Matsukata Masayoshi when quite young entered the service of his Han and took part as a Satsuma clansman in the events which preceded the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. He was a fervent advocate of the establishment by the Satsuma Chieftain of a provincial navy, and in this proposal he met with some success, as his clan purchased several ships which at a later date carried the Satsuma flag (a circle with a cross in it) into action against vessels of the Tokugawa squadron under Admiral Enomoto, though without achieving any substantial victory. The knowledge which Matsukata acquired in his young days of matters naval was mainly obtained at Nagasaki from the Dutch, and he was in this way brought into contact with Western people at an early age. This was prior to the opening of the Treaty ports, when the Dutchmen were the only foreigners allowed to reside in the Japanese Empire. Nagasaki was reopened to general foreign trade and intercourse on the 1st of July 1859, under the terms of the Elgin treaty of the previous year. [Illustration: COUNT MATSUKATA] The monetary system in vogue in the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate was based on an obsolete plan established as far back as 1600 A.D. and various causes had combined to bring the currency of Japan into the utmost disorder. His course of study led Matsukata to appreciate the necessity of action long before the opportunity came to him to put his ideas into practice. The coins in circulation had become debased, having lost in quality and quantity by successive recoinage, to which the Shogunate had resort as a relief measure at times of financial distress. Some of the feudal lords, moreover,—of whom there were in all some 270,—had secretly coined money, and counterfeits had become numerous. Most of the _Hans_—_i.e._ baronial administrations—had issued paper money for circulation within their respective jurisdictions, and the value of such notes had undergone great depreciation. The Shogun’s administration was prompt to realise, on the opening of the country to trade with Western nations under the treaties, the serious loss which the country was sustaining on account of the disordered state of the coinage, but before any adequate steps were taken towards reform the Shogunate regime came to an end and an new era dawned for Japan under the beneficent influences of the reign of Meiji.