Dr Chris Harding

And it survives there for a few months and then it's wiped out.

These imperial forces have much better guns.

They have much better weaponry generally.

In fact, British people like Thomas Glover, famous Scottish merchant, is gun running for these young Western samurai because he thinks they're the future, right?

So they're very well supplied and they take care of the Tokugawa.

And there they are, these young samurai, a small group of them, who no one's ever heard of, who now control a country.

boots on the ground during a civil war which is always so many other places in the world was going to downfall yeah I think the Japanese are really lucky because for a while there it looks as though the British and the French want to back different sides in this war the French are trying to prop up the shogunate supplying them with weapons even paying for the uniforms of their men I think if that war had gone on

and had been less conclusive, then you're going to get either side piling in a little bit more, having a state, wanting something in return.

And yeah, it could have become quite ugly for the Japanese, but it's over quite quickly.

And I think the attitude that people like the British and the Americans take is with these new people in charge in Edo, which becomes now Tokyo, means eastern capital, they ship the emperor actually into Tokyo properly as their figurehead.

But with those people in charge,

the Americans, the British and the rest can have what they want, which is that they can trade with Japan.

I think so.

So Japanese rice, tea, textiles, these sorts of things, the Japanese are able to produce quite quickly.

And also the Japanese are a really good, I think, prospect for investment, given that they want to do this enormous national overhaul.

You know, think about that technological gap, an institution gap for all sorts of reasons.

They are playing catch up with the West.

That's a huge investment opportunity, I think.

You could build some railways.

Yeah, which is exactly what they do.