Note (return) — Chapter I

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. 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. Bold, ambitious, able, and unscrupulous, Ii was the Richelieu of Japan. From this time on till his assassination on March 23, 1860, he virtually ruled the empire, and, in direct contravention to the imperial will, negotiated with foreign nations, as we have seen, for the opening of ports for trade with them. He was styled the "swaggering prime minister," and his name was long pronounced with contempt and odium. Lately, however, his good name has been rescued and his fame restored by the noble effort of an able writer, Mr. Saburo Shimada.6 But this able prime minister fell on March 23, 1860, by the sword of Mito ronins, who alleged, as the pretext of their crime, that "Ii Kamon No Kami had insulted the imperial decree and, careless of the misery of the people, but making foreign intercourse his chief aim, had opened ports." "The position of the government upon the death of the regent was that of helpless inactivity. The sudden removal of the foremost man of the empire was as the removal of the fly-wheel from a piece of complicated machinery. The whole empire stood aghast, expecting and fearing some great political convulsion."7