Welcome once again to my continuing Surfari series on Japanese Feudalism. After last issue’s comparison of the noble and warrior classes, I’m going to hit y’all with an in-depth topic: the life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japan’s second of "Three Unifiers". It will be split into two articles, of which this is the first half.
The time is the 16th century. Let clouds overtake your view as we shift back almost five hundred years...
HIDEYOSHI: A SUMMARY
The mind within Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s short and rugged exterior possessed extraordinary drive, strength, charm and ability. An amazing leader and strategic genius with the requisite life of drama, he forged a revolution in feudal Japanese society on the shoulders of his predecessor, Oda Nobunaga.
Hideyoshi’s legacy is multi-faceted, and as such is not positive in all respects. For example, he disarmed the population under the pretense of making rivets for a statue of Buddha. In this he backed himself with legislation that observed how dangerous local weapons were to the tax collectors. In so doing he rearranged the entire caste system, removing the social mechanisms that had allowed him to rise from peasant farmer to "Bountiful Minister".
These exploits are but a few out of many. In this text I shall discuss his life and the unification of Japan that he helped realize. To accomplish this, I will briefly cover his background, the political legacy he inherited, the social revolution he caused and the events presaging his decline. These events were Hideyoshi’s misuse of chado [Tea ceremony], the Christian persecutions, his desire to absorb China through Korea and finally the infected madness that foreshadowed his death.
Hashiba Hideyoshi was born in 1536, into a farm family with nothing publicly relevant except his father’s part-time military position. He grew up in the Owari province and was orphaned at age seven; his family owned some land, but it was not lucrative enough for the family to have a ‘true’ surname. While this was an important distinction between lower and higher status between farmers, Hideyoshi was a man of singular talent and ambition who was determined to sidestep all barriers between him and his intent.
As stated, before he froze class lines there was such thing as social mobility. A narrow bridge existed between farmer and warrior, something Hideyoshi exploited to the fullest. As such he became a local page until he transferred his loyalty to another lord, Oda Nobunaga [the first Unifier]. This was to be the most important crossroads in Hideyoshi’s life, and it seems he chose the right path. By his thirties Hideyoshi was one of his lord’s cardinal retainers, and a third of Japan was under control when Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582.
At the time, Hideyoshi was busy subjugating a general of the Mori family (allied with the powerful Choshu family who have historically controlled the navy), one of Nobunaga’s chief remaining rivals. He was besieging their Takamatsu castle, by diverting a river into it, when he heard about Nobunaga’s death. A pragmatist, he knew that in order to succeed he must be the first to obtain the killer’s head.
Hastily, he drew up peace terms that included a generous allowance for the general to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide. [Of course the general, Shimizu Muneharu, was determined to die "theatrically". After ensuring that Hideyoshi’s forces were paying careful attention, he took a boat to the middle of the lake and disemboweled himself.] Meanwhile, Hideyoshi tracked down the assassin and presented his head to Nobunaga’s corpse. This marked the beginning of the takeover, and by 1590 Hideyoshi’s military unification had been achieved.
OF THE ODDS
The cards were decidedly stacked against him. Hideyoshi lacked any sort of notable lineage, and in fact ended up rewriting it with the help of the court to make it more seemly. After all, his powerful rivals each controlled multiple provinces and could bring tens of thousands to the front.
The fact that they didn’t collaborate to suppress him makes Hideyoshi’s rise that much more remarkable. After all, it could be said that the only reason he was so effective was because the musket-wielding Nobunaga had already dispatched the dangerous competitors!
This is where Hideyoshi’s personal qualities come into play. He continued the conquest of Japan, subjugating hostile daimyo [feudal lords] with astounding speed. First he took on Honshu in the west, then Shikoku island, and finally massive Kyushu, involving as many as a quarter million soldiers at a time.
Interestingly, he also was known for his generous nature - as is illustrated by the example of Sasa Narimasa, who renounced his allegiance with Hideyoshi to back a relative of Nobunaga in 1584. After the military unification, Hideyoshi magnanimously transferred Narimasa to a far-off province with a specific list of warnings "...to be carefully and strictly observed". When Narimasa again betrayed Hideyoshi’s trust, he was invited to commit seppuku.
SUCCESSION
By 1590, the Hojo autonomy was poised as the last to fall. By now the Japanese were aware that they effectively had a new Shogun, which heralded the coming of Hideyoshi’s most important contribution. This was a new approach to central government unlike Nobunaga’s style or anything else the Japanese had yet seen. The office of kampaku (civil regent) became a one-man dictatorship.
Hideyoshi correctly sensed that his power should rest upon the independence of the daimyo to manage their own domains, while also having them pay homage and fight his battles. This contrasts sharply with Nobunaga, who instilled an inner circle of trusted lieutenants to control the conquered land firmly and directly. Those not yet conquered held on to the absolute authority they had in their own domains, since they rightly feared being supplanted by Nobunaga’s Cabal.
Hideyoshi, on the other hand, took a very different tack to keep the two hundred daimyo under submission. First, he divided the land into various sizes and distributed them. Some of the daimyo were Hideyoshi’s former peers in Nobunaga’s organization; others negotiated with Hideyoshi to avoid attack, and those remaining were vanquished enemies graciously allowed to retain their status and land. Furthermore, Hideyoshi actually extended the holdings of allies and former enemies alike. This was done by distributing newly conquered territory amongst them, and eschewing opportunities to enrich himself or his privy council.
Hideyoshi’s holdings were not the largest in the country; in addition, two of his defeated foes were allowed to remain among the most powerful families in the new Japan. In addition, he kept direct governance of the provinces to a minimum. They were not brutally taxed, and were largely responsible for local policy. Most importantly, they retained jurisdiction over their armies.
Hideyoshi relied on the daimyo, therefore, for administrative affairs. He did not establish a bureaucracy to conduct national business, preferring that the daimyo take care of land projects, the census et cetera. He avoided the strict control of vassal behavior practiced by Nobunaga, and as a result identified with the idea of the autonomous domain pledging allegiance to him.
Consequently, the daimyo did not have to worry about having their land seized on a whim or their policies redefined without warning. The line in the sand, as it were, was that Hideyoshi was over all daimyo the final judicial authority, administrator of major cities and director of foreign affairs. This was his key similarity with Nobunaga - Hideyoshi was a centrist. He assumed responsibility for the public and moved to eliminate [what he saw as] disharmony.
Hideyoshi was able to use so many soldiers that to challenge him was either too expensive or too reckless. This may have been why his peace held, although the situation remained highly volatile. Priests, soldiers, craftsman, peasants, and mercenaries alike were poised to defend local interest, while defeated lords sulked, wishing for vengeance.
Therefore, Hideyoshi did not return and start celebrating; instead, he hosted a chaji (formal Tea Ceremony) three weeks later. Besides that, he "...held no parades, received neither the daimyo nor the nobility in his residence, and began no round of thanksgiving prayers at Kyoto’s temples and shrines to mark the end of the fighting."
The Taiko-ki, or official biography commissioned by Hideyoshi, states that his vassals were at base weary of war. This combined with the newfound barbarity of the arquebus made them finally lay down their arms to reflect on the recent years of struggle. Hideyoshi was well aware of how to use this psychology to his advantage, for the surrender and / or defeat of the most powerful daimyo was very likely a strong deterrent to upstarts.
THE RED-SEAL EDICTS: INSTRUMENTS OF AUTHORITY
After completing the muscle work begun by Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi moved on to his social reforms. Three so-called "Red-Seal Edicts" embodied these changes and were handed down with the full force of law.
In 1588 Hideyoshi issued the most profound of the three, known as the ‘Sword Hunt’. It signified Hideyoshi’s political finality, and was critical to the construction of a modern state. He claimed to be supporting the interest of the farmer, much like modern-day politicians in this country maneuver in the name of children and "character".
The actual bull mandated that no farmer could carry long or short swords, bows, spears, muskets or any other form of weapon. Furthermore, all blades were to be melted down to help construct a massive Buddha which, Hideyoshi assured, would bless the farmers and their descendants for lifetimes to come.
Again, Hideyoshi would depend on the daimyo to collect those weapons and deliver them, and thus his edict was issued in the most formal style of language and script. Furthermore, he refers to the well-being of future generations, alluding to the timeless stability he envisioned for his regime. This represented a most fundamental change for the peasant lifestyle, for they could no longer use weapons to aggress or settle conflicts.
The daimyo, meanwhile, saw advantage to this system because it neutralized a neighbor's advantage to rally the peasant militia while also placing the task of disarming the populace squarely on Hideyoshi’s shoulders.
The other main ‘benefit’ of the Sword Hunt was the social stratification it imparted. Only warriors were permitted to carry the daisho, or long and short swords which became a symbol of privilege. In addition, warriors were pulled from family and village to live in garrison towns. Hideyoshi thus managed to deepen the social chasm between farmer and warrior, the two most likely allies in confounding him.
Three years later Hideyoshi issued another resounding edict that truly froze any modicum of social mobility. With it, three castes (farmer, merchant and soldier) were defined with absolutely no movement between them. The language was intimidating and nebulous - it required mutual responsibility on the scale of entire neighborhoods, or even villages. For example, the farmer’s penalty for harboring a fugitive soldier was the beheading of three innocent men.
Furthermore, similar penalties applied should a farmer ever become, or harbor, a merchant. The townsmen, meanwhile, did not seem to concern Hideyoshi since they were not a political threat. In fact, he cut government presence and taxes to encourage urban growth. Therefore, his overall social goal was to keep farm and military society mutually exclusive. Farmers were now farmers forever, precluding even the next Hideyoshi from rising above his station.
The effect on the military, however, was equally profound if not more so. The individual fighter’s self-image was radically changed, because he was physically and psychologically removed from his traditional land-holding. Instead, they were forced to live in Hideyoshi’s garrison towns as guardians of the collective state. This built upon the already shifting patterns of feudal land. In short, this second ‘Red-Seal Edict’ used language of the police state to close the military doors Hideyoshi utilized to rise above.
There was one more Edict that prohibited physical movement and finalized the social changes. A census was to be taken, and each individual in all 66 provinces was to register their names, along with their status and the number of houses. Furthermore it was verboten to live in any other province, unless a letter to the "gods, sealed in blood" vowed that there would be no problems. This was most likely done to help Hideyoshi maintain control over some of the more powerful daimyo, who could move large numbers of people around and conceivably create a situation.
Thus ends Part I. I know you're enthralled, so stay tuned for Part II in the next issue of Net4TV Voice!
