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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.
01:24Three men hold the future of Japan in their hands.
01:27A rigidly controlling ruler.
01:32An ambitious American naval commander.
01:36And a proud samurai.
01:38Caught between Japan's glittering past and uncertain future.
01:43The 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.
02:13The Aztecs of Mexico.
02:15And the samurai of Japan.
02:23Four great civilisations.
02:26Each a pinnacle of human ingenuity and achievement.
02:31Each lasted for centuries.
02:34Their people thought they would endure forever.
02:41Until suddenly.
02:44Everything changed.
02:49These civilisations.
02:52Faced challenges that are all too familiar today.
03:00Climate catastrophe.
03:01Pandemic.
03:10War.
03:14Challenges for which ancient societies had few solutions.
03:24But what if there was a place that had the answers to what went wrong?
03:29A place full of secrets and stories.
03:34A repository of memory stretching back through time.
03:42The British Museum.
03:45Home to more than 8 million artefacts.
03:49Is a record of how and why the greatest civilisations rose to power.
03:55And then spectacularly fell.
03:56And then spectacularly fell.
04:00Its treasures are the human traces that survived disaster.
04:05But might they also hold lessons for our own future?
04:10Every 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.
04:48The Pacific Ocean, off the eastern shores of Asia, lie the islands of Japan.
05:09A country like no other.
05:11Japan in the middle of the 19th century is entirely unique.
05:23It's different from anywhere else in the world.
05:27It's several islands.
05:29There's a huge population.
05:31A very educated and literate population.
05:33The city of Edo, modern-day Tokyo, is home to over a million people.
05:44And one of the largest cities in the world.
05:49Japan is a place of elaborate temples.
05:54Wooden houses.
05:57And immaculately manicured gardens.
05:59People dress in fine silks.
06:05Admire exquisite woodblock prints.
06:09And eat the latest fast food.
06:12Sushi.
06:17Japan's distinctive culture is a product of a deliberate policy.
06:22Of isolation.
06:29One hundred and twenty miles from the coast of mainland Asia.
06:35Japan has closed its borders to much of the outside world.
06:40For over two hundred years.
06:45Japanese are forbidden to travel abroad.
06:48On pain of death.
06:49So, it's developed this phenomenal culture, which is of its own.
06:55At peace for the last two centuries,
06:58the Japanese have developed a highly stylized set of rituals for everyday life.
07:04From the way to drink tea.
07:06To how to wear a kimono.
07:07Any society that has peace, instead of warfare,
07:11instead 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
07:24reveals the lengths the Japanese will go to in pursuit of perfection.
07:30What you have in Japan
07:53is this culture of creating these small and beautiful sculptures,
07:59which are barely there.
08:00It's an extraordinary thing because
08:03they're very, very small.
08:25What's special about Netscape is that they are basically
08:28miniature sculptures for the hand.
08:34They're made for you to feel during the day,
08:37to run your hands over and discover.
08:42Here's a Netscape of a rat.
08:46It's eating a beanstalk.
08:49Two very beady eyes made out of buffalo horn.
08:52Turn it round and there is its tail curled all the way round.
09:02Under one of its paws, you can just see there, beautifully.
09:05What you have within Netscape is a whole raft of subject matter,
09:13which comes out of Japanese mythology, folkloric traditions,
09:18food, story-telling, eroticism, eroticism, eroticism, fashion.
09:28All these things become amplified.
09:42They're fascinating for the level of craftsmanship and the miniaturization of whole worlds and 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.
10:12So how are you going to carry around all the things you might need for your daily life?
10:18So you have an external pocket.
10:21It's called a sagimono, a hanging pocket.
10:28This one is made from boxwood.
10:30And up here is the Netscape.
10:32And this is the way that you hold your hanging pocket from the belt of your obi.
10:38There is no way that Netscape can happen elsewhere.
10:50It's one of these extraordinary sort of efflorescences in a culture.
10:57They're not looking outwards, they're looking inwards.
11:01But beyond Japan's shores, the world is changing fast.
11:12Isolationism is usually madness for any except the most powerful societies.
11:18You'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,
11:28and then you become vulnerable to external enemies.
11:34By the 1850s, Europe is being powered by an industrial revolution.
11:43New technology is transforming everything.
11:47From steam powered transport to the mass production of ever more powerful weapons.
11:58And it's fueling an appetite for conquest.
12:08Industrialisation 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.
12:31It's impossible to overstate the importance of technology as a driving force.
12:37European 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.
13:04The United States is a 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.
13:16So they begin to consider Japan as a place that no one else has yet, quote unquote, opened to the West.
13:31Japan becomes the target.
13:33The man in charge of this mission is U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry.
13:49Perry 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.
14:21Steamships are amazing, but they require regular refueling.
14:25And that means the U.S. has to be absolutely certain that its ships can regularly refuel all across the Pacific.
14:35The Americans want very much to be able to coal up their ships at Japanese ports.
14:44Perry 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.
15:35But he has no idea who he will be dealing with.
15:40Perry doesn't understand very much about the political situation in Japan.
15:46Not very many people do.
15:47He mistakenly addresses his letter demanding the opening of ports and trade to the emperor.
15:57Not realizing that the emperor is not in control.
16:04Japan has had an emperor for more than a thousand years.
16:08But he is little more than a symbolic figurehead.
16:12The real power lies elsewhere.
16:14The real power lies elsewhere.
16:15The real power lies elsewhere.
16:16The real power lies elsewhere.
16:17So by May, a god is always in control.
16:38There are 7 figures.
16:41These are the shoguns, and shogun is a supreme warlord over all the other 200-plus warlords in the country.
17:11Shogun is a word that Westerners are quite familiar with. What it actually means is like foreigner-crushing generalissimo.
17:21We see in the center the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, and around him are arrayed his 14 successors.
17:32For 250 years, the Tokugawa family has ruled Japan.
17:40There are no significant rivals to their power. So it's a reign of exceptional duration and exceptional success in many ways.
17:55It's a bit like a mafia power family. What you get is a warlord who doesn't rule with just an iron fist, it's sort of an iron fist in a silk glove.
18:07The shogun's job is to placate, is to manipulate, and is to convince everybody to keep the peace.
18:19It is the Tokugawa clan who have tried to eliminate contact with the West.
18:34In the 17th century, they implemented a policy of seclusion called Sakoku.
18:41Closing the country off from what they see as dangerous outside influence.
18:50The foreigners were referred to as Nambanji, meaning Southern barbarian.
19:05Back in the late 1500s, the Portuguese and also the Spanish made their way into Japan, traders and missionaries, and they started to meddle in Japanese politics.
19:18They made quite a few converts to Christianity.
19:21And some of these converts were regarded as a bit suspect because it's not really clear where their loyalties lie.
19:27And so when this policy of more or less complete isolation was put in place, it made a great deal of sense.
19:34It was border control.
19:46The Tokugawa shoguns allow trade with their immediate neighbours, China and Korea, but limit European imports to the Dutch alone.
19:58and restrict them to the harbour of Nagasaki.
20:04Here, 20 or so Dutch merchants are confined to a tiny artificial island, just 600 feet long, called Dejima.
20:16They are the only Westerners allowed to do business with the Shogun.
20:21They were trading with the Dutch, but only because the Dutch said, we'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, new 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.
21:02The Tokugawa family's power base is the thriving city of Edo.
21:14The latest Shogun to inherit the title knows his control of the country,
21:28also depends on enforcing a rigid social hierarchy.
21:36Everybody knows their place, and it's this sense of cultural unity,
21:40which really binds Japan together and creates this unique tradition, this unique society.
21:50It's the same.
21:55At the top of the ladder are around 300 warlords, the Dainio.
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.
22:37Among the many Samurai, one is destined to lead the fight against Western influence.
22:58His name is Saigo Takamori.
23:09Saigo 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.
23:57In Japan, nothing embodies the status of a Samurai more than his sword.
24:02In all its extraordinary detail.
24:03If you're a Samurai, these swords that you carry, is basically, it's your soul.
24:05In Japan, nothing embodies the status of a Samurai more than his sword.
24:09In all its extraordinary detail.
24:22If 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.
24:38It's a symbol of loyalty, duty, honor, and pride.
24:44Called a katana, this is one of the most lethal and effective swords ever created.
25:07It can slice through skin and bone.
25:16The result of generations of craftsmen perfecting their skills.
25:27It is made in a way that no other sword is made.
25:31There's two pieces of metal that are melded together.
25:34It is also the sharpest sword in the world.
25:41On 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.
25:54It can be likened to the night sky or to mist or dew.
26:03Handles are covered in stingray skin for extra grip.
26:08And 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.
26:26It'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.
26:54Commoners in the street are going to back away from you.
26:58They might bow as you go past.
26:59So you've got a really strong sense that the country is really built around you and your values.
27:09It's the samurai and their sense of honour that holds the rest of Japan together.
27:13As the sun dips low over the coastal city of Edo, the harbour of Kurihama south of Edo Bay is settling down for the evening.
27:31When out of the haze, four hulking ships appear, bristling with cannon.
27:53American naval commander Matthew Perry has arrived.
27:57Perry's idea, it's shock and awe. That's what he wants to achieve.
28:04There's a great deal of menace to the way Perry approaches Japan.
28:10He has the cannon fire from offshore.
28:13He really wants to awe the Japanese with a sense of his power, with a sense of the technology that he's bringing.
28:19A group of senior samurai invites Perry to a meeting inside a hastily built pavilion on the shore.
28:29The Japanese officers realised that this small squadron of ships can completely outgun all the naval fortifications that Japan has set up around Edo Harbour.
28:41For Perry, these samurai looked a bit unimpressive.
28:45He saw that the weapons they were holding in the United States would be back in a museum.
28:50They'd be in someone's attic. These things are not credible modern weapons at all.
28:55Perry gives them an ultimatum. He says, either you've signed 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.
29:16He gives the Japanese a little white piece of cloth.
29:26He 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.
29:33Gunboat diplomacy meant making your will stick, whether you were right or wrong, whether 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.
30:40Saigo 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.
31:10The shogun is trying to square his job, which is to crush the barbarians, keep the foreigners out of Japan, on the one hand,
31:18with the brute fact of overwhelming American power, on the other.
31:25But it's a very difficult one, and 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.
32:02Armour 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.
32:23Armour in Japan is formed from plates that are sewn together.
32:34The main part of the armour covers the chest, so there's two plates of iron in this suit.
32:40And then attached to that are lacquered plates that compose the shoulder guards, and there are sleeves that often have chain mail within them, and shin guards.
33:01Its mask is built to scare you. It's meant to scare you. It's meant to be intimidating as well as functional.
33:19Helmets might incorporate an interesting motif, and 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 armour may once have proved effective against sword and arrow, but 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 defence.
34:11His armour, the thing that for generations has protected him, has protected his family, has protected his country, is now the thing which makes him weak.
34:27The whole thrust of history shows that the old, old cliché, the best guide to peace is to prepare for war.
34:35It'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.
34:44Eight months after the Americans' first landing in Japan, Commodore Perry returns to Edo Bay with a larger fleet.
34:58To demand an immediate answer from the shogun.
34:59It's time for the shogun to make his decision.
35:01He's got a choice in a way, but in another way he's got no choice.
35:02Because if he doesn't sign that treaty, he is basically saying, you know,
35:05you know, Americans are not going to be able to do it.
35:06It's time for the shogun to make his decision.
35:08He's got a choice in a way, but in another way he's got no choice.
35:13Because if he doesn't sign that treaty, he is basically saying, you know, America can invade and colonise.
35:18By signing the treaty, he has a sliver of control left, maybe.
35:30The 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.
35:51That's the least worst thing that the shogun can do at this point.
35:55The shogun agrees a deal with Perry.
36:04What the treaty does is it basically opens up trade in the seaports along Japan's coast.
36:14The agreement is the first of what become known as the Unequal Treaties.
36:24The treaties are extremely disadvantageous to Japan.
36:30Economically, they put tariffs, import-export duties, not under Japanese control but under international control.
36:39They are unable to protect their own markets.
36:43These are deemed to be infringements on Japan's national sovereignty.
36:49The shogun has been forced to make a humiliating climb down.
37:03Now he needs to cast his actions in a positive light.
37:08One remarkable work of art captures how his supporters tried to record this defeat as a victory.
37:21The Perry scroll is this long scroll which you unfurl and you read from right to left.
37:27You get scene after scene, little moments picked up from this return of Perry in 1854.
37:3416 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.
38:01From the Japanese side, you have a display of sumo wrestling.
38:07From 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.
38:29What you see here are these sumo wrestlers who are physically larger than the American soldiers.
38:36And you see the Americans admiring the physiques of the sumo wrestlers stroking their arms in a way that suggests a kind of admiration, adoration.
38:51A banquet scene shows the Japanese as dignified, while one American sneaks food into his hat.
39:04And others examine the maker's marks on the porcelain bowls.
39:08A 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 Perry's fleet of monstrous gunboats.
39:49And understands that Japan's unique way of life and traditions are now under threat.
39:57This is the first time Saigo has seen tangible evidence with his own eyes of Westerners.
40:03And 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.
40:40Saigo's worst fears are coming true.
41:02Thirteen years later, and Saigo's worst fears are coming true.
41:08As well as signing deals with the Americans, the shogun has opened up Japanese markets to Britain, Russia and France.
41:22Western goods start to flood in.
41:33And 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 is still a samurai, but he is a different kind of military man now.
42:14Along with foreign goods come foreign people.
42:30It's fair to say that a lot of foreigners are drinking heavily, behaving badly, getting into fights, generally disrespecting Japanese culture.
42:40You've got a sense, I think, that the world isn't really as it should be anymore.
42:52Imagine you're a samurai.
42:54You're at the top of your society.
42:56And suddenly all the things that you've been told about foreigners, it's suddenly not a story anymore.
43:00It 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.
43:20We see this in the modern world.
43:22There 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.
43:40Saigo 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.
44:01Saigo forms an alliance with other disaffected samurai.
44:08Together, 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.
44:31He can't be. That's impossible.
44:32Saigo and his fellow rebels head north through the winter snow to the city of Kyoto.
44:43Their 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.
45:13In theory, the Emperor, who's in Kyoto, is right at the top of the country's politics.
45:22But 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.
45:31But nevertheless, he has an extraordinary mystique around him and 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 and put himself in charge.
46:18Saigo is absolutely at the center of this epoch-making moment in Japanese history.
46:24It must just be an extraordinary sense of the moment having finally turned in his favor.
46:32Saigo is absolutely at the center of the Emperor's history.
46:35Dying in Japanese history
46:44Three months later, the shogun faces a growing rebel army of samurai, backed by the Emperor.
46:51Finally, the shogun agrees to leave Edo for good.
46:56After 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.
47:19Saigo believes he secured his country's future.
47:25But his fight for the soul of Japan is not yet at an end.
47:49Eight years after the Shogun was deposed, the new government has promised to preserve ancient
47:54traditions, while embarking on a crash course of dizzying modernisation.
48:02Once the Shogun is got rid of, the new government takes power.
48:05But almost immediately they realise the situation they are in.
48:09This wasn't just a weak Shogun.
48:11They realise there is no standing up to these foreign powers.
48:14The only way Japan is going to survive is if they modernise, and they modernise radically
48:20fast.
48:24The imperial government believes that only an industrialised nation can defend itself against
48:29Western powers.
48:33But modernising forces, once unleashed, are hard to control.
48:40The pace of change is breathtaking, and is captured in a high-tech new art form, imported from the
48:47West.
48:49Photography.
48:50Within a few years, you have railways coming in, you have new buildings going up.
49:00For centuries, people have walked, or they've gone in palanquins, or they've gone by water.
49:05All of a sudden, there are rickshaws all over the place.
49:11People start wearing Western clothes, bustles and bonnets.
49:16Even the Emperor is photographed wearing a Western uniform.
49:26At first, Saigo believes that some modernisation might strengthen Japan.
49:31But over time, he worries that the changes are sweeping away his country's traditional
49:37values.
49:38Saigo's having to ask himself, is this what I signed up for?
49:44Is this what I was fighting for just a few years ago?
49:51In 1876, the government issues an edict that enrages many samurai.
50:00Banning 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.
50:14That means that any peasants can fight.
50:17Any 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?
50:29And of course, they don't.
50:33Saigo has risked everything to put the Emperor in charge.
50:38But now, even his government seems to have reneged on its promise to defend Japanese tradition.
50:48The 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.
51:31For six months, Saigo has been leading a rebel army against the Emperor.
51:36But it's a war they're not winning.
51:42They started off as 20,000 men and they're getting picked off, one by one, each battle at a time.
51:49And they know that this is their last, final stand.
51:57Now, Saigo must prepare for the decisive battle.
52:01To protect all that he holds dear in Japan.
52:04Saigo knows perfectly well that the end is coming.
52:08And so they party, and they exchange poems, and they drink, and they dance, and they sing, and they wait.
52:16And meanwhile, the government troops assemble.
52:19They're the ones who refuse to convert to the new system, the ones who refuse to put down their swords, the 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.
52:54Saigo 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.
53:18And so they decide to die.
53:21According to one story, Saigo turns to his very good friend and second, whose name is Baby.
53:37Beppu Shinsuke, and says, Shin, my good friend, here is as good a place as any.
53:43Let's do it.
53:44Beppu cuts off his head.
53:59Beppu cuts off his head.
54:11The world of the samurai, its culture, tradition, and values, dies with him.
54:23The fall of the samurai comes as the world is being transformed by the forces of globalization and western expansion.
54:33Turning 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.
55:03This 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 civilization that values its own society to fall behind technologically.
55:24We 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.
55:34Failed leadership.
55:56Climate catastrophe.
56:04War.
56:06Disease.
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 civilization in the end.
56:31What remains is this.
56:35The human traces of lost worlds.
56:42And the soul of history's great civilizations.
56:47Precious treasures passed down the generations, brimming with ingenuity, creativity, and beauty.
57:02Within them lie clues to the fate and folly of the greatest empires of the past.
57:15And warnings about the perils of our own time.
57:27The story that is being told to us through those artifacts gives us a much more rounded history.
57:33And there is a lot that history teaches us about what we are doing in the present.
57:48As our own world order feels increasingly precarious, will we heed the lessons?
57:55History is in many ways a story of societal evolution.
58:04And change is necessary for any society to survive.
58:10The question is, how do you do so in such a way that keeps the society stable?
58:15What can these ancient civilizations tell us about our own societies and our own vulnerabilities?
58:27And what can we do to prevent a similar collapse?
58:46Celebrating Jane Austen.
58:59programs to mark 250 years of the novelist to listen to on BBC Sounds. This and everything
59:05across the BBC is made possible because we're funded by you. Thank you.
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