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He seems to have clearly foreseen that if he himself
moved eastward to Yedo, Momo-yama would be assaulted in his absence.
But it being necessary to simulate trust in Mori and Ukita, then
nominally his supporters, he placed in Momo-yama Castle a garrison of
only two thousand men under his old and staunch friend, Torii
Mototada. Ieyasu planned that Uesugi should be attacked
simultaneously from five directions; namely from Sendai by Date; from
Kaga by Maeda; from Dewa by Mogami; from Echigo by Hori, and from
Hitachi by Satake. But among these five armies that of Satake
declared for Ishida, while those of Maeda and Hori were constrained
to adopt a defensive attitude by the menace of hostile barons in
their vicinity, and thus it fell out that Date and Mogami alone
operated effectively in the cause of Ieyasu.
The Tokugawa chief himself lost no time in putting his troops in
motion for Yedo, where, at the head of some sixty thousand men, he
arrived in August, 1600, his second in command being his third son,
Hidetada. Thence he pushed rapidly northward with the intention of
attacking Uesugi. But at Oyama in Shimotsuke news reached him that
Ishida and his partisans had drawn the sword in the west, and had
seized Osaka, together with the wives and families of several of the
captains who were with Ieyasu's army. A council was immediately held
and these captains were given the option of continuing to serve under
Ieyasu or retiring to join the western army and thus ensuring the
safety of their own families. They chose the former, and the council
further decided that, leaving Date and Mogami to deal with Uesugi and
Satake, and posting for the same purpose at Utsunomiya, Hideyasu,
second son of Ieyasu, the main army should countermarch to meet the
western forces at some point remote from Yedo.
The Tokugawa battalions, following two routes--the Tokaido and the
Nakasendo--made rapid progress westward, and on September 21st, the
van of the division under Fukushima and Ikeda reached Kiyosu. But the
Nakasendo column of thirty-eight thousand men under Hidetada
encountered such desperate resistance before the castle of Ueda, at
the hands of Sanada Masayuki, that it did not reach Sekigahara until
the great battle was over. Meanwhile, the western army had pushed
steadily eastward. Its first exploit was to capture and burn the
Momo-yama castle, which was splendidly defended by the veteran Torii
Mototada, then in his sixty-second year. With a garrison of only two
thousand men he held at bay during eleven days an investing force of
forty thousand. The torch was set to the castle on the 8th of
September by traitors in the garrison, and Mototada committed
suicide. Thereafter, the van of the western army advanced to Gifu
along the Nakasendo, and the main body, making a detour through Ise,
ultimately pushed forward into Mino.
With this army were no less than forty-three generals of renown, and
the number of feudal barons, great and small, who sent troops to
swell its ranks was thirty-one. Undoubtedly these barons were
partially influenced by the conception generally prevalent that the
fortunes of the two great families of Toyotomi and Tokugawa depended
on the issue of this struggle. But it must also be admitted that had
Ishida Katsushige been as black as the Tokugawa historians paint him,
he could never have served for the central figure of such an array.
He is seen inciting the besiegers of Momo-yama Castle to their
supreme and successful effort. He is seen winning over to the
Toyotomi cause baron after baron. He is seen leading the advance of
the western army's van. And he is seen fighting to the end in the
great battle which closed the campaign. Some heroic qualities must
have accompanied his gift of statesmanship. The nominal leader of the
western army, which mustered 128,000 strong, was Mori Terumoto, and
under him were ranged Ukita Hideiye, Mori Hidemoto, Shimazu
Yoshihiro, Konishi Yukinaga, and many other captains of repute. Under
the Tokugawa banners there marched 75,000 men, their van led by Ii
Naomasa and Honda Tadakatsu.
On October 21, 1600, the great battle of Sekigahara was fought. The
strategy on the side of the western forces was excellent. Their units
were disposed along a crescent-shaped line recessed from the enemy,
so that an attacking army, unless its numerical strength was greatly
superior, had to incur the risk of being enveloped from both
flanks--a risk much accentuated by the fact that these flanking
troops occupied high ground. But on the side of the western army
there was a feature of weakness which no strategy could remove: all
the battalions constituting the right wing were pledged to espouse
the cause of Ieyasu at the crisis of the struggle. There were six of
these battalions, large or small, and they were commanded by Akakura,
Ogawa, Kuchiki, Wakizaka, Kohayakawa, and Kikkawa. Thus, not only
were the eastern troops able to deliver their attack in full force
against the centre and left of their foes, but also the latter were
exposed to the most demoralizing of all eventualities, treachery.
After a fierce fight the western army was completely defeated. Some
accounts put its losses at 35,000 men; others, with greater
probability, estimating that only 100,000 men were actually engaged
on both sides--namely, 60,000 on the Tokugawa side, and 40,000 on the
Toyotomi--conclude that the losses were 6000 and 9000, respectively.
Shimazu of Satsuma, at the head of a handful of samurai, cut his way
through the lines of Ieyasu, and reaching Osaka, embarked hastily for
Kyushu. Ishida Katsushige lay concealed in a cave for a few days, but
was ultimately seized and beheaded, in company with Konishi Yukinaga
and Ankokuji Ekei, at the execution ground in Kyoto. This one battle
ended the struggle: there was no rally. Punishment followed quickly
for the feudatories who had fought against the Tokugawa. Thus Mori
Terumoto's domain, originally covering eight provinces and yielding a
revenue of 1,205,000 koku, was reduced to the two provinces of Suwo
and Nagato, yielding 300,000 koku. The three provinces of Ukita
Hideiye were entirely forfeited, and he himself was banished to the
island Hachijoshima. Oda Hidenobu, grandson of Nobunaga, Masuda
Nagamori, and Sanada Masayuki, with his son, were ordered to take the
tonsure and retire to the monastery of Koya-san. The fief of Uesugi
Kagekatsu was reduced from 1,200,000 koku in Aizu to 300,000 koku in
Yonezawa; and the 800,000 koku of the Satake family in Hitachi were
exchanged for 200,000 koku in Akita. Only the Shimazu family of
Satsuma remained without loss. Secured by inaccessibility, it
continued to hold the provinces of Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga, with a
revenue of 700,000 koku.
REDISTRIBUTION OF THE FIEFS
These measures represented only a fraction of the readjustments then
effected. Ieyasu, following the example, set on a small scale by the
Taiko, parcelled out the country in such a manner as to provide
security against future trouble. Dividing the feudatories into
hereditary vassals (fudai no kerai) and exterior nobles (tozama), he
assigned to the former small but greatly increased estates situated
so as to command the main highways as well as the great cities of
central Japan, and he located the exterior nobles--many of them with
largely reduced domains--in districts remote not only from Yedo and
Kyoto but also from each other, wherever such method of distribution
was possible. Moreover, in the most important places--as Osaka,
Fushimi, Sakai, Nagasaki, Yamada (in Ise), and Sado (the gold mines),
there were appointed administrators (bugyo), direct nominees of the
Tokugawa; while Kyoto was put under the sway of a deputy of the
shogun (shoshidai). Again, although the tozama daimyo received
tolerably munificent treatment in the matter of estates, their
resources were seriously crippled by the imposition of costly public
works. These works consisted mainly of restoring dilapidated castles
or building new ones on a scale so colossal as to be exceeded by only
the stronghold at Osaka. It is recorded that when Fukushima Masanori,
lord of Kiyosu in Owari, complained of the crippling effects of these
severe requisitions, Kato Kiyomasa told him that there was no
alternative except to retire to his castle and defy Yedo. The most
costly of the edifices that came into existence in these
circumstances was the castle of Nagoya, which is still one of the
wonders of Japan. Twenty great barons took part in erecting it; the
leading artists of the time were engaged in its interior decoration,
and the roof of its donjon was crowned with, two gold dolphins,
measuring nearly nine feet in height.
IEYASU BECOMES SHOGUN
On the 28th of March, 1603, the Emperor nominated Ieyasu to be
minister of the Right and sei-i tai-shogun, presenting to him at the
same time the conventional ox-chariot and military baton. Nine days
later, the Tokugawa chief repaired to the palace to return thanks for
these honours. The Emperor with his own hands gave him the
drinking-cup and expressed profound gratification that through his
military skill the wars which had convulsed the nation were ended,
and the foundations of the empire's peace securely laid. Ieyasu was
then in his sixty-second year. In the following May, Hideyori was
made nai-daijin, and in the same month a marriage was contracted
between him, then in his eleventh year, and Tenju-in, the
seven-year-old daughter of Hidetada, son and successor of Ieyasu.
YEDO AND KYOTO
Ieyasu now took up his residence at Momo-yama Castle and Hidetada was
ordered to live in Yedo. But the former made it a custom to go
eastward every autumn on the pretext of enjoying the sport of
falconry, and to remain in Yedo until the next spring. In February,
1605, the Tokugawa chief's return to Kyoto from the Kwanto capital
was made the occasion of a great military display. Both Ieyasu and
Hidetada travelled at the same time with a following of 170,000
soldiers, who were encamped outside the city whence they marched in,
ten thousand daily, during seventeen consecutive days.
moved eastward to Yedo, Momo-yama would be assaulted in his absence.
But it being necessary to simulate trust in Mori and Ukita, then
nominally his supporters, he placed in Momo-yama Castle a garrison of
only two thousand men under his old and staunch friend, Torii
Mototada. Ieyasu planned that Uesugi should be attacked
simultaneously from five directions; namely from Sendai by Date; from
Kaga by Maeda; from Dewa by Mogami; from Echigo by Hori, and from
Hitachi by Satake. But among these five armies that of Satake
declared for Ishida, while those of Maeda and Hori were constrained
to adopt a defensive attitude by the menace of hostile barons in
their vicinity, and thus it fell out that Date and Mogami alone
operated effectively in the cause of Ieyasu.
The Tokugawa chief himself lost no time in putting his troops in
motion for Yedo, where, at the head of some sixty thousand men, he
arrived in August, 1600, his second in command being his third son,
Hidetada. Thence he pushed rapidly northward with the intention of
attacking Uesugi. But at Oyama in Shimotsuke news reached him that
Ishida and his partisans had drawn the sword in the west, and had
seized Osaka, together with the wives and families of several of the
captains who were with Ieyasu's army. A council was immediately held
and these captains were given the option of continuing to serve under
Ieyasu or retiring to join the western army and thus ensuring the
safety of their own families. They chose the former, and the council
further decided that, leaving Date and Mogami to deal with Uesugi and
Satake, and posting for the same purpose at Utsunomiya, Hideyasu,
second son of Ieyasu, the main army should countermarch to meet the
western forces at some point remote from Yedo.
The Tokugawa battalions, following two routes--the Tokaido and the
Nakasendo--made rapid progress westward, and on September 21st, the
van of the division under Fukushima and Ikeda reached Kiyosu. But the
Nakasendo column of thirty-eight thousand men under Hidetada
encountered such desperate resistance before the castle of Ueda, at
the hands of Sanada Masayuki, that it did not reach Sekigahara until
the great battle was over. Meanwhile, the western army had pushed
steadily eastward. Its first exploit was to capture and burn the
Momo-yama castle, which was splendidly defended by the veteran Torii
Mototada, then in his sixty-second year. With a garrison of only two
thousand men he held at bay during eleven days an investing force of
forty thousand. The torch was set to the castle on the 8th of
September by traitors in the garrison, and Mototada committed
suicide. Thereafter, the van of the western army advanced to Gifu
along the Nakasendo, and the main body, making a detour through Ise,
ultimately pushed forward into Mino.
With this army were no less than forty-three generals of renown, and
the number of feudal barons, great and small, who sent troops to
swell its ranks was thirty-one. Undoubtedly these barons were
partially influenced by the conception generally prevalent that the
fortunes of the two great families of Toyotomi and Tokugawa depended
on the issue of this struggle. But it must also be admitted that had
Ishida Katsushige been as black as the Tokugawa historians paint him,
he could never have served for the central figure of such an array.
He is seen inciting the besiegers of Momo-yama Castle to their
supreme and successful effort. He is seen winning over to the
Toyotomi cause baron after baron. He is seen leading the advance of
the western army's van. And he is seen fighting to the end in the
great battle which closed the campaign. Some heroic qualities must
have accompanied his gift of statesmanship. The nominal leader of the
western army, which mustered 128,000 strong, was Mori Terumoto, and
under him were ranged Ukita Hideiye, Mori Hidemoto, Shimazu
Yoshihiro, Konishi Yukinaga, and many other captains of repute. Under
the Tokugawa banners there marched 75,000 men, their van led by Ii
Naomasa and Honda Tadakatsu.
On October 21, 1600, the great battle of Sekigahara was fought. The
strategy on the side of the western forces was excellent. Their units
were disposed along a crescent-shaped line recessed from the enemy,
so that an attacking army, unless its numerical strength was greatly
superior, had to incur the risk of being enveloped from both
flanks--a risk much accentuated by the fact that these flanking
troops occupied high ground. But on the side of the western army
there was a feature of weakness which no strategy could remove: all
the battalions constituting the right wing were pledged to espouse
the cause of Ieyasu at the crisis of the struggle. There were six of
these battalions, large or small, and they were commanded by Akakura,
Ogawa, Kuchiki, Wakizaka, Kohayakawa, and Kikkawa. Thus, not only
were the eastern troops able to deliver their attack in full force
against the centre and left of their foes, but also the latter were
exposed to the most demoralizing of all eventualities, treachery.
After a fierce fight the western army was completely defeated. Some
accounts put its losses at 35,000 men; others, with greater
probability, estimating that only 100,000 men were actually engaged
on both sides--namely, 60,000 on the Tokugawa side, and 40,000 on the
Toyotomi--conclude that the losses were 6000 and 9000, respectively.
Shimazu of Satsuma, at the head of a handful of samurai, cut his way
through the lines of Ieyasu, and reaching Osaka, embarked hastily for
Kyushu. Ishida Katsushige lay concealed in a cave for a few days, but
was ultimately seized and beheaded, in company with Konishi Yukinaga
and Ankokuji Ekei, at the execution ground in Kyoto. This one battle
ended the struggle: there was no rally. Punishment followed quickly
for the feudatories who had fought against the Tokugawa. Thus Mori
Terumoto's domain, originally covering eight provinces and yielding a
revenue of 1,205,000 koku, was reduced to the two provinces of Suwo
and Nagato, yielding 300,000 koku. The three provinces of Ukita
Hideiye were entirely forfeited, and he himself was banished to the
island Hachijoshima. Oda Hidenobu, grandson of Nobunaga, Masuda
Nagamori, and Sanada Masayuki, with his son, were ordered to take the
tonsure and retire to the monastery of Koya-san. The fief of Uesugi
Kagekatsu was reduced from 1,200,000 koku in Aizu to 300,000 koku in
Yonezawa; and the 800,000 koku of the Satake family in Hitachi were
exchanged for 200,000 koku in Akita. Only the Shimazu family of
Satsuma remained without loss. Secured by inaccessibility, it
continued to hold the provinces of Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga, with a
revenue of 700,000 koku.
REDISTRIBUTION OF THE FIEFS
These measures represented only a fraction of the readjustments then
effected. Ieyasu, following the example, set on a small scale by the
Taiko, parcelled out the country in such a manner as to provide
security against future trouble. Dividing the feudatories into
hereditary vassals (fudai no kerai) and exterior nobles (tozama), he
assigned to the former small but greatly increased estates situated
so as to command the main highways as well as the great cities of
central Japan, and he located the exterior nobles--many of them with
largely reduced domains--in districts remote not only from Yedo and
Kyoto but also from each other, wherever such method of distribution
was possible. Moreover, in the most important places--as Osaka,
Fushimi, Sakai, Nagasaki, Yamada (in Ise), and Sado (the gold mines),
there were appointed administrators (bugyo), direct nominees of the
Tokugawa; while Kyoto was put under the sway of a deputy of the
shogun (shoshidai). Again, although the tozama daimyo received
tolerably munificent treatment in the matter of estates, their
resources were seriously crippled by the imposition of costly public
works. These works consisted mainly of restoring dilapidated castles
or building new ones on a scale so colossal as to be exceeded by only
the stronghold at Osaka. It is recorded that when Fukushima Masanori,
lord of Kiyosu in Owari, complained of the crippling effects of these
severe requisitions, Kato Kiyomasa told him that there was no
alternative except to retire to his castle and defy Yedo. The most
costly of the edifices that came into existence in these
circumstances was the castle of Nagoya, which is still one of the
wonders of Japan. Twenty great barons took part in erecting it; the
leading artists of the time were engaged in its interior decoration,
and the roof of its donjon was crowned with, two gold dolphins,
measuring nearly nine feet in height.
IEYASU BECOMES SHOGUN
On the 28th of March, 1603, the Emperor nominated Ieyasu to be
minister of the Right and sei-i tai-shogun, presenting to him at the
same time the conventional ox-chariot and military baton. Nine days
later, the Tokugawa chief repaired to the palace to return thanks for
these honours. The Emperor with his own hands gave him the
drinking-cup and expressed profound gratification that through his
military skill the wars which had convulsed the nation were ended,
and the foundations of the empire's peace securely laid. Ieyasu was
then in his sixty-second year. In the following May, Hideyori was
made nai-daijin, and in the same month a marriage was contracted
between him, then in his eleventh year, and Tenju-in, the
seven-year-old daughter of Hidetada, son and successor of Ieyasu.
YEDO AND KYOTO
Ieyasu now took up his residence at Momo-yama Castle and Hidetada was
ordered to live in Yedo. But the former made it a custom to go
eastward every autumn on the pretext of enjoying the sport of
falconry, and to remain in Yedo until the next spring. In February,
1605, the Tokugawa chief's return to Kyoto from the Kwanto capital
was made the occasion of a great military display. Both Ieyasu and
Hidetada travelled at the same time with a following of 170,000
soldiers, who were encamped outside the city whence they marched in,
ten thousand daily, during seventeen consecutive days.
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