From the time of the bombardment, Satsuma and Choshiu began to
introduce European machinery and inventions, to employ skilled
Europeans to teach them, and to send their young men to Europe and
America.

II. These bombardments showed the necessity of national union. Whether
she would repel or receive the foreigner, Japan must present a united
front. To this end, great change in the internal constitution of the
empire was needed; the internal resources of the nation had to be
gathered into a common treasury; the police and the taxes had to be
recognized as national, not as belonging to petty local chieftains;
the power of the feudal lords had to be broken in order to
reconstitute Japan as a single strong state under a single head. These
are the ideas which led the way to the Restoration of 1868. Thus the
bombardments of Kagoshima and Shimonosheki may be said to have helped
indirectly in the Restoration of that year. But before we proceed to
the history of the Restoration, let us examine what were the great
Councils of Kuges and Daimios, which were sometimes convened during
the period from 1857 to 1868.

The Council of Kuges was occasionally convened by the order of the
Emperor. It was composed of the princes of the blood, nobles, and
courtiers. The Council of Daimios was now and then summoned either by
the Emperor or by the Shogun. It was composed mostly of the Daimios.
These councils were like the Witenagemot of England, formed of the
wise and influential men of the kingdom. As the Daimios had far more
weight in the political scale of the realm than the Kuges, so the
council of the Daimios was of far more importance than that of the
Kuges. But it must not be understood that these councils were regular
meetings held in the modern parliamentary way; nor that they had