After the intensive reading of Meiji Restoration articles and the short biographies of the influential people (more than 20 people) during this period about for a couple of weeks my conclusion is
1. Meiji Restoration is more like massive Social Revolution rather than Restoration of the old political and social system.
2. The main stream of the people who led this movement successfully (most people regard this fairly successful transition or transformation) were Yoshida Shōin (吉田 松陰) ---> Kido Koin (or Takayoshi) (木戸孝允) ---->Ito Hirobumi (伊藤博文). Saigo Takamori and Sakamoto Ryoma are very popular and loved by many Japanese people in the past and now but they were not in the main stream - these two people are rather over evaluated.
However, as this movement involved politics the whole story is very complicated. We can see this movement superficially or deeply, officially or popularly, or in any other way.
There are several reasons for this conclusion.
1. Yoshida, Kido and Ito (all from Choshu - Yamguchi) were practical as well as had a strong will to try to change the society with visions.
2. They saw the reality and thought about the their future as it must be changed from the past. Kido and Ito went abroad (several different countries in Asia, US and Europe) and saw what the Western and Asian powers were and where the strong Western powers had come from with their own eyes. Especially Ito planned many things in long terms and largely his plans were successfully or at least well done.
sptt
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