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" EXPEL THE BARBARIANS." 321
compelled to resign their offices into the hands of
their sons, and to live in their secondary yashikis in
Yedo. When in the height of his career he ordered
to the death over twenty upright and honorable men
who had opposed his views. Among the patriots
compelled to commit hara-kiri was Doctor Sano's
brother, an accomplished scholar and gentleman.
The news of these doings created a tremendous
excitement all through the country, especially in the
capitals of the princes who had been in prison or
sent into exile. A desperate band of ronins made a
conspiracy to destroy the life of li, the prime minister.
On the great holiday of the third day
of the
third month, that is, the twenty- third of March, 1860,
while going in his palanquin to the palace, his train
of retainers was set upon, during a snow-storm, by
a body of armed men, most of whom were Mito
ronins. In the sword-battle which ensued, the head
of the prime minister was cut off and his body left
a bleeding trunk. On the persons of the captured
assassins was a paper charging li with five crimes,
the chief of which was that of " being frightened by
the empty threats of the foreign barbarians into making
treaties with them, and, under the plea of political
necessity, of doing this without the Mikado's
sanction." The assassins called themselves " representatives
of divine anger." Two days later, as so
the head cut off in Yedo was tossed into
reported, the garden of the daimio of Mito, fifty miles away
from the Camp City. Historical research proves the
rumor baseless.