#Toyotomi Hideyoushi

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Sanada: A Divided Family

 There's more than just our favourite bros to this family

The Sanadas. Everyone loves the Sanadas and considering that the most famous member, Sanada Yukimura is literally remembered as “The Number One Warrior in Japan” it’s safe to say that they’re quite important. I’m just going over their history, Nobuyuki and Yukimura will get their posts when the time comes.

The Sanada, as was common place with “farmer-samurai” at the time, come from a village also called Sanada (as Ishida Mitsunari’s family came from a village called Ishida and Toudou Takatora came from the Toudou village) and their first significant member is Sanada Yukitaka. I say “farmer-smaurai” but he was basically just a samurai, had a castle and everything. Yukitaka was suspected to be the son or Grandson of Unno Munetsuna, his parentage isn’t very clear so either he was adopted or his mother was Munetsuna’s daughter.

Bound by blood or not, the Sanada were on Unno’s side because they would lose alongside them to the Murakami and Suwa, Yukitaka losing his castle in the process. He would join forces with the Nagano clan but be persuaded to join Takeda Shingen in the mid 1540s and would be able to reclaim Sanada Castle in 1550.

By this point, returned to their home, Yukitaka had a son – the 6 year old Sanada Masayuki…he actually had four sons but never mind them rigiht? Masayuki’s the important one. Masayuki is of course famous for being the father of Sanada Nobuyuki and Sanada Yukimura but there’s a touch more to him than just that. His maiden battle was the 4th battle of Kawanakajima, fought in 1561 when Masayuki was 17. He would take part in the subsequent battles for the Takeda, finally distancing himself and his family after the disaster of Nagashino. He had the power to do so as his two brothers, Sanada Nobutsuna and Sanada Masuteru, had perished at Nagashino – leaving Masayuki in charge.

Masayuki had two very famous sons, multiple daughters and a not so famous third and fourth son. There’s very much a focus on Nobuyuki (1566-1658) and Yukimura (whose actual name is Nobushige;1568-1615) because they are polar opposites. Nobuyuki remained loyal to the Tokugawa, largely due to his marriage to Komatsu-hime whereas Yukimura was all for opposing them – going out in a blaze of glory at Osaka. The last two brothers, Sanada Nobukatsu and Sanada Masachika, are kind of…passed over in favour of their elder brothers.

It was Yukimura who would go in a blaze of glory, siding both times with the Toyotomi. Yukimura was born Nobushige in 1567, the second son of Masayuki and his wife Kensho-in, otherwise known as Yamanote-dono. There is a theory (which everyone seems to be on the fence about) that she [Yamanote] was the sister of Mitsunari’s wife, Uta. If this is true then it’s certainly a pointer for why the Sanada split - they were bond by marriage to the two men who were strictly speaking battling it out between them. At Sekigahara he was part of the Northern campaign, aged 33, he and his father defended Ueda castle when it was besieged by Tokugawa Hidetada. It’s only thanks to big brother Nobuyuki that Yukimura (and his father) were spared, they were only exiled to Koya-san in modern day Wakayama prefecture.

Yukimura would return from his exile to Osaka Castle, where Hideyori was staying. I don’t really know the nature of his departure from Koya-san; his father had passed away by 1611 so Masayuki had no part in this. Probably highly illegal, I certainly remember the Samurai Warriors anime presenting it as a daring escape – while I doubt it was as such this presentation suggests that Yukimura really, really wasn’t meant to leave. He did anyway.

He would take part in the winter and summer campaigns of Osaka, his head being taken by an enemy. While the popular story goes that Yukimura commanded a Tokugawa man to take his head (a story that has since disappeared from Wikipedia, much to my joy) Jonathan Clements present it in a much more brutal mannor:

“Sanada limped away from the fighting to rest, exhausted, on a stool. As he crouched, panting in a brief respite from the violence, he heard an enemy soldier challenge him. He looked up and wheezed something non-committal, only to find that the man had come up close. Sanada was grabbed by the head and executed where he sat.”

While it still feels like much of a dramatization of Sanada’s death, it certainly is a far cry from the songs and stories that often tell of Samurai deaths and sheds some reality onto the scene. Often, they were painful, bloody and brutal.

After Yukimura’s death the Toyotomi side of the campaign collapsed with frightening efficiency, though – like Nobunaga – Hideyori’s body was never recovered he was a dead in short time after Yukimura. Nothing much happened to the now 50 year old Nobuyuki, he was married to the daughter of Honda Tadakatsu, Komatsu-hime (more popularly known as Ina, she was also the adoptive daughter of Ieyasu) and he would live into his nineties. His lands would pass to his second son, having outlived his first, and they would be mere lords in a land with little need for Samurai. I’d like everyone to know that I finished this paragraph at 16:15pm…I’m weird I know, I swear it wasn’t on purpose.

Come the Boshin war and the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Sanada fought on the side of not the Shogunate but the Imperial clan. They refused to take charge of the prisoners from Aizu and…that’s all I can find of them. Only that a cadet branch were made barons under the Meiji, while the main branch became counts. A descendant of theirs did write a book on birds and I’m serious, all I can find stops there. The clan is still alive today of course, their current head is called Yukitori.

The Sanada clan’s moment had come and past, yet their aftershock continues to the modern day. The brothers, Nobuyuki and Yukimura are beloved by many who have played the Samurai Warriors games and Yukimura just got his own Taiga drama. Inaccurate but Taiga dramas are always amazing as far as I’m concerned. Though realistically rather unremarkable the Sanada defined the end of the Sengoku Jidai – Yukimura’s death was a major factor in the collapse of the Osaka campaign, he was a commander and a top one at that. According to legend, Japan would never see another warrior quite like him and perhaps that legend is right; the Samurai died as they had been given birth – rebellion.

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Hideyoushi's Conquest of Japan

Sorry this is late, but I got it out right? Imjin Wars next, grisly. That's a reconstruction of Odawara, the original was pulled down by the Meiji Government in the 1870s

Hideyoushi’s conquest of Japan took place from 1585 – 1590, beginning with his invasion of Shikoku and ending with his victorious siege against the Hojo of Odawara. It’s impressive considering that he did in five years, even with the army sizes that he could boast and the fact that he had a strong power basin already built for him by Oda. Hideyoushi had a way of doing things though and it won people over in ways that Oda couldn’t.

You could consider that actually, Hideyoushi’s alliance with the Mouri was his first act in consolidating his power. While it was so that he could rush back to Kyoto and destroy the rebelling Akechi, it was still a good move. This is because the Mouri were huge and had spent much of the time Oda had building up his own power doing the exact same thing in the South/West. Mouri Motonari – perhaps the most famous Mouri of all – is considered an excellent strategist for a reason.

Considering that Hideyoushi had trouble defeating the Mouri in the first place it was a good move to get them on his side as it opened up the opportunities to advance on the largely independent islands of Shikoku and Kyushu  – which he would do in 1585 and 1587 respectively. The Mouri gave Hideyoushi considerable strength in numbers.

He was also relying on the most Northern families, such as the Date and the Uesugi occupying themselves – which they were doing as the Date strived to claim what would become their own territory. The Uesugi were a little more difficult, they hadn’t been destroyed like their rivals Takeda and Hideyoushi strived to keep good relations with them so they didn’t attack him.

With the successful campaigns against the Shibata’s forces and the Tokugawa, Hideyoushi was free to start looking at the rest of the plan. His first attack would be on the South, they were weaker in numbers in comparison to likes of the Hojo and I doubt Hideyoushi had any wishes to make the Tokugawa and Uesugi suspicious of his movements. So, he went for Shikoku first.

He also had an excuse to attack the lord of the Island, Chosokabe Motochika, as he had technically been on Shibata’s side and had defeated a Daimyo on Hideyoushi’s during the affair. At first Hideyoushi simply demanded Awa and Iyo, Chosokabe challenging him by saying he would only hand over Awa. Hideyoushi, suitably irritated, invaded the Island with a total of 90,000 soldiers.

Chosokabe’s surrender would come only a month later and this was where Hideyoushi made himself a touch more popular than his predecessor. Instead of having Chosokabe either killed or forcing him to commit suicide he was spared. Granted, Hideyoushi took not just Awa and Iyo but also Sanuki. However, he did leave Chosokabe with Tosa – the final province on the island. One down, two to go.

However, this time he didn’t have a reason to just descend on Kyushu. That would change, however, when a plea was sent to him by Otomo Sorin. For the last decade or so the Shimazu had advanced through Kyushu, claiming land for themselves while Oda and Hideyoushi were more preoccupied with their own holdings. This plea was Hideyoushi’s excuse, though it would be an entire year before any troops were actually sent.

When they did finally send troops, led by Chosokabe Motochika and Sengoku Hisahide, the campaign was something of a disaster to begin with. While they were told to stand on the defensive by Hideyoushi, Otomo and Sengoku advanced on a fort and tried to relive a fort that was being besieged by the Shimazu at the time. Chosokabe would also protest against the move and sadly, he would suffer from its consequences. His son, the 22 year old Nobuchika, would lose his life trying to fight the Shimazu off. I think it’s easy to believe that Motochika might have been a touch bitter, Nobuchika was also his eldest son.

Eventually, Hideyoushi would start sending reinforcements. Firstly, Hashiba Hidenaga (Hideyoushi’s half-brother) would arrive with 60,000 men, along with the Mouri/Kobayakawa Takakage with 90,000. Just a note about him, Takakage was a Mouri man by birth, the third son of Motonari, he had been adopted by the Kobayakawa. Putting this at a total of 150,000 on top of the 30,000 that Hideoyushi would bring the following month the Toyotomi would cruise along the east coast, chasing the Shimazu back to their home territory of Satsuma.

Hideyoushi would camp on the hills above the castle town and wait them out. He was relying on their nerves, hoping that such a large force would scare them into submission. Which it did, the Shimazu would only cross swords with the Toyotomi once. Not long after, the head of the clan – Shimazu Yoshihisa – would arrive at Toyotomi’s camp, his head shaven and surrendered to the Toyotomi. Two down, one to go.

In 1590, three years later, Hideyoushi would stage the final national level battle in Japan for at least a decade, the next being the decisive Sekigahara two years after Hideyoushi had died. There were two parts to defeating the Hojo. There was the siege of Odawara, their main castle and the one lived in by the Hojo family. The other was the Siege of Oshi castle, defended by the Narita family.

The actual siege of the Odawara was uneventful and lots of it actually depended on logistics. The Hojo had hoped that Hideyoushi’s inadequate supplies might force him to call of the siege before he managed to starve the Hojo out. HIdeyoushi’s excuse for the siege actually lay with the Sanada clan this time, who were still a rather minor clan who were former retainers of the Takeda. They and the Hojo had been disputing about Numata castle for many years, Hideyoushi – basically being in charge of the country – intervened and gave most of the land to the Hojo but allowed the castle and the surrounding district to remain formally under the Sanada. However, that same year, the Hojo would storm the castle and kill the lord stationed there. Thus, Hideyoushi had his siege and some very angry Sanadas on his side.

The other side, Oshi castle, was headed by Ishida Mitsunari under Hideyoushi’s instruction. His commanding of this siege I think gives some weight as to just how important Mitsunari was to Hideyoushi. It was also a fatal error that led to Mitsunari being slandered, certainly in the Edo period if not at the time as well. A flood attack would be conducted on the castle, certainly of an impressive scale, but it would ultimately fail. It’s because of this that Mitsunari is seen as a poor commander, his attack failing and the Narita family only giving in when the Hojo collapsed. While I believe that it could have been executed better by Mitsunari, he certainly can’t be blamed for all of it. He was ultimately acting under Hideyoushi’s orders and was actually against the attack. I suggest, if you want a clearer (and possibly more correct telling) go ask @jibuyo as they're who bought this to light for me, previously I'd thought it was Mitsunari's doing.

It took three months before the Hojo would be starved out and Hideyoushi changed his tune a little bit. His tactic of allowing the defeated to live in exchange for their lands wasn’t implemented. This time, Hojo Ujimasa would commit suicide along with other members of the Hojo clan. This disintegrated any influence they might have had, along with this their lands were given to Ieyasu in return for the ones he currently held.  

So, Hideyoushi had Japan. The sheer force that he now boasted was enough to make the Northern clans such as the Date submit without much trouble. In fact, Hideyoushi had ordered that Masamune participate in the Siege of Odawara – which he did do…but only once he’d made sure he knew who was going to win. The aftermath of the Siege of Odawara was an important move politically, while it might have failed after his death, it certainly kept things peaceful for Hideyoushi while he was alive.

He had moved Tokugawa.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, without a doubt, was the most powerful man militarily when separated from Hideyoushi.  He was also well liked, which could have been an issue. While removing him to Kanto gave Ieyasu a degree of autonomy due to its remoteness from the capital it also took him, far, far away from Hideyoushi and his more loyal men in Kyoto. Perhaps, if Ieyasu had remained closer he would have done to Hideyoushi what Mitsuhide had done to Nobunaga. Something tells me that Hideyoushi didn’t like that idea. Now that Tokugawa was no longer much use in pacifying the lords around him – since there were, no lords left to pacify – it seems only sensible that Hideyoushi would shoo him off to somewhere he could see his army approaching from while still having time to ready his own.

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The Sengoku Period: 1460s - 1560

So, when did the Sengoku Jidai start? Honestly, like its namesake I can’t really pinpoint a date but it’s definitely within the realms of the 1450s to 1460s and I’d pick the days when Yamana Sozen declared his allegiance to the succession of the Shogun – Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s son and his son in law, Hosokawa Katsumoto, pledged himself to the Shogun’s brother who had been selected before the child was born. You see this situation time and again in history, all over the world, the brother gest picked because the guy has no son…only for a son to be born. Honestly, the same situation can be seen in the Todo family 130 years later and they were minor for most of their early existence.

In 1467 Yamana would gather troops with another war lord, Ouchi Masahiro and Hosokawa’s home would go up in flames. The game was on.

With rumours that Yamana intended to attack the Imperial palace Hosokawa demanded all of the Imperial family moved, paying no heed to whether these rumours were true or not. In the end Yamana did actually attack the Imperial palace and the fighting between them in Kyoto brought about its destruction. Genuinely, they completely destroyed it. The fighting would go on for months before Hosokawa convinced the Emperor and Shogun to denounce the Yamana as nothing more than rebels and undermine their supporter. Yet, it had little affect and even the deaths of both Yamana and Hosokawa did nothing to lighten up the situation.

Finally the Shogun – you know the big military leader dude, only this one was a little too concerned with poetry to actually control the situation – appealed for these people to disperse and essentially go home. However, it wouldn’t come to an end and Kyoto would still be being destroyed until 1477 when Ouchi Masahiro finally backed down, returning home but not before burning his part of Kyoto. Even with the Onin war over riots and mobs continued to descend on the city and honestly this ain’t ever gonna get better. Well, it is, but not for a long time.

The Onin war is also where we can see elements of the idea of the Western and Eastern armies. Yamana being the west and Hosokawa being the east. In 130 years time we’re going to see the big bang that is Sekigahara, the war that brought an end to the period end in much the same way as the war that started it all. Ishida Mitsunari, commander of the Western army will lose to Tokugawa Ieyasu, commander of the Eastern army, in 1600.

It’s these mobs however, that spelled the rise of the Ji-samurai or common birth samurai. What was once disorganised militias became organised armies and instrumented the rise of a very different kind of Samurai. Before this Samurai had typically been of noble birth but now simple famers and their sons did so as well. Good examples of “farmer” turned Samurai is Toyotomi Hideyoushi himself, who rose from Oda’s sandal bearer to nearly Shogun.

With these armies rising, the Hatakeyama family tearing apart any peace in their bit of the map over a family feud the future looked grim. With Yoshimasa retiring and putting his 15 year old son on the throne things really did turn sour. The Ashikaga’s suddenly seem to go through a time of not producing their own sons. Yoshihisa would produce only the daughter before dying in 1489 at the age of 24, his father taking the throne back and also dying a year later. From then on only one natural son of the Shogun, Yoshimasa, would take over before being followed by the brother who was part of the starting of the war. Then two adoptive sons, the uncle sandwiched between them.

The dominating family of the early Segoku Jidai was the Hosokawa but from what I can tell a lot of their wars were infighting. The Ryo Hosokawa war began in 1507 and was a dispute over who was going to succeed the head of the family, much like with the Shogun. Only this time Hosokawa Masamoto is super duper dead. The war would end when Hosokawa Harumoto defeated Hosokawa Takakuni, only for the entire head family to collapse when Harumoto died in 1563.

Come 1543 the Warring states is in full swing. Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen are beginning to show their capabilities, Mori Motonari is being the hotshot in the south and…the Date…aren’t really doing anything? Oda is 9, Hideyoushi is 6 and Ieyasu is a few months old. Okay, so not much is really going on but the Portuguese have just arrived and this is a big deal because what do they bring with them? Why, guns of course!

This little addition to the Japanese weapon arsenal is going to change the face of Samurai warfare. Even today, many historical figures are depicted in favouring it. Data Masamune’s weapon in Samurai Warriors is a sword and gun, which I think is an appropriate metaphor for how wars were fought now. The addition of guns allowed for distance combat, indeed it was a factor in the bringing down of the “Demon Horsemen of Kai” and if something that sounds that badass can be defeated with guns the you know everything is going to go down.

Update on the Hosokawa, the Miyoshi have just betrayed them and oh boy, that’s one massive screw you to them. Under Miyoshi Nagayoshi the Miyoshi are going to expand their territory and go on regular campaigns against the Hosokawa. Two years later Sue Harukata is going to betray Ouchi Yoshitaka at the incident at Tainei-ji. So, the two biggest players who started this all are out of picture. Just about the write time for the next big one to waltz right in.

Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) is considered the first Unifier of Japan and with good reason. While getting together much of the middle ground of Honshu, he paved the way for Hideyoushi to take up his mantle and for Ieyasu to take over and finish the job. Without Oda the warring states may have gone on longer or at least it would look very different. Without Oda, Hideyoushi wouldn’t have gone through his rise to power, certainly not in the same way at least. Ieyasu is a different matter I’ll get into another time.

So, 1560, it’s a big year. Oda Nobunaga is 26 years old, he’s finally the cemented head of the Oda clan after a succession struggle with his younger brother. That younger brother is now dead and Nobunaga really wants to show his might and his skill. He spies an opportunity at Okehazama.

The Imagawa would invade and a plucky young general, named Matsudaira Motoyasu, would capture one of Oda’s castle, Marune. This plucky little general is the future Tokugawa Ieyasu. At a disadvantage Oda looked for ways he could defeat the Imagawa and honestly, Yoshimoto gave it to him. While sending the Matsudaira to Odaka Castle Yoshimoto rested at Okehazama. This was a place that Oda knew well and really, the hill top ambush did happen.

Yoshimoto, who was so clueless as to what was happening, came out from his tent thinking that only a drunken brawl had broken out. He believed this to such an extent that he ordered the angry samurai running at him with a big spear to go back to his post. Realising that he was actually an Oda man he drew his sword and managed to break the spear, only for a second Oda man to lop off his head. Only two senior retainers would escape Okehazama.

So, what’s happened over the last 100 years. The Hosokawa have been torn apart by infighting and are almost completely powerless while Yamana is nowhere to be seen, their greatest supporters betrayed and decimated by the Sue. The rising stars of the north have risen, the Uesugi are going to play a part to the very end while the Takeda are going to go out with a slightly unimpressive bang in 1575. Our future Western Army leader, Ishida Mitsunari, has just been born as Sakichi and his family currently serve the Azai. He will be fourteen years old when he first rises to any minor prominence and even then, only as an attendant to Hideyoushi. Tokugawa Ieyasu, currently named Matsudaira Motoyasu is finally free of his life as a hostage, joining up with Oda in secret and fearing for the lives of his wife and son who are still in the hands of the down but not out Imagawa.

Finally, Oda Nobunaga has fought his defining battle, the one that has cleared his way to Kyoto and cleared the way for 22 years of plunder before he is betrayed by his loyal retainer, Akechi Mitsuhide.

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Korea: The Imjin War

 The Imjin wars are one of the really, really dark moments of the Sengoku Jidai and of Japan’s history. Not so much for what happened there, though that certainly contributes heavily, but for the precedent that it would set. The Imjin wars, or rather, Japan’s invasion of Korea, would use a route that would find itself repeated 300 years later. Japan would annexe Korea much more successfully and devastatingly in the 1900s and leave a mark on both countries that cannot be forgotten.

The post is under the cut, once again this is too long to just sit on the blog

This is why I think it’s important, outside of what I’m doing, to talk about the Imjin Wars. It gives you a taste, a small peek into what would happen later on. There’s no way of knowing whether or not – had HIdeyoushi’s attempts never come to any fruition or never dreamed up in the first place – the Imjin wars were the direct cause of this invasion. They probably weren’t but it feels as if there might have been some bitterness that caused such atrocities.

Enough about the 1900s, that will get its own, far more detailed post when the time comes. The invasion of Korea was staged after months of preparation. Daimyos led men to Kyushu where they would then sail across to the peninsula off the Asian main land. Daimyos such as Tokugawa Ieyasu “got out of it”, Tokugawa himself claimed the vast distance form his lands to Kyoto as a reason not to be involved. Others would march their men to Kyushu and commit atrocious acts that cannot be forgotten.

The playing countries would not just be Japan and Korea but also China – Hideyoushi’s intended destination by route of Korea. However, the Ryukyuan king was a vassal of both Ming China and the Toyotomi Taiko. Letters that Hideyoushi exchanged with him would go on to be sent to the Ming as well. This actually served to confuse the Ming as the letters addressed Hideyoushi’s demands that the neighbouring countries pledge to him. These countries included the Ryukyuan, the Philippines and Korea. They wondered why exactly the Koreans had never raised it with them

The fact of the matter was, the Koreans were actually trying to go through with Hideyoushi’s demand. They all knew that if a war erupted between Japan and China then it would be fought on the middle ground – Korea.

His demands would be a little lost in translation. The owners of the port, the Sou clan, understandably did not want a horde turning up on their door step to invade Korea – which was considerably closer to them than most others. They also didn’t want to hand over any power to smaller clans, they got away with more and there were families such as the Matsuura who were suspected of Piracy. If this turned out to be true then it would really undermine the strength of the Sou and they might just get the boot.

So, what did Sou Yoshishige do? He softened down Hideyoushi’s words a little, made them less demanding. Granted they were then sent with a Tachibana man who supposedly demanded to be treated as some sort of foreign King (that’s not exactly how it’s worded but, he wanted far too much). On top of this he also insulted the fact that Koreans were shorter than the Japanese, which I imagine didn’t go down too well. Understandably of course.

None of this would come to any fruition, even Sou’s “down toning” of HIdeyoushi’s demands wasn’t soft enough. The Koreans were outraged by his use of personal pronouns that were kept only for Emperors. On top of this, Hideyoushi referred to himself as the “King of Japan” which both implied he had murdered his predecessor (which if theories are to be believed, he might well have done) and that the Emperor was of no consequence. On return the ridiculous ambassador was executed and Yoshishige removed from his post.

Then, it got worse. Hideyoushi claimed that he had been conceived by some divine radiance and with this power intended to invade China. As the Koreans were already well aware, this meant he would go through their country. He essentially gave the Koreans two options – fight with him or be fought against.

They did arrange an audience with him but it was only stood after four months and Hideyoushi didn’t make things better. The Koreans weren’t give the banquet they’d been expecting – heck, by the sounds of it this was just common courtesy – but instead just a communal bowl of sake and rice cakes. On top of this, Hideyoushi was hardly dressed for the event as he wore typical, everyday clothes. To add even more insult to injury he was cradling the baby Hideyori who picked that perfect time to urinate on him. Things were going just swimmingly.

On top of this, Hideyoushi made an idiot of himself politically. By this I mean he appeared naïve and the Koreans were quite assured this potential lord was a complete buffoon. Hideyoushi was still bitter about the Mongol invasions of Japan, which, for a start, had failed and been staged around 250 years before he was born. He wanted to get revenge on China. The dynasty that had been the root of the invasions were the Yuan, the current Dynasty was the Ming and they had been for 200 years.  

Without the potential allies of the Koreans, operations were set up in Kyushu. Seen as it was the closest to Korea, it only makes sense that 52% of the labour and general man power came from there. It was also a financial move as the cost of bringing things and men from Kyoto compared to staying in Kyushu would have been exponential. Eventually he’d gathered up 335,000 men to invade Korea, however, only 158,000 would go.

The three Generals who would lead the forces to land in Korea were all young and enthusiastic, without a doubt. They were: Kato Kiyomasa, an eccentric distant relation of Hideyoushi; Kuroda “Damian” Nagamasa, the son of Hideyoushi’s trusted strategist, Kuroda “Simeon” Yoshitaka whose name was also Kuroda Kanbei; and Konishi “Augustin” Yukinaga. Seen as Kato and Konishi are getting their own posts, I’ll talk about Damian.

He was born Kuroda Nagamasa in 1568, so was only 24 when sent to Korea. Still, he already had plenty of experience to boot, supposedly first taking up the sword at the age of nine – though, I would like it to be confirmed by someone who has better sources than me. I know they started young but not…that young. Either way, he would convert to Christianity along with his father but, unlike his father, wouldn���t renounce it when Hideyoushi got a bit antsy about it all.

Needless to say, there was tension between the two Christian generals and Kato. Kato Kiyomasa was a stanch and occasionally violent Buddhist belonging to the Nichiren sect. Something that he is quite infamous for is attacking and killing pregnant Christian women. He would then proceed to slit open their stomachs and behead the foetus. Awful, I know. It’s easy to see why he might not have gotten on very well with Damian and Konishi, I imagine they got on swell.

This was only the first invasion and they moved through Korean with efficient destruction with other, lower commanders. In the June and July 1592 a team of Magistrates were sent across to report on the situation, reaching Hanseong (Seoul) in the July. This team, so to speak, consisted of Mashita Nagamori, Otani Yoshitsugu and Ishida Mitsunari. They would send a letter back, condemning the campaign and how bad it was really going – especially now the Chinese were getting involved. They warned Hideyoushi that the Japanese would be eliminated if they didn’t pull back almost immediately.

The first campaign came to an end a year later, when the great admiral Yi Sun-shin (who Jonathan Clements says needs a book for himself and I agree) cut off the Japanese supply lines. On top of this, the Ming sent an impressive force under Li Rusong. At their wits end, Konishi and Kuroda retreated back to Seoul while Kato, the only one who had really had any success past Seoul, continued right on conquering until he realised he may well get the blame for their failings.

Li Rusong would stop chasing the Japanese back when they reached Seoul, he had no desire to fight them. There were 20,000 within the city and the two had much in common really. His troops were diseased – as was common when fighting in a foreign land, along with this – much like the Japanese forces – his supply lines were stretched and men who fought on empty stomachs were poor fighters.

Kato and Konishi would come to more disagreements when Konishi - having received an order from Hideyoushi to retreat to Busan – demanded peace terms. They were agreed, the Japanese would not be chased any further in their retreat, peace would come if they handed over their hostages. Two Korean Princes had fallen into the hands of Kato, who refused to give them back. It would be Konishi who would do the talking and promise their return. Not to say that Hideyoushi was going to be very happy about Konishi’s decision in his name either – Konishi agreed that HIdeyoushi would become a vassal of China and be known as the “King of Japan.”

The Japanese also, did not go peacefully. They would loot and rape as they pleased, taking women with them as they went south. On top of this they broke into, looted and burnt the corpse of a dead Korean king. They then replaced the body with that of a commoner, in the hopes that the Koreans would fall for the trick and venerate a simple man. It’s a cruel prank that’s a big deal, ancestors were and still are a part of Koreans’ lives.

In the June of 1593 Chinese envoys arrived in Kyushu and while we can laugh about the fact that Mitsunari was put in charge of entertainment (merely funny because of the supposed character the man had) it was a serious issue. Both sides had lied to one another, Hideyoushi had no idea that he was the “King of Japan” and a vassal of China. Supposedly, Hideyoushi was all but illiterate but I just don’t think I can believe this – he was the Taiko and had so much power, there’s just no way he was illiterate. What I think Clements is trying to say is that he didn’t know the Chinese script, which is understandable at least – the two are different and 1100 years of only minimal contact allowed the Japanese and Chinese scripts to evolve very differently though they remained similar.

Although Konishi had tipped off the city of Jinju of Kato’s impending invasion on order of Hideyoushi they either didn’t receive it at all or simply didn’t believe the tip off. They remained in their city and would be massacred. Although the first attempt to breech the walls would fail, the second allowed for a wall to collapse after heavy rain. Kato’s troops would pour into the city and kill every soul, leaving 60,000 dead, many of whom were women and children.

We do have a story from this, telling the story of a Giseang (vaguely akin to a Japanese Geisha; although the form of Geisha we know (think Memoirs of a Geisha, not very accurate but a good starting point) did not exist at the time) named Non Gae. She called a celebrating Samurai to her, embraced in a bear hug and leapt to her death in the river below, taking him with her.

When negotiations opened up again Konishi would once again take it upon himself to dismantle Hideyoushi’s demand, reducing their severity and making him sound a lot humbler – such as a good little vassal should be. Hideyoushi had no idea of this. The Koreans however, knew exactly what was going on and were already preparing for the next attack for when Hideyoushi found out the truth.

It would be in October 1596 when Hideyoushi, now 60 years old with failing eyesight and a poor appetite, would find out the truth. When he had two scrolls translated he discovered he was being called “King of Japan” along with a mildly threatening warning that if he or his descendants ever sent trading ships to China they would be sunk on suspicion of being pirate vessels.

Hideyoushi would fly into a rage, tearing off the crown and robes he’d been given by the envoys. “[He] flew into such a Passion and a Rage that he was perfectly out of himself. He froth’d and foam’d at the mouth, he ranted and tore till his head smoak’d like fire, and his Body was all over in a dropping sweat” – Rodrigues the Interpreter

 A second invasion would be launched in 1597. Hideyoushi, irate at the Koreans’ deception was focused solely on them – he no longer cared for China. He’d also ordered that Konishi commit Seppuku for his misdeeds and I, for the life of me, cannot work out or find out how he got out of that. If anyone knows I’d like a heads up.

During this time Mitsunari, sent over to oversee the forces once again, would write a letter back to Hideyoushi on the efforts…as in, well, how awful they were doing. That letter is actually rather famous. It’s considered one of the factors in the Western army’s loss at Sekigahara because Mitsunari decided that slagging off Kobayakawa was a good idea. I’m kidding, that’s a little critical of me and I actually believe he was right to do it. Although he earned himself the ire of Kuroda Yoshitaka and Kobayakawa Hideaki, which was a really bad idea in the long run, he was only telling the truth to the ailing (and almost dead) Hideyoushi.

In the September of 1598 the men would be recalled from Korea, Hideyoushi having died earlier that month. With upwards of 1 million people dead, largely on the Korean side rather than the Chinese or Japanese side, it was the bloodiest conflict of the era. With Toyotomi Hideyoushi now dead and buried it was only a matter of time before the tensions that had already been growing on home and foreign soil erupted once again into full scale civil war.

[theworldaswedontknowit]

Fukushima Masanori: How much of a mindless brute was he really?

He's a buffoon in the games, what was the real man like?

I’m on the fence about Masanori. I like him but I find his character a little numbing simply because it’s too slow for me. While he acts as an excellent contrast to the clearly highly intelligent Mitsunari – as said previously Kiyomasa is their middle ground – I find him just too dim. Although if I remember correctly he cottons on to Kiyomasa’s slightly freaky obsession with Nene and is freaked out about it. Same man, same.

I feel it’s a shame I can’t actually tell you very much about Masanori – I know very little of him and even doing some digging (well, Jibuyo digging as they can actually read Japanese unlike me) little seemed to come up. Still, I will do my best.

Masanori was born in Owari, like Kiyomasa and Hideyoushi, in 1561 and he and Kiyomasa really were childhood friends as far as I know. At least, they knew each other from a young age if they weren’t childhood friends. Like buddy Kiyomasa, Masanori would make a name for himself at Shizugatake and become one of the seven spears. After the battles in Shikoku he was given governance of Imahura in the province of Iyo and presumably fought for Hideyoushi in Kyushu as well.

Masanori would take part in the Korean Campaigns, leading 4800 men along with the likes of the Chosokabe and Hackisuka Iemasa. However, Masanori never got very far as he ended up tied down fighting guerrillas like most of the other samurai who went over. He was caught up in Chungchong province, which is now divided into North and South, which was not quite in the south but certainly wasn’t very near Seoul. It was these guerrillas he and others were fighting that caused such an issue for the Japanese in terms of supply – the main communications and roads ran through the Province from Busan to Seoul. Fukushima would place the command of both the bases of the cities - Cheongju and Chungju - in the hands of Hachisuka Iemasa.

Upon return Masanori was given a certainly generously sized fiefdom of 200,000 in his home province of Owari. This land was actually freed up by the execution of Toyotomi HIdetsugu which is…grim to say the least but hey, Fukushima got a massive pay rise. Although, that's ignoring the fact that it was Masanori himself who would oversee these executions.

Three years later, upon the death of Hideyoushi, Ieyasu scooped Masanori up with ease. Masanori didn’t have any love for Mitsunari. While I don't quite know how it fits his context some searching (once again thanks to Jibuyo, honestly don't know what I'd do without you sometimes) I found a supposed quote from the two in "Social Welfare Work by the Imperial Household of Japan" by Zennosuke Tsuji. It's actually from anecdote where Mitsunari (along with Konishi and Ankokuji) is being held where they can be seen after their defeat.

Masanori: See what you have come to by kicking up an unnecessary rumpus Mitsunari: It was only providential that I missed roping you a captive It's not real but it certainly shows quite well how these two thought of each other.

Ieyasu gave Masanori one of his adopted daughters, posthumously known as Seisho’in, for marriage. Seisho’in is quite interesting, mostly because she turned Masanori into a bit of a hen-pecked husband which is almost laughable when you see the uncontrollable brute he is in the games. He supposedly ran from her when he tried to attack him with a naginata. I don't think their marriage as a happy one by the sounds of this.

However, this image does hold some truth. It’s well known that Masanori loved to drink and was notoriously violent, situations of which there are many stories about – whether you think they are true or not is for you to decide. One goes that he was all set to succeed his father in good graces, however he killed someone with an chisel. Another goes that, while drunk, he ordered one of his vassals to commit suicide. The vassal obliged and when Masanori sobered up by the next morning it was too late, all he could do was apologize and cry and weep over the body.

Masanori was an instrumental force in the Sekigahara campaign, he was among the top Eastern army generals to route Ukita Hideie. Before this he had taken Mino castle in Gifu, alongside Ikeda Terumasa which almost caused the two to come to blows towards the end. A quick compromise had to be drawn up – Fukushima attacked the front while Ikeda attacked the rear. At the actual battle he would be cheated out of “first blood” by Ii Naomasa, who felt that it should be someone who had been loyal to Tokugawa over someone who had come from the Toyotomi.

After the battle and victory, Masanori was given the fief of Hiroshima in the Mouri province of Aki, valued at 498,000 koku – 1.5 times larger than his old fief in Owari. Despite this huge reward, the Tokugawa never trusted the Fukushima. Ieyasu would attempt to diminish this huge income by ordering Masanori to rebuild Nagoya castle and when Ieyasu died, Hidetada – who seemed to trust Fukushima even less than his father had – removed Masanori from his domains all together. Hidetada rather unceremoniously dumped him in the much smaller 45,000 koku Kawanakajima up in Shinano on the accusation of poor Governance. It wasn’t just Masanori the Tokugawa distrusted, his brother Masayori also lost his lands in 1615.

The Fukushima would never quite recover from this massive downsize in their lands, serving the Tokugawa directly and fighting with them in the Boshin war. Their holdings would be reduced further after Masanori's death to just 3,000 Koku, meaning they no longer qualified as Daimyo.

Masanori himself would die in 1624, at the age of 63.