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Updated: May 31, 2025
A colossal campaign such as the latter had conducted against the southern island, in 1587, never commended itself to the ambition of Ieyasu or to that of his comparatively feeble successor, Hidetada. Hence, the presence of Spanish or Portuguese ships in Satsuma suggested danger of an exceptional degree.
But when the Imagawa suffered defeat in the battle of Okehazama, at the hands of Oda Nobunaga, Ieyasu allied himself with the latter. In 1570, he removed to Hamamatsu, having subjugated the provinces of Mikawa and Totomi. He was forty years old at the time of Nobunaga's murder, and it has been shown above that he espoused the cause of the Oda family in the campaign of Komak-yama.
Such unions had been implicitly interdicted by the Taiko, and the procedure of Ieyasu elicited a written protest from the boards of the Five Senior Ministers and the Five Administrators. They threatened Ieyasu with dismissal from the former board unless he furnished a satisfactory explanation.
His name was changed to Hashiba Hideyasu, and he received the appointment of governor of Mikawa province. The circumstances in which this treaty was concluded have provoked much historical discussion. Did the overtures come originally from Hideyoshi, or did they emanate from Ieyasu and Nobukatsu?
The circumstances, however, had now undergone a radical change. The castle had been converted from the strongest fortress in Japan into a mere semblance of strength, and no garrison, however brave and however resolute, could have defended it successfully against the forces that the Tokugawa were able to marshal. As for Ieyasu, he knew that his task had been immensely lightened.
Japanese historians agree that Hidetada's character was adapted for the work of consolidation that fell to his lot. He resembled his father, Ieyasu, in decision and perseverance; he never dealt lightly with any affair, and while outwardly gentle and considerate, he was at heart subtle and uncompromising.
By the invitation of the Tokugawa chief he lectured on the classics in Kyoto, and it is recorded that Ieyasu, who had just arrived in that city, attended one of these lectures, wearing his ordinary garments. Seigwa is related to have fixed his eyes on Ieyasu and addressed him as follows: "The greatest work of Confucius teaches that to order oneself is the most essential of achievements.
Three artistic buildings are used as storehouses, where articles employed in worship, pictures, and many treasures of Ieyasu are deposited. Near by is a finely carved gateway leading to a beautiful carved water cistern which is cut out of one solid piece of granite and sheltered by a roof supported on twelve square pillars of stone, all erected in 1618.
These men who, in the days of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, had directed the policies of their fiefs and led their armies in the field, were gradually transformed, during the lone peace of the Tokugawa era, into voluptuous fainéants or, at best, thoughtless dilettanti, willing to abandon the direction of their affairs to seneschals and mayors, who, while on the whole their administration was able and loyal, found their account in contriving and perpetuating the effacement of their chiefs.
Both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi made some endeavours to correct this evil state of affairs, and when Tokugawa Ieyasu came into power he adopted still more liberal methods. In 1604, he increased the revenue of the Court by 10,000 koku annually, and in the course of the next few years he caused the palace to be rebuilt on a scale of considerable grandeur.
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