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Updated: May 19, 2025
In the face of this instruction the conservative samurai had no choice but to disperse or commit suicide. Some twenty of them, however, made their way to Yedo bent upon killing Ii Kamon no Kami, whom they regarded as the head and front of the evils of the time. The deed was consummated on the morning of the 24th of March, 1860, as Ii was on his way to the shogun's castle.
Had the succession been given to him then, he would doubtless have adopted a liberal policy. On the other hand, his appointment would have been equivalent to the abdication of Iesada, and in order to avert that catastrophe, the shogun's entourage contrived to obtain the appointment of Ii Kamon no Kami to the post of prime minister in Yedo. This baron was not less capable than courageous.
Dark shadows gather like a frown round the Gate of the Cherry Field, where Ii Kamon no Kami's blood stained the winter snow-drifts some sixty years ago, because he dared to open the Country of the Gods to the contemptible foreigners; and in the cry of the tofu-seller echoes the voice of old Japan, a long-drawn wail, drowned at last by the grinding of the tram wheels and the lash and crackle of the connecting-rods against the overhead lines.
Thus his Majesty was induced to issue an edict which conveyed a reprimand to the shogun for concluding a treaty without previously referring it to the feudatories, and which suggested that the Mito and Owari feudatories should be released from the sentence of confinement passed on them by Ii Kamon no Kami. This edict startled the Bakufu.
But in position and power none in the empire could rival him. He was the head of the Fudai Daimios. His family was called the Dodai or foundation-stone of the power of the Tokugawa dynasty. His ancestor, Ii Nawo Massa, had been lieutenant-general and right-hand man of Iyeyas. Ii Kamon No Kami, owing to the mental infirmity of the reigning Shogun, had lately become his regent.
A shrewd, clever, and scheming old man, the Prince of Mito now became the defender of the cause of the Emperor and the mouthpiece of the conservative party. At the head of the Bakufu party was a man of iron and fertile resources, Ii Kamon No Kami. He was the Daimio of Hikone, a castled town and fief on Lake Biwa, in Mino. His revenue was small, being only three hundred and fifty thousand koku.
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