Another important factor made for the fall of the shogunate. That factor was the traditional disaffection of the two great southern fiefs, Satsuma and Choshu. When Iyeyasu parcelled out the empire, he deemed it the wisest policy to leave these chieftains in full possession of their large estates. But this measure, construed as an evidence of weakness rather than a token of liberality, neither won the allegiance of the big feudatories nor cooled their ambition. Thus no sooner did the nation divide into two camps over the question of renewed foreign intercourse than men of the above clans, in concert with representatives of certain of the old court nobles, placed themselves at the head of a movement animated by two loudly proclaimed purposes: restoration of the administration to the emperor, and expulsion of aliens. This latter aspiration underwent a radical change when the bombardment of the Satsuma capital, Kagoshima, and the destruction of the Choshu forts and ships at Shimonoseki proved conclusively to the Satsuma and Choshu clans that Japan in her unequipped and backward condition could not hope to stand for a moment against the Occident in arms. But the unwelcome discovery was accompanied by a conviction that only a thoroughly united nation might aspire to preserve its independence, and thus the abolition of the dual form of government became more than ever an article of public faith. It is unnecessary to recount the successive incidents which conspired to undermine the shogun's authority, and to destroy the prestige of the Yedo administration. Both had been reduced to vanishing quantities by the year 1866 when Keiki succeeded to the shogunate.