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The Soga brothers, victims and heroes of a famous twelfth-century tragedy, have become gods to whom people pray for the maintenance of fraternal harmony. Kato Kiyomasa, the determined enemy of Jesuit Christianity, and Hideyoshi's greatest captain, has been apotheosized both by Buddhism and by Shinto. Iyeyasu is worshipped under the appellation of Toshogu.
This attitude angered Hideyoshi for reasons which will presently be apparent. He assigned to Nobukatsu a comparatively insignificant fief at Akita, in the remote province of Dewa, and gave the estates in Owari and Ise to Hidetsugu, the nephew and adopted successor of Hideyoshi, while the five provinces hitherto under the sway of Ieyasu were divided among Hideyoshi's generals and retainers.
Whatever sympathy might have been felt in Kyoto with the Hojo family was forfeited by this procedure, and in March, 1590, an army of over two hundred thousand men was set in motion for the Kwanto. Hideyoshi's troops moved in three columns.
It is said that the total of the coins thus bestowed amounted to 365,000 ryo, a vast sum in that era. A history of the time observes that the chief recipients of Hideyoshi's generosity were the members of his own family, and that he would have shown better taste had he made these donations privately.
He cannot but have concluded that if these Portuguese merchants and seamen were to be regarded as specimens of the products of Christianity, then, indeed, that creed had not much to recommend it. All these things seem amply sufficient to account for the change that manifested itself in Hideyoshi's attitude towards Christianity at the close of the Kyushu campaign.
There are many stories about Hideyoshi's early days, but the details are obscured by a record called the Taikoki, which undoubtedly makes many excursions into the region of romance. Yaemon served the Oda family, and died when Hideyoshi was still a youth.
As to the idea that Hideyoshi was influenced by anti-Christian sentiment, it is sufficient to observe that out of nearly a quarter of a million of Japanese soldiers who landed in Korea during the course of the campaign, not so much as ten per cent, were Christians, and with regard to the question of personal ambition, it may be conceded at once that if Hideyoshi's character lays him open to such a charge, his well-proven statecraft exonerates him from any suspicion of having acted without thought for his country's good.
Iehisa, of course, refused, and to Hideyoshi's credit it stands on record that he did not press the matter with any violence. This difficulty of invading an unknown country without any maps or any guides, a country celebrated for its topographical perplexities, was ultimately overcome by sending Buddhist priests to act as spies in the dominions of Shimazu.
Yoshihiro was summoned to Kyoto by Hideyoshi to answer for this action, but he pleaded that such treachery amply deserved such punishment, and that he was prepared to bow to Hideyoshi's judgment in the matter.
But elated by this victory, he neglected Hideyoshi's caution, and the generals of Ieyasu, closing in on him, inflicted a crushing defeat at a place called Nagakude. It is thus evident that Hideyoshi's share in the disaster was of a most indirect character.
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