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Regent's Public Assassination
- Eighteen ronin assassinated the shogun's regent in broad daylight, decapitating him and displaying his head as proof.
- That single act exploded into wider terror and convinced many samurai the shogunate could not protect the nation.
Emperor Loyalism Becomes Political Force
- Radical loyalism fused anti-foreign xenophobia with reverence for the emperor as a political solution.
- That ideology moved many toward using violence to replace the shogunate with imperial rule.
Teacher Becomes Commander
- Kondo Isami formed the Shinsengumi from fencing students and trained them brutally for street fighting with live blades.
- He readied them as a licensed secret police to hunt ronin in Kyoto under an "iron code."