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546 assassinated in the public streets of Yedo in broad daylight. After his death the custom of the shogun making personal visits to the sovereign at Kioto was revived, thus showing where the supreme power lay. Influences from Kioto now became so strong that the families of the daimios, long held as hostages, were withdrawn, and the custom of the daimios visiting Yedo was abolished. From this period Kioto became superior to Yedo, and while the power of the mikado daily increased, that of the shogun decreased, until the Yedo government was despised and openly defied. The cry of all the conservative and "patriotic" Japanese now was, "Honor the mikado, and expel the barbarians." In July, 1863, while the shogun's government was engaged in trying to persuade the foreigners to close the ports and leave Japan, the forces of the daimio of Choshiu (Nagato), acting upon orders from the imperial court of Kioto, fired on the ships of the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. These treaty powers afterward sent their ships of war to Shimonoseki, the port at which the batteries were erected. A complete victory of the foreigners was the result, and an indemnity of 3,000,000 Mexican dollars was demanded and obtained. This victory opened the eyes of the anti-foreign party to the power and resources of the "outside barbarians." Choshiu had acted in disobedience to the express command of the shogun, who had obtained a rescission of the order of the imperial court to "expel the barbarians." The shogun made an expedition against Choshiu to punish him for his disobedience, and to suppress his province. He set out with a large but motley force, equipped in the old style of armor, and armed with bows and arrows, spears, and swords. The forces of Choshiu were well drilled in foreign style, armed with rifles, and lightly and tightly clothed. A most decided and disastrous defeat of the shogun's army was the result. Defeat, mortification, and disease together carried off the shogun, Sept. 19, 1866, and he was succeeded by the new shogun, the last of his line, Hitotsubashi. Seven of the most influential daimios were summoned to Kioto, and one, the prince of Tosa, boldly proposed the abolition of the shognnate, and suggested the unification of the power of the nation in the hands of the emperor. The shogun accepted the situation, and tendered his resignation. This however did not seriously alter the form of government, and left the machinery of power in very much the same order as before, the mikado merely taking the authority of the shogunate to himself. In the winter of 1867–'8 the party in favor of an utter abolition of the shogunate, and a return to the ancient imperial system of government, formed a conspiracy and resolved on a bold coup d'état. Iwakura, now junior minister and chief of the embassy to the United States and Europe in 1872, was a prominent leader as well as instrument of the conspiracy. They created a government, under which the highest offices were filled by the kuge, or court nobles of the imperial family, those next in order by daimios and courtiers, and those of the third grade by able men selected from the samurai or gentry. All the power was thus thrown into the hands of a clique, composed almost entirely of the men of the four clans of Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen. These proceedings aroused the indignation of the ex-shogun, and he withdrew from Kioto to Ozaka with his followers. Under their influence, and by their persuasion, he undertook to reënter Kioto, with the view of driving out his opponents and of punishing the conspirators. At Fushimi, near Kioto, his vanguard was fired on, and his army, numbering nearly 30,000 men, after three days' fighting, were defeated by the opposing forces, chiefly from Satsuma and Choshiu, and numbering but 6,500 men. The ex-shogun escaped to Yedo in an American steamer, and on his arrival, although surrounded by a large army and possessed of a splendid navy, he declared his intention never to oppose the mikado's will. A small party supported him in this resolve, but the daimios of the northeast entered the field against the imperial forces, and gallantly maintained the desperate struggle for six months. The commander of the ex-shogun's navy took the island of Yezo, and setting up an aristocratic republic held out against the imperial forces for many months, when, the greater part of the fleet being sunk and the forts silenced by the ram Stonewall, supported by a large land force, the imperialists obtained a complete victory and the submission of the enemy. The whole country was now at peace. A complete and marvellous change took place in the foreign policy of the mikado's party. Hitherto the court at Kioto had been the centre of the anti-foreign spirit, and the motive and grand object of the coalition that overthrew the power of the shogun was to centralize all power in the imperial throne, strengthen the empire, and then to sweep away the foreigners from the country. The immense superiority of foreign arms, war material, and discipline first opened their eyes, and since all the treaties bore the signature of the shogun they were afraid lest the foreigners should aid him, and, regarding them as rebels, should seriously endanger their future course. In their extremity they invited the foreign representatives, then temporarily at Hiogo, to a conference and an imperial audience in the very heart of the old anti-foreign Kioto. The conversion of the court nobles was thorough and instantaneous. Many of them had never seen a foreigner. The men from the western nations were found to be neither wild beasts nor demons. From this point the mikado's government was known and recognized by all foreigners as the only and supreme government in Japan. In the spring of 1869 the four clans, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen, addressed a