 Although a close friend of Togo Heihachiro, he declined to join the military and did not participate in the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.However, after the Meiji Restoration, and the establishment of the new Meiji government in Tokyo he enrolled in the government's development and colonization program, and was sent to the United States for two years from 1872.On Shibayama's return to Japan, he entered the fledgling Imperial Japanese Navy as a naval artillery specialist.