Sanjo Sanetsumu (三条実万)
Sanetsumu SANJO (March 18, 1802 -October 31, 1859) was a Kugyo (high court noble) in the end of the Edo Period. His father was Kinosa SANJO. His lawful wife was a daughter of Toyokazu YAMAUCHI, Bijuhime (眉寿姫). His children were Kinmutsu SANJO, Sanetomi SANJO, Sanefumi KAWABATA, Kazuhime (数姫) (Toyoatsu YAMAUCHI's fiancee) and Mine (Yoshikuni HOSOKAWA's lawful wife).
In 1824, he was appointed Dainagon (chief councilor of state). In 1848, he became buke tenso (liaison officers between the imperial court and the military government), and frequently went down again to Edo to negotiate with the Edo bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun) on the policy toward the United States. In 1857, he was appointed as the minister of the center, but in 1859 he had a conflict with Kanpaku (chief adviser to the Emperor) Hisatada KUJO over the Imperial consent on the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Japan, and on April 30, 1858, together with the Minister of the Left Tadahiro KONOE, he was ordered to refrain from entering the Imperial Palace. Emperor Komei, who was enraged at this sanction, sent the Minister of the Right Sukehiro TAKATSUKASA and Gon Dainagon (provisional chief councilor) Nariyuki NIJO to the residences of the Konoe family and the Sanjo family respectively, as Imperial envoys, and gave KONOE and SANJO the imperial order of sandai (a visit to the Imperial Palace). This news shocked the people as an unprecedented event in the court noble society, because the head of one of Sekkan-ke (the families which produced the Regent and the Chief Adviser to the Emperor; line of regents and advisers), which had gripped the absolute power in the Imperial Court for many years, was sent as Imperial envoys to call up SANJO, descended from the Seiga family (ranked second in the court noble families), which had no political influence until then. In 1859, after he was placed on probation during Ansei no Taigoku (suppression of extremists by the Shogunate), he entered into priesthood and named himself Tanku (澹空). He died in the same year. He was posthumously promoted to the minister of the right in 1862, and granted Shoichii (Senior First Rank) in 1899.