- 2 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00July the 8th, 1853.
00:13A fleet of ships is bearing down on the peaceful harbour of Edo Bay.
00:21For the people of Japan, change is coming.
00:25For over 200 years, the country has closed itself off from the West.
00:32But now, it faces a violent confrontation.
00:38With American aggressors, Japan's future is on a knife edge.
00:48Some believe they must fight to preserve their unique way of life.
00:53Others will sacrifice everything to avoid war.
01:01This is like the most steampunk clash of cultures you've ever seen.
01:06Suddenly, the threat of the West has become real.
01:11This is a true emergency of the sort that for generations people haven't known in Japan.
01:15The Japanese are aware of Western aggression, but they probably have never thought it would come to their doorstep.
01:23Three men hold the future of Japan in their hands.
01:29A rigidly controlling ruler.
01:32An ambitious American naval commander.
01:35And a proud samurai, caught between Japan's glittering past and uncertain future.
01:44The worst mistake that any civilisation can make is to suppose that by walling itself in, that it can survive.
01:53Ancient Egypt.
02:08The Roman Empire.
02:12The Aztecs of Mexico.
02:15Four great civilisations, each a pinnacle of human ingenuity and achievement.
02:31Each lasted for centuries.
02:34Their people thought they would endure forever.
02:41Until suddenly, everything changed.
02:49These civilisations faced challenges that are all too familiar today.
02:55Climate catastrophe.
03:01Climate catastrophe.
03:05Pandemic.
03:10War.
03:13Challenges for which ancient societies had few solutions.
03:18But what if there was a place that had the answers to what went wrong?
03:30A place full of secrets and stories.
03:35A repository of memory stretching back through time.
03:39The British Museum, home to more than 8 million artefacts, is a record of how and why the greatest civilisations rose to power and then spectacularly fell.
04:00Its treasures are the human traces that survived disaster.
04:04But might they also hold lessons for our own future?
04:13Every civilisation throughout history has had an expiry date.
04:18With great societies, the seeds of their destruction are sown within the society.
04:25They're already there.
04:29No civilisation ever thinks it's going to fall.
04:31But the question is, what can we learn from the past?
04:36In the Pacific Ocean, off the eastern shores of Asia,
05:02lie the islands of Japan, a country like no other.
05:19Japan, in the middle of the 19th century, is entirely unique.
05:23It's different from anywhere else in the world.
05:25It's several islands. There's a huge population, a very educated and literate population.
05:36The city of Edo, modern-day Tokyo, is home to over a million people,
05:43and one of the largest cities in the world.
05:46Japan is a place of elaborate temples, wooden houses, and immaculately manicured gardens.
06:01People dress in fine silks, admire exquisite woodblock prints, and eat the latest fast food, sushi.
06:12Japan's distinctive culture is a product of a deliberate policy of isolation.
06:23120 miles from the coast of mainland Asia, Japan has closed its borders to much of the outside world for over 200 years.
06:43Japanese are forbidden to travel abroad, on pain of death, so it's developed this phenomenal culture, which is of its own.
06:55At peace for the last two centuries, the Japanese have developed a highly stylized set of rituals for everyday life,
07:04from the way to drink tea, to how to wear a kimono.
07:07Any society that has peace instead of warfare, instead of putting all the money into making weapons,
07:15you can put your money into things like culture and arts.
07:21The intricate craftsmanship that has emerged reveals the lengths the Japanese will go to in pursuit of perfection.
07:30What you have in Japan is this culture of creating these small and beautiful sculptures,
07:58which are barely there, which are barely there.
08:01It's an extraordinary thing because they're very, very small.
08:06What's special about Netscape is that they are basically miniature sculptures for the hand.
08:16What's special about Netscape is that they are basically miniature sculptures for the hand.
08:32They're made for you to feel during the day, to run your hands over and discover.
08:42Here's a Netscape of a rat.
08:45It's eating a beanstalk.
08:49Two very beady eyes made out of buffalo horn.
08:56Turn it round and there is its tail curled all the way round.
09:02Under one of its paws, you can just see there, beautifully.
09:10Intricately carved from ivory or hardwood.
09:15These are miniature snapshots of Japanese life.
09:18What you have within Netscape is a whole raft of subject matter, which comes out of Japanese mythology, folkloric traditions, food, storytelling, eroticism, fashion.
09:38Often, all these things become amplified.
09:47They're fascinating for the level of craftsmanship and the miniaturization of whole worlds.
09:53And the degree to which they incorporate symbolism and fine materials and are beautiful, but also, in a very clear way, functional.
10:05So, you have to imagine wearing a wonderful kimono and you've got no pockets.
10:13So, how are you going to carry around all the things you might need for your daily life?
10:18So, you have an external pocket.
10:20It's called a sagimono, a hanging pocket.
10:25This one is made from boxwood.
10:29And up here is the Netscape.
10:31And this is the way that you hold your hanging pocket from the belt of your obi.
10:37There is no way that Netscape can happen elsewhere.
10:51It's one of these extraordinary sort of efflorescences in a culture.
10:58They're not looking outwards.
11:00They're looking inwards.
11:02But beyond Japan's shores, the world is changing fast.
11:13Isolationism is usually madness for any except the most powerful societies.
11:19You're not only isolating yourself from foreign cultural forces, but you're in danger of isolating yourself from all the developments of science, of technology, and then you become vulnerable to external enemies.
11:31By the 1850s, Europe is being powered by an industrial revolution.
11:43New technology is transforming everything, from steam-powered transport to the mass production of ever more powerful weapons.
11:53And it's fueling an appetite for conquest.
12:07Industrialisation has driven this need for colonisation.
12:12The raw materials of iron, coal, cotton, tea, all of this is driving Europeans to try and carve out empires.
12:21They are trying to get as many colonies as possible to give them not only wealth, but stability across the globe.
12:29It's impossible to overstate the importance of technology as a driving force.
12:38European powers found themselves able, because of their superior weapons technology, to march into other people's country and to achieve devastating victories at relatively low cost.
12:49And now there's a dynamic new player on the world stage.
13:06The United States is growing power.
13:09They have ships that are trading around the Pacific.
13:12What they want is for their ships to be able to take on food and other supplies.
13:19So they begin to consider Japan as a place that no one else has yet, quote unquote, opened to the West.
13:29Japan becomes the target.
13:42The man in charge of this mission is U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry.
13:50Perry is from a naval family.
13:52He is pretty proud of his own rightness.
13:55He fought in the war with Mexico.
13:57He's also chased pirates in the Caribbean.
14:00He's a big Navy guy.
14:04Perry is a technological visionary.
14:06This is a man who is dreaming of not only the U.S. as a Pacific power, but the U.S. as a naval power driven by steamships.
14:17Steam ships are amazing, but they require regular refueling.
14:24And that means the U.S. has to be absolutely certain that its ships can regularly refuel all across the Pacific.
14:32The Americans want very much to be able to coal up their ships at Japanese ports.
14:40Perry is a man who likes to do his homework.
14:46So he's read up in the New York Public Library a little bit about the Japanese.
14:51And I think he's come to the view that the Japanese will really only respond to a show of power.
14:56On November the 24th, 1852, Perry set sail for Japan.
15:19His squadron of four warships, two of them steam powered, is designed to intimidate the Japanese into submission.
15:30Perry carries a letter spelling out American demands.
15:34But he has no idea who he will be dealing with.
15:39Perry doesn't understand very much about the political situation in Japan.
15:46Not very many people do.
15:48He mistakenly addresses his letter demanding the opening of ports and trade to the emperor.
15:56Not realizing that the emperor is not in control.
16:00Japan has had an emperor for more than a thousand years.
16:08But he is little more than a symbolic figurehead.
16:11The real power lies elsewhere.
16:15The real power lies elsewhere.
16:42These are the shoguns.
16:44And shogun is a supreme warlord over all the other 200 plus warlords in the country.
16:55Shogun is a word that Westerners are quite familiar with.
17:16What it actually means is like foreigner-crushing generalissimo.
17:23We see in the center the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate.
17:27And around him are arrayed his 14 successors.
17:31For 250 years, the Tokugawa family has ruled Japan.
17:43There are no significant rivals to their power.
17:48So it's a reign of exceptional duration and exceptional success in many ways.
17:58It's a bit like a mafia power family.
18:01What you get is a warlord who doesn't rule with just an iron fist.
18:06It's sort of an iron fist in a silk glove.
18:09The shogun's job is to placate, is to manipulate, and is to convince everybody to keep the peace.
18:18It is the Tokugawa clan who have tried to eliminate contact with the West.
18:36In the 17th century, they implemented a policy of seclusion called sakoku.
18:45Closing the country off from what they see as dangerous outside influence.
19:00The foreigners were referred to as nanbanji, meaning southern barbarian.
19:08Back in the late 1500s, the Portuguese and also the Spanish made their way into Japan.
19:14Traders and missionaries.
19:16And they started to meddle in Japanese politics.
19:19They made quite a few converts to Christianity.
19:21And some of these converts were regarded as a bit suspect
19:24because it's not really clear where their loyalties lie.
19:28And so, when this policy of more or less complete isolation was put in place,
19:32it made a great deal of sense.
19:34It was border control.
19:45The Tokugawa shoguns allow trade with their immediate neighbours, China and Korea,
19:51but limit European imports to the Dutch alone.
19:56And restrict them to the harbour of Nagasaki.
20:03Here, twenty or so Dutch merchants are confined to a tiny artificial island,
20:09just 600 feet long, called Dejima.
20:15They are the only Westerners allowed to do business with the Shogun.
20:30They were trading with the Dutch, but only because the Dutch said,
20:33we're not going to do anything other than trade with you.
20:36We're not going to introduce European ideas or particularly Christianity.
20:40If you don't allow trading partners, if you don't allow the importation of new ideas,
20:49new competing philosophies and technologies,
20:52it is simply an easier landscape to control.
20:56It's often an illusion of control because you can't control what exactly happens beyond your borders.
21:01The Tokugawa family's power base is the thriving city of Edo.
21:16The latest Shogun to inherit the title, knows his control of the country,
21:29also depends on enforcing a rigid social hierarchy.
21:33Everybody knows their place and it's this sense of cultural unity which really binds Japan together
21:43and creates this unique tradition, this unique society.
21:49At the top of the ladder are around 300 warlords, the Daimyo.
22:00Beneath them are Japan's enforcers, an elite class of warriors and bureaucrats known as the Samurai.
22:10What defines you as a Samurai is carrying out whatever duty you've been given by your Lord,
22:15doing it exactly as you've been asked in sacrificing whatever you need to sacrifice to get it done.
22:23Of 30 million Japanese, around 2 million are Samurai.
22:30They're absolutely at the top.
22:32They're almost a different species, I think, from other Japanese.
22:35That's certainly how they regard themselves anyway.
22:45Among the many Samurai, one is destined to lead the fight against Western influence.
23:02His name is Saigo Takamori.
23:06Saigo Takamori is sort of the ultimate Samurai.
23:13He has a very stern Samurai education.
23:17He learns all the martial arts and he is very interested in the moral systems that are behind the Samurai world.
23:24Saigo is a man with a really deep ethical code.
23:34He has a lovely slogan he often uses.
23:37Revere heaven and love one another.
23:42He takes the status and the duties of a Samurai very seriously.
23:46Saigo is a traditionalist.
23:52And by that I mean he thinks the old ways should be preserved.
24:09In Japan, nothing embodies the status of a Samurai more than his sword.
24:14In all its extraordinary detail.
24:25If you're a Samurai, these swords that you carry is basically, it's your soul.
24:32It's part of yourself.
24:35It's not just an object.
24:36It's not just a weapon.
24:37It's a symbol of loyalty, duty, honour and pride.
24:44Called a katana, this is one of the most lethal and effective swords ever created.
25:08It can slice through skin and bone.
25:14The result of generations of craftsmen perfecting their skills.
25:21It is made in a way that no other sword is made.
25:31There's two pieces of metal are melded together.
25:35It is also the sharpest sword in the world.
25:40On the thinner cutting edge of the blade is this beautiful crystalline structure that's called the Hamon.
25:49And there's a whole vocabulary to describe the shape and the qualities of the Hamon.
25:56It can be likened to the night sky or to mist or dew.
26:00Handles are covered in stingray skin for extra grip and wrapped in silken cords.
26:13All decorated with intricate symbols from Japanese folklore.
26:17Every single katana or sword are different and it has different story.
26:24It becomes part of you.
26:25It's become who you are.
26:29Traditionally, sword skills are important for every samurai.
26:34The sword is also a reminder of the samurai's status as authority figures in Japan.
26:41Only the samurai at this point are allowed weapons of any kind.
26:46So to walk around town carrying those swords is to tell everybody else who you are and what your standing is in Japan.
26:55Commoners in the street are going to back away from you.
26:58They might bow as you go past.
27:01So you've got a really strong sense that the country is really built around you and your values.
27:07It's the samurai and their sense of honour that holds the rest of Japan together.
27:32As the sun dips low over the coastal city of Edo,
27:35the harbour of Kurihama, south of Edo Bay,
27:40is settling down for the evening when out of the haze,
27:45four hulking ships appear, bristling with cannon.
27:50American naval commander Matthew Perry has arrived.
27:56Perry's idea, it's shock and awe. That's what he wants to achieve.
28:02There's a great deal of menace to the way Perry approaches Japan.
28:09He has the cannon fire from offshore.
28:12He really wants to awe the Japanese with a sense of his power, with a sense of the technology that he's bringing.
28:18A group of senior samurai invites Perry to a meeting inside a hastily built pavilion on the shore.
28:28The Japanese officers realised that this small squadron of ships can completely outgun all the naval fortifications that Japan has set up around Edo Harbour.
28:42For Perry, these samurai looked a bit unimpressive.
28:49He saw that the weapons they were holding in the United States would be back in a museum.
28:54They'd be in someone's attic. These things are not credible modern weapons at all.
28:58Perry gives them an ultimatum. He says, either you sign this trade deal with us. You've got a year to do it.
29:08We're being reasonable here. You have a whole year to sign this treaty.
29:12Or, your other alternative is, we come back in a year and we attack.
29:19He gives the Japanese a little white piece of cloth.
29:22He says, if I don't get what I've asked for, there's going to be a war.
29:30And when you've had enough, you can wave this little piece of white cloth and surrender.
29:38Gunboat diplomacy meant making your will stick, whether you were right or wrong.
29:44Whether what you were doing was just or unjust, because you had the firepower to make your will stick.
29:50As Perry steams away from Edo Bay, Japan faces a momentous choice.
30:02To agree to American terms or go to war.
30:07Across the country, some samurai, like Saigo Takamori, fear for the survival of the traditional order they love and uphold.
30:25Saigo, like many of his contemporaries in 1853, thinks these westerners are largely monstrous.
30:34They're coming from halfway around the world to bother a country that has done nothing to them.
30:39Saigo fears a collapse of Japan as he knows it.
30:46And he believes that they need to be driven away decisively and quickly.
30:51All eyes now turn to the great Tokugawa leader, the shogun, as the nation waits for his decision.
31:08The shogun is trying to square his job, which is to crush the barbarians, keep the foreigners out of Japan on the one hand.
31:19With the brute fact of overwhelming American power on the other.
31:23But it's a very difficult one.
31:26And he spends months agonising really over what to do.
31:34But can the shogun really count on his samurai to defend Japan?
31:39The answer is found in a stunning artefact, handed down through generations of a samurai family.
32:02Armor is embedded in a samurai family's history, its lineage.
32:15It's valuable not only in a material sense, but in a heritage sense as part of what being a samurai was.
32:32It's a very difficult one.
32:33It's a very difficult one.
32:42Armor in Japan is formed from plates that are sewn together.
32:48The main part of the armor covers the chest, so there's two plates of iron in this suit.
32:53And then attached to that are lacquered plates that compose the shoulder guards.
33:04And there are sleeves that often have chain mail within them.
33:08And shin guards.
33:13Its mask is built to scare you.
33:16It's meant to be intimidating as well as functional.
33:20Helmets might incorporate an interesting motif.
33:30And in this particular case, it's a dragon.
33:36This is part of the fearsome aspect that you want to present on the battlefield.
33:40Samurai armor may once have proved effective against sword and arrow.
33:51But it is now purely ceremonial.
33:55No match for the latest guns and cannon fire.
34:02After the shocking revelation of American technology, being a samurai is no longer a defense.
34:11His armor, the thing that for generations has protected him, has protected his family, has protected his country, is now the thing which makes him weak.
34:22The whole thrust of history shows that the old, old cliche, the best guide to peace is to prepare for war.
34:36It's all still true. It always has been.
34:39In the end, there will always be enemies, there will always be aggressors out there who see things through a different prism.
34:43Eight months after the Americans' first landing in Japan, Commodore Perry returns to Edo Bay with a larger fleet.
35:01To demand an immediate answer from the shogun.
35:02It's time for the shogun to make his decision.
35:06He's got a choice in a way, but in another way he's got no choice, because if he doesn't sign that treaty, he is basically saying, you know, America can invade and colonize.
35:19By signing the treaty, he has a sliver of control left, maybe.
35:36The best way for the shogun to deal with this is to give them a little bit of what they want and hope that they don't ask for anything else.
35:54That's the least worst thing that the shogun can do at this point.
36:01The shogun agrees a deal with Perry.
36:09What the treaty does is it basically opens up trade in the seaports along Japan's coast.
36:18The agreement is the first of what become known as the Unequal Treaties.
36:25The treaties are extremely disadvantageous to Japan.
36:31Economically, they put tariffs, import-export duties, not under Japanese control, but under international control.
36:40They are unable to protect their own markets.
36:44These are deemed to be infringements on Japan's national sovereignty.
36:54The shogun has been forced to make a humiliating climb down.
37:04Now he needs to cast his actions in a positive light.
37:09One remarkable work of art captures how his supporters tried to record this defeat as a victory.
37:20The Perry scroll is this long scroll which you unfurl and you read from right to left.
37:28You get scene after scene, little moments picked up from this return of Perry in 1854.
37:3316 images across 50 feet show the encounter between Perry's American delegation and the shogun's officials, and the efforts made by each side to impress the other.
37:48From the Japanese side you have a display of sumo wrestling.
38:06From the American side, one of the things they offer is a demonstration of steam technology.
38:13So they have a little miniature railway track and a little locomotive on it.
38:17But the artist also tries to spin the occasion as evidence of Japanese superiority.
38:27What you see here are these sumo wrestlers who are physically larger than the American soldiers.
38:35And you see the Americans admiring the physiques of the sumo wrestlers stroking their arms in a way that suggests a kind of admiration, adoration.
38:50A banquet scene shows the Japanese as dignified while one American sneaks food into his hat and others examine the maker's marks on the porcelain bowls.
39:07A dedication claims that this scroll is evidence of the shogun's prowess in defending Japan against the Americans.
39:26Some may have believed this version of events, but not the samurai, Saigo Takamori.
39:37Approaching Edo, just two days after the treaty is signed, he sees with his own eyes, Peri's fleet of monstrous gunboats.
39:49And understands that Japan's unique way of life and traditions are now under threat.
39:54This is the first time Saigo has seen tangible evidence with his own eyes of Westerners and they for him are this strange, outrageous imposition.
40:09For Saigo, what's so damaging about the treaties is that the shogunate has reneged on its own promises to keep foreigners out of Japan and backed out of it without a fight.
40:24For now, Saigo and his fellow samurai must submit to American humiliation and to a shogun many feel has betrayed them.
40:39Thirteen years later, and Saigo's worst fears are coming true.
40:58As well as signing deals with the Americans, the shogun has opened up Japanese markets to Britain, Russia and France.
41:03Western goods start to flood in.
41:06Western goods start to flood in.
41:09And many Japanese start to embrace Western ways.
41:10Western goods start to embrace Western ways.
41:11Western goods start to embrace Western ways.
41:12The shogun has opened up Japanese markets to Britain, Russia and France.
41:13Western goods start to flood in.
41:16And many Japanese start to embrace Western ways.
41:19Even the shogun himself.
41:20Even the shogun himself.
41:21The shogun has opened up Japanese markets to Britain, Russia and France.
41:23Western goods start to flood in.
41:34And many Japanese start to embrace Western ways.
41:41Even the shogun himself.
41:47If you look at the depiction of the shogun in the lower left corner, it's immediately apparent that he is different.
41:54He is dressed in a Western military uniform.
41:58He is seated in a chair.
42:00And unlike his predecessors, without a sword, which had typically been the symbol of the samurai class.
42:08He's still a samurai, but he's a different kind of military man now.
42:15Along with foreign goods come foreign people.
42:30It's fair to say that a lot of the foreigners are drinking heavily, behaving badly, getting into fights, generally disrespecting Japanese culture.
42:41You've got a sense, I think, that the world isn't really as it should be anymore.
42:46Imagine you're a samurai.
42:53You're at the top of your society.
42:55And suddenly all the things that you've been told about foreigners.
42:59It's suddenly not a story anymore.
43:01It is real.
43:02It's in front of your eyes.
43:04And you realise how precarious your position really is.
43:13The process of opening a society, creating new trade relationships, has, of course, both winners and losers.
43:19We see this in the modern world.
43:21There have been both winners and losers of globalisation.
43:25People, whether it be individuals or groups, who feel like they've lost status, are far more likely to turn to rebellion or to violence.
43:35Saigo Takamori is one of a number of samurai who are reluctantly reaching the conclusion that the shogun's time is up.
43:48He's clearly failed to deal with foreigners effectively and something radical needs to change in Japan.
43:55Saigo forms an alliance with other disaffected samurai.
44:07Together, they are prepared to take action that was once unthinkable.
44:12The shogun, by letting foreigners come in, has betrayed the essence of Japan and is therefore actually illegitimate, even though on paper the shogun is the supreme military commander.
44:30He can't be. That's impossible.
44:32Saigo and his fellow rebels head north through the winter snow to the city of Kyoto.
44:44Their hope is to win the backing of the one person whose support could change everything.
44:51Japan's spiritual figurehead, the Emperor.
44:55The Emperor.
45:00This is a monarchy that can trace itself back to the 600s.
45:05It's a very old institution, but it actually has not ruled rather than reigned for centuries.
45:16In theory, the Emperor who's in Kyoto is right at the top of the country's politics.
45:21But in reality, he's hidden away in an imperial palace, performing rituals, writing poetry, has no real day-to-day say at all in the control of Japan.
45:33But nevertheless, he has an extraordinary mystique around him.
45:36And so I think people like Saigo Takamori really want the shogun to be toppled and instead for the Emperor to come back to the front line of politics.
45:45This movement calls itself Son no Joi, which means literally revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians, and they are absolutely willing to kill and be killed in pursuit of that idea.
46:02Saigo and his fellow samurai persuade the Emperor to declare the shogun's rule over.
46:13And put himself in charge.
46:18Saigo's absolutely at the center of this epoch-making moment in Japanese history.
46:23must just be an extraordinary sense of the moment having finally turned in his favor.
46:29Three months later, the shogun faces a growing rebel army of samurai, backed by the Emperor.
46:50Finally, the shogun agrees to leave Edo for good.
46:57After more than 250 years, the Tokugawa family's rule is at an end.
47:07The victorious samurai form a new government under the Emperor.
47:12They base themselves in Edo, now renamed Tokyo.
47:16Tokyo.
47:19Saigo believes he's secured his country's future.
47:25But his fight for the soul of Japan is not yet at an end.
47:29Eight years after the shogun was deposed, the new government has promised to preserve ancient traditions, while embarking on a crash course of dizzying modernity.
47:47Once the shogun is got rid of, the new government takes power, but almost immediately they realize the situation they are in.
48:05This wasn't just a weak shogun. They realize there is no standing up to these foreign powers.
48:14The only way Japan is going to survive is if they modernize, and they modernize radically fast.
48:20The imperial government believes that only an industrialized nation can defend itself against Western powers.
48:31But modernizing forces, once unleashed, are hard to control.
48:36The pace of change is breathtaking, and is captured in a high-tech, new art form, imported from the West. Photography.
48:50Within a few years, you have railways coming in, you have new buildings going up.
48:57For centuries, people have walked, or they've gone in palanquins, or they've gone by water, all of a sudden there are rickshaws all over the place.
49:07People start wearing Western clothes, bustles and bonnets. Even the emperor is photographed wearing a Western uniform.
49:26At first, Saigo believes that some modernization might strengthen Japan.
49:31But over time, he worries that the changes are sweeping away his country's traditional values.
49:39Saigo's having to ask himself, is this what I signed up for?
49:43Is this what I was fighting for just a few years ago?
49:50In 1876, the government issues an edict that enrages many samurai.
49:56Banning them from carrying their swords in public.
50:07The new government decides that in order to survive, it needs a modern army.
50:12And that means conscription.
50:15That means that any peasants can fight, any merchant can pick up a gun and go and fight.
50:21Not only that, they're all going to wear a military uniform.
50:24So what's the point of a samurai?
50:27Where do they fit in this new system?
50:30And of course they don't.
50:32Saigo has risked everything to put the emperor in charge.
50:37But now, even his government seems to have reneged on its promise to defend Japanese tradition.
50:44The whole point of rising up was to re-establish samurai values, put the country on a strong footing against this influx of foreign ideas and foreign pressures.
51:00It just feels like an extraordinary betrayal.
51:02Saigo joins a growing movement of samurai, prepared to fight for the survival of their identity.
51:12For six months, Saigo has been leading a rebel army against the emperor, but it's a war they're not winning.
51:26They started off as 20,000 men and they're getting picked off, one by one, each battle at a time.
51:32And they know that this is their last, final stand.
51:33Now, Saigo must prepare for the decisive battle.
51:34Now, Saigo must prepare for the decisive battle, to protect all that he holds dear in the world.
51:37Saigo has been leading a rebel army against the emperor, but it's a war they're not winning.
51:43They started off as 20,000 men and they're getting picked off, one by one, each battle at a time.
51:50And they know that this is their last, final stand.
51:53Now, Saigo must prepare for the decisive battle, to protect all that he holds dear in Japan.
52:06Saigo knows perfectly well that the end is coming.
52:09And so they party, and they exchange poems, and they drink, and they dance, and they sing, and they wait.
52:16And meanwhile the government's troops assemble.
52:24These samurai are the last 500 samurai left.
52:29They're the ones who refuse to convert to the new system.
52:32The ones who refuse to put down their swords.
52:34The ones who kept the tradition alive.
52:38They're on the hillside, they've been shelled, and now they've no choice.
52:42They have to fight.
52:43They walk out into a hail of gunfire.
53:04Saigo is felled by a gunshot wound to the hip.
53:08There's no point in surrendering, because they are nothing without their identity as samurai.
53:19And so they decide to die.
53:21According to one story, Saigo turns to his very good friend and second, whose name is Beku Shinsuke.
53:38And says, Shin, my good friend, here is as good a place as any. Let's do it.
53:43Beku cuts off his head.
54:00The world of the samurai, its culture, tradition, and values, dies with him.
54:17The fall of the samurai comes as the world is being transformed by the forces of globalisation and western expansion.
54:32Turning Japan's policy of strong border control, effective for generations, into a weakness.
54:48Throughout human history, if you're buffered away from other ideas and other cultures, you're more likely to become vulnerable.
54:57This is a culture that is allowed to sort of fold in on itself to intensify its own traditions.
55:16It's fantastically dangerous for any civilisation that values its own society to fall behind technologically.
55:23We have to work and live with others.
55:26And if we try to shut ourselves away, as the Japanese did for a long period, as other societies have done, then I think we are doomed.
55:34We are doomed.
55:56Failed leadership.
56:01Climate catastrophe.
56:04War.
56:05War.
56:07Disease.
56:09Social breakdown.
56:11Each one destructive on its own.
56:15But when the great forces of history come together, they can create a perfect storm.
56:21One that will come for every civilisation in the end.
56:25What remains is this.
56:35The human traces of lost worlds.
56:42And the soul of history's great civilisations.
56:46Precious treasures passed down the generations, brimming with ingenuity, creativity, and beauty.
56:59Within them lie clues to the fate and folly of the greatest empires of the past.
57:11And warnings about the perils of our own time.
57:12The story that is being told to us through those artefacts gives us a much more rounded history.
57:28And there is a lot that history teaches us about what we are doing in the present.
57:44As our own world order feels increasingly precarious, will we heed the lessons?
57:57History is in many ways a story of societal evolution.
57:59And change is necessary for any society to survive.
58:09The question is, how do you do so in such a way that keeps the society stable?
58:14What can these ancient civilisations tell us about our own societies and our own vulnerabilities?
58:40And what can we do to prevent a similar collapse?
59:10Even with bull癒, we can't, of course, tear the whole letrasข.
59:13Even with CM м
59:26That is no way that I can recognize ourselves...
59:29MM of L
59:34m
Be the first to comment