imperial power.

At the time of Mutsuhito's birth, Japan was a feudal and pre-industrial country dominated by the isolationist Tokugawa shogunate and the daimyo subject to it, who ruled over Japan's 270 decentralized domains. The opening of Japan to the West from 1854 fueled domestic demands for modernization, and when Mutsuhito became emperor after the death of his father Emperor Komei