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Updated: June 9, 2025
The classes of people to whom the jisha-bugyo's jurisdiction extended were numerous: they embraced the cemetery-keepers at Momiji-yama, the bonzes, the fire-watchmen, the musicians, the Shinto officials, the poets, the players at go or chess, and so forth. This was among the oldest institutions of the Tokugawa, and existed also in the Toyotomi organization.
Some accounts put its losses at 35,000 men; others, with greater probability, estimating that only 100,000 men were actually engaged on both sides namely, 60,000 on the Tokugawa side, and 40,000 on the Toyotomi conclude that the losses were 6000 and 9000, respectively.
It would appear more probable, however, that his original policy was merely to impoverish the Toyotomi family by imposing upon it the heavy outlay necessary for constructing a huge bronze Buddha.
In whatever arts of deception Ishida excelled, Ieyasu was at least his equal; while in the matter of loyalty to the Toyotomi family, Ishida's conduct compares favourably with that of the Tokugawa leader; and if we look at the men who attached themselves to Ishida's cause and fought by his side, we are obliged to admit that he must have been highly esteemed by his contemporaries, or, at any rate, that they recognized in him the champion of Hideyori, at whose father's hands they had received such benefits.
Hideyoshi has been charged with extortion on account of these innovations. Certainly, there is a striking contrast between the system of Tenchi and that of Toyotomi. The former, genuinely socialistic, divided the whole of the land throughout the empire in equal portions among the units of the nation, and imposed a land-tax not in any case exceeding five per cent, of the gross produce.
These precautions were soon seen to be necessary, for the partisans of the Toyotomi seized the occasion to attempt a coup. There seems to have been a large admixture of something very like European chivalry in the make up of these ronin, for some of them seem to have wandered about merely to right wrongs and defend the helpless.
Undoubtedly these barons were partially influenced by the conception generally prevalent that the fortunes of the two great families of Toyotomi and Tokugawa depended on the issue of this struggle. But it must also be admitted that had Ishida Katsushige been as black as the Tokugawa historians paint him, he could never have served for the central figure of such an array.
By degrees a constant stream of ronin, or free-lances, flowed into that city, and a conspicuous element among its inhabitants consisted of Christian feudatories, who, regardless of the edicts of the Bakufu, openly preached their faith and were in no wise checked by the Toyotomi rulers.
The Osaka people were brusquely informed that they must look to the Toyotomi family for recompense, and that as for rewarding unattached samurai who had drawn the sword against the shogun, the Osaka people, were they obedient to the dictates of loyalty, would of their own account peremptorily reject such an unwarranted proposition, even though Ieyasu himself were disposed to consent to it.
He devoted himself to the task with the utmost sincerity and earnestness, and he made it the basic principle of his policy to preserve harmony between the Tokugawa and the Toyotomi. His belief was that Ieyasu had not many years more to live, and that on his demise the administrative power would revert wholly to Hideyori as a natural consequence.
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