This paper analyses how military technology was developed in Japan in the mid-19th century. I especially focused on development of guns in Japan in the mid-19th century by comparing with the military policy of Korea. Modern western countries that accomplished an industrial revolution started to invade into East Asia after the Opium war. As western steamships invaded into East Asia, they were armed with powerful guns, cannons, and troops.
The invasion of western imperialists caused a crack in a traditional political system of Japan. The political system of Tokugawa Japan which is called as Bakuhan Taisei(幕藩体制) started to collapse rapidly after Perry’s visit in 1853. The struggle between Bakufu(幕府) and Anti-Bakufu(反幕府) activists expanded into the civil war in the 1860s. Many western guns, cannons, and military technology were imported to Japan during the civil war. On the other hand, Korean who strictly maintained the exclusion of westerners strengthened a traditional military technology against the invasion of western imperialists. Korean government reorganized the traditional infantry who mainly armed with match locks, and conventional weapons.
I concluded that the success and failure of modernization in Japan and Korea was influenced by the military technology in the mid-19th century. Especially, the civil war in Japan was an important social factor which brought the difference of modern military technology between two countries. Japanese government that rapidly imported western military technology finally opened the door of Korea by gunboat diplomacy in 1876.