Imperial Japanese Navy - Creation of The Imperial Japanese Navy (1869)

Creation of The Imperial Japanese Navy (1869)

From 1868, the restored Meiji Emperor continued with reforms to industrialize and militarize Japan to prevent the United States and European powers from overwhelming her. On 17 January 1868, the Ministry of Military Affairs (兵部省, also known as the Army-Navy Ministry) was established, with Iwakura Tomomi, Shimazu Tadayoshi and Prince Komatsu-no-miya Akihito as the First Secretaries.

On 26 March 1868, the first Naval Review in Japan was held in Osaka Bay, with six ships from the private domainal navies of Saga, Chōshū, Satsuma, Kurume, Kumamoto and Hiroshima participating. The total tonnage of these ships was 2,252 tons, which was far smaller than the tonnage of the single foreign vessel (from the French Navy) that also participated. The following year, in July 1869, the Imperial Japanese Navy was formally established, two months after the last combat of the Boshin War.

In July 1869, the private domanial navies were abolished, and their 11 ships were added to the seven surviving vessels of the defunct Tokugawa bakufu navy to form the core of the new Imperial Japanese Navy. In 1870, the new government drafted an ambitious plan to create a Navy with 200 ships organized into ten fleets. It was abandoned within a year due to lack of resources. In February 1872, the Ministry of Military Affairs was replaced by a separate Army Ministry (陸軍省) and Navy Ministry (海軍省). In October 1873, Katsu Kaishu became Navy Minister.