An expedition was organized in obedience to this edict, a very powerful army being raised in western Japan. Just at this time a squadron composed of British, American, French, and Dutch vessels of war entered the Straits of Shimonoseki to exact reparation from the men of Chōshū who had, as has already been related, fired upon foreign vessels passing through the strait. Attempts to avert hostilities by negotiation having proved abortive, the Chōshū forts were bombarded and dismantled by the foreign vessels, and a peace was afterward concluded, the Chōshū folks pledging themselves to give free passage to foreign ships, and to pay an indemnity of three million dollars. This large sum, though subsequently paid by the Tokugawa government, was denounced as excessive by foreign jurists as well as Japanese statesmen, and the portion that fell to the share of the United States of America was returned to Japan more than twenty years afterward. Pending the settlement of this Shimonoseki affair the Tokugawa military operations against Chōshū were delayed, and as the latter put to death three of the leaders of the disturbance in Kyōto, and made ample apologies for their offense, the force destined for the invasion of their fief was disbanded. There were, however, two parties in Chōshū; the one in favor of submitting to the shōgun so as to avert misfortunes otherwise apparently threatening the fief, and the other advocating determined resistance to the Tokugawa. At the head of the latter party was Takasugi Shinsaku, and he, having established relations with Sanjō and the other court nobles then refugees in Chōshū, succeeded in completely overcoming the pacific faction and obtaining ascendency in the fief. The Edo government now found itself openly defied by Chōshū, and a strong agitation arose in favor of inflicting summary punishment by sending another large expedition. Against this counsel dissenting voices were not unheard, but finally an expeditionary force was organized and moved southward, the shōgun himself accompanying it. A marked incident of this occasion was the refusal of the great Satsuma baron to send a quota of troops for service with the shōgun. His fief and Chōshū, whose mutual rivalry had at times amounted to bitter enmity, had concluded at last that in their union lay the only hope of accomplishing the purpose of unifying and consolidating the empire. Foremost among the far-seeing statesmen was Saigō Takamori of Satsuma, who never wavered in his conviction that no lasting amity could be established between the courts of Kyōto and Edo, and that the only solution of the national difficulties lay in the overthrow of the Tokugawa. To this view his fellow-clansmen subscribed, and relations were opened with Chōshū which finally led to the hearty coöperation of the two fiefs. _En route_ for Chōshū the shōgun stopped at Ōsaka, where he was approached by the representatives of Great Britain, the