Extending across at least 10 prefectures and involving hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers and rural samurai, the blood tax riots destroyed government offices, police stations, newly established public schools, and the homes of government officials and newly emancipated Burakumin (former outcasts). However, the riots were brutally suppressed by the Meiji government, which adopted a "shoot-to-kill" policy and brought in hired samurai mercenaries when police proved ineffective.
