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Updated: May 9, 2025
Not without justice, therefore, have the English been charged with some share of responsibility for the terrible things that ultimately befell the propagandists and the professors of Christianity in Japan. As for the shogun, Hidetada, and his advisers, it is probable that they did not foresee much occasion for actual recourse to violence.
Very soon after his accession he had to order the execution of his own brother, Tadanaga, and the banishment of Kato Tadahiro, son of the celebrated Kato Kiyomasa. The latter was punished on the ground that he sent away his family from Yedo during the time of mourning for the late shogun, Hidetada. He was deprived of his estate at Kumamoto in Higo and was exiled to Dewa province.
An interesting illustration of the administrative canons of the time is afforded in the advice said to have been given by Hosokawa Tadaoki when consulted by Hidetada. "There is an old proverb," Tadaoki replied, "that if a round lid be put on a square vessel, those within will have ease; but if a square lid be used to cover a square vessel, there will result a feeling of distress."
Hidetada, however, objected that human affairs change so radically as to render it impossible to establish universally recognizable precedents, and that if the judgments delivered in any particular era were transmitted as guides for future generations, the result would probably be slavish sacrifice of ethical principles on the altar of stereotyped practice.
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.
In September of the year that witnessed the fall of Osaka Castle, Ieyasu and Hidetada summoned all the provincial governors to Momo-yama, and handed to them a body of rules entitled the "Laws of the Military Houses." These laws ran as follows:* *The translation of these laws is taken from a paper read by Mr.
On the occasion of these progresses, Hidetada is said to have distributed a total of 4.217,400 ryo of gold and 182,000 ryo of silver among the barons throughout the empire. The third shogun, Iemitsu, was open handed.
The era of Hidetada was essentially one of organization, and by the exercise of sincerity and justice he contributed much to the stability of the Tokugawa rule. Not the least memorable step taken by him related to the fortress of Yedo. In the year following his succession, he ordered the feudatories of the east to construct the castle which remains to this day one of the marvels of the world.
Thus, during the shogunate of Hidetada, no less than forty changes are recorded to have been made among the feudatories, and in the time of Iemitsu there were thirty-five of such incidents. History relates that to be transferred from one fief to another, even without nominal loss of revenue, was regarded as a calamity of ten years' duration.
Iemitsu, son of Hidetada, was born in 1603; succeeded to the shogunate in 1622, and held that post until his death, in 1651. He devoted himself to consolidating the system founded by his grandfather, Ieyasu, and he achieved remarkable success by the exercise of exceptional sagacity and determination.
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