United States or Ecuador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The 7th of August, 1595, was the day of the Hidetsugu tragedy, and the above regulations and instructions were promulgated for the most part early in September of the same year. It is not difficult to trace a connexion.
In this dispute, Ishida Katsushige, the chief actor in the Hidetsugu tragedy, took a prominent part. For, when in their capacity as belonging to the Board of Five Administrators, Ishida and Asano Nagamasa were sent to Kyushu to superintend the evacuation of the Korean peninsula, they, too, fell into a controversy on the same subject. Ieyasu stood aloof from both parties.
Indirectly, the spirit of such legislation suggests that the signatories of these laws Takakage, Terumoto, Toshiiye, Hideiye, and Ieyasu attached some measure of credence to the indictment of treason preferred against Hidetsugu. The agrarian legislation of Hideyoshi is worthy of special attention.
On the other hand, if credence be due to these tales, it seems strange that they were not included in the accusations preferred finally against Hidetsugu by the Taiko, when the former's overthrow became advisable in the latter's eyes. For it did so become.
As a further measure of precaution, Hideyoshi interposed one of his own family, Hidetsugu, between the Kwanto and Kyoto, and with the object of menacing the rear of Ieyasu and restraining the movements of the Date, he placed Gamo Ujisato at Aizu in Oshu.
"The whole of the Korean forces had been driven northward throughout the entire length of the peninsula by Japanese armies, yet Peking considered that five thousand Chinese braves would suffice to roll back this tide of invasion." *There is still extant a letter addressed by Hideypshi in June, 1592, to Hidetsugu, his nephew, and then nominal successor.
His mother received 3000 ryo of gold and 10,000 ryo of silver; his brother, Hidenaga, 3000 ryo of gold and 20,000 of silver; and his nephew, Hidetsugu, 3000 of gold and 10,000 of silver. To Nobukatsu, to Ieyasu, to Mori Terumoto, to Uesugi Kagekatsu, and to Maeda Toshiiye, great sums were given, varying from 3000 ryo of gold and 10,000 of silver to 1000 of gold and 10,000 of silver.
Their heads, together with that of Hidetsugu himself, were buried in the same grave, over which was set a tablet bearing the inscription, "Tomb of the Traitor, Hidetsugu." To this day, historians remain uncertain as to Hidetsugu's guilt. If the evidence sufficed to convict him, it does not appear to have been transmitted to posterity. The Taiko was not by nature a cruel man.
The provision against secret alliances and unsanctioned marriages between great families; the veto against passing from the service of one feudal chief to that of another without special permission, and the injunction against keeping many concubines were obviously inspired with the purpose of averting a repetition of the Hidetsugu catastrophe.
Nothing now remains of all this grandeur except some of the gates and other decorative parts of the structure, which were given to the builders of the temples of Hongwan-ji after the destruction of the Juraku-tei when Hidetsugu and his whole family died under the sword as traitors.
Word Of The Day