ronin

Kyoto was the capital of Japan because there are Emperor.
But Japan's real capital was Edo (now Tokyo) of the base ground of the Tokugawa clan.
　
Among the flow of abandonment of this closed-door (Sakoku) policy，Tokugawa  was backlash of public opinion was not able to ignored.
Although it would be unusual thing，they had consulted to Emperor of Kyoto.

This had resulted in a significant change.
At that time，power was born to the Emperor who was only the presence of authority.
After this，Kyoto was became at the center of the political.

By the way，Japanese people's recognition to Western countries at that point in time.
Especially samurai and reading class of countries in the west of Japan.
It was consistent  "They are invaders".

”That is not right.”

People who say so was immediately killed as ”Traitor”.
Yes，”Ronin” appeared on the stage of history of Japan here.

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Satsuma and Choshu had been considered originally a virtual enemy from Tokugawa.
They become presence of the centerpiece finally to defeat Tokugawa.
　
They were all basically worked along the country's policy as persons of a state organizations.
Of course that isn't Japan's state organization.
For example，that is Satsuma organization
　
Ronin was unlike their.
Ronin was samurai who has not serve the lord for various reasons.
Basically reason is destruction of the country they belong.
Therefore，occurrence of Ronin were most often after the Battle of Sekigahara.　
They therefore have existed naturally for hundreds of years.

But in this case, the Ronin was revolutionist, so to speak.

Rightly there were many countries that follow the policy of the Tokugawa as the policies of the state.　
Because opposition to it，many samurai of those countries was become Ronin.

They went to Kyoto.