ABSTRACT
In 1838 Mori Takachika became the 13th and last lord of the Mori domain. The more aggressively interventionist domain lords achieved less with greater political and financial cost as in the case Hitotsubashi Nariaki, but Mori Takachika remained in control of the Choshu government until his death, dying with the love and respect of his domain. The custom of annual gift to the Court was at the time of Mori Takachika, whose support beyond the symbolic gift was to be called for as changing circumstances in Kyoto moved from polemic and sporadic violence to full-scale warfare. The Mori were successors to prominent families who shared views beyond the domain region, and extended through trade and family ties to Korean Peninsula and beyond. In 1850 the world was a very different place from that of 1600 and the sustainability of the policy of isolation sakkoku in the context of weakening dynastic rule in China, Japan and Korea was visibly in disarray.
