Someone offhandedly told me that Japan went from Knights and swords to cars in the space of a lifetime. What was it like for somebody who was born during their isolationist period and lived through it all up to World War 2? Were things like public education already in effect before the West made contact, or was it totally knew?
I'd like to clarify that
in the Edo period the samurai were overwhelmingly bureaucrats, not soldiers. Their "knighthood" really only insured them a (usually quite meager) stipend from their lord. While swordsmenship was popular and encouraged, and widely used by both revolutionary groups and paramilitary groups, war was fought by guns and cannons supported by spears.
Japan's (and China's) isolationism have been overstated. Knowledge and trade flowed through Nagasaki legally, and into Kyushuu from Ryukyu illegally, all throughout the Edo period.
With that out of the way here's the short history of Japan's revolution.
The Japanese saw how easily China was defeated in the Opium Wars and feared it would happen to them. This lent weight to what some nanbangaku ("southern-barbarian-scholarship"-western learning) people have been saying for quite some time. Then in 1853 Japan was forced under threat from the US Navy commanded by Commodore Perry to open up the country.
This really, really worked up the entire country into an anti-foreign mood, signified by the sonnou joui ("revere the emperor, expel the barbarians") movement. Especially critical to the story are lower class samurai (being less invested in the system, many who were at risk of sinking into poverty and sometimes oppressed themselves) who led the charge, often explicitly taking matters into their own hands against orders or support from higher up. The Tokugawa knew that they couldn't win a war against the West, so they tried to import military hardware and hire foreign advisers while grudgingly keep the west pacified with concessions. Their work was made harder because
The Tokugawa had to retaliate to try to hold onto power, arresting and executing many. But this just inflamed people more. A clash in Kyoto between pro-Tokugawa paramilitary group from Edo (modern Tokyo and Tokugawa's powerbase) and the anti-Tokugawa reformists centered around people from Choshu Domain (modern Yamaguchi prefecture and traditionally anti-Tokugawa) led to war.
At first the Shogunate had the upper hand. But Satsuma Domain (modern Kagoshima prefecture who got the most out of illegal trade through Ryukyu because of their position at southern Kyushu, and for various reasons including having just fought a war with Britain was very military prepared), a major player on the pro-Shogunate side, was frightened by a resurgent Shogunate. Revolutionaries from the Tosa Domain (modern Kouchi prefecture) managed to negotiated a three-way alliance with Satsuma and Choshu, and Satsuma promptly switched sides and defeated the Shogunate expeditionary forces.
By this time the mood of Japan was very much focused on the "revere the emperor" part of its two part slogan, unlike its focus on "expel the barbarians before". The death of one Shogun and one Emperor at this critical time forced a truce, and Tosa, Choshu, and Satsuma forced the shogunate to disband. This lead to the Boshin War. Soon after the outbreak of conflict, the new Emperor declared for the revolutionaries, and Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last Shogun, actually quickly gave up. Even though a lot of forces kept on fighting, these events contributed to bringing the civil war to a quick close. Note here that in this war, Satsuma, Tosa, and Choshu forces were pretty modernized, as were some Shogunate forces and its navy.
The new government was overwhelmingly led by the aforementioned lower class samurai turned revolutionaries. With less tie and investment in the old political order (that they themselves had just swept away) they began a whole-scale transformation of Japan on western models. Domains were returned to the control of the central government and reorganized into prefectures. Samurai as a class was abolished, their stipends ended, and they were instead encouraged to continue as paid bureaucrats or officers. This means the new government inherited a large cadre of experienced bureaucrats built up in the Edo period from the Shogunate and various domains having to constantly deal with financial difficulties, allowing it to more easily administer and change a the country, something very different from China (which was also a lot larger and more populous).
They sent missions abroad to study how the west did things. Public education (I keep reading it was based on the Prussian style but have yet to see that sourced) was set up, replacing Edo period's private Confucian academies. Besides practical knowledge, the education was also used to build (or make stronger) a national identity. The urge to westernize trickled down from these government officials and people began to dress western and value everything western. Companies with strong government ties and backings like Mitsubishi were set up to help do the work (the founder of Mitsubishi himself was part of the revolutionary circles from Tosa). Most of the focus, and most of the revenue, were focused on military (including infrastructure for military stuff), as Japan was at first still afraid for its life and then eager to take its place among the powers, colonizing Taiwan and then Korea, and education.
Not everyone was happy with the change obviously. Many samurai were angry with their class, privilege and stipends being dissolved. Others who had worked hard for sonnou joui felt betrayed, seeing the government as not expelling but embracing the west. Indeed the government had threw out the old slogan and adopted fukoku kyouhei ("enrich the state, strengthen the military") instead. These resulted in a string of rebellions that culminated in the Satsuma Rebellion, led by none other than the very person who led the revolutionary forces to their victory over the Shogunate. With the quick crushing of the rebellion by the new national army, any dissent to these changes no longer had teeth.
Oh crap that was way too focused on the political side of things. Well the tl;dr is that 1) the revolution and changes were led by lower-class samurai who had less ties to the old political system 2) relatively quick civil wars swept away oppositions without too much damage 3) the new government inherited bureaucracy that gave it firmer control of the country compare to its neighbors.
One important thing to note found here
The only "early" industrializer was England. We tend to think of "The West" as industrializing well before "The East," but Japan's industrialization was only about 10-20 years "behind" Germany, 20-30 years "behind" France, and 30-40 years "behind" the US. Those years "behind" could easily be shortened in the presence of existing blueprints for industrialization.