This article explores how memories of the Boshin War (1868) and the Meiji Restoration changed over the course of the pre-World War II period, and how this was reflected in efforts to commemorate th...

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk in the north, and the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands alongside over 14,000 smaller islands. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditio Japan is an… The United States Navy sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to force the opening of Japan to the outside world. Arriving at Uraga with four "Black Ships" in July 1853, the Perry Expedition resulted in the March 1854 Convention of Kanagawa. Subsequent similar treaties with other Western countries brought economic and political crises. The resignation of the shōgun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the emperor (the Meiji Restoration). Adopting Western political, judicial, and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution (November 29, 1890), and assembled the Imperial Diet. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Empire of Japan emerged as the most developed state in Asia and as an industrialized world power that pursued military conflict to expand its sphere of influence. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Japan gained control of Taiwan, Korea and the southern half of Sakhalin, and annexed Korea in 1910. The Japanese population doubled from 35 million in 1873 to 70 million by 1935, with a significant shift to urbanization. The early 20th century saw a period of Taishō democracy (1912–1926) overshadowed by increasing expansionism and militarization. World War I allowed Japan, which joined the side of the victorious Allies, to capture German possessions in the Pacific and China in 1920. The 1920s saw a political shift towards statism, a period of lawlessness following the 1923 Great Tokyo Earthquake, the passing of laws against political dissent, and a series of attempted coups. This process accelerated in the 1930s, spawning several radical nationalist groups that shared a hostility to liberal democracy and a dedication to expansion in Asia. In 1931, Japan invaded China and occupied Manchuria, which led to the establishment of puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. Following international condemnation of the occupation, Japan resigned from the League of Nations in 1933. In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany; the 1940 Tripartite Pact made it one of the Axis powers.

... the Boshin civil war came to an end ; it had lasted 17 months , with total casualties estimated at 8,200 killed and more than 5,000 wounded . In this sense , the Meiji Restoration was hardly a bloodless coup carried out without ... A valuable companion reference Concentrating on the period following Admiral Perry's visit in the 1850's, the encyclopedia examines the historical events, leaders, and societal pressures in the country's recent past that affected Japan's entry into the modern age. Like its companion volume, the encyclopedia covers important political topics, the arts, religion, business, literature, education, journalism, and other major social, cultural, and economic forces. Looks at the emperor and nationalism Emphasizing the close ties that always existed between the emperor system and nationalism, the encyclopedia carefully explores the various forms of nationalism that flourished since the middle of the last century, discusses how hte supernationalism of the beginning of the century ultimately led to

The nursing system in Japan was begun during the Boshin War (between the Tokugawa Shogunate and Meiji Government) at the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. In 1877,Tsunetami Sano established Hakuai-sha (a philanthropic organisation) which became the original Japanese Red Cross. In 1878, a report on The Need for Training of Nurses was published in the Tokyo Iji Shinpo (Tokyo Medical Journal). In 1879/1880, a naval medical officer, Kanehiro Takagi started to train nurses. In 1885, the Yushi Kyoritsu Tokyo Hospital (literally Sympathy Co-operative Tokyo Hospital) which later became the Tokyo Jikeidai Hospital, initiated a training school for nurses, based on Florence Nightingale's ideas of modern training. In 1886, Japan signed the Red Cross Convention, which brought Japanese nursing and training closer to international practice. In 1879, the Examination for Medical Practitioners Regulations were enacted, and in 1883, the Medical License Regulations and Medical Practicing Regulations were enacted. The legalisation of nursing standards, however, occurred later than for physicians. The Nurses Regulations were enacted in 1915. After the Second World War, General MacArthur's main focus was to demilitarise and democratise Japan. During and after the American occupation, the nursing system was also improved. Three model nursing schools were set up, two in Tokyo and one in Osaka. In 1948, the Health Nurses, Midwives and Sick Nurses Act was enacted, and the new nursing system began

The chapter tells the history of the Meiji Restoration in Hirosaki domain. Amid the turmoil and uncertainty of the Boshin civil war, Hirosaki domain transferred allegiance from the shogunal forces to the new government and demonstrated its loyalty to the court by fighting rival Morioka. Hirata disciple Yamada Yōnoshin (1843–68) died in this battle. This chapter examines how the Tsugaru group of kokugaku scholars impacted by the domain's decision to support the emperor. It also highlights Hirao Rosen and Tsuruya Ariyo's records on a ritual, shōkonsai (“call back the soul”), which honor the soldiers who died for the emperor. The chapter then reviews Rosen's political documents about how the Boshin War affected his domain, while celebrating Tsugaru's role in the “Imperial” victory of the new Meiji government over the defeated Tokugawa shogunate.

The Boshin War resulted in massive casualties and hygiene crises exacerbated by modern Western firepower, transforming battlefield medicine from a matter of simple benevolent relief into an imperative of military organization and regulation. The surgical treatments administered by British legation doctors William Willis and Joseph B. Siddall, along with treatment statistics from the Yokohama Military Hospital, demonstrate that the standardization of wound care, hospital management, and hygiene control emerged as urgent tasks for preserving the combat power of the new government forces. Following the shogunate’s defeat, the Shizuoka domain relocated former shogunate medical personnel and Western medical assets from Edo to Suruga, redeploying them in Numazu to operate a combined military and medical education system. The core of this ‘Numazu Model’ was an attempt to train military physicians bureaucratically by organizing medical aspirants into a ‘special branch’ within the military academy and institutionalizing selection and promotion through examinations. It functioned as a testing ground for a military medical bureaucracy by establishing a meritocratic mechanism that connected education, evaluation, and appointment, moving beyond the mere reception of Western medical knowledge. However, the challenge of aligning personnel from diverse educational backgrounds into a single rank system, and establishing an integrated personnel framework that linked standardized trauma care with field operations, proved difficult to resolve in the short term, soon highlighting the necessity for a central army medical school. As centralization progressed between 1871 and 1872, the Numazu Military Academy was incorporated under the Ministry of Military Affairs, and its personnel and assets were selectively integrated into the new army system in Tokyo before the academy's disbandment. This process demonstrates that the establishment of the Meiji military medical system was neither a unilateral transplantation of Western models nor a linear succession of the old regime, but rather a hybrid process of ‘transplantation and transformation.’ Ultimately, this study reinterprets the Meiji Restoration as a complex transition where the discontinuity of political power intersected with the continuity of technological and institutional operations, concretely illustrating the mechanisms through which the legacy of the defeated was strategically appropriated and integrated into the realm of military medicine.