 The French-built ironclad warship "Kōtetsu", originally purchased by the shogunate to the United States but suspended from delivery when the Boshin war started due the official neutrality of foreign powers, became the first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy when the Emperor Meiji was restored, and had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay in May 1869, which marked the end of the Boshin War, and the complete establishment of the Meiji Restoration.In 1867, the southern principality of Satsuma, a now-declared enemy of the Bakufu, also invited French technicians, such as the mining engineer François Coignet.Coignet would later become the Director of the Osaka Mining Office.