Benefits of Closed Country
There were benefits of a closed country policy, such as security and economic self-sufficiency. Many rapid changes in the Meiji period were enabled by progress during this time, such as road construction; establishment of a bureaucracy from members of the samurai warrior class; and flourishing commerce with its center Edo with a population of a million before Commodore Perry arrived.
While it may have been an effective strategy in the short-term, it faced a crisis when faced with a serious threat from the outside.
Contact with Foreigners
You encounter a map of the fourth largest island Kyushu, on the southern end of the Japanese archipelago, far from the emperor’s court in Kyoto and the seat of the shogun in Edo (Tokyo) on the central island. You also note four events occurred that shaped the closed country policy.
Events that shaped the closed country policy | Location of event near the island of Kyushu |
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1543: Storm-blown Portuguese sailors on the island of Tanegashima; Introduction of firearms to Japan. | Tanegashima is a small, long island south of the bigger southern island of Kyushu. |
1549: St. Francis Xavier arrives in Satsuma. | Satsuma was a domain on the western cusp of the Satsuma Peninsula on the southern most end of Kyushu, near Tanegashima. |
1634: Dutch trading outpost established as Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki. | Nagasaki was a harbor city on a peninsula on the western end of the Kyushu island. |
1637: Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu puts down the Shimabara Rebellion. | The rebellion occurred in the Shimabara Peninsula along the same inlet as Nagasaki and the nearby Amakusa islands in the same bay. |