Perry and his fleet of coal powered ships pulled into port in Japan demanding, among other things, that the Tokugawa Shogunate open up the country to diplomatic and open commercial relations with the United States. The landing of Perry's "Black Ships" made it apparent that Japan would have to take steps to make the country capable of competing with western powers or become a western imperialist playground as China had become. At roughly the same time as the arrival of Perry's fleet, Japan was experiencing problems with a slowly changing economy. Once benevolent lords were becoming less and less cooperative in doing their part in the old feudal or "moral economy," which demanded loyal hardworking peasants who in return received protection and fairness from their lord. The gradual breakdown of Japan's "moral economy," coupled with Perry's ominous black ships and the looming prospect of falling into the same trap as China had, left Japan ripe for change. This change would come to be known as the Meiji Restoration, and effectively led Japan through a rapid modernization procedure and in the end left the country as a world power both militarily and economically. While the Meiji period resulted in a modern and much more powerful Japan, the individuals that lived through it often had very different experiences. This is illustrated very well in the autobiographies of two men who were a product of this period in Japanese history. Fukuzawa Yukichi and Kayano Shigeru were both men who were directly affected by the Meiji Restoration. Fukuzawa was a low ranking samurai under the semi-feudal Tokugawa regime. He disliked the feudal government and as a student of first Dutch and later English, was instrumental in inciting many of the changes that occurred during the Meiji Period. Fukuzawa was able to watch his life's work turn Japan from the backward, feudal nation which he held it to be into the modern, international power which he was so proud to be able to see near his life's end.
