ABSTRACT
I TOKYO, IMPERIAL CAPITAL ON JANUARY 31, 1868, when the imperial court learned that the ex-shogun had fled Osaka, it ordered the seigniorial armies massed in the Kyoto region to pursue him. A few days later, it announced that it was confiscating the old shogunal domain: when Yoshinobu reached Yedo on February 5, he had fallen to the rank of a landless daimyo. He entered the former shogunal palace and awaited events. Leon Roches again offered him military aid from France but Yoshinobu declined. Katsu Kaishu, who could, in fact, have been the commander-in-chief of a Tokugawa army, was advising submission: Yedo could have held out for a long time. Its modernized army would have resisted the Kyoto army effectively, and its fleet was more or less intact. The population was hostile to the old rulers and was expecting advantageous reform from the imperial court.
