Boshin War

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The Boshin War (戊辰戦争), also known as the Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan that was fought from 1868 to 1869 between the forces of Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu and his shogunate in Edo against those seeking to return political power to the teenage Emperor Meiji and the Imperial Court in Kyoto. European powers were also involved, with the British Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia backing the Imperial Court while the French Empire aided the fragile shogunate.

Unbeknownst to all parties, the entire conflict was a proxy for an ancient war between the Assassins and Templars. The Japanese Templars, having infiltrated Meiji's closest advisors, pushed him to launch a campaign against Yoshinobu, whom the Japanese Assassins backed. Drawing resources from the British Empire and the Templars, the Imperial forces defeated the shogunate and restored sovereignty to the position of Emperor. In the years to follow, the country underwent the Meiji Restoration concurrently with the turbulent period of bakumatsu (幕末, "End of the bakufu"), and the age of samurai ended as Japan gradually shifted to become a constitutional monarchy.

Background

In the 1850s, the shongunate begrudgingly welcomed the United States Navy Commodore Matthew Perry and his expedition after he employed gunboat diplomacy to break the Tokugawa's isolationist policy of sakoku (鎖国 / 鎖國, "chained country"). In the decade after, many samurai and nobles from the kazoku (華族, "exalted lineage") grew increasingly disgruntled at the Americans' and Europeans' economic interference through the unequal treaties they forced the shogunate into signing. Adding to their discontent, a large number also hailed from the regions of Chōshū, Satsuma, and Tosa, all places in Kyushu, Honshu, and Shikoku, respectively, with clans who fought Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600; their defeat meant they were restricted to being tozama daimyō (外様大名, "outside daimyō") without significant political power. To change this, Chōshū and Satsuma united to form the Satchō Alliance (薩長同盟) through Tosa's mediation, and they all allied themselves with the British.

Seeing the forces being levied against him, Yoshinobu abdicated and relinquished his power to Emperor Meiji, hoping that a voluntary surrender would curry favor with the future government and allow the Tokugawa to retain a place in politics. Instead, the Alliance orchestrated a coup d'état on 9 November 1867 and claimed to represent Emperor Meiji, who had allegedly written a decree demanding Yoshinobu's execution for treason. On 3 January 1868, having decided that the capital would return to being in Kyoto rather than the shogunal city Edo where government and culture was increasingly gravitating towards, the Alliance captured the Imperial Palace, reinstated Meiji and initiated the Meiji Restoration, and threatened the Court into confiscating Yoshinobu's lands and abolishing the shōgun title.

Despite having abdicated, Yoshinobu bristled at the Restoration's terms and ordered it be repealed. On 24 January 1868, he moved to attack Kyoto but was beaten by Alliance forces at the Battle of Toba–Fushimi in the village of Fushimi near Kyoto's southern entrance. Though more numerous, his forces had not modernized all of their weaponry as quickly as the Alliance did and were steadily beaten back until his Army Minister Katsu Kaishū unconditionally relinquished the surrounded Edo Castle in July; Yoshinobu himself surrendered shortly thereafter. Loyalists retreated further north to Hokkaido, where they attempted to found the short-lived Republic of Ezo, but it collapsed after the Battle of Hakodate. Yoshinobu was put under house arrest, stripped of all titles, and only when he demonstrated a lack of ambition in politics was he released and allowed to retire to Shizuoka Prefecture, where Ieyasu spent his last days. With the remaining resistance beaten, Meiji was left as Japan's sole, undisputed ruler.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu (first mentioned)
• Echoes of History – Shadows (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Shadows (mentioned in Database entry only) (indirect mention only)