In August of the second year of Ansei (1855), due to the pressure of the Qi Zhao family, the two old lieutenants who supported the signing of agreements with Western countries, Matsudaira Chengquan and Matsudaira Tadayu, were deposed, but this incident triggered a fierce backlash from opponents.

In October of the same year, the candidates proposed by Qi Zhaoyi's family were not accepted, and the two ousted Sakura Hotta family heads were promoted to Laozhong and were in charge of negotiations with foreign countries.

In the same month, the Great Edo Earthquake broke out, and the emaciated Abe attendant Masahiro ceded the first seat of the old middle school to Hotta, and retired himself as the victor Fang Laozhong.

Such political repetitions are the inevitable result of the reshaping of the power structure.

In June of the 7th year of Kaei, the first year of Ansei (1854), in the face of oppression by the Western countries, the shogunate had to put forward the slogan of raising the unanimous Fuso, hoping to unite all forces to tide over the difficulties.

At that time, the old Naka Abe attendants and others planned very well, hoping that after introducing the power of the Tokugawa clan Qi Zhao lineage, the strength and influence of the shogunate could be enhanced, and then the forces that were originally on the fringes of power - the small Kyoto court and the daimyo of the outer kingdom, so as to kill three birds with one stone, not only to ensure the stability of the situation, but also to maintain the initiative of the shogunate, and by the way, to suppress the ancient courtiers within the shogunate.

But what I never expected was that after the return of Qi Zhao, the old lord of Mito, he did have a lot of momentum and many supporters, but Qi Zhao and his family inexplicably abandoned the tacit understanding and pointed the finger directly at the Shogunate Central Committee Evaluation Council.

As a result, what could have been a good situation turned into a pot of porridge - not only could the relatives of the feudal clan, the daimyo of the pedigree and the flag not only fail to unite sincerely, but the shogunate fought first!

In the seventh month of Ansei (1857), before Naohide rushed to Edo to plead guilty, the situation was rehearsed within the White Lord Office, and at that time, Egawa Hidetoshi spoke out about Qi Zhao's shortcomings:

First of all, being arrogant is Qi Zhao's biggest problem.

The gentleman hides his weapons and waits for the time to move.

But Qi Zhao, who is proud of his talents, is not - the tacit understanding established with the chief Abe attendant of the old middle school before his comeback was destroyed by himself not long after.

Qi Zhao retired in the first year of Honghua (1844), and the position of head of the Mito family was handed over to his son Keito, and in order to make him return to participate in the shogunate, Abe urged the shogunate to appoint him as a coastal defense hanger in the sixth year of Kaei (1853).

But in the second year of his comeback, Qi Zhao was dissatisfied with the signing of the "Fusang Miguo Peace Agreement", and he resigned from Haiphong himself.

Later, thanks to Abe's efforts, the shogunate appointed Qi Zhao to supervise the construction of the navy.

But because there were too many enemies, after going around and around, Qi Zhao's family never got any important positions.

Nowadays, the government of Fuso is governed by the shogunate, and the two centers of the shogunate are the Gongfang Side Neighbor and the Old Middle School Appraisal Council, which has the final decision-making power by influencing the shogun; The Shogunate was the pinnacle of the shogunate's various positions and had administrative power.

Originally, because Qi was famous, high-status, and clearly explained the disadvantages of the founding of the country, the white lord and everyone had a good impression of him, but after a long time, Zhixiu and others found that this was a fierce general rather than a handsome talent.

Qi Zhao played a good hand of cards to a pulp:

There are many people who support it, and there are people who want it; As the top relative of the Tokugawa family, he has a famous position.

Qi Zhao, who has no shortage of popularity and fame, has been entangled in the rights and wrongs of specific affairs, and has completely failed to grasp the key points

Let's take the dismissal of the two old middle schools, it is not advisable to go into battle shirtless, and it is even more a joke that Qi Zhao and his family did not get the vacant old middle school positions!

As long as Qi Zhao patiently cooperates with him, whether the general is close to the people, or the old man, these two top positions will definitely be

Give up some positions to Qi Zhao's family.

But Qi Zhao had to use the drastic method of impeachment, which was completely too much.

Yes, there are some drawbacks to the agreements signed with Western countries, but you have to make a fuss about this and make enemies in vain - you can be patient for a while and wait until you are in control of the major politics before correcting it. It's good now, you must know that there were many daimyo and shoguns who supported the signing of the agreement at that time, and Qi Zhao pushed these people to the position of the enemy at once.

Either right or wrong, can such a person be in power, and the political situation will be stable? The drastic tactics of Qi Zhao's family have caused many people to worry.

As a result, many people's positions changed from neutral to opposed, resulting in the removal of the two old middle schools, but Qi Zhao and others did not get any vacant positions!

As a mature politician, compromise and exchange of interests are inevitable, but Qi Zhao is too presumptuous and adds a lot of unnecessary difficulties to himself.

Qi Zhao's second weakness is that it is generally incomprehensible.

Of course, this is also a problem for the chief old man Masahiro Abe.

Since it is proposed to raise the Fusang unanimity, the original power structure must be changed:

In the original shogunate structure, the general's side and the old middle school were the top positions.

The radical way to change is to start anew and re-establish a new system – but this is likely to lead to major upheavals and difficulties in reaching agreement.

A more moderate approach is to change the structure of the people, but to broaden the sources of candidates, so that more daimyo or even foreign daimyo can serve in these two positions, so as to achieve the goal of extensive political participation.

In Naohide's original world, the shogunate later adopted a moderating approach, and when it found that it did not work, it had to adopt a radical approach.

However, until the end of the second year of Anzheng (1855), Qi Zhao and his family had not been able to come up with a dazzling plan for structural changes, but continued to write letters attacking the ruling old and middle-level ministers.

What everyone is looking forward to is a way to solve the problem, not to find fault - the right and wrong of governance are sometimes difficult to judge and need to be verified for a long time, so Bai Zhu and others think that Qi Zhao's family is "roughly incomprehensible and in the wrong direction".

Moreover, the Qi Zhao family has a fatal weakness, that is, the reverence for the king and the reverence for Shinto in the Mito doctrine.

Mito was a branch of Fuso Confucianism, which was taught by Zhuzi Confucianism at the time.

In fact, the two have something in common, and they both pay attention to respect and humility and etiquette. But the Mito doctrine is arrogant, in order to prove that Fuso is excellent will be the myth of the imperial family.

It is not known whether Qi Zhao really followed the Mito doctrine or was to restrict the shogunate, but in short, under his urging, Qi Zhao and his family demanded that the shogunate obtain the support of the imperial family in foreign affairs.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, the shogunate forced the imperial family to "entrust the administration" to itself through the "Prohibition of China and the Laws of the Public Family". According to the words of later generations, the small court of Fuso could not even make rubber stamps, and the shogunate decree was just a formality to report to Kyoto.

After the visit of the black ship, Abe's attendants and others, out of long-term considerations, began to woo the Fuso royal family in order to prevent the Southern Barbarian countries and people from making trouble in the name of the imperial family.

But Qi Zhao and his family, constantly in the name of the imperial family, constantly put pressure on the ruling shogunate, especially the old middle, resulting in the increasing influence of the Fuso royal family - after all, it is the imperial family that "entrusts the big government" to the shogunate, if the powerful faction gets the support of the small court in Kyoto, in extreme cases, it can raise troops to challenge the shogunate, which is the so-called "righteousness" of Fuso's millennium circulation.

By limiting the authority of the shogunate, many daimyo also supported Qi

King Zhaozun's claims.

But for the many daimyo of the Tokugawa family, the daimyo of the pedigree and the banner of the clan, this is undoubtedly "Tai'a is upside down and gives authority to others", no matter how much everyone fights inside, they can't cheap outsiders, so Qi Zhao is suspected of eating inside and outside among the shogunates.

As for the reverence of Shinto, like the king, it was the Mito doctrine that was developed based on the arrogance of Fuso—Shinto was native to Fuso, and Buddhism was imported from outside, so there is a difference between the inside and the outside.

But Fuso Buddhism flourished, and nine times out of ten, from the public to the common people and townspeople, were Buddhists, and there were very few Shinto believers—not that they didn't believe in it, but that there were so many shallow believers that they couldn't remember it if they saw it.

Out of his own tendency, Qi Zhao vigorously promoted the respect for the king and the way of God in the shogunate, which naturally caused many people to be dissatisfied.

Therefore, the powerful Qi Zhao family is composed of relatives and friends, political views and speculators, in fact, the cohesion is very poor.

With these shortcomings, he was naturally despised by Naoxiu and others, and the development of the subsequent shogunate struggle also confirmed this view.

In August of the second year of Ansei (1855), Matsudaira and Matsudaira were deposed, but in October of that year, the new old Naka Hotta Masatsu was still Qi Zhao's sworn enemy.

Soon after, the Great Edo Earthquake struck, and Masahiro Abe's attendant gave up the first seat of the old middle school to Hotta. After that, Hotta led people to be in a-for-tat confrontation with Qi Zhao and others.

In particular, in negotiations with Western countries, the Horita clan had the upper hand, and the tone for the establishment of trade had already been formed: in October of the third year of Ansei (1856), the Haiphong Hang was abolished and a new foreign trade tag was established, indicating that the shogunate had made up its mind to open the country.

In November of the third year of Ansei (1856), the Gongkata family was bound to marry the princess of the Shimazu family. Because Qi Bin, the head of the Shimazu family, is a member of Qi Zhao's family, he pulled back a game.

Qi Zhao's family, who had not been able to obtain the power of the shogunate for a long time, gave a sparse advice in May of the fourth year of Ansei (1857), "The Tokugawa clan of the Zhizhi clan set up two positions, the elder and the old, and the elder was abolished from time to time, and the old man was always in power, and he wrote the pro-clan to discuss the government in turn, and the day was straight."

After that, a number of shoguns wrote to the public to ask for the establishment of an heir.

The battle between the shogunate and the shogunate intensified, focusing on the two candidates of the prince and the shogunate - the "elder" was a non-permanent position in the shogunate, above the elders, and above the 10,000 people under the shogunate.

The candidates supported by the Qi Zhao family were Seko Hitotsubashi Yoshiki and the eldest elder Matsudaira Matsudaira Keinaga, while Horita and others supported Keifuku, the lord of the Kishu domain, as Nishimaru, and at the same time resisted the establishment of the elder.

In June of the same year, Masahiro Abe, the victor Fang Laozhong, was critically ill. Without Abe, who was originally in the middle to reconcile all sides, the battle between Qi Zhaoyi and Horita and others was even more out of control.

In the same month, after Atsuhime took over the Ooku, Masashi changed his name to Masamu Masamu Horita, and canceled Qi Zhao's errand of supervising naval construction, and Qi Zhao was isolated from the shogunate.

In July, as the war between the Anglo-Buddhist forces and the Chinese Yarrow continued to expand, the shogunate abolished foreign trade and established foreign commissions, and began preparations for trade negotiations with Harris, the envoy of the Mi people.

In December, under the fierce opposition of the Qi Zhao family, the "Fusang Mi People Trade Agreement" was drafted and completed.

In the first month of the fifth year of Ansei, Hotta Masamu, chief veteran and president of foreign affairs, and Kamada Shomo, the commissioner and foreign commissioner of Kawaji, set off for Kyoto to apply to the small imperial court for the agreed agreement.

Prior to this, Qi Zhao and Hotta Masamu had already sent people to Kyoto for activities, in addition to the agreed matters, including the approval of Nishimaru-like candidates - the selection of the shogun's son was originally the internal affairs of the Tokugawa family, and in the past, it was just a formality, and the shogunate would immediately issue an edict to approve it when it was reported to the imperial court. But now, with the support of Qi Zhao and his family, it is possible for the small court in Kyoto to express their opinions on this, which is really a long time to see!