On September 3, 1868, Edo was renamed Tokyo (East Capital) and proclamed as a new capital, but in order to parry opposition from Kyoto citizens, the government didn’t explicitly declared the abolishment of the old capital. In November, the emperor made the first trip to Tokyo, but soon returned to Kyoto in January 1869. In April, he traveled to Tokyo again, and never returned this time.

Both his journeys exactly followed the Tōkaidō road. On the first one, he left Kyoto on November 4, stayed overnight at Ōtsu, Ishibe (Konan), Tsuchiyama (Kōka), Seki (Kameyama), Yokkaichi, Kuwana, Atsuta (Nagoya), Narumi (Nagoya), Okazaki, Yoshida (Toyohashi), Arai (Kosai), Hamamatsu, Kakegawa, Fujieda, Ejiri (Shizuoka), Yoshiwara (Fuji), Mishima, Odawara, Ōiso, Fujisawa, Kanagawa (Yokohama), Shinagawa, and arrived at Tokyo on November 26. On the second one, he left Kyoto on April 18, made a detour to Ise Shrine, and arrived at Tokyo on May 9.

He took rests, had lunch and spent nights mostly at honjin, where daimyo used to stay on their sankin kōtai journeys. During the journeys, the emperor was seated in a hōren, a litter the emperor was supposed to ride on travels out of the palace. The journeys sucessfully impressed the regime change on people along the road, and were featured in a lot of ukiyo-e prints.

• Detailed itineraries of the journeys
• The procession crossing the Tama River at Rokugō, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.
• The procession crossing the Kyōbashi Bridge, Tokyo, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.
• The procession at Shinagawa, Utagawa Yoshimori.
• The procession at Gofukubashi, Tokyo, Utagawa Yoshifuji.
• The procession in Tokyo, Utagawa Yoshitora.
• The emperor seeing rice harvest at Atsuta, Kobori Tomoto.
• The hōren arriving at Tokyo castle, Kobori Tomoto.
• An illustration of the procession, Le Monde Illustre.