SUBJECT FILE NO. SA-0027
BUSHI ARCHIVE
Ii Naosuke
Ii Naosuke
Tairō of the Tokugawa Bakufu
SECTION I -- SUBJECT PROFILE
| Name | Ii Naosuke |
|---|---|
| English | Ii Naosuke |
| Origin | Japan |
| Lifespan | 1815–1860 |
| Gender | Male |
| Century | 19th C. |
| Clan / Role | Daimyo |
| Title | Tairō of the Tokugawa Bakufu |
SECTION II -- OVERVIEW
Born in 1815 as the fourteenth son of the daimyō of Hikone, Ii Naosuke was the unlikeliest of inheritances; he became lord of Hikone only in 1850 after every senior brother had died or been adopted out.Within five years the bakufu's American-treaty crisis brought him to the center of national politics.
As Tairō (Great Elder) from 1858, he made the two decisions that defined his tenure and ended his life.First, he signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States in 1858 without obtaining Imperial sanction — the so-called 'unequal treaty' that opened Japan to foreign trade on terms favorable to the Americans.
Second, he conducted the Ansei Purge of 1858–1859, in which he had over a hundred political opponents executed, exiled, or stripped of position, including the most prominent figures of the imperial loyalist movement.On the morning of March 24th, 1860, eighteen ronin from Mito and Satsuma — domains he had purged most heavily — ambushed his palanquin outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle.
He was beheaded in the snow within sight of the bakufu's central building.
SECTION III -- CHRONOLOGY
SECTION IV -- NOTABLE STATEMENTS
“If we wait for Imperial sanction we will wait until the foreign warships sit in the harbor of Kyoto.”
SECTION V -- FIELD NOTES
[A]The Assassins in the Snow
Snow had fallen heavily the night before March 24th, 1860. The Sakurada Gate was unusually quiet at the morning hour. Eighteen ronin took up positions along the route Ii's procession would follow. The first man fired a pistol into the palanquin to signal the attack; the others closed with swords. Ii's bodyguards, hands stiff in the cold, were overwhelmed within minutes. The ronin took his head as evidence and fled.
SECTION VI -- LEGACY & IMPACT
Ii Naosuke is one of the most contested figures in Japanese political history. Pre-war Imperial-loyalist historiography treated him as a near-traitor for signing the unequal treaty without Imperial sanction. Postwar scholarship has been more sympathetic, treating his treaty signing as the only realistic response to the gunboat ultimatum and his ruthless purge as a desperate attempt to hold the bakufu together. Either way, the Sakuradamon assassination is dated by most historians as the political moment after which the bakufu could no longer be saved.
SECTION VII -- MAJOR DEEDS
- [01]Hikone domain reform (1850s)
- [02]Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1858)
- [03]Ansei Purge (1858–1859)
- [04]Patronage of tea ceremony culture at Hikone