Toyotomi Hideyoshi

“ The sudden departure, therefore, of Hideyoshi, seemingly miffed and more than ever under the influence of Ishida, who grew thereby less in favor among the captains, roused some of them to greater concern, if not about somebody’s sanity, then as to their own welfare.
Among these grizzled or enthusiastic warriors and supporters none took to heart more than Kuroda the matter of Hideyoshi’s seeming change; the two had grown up together, from early days, the one as retainer, the other his aid, and they loved each other as only men similarly situated and suited can love. ”

“ Further, he recognized as lord of the Island of Ezo, Matsumaye Nobuhiro, whose grandfather had crossed thither and subdued the aborigines. For the first time the wars and tumults that had convulsed Japan since the Ojin era were at last brought to an end, and the whole country came under the administrative sway of one strong ruler.
The story of the rise of Hideyoshi from the humblest to the most elevated position in the feudal world of Japan is highly characteristic of the man and his times. The son of a foot-soldier in Owari, Hideyoshi's original name was Tōkichi. ”

“ But from the moment that Hideyoshi, the Taikō, succeeded in crushing or conciliating the principal disturbers of the peace, the nation's innate love of æthetics reasserted itself. From his campaigns in Mino and Echizen, Hideyoshi returned to Kyōtō in 1583. He set himself at once to promote the occupations of peace. His energy was alike untiring and well directed. At one time he rewarded excellence with money, at another with titles of honour, and he even renewed the expedient of substituting presents of pottery and porcelain for revenues or land as a recompense of military merit. ”

“ Hideyoshi [pg 226] had such confidence in him, and so much doubt about the wisdom of requiring the guardians to wait until his son, a mere child five years old, had grown up to years of responsibility, that he is represented as having said to Ieyasu: “I foresee that there will be great wars after my decease; I know too that there is no one but you who can keep the country quiet. I therefore bequeath the whole country to you, and trust you will expend all your strength in governing it. My son Hideyori is still young. ”

“ Iyeyasu, had he respected his pledges, should have applied himself to secure to the Taikō's son, Hideyori, the supreme place won by Hideyoshi's genius. But the ethics of the age did not require any such sacrifice of personal ambition. The Tokugawa chief not only crushed the man he had promised to support, but deliberately contrived an opportunity for crushing him, and posterity does not count the act a crime. ”

“ At last Ieyasu, by a ruse, had done something more than wait; the Chinese fantasy had been brought suddenly to a halt, and Japan saved probable humiliation, to say nothing of absolute defeat; Hidaye had already been all but crushed, and that, too, without getting beyond the confines of weak, unprepared, and unwarlike Korea. Had Hideyoshi himself left Japanese soil, with his contemplated reserve force, the trap laid by the wily Chin Ikei, China’s over-matching envoy, might have defeated more potent, if less fantastic, ambitions even than Hideyoshi’s. ”

“ From an humble position in life he had risen to high and responsible rank in the army. Under the influence of Takeyama, a Christian prince, whom the Jesuit fathers call Justo Ucondono, he had been converted to Christianity. Hideyoshi, as has been pointed out, was desirous of securing the help of the Christian princes in Kyūshū, and therefore appointed a Christian as one of the generals-in-chief. Under him were sent the contingents from Bungo, Ōmura, Arima, and other provinces where the Christian element was predominant. ”

“ The battle thus began and raged, at Sekigahara, without the aid or prospect of Hideyasu. Ieyasu, angered at the failure of his trusted progeny, charged in person, took every risk of defeat, and Yodogima, threatened with the consequence, invoking a last resource, sent forthwith for Mori, saying:
“Advise your brother to hasten here; I can better serve him with Ieyasu than with Ishida.”
No further encouragement need she use, for these were not fighting men; Hideyoshi had previously taught them the greater potency of diplomacy. But Hideki! ”

“ The princess did not stop to inquire; she knew only that she had suffered perhaps at their expense or for their betterment, and the very heavens above seemed bereft—earth had done its worst, the humanities failed, all their Gods and Buddhas and Christs promised relief only in death—save a certain star, that seemed the brighter in its loneliness: ideality proffered life.
Thereafter Hideyoshi summoned Ieyasu to the top of a certain hill overlooking the fortress, the city, and the country around. ”

“ Hideyoshi bequeathed his rank and titles to his son Hideyori, who was a mere child at the time of his illustrious father's decease. A few hours before his death the great captain and administrator summoned all his generals to his side, and made them swear to protect his youthful successor, appointing Mayeda Toshiiye to the post of guardian. The generals, however, entertained toward each other sentiments of such jealousy and hostility that the old disorders would have been renewed but for the transcendent ability and prowess of Tokugawa Iyeyasu. ”

“ A daughter thrust herself into a father’s affairs? Did you hear that, Takigawa?”
“It’s like a woman: I can retire, and let her have her say, if only for once; it can do no harm, Shibata.”
“Not so, Takigawa. Wives pleading, daughters interfering, and everybody for himself, these days—I tell you Hideyoshi is the curse of this land. ”

“ Hear me, O Benten, O Yodogima, O Eternity; I must have life, shall survive the grave. Grant me this, mother of time, goddess on earth, and love to men; I can do no more; the blood of man is final; it is supreme, an only offering. Let me survive,” begged Hideyoshi, utterly oblivious of anything and everything, except the one woman who stood over with anxious, motionless face.
“It shall be done,” replied she, not any less driven or conscious of the broad seas of uncertainty raising and lowering their frail bark upon its never ceasing, always mysterious trend or disregarding travail. ”

“ Would you profit by example, then look; even Hideyoshi has found it meet that we reason together; who declares [pg 131] himself wiser than the humblest is in truth an ass; deception cannot weather the test of time.”
They were sitting in the dusk, midway between day and night, and arising, Hideyoshi approached the family shrine—it seemed empty and so unlike the needs of distinction, yet the kwambaku had, upon his return from Odawara, stopped at Nakamura and done reverence to his long buried but sadly neglected parents. ”

“ Reading the Daimio’s intention, as he was wont to read the minds of men, Hideyoshi raised two fingers in a gesture of restraint.
“You shall not slay yourself, Kurushima,” he commanded. “You are to kill the crew of the tortoise-boat instead, and sink their iron monster in the sea.”
“But how?” gasped the astonished Kurushima. “How can I do this, when I have already failed?”
“By returning to your province of Tosa and playing go in your castle at Urado,” Hideyoshi replied enigmatically, and sat on the floor beside the sleeping-mat. “Do not try to rise, for the fever has scarce left you. ”

“ It may here be mentioned that three years later, in 1568, Hideyoshi succeeded in inducing all the territorial nobles of northern Ise, except Kusunoki Masatomo, to place themselves peacefully under Nobunaga's sway. Hideyoshi's history shows him to have been a constant believer in the theory that a conquered foe generally remains an enemy, whereas a conciliated enemy often becomes a friend. ”

“ Yodogima, contrary to expectations, brightened at the thought of sending Hideyori into the enemy’s camp. He had shown himself the man to foil Ieyasu’s contemplated espionage at its inception: what greater capacity might be discovered if brought face to face with a man whose extremity had induced so flagrant a mouthing.
“Tell Ieyasu that Hideyori shall attend with pleasure, not his marriage revel, but more the witless unmaking of as pampered a braggadocio as an humbler memory of Hideyoshi and Nobunaga combined might have fairly conduced. ”

“ Hideyoshi led the way down along the winding incline and back into the very place which she had but a short hour thence deserted; in a more hopeful, if less certain, mood. The same walls enclosed the [pg 63] front and sides, the outlet at the rear had not changed at all; humanity seemed continuing its blind rush toward an ideal bolstered with ten thousand times ten thousand conjured notions: the breath of ages smelled as sweet and wholesome as it did before she had quitted there and gone to the mountain’s crest: her heart beat as warmly for her own chosen lord as ever ”

“ The older wife’s interest had resolved only the shielding of an inner vanity, as Hideyoshi’s accusations laid bare the outward appearance of that same inborn, unmanageable tendency: call it [pg 145] by what name one might, govern as the world should see fit, it were yet a force no less determinate of man than absolute in the revelation of God.
“I did you a very great wrong,” began Hideyoshi, by way of remission, as Yodogima and he strolled away, through the bramble, at the hillside, toward the lower castle wall ”

“ By making him lord of an immense and powerful country he hoped to secure him in perpetual loyalty to himself and his heirs.
In order that he might be free from the cares and responsibilities of the government at home, Hideyoshi retired from the position of kwambaku a.d. 1591 and took the title of Taikō. By this title he came to be generally known in Japanese history, Taikō Sama, or my lord Taikō, being the form by [pg 208] which he was commonly spoken of. His nephew and heir Hidetsugu was at this time promoted to the title of kwambaku, and was ostensibly at the head of the government. ”

“ Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power, temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe. ”

“ Its formulators found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for Kiūshiū, Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened by direct observation of the state of affairs in Kiūshiū. While still in Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that “he feared much that all the virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs against the empire.” ”

“ PORTRAIT-STATUE OF IYÉYASŬ IN CEREMONIAL DRESS.
When Hidéyoshi died he had grown to be the master of Japan; he had been made Regent of the Empire, as a title of honor, for he was that and more in reality; he had become one of the greatest of Oriental warriors, and had begun life as a groom, the son of a humble peasant. The name of Taiko (Great Gate) he took like other regents, on retiring nominally from office, but with the addition of Sama (Lord) it is applied to him alone in popular memory. Naturally, then, he believed in a possible dynasty originating in him. ”

“ That Hideyoshi was no enthusiastic Buddhist should be accepted as a negative proof of it. Most probably he had no religious aversion against Christianity, but the intermeddling of those missionaries in the politics of our country infuriated him, for the demand for the solid unification of the nation, embodied in him, was against such an encroachment. The persecution, which crowned many adventurers with the honour of martyrdom, is to be imputed to the lack of prudence on the part of those missionaries. ”

“ Hideyoshi, better known as the Taiko, who had risen from the ranks to be the most powerful general in the latter half of the sixteenth century, was intimate with artists, poets, and other men of peaceful calling, whose society he sought in his leisure hours. ”

“ Rising rapidly, he became his chief's greatest lieutenant and his successor in power. He possessed the parvenu's love of rank and desired to be Shōgun, but not being a member of the Minamoto clan, he was obliged to satisfy himself with the reality of authority without its title. His ambition extended to the conquest of the mainland, and the invasion of Korea, which he began in 1592, was the first step in this direction. The result was disastrous both to Korea and to the invading army, and when Hideyoshi died the Japanese troops were withdrawn. ”

“ Hideyoshi knew. Nor was any opportunity neglected to let those little surmisings reach and sear the trend of another’s confidence, yet Yodogima’s love for Ieyasu flamed on; faith, hope, and charity rounded out the dull monotony of neglected opportunity, making life to her after all worth the living, the striving, and the getting. ”