The Ansei Purge was ordered by Ii Naosuke on behalf of the bakufu faction. He was the Senior Minister during the period preceding the Meiji Restoration and was part of the "kōbu gattai", the movement opposed by the Revere the Emperor, Expel the Foreigner ("sonnō jōi") faction. The purge was carried out in an effort to quell opposition to trade treaties with the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and the Netherlands, particularly under the U.S. - Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce. It involved the removal from power all opposition by way of imprisonment, torture or exile, and execution. The crackdown also targeted those who opposed the succession of Tokugawa Iesada and the "kōbu gattai" or the policy that attempted to unite the imperial court and the shogunate. Some of the victims included the "sonno joi", the group who opposed Naosuke's appointment of Tokugawa Iemochi over Hitotsubashi Keiki, the candidate of the Mitō clan, which was one of the three branches of the Tokugawa family.