ABSTRACT
Western ships had begun to visit Japan in the late eighteenth century seeking to return Japanese castaways or to open trade with the country. When Japan learned of the Chinese defeat in the First Opium War, it repealed the edict and replaced it with the Edict to Supply Fuel and Water, adopting a policy of responding to emergency requests. In the case of Japan, sakoku, the policy of closing the doors of the nation to the rest of the world, had been intended as a system to prevent external danger. The shogunate now poured its efforts into kobu gattai, a policy designed to strengthen the shogunate by using the symbol of the emperor to its advantage and showing the country that the court stood with them. The arrival of the black ships did not immediately lower the shogunate's credibility; rather, it strengthened expectations of shogunal leadership.
