Feudalism, which had for nearly seven centuries controlled the administration of the empire, seemed now to have come to an end, but institutions so deeply rooted in the life of the nation and so long upheld by persons whose vital interests were interwoven therewith were not to die away without a struggle. It was mortifying to the supporters of the shōgun, who had so recently renounced his office from disinterested motives, to see his policy reversed, his old enemies raised to the highest posts of the new government, and he and his late councilors completely excluded from official life. The Chōshū baron and his son received the imperial pardon and reëntered Kyōto, while they as well as Sanjō Sanetomi were restored to their former ranks; the soldiers of Satsuma, Chōshū, Aki, Owari, and Echizen displaced the men of Aidzu and Kuwana as guards of Kyōto; and radical changes were made in official posts and emoluments, the offices of _sōsai_, _gijō_, and _sanyo_ being newly established under the presidency of Prince Arisugawa. The first _gijō_ were Princes Yoshiaki and Akira, together with Sanjō Sanetomi, Iwakura Tomomi, and the barons of Satsuma, Echizen, and Tosa. The _sanyo_ were Ōhara Shigenori, Saigō Takamori, and Ōkubo Toshimichi. More than twenty court nobles were removed from office and the administrative power was assumed in effect by a government under the direct control of the sovereign. [Illustration: DOWNFALL OF THE EDO GOVERNMENT 1867-1868] On December 10 it was announced to the late shōgun, by order of the emperor through the medium of the barons of Owari and Echizen, that his administrative functions had been transferred to the emperor, and he was at the same time privately instructed to resign his post of lord keeper of the privy seal and to surrender the provinces hitherto forming his fief. The news of these instructions produced great excitement among the _fudai_ barons, and the shōgun, apprehending that they might resort to violence on his behalf, petitioned the sovereign to allow him temporarily to retain the post of lord keeper of the seal as well as to hold the provinces of his fief, though he repeated his expression of resolve to divest himself of all administrative authority. This course did not, however, entirely allay the umbrage of the _fudai_ barons, especially the lords of Aidzu and Kuwana. The shōgun himself, suspecting that the order stripping him of his dignities and possessions had been issued at the instigation of the chiefs of Satsuma and Chōshū, withdrew from the Nijō palace and shut himself up in the castle of Ōsaka. There, however, he was urgently counseled by the barons of Owari and Echizen to abandon all resistance to the throne and to present himself peacefully at the imperial court, and in obedience to this advice he was about to enter Kyōto guarded by a powerful escort, when intelligence reached him from Edo to the effect that a number of Satsuma _rōnin_, having