Sakuradamon incident
The murder of Tairō Ii Naosuke by Shishi on March 24, 1860 is referred to as the Sakuradamon incident ( Japanese 桜 田 門外 の 変 , Sakurada-mongai no hen ) .
Ii had incurred the wrath of Sonnō-jōi activists by signing the Harris Treaty without the consent of Emperor Kōmeis . His tough crackdown during the Ansei purge , to which a large number of their ranks fell victim, made it even worse.
On March 24, 1860, Ii and his entourage were just outside the Sakurada Gate ( Sakurada-mon ) of Edo Castle when 17 samurai from Mito and one from Satsuma ambushed him, overpowered his guards and beheaded him.
One of the samurai was killed in action, four seriously injured committed seppuku , eleven were captured and executed, and two managed to escape.
Ii's assassination dealt a severe blow to the Tokugawa shogunate and drew further actions directed against the shogunate until the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, abdicated in 1867 and the Tokugawa troops were decisively defeated in the Boshin War of 1868–1869.
See also
literature
- Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan . Volume 7. Sakuradamongai Incident. Kodansha, Tokyo 1983. ISBN 0-87011-627-4 .
- John Whitney Hall (ed.): The Cambridge history of Japan . Volume 4: Early modern Japan. Cape. 14: “Books and publishing”, 2. unchanged. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994.