Heaven's punishment used to be given to those individuals that were a part of groups which were for opening Japan to the world, integrating the imperial court and the shogunate, but this incident was counted because destroying the heads of wooden images of the Ashikaga Shoguns implied that they wished to overthrow the Shogunate.
それまでの天誅は、開国派や公武合体派であった個人を狙ってのものが大半であったが、この事件では足利将軍の木像を梟首することで暗に倒幕の意味を持つものとして重視された。