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Within less than two years of Hidetsugu's elevation to the post of regent, another son was born to Hideyoshi by the same lady, Yodo, the demise of whose child, Tsurumatsu, had caused Hideyoshi to despair of being succeeded by an heir of his own lineage.
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.
In its long-continued contact with Christianity it has changed from the original atheism of Gautama to various forms of theism, and in some of its sects, at least, from a stanch insistance on self-help alone to an out-and-out doctrine of salvation by faith. This is true of the Shin and Yodo sects of Japan.
It must have been fully apparent to the great captains of the fourteenth century that Kyoto was easy to take and hard to hold. Lake Biwa and the river Yodo are natural bulwarks of Yamato, not of Yamashiro. Hiei-zan looks down on the lake, and Kyoto lies on the great plain at the foot of the hill.
The civil party espoused the cause of the lady Yodo, and among its followers was Ishida Katsushige, to whom chiefly the ultimate catastrophe is attributed by history. *It is by this title, "Taiko," that Hideyoshi is most frequently spoken of in History. The birth of Hideyori on August 29, 1593, immediately actuated the dissensions among these two cliques.
Lady Yodo was incensed when she learned the terms that Katsumoto had offered. "I am Hideyori's mother," she is reported to have cried. "I will never bend my knee to the Kwanto. Rather will I and my son make this castle our death-pillow." Then, with Ono Harunaga, she formed a plot to kill Katsumoto and to draw the sword against the Tokugawa.
The fact that the feudatories who called themselves friends of the Osaka party had refused to sign the oath of fealty, and the fact that the lady Yodo and Harunaga threw their influence into the anti-Tokugawa scale, had the effect of isolating Osaka so far as the laws of the Bakufu were concerned. Men who had broken those laws or otherwise offended against the shogun took refuge in Osaka.
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.
As for the castle, its enormous strength rendered it well-nigh impregnable, and after weeks of effort the Tokugawa forces had nothing to show for their repeated attacks except a long list of casualties. Ieyasu now had recourse to intrigue. The mother of Kyogoku Takatsugu, daimyo of Obama, in Wakasa, was the younger sister of the lady Yodo.
But when the day named for the meeting came and Katsumoto was on the point of leaving his residence for the purpose of repairing to the conference, he received information that the intention was to kill him en route. He therefore fled to his domain in the remote province of Ibaraki. It is recorded that Katsumoto's plan was to offer to send Yodo as a hostage to Yedo.
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