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]

The Shogun began to make a compromise to unite the Emperor's power and
the Shogun's, by taking the sister of the Emperor for his wife.

Meanwhile great events were taking place in the southern corner of
Kiushiu and on the promontory of Shikoku, events which were to effect