 Abe held this position throughout the administrations of Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyoshi and Tokugawa Iesada, working to unify shogunal politics.He supervised the reconstruction of the western enceinte of Edo Castle in 1852, and was awarded an increase of 10,000 "koku" in income for this service.In the meantime, he kept the shogunate abreast of foreign political developments, such as the outbreak of the First Opium War, which provided an impetus to strengthen the nation’s coastal defenses to help maintain the isolationist policies of the time.