Lets not forget the Meiji Restoration! When it started Samurai walked around the streets armed with katanas. Japan was extremely isolated and had little to no i

Lets not forget the Meiji Restoration! When it started Samurai walked around the streets armed with katanas. Japan was extremely isolated and had little to no industry. No railroads, no exports.. In ~30 years they put down 11,000 KM of railroad track, built 1500 steamships, and basically upgraded from a feudal society to an industrial one. They increased their annual coal production from nearly nothing to 20~ million tons in that time. It would be like if the EU went from knights and castles to making fighter jets in half a generation.