When Commodore Matthew Perry and the American black ships showed up in Edo Harbor, their appearance and subsequent "opening" of Japan set off an unpredictable chain of events in Tokugawa Japan, chief among them a civil war that broke out fifteen years later:_______
the Boshin War.
A) The Boshin War lasted only two years, between 1868 and 1869, and pitted Japanese samurai and nobles against the reigning Tokugawa regime, wherein the samurai wanted to overthrow the shogun and return political power to the emperor.
B) Ultimately, the militant pro-emperor samurai of Satsuma and Choshu convinced the emperor to issue a decree dissolving the House of Tokugawa, a potentially fatal blow to the former shoguns' family.

The Boshin War had two major engagements, firrst the Battle of Toba Fushimi in Januray 1868, that wouldtrigger the escape and abdication of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, and the battle of Hakodate in April 1869 that ended wit the capitulation of the Ezo Republic, which was created after the abdication of the Tokugawa shogun. 1869 marked the beginning of the Meiji Era and of the modern history of Japan, and also the return of power to the Emperor, which allowed the consolidation of the power of new elites originated from the dominions of Satsuma and Choshu.