Biography on toyotomi hideyoshi

It was not until late October that they sent a decree to the Japanese commanders to withdraw. In the last major conflict of the war, the Battle of Noryang Point, combined Korean and Chinese naval forces led by admirals Yi Sun-sin and Chen lin blocked the Japanese withdrawal. Japanese forces suffered severe damage in heavy fighting and Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin was killed, but the remaining Japan forces broke through and withdrew to Busan, at a cost of ships destroyed and captured, according to Korean records.

Because of his failure to capture KoreaHideyoshi's forces were unable to invade China. Rather than strengthen his position, these military expeditions left his clan's coffers decreased, his vassals at odds over responsibility for the failure, and the clans that were loyal to the Toyotomi name weakened. The dream of a Japanese empire throughout Asia ended with Hideyoshi.

The Tokugawa government not only prevented any more military expeditions to the mainland, but closed Japan to nearly all foreigners. It was not until the late nineteenth century that Japan would again fight a war against China through Korea, using much the same route that Hideyoshi's invasion force had used. After his death, the other members of the Council of Five Regents were unable to keep the ambitions of Tokugawa Ieyasu in check.

Members of Seven Spears of Shizugatake, Kato Kiyomasa and Fukushima Masanori had fought bravely during the war, but after a Toyotomi clan auditor, Ishida Mitsunari, gave their performance a poor evaluation, they sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Biography on toyotomi hideyoshi

Hideyoshi's underaged son and designated successor, Hideyori, lost the power his father once held, and Tokugawa Ieyasu was declared shogun following the Battle of Sekigahara. Toyotomi Hideyoshi changed Japanese society in many ways. During the Sengoku period, it was common for peasants to become warriors, or for samurai to farm due to the constant uncertainty caused by the lack of centralized government and the always unstable peace.

Upon taking control, Hideyoshi decreed that all peasants be disarmed completely, freezing social class mobility for the next three hundred years. He ordered all of Japan surveyed, and a complete census taken. Once this was done and all citizens were registered, all Japanese were required to stay in their respective provinces or 'han' unless they obtained official permission to go elsewhere.

This ensured order in a period when bandits still roamed the countryside and peace was still new. The survey of the countryside made it easier to organize the use of land and resources. InHideyoshi effectively replaced slavery with contract and indentured labor, and stopped the sale of slaves. In Hideyoshi completed construction of the Osaka Castle, the largest and most formidable in all Japan, to guard the western approaches to Kyoto.

Hideyoshi's contributions to Japanese culture, however, were more than just military and administrative. Like Nobunaga before him, Hideyoshi lavished time and money on the tea ceremonycollecting implements, sponsoring lavish social events, and patronizing acclaimed masters. As interest in the tea ceremony rose among the ruling class, so too did demand for fine ceramic implements, and during the course of the Korean campaigns, not only were large quantities of prized ceramic ware confiscated, many Korean artisans were forcibly relocated to Japan.

Inspired by the dazzling Kinkaku golden pavilion temple in northwestern Kyotohe also constructed a fabulous portable tea room, known as kigame no zashiki "golden chamber"covered with gold leaf and lined inside with red gossamer. Using this mobile innovation, he was able to practice the tea ceremony wherever he went, powerfully projecting his unrivaled power and status upon his arrival.

Politically, he set up a governmental system that created a balance among the most powerful Japanese warlords or daimyo. A council was created to include the most influential lords, with a regent was designated to be in command, functioning in some ways like a president with a parliament. At the time of his death, Hideyoshi hoped to set up a system stable enough to survive until his son grew old enough to become the next leader.

A Council of Five Elders was formed, consisting of the five most powerful daimyo. Following the death of Maeda Toshiie, however, Tokugawa Ieyasu began to secure alliances, including political marriages which had been forbidden by Hideyoshi. Eventually, the pro-Toyotomi forces fought against Tokugawa and his allies in the Battle of Sekigahara.

Surrounded by a rebel army of tens of thousands in the Honganji temple in Osaka, Nobunaga committed seppuku. Hideyori, who was leading the water assault on Takamatsu Castle, learned of Nobunaga's death but kept it secret from the enemy, concluding a truce with the Mori clan and hastily rushing all his troops to the capital. Simultaneously, another close ally of Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, also launched an attack against the rebels.

However, Hideyori outpaced him, covering hundreds of kilometers in just three days. On June 12,Hideyori's 40,strong army, with overwhelming numerical superiority, defeated Aketi Mitsuhide's forces in the Battle of Yamazaki. Mitsuhide, who attempted to loot food and forage for his horses, was killed by local peasants. Positioning himself as a "avenger," Hideyori gained increased influence among the samurai.

At a council meeting in Kiyo Castle, where the succession of the Oda clan was decided, Hideyori secured the support of generals Niva Nagahide and Ikeda Senyu. To eliminate his potential rival, Oda Nobutaka, Hideyori persuaded him to commit suicide. Following the council's decision, Hideyori received the lion's share of Nobunaga's territories and became the regent-advisor to the new leader of the Oda clan, the three-year-old Sanboshi.

The council's decisions caused dissatisfaction among Hideyori's long-time rival, Shibata Katsuie. Inthe rivalry between Hideyori and Katsuie escalated into armed conflict. In the decisive Battle of Shizugatake, Katsuie's forces suffered defeat and retreated to the Echizen province modern-day Fukui prefecture. Taking advantage of the situation, Hideyori's victorious army invaded the enemy's territories and surrounded their main citadel, Kitano Castle.

Katsuie and his wife Oichi committed seppuku, and the fortress fell. After this battle, opposition forces within the Oda clan surrendered to Hideyori, and he became the de facto successor of Oda Nobunaga, seizing his territories and continuing the task of bringing Japan under his rule. His greatest competitor in the process of unification was his former ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Inboth commanders clashed in the Battle of Nagakute, in which Tokugawa's biography on toyotomi hideyoshi emerged victorious. However, Hideyori's economic and military power was so formidable that Ieyasu opted for peaceful negotiations, sending his eldest son as a hostage. Hideyori sent him back, demanding Ieyasu's personal appearance in Kyoto to acknowledge his dependency.

Nevertheless, Ieyasu had no intention of relinquishing his own territories or acknowledging his vassalage. To compel Tokugawa to submit, Hideyori sent his sister Asahi as a hostage and sent his elderly mother as a hostage as well. Finally, inTokugawa arrived in Kyoto, where he swore allegiance to the new suzerain. Thus, Hideyori solidified his position as the sole successor of Oda Nobunaga.

InHideyori built a large castle in Osaka on the foundation of the Honganji temple fortifications. According to contemporaries, no fortress in Japan, China, or Korea had such fortifications. Osaka became the main financial center and de facto capital of the country. In the s, Hideyori planned to establish a shogunate, but this plan was buried when the shogun fugitive Ashikaga Yoshiaki refused to recognize him as his son.

As he could not become the supreme commander of all Japanese samurai, Hideyori decided to become the "first person" at the imperial court and govern the country on behalf of the puppet emperor. InHideyori received the title of regent-kampaku and in the following year, he was granted the aristocratic surname Toyotomi and the position of grand minister daidjo-dainzin, the highest rank at the imperial court.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi did everything on a grand scale. He built several great castles in the central provinces, including a mammoth structure in Osaka that is still an imposing sight in that city today, and had them lavishly outfitted and decorated. Even his entertainments, especially his famous "tea party" in Kyoto inwere biography on toyotomi hideyoshi to hundreds and even thousands of people.

In sharp contrast to the esthetics of the preceding age, which were based chiefly on Zen Buddhist principles of restraint and simplicity, the tastes of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and many of his contemporaries ran to the grandiose and the spectacular. This was no doubt in part a reflection of the new vigor and heroic spirit of the age of unification; but it was also a prelude to the new bourgeois culture that was to flourish in the urban centers of Japan in the next century.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi's final years were darkened not only by the failure of the Korean campaigns but also by his growing concern over succession to the leadership of the Toyotomi. Toyotomi Hideyoshi wished to bequeath his position as family head and national hegemon to his infant son, Hideyori who was a mere 5 years old when Toyotomi Hideyoshi died in Near the end, Toyotomi Hideyoshi made almost frantic efforts to extract pledges of loyalty to Hideyori from the various leading daimyos.

He also appointed a board of five regents from among the leading daimyos to handle the affairs of government during Hideyori's minority. Of the five regents, by far the most powerful was Tokugawa leyasu, who had established firm control over his new domain in the Kanto region, which was even more extensive than Toyotomi Hideyoshi's own. Upon Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death leyasu emerged as the unquestionably logical successor to the national hegemony, despite the arrangements made for Hideyori; and indeed the events of the next 2 years centered on the formation of two great daimyo leagues, the pro-leyasu and the anti-leyasu.

In these two leagues met in a decisive battle at Sekigahara between Nagoya and Lake Biwa. None of the great unifiers—Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, or leyasu—was a political innovator. Although, owing mainly to the coming of Europeans, they undoubtedly knew more of the outside world than any previous Japanese biographies on toyotomi hideyoshi, they still had no direct exposure to governing practices other than their own.

Hence we should probably not be surprised that they put their respective hegemonies together almost exclusively on the basis of the time-honored procedures they knew as daimyos and did not attempt to establish a more centralized government in Japan. Because of his early death Nobunaga was unable to complete the task that he had begun, and the greatest glory in the course of unification went to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

So spectacular were Toyotomi Hideyoshi's achievements in completing unification, in fact, that he has impressed many later historians as the greatest leader in premodern Japanese history. Although he failed to sustain the rule of his family as leyasu was subsequently to do for Tokugawa rule, it also seems likely that leyasu, on the other hand, lacked the military genius to have first accomplished military unification in the manner of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Good accounts of the period of unification, however, can be found in George Sansom, A History of Japan 3 vols. Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan, to Highly recommended for general information about the age, although they are more specifically concerned with the Western impact on Japan during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, are Charles R.

Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each biography on toyotomi hideyoshi has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

History Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Toyotomi Hideyoshi gale. The defenders slept on the ramparts with their arquebuses and armor; despite their smaller numbers, they discouraged Hideyoshi from attacking. Hideyoshi had Ishigakiyama Ichiya Castle secretly constructed in a nearby forest, and then had the forest chopped down, giving the impression it have been built overnight.

This demoralized the defenders, leading to their surrender three months after the start of the siege. He even performed before the emperor. The Kunohe rebellionan insurrection that occurred in Mutsu Province from 13 March to 4 Septemberbegan when Kunohe Masazanea claimant to daimyo of the Nanbu clanlaunched a rebellion against his rival Nanbu Nobunao which spread across Mutsu Province.

Hideyoshi's army arrived at Kunohe Castle in early September. Masazane, outnumbered, surrendered Kunohe Castle and was executed with the castle defenders. The Kunohe rebellion was the final battle in Hideyoshi's campaigns during the Sengoku period and completed the unification of Japan. The future stability of the Toyotomi dynasty after Hideyoshi's eventual death was put in doubt with the death of his only son, three-year-old Tsurumatsu, in September When his half-brother Hidenaga died of illness shortly after, Hideyoshi named his nephew Hidetsugu his heir, adopting him in January Hideyoshi adopted Oda Nobunaga 's dream of a Japanese conquest of Chinaand launched the conquest of the Ming dynasty by way of Korea at the time known as Koryu or Joseon.

InHideyoshi began an invasion of Korea with the intent of conquering Korea and eventually Ming China. In the first campaign, Hideyoshi appointed Ukita Hideie as field marshal, and had him go to the Korean peninsula in April Each targeted province was attacked by one of the army's eight divisions:. Within four months, Hideyoshi's forces had a route into Manchuria and had occupied much of Korea.

At the end of the first campaign, Japan's entire navy was destroyed by Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea, whose base was located in a part of Korea the Japanese could not control. This destroyed Japan's ability to resupply their troops in Seoul, effectively ending the invasion. Following Hideyoshi's appointment of his nephew Hidetsugu to the position of kampakutensions started to develop due to the dual power structure between Hidetsugu, who led the court system, and Hideyoshi, who retained actual military power as retired regent.

Although Hideyoshi orchestrated Hidetsugu's rise, the regent's position was governed by established court frameworks, limiting Hideyoshi's ability to bypass precedents. This led to the formation of two factions: the " Taiko Hideyoshi's group" and the " Kampaku Hidetsugu's group," which clashed over political and military issues. The birth of Hideyoshi's second son inHideyoriexacerbated these tensions, as it introduced another potential heir to the Toyotomi dynasty.

Hidetsugu's family members who did not follow his example, including 31 women and several children, were then beheaded in Kyoto. In JanuaryToyotomi Hideyoshi had twenty-six Christians arrested as an example to Japanese who wanted to convert to Christianity. They are known as the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan. They included five European Franciscan missionariesone Mexican Franciscan missionary, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys.

They were tortured, mutilated, and paraded through towns across Japan. On February 5, they were executed in Nagasaki by public crucifixion. After several years of negotiations, broken off because envoys of both sides falsely reported that the opposition had surrendered, Hideyoshi appointed Kobayakawa Hideaki to lead a renewed invasion of Korea.

This invasion met with less success than the first; Japanese troops remained pinned down in Gyeongsang Provinceand although the Japanese forces turned back several Chinese offensives in Suncheon and Sacheon in Junethey were unable to make further progress as the Ming army prepared for a final assault. While Hideyoshi's battle at Sacheon led by Shimazu Yoshihiro was a major Japanese victory, all three parties to the war were exhausted.

He told his commander in Korea, "Don't let my soldiers become spirits in a foreign land. I have no other thoughts to leave behind. It is sad to part from you. According to the Tokugawa Jikki record, Hideyoshi held a secret meeting with Koide Hidemasa and Katagiri Katsumoto where he shared his regret of launching invasions of Korea. Hideyoshi also instructed Hidemasa and Katsumoto to guide Hideyori into making an alliance with Ieyasu, as he predicted the power of the Tokugawa clan would grow unchecked after his death, and only solution for the Toyotomi clan to survive was to not oppose Ieyasu.

After Hideyoshi's death, the other members of the Council of Five Elders were unable to keep Ieyasu's ambitions in check. He held the generals in contempt, and they sided with Ieyasu. Hideyori lost the power his father once held, and Ieyasu's power was consolidated when his Eastern Army defeated the Mitsunari's Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara in Ieyasu, who was appointed as a shogun in and established the Tokugawa shogunateattacked Osaka Castle twice in and the Siege of Osakaforcing Hideyoshi's concubine Yodo-dono and Hideyori to commit suicide, destroying the Toyotomi clan.

It is now believed that Hideyoshi's loss of all his adult heirs, leaving only the five-year-old Hideyori as his successor, was the primary reason for the weakening of the Toyotomi regime and its eventual downfall. Toyotomi Hideyoshi changed Japanese society in many ways. These include the imposition of a rigid class structure, restrictions on travel, and surveys of land and production.

Class reforms affected commoners and warriors. During the Sengoku periodit had become common for peasants to become warriors, or for samurai to farm due to the constant uncertainty caused by the lack of centralised government and always tentative peace. Upon taking control, Hideyoshi decreed that all peasants be disarmed completely. Furthermore, he ordered comprehensive surveys and a complete census of Japan.

Once this was done and all citizens were registered, he required all Japanese to stay in their respective han fiefs unless they obtained official permission to go elsewhere. This ensured order in a period when bandits still roamed the countryside and peace was still new. The land surveys formed the basis for systematic taxation. InHideyoshi completed construction of the Osaka Castlethe largest and most formidable in all Japan, to guard the western approaches to Kyoto.

In that same year, Hideyoshi banned "unfree labour" or slavery in Japan[ 62 ] but forms of contract and indentured labour persisted alongside the period penal codes' forced labour. Hideyoshi also influenced the material culture of Japan. He lavished time and money on the Japanese tea ceremonycollecting implements, sponsoring lavish social events, and patronizing acclaimed masters.

As interest in the tea ceremony rose among the ruling class, so too did the demand for fine ceramic implements, and during the course of the Korean campaigns, not only were large quantities of prized ceramic ware confiscated but many Korean artisans were forcibly relocated to Japan. The exact reason is disputed. Inspired by the dazzling Golden Pavilion in Kyotohe had the Golden Tea Room constructed, which was covered with gold leaf and lined inside with red gossamer.

Using this mobile innovation, he was able to practice the tea ceremony wherever he went, displaying his power and status at all times. A council was created to include the most influential lords. At the same time, a regent was designated to be in command. Just before his death, Hideyoshi hoped to set up a system stable enough to survive until his son grew old enough to become the next leader.

Following the death of Maeda Toshiiehowever, Tokugawa Ieyasu began to secure alliances, including political marriages which had been forbidden by Hideyoshi. Eventually, the pro- Toyotomi forces fought against the Tokugawa in the Battle of Sekigahara. Hideyoshi is commemorated at several Toyokuni Shrines scattered over Japan. Ieyasu left in place the majority of Hideyoshi's decrees and built his shogunate upon them.

This ensured that Hideyoshi's cultural legacy remained. In a letter to his wife, Hideyoshi wrote:. I mean to do glorious deeds and I am ready for a long siege, with provisions and gold and silver in plenty, so as to return in triumph and leave a great name behind me. I desire you to understand this and to tell it to everybody.