United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Naturally the news of the decision threw Osaka into a state of great excitement. Lady Yodo hastened to despatch to Sumpu her principal lady-in-waiting, Okura-no-Tsubone, accompanied by another dame of the chamber. These two were received by Acha-no-Tsubone at the court of Ieyasu, and through her they conveyed fervent apologies to the Tokugawa chief. Ieyasu treated the whole matter lightly.
His income was thenceforth reduced to 120,000 koku annually, derived from estates in the provinces of Mino, Ise, and Omi. But this retirement was in form rather than in fact. All administrative affairs, great or small, were managed in Sumpu, the shogun in Yedo exercising merely the power of sanction. It was on the 30th of August, 1590, that Ieyasu made his first formal entry into Yedo from Sumpu.
After the battle of Sekigahara had established his administrative supremacy, and after he had retired from the shogunate in favour of Hidetada, Ieyasu applied himself during his residence at Sumpu to collecting old manuscripts, and shortly before his death he directed that the Japanese section of the library thus formed should be handed over to his eighth son, the baron of Owari, and the Chinese portion to his ninth son, the baron of Kii.
During the first eleven years of his shogunate he exercised little real authority, the administration being conducted by Ieyasu himself from his nominal place of retirement in Sumpu. Thus, the period of Hidetada's independent sway extended over six years only.
The routine of promotion was from the jodai of Osaka to the shoshidai of Kyoto and from thence to the roju. Originally there were six jodai but their number was ultimately reduced to one. Sumpu also had a jodai, who discharged duties similar to those devolving on his Osaka namesake.
Such was Katsumoto's device, but he had to flee from Osaka before he could carry it into effect. In the year 1614, Ieyasu issued orders for the attack of Osaka Castle, on the ground that Katsumoto's promise had not been fulfilled. The Tokugawa chief set out from Sumpu and his son, Hidetada, from Yedo.
It had been practised from medieval times and often with direct sanction of the authorities. But in no circumstances was it officially permissible within the cities of Kyoto, Yedo, Osaka, and Sumpu, or in the vicinity of the shogun's shrines. The forty-seven ronins had therefore committed a capital crime.
In 1605, he conveyed to the Imperial Court his desire to be relieved of military functions, in favour of his son Hidetada, and the Emperor at once consented, so that Hidetada succeeded to all the offices of his father, and Ieyasu retired to the castle of Sumpu, the capital of Suruga.
To these proposals the only reply that could be elicited from Ieyasu was that Yodo and her son should choose whichever course they pleased, and, bearing that answer, the disquieting import of which he well understood, Katsumoto set out from Sumpu for Osaka. Travelling rapidly, he soon overtook Okwra-no-Tsubone and explained to her the events and their import. But the lady was incredulous.
Ieyasu had always made frugality and economy his leading principles. He had escaped the heavy outlays to which his fellow barons were condemned in connexion with the Korean campaign, since his share in the affair did not extend beyond collecting a force in the province of Hizen. Further, during his retirement at Sumpu, he saved a sum of one million ryo.
Word Of The Day