These clans, you will remember, were ruled by so-called “outer lords,”
who were denied a part in the Tokugawa administration. The fact that
they were so far from the center of government at Tokyo encouraged them
to be independent. Moreover, they were in many respects the strongest
and most progressive of the leading Japanese clans. In developing
manufacture and trade as a means of boosting clan revenue, Satsuma,
Choshu, Tosa and Hizen were far ahead of other clans. They fostered not
only handicrafts, porcelain manufacture, sugar-refining and textile
mills, but mining, iron foundries, gun-making, shipbuilding and allied
military industries. Choshu also made a revolutionary change in its
army, by including commoners as well as the _samurai_ in its ranks.
[Illustration: THE RISE OF THE WESTERN CLANS (Mid-19th Century)]
In these western clans, the anti-foreign spirit was at first intense.
For some years, in defiance of the Shogunate, the clans carried on
what was practically an independent war against the Western powers and
the new treaty rights of Westerners in Japan. They frequently attacked
foreigners and their employees. Things came to a head in 1863-64, when
they tried to expel the foreigners. In August 1863, in retaliation for
the murder of an Englishman by Satsuma clansmen, a British squadron
bombarded the Satsuma port of Kagoshima. And in September 1864 an
Allied fleet (British, Dutch, French, American) destroyed Choshu forts
at Shimonoseki which had been firing on Western vessels passing through
the narrow straits.
These decisive proofs of Western military and naval superiority gave
Satsuma and Choshu pause. Both clans stopped their anti-foreign
activities. They had long seen the need of acquiring modern armaments.
This determination was now made doubly strong. Many other leaders came
to see that Japan could not keep her door shut forever, and that her
salvation lay in mastering Western techniques. Once having grasped this
principle, they acted on it boldly and unhesitatingly.