II Naosuke - Death and Consequences

Death and Consequences

Although Ii’s Ansei purge was very effective in silencing the officials and his high ranking opponents, it did not have the same effect on lower ranking samurai. Ii Naosuke’s 20 month dictatorial reign as Tairō came to an abrupt end in the third month of Ansei 7 (March 24, 1860).

In the Sakuradamon incident, Ii was attacked by a band of 17 young samurai loyalists from the Mito province and cut down just in front of one of the gates of the Shogun’s Edo castle entering to meet with the shogun. The assassination of Ii Naosuke, who was seen as the symbol of the bakufu’s power and authority, was construed as crushing any hopes for the resurrection of the shogunate's power.

The death of Tairō Ii Naosuke started a wave of loyalist terrorism across Japan, the poet Tsunada Tadayuki even wrote a poem praising Ii’s assassins. Soon attempts were being made on the lives of other members of the bakufu and their informants. The wave of popular dissent also turned against officials with a connection to Ii Naosuke, no matter how distant it was. Shimada Sakon, retainer of the Kujō, (one of the Sekke families; the 5 regent houses, and among the most powerful in the court), Imperial regent, was killed by dissidents for supporting the Harris treaty and helping Ii’s confidant, Nagano Shuzen, expose members of the court who were targeted during the Ansei purge.

The Shogun and the Bakufu were astounded and taken completely unaware by the death of Ii Naosuke. They didn’t even announce his death until several months after the assassination took place. Instead, during this time the Shogun and the bakufu first pretended that Ii was still alive and rendering service to the Shogun. Then they faked an illness and had him render his resignation to the Shogun before announcing his death. In this way Ii continued to serve the Shogun, even after death. Ii’s assassins were later granted a general amnesty by the bakufu, a precedent later used by Yamagata Aritomo, a key member of the Meiji restoration, to show that any action can be forgiven if it is performed for the betterment of the emperor.

Accounts of the dramatic event were sent via ship across the Pacific to San Francisco and then sped by Pony Express across the American West. On June 12, the New York Times reported that Japan's first diplomatic mission to the West received the news about what had happened in Edo.