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"It is true that Konishi Yukinaga, who commanded the first division, desired to continue his northward march from Pyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared, and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukita Hideiye, refused to endorse this plan.

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.

The Hidetsugu catastrophe accentuated the lines of division, and the Korean campaign had a similar effect by affording a field for bitter rivalry between the forces of Konishi Yukinaga, who belonged to the Yodo faction, and Kato Kiyomasa, who was a protege of Hideyoshi's wife, Yae.

She despatched to Pyong-yang an envoy named Chen Weiching known in Japanese history as Chin Ikei who was instructed not to conclude peace but only to make such overtures as might induce the Japanese to agree to an armistice, thus enabling the Chinese authorities to mobilize a sufficient force. Konishi Yukinaga fell into this trap.

Even Kato Kiyomasa, Asano Yukinaga, and Kuroda Nagamasa, each of whom during his lifetime was counted a divinely inspired general, found themselves constrained to study the Chinese classics under the guidance of Funabashi Hidekata and Fujiwara Seigwa. How much more cogent, then, was the similar necessity under which lesser men laboured.

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.