At that time the throne was occupied by Kōmei, father of the present emperor, who was in favor of keeping the country closed against the ingress of foreigners. He therefore withheld his sanction when the shōgun's representative came to Kyōto to seek it. At the same time, the American envoy continually pressed the government to sign a treaty, and, to make the matter worse, another trouble simultaneously presented itself, namely, that, the shōgun having no son, friction arose about the succession. Several of the most influential feudal barons desired that Yoshinobu, son of Nariakira of Mito, who represented the Hitotsubashi branch of the Tokugawa, should become heir in consideration of his high abilities; but many of the principal officers and the court ladies were opposed to the policy of Nariakira. The shōgun himself was not desirous of making Yoshinobu his successor, but the steadily increasing influence of the anti-foreign party in Kyōto, the recognized head of which was Nariakira, gave new force to the claims of the latter. Meanwhile, as the need of coming to some terms with the United States became more urgent, the shōgun appointed to the post of _tairō_ the courageous Ii Naosuke (Kamon-no-Kami). Ii was not a man to be guided by others whose opinions he did not share. Under his counsel, it was now agreed that the five ports of Nagasaki, Hakodate, Hyōgo, Kanagawa, and Niigata should be opened to foreign trade, a convention in that sense being concluded without reference to the emperor. This took place in June of 1858, and a little later treaties of similar import were signed with Russia, England, the Netherlands, and France, a report being sent to Kyōto, after the event, to the effect that these measures had been unavoidable. In the matter of the succession, Ii overrode the advice of the feudal barons, and Iyemochi, then little more than a child, son of the lord of Kii, became the fourteenth shōgun. The Tokugawa government thus disposed finally of the question of foreign intercourse, but the domestic affairs of the country grew more complicated than ever. [Illustration: JAPANESE PORTS OPENED TO FOREIGN TRADE 1858]