Incident outside Sakuradamon (2/2)Naosuke Ii assassination case

The roni held a preliminary meeting on March 1st and worked out plans such as how to attack Naosuke's Daimyo procession. The leader of the attack was Jiro Kinzoku, an extremist from the Mito domain, but he did not directly participate in the attack, and the leader of the perpetrators was Tetsunosuke Seki. The group stayed in Shinagawa on March 2nd and departed for Sakuradamon in the early morning of March 3rd. We aimed for the outside of the Sakuradamon gate while it was snowing. In the end, 18 people participated in the attack, of which 17 were ronin from the Mito domain. Only Arimura Jizaemon from the Satsuma domain participated.

On the other hand, Naosuke Ii and his group left the Hikone clan's Edo residence (Nagatacho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) at around 9:00 a.m. and headed for Edo Castle. The Daimyo procession consisted of approximately 60 people, including the palanquin that Naosuke was riding in, and 26 people serving as attendants. The upper mansion was located in the current front garden of the National Diet and the Constitutional Government Memorial Hall, approximately 400m to 500m from the Soto Sakuradamon gate, where the incident took place.

Naosuke apparently knew he was being targeted, but did not increase his security. There are various theories regarding this, including the theory that Naosuke himself refused to increase the security when he was looked down upon by those around him, the theory that he was not serious about the assassination plan, and the theory that he was prepared to die. In the first place, there had never been an attack on a daimyo procession near Edo Castle in the past. This seems to have caused them to let their guard down, and the Hikone feudal retainers surrounding the palanquin wore raincoats to protect themselves from the snow, and their swords had handle bags attached to them to protect them from the snow. This equipment was one of the reasons why they were unable to deal with the attacks of the Ronin.

The attack began under the guise of a ``palanquin complaint,'' in which a complaint was presented to a palanquin. Gorokuro Mori, a Mito Ronin who served as the vanguard of the procession, approaches and attacks the guards, and a single gunshot rings out. Taking this as a signal, the roni attacked the Hikone clan. The bullet hits the basket Naosuke is riding in, and Naosuke is injured. Although the guards resisted, they were defeated one after another in the scuffle. Then, the roni samurai approached the palanquin that Naosuke was riding in and stabbed their swords into the palanquin one after another. Afterwards, Arimura Jizaemon pulled the dying Naosuke out of the palanquin and beheaded him. He passed away at the age of 44, just minutes after the attack. It was a tragic end for a politician who rose to the rank of elder statesman.

Incident outside Sakuradamon ④ Is Naosuke Ii dead?

Arimura Jizaemon tried to take Naosuke Ii's head away, but Hidenojo Ogawara, a retainer of the Hikone clan, stood up. As if it were the last blow, he attacked Jizaemon. Hidenojo was slashed by the remaining Mito Roshi and later died, but Jizaemon was also seriously injured. Although he made some progress, he died in front of the residence of Endo Tanemori, the lord of the Omi Mikami domain (Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture). I tried to commit seppuku, but it didn't work and I ran out of energy. Naosuke's head was entrusted to the Endo family.

Naosuke's torso, which was left at the scene, was recovered by Hikone clan officials along with the casualties. He went to the Endo family to retrieve Naosuke's head, but the Endo family refused five times. The reason was that he was waiting for an autopsy by the Shogunate, but now he's so mean! The cause is unknown, but perhaps a small feudal domain was making trouble for the Ii family, which had 250,000 koku of land.

In the end, the shogunate intervened and received the head, but the name was to ``return the head of Kurota Kada, Naosuke's attendant.'' …that? The head was Naosuke's, right? You might think so, but it was actually a scheme by the Hikone clan to avoid the extinction of the family. By stating that ``Naosuke was injured and receiving medical treatment,'' they concealed the scandal that the lord of the domain had been assassinated, and tried to evade reform by choosing a successor, which had not yet been determined.

The shogunate also hid the unforeseen situation in which the Tairo had been assassinated, which could shake up the government, and also cooperated in order to prevent the enraged Hikone clan warriors from attacking the Mito clan and causing a civil war in the city of Edo. On the condition that the movements of the feudal retainers be restrained, he gave them time to decide on a successor to the Ii family and to inherit the headship of the family. The next day, they even sent a messenger to visit her. However, there were plenty of witnesses, mainly spectators of the Daimyo Procession.

In the end, Naosuke was declared dead one month later. Furthermore, the Hikone domain was later attacked by Naosuke's tyrannical rule and had its territory reduced by 100,000 koku. Also, in the Sakuradamon-gai Incident, eight other guards besides Naosuke died, but the surviving guards were later punished for failing to protect their master, such as being ordered to commit seppuku.

Incident outside Sakuradamon ⑤ What happened to the attackers?

What happened to the 18 people who attacked during the Sakuradamon Incident was that one person died during the attack, and others were seriously injured, leading to Arimura Jizaemon and several other people either dying or committing seppuku. Seki Tetsunosuke relied on the Satsuma domain and fled to the west, but Hisamitsu Shimazu closed all the checkpoints in Satsuma and refused help. As a result, he was eventually captured and beheaded by the Mito feudal retainers. Of the 18 people, only two managed to escape and survived until after the Meiji Restoration.

As for those who were involved in the attack, although not the perpetrators, the ringleader, Jiro Kinzoku, headed to Kyoto with Yusuke Arimura, a retainer of the Satsuma clan, but was captured by soldiers of the Satsuma clan. Mago Jiro was beheaded in Edo. As for Yusuke, there was a desperate plea for his life from Toshimichi Okubo and others of the Seitada-gumi, but Hisamitsu did not forgive Yusuke, who disobeyed his orders and took part in the assassination. In the end, he was escorted to Satsuma and ordered to commit seppuku.

Impact of the Sakuradamongai Incident

The shogunate managed to settle the matter by catching and punishing the attackers and preventing the Hikone clan from taking revenge, and promoted the union of the government and military. However, two years later, in January 1862, the ``Sakashita Mongai Incident'' occurred, in which Roju Nobumasa Ando was targeted by Mito Roshi, and the authority of the shogunate further declined. In October 1867, the Shogunate carried out the Restoration of Imperial Government as the storm of sonno-joi raged on. The Edo Shogunate, which had lasted 260 years, collapsed here.