In 1854 Commodore Mathew Perry arrived in Tokyo Bay and began negotiating the opening of Japan to the World. This ended of the Edo period and the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Japan, a xenophobic and proud nation, was not willing to be sectioned off into occupied zones, subject to the whims of European, or at the time, second rate powers like the United States. So, it set into motion a massive plan to reform all portions of its civilization with the intent of becoming a world power in as short order as possible.