoted from swords to battleships, from kimonos to suits, becoming the first non-Western industrial power. Success. Miracle. Modernization.
But if you walked the streets of Tokyo in 1870, you wouldn't see a celebration. You would see a society in agony. You would see unemployed samurai, purged officials, and a social class being erased in real-time. This culminated in the bloodiest event of the era: The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.
This is the story the textbooks skip.
1. The Myth of the "Evil Shogunate"
The standard narrative: The Shogunate was corrupt and backward; the Meiji Reformers were visionary. False. The Tokugawa Shogunate wasn't stupid. By the 1850s (after Perry's Black Ships), they had already built modern navies, sent students abroad, and established diplomatic corps. They were reforming. But once the Meiji government won the Boshin War (1868), history was flattened into binary code: Winners (Good) vs. Losers (Bad).
2. The Three Classes of Losers
The Meiji Restoration created a massive class of "Discarded People."
A. The Old Bureaucrats (The Ex-Shogunate)
These were Japan's first modern administrators. They had experience and skill. The Purge: After 1868, the new government didn't kill them; it ignored them. They were systematically excluded from power. Imagine being a top diplomat one day, and a "relic of the past" the next. Most died in poverty, their talents wasted because they served the wrong master.
B. The Lower Samurai (The Economic Victims)
Movies show Samurai as elite warriors. By 1860, most were poor civil servants with a frozen salary and rising inflation. The Betrayal: In 1876, the Meiji government abolished their hereditary stipends. They traded a lifetime salary for a worthless government bond. Then came the Sword Abolishment Edict. Taking a Samurai's sword wasn't disarmament; it was castration. It stripped them of their identity and left them with no skills for the new capitalist economy. 400,000 families were destitute overnight.
C. The Wrong Side of History
In the chaos of revolution, neutrality was a crime. If you didn't back the Satsuma-Choshu alliance at the exact right moment, you were marked "unreliable." Your career ended. Your children’s prospects vanished. This wasn't law; it was social death.
3. The Pressure Cooker: Saigo Takamori
When a society creates millions of losers with no exit strategy, it creates a bomb. The fuse was Saigo Takamori. He was a hero of the Restoration. He helped build the new government. But he couldn't stomach the betrayal of the Samurai class. He proposed invading Korea (Seikanron) not just for geopolitics, but to give the unemployed Samurai a purpose—a place to die with honor. The government said no. Rational? Yes. Cruel? Absolutely.
4. The Satsuma Rebellion: State vs. Region
In 1877, the bomb exploded. This wasn't a skirmish; it was a full-scale civil war. 30,000 Samurai vs. 60,000 Imperial Conscripts. The Reality: It wasn't swords vs. guns. Saigo had cannons and rifles. But he lost the Logistics War. The central government had tax revenue, telegraphs, and steamships. The rebels had passion and dwindling ammo. It was the first victory of the Modern State over the Feudal Domain.
5. The Post-War Rewrite
Saigo died a traitor. But the people loved him. The government faced a dilemma: How do you kill a man but keep his legend? The Pivot: They rebranded him. Decades later, he was pardoned and enshrined. He became a "Tragic Hero"—safe, dead, and non-threatening. A mature state knows how to turn a dangerous rebel into a harmless statue.
Conclusion: Progress Has a Body Count
We look at Japan's modernization and ask: Why couldn't China do this? The answer is brutal: Japan was willing to pay the blood price. The Meiji government crushed the opposition. They didn't compromise; they eradicated the old power structures. China tried to reform while keeping the old elites happy. It failed.
The Meiji Miracle is a story of success, yes. But it is also a story of Ruthlessness. The modern nation-state of Japan stands on the graves of those who were simply born on the wrong side of history. They weren't "enemies of progress." They were just its fuel.
Mercury Technology Solutions: Accelerate Digitality.
