The Fall of Osaka castle refers to the capture of the Tokugawa

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

-held Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle

is a Japanese castle in Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan.Originally called Ozakajō, it is one of Japan's most famous castles, and played a major role in the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century of the Azuchi-Momoyama period.-Description:...

 by pro-Imperial "Kangun" forces on February 2, 1868.

The fall followed the Tokugawa defeat in the Battle of Toba-Fushimi

Battle of Toba-Fushimi

The occurred between pro-Imperial and Tokugawa shogunate forces during the Boshin War in Japan. The battle started on 27 January 1868 , when the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and the allied forces of Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa domains clashed near Fushimi...

. Troops loyal to the Bakufu tried to regroup under Tokugawa Yoshinobu

Tokugawa Yoshinobu

was the 15th and last shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful...

. At Osaka Castle, Tokugawa Yoshinobu gathered his advisors and military leaders to plan strategy and, to boost morale, advised that he would personally take to the field as commander of bakufu forces.

On January 31, 1868, Tokugawa Yoshinobu slipped away from Osaka Castle accompanied by the daimyo of Aizu and Kuwana to escape back to Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

 on the shogunate warship Kaiyō maru

Japanese battleship Kaiyo Maru

Kaiyō Maru was one of Japan's first modern warships, powered by both sails and steam.-Construction:She was ordered in the Netherlands in 1863 by the Bakufu, the government of the Shogun, the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij acting as agents. The ship was built at the yard of Cornelis Gips and...

. As Kaiyō maru had not arrived, he took refuge for the night on an American warship, USS Iroquois, anchored in Osaka Bay

Osaka Bay

Osaka Bay is a bay in western Japan. As an eastern part of the Inland Sea, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Kii Channel and from the neighbor western part of the Inland Sea by the Akashi Strait...

. The Kaiyō maru arrived two hours later and picked up the Tokugawa party.

When the remnants of his forces learned that the Shogun had abandoned them, they departed Osaka Castle, which was later surrendered to Imperial forces without resistance. The castle was seized and burnt on Sunday 2 February 1868. Yoshinobu later stated that he had been disturbed by the Imperial approval given to the actions of Satsuma and Chōshū, and, once the Imperial brocade banner had appeared, he had lost all will to fight.

The Castle of Osaka was highly symbolic as it was the power-base of the Tokugawa Bakufu in Western Japan. It was also historically significant and it had been the location of the Siege of Osaka

Siege of Osaka

The was a series of battles undertaken by the Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages , and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment...

, the decisive battle which established the power of the Tokugawa more than two centuries before. The Castle of Osaka was burnt and reduced to ruins by the new government, and was later used as a ground for military barracks.