Kōbu gattai (公武合体,Union of the Imperial Court and the Shogunate) was a policy in theBakumatsu era ofJapanese history aiming to strengthen Japan against the perceived"foreign threat" by obtaining a political coordination between theTokugawa shogunate, certain majorfeudal domains and theJapanese Imperial Court.[1]
Following thePerry Expedition, 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 itsnational isolation policy and the signing ofunequal treaties with foreign powers, led to members of thekuge aristocracy starting to meddle in national political policy by meeting inKyoto directly with members of various feudal domains. In 1858, the shogunate undertairōIi Naosuke attempted to end this directdaimyō–Imperial Court collusion with a harsh purge (the "Ansei Purge") of those who did not support its authority and foreign trade policies.[2] while simultaneously promoting closer ties between the Shogunate and the Imperial Court. This took the form of a proposedpolitical marriage betweenShogunTokugawa Iemochi and the sister of the Emperor,Princess Kazunomiya.[3]
Following themurder of Ii Naosuke in 1860 and the attempted assassination of his successor,Andō Nobumasa, the idea ofkōbu gattai faded into the background. It was strongly opposed by proponents of theSonnō jōi movement, who sought to overthrow the shogunate and restore political power to the Emperor, as well as by majordaimyō such asShimazu Hisamitsu ofSatsuma Domain andMatsudaira Shungaku ofFukui Domain who sought a compromise proposal whereby theTokugawa clan 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 thekōbu gattai concept obsolete. In 1868, theBoshin War and theMeiji restoration renderedkōbu gattai irrelevant.[3]
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