People’s military units of bakumatsu period (1854–1867) and the creation of a doctrine of the Japanese armed forces

Abstract

The article is devoted to some unknown aspects of political, social and military history of Japan during the bakumatsu period (1854–1867), namely to an absolutely new phenomenon for Tokugawa Japan: creating military units by recruiting from different social strata, often on a voluntary basis, that was a particular feature of the most progressive south-western Japanese regions. The development of Nohei theory features several important stages and was practically realized in the form of people’s army (mimpei). So, at first peasants were recruited forcibly, but from 50s of XIX century in the south-western Japanese regions troops started to be recruited on a voluntary basis. A period of 1860s was very useful for creation of these units as it was a time when a real encounter with aliens started and internal political struggle took a radical form. Thus, it was revolutionary for the-then era to adopt voluntary approach which created the conditions for professional implementation of advanced Western military art, and, ultimately, allowed to defeat the units which fought on the Bakufu side. The principles of organization of the units after the events of the Meiji Ishin (1867–68) were implemented as a base of military doctrine in Japan, which became fundamental for the Great Japan armed forces.

Keywords:

nohei, mimpei, “people’s army”, military forces, Omura Masujiro