Shinto during Meiji period?

The simple answer is that a large, unified entity is more powerful and self-reliant than several small quarreling ones.

Back in the old days, when Japan was divided into several independent states, no one state had everything it needed. This led to many battles over territory and resources, cost lots of money to pay, feed, and supply troops with weapons, the cost of rebuilding damaged communities, and one can never forget the amount of lives lost due to these power struggles.

A unified Japan would be free of those struggles, with the entire country working together and diverting resources from wherever they may be to wherever they were needed.

There's also the fact that men in power tend to desire more power, and the easiest way to accumulate more power (especially in those days) is to control more land.

Religion has always been an easy way to manipulate people into doing what you want, and it usually involves less bloodshed than open war, so it was simply the Meiji Government's preferred weapon of conquest.

I should know this Answer, but I'm so set against Religion, even Japanese religion gives Me the Creeps.