Death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Hideyoshi Died on This Day, September 18, 1598.
The second of the Three Great Unifiers of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, began life as a foot-soldier who rose in the ranks to become a samurai, general, statesman and eventually ruler of Japan. The story of his life was told in the book Taiko by Yoshikawa Eiji, the man responsible for having novelised the life of another hero of Japan, Miyamoto Musashi, however, like Musashi’s life, while many of the stories are based on actual events, many of the episodes were fictionalised to enhance the story.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi was born either February 6, 1536 or March 17, 1537 in the village of Nakamura, (Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture) in 1536. His father, Kinoshita Yaemon — an ashigaru who had been badly injured in a battle and was unable to walk properly had turned to farming — died shortly after his birth, and his mother, Naka, (later Omandokoro) daughter of a blacksmith, remarried a lowly samurai who is said to have treated the boy severely. As a child he was sent to a nearby temple to become a priest, but absconded at the age of 15 to join the army of Matsushita Yukitsuna as an ashigaru foot soldier. In 1558, Hideyoshi was given six ryo, a fair sum of money, to go purchase a coat of chain-mail for his master. However, the young samurai used the money to buy himself light armor and weapons and returning to Owari (western Aichi Prefecture) entered the services of Oda Nobunaga as a sandal bearer.
The story is well known that one cold winters’ morning, Hideyoshi put his masters’ straw sandals inside his kimono to keep them warm. This story too seems to be mostly fiction, but it does explain how Hideyoshi came to the attention of Nobunaga, who, impressed by his attitude, rewarded him well, noting his intellect and promoting him as he rapidly distinguished himself.
Hideyoshi is said to have repaired the walls at Kiyosu Castle in record time, to have built a castle overnight at Sunomata in Gifu Prefecture, amongst many other feats that kept him in view of the great Oda Nobunaga and on the upward path to greatness.
Hideyoshi was present at the Battle of Okehazama, the siege of Inabayama, the Battle of Anegawa and a number of Oda led skirmishes. Hideyoshi was in the south-western regions of Japan laying siege to the Mori clan held Takamatsu Castle when he received word of Nobunaga’s assassination.
Upon receiving news of Nobanaga’s death at the hands of a trusted general, Hideyoshi quickly ended the siege of Takamatsu, telling the master of the flooded castle that his men could be saved and peace acquired simply by having the lord commit seppuku, ritual suicide. Once this was done and peace negotiated, he turned his men on the traitor Akechi Mitsuhide. Hideyoshi’s forces defeated the Akechi army at Yamazaki, near Kyoto, and 13 days after Nobunaga’s assassination, Mitsuhide had been dispatched. Hideyoshi then returned to Nobunaga’s Kiyosu Castle where he met with the senior retainers of the Oda clan and nominated Nobunaga’s infant grandson, Samboshi, as heir, assigning Nobukatsu and Nobutaka, the second and third sons of Nobunaga as the guardians of the infant until his coming of age.
Hideyoshi’s actions became suspect as he then governed in the name of young Samboshi. He was challenged by Nobutaka, who called on Shibata Katsuie, a long trusted vassal of the Oda, to rebuke or oust Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi in turn sent Nobutaka’s brother Nobukatsu against him, and defeated his sibling in a siege of Gifu Castle. In 1583, Hideyoshi attacked and defeated Shibata at the Battle of Shizugatake.
The Battle of Shizugatake.
The Battle of Shizugatake was fought between the forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and another trusted Oda general, Shibata Katsuie.
During that winter, while Shibata’s support troops in Echizen’s Kitanosho Castle (Fukui Prefecture) were snowed in, Hideyoshi attacked Katsuie’s son, Katsutoyo in Nagahama Castle.. Gifu Castle based Oda Nobunaga’s son, Nobutaka had foolishly raised the ire of Hideyoshi, who responded with such force, Nobutaka surrendered immediately. Katsuie was stuck in snowbound Echizen and was unable to assist.
As the country emerged from the winter cold, to prevent Shibata Katsuie’s 30,000 troop advance by either the eastern or western sides of Lake Biwa, Hideyoshi ordered four small forts be built on the mountains dividing Biwa and the smaller Lake Yogo.
Hideyoshi was suddenly forced to return to lay siege against Gifu Castle and put down an insurrection by Oda Nobutaka, but this proved to be fortuitous for Hideyoshi. Not long after Hideyoshi had left the region, Shibata Katsuie ordered his nephew Sakuma Morimasa to take these castles. Sakuma and his samurai attacked Mt. Oiwa taking it easlily, then turned their attention to Iwasaki-yama, winning it.
With Hideyoshi in Gifu. Sakuma figured it would take three days to move the 20,000 Toyotomi troops back to Shizugatake, by which time Sakuma could take the main mountaintop fortress. Hideyoshi’s samurai at Shizugatake feared falling to Sakuma’s troops for long, and made plans to evacuate, however, Niwa Nagahide’s 2,000 reinforcements arrived, preventing Sakuma from taking the fortress easily.
That evening, Sakuma Morimasa was shocked to see thousands of flaming torches burning at the base of the mountain. Hideyoshi’s army had moved 52 kilometers in five hours, and in less than a day, were in a position to destroy Sakuma.
The fighting was so severe Sakuma Morimasa’s troops are said to have abandoned their weapons and armor and fled the mountain to safety. Shibata Katsuie also returned to his castle of Kitanosho, with Hideyoshi’s army in pursuit. Katsuie knew his situation was hopeless, but could not bring himself to surrender to the likes of Hideyoshi. Instead, his wife, Nobunaga’s sister Oichi, and Katsuie set the castle on fire and took their lives in the way of the samurai. With the demise of Shibata Katsuie, Toyotomi Hideyoshi now ruled the nation.
Komaki Nagakute
Nobukatsu was next to find fault in having Hideyoshi hold the reigns of his fathers’ hard won estates and turned to Tokugawa Ieyasu for assistance.The Tokugawa and Toyotomi armies faced off at Mt. Komaki north of Nagoya, and a battle was fought around Nagakute. Through negotiation, Hideyoshi was able to sue for peace, after which he returned to Osaka to begin occupying himself with the building of the magnificent Osaka Castle.
Hideyoshi had conquered the southern islands of Shikoku and Kyushu, and bringing the daimyo of the north under his control. He surveyed the land, standardised the currency, and to cease uprisings and war, confiscated swords from the peasantry. Hideyoshi further ordered all to remain in their respective castes, of warrior, farmer, craftsmen or merchant.
With the nation at peace, and many hundreds of thousands of samurai warriors now idle, Hideyoshi launched two major campaigns against the Korean peninsula, with the believed intent of capturing China. When these men were recalled to Japan, however, they found that political circumstances had changed dramatically.
It was at the sumptuous Fushimi Castle on September 18, 1598 that Hideyoshi died at the age of 63 leaving his vast empire to his five year-old son, Hideyori. According to legend, in his final years he was continuously erratic in his actions, prone to fits of temper and of an inconsistent mind. On his deathbed he was delirious, possibly fevered from illness, rumoured to have been syphilis.
The Go-Tairo kept his death secret for some time, ostensibly to to preserve morale, and quickly ordered the repatriation of samurai troops in Korea to Japan. These failed military expeditions left the Toyotomi clan accounts depleted, and his men perturbed.
Determined that the Toyotomi family should retain power, Hideyoshi had appointed a board of five regents, the Go-Tairo, to rule in his son’s stead. The five men were supposed to have balanced one another out, however with the death of Maeda Toshiie, and before Toshiie’s son Maeda Toshinaga could succeed him, there became an imbalance of power, and it was the actions of one of those regents, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who would again bring the nation to civil war, and then emerge victorious.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi was not a physically strong man. He had risen rapidly from being a lowly sandal-bearer to one of the most respected strategists in the land by merit of a strong intellect that allowed him to take over the helm from Nobunaga and eventually unify the nation.
Hideyoshi stood 154cm high, and had type O blood. He is said to have had a birth defect having six fingers on his left hand. Although he is often shown sporting a beard, he was unable to grow one himself, and so the beard was a stuck-on hairpiece. History books tell us his liege, Nobunaga, called him Saru, or Monkey, however that is apocryphal, as diaries and letters show Nobunaga referred to him as the “Bald Rat”, or another name that translated becomes “Six Fingernails” in reference to his extra digit.
There are too many stories regarding Toyotomi Hideyoshi to cover in just one article. Over the coming months I will attempt to look at different aspects of this man’s life, work, episodes and his impact on Japanese history and culture.
Sounds like a great series coming up! Did you miss something about Shizugatake in the above? There is a header about Shizugatake but content below that is about Komaki Nagakute.
What about the seven spears and three swordsmen of Shizugatake? The single greatest feat of arms in Japanese history!