Abolishing the Domains
In 1871, the Meiji government announced the abolition of the domain system. Overnight, the daimyō lords surrendered their territories to the central state. Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa, Hizen—the very domains that had led the Restoration—gave up their autonomy for the promise of positions in the new order. It was a revolution against themselves, a voluntary dissolution of the power base that had enabled their victory.
National Markets
Osaka had always been Japan's commercial capital—the "kitchen of the nation" where rice from every domain was traded and converted to cash. But under the Tokugawa, each domain maintained its own currency, customs barriers, and economic regulations. The Meiji state swept these away. A single national currency, uniform weights and measures, and a telegraph network that connected distant markets: Japan became economically unified for the first time.
The Industrial Coast
The waters between Osaka and Tokyo became Japan's industrial heartland. Shipyards in Kobe built steamships to replace the junks that had carried domain trade. Textile mills in Osaka processed cotton and silk for export. The Inland Sea, once traversed by Satsuma's sugar ships, became a corridor of steam-powered commerce. The old regional economies were subsumed into a national industrial system oriented toward international competition.