The Tinted Lens of the Ii Side ―― The Eleventh Month of Ansei 5: From the Record of Inquiries into Mito Affairs to the Evil Hand Reaching Mito

The eleventh month of Ansei 5 (1858).Original
A bundle of rumor records had been placed at Ii Naosuke’s side.Original
The title was “Record of Inquiries into Mito Affairs.”OriginalOriginal

It means a book of the esoteric secrets of military strategy.Original
Tokutomi Sohō writes that Ii’s rule was “almost entirely a politics of espionage.”Original
He also writes that the politics of espionage was one characteristic of the Tokugawa shogunate, and though Ii was not its founder, there is no doubt that he relied on it exclusively.Original
Tokutomi’s view is that the Ansei Purge itself may be called the exposure of this politics of espionage.OriginalOriginal

Tokutomi writes that Nagano Yoshikoto and Utsugi, who were Ii’s right and left hands, were both men who “leapt about in the darkness.”Original
What they aimed at was the existence of a great conspiratorial group centered on Tokugawa Nariaki.Original
But examining Nariaki, the center of it, directly yielded no results.Original
So they investigated Kyoto, worked on those around him, and searched for “inescapable evidence.”Original
Tokutomi concludes that the result was “entirely wasted labor.”OriginalOriginal

The record of inquiries first borrows the words of Shinano no kami Sanada Yukitsura.Original
It is said that Yukitsura repeatedly stated that Nariaki was “not a man who should be brought back into the world again.”Original
It means he was a person who must never be allowed back into the world.Original
Next, the names of Nariaki’s confidants Fujita Seinoshin and Toda Chūdayū are raised.Original
It states that investigations made each time a foreign ship arrived were also submitted through the handling of these two men.Original
Tokutomi admits that on this point alone there is “likely no mistake.”OriginalOriginal

Nariaki’s Ambition and Defense

“Ever since he was called Shichirōmaro, he was especially the beloved child of the retired lord.”Original
The record of inquiries says that ever since the Hitotsubashi succession, Nariaki’s “scheming was strong,” and he disparaged the head of the house, Iesada, as a dark-witted lord, while spreading rumors that made Yoshinobu out to be a wise ruler without equal.OriginalOriginal

Even when his visits to the castle became frequent, unlike his former arguments on coastal defense, he was restrained in all matters and sought to please the officials.Original
To the senior councillor Abe Masahiro he gave heirloom armor, and he also gave gifts to Bizen no kami Makino Tadamasa.Original
On the other hand, whenever he saw something that would hinder the shogunate, his argument grew forceful; he would request meetings in the presence of the two finance magistrates who served as coastal defense officers, and once business was concluded, he would discuss the head of the house and spread rumors about Yoshinobu.Original
The record of inquiries concludes that all of this was a two-faced, duplicitous conduct that “bent matters this way and that, out of great ambition.”OriginalOriginal

Tokutomi explains that this was cited as evidence of Nariaki’s ambition to make Yoshinobu shogun and himself become guardian, so as to monopolize the governance of the realm.Original
However he also writes that “depending on one’s tinted view, it can be judged however one likes.”Original
It means it depends on the colored lens of the viewer.OriginalOriginal

What is interesting is that Nariaki’s own defense is also set out.Original
In the private talk of a certain shogunate retainer, it is stated that Nariaki had worked through channels as far as Kyoto to make Yoshinobu shogun and to move himself into the Nishinomaru as guardian, and that this amounted to the same as treason.Original
His own long-held wish was to receive the whole of Matsumae and Ezo in order to remove the trouble of the northern barbarians, and he had petitioned for this several times since the year of the horse in Tenpō.Original
There is no way the realm, which Tōshōgū had pacified through a thousand hardships, could be governed any better than by setting up his own son and himself serving as guardian.Original
“It is because petty men judge things by measuring them against their own hearts that the governance of the realm goes astray.”Original
This is a statement that the governance goes astray because petty men speculate by comparing things to their own hearts.OriginalOriginal

The Speculative Spirit of Satsuma no kami

The record of inquiries also touches on the marriage of the shogun Iesada.Original
It means whether a large bribe was received from Satsuma no kami.Original
The record of inquiries says that afterward there was also “an enormous dealing” from Satsuma no kami Shimazu Nariakira to Nariaki, and that Nariaki, swayed by the bribe, consented.Original
Tokutomi reads this as probably meaning that Abe arranged the marriage in order to cut off Nariaki’s ambition, and that Nariaki, bribed by Satsuma, was left to swallow his grievance in silence.OriginalOriginal

As for Nariakira, it is stated that, unlike a man of great stipend and high rank, he was outstanding in talent, and “like a lowly servant, he also had a speculative spirit.”Original
This is an assessment that he had a speculative spirit like a lowly servant.Original
His domain had grown rich through trade with Ryūkyū; he lent money to the lords of the western provinces to put them in his debt, and he “kept stored within his breast, needless to say the secrets of the shogunate, the state of affairs in the world, and the conditions of the age.”Original
The record of inquiries continues that although he and Nariaki traded criticism in public, in reality they were of one mind, and the retainers at his domain’s residence in Kyoto had also increased of late.OriginalOriginal

Tokutomi assesses this view of Nariakira as “mistaken on certain points.”Original
Nariakira had not the slightest admiration for Nariaki, but he was earnest and sincere about installing Yoshinobu.Original
The claim that he won over people’s hearts with money is contrary to the facts.Original
But he says that the point about keeping the state of the world stored in his breast is “certainly a fact without error.”Original
Tokutomi adds that this was because Nariakira had placed confidants even among shogunate subordinate officials such as Katsu Kaishū, who at the time was still only the head of naval trainees.OriginalOriginal

The Dog of the Mito House

The pen of the record of inquiries also turns toward shogunate retainers.Original
This is a statement that they had been let in on Nariaki’s schemes.Original
Tokutomi calls this “a truly astonishing fabrication.”Original
It is recorded that Echizen no kami Matsudaira Yoshinaga had been used as a tool of officials, that he now regretted it and was living under confinement, employing boys of eleven or twelve to fourteen or fifteen as pages, but that his retainer Hashimoto Sanai and others had stood in between and added various schemes.Original
Tokutomi writes that seeing this, one can understand why Sanai could not escape being “framed.”OriginalOriginal

It is stated that Saemon no jō Kawaji Toshiakira had an unrivaled friendship with Fujita Seinoshin as fellow students of the same school of spearmanship, that while he was magistrate of Nara he received a medicine case made by Nariaki himself, that he kept Kusakabe Isaji, a man belonging to both Mito and Satsuma, as though he were his own retainer, and that he had even taken him along to the reception of the Russian ship at Shimoda.Original
Tokutomi writes, “at this rate Kawaji is entirely a dog of the Mito house,” and argues that this must have been utterly bewildering for Kawaji, since in any circumstance he never forgot that he was a shogunate retainer.Original
The record of inquiries calls Kawaji a “wicked man” who deceived everyone and drew the council chamber into his faction.Original
To borrow Tokutomi’s words, in the eyes of Ii’s spies he was “a wicked creature beyond all help.”OriginalOriginal

Both alike became “tainted goods.”Original
Tokutomi writes that, in short, it was because they had sided with the theory of supporting Hitotsubashi.OriginalOriginal

For Iwase Tadanari, the commissioner of foreign affairs, it was especially long.Original
Relying on his own brilliance, he disrupted protocol in a student-like manner, ingratiated himself deeply with Hotta, and leaked confidential matters of the shogunate to the lords.Original
“There is nothing to be done about remaining a dependent son; as for taking massage, I have practiced it since my youth.”Original
It is a document stating that even remaining a dependent son did not matter, and that he had known massage since his youth, spread about without regard for who might hear.Original
Sohō evaluates this phrase as “truly capturing the very tone of Iwase’s own voice,” and writes in a manner suggesting that, amid the mixture of truth and falsehood, this phrase comes close to the truth.Original
It means: having given the matter thought, he was dismissed from office, denied the family headship, and ordered into confinement.Original
Sohō writes that one can imagine the degree of hatred on the Ii side.OriginalOriginal

Regarding Yoshinobu, it is recorded that around the twentieth day of the sixth month, on his way back from worship at Ueno, he stopped at Reiunji temple in Yushima and paid reverence to Taigenshū Myōō.Original
Sohō reads this as something deliberately reported as if Yoshinobu were trying to subdue the shogun through an incantation.OriginalOriginal

The night of the twenty-seventh day of the ninth month

Alongside the investigative reports, Ii’s hand moved in both Kyoto and Edo.Original
In Kyoto, beginning with the arrest of Umeda Unpin on the seventh day of the ninth month of Ansei 5 (1858), Ukai Tomonobu and his son Tomoaki on the eighteenth, and Kobayashi Yoshisuke on the twenty-second.Original
In Edo, on the eighteenth day of the ninth month, Iizumi Kinai, a retainer of the bannerman Soga Gonzaemon.Original
On the night of the twenty-seventh, shogunal officials broke into the residence of Kusakabe Isaji.OriginalOriginal

According to a letter by Chinone Iyo no suke, a Mito domain shishi, a large number of constables from the city magistrate’s office pushed in under the direction of the duty officer Matsudaira Senshū; the Satsuma rusui Tachibana Chokki and others were summoned to accompany them, while another rusui searched for documents and took them away.Original
“However, it was said there was no document relating to Kyoto.”Original
It is a document stating that there were no documents concerning Kyoto, it is said.Original
Chinone notes that this was probably because precautions had been taken from the previous day.OriginalOriginal

The shishi Katsuno Hōsaku, realizing that disaster was about to befall him, burned his notes and documents, threw himself into the Mito domain residence, and hid in the house of Ōno Kensuke.Original
The arresting officers seized his wife and his two children, Masatomo and Masamitsu, and took them away.Original
It means that you, my friend, are in danger first of all.Original
Sohō writes that Katsuno’s flight was probably due to this foreknowledge.OriginalOriginal

It is content stating that he placed in a box documents that must not fall into the hands of shogunal officials, handed it to Hasegawa Sakujūrō, and asked that it be returned later when his son Kumanaga grew up.OriginalOriginal

It means: bring him quickly and have him report in.Original
On the following day, the fourth, the Mito domain replied that both men were absent and their whereabouts unknown.Original
Sohō records, “In this way, the hand of the shogunal officials was gradually reaching as far as Mito.”Original
He also writes that, on the other hand, among the Mito domain’s own shishi there was a mood to rise up violently and push toward Edo, which was “like pouring oil on firewood.”OriginalOriginal

Still in haori and hakama

On the fourth day of the tenth month, the hand of the shogunal officials reached Fujimori Kyōsuke.Original
He was a scholarly shishi known by the name Tenzan, who received a stipend of rice for ten persons from Nariaki.Original
At the fifth hour of the night, when a constable came to his residence, Kyōsuke was in the middle of giving a lecture at Shinnyoin temple in Ueno.Original
The documents in the room were seized, and a palanquin was sent around to Shinnyoin.Original
“I would like to go back to my lodging for a moment to change clothes,” Kyōsuke said.Original
It means that he wished to return briefly to his lodging and change his clothes.Original
He was told that this was unnecessary, and he accompanied them just as he was, in his haori and hakama.OriginalOriginal

Kyōsuke answered that he had met Kusakabe only once some years before and once again after that, that he was hearing the names of Kimura and Iizumi for the first time, and that he was quite close with Katsuno, with whom he had exchanged visits to hear about the unrest in Mito.Original
When pressed with the suggestion that Kusakabe and the others might have agreed among themselves that matters would not be settled unless even officials of the shogunate were implicated, he, being of humble standing, answered, “I am aware that such a thing is utterly beyond my reach.”Original
It means that he understood it to be something altogether beyond his reach.Original
He stated that the two letters presented as evidence were forged documents addressed to his disciple Araki Saigorō, and he took them back without any objection.Original
Sohō evaluates this interrogation as “rather a flat affair,” and writes that the shogunal officials had sought a clue but failed to obtain one.OriginalOriginal

Tinted Lens

Sohō records that he continued writing this manuscript at five in the morning on the fifteenth day of the third month of Shōwa 6, while ill, at Minami Hospital in Kobikichō, Tokyo.Original
What his pen sets down last is a single metaphor.Original
The investigative reports were, he writes, “the tinted lens of the Ii side.”OriginalOriginal

Whether of the expel-the-barbarians faction or of the open-the-country advocates, all were treated as though connected by a single scheme plotting an inordinate conspiracy; fact, rumor, and conjecture were combined and kneaded together at will.Original
Sohō writes that, as a result, a great performance was staged to sweep up the conspiratorial faction in a single net, producing something “truly unbearable to contemplate.”OriginalOriginal

The true nature of Nariaki’s great conspiracy was in the end never ascertained.Original
Even so, Kawaji was branded a schemer, Iwase was marked as flawed, and Fujimori was hauled off to the magistrate’s office still in his haori and hakama.Original
What did the lens that pursued a conspiracy without evidence actually reflect?Original
Might it not be read that what it reflected was not the retired lord of Mito, but the very fear of those who wore the lens themselves?Original

This article is a reading of Kinsei Nihon kokuminshi, vol. 42: The Ansei Purge, part 3. Tokutomi Sohō’s views are those of the 1920s and 1930s and may differ from current scholarship. The source text is a century old and may differ from current scholarship.