James Baquet

Seldom has the island nation of Japan engaged with others within its homeland, its invasion of other countries notwithstanding. Most of its wars have been Japanese versus Japanese.

Particularly in the feudal ages, the four centuries or so from 1185-1603, the country was torn by warring factions, often without regard to who was on the imperial throne. (Some, by the way, extend the era of feudalism on through the Edo Period, thus ending it as recently as 1868.) This is the era of the samurai warrior, a time of great political instability and power struggles.

One of the greatest of these rivalries was that between the Tokugawa clan and, well, just about everybody. Tokugawa Ieyasu was a powerful leader who for years had been at odds with the Toyotomis. Ieyasu is called Japan’s third great unifier, after Oda Nobunaga and his follower Toyotomi Hideyoshi. (To describe all the rivalries between lords in this period is like trying to unravel a great tangled ball of yarn; we will hit only high points here.)

In 1598 Hideyoshi died; though succeeded by his son, Hideyori, there was in fact a power vacuum, as Hideyori was only 5 years old and the Toyotomi interests were being overseen by regents. Ieyasu seized this opportunity, building an alliance against the Toyotomi clan. In 1599 he and his army took Osaka Castle, Hideyori’s seat.

I must at this point introduce one more name into the mix: Ishida Mitsunari was a lord who plotted against Ieyasu’s life. When he heard of this, Ieyasu inexplicably protected Mitsunari from retribution. All the lords ultimately split into two factions: the Western Army supporting Mitsunari, and the Eastern Army opposing him.

Ieyasu was part of this anti-Mitsunari group. After further machinations, the two massed armies met in battle near Sekigahara in what is considered the biggest and perhaps most important battle in the feudal history of Japan. A total of 160,000 men faced each other in October 1600. The Western Army was crushed, setting up the Tokugawa clan to rule as Japan’s shogun (or military governor), a position more powerful than the emperor, for the next 268 years.

Vocabulary:

Which words above mean:

1. absence of leadership

2. schemes, plots, intrigues

3. system of lords and peasants

4. unable to be explained

5. lack of firmness

6. rulers instead of a king, etc.

7. against

8. revenge

9. in opposition to

10. nevertheless