Dr Chris Harding

This is what they tried to do.

And by 1868, 1869, the Western powers, these younger samurai from some of these Western domains, have got their forces together.

They rebrand them the Imperial Army.

under the emperor, who's really their puppet.

So they're saying, we're hyper-patriotic here.

Exactly.

And it's got to be a miserable experience being an emperor in Japan because you've got centuries behind you of doing whatever you're told by the person with the most weapons nearby.

And it's that same old story again.

Plus, he's a teenager.

I don't think he's the kind of person yet who has much of an established view on things.

Although, actually, no, my son has established views on things.

So maybe that's not quite right.

But he doesn't have much gravitas yet, shall we say.

And if you think about Japan as being a kind of... It's an archipelago, but a crescent-shaped archipelago.

These imperial forces basically chase the Tokugawa all the way round northwards past Edo, which thankfully is surrendered without a fight.

That could have been an awfully bloody battle.

A million people, infrastructure that's highly flammable, you know, wooden paper.

Luckily, it gets surrendered by the Tokugawa.

chase the Tokugawa forces all the way to the top of Honshu, the main island, across the water into Ezo, now it's Hokkaido, and for a brief time, you have this funny situation where the Tokugawa holdouts form a republic, because the emperor's now on the other side, right?

The only time in Japan's history, yet anyway, up until the present day, where it's had a tiny little republic.