Satcho Alliance

The Satcho Alliance was a secret political and military coalition between the Satsuma and Chōshū domains, formed in 1867 to overthrow Japan’s shogun. Though its supporters invoked the emperor’s exclusion from power, the alliance served a wider project: ending the feudal shogunate and transforming Japan’s political and economic institutions. Its victory helped open the way to the Meiji Restoration and the construction of a centralized state.

Formation and Political Setting

In the autumn of 1867, Ōkubo Toshimichi, a leading courtier of Satsuma, traveled from Edo to Yamaguchi, the regional city of Chōshū. On October 14, he met Chōshū leaders with a direct proposal: join forces, march on Edo, and overthrow the shogun. Ōkubo had already secured the support of the Tosa and Aki domains. Chōshū’s agreement completed the secret alliance between Satsuma and Chōshū, commonly called the Satcho Alliance.

The coalition formed against a political order dominated since 1600 by the Tokugawa family. The shogun governed from Edo, while the emperor had been sidelined in a ceremonial role. Feudal lords ruled and taxed their own domains, and society was organized through strict occupational categories, trade restrictions, and heavy taxation on farmers. The shogunate also controlled foreign trade and excluded foreigners. Satsuma, however, retained considerable autonomy in the south and traded independently through the Ryūkyū Islands, giving it a distinct position within the Tokugawa system.

A Restoration with a Wider Purpose

Ōkubo had become convinced that Japan needed to overthrow the feudal shogunate and eventually persuaded Shimazu Hisamitsu, Satsuma’s lord, to support the cause. To rally support, the alliance framed its challenge around the shogun’s sidelining of the emperor. An agreement Ōkubo had signed with Tosa asserted that a country could not have two monarchs and that government should devolve to one ruler. The book makes clear, however, that restoring the emperor was not the alliance’s ultimate aim: its intention was to change political and economic institutions completely.

Sakamoto Ryūma, one of the Tosa treaty’s signers, offered the shogun an eight-point plan urging him to resign and avoid civil war. The plan included returning political power to the imperial court, but it went further, proposing two legislative chambers and government measures decided on the basis of general opinion. It also called for foreign affairs to be conducted according to appropriate regulations and for earlier laws and regulations to be replaced by a new code. These proposals show how the emperor’s restoration became a public frame for a broader institutional program.

The Restoration and Civil War

Shogun Yoshinobu agreed to resign, and the Meiji Restoration was declared on January 3, 1868. After Emperor Kōmei died, his son, Emperor Meiji, was restored to power. Satsuma and Chōshū forces occupied Edo and the imperial capital, Kyōto, but feared that the Tokugawas would attempt to recover power and re-establish the shogunate. Ōkubo wanted the Tokugawa family permanently defeated; he persuaded the emperor to abolish the Tokugawa domain and confiscate its lands.

On January 27, the former shogun Yoshinobu attacked Satsuma and Chōshū forces, beginning a civil war that continued until the summer, when the Tokugawas were defeated. The alliance’s success thus depended not only on negotiating a transfer of authority but also on prevailing in armed conflict against the former ruling house.

Institutional Consequences

The Restoration was followed by reforms that dismantled the old feudal structure. In 1869, feudalism was abolished, the three hundred fiefs were surrendered to the government and reorganized as prefectures under appointed governors, and taxation was centralized. Equality of social classes before the law was introduced, restrictions on internal migration and trade were abolished, and the samurai class was eliminated, though rebellions had to be suppressed. Individual land property rights were introduced, and people gained the freedom to enter and practice trades.

The state also took an active role in infrastructure and industrial development. In 1869, the new regime established a steamship line between Tokyo and Osaka and began building Japan’s first railway, between Tokyo and Yokohama. By 1890, Japan had adopted Asia’s first written constitution and established a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament, the Diet, and an independent judiciary. The Satcho Alliance was therefore significant not simply as a pact against the shogun, but as the coalition that opened a path from feudal rule to the centralized institutions and reforms that enabled Japan to benefit from industrialization.