Age of Revolution
By Adi Chintalapudi
Opium Wars in China
Reform
The reform by the late Qing had mixed responses. The reform program after 1901 did begin to address structural reforms, with changes in and the eventual abolition of the examination system, the establishment of more schools throughout the country which were to include Western subjects, support for student study abroad, the establishment of a new national army under a new army ministry, along with a new ministry of commerce, reform of the currency, and the promulgation of a commercial code. In spite of these changes and perhaps because of them, the dynasty collapsed in 1911
Japan Decline
There were two main factors that led to the erosion of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. First, there was the rise of the merchant class and the decline in the power of the samurai that came with it. Second, there was the pressure from the West, epitomized by the "opening" of Japan by Commodore Perry.
As the Tokugawa era came to a close, the merchant class in Japan had become very powerful. They were very rich and the samurai class depended on them for money. This went against the formal hierarchy in which merchants were the lowest rung. This disparity between the formal system and reality eroded the foundations of the Tokugawa government.
Restoration
Meiji Restoration, in Japanese history, the political upheaval in 1868 that realized the last end of the Tokugawa shogunate (military government)— in this way finishing the Edo (Tokugawa) period(1603–1867)— and, in any event ostensibly, returned control of the nation to direct magnificent standard under Mutsuhito (the head Meiji). In a more extensive connection, be that as it may, the MeijiRestoration of 1868 came to be related to the consequent time of major political, financial, and social change—the Meiji period (1868–1912)— that achieved the modernization and Westernization of the nation.