Fall of the Empire (Tokugawa Shogunate)
A couple of the reasons the Tokugawa Shogunate Empire fell was because the empire hardly traded with foreign countries, except for the Dutch. Merchants were frowned upon and were considered to be the lowest social class because it was their job to communicate with foreigners. They wanted to remain in seclusion and have minimum contact with "outsiders" which also meant that they couldn't get many resources that were unavailable to Japan. The military had swords instead of guns, which made them weaker.
Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned because they got threats from Choshu and Satsuma, and that is when the empire ended. The empire was in charge for over 260 years. The city Edo (capital) was renamed to Tokyo. Japan started to modernize under new rule and they began to trade and built trade relationships with other countries such as England and Portugal. Religions from other parts of the world started to come into Japan, especially Christianity.
The Meiji Restoration took place after the Tokugawa Shogunate empire collapsed. There was significant social, political, and economic changes that took place. The feudalism system was abolished and was replaced with the cabinet system of government. Japan was now open to Western influences and trade. The military also became stronger and Japan started moving forward.