Seoul. During the aftermath of the Meiji restoration in late 1868, a member of the Sō daimyō informed the Korean authorities that a new government had been established and an envoy would be sent from Japan. In 1869 the envoy from the Meiji government arrived in Korea carrying a letter requesting to establish a goodwill mission between the two countries; the letter contained the seal of the Meiji government rather than the seals authorized by the Korean Court for the Sō family to use. It also used the character ko (皇) rather than taikun (大君) to refer to the Japanese emperor. The Koreans only used this character to refer to the Chinese emperor, and to the Koreans it implied ceremonial superiority to the Korean monarch which would make the Korean monarch a vassal or subject of the Japanese ruler. The Japanese were however just reacting to their domestic political situation where the Shogun had been replaced by the emperor. The Koreans remained in the sinocentric world where China was at the center of interstate relations and as a result refused to receive the envoy. The bureau of foreign affairs wanted to change these arrangements to one based on modern state-to-state relations. Ganghwa incident On the morning of September 20, 1875, the Japanese gunboat began surveying the Western coast of Korea. The ship reached Ganghwa Island, which had been a site of violent confrontations between the Koreans and foreign forces during the previous decade. The memories of those confrontations were very fresh, and there was little question that the Korean garrison would shoot at any approaching foreign ship. Nonetheless, Commander Inoue ordered a small boat to launch and put ashore a party on Kanghwa Island to request water and provisions. The Korean forts opened fire. The Un'yō brought its superior firepower to bear and silenced the Korean guns. After bombarding the Korean fortifications, the shore party torched several houses on the island and exchanged fire with Korean troops. The Japanese were armed with rifles and quickly routed the Koreans who carried matchlock muskets. Thirty-five Korean soldiers were left dead. The Un'yo then attacked another Korean fort on Yeongjong Island and withdrew back to Japan. News of the incident only reached the Japanese government eight days later on September 28, and the following day the government decided to dispatch warships to Pusan to protect Japanese residents there. There were also debates within