April 11, 1868

Surrender of Edo

Edo Castle is handed over without a fight

The battle expected to engulf one of the world's largest cities was replaced by a negotiated handover of the castle.

3 May 1868, by negotiation

Edo Castle, the former shogunate's administrative center, was handed over to the emperor's army without a fight on 3 May 1868. The date usually quoted as “April 11” is the unconverted traditional Japanese date — Keiō 4, fourth month, eleventh day — not a rival event date.

The transfer followed talks in Edo between Katsu Kaishū, representing the former shogunate, and Saigō Takamori, representing the new government's army. After the victory at Toba-Fushimi the eastern expedition had been preparing to assault the castle; the negotiations let the attack be canceled.

Who was, and was not, in the room

Katsu — not Tokugawa Yoshinobu personally — conducted the decisive negotiations. Yoshinobu, already a former shōgun and already in a posture of submission, left Edo for confinement in Mito on the day the castle changed hands.

Emperor Meiji was not there either. The castle was transferred to forces acting in his name while he remained in Kyoto.

Bloodless is not the same as peaceful

Imperial forces obtained the Tokugawa administrative center without fighting for it, and Edo avoided the expected assault.

That did not end resistance in the city. Armed Tokugawa loyalists remained, and the pro-Tokugawa Shōgitai later fought the new government at Ueno.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 1868-05-03.

What the sources leave uncertain

The slug’s 1868-04-11 is the unconverted traditional Japanese date: the eleventh day of the fourth month of Keiō 4. Its Gregorian equivalent is 3 May 1868.
Japanese institutions sometimes render the traditional date simply as “April 11” in English. Scholarly works that explicitly convert the calendar give 3 May.
The listed title’s initial word “July” does not belong to the castle handover. Edo’s later renaming as Tokyo is a separate event and likely caused the metadata conflation.