Samurai spirit

These days I started reading a book "Emperor of Japan, Meiji and his world, 1852 - 1912". The book describes Meiji Tenno's life as well as depicts Japan that had been transformed from a traditional feudal state to the world's leading power. I was curious about the modern period of Japan, especially what kind of steps Japan took in order to become the leading power from merely one of the Asian countries.
The most radical change is based on Japan's early modernization, which is also based on Meiji Restoration. And the Meiji Restoration is started by open-minded young-aged samurai who were dedicated to place their country into the same level as other western countries. Those samurai were neither socially high ranked groups, nor elite groups who studied a lot. They were nothing more than samurai who belonged to the local feuds at that time. By that time when USA pressures Japan to give up Japan's national isolation policy, however, they were the people in side of open-door policy. They led the imperial forces against Shogunate forces. They took down the Shogunate and made the first step towards modernization.
I saw the similar historical facts in Korea. About the same time Korea had also been pressured by foreign powers to be open to Western world. Similar to Japan, there were also two groups, one group for national exclusion policy, another group for open-door policy. And people in side of open-door policy were also young-aged elites. Even the fact that these young reformers carried out a coup d'etat for the sake of modernization is almost similar. But the modernization in Korea failed because of foreign power's interference and lack of elaborateness on their plan.
What I have learned about this history is this: successful revolution is based on elaborate and thorough plans. Planning heavily on failures and immediate gains will lose opportunities. Even though you don't know much about your field, I think sometimes it is more important to just believe in yourself and carry it out with courage. There is a difference between modernization attempts in Korea and Japan. People who attempted modernization in Korea were elite groups. They tried to see how to maintain their powers gained from coup d'etat, and they decided to use foreign power to clinch their revolution. But the interference of foreign powers and lack of detailed plans on modernizing the country itself led to tragic failure. Japan, in the other case, attained successful modernization by people with elaborate plans against Shogunate, and plans to reform the country itself.
In respect to nowadays, I think it is more important that when there is an opportunity, I should just carry out what I believe is right, with detailed plans for success.