The Road to Sekigahara
Before his death in 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had established a Council of Five Elders to rule Japan until his son, Hideyori, came of age. Of the five, the two most influential were Tokugawa Ieyasu and Maeda Toshiie, and almost before Hideyoshi’s body was cool, the two men set about trying to undermine and outmanoeuvre each…
The Third Unifier – Tokugawa Ieyasu. Part Six.
Following his move to the Kanto following the destruction of the Hojo Clan in 1590, Ieyasu became indispensable to Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s plans for pacifying the rest of Japan. In 1591, Hideyoshi issued an order for clans in the Oshu Region (known today as Tohoku) to stop fighting and observe his newly established peace. Some clans…
Book Plug
It’s Golden Week here in Japan, and in the spirit of the holiday, I’ve decided to do something a bit different and plug my latest book, Burden of Duty, so here you go: In the chaotic aftermath of the Honnō-ji Incident, burned, half-blind, and consumed by shame, Sagano Takashi awakens in the care of foreigners.…
The Third Unifier – Tokugawa Ieyasu. Part Five.
By 1584, two years had passed since the Honnoji Incident and the death of Oda Nobunaga. His eldest son, Nobutada, had died alongside him at Honnoji, leaving several younger sons as potential successors. The problem was that none of these sons had much in the way of military resources with which to stake their claim,…
The Third Unifier – Tokugawa Ieyasu. Part Four.
The Battle of Nagashino in 1575 had been one of the most significant battles of the later Sengoku Jidai. The military power of the once mighty Takeda clan had been broken, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, formerly a largely independent warlord, effectively became a vassal of Oda Nobunaga. Between 1575 and the early 1580s, Ieyasu consolidated his…
The Third Unifier – Tokugawa Ieyasu. Part Three.
After the disastrous Battle of Mikatagahara in January 1573, contemporaries might have been forgiven for thinking that Tokugawa Ieyasu was finished. His army had been defeated and scattered, several important fortresses had fallen, and Takeda forces were camped deep inside his home province of Mikawa. Fate, however, was on Ieyasu’s side. Though Mikatagahara had been…
Chris Perry, Author 