joined anti-foreigner party led by Tokugawa Nariaki ( daimyō of Mito Domain) and Shimazu Nariakira ( daimyō of Satsuma Domain). However, later he changed his position to opening the country to foreign trading party after contact with rōjū Abe Masahiro. When the succession problem of 14th Shōgun arose, he delegated his retainer Hashimoto Sanai to Kyoto in support Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the lord of Hitotsubashi-Tokugawa family. However, with the accession of Ii Naosuke to the position of Tairō, Yoshinobu's faction was defeated and Tokugawa Iemochi (of the Kishu-Tokugawa family) became Shōgun. The Ii clan of Hikone Domain and the Echizen-Matsudaira clan of Fukui Domain had a strong enmity for several generations, and relations between the Tairō worsened further after Ii pushed through the ratification of Treaty of Amity and Commerce between US and Japan without acceptance by Emperor Kōmei. Infuriated, Yoshinaga intruded to Edo castle with Tokugawa Nariaki to protest against Naosuke's actions. On 5 July 1858, he was forced to resign as daimyō of the Fukui Domain as part of the Ansei purge. At this time, he took the name of "Shungaku". In the End of Tokugawa Shogunate The assassination of Ii Naosuke in the Sakuradamon Incident changed the Shogunate's policy, allowing Matsudaira Shungaku to return to politics in April 1862. he strongly supported the kōbu gattai movement to strength the relations between the shogunate and the Imperial court. He was appointed to the newly-created post of Seiji sōsaishoku, a high-ranking government oversight position and worked with Matsudaira Katamori ( daimyō of Aizu Domain), who was appointed Military Commissioner of Kyoto, who was in charge of security for the Emperor. In 1862, Shungaku formed the Rōshigumi, a group of rōnin organised as a paramilitary militia to help guard Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi on his 1863 trip to Kyoto. He also invited Yokoi Shōnan from Kumamoto Domain as a political consultant, and planned at Shogun Tokugawa Ieshige relocate to Kyoto. These actions were known as the Bunkyū Renovation after the Japanese era name. In 1863, the Rōshigumi were transformed into the Shinsengumi. Matsudaira Shungaku moved to Kyoto the same year, but the increasing strength of the Sonnō jōi movement led by the Chōshū Domain forced him into increasingly unfavourable compromises, and he was forced to resign as Seiji sōsaishoku in disappointment. Shungaku returned to Fukui, and from June 1863, began preparation on a plan to raise an army consisting of all of