It all began in the early 1800's. The Tokagawa Regime was centralized in Edo, which is now known as Tokyo. Troubles began to arise in the 1820's when agriculture, industrialization, and trade increase caused huge social changes. The class structure, which had samurai placed on the top, was beginning to break down due to a growing class of wealthy commoners.

Unfortunately for the Tokagawa regime, the 1830's only made matters worse. bad weather created poor harvents and ultimately, severe famines. Very soon, peasants were rising against the government in protest.

In the late 1830's to the early 1840's, China suffered a defeat in the First Opium War against Britain. A treaty was then formed that required China to open several ports for trading with western countries. In turn, this caused many Western nations to become interested in Japan. It was finally Matthew Perry who forced the Tokugawa shogunate to end Japan's restrictions on contacts with western countries when he sailed into Edo Bay with American gunboat flotillas in 1853-1854.

In 1858, Japan opened 6 ports to the United States in a treaty signed by the Tokugawa, which allowed Americans to claim residence there. The imperial emperor at that time, Komei, who had little power during this period, was completely against the treaty that allowed western "barbarians" as they called them, into Japan. His disapproval of the
treaty caused many Tokugawa opponents to call for action. Antiforeign samurai pledged their allegiance to the emperor, hoping to rid Japan of the Americans. These samurai attacked foreigners in ports and in 1863, it was ordered by officials in Choshu to fire on any foreign vessels sailing near Shimonoseki. However, many soon came to realize that resistance was futile. Expelling the foreigners would be nearly impossible.

The Tokugawa shogunate (which is defined as military government) soon realized that they would not be able to defeat the imperial loyalists as easily as they thought. To gain support from feudal lords, they allowed them to build or buy seagoing war vessels. At this time, domains like Choshu, Saga, Satsuma, and Tosa took the opportunity to purchase Western-style weapons and began to organize military units in the fashion of the Western world.

In 1866, Tokugawa Yoshinobu became shogun and he tried to reestablish shogun authority with the help of the French. He modernized the military and planned on creating a new tax plan. It was now that anti-shogunate leaders realized that it was time to end shogunate rule.

In October 1867, a compromise was offered by Sakamoto Ryoma of the Tosa Domain. The compromise called for the resignation of Yoshinobu as well as the title of paramount leader be given to the emperor. A national assembly would be assembled, allowing both samurai and feudal lords (daimyo) to be represented. Official would then be appointed to the new imperial government based not on the domain affiliation, but on merit.

Not to long after, Yoshinobu accepted the compromise. However, Satsuma leaders led by Iwakura Tomomi took the chance to destroy all that remained of the shogunate rule and soon captured all Tokugawa territorial lands.

On the third day of January in the year 1868, forces from Choshu, Satsuma, and other anti-shogunate domains, captured the imperial palace. In doing so, they destroyed what remained of the tokugawa regime and declared a new imperial government ruled by Mutsuhito, the son of Komei. Hence forth, the era of the new imperial government was known as the Meiji Era.

Extremely upset, Yoshinobu decided to send his troops to battle one last time in a battle on the out-skirts of Kyoto. This battle, however, was over quickly but battles still raged around the country and the period of time until 1869 was known as the Boshin Civil War.

And so it came to be that the Tokugawa regime was over-thrown by imperialists determined to replace the government system.