The Reconsideration Of The Coup In The 14th Year Of Meiji And Shigenobu Okuma

The Coup in the 14th year of Japan Meiji is an epoch-making event in modern Japanese history. In this coup the liberal bureaucracy under the lead of Shigenobu Okuma was excluded from the government, but the Saciqiao Feudatory government was established represented by Ito Hirobumi. The occurrence of this coup results in the profoundly changes in the politics and economy of the modern Japan and has deeply influence on the modern Japanese history. Therefore, to study this coup intensively is helpful to reveal the cause and effect of modern Japanese history. But so far there are no uniform recognitions about the coup in the 14th year of the Meiji in the historiography field and some doubtful points are in existence. For example, there are many problems in the cause of this coup. Moreover, in the two focuses of the coup, whose thought of constitutionalism was fit for the development of the Japanese history, Ito Hirobumi's or Shigenobu Okuma's, etc. It is necessary to consider and evaluate again these problems. In this paper, I reconsider the coup in the 14th year of Meiji and its influence from the cause of it and compare the constitutional thoughts of Ito Hirobumi and Shigenobu Okuma. This thesis is consisted of three parts which are preface, text and conclusion. In the preface I discuss the aim of this topic and the current research at home and abroad. The text includes three chapters. In chapter one, I narrate the reconsideration of the cause of the coup in the 14th year of Meiji; In chapter two, I compare the thoughts of constitutionalism between Ito Hirobumi and Shigenobu Okuma; In chapter three, I discuss the negative influence of Ito Hirobumi's constitutional thought on modern Japan. The last part is the conclusion of the full thesis. By the reconsideration of the cause of coup in the 14th year of Meiji and the comparison of the thoughts of constitutionalism between Ito Hirobumi and Shigenobu Okuma, I come to a conclusion that Shigenobu Okuma's thought of constitutionalism is accord with the development trends of Japanese history and it is unlikely to turn back that the whole world is developing towards democracy and peace.