On October 23, 1868, the Japanese court adopted a new reign name, or nengo, and the Meiji era began. The era was new. The name, which means enlightened rule, was taken from a line in the Chinese classic the Book of Changes, and it was the first time that a reign name had been chosen for a single emperor from the start of his rule rather than changed during it, and after 1868 the practice was fixed at one name for each reign.
The change came in the middle of the political upheaval that followed the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate. The last shogun had resigned at the end of 1867, and a group of young samurai from Satsuma and Choshu had taken power in the name of the emperor, and the civil war against the supporters of the shogun was still being fought. The court was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo in 1868 and 1869, and the emperor took up residence in the former shogunal castle.
The reforms that gave the era its name followed quickly. The reforms were many. The domains were replaced by prefectures, the samurai class was abolished along with its stipends, a conscript army was raised, land tax was put on a cash basis, and a system of state schools and universities was built, and students and officials were sent abroad to study. Railways, telegraph lines, mines and factories were built by the state and then sold to private firms, and a constitution and a parliament followed in 1889 and 1890.
The results were quick and uneven. Japan defeated China in 1895 and Russia in 1905, and it took control of Taiwan and Korea as colonies, and the era is remembered as the period in which the country became a modern industrial power. The pace was fast. It also brought hardship to many farmers and workers, and criticism of the government was tightly controlled. The Meiji emperor died in 1912, and the era ended with his death.