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Sakamoto Ryoma Essay

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Sakamoto Ryoma: The Legend – Marlan De Silva 9H
The age of change was upon Japan. Its future outweighed the past, traditions and culture were to be left in the dust in order to transform Japan into a nation of industrialisation. Many sought change, yet under the Tokugawa Shogun many remained powerless. One man arose from the weak, with a clear objective, "to clean up Japan once and for all". With the arrival of the Black ships, westernisation was imminent. The Treaty of Shimoda, written under the Tokugawa Shogun, ensured that Japan was to fall to the western power. The people of Japan wanted change, they wished not for the loss of their independence, their culture and traditions for the sake of modernisation. Sakamoto Ryoma, a low classed samurai, …show more content…

Sakamoto’s movement now possessed enough military might to topple the shogun and restore imperial rule. However, upon the shogun’s fall, the underlying risk of civil war was still present. A mad rush for power was more than likely to re-light the flame between the Choshu and Satsuma, which had only been extinguished by Sakamoto not long ago. To avoid such corruption Sakamoto had constructed an eight-point plan, also known as ‘The Great Plan at Sea’. The plan both restored traditions yet, gave way to modernisation. An example of this, is that the value of currency, in the form of gold and silver, was to be aligned to that of foreign nations and a modern legal code was to be adopted, leaving older practises behind.

Sakamoto’s Eight Point Plan, had been delivered to the Tokugawa Shogun. Either way he were to fall to Sakamoto, whether that be through acceptance or annihilation. On October the 4th, 1876 the Tokugawa Shogun withdrew from power, before the revolutionaries had opportunity to strike. With this Sakamoto Ryoma, an individual who had been seen as powerless against the shogun, had not only challenged him but toppled the might of the shogun, and restored Imperial rule to

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