Japan's march music ("Koushinkyoku",行進曲) tradition began in the 19th century after the country's ports were forced open to foreign trade by the Perry Expedition. An influx of Western musical culture that the newly arrived traders and diplomats brought with them swept through Japanese musical culture, leaving a lasting legacy on the country's music. Japanese and foreign musicians of the time sought to impart Western musical forms to the Japanese, as well as combining Japanese-style melodies with Western-style harmonization. Furthermore, with Japan's government and society stabilized after the Meiji Restoration, the country sought to centralize and modernize its armed forces, with the armed forces of France and Prussia serving as models. All of these helped augur in what would later become modern Japanese music. The march genre, already sharing roots with the preexisting tradition of "gunka", or military songs, became very popular, especially in the years after Japan's victories in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War.