If you were some low-ranking samuraifag during the Bakumatsu, Would you support?>Imperialistsor>Tokugawa Shogunateor alternatively not give a shit about this stupid fucking country's problems and just seppoku.
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The right to bear arms
>>18422723If in west Japan, Emperor. If in east Japan, Shogun.
Whoever my lord sided with, I'd have to side with as well. If my lord supported the imperialists, then I guess I would as well. At least until the shogunate's forces started cracking down, then I might consider being an informant for the bakufu or shinsengumi so I could save my own ass. I'd probably be a brokefag samurai, sold my swords, shitty duelists (but id tell people I fought in this battle and so and so) and Id have extensive financial debts and maybe genital warts.
>>18422723>>18422727GÅruden Kamui enjoyer, I pick Ezo republican.
Bump historian otaku
>>18422723Shogunate. Satsuma and Choshu were snakes cutting deals with the foreigners they pretended to hate and using the emperor to empower themselves.
>>18422723Kenshin. Very based. https://youtu.be/lgst0fQUrBA?si=Dw51pQsxrdRbt8vL
>>18422723Imperial. Tyrant rule of the Shogun and payback for West Japanese defeated in genpei civil war and sekigahara/osaka castle.
>>18422723Shogunate. The removal of the samurai class would absolutely ruin me.
A lot of poor Samurai sided with the Imperialist Forces as the Tokugawa Neo-Confucian Class Freezes affected the Samurai as well. Theoretically the warrior class was a societal elite, but they were paid in fixed salary grades that were frozen as per their ancestry. Samurai inherited the ranks & salary grades of their fathers/clans: which means if your ancestors were historically commanders & bannermen of a lord, you got a bigger salary plus you could expect to become some officer as well. If your Samurai ancestors were simply Ashigaru footsoldiers, well you got their meagre salary. And the shitty thing? There were no wars, no chances for advancement in the Edo period. You're fucking stuck with your ancestral stipend. You can't leave being Samurai either & becoming a merchant or farmer because the Class Freeze Laws say you can't. There's also pride & prestige involved: merchants and farmers were lower class people and you literally had the power of law. Poor Sammies thus were stuck in a bizarre limbo where they want to have a different career but were not allowed nor socially incentivized to do it.This was why in the 1700s-early 1800s, when Inflation hit the Edo Period Economy, many poor Samurai married into merchant families: poor Samurai get to enjoy some wealth from their in-laws, while in-laws became part of the Warrior Class by virtue of marriage.It is why the Imperialist Samurai were largely A-Ok with abolishing their own class: the existing Samurai knew they were privileged anyway, but the abolition of the hereditary warrior class meant a more meritocratic system could take its place where soldiers do get promoted, or at least can do other things in their fucking lives besides warrioring.
