Wen | Zhao Kai
As Iei Nobuki promoted his 13-year-old tokugawa Ieshige to the position of shogun, a major purge of dissidents, mainly Mito clans, began in Kyoto and Edo at the same time, known as the "Ansei Prison". In Kyoto, Izuhito's close associate, the "Old Naka" Mamabe Katsukatsu, who was in charge of liaison with the imperial court, first raided the residence of the Mito Domain samurai Ukai Yoshizoemon and found the so-called Mito Domain "conspiracy" of the "Secret Edict of the Fifth Noon". Mabe, who thought he had a plan, took this secret edict and ran to see Emperor Takaaki.
Filial piety to the Emperor
The Emperor's family has staged many traditional dramas in Japanese history of losing the pawn and abandoning allies, but in the face of mabu's soft and hard hand, Emperor Takaaki appeared quite tough, and he generously admitted that the "Secret Edict of The Fifth Noon" was indeed his own meaning, and after minor modifications, he promulgated it on September 13. In this "Secret Edict of the Fifth Afternoon", Emperor Takaaki publicly cried out for Tokugawa Qizhao: "It is said that the Mito and Owari families were punished, and the rest of the clan families were punished by the same order... What is the sin of all these people? It's hard to know. With these words at the bottom, the subsequent demand for the daimyo of the whole country to participate in this matter "with a loyal heart" is almost a public shout.
Objectively speaking, the "Secret Edict of the Fifth Afternoon" did not spread throughout the Japanese archipelago, except for the Mito Domain, only Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa and other thirteen male clans who had always competed with the shogunate received this edict. However, Shimazu Kibin, who had been advancing and retreating with Tokugawa Kisaki for a long time, took the lead in fighting the banner of the army of Shangluo, and with the military strength and financial resources of the Satsuma Domain at that time, it was not completely invincible against the Tokugawa shogunate, which was worried about internal and external troubles at that time. However, Shimazu Suddenly fell ill during the military parade and died on August 24, causing the world to turn suspicious eyes to Naohiro Ii, who was secretly happy.
The unexpected death of Shimazu Kibin not only forced nabeshima Nabeshima Naomasa, the equally powerful lord of The Hizen Domain, and Keikine Mori, the lord of the Choshu Domain, to pause and wait and see the situation. However, the "Ansei Prison" launched by Naohiro Ii then swept through Edo and Kyoto, and spread throughout the country. A large number of aspirants who held the view of "honoring the king and destroying the king" were arrested, or beheaded or ordered to be cut off. However, this high-pressure tactic eventually provoked a strong backlash: on March 24, 1860, Ii Naohiro was assassinated by the mito domain samurai outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo.
The change outside the Sakurada Gate
Five months after the assassination of Naohiro I, Tokugawa Kisaki died suddenly, five months after the assassination of Naohiro Izumi, and the Cause of Death announced by the Tokugawa shogunate was a myocardial infarction. However, both the government and the public decided that this matter was inseparable from the samurai under Naohiro Ii. Faced with the dissatisfaction of the powerful clans led by mito domains with the shogunate, Tokugawa Ieshige, who had just served the pro-government of the government, had no solution, and could only follow the will of the "old" Ando Nobunaga, who inherited the legacy of Naohiro I, and began to implement the policy of "public-military integration" that Tokugawa Kisaki had always advocated during his lifetime.
The so-called "public-military ensemble" refers to the joint government between the emperor, who represents the power of the komitsu, and the shogunate, which represents the interests of the samurai. In fact, since the fall of Kamakura Genji, no one in the previous shogunates has dared to openly abandon the emperor and "go it alone", so the Tokugawa shogunate's great fanfare of "public-military integration" is nothing more than a means of alleviating the interference of the powerful clans in the affairs of the shogunate by strengthening the emperor's support for the shogunate.
At that time, Tokugawa Kisaki proposed the "combination of public and military forces" in order to suppress the "founding faction" through the support of the emperor and the secretary of state, and at the same time suppress the "founding faction" by promoting his son Tokugawa Keiki to the position of shogun, but at this time, Ando Nobunaga revived the old matter in order to use the hand of the emperor to suppress the slogan of "honoring the king" of the various clans.
Prince Hemiya, the eighth imperial daughter of Emperor Inhihito, and the half-sister of Emperor Hyomaki
At this time, both the Kyoto Imperial Court and the Tokugawa shogunate realized that they could not face the drastic changes since the founding of the country on their own, and that group heating was the only choice, but at the specific operational level, both sides had their own plans. In Emperor Hyomaki's view, marrying his sister and miyako to Tokugawa Ieyashigemoto was not a big deal, provided that the Tokugawa shogunate had to commit to completing the "Shogi" within ten years.
After all, as long as Japan did not become a colony in the West, the status of the Emperor's lineage could not be shaken. The Tokugawa shogunate, on the other hand, knew that the founding trend was irretrievable, and rushed to break with the West, and in the end, the shogunate and the great powers could only fight to the death, and the powerful clans everywhere sat on the benefits of the fishermen. Therefore, in the midst of repeated negotiations and mutual quarrels, the two sides finally decided to complete the marriage of Tokugawa Iemo and Prince Wakamiya first, and the shogunate issued an order to mobilize the samurai of the whole country to go to war in the west a little later.
Regarding the marriage of the "Prince of Hegong", there is no shortage of criticism among the secretaries of state who have always paid attention to the so-called "emperor's bloodline". In this regard, Emperor Hyoming had to personally issue an internal edict to explain to the members of the imperial family and the secretary of state: "The marriage between the palace and the palace was discussed many times because of the barbarian incident, and the shogunate promised to be destroyed for seven or eight years or even ten years, and the marriage between the palace and the palace was determined." ”
Just as all perfunctory and expedient measures will eventually be alienated by the ambiguity of them, the sincerity of the "public-military integration" movement, which from the beginning was lacking on both sides, eventually turned this drama that could have united the forces of all classes in Japan into a sonata of the division of the archipelago. On October 3, 1861, in the first year of Bunkyū's reign, he set out from Kyoto as a prince, and rumors spread throughout Japan that the shogunate was going to take the princess hostage and would soon depose the emperor.
To avoid ulterior motives attacking the princess's wedding procession. The Tokugawa shogunate could only order the 29 clans along the way to enter Edo with their miyakoto to declare martial law. In order to quell the rumors, the Tokugawa shogunate also granted the Kyoto imperial court an unprecedented amount of money to mobilize the lords of the powerful clans such as Choshu and Satsuma to lead an army of Shangluo. But it is clear that both the gong and the military are full of suspicions about each other, and there is an urgent need for third-party forces to vouch for this political deal.