was a policy in the

Bakumatsu were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate Meiji Restoration, ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a Feudali ...

era of

Japanese history The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when ...

aiming to strengthen Japan against the perceived "foreign threat" by obtaining a political coordination between the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

, certain major feudal domains and the Japanese Imperial Court.

Overview

Following the

Perry Expedition ] The Perry Expedition (, , "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition in two separate voyages (1852–1853 and 1854–1855) to the Tokugawa shogunate () by warships of the United States Navy. The goals of this expedit ...

, of 1853, and particularly after the signing of the Harris Treaty with the US in 1858, the inability of a politically weak Tokugawa shogunate to reach a consensus on how to handle overseas demands that Japan end its sakoku, national isolation policy and the signing of

unequal treaties The unequal treaties were a series of agreements made between Asian countries—most notably Qing China, Tokugawa Japan and Joseon Korea—and Western countries—most notably the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Unit ...

with foreign powers, led to members of the ''

kuge The was a Japanese Aristocracy (class), aristocratic Social class, class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th ce ...

'' aristocracy starting to meddle in national political policy by meeting in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

directly with members of various feudal domains. In 1858, the shogunate under '' tairō'' Ii Naosuke attempted to end this direct ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

''–Imperial Court collusion with a harsh purge (the " Ansei Purge") of those who did not support its authority and foreign trade policies. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)
"Ansei no taigoku"
in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 33. while simultaneously promoting closer ties between the Shogunate and the Imperial Court. This took the form of a proposed

political marriage A marriage of state is a diplomatic marriage or union between two members of different nation-states or internally, between two power blocs, usually in authoritarian societies and is a practice which dates back to ancient times, as far back as ear ...

between

Shogun , officially , was the title of the military aristocracy, rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor of Japan, Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, exc ...

Tokugawa Iemochi (17 July 1846 – 29 August 1866) was the 14th '' shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who held office from 1858 to 1866. During his reign there was much internal turmoil as a result of the "re-opening" of Japan to western nations. I ...

and the sister of the Emperor, Princess Kazunomiya. Following the murder of Ii Naosuke in 1860 and the attempted assassination of his successor, Andō Nobumasa, the idea of ''kōbu gattai'' faded into the background. It was strongly opposed by proponents of the ''

Sonnō jōi was a '' yojijukugo'' (four-character compound) phrase used as the rallying cry and slogan of a political movement in Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Bakumatsu period. Based on Neo-Confucianism and Japanese nativism, the movement sou ...

'' movement, who sought to overthrow the shogunate and restore political power to the Emperor, as well as by major ''daimyō'' such as Shimazu Hisamitsu of

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

and Matsudaira Shungaku of

Fukui Domain The , also known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1601 to 1871. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003). The ...

who sought a compromise proposal whereby the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty which produced the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 during the Edo period. It was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of ...

would retain some measure of hegemony under a European-style parliamentary system. Despite this opposition, the marriage between Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi and Princess Kazunomiya took place in 1862. Tokugawa Iemochi died in 1866, by which time events had increasingly rendered the ''kōbu gattai'' concept obsolete. In 1868, the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

and the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

rendered ''kōbu gattai'' irrelevant.

Notes

Japanese historical terms Bakumatsu {{Japan-hist-stub