The Meiji Era (æ???æ??? 1868-1912) designates the reign of the Meiji Emperor. During this time, Japan started its modernization and rose to world power status.
In 1867, 15-year old Mutsuhito succeded his father, the Emperor Komei (?æ???ç??, K?mei-tenn?), taking the title Meiji, meaning "enlightened rule". The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended the 265-year-old feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate.
Considering that the economic structure and production of the country was roughly equivalent to Elizabethan era England, becoming a world power in such a short time was remarkable progress. There were at least two reasons for the speed of Japan's modernization: the employment of over 3,000 foreign experts (oyatoi gaikokujin [ky?jitai ?é???å¤?å???, shinjitai ?é??ã?å¤?å?½?, "hired foreigners"]), with thousands more in the private sector, in a variety of specialist fields such as teaching foreign languages, science, engineering, the military, etc; and the dispatch of many Japanese students (such as the Ch?sh? Five) overseas to Europe and America, based on the fifth and last article of the Charter Oath of 1868: 'Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of Imperial rule.' This process of modernization was closely monitored and heavily subsidized by the Meiji government, enhancing the power of the great zaibatsu firms such as Mitsui, Sumitomo and Mitsubishi.
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