dead_wolf
Banned
Some Background
1464: Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1) is 28 and has no heir; various Japanese nobles worry over the question of succession. Yoshimasa convinces his brother, Yoshimi, to abandon the life of a monk, and names him his heir. Yoshimasa begins considering retirement to a more ceremonial role passing real power onto his brother.
1465: Yoshimasa's wife unexpectedly gives birth to a son, Yoshihisa. The succession is now even more in question than it was previously.
1465-1466: Old rivalries boil to the surface, while the ambitious vie & jockey for positions of power. Half the realm supports Yoshimi, the other half Yoshihisa.
1467: The Ōnin War breaks out nominally over question of the succession, but in truth much of the fighting is between factions vying over territory, resources, & prestige. Thus begins the Sengoku (戦国時代) or Warring States period. IOTL for the next century and a half Japan is consumed by near-constant civil war.
The Azuchi–Momoyama Years
1543: A Portuguese ship, blown off-course by a strong storm, lands in Japan. Over the following years Europeans continue to visit Japan, introducing Europeans ways, notably Christianity, and gunpowder warfare.
1557-1590: Oda Nobunaga & his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, largely ends the fraternal strife, uniting Japan once again for the first time in generations. Toyotomi, due to his common birth, is unacceptable to his ennobled peers & rivals as Shōgun (将軍); however he is named by Emperor Go-Yōzei as the Kampaku (関白), or regent, giving him complete control over Japan.
1592-1598: Unsatisfied with Japan alone, Hideyoshi launches the Japanese Invasion of Korea, with the aim of conquering Ming China. Although Japanese forces experience several years of tactical success, they are never able to secure the strategic goal of the complete occupation & pacification of Korea, and never march on China proper. Japanese forces are slowly beaten back, finally only exerting fully control over small enclaves along the coast, while a stalemate exists in the interior. The invasion leaves both the Toyotomi clan's & that of their loyal vassal clan's coffers and fighting strength depleted, while the Japanese daimyō (大名) skirmish over responsibility for the failure.
1598: Hideyoshi dies of old age. Power nominally passes to his five-year old son Hideyori, however real power lies in the hands of the Council of Five Elders, or go-tairō (五大老), a joint regency by the five most powerful daimyō; Ukita Hideie, Mōri Terumoto, Ukita Hideie, Maeda Toshiie, & Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Council almost immediately divides into rival camps, each side blaming the other for the failure in the invasion, reigniting old rivalries & memories from the pre-Azuchi–Momoyama period.
1599: Tairō Maeda Toshiie dies of old age. Tokugawa Ieyasu immediately marches on the capitol, seizing young Hideyori. Ishida Mitsunari, a powerful daimyō angered over being excluded from the go-tairō and a leading figure in the growing anti-Tokugawa alliance, plots to send assassins against Ieyasu. However the plot is foiled & revealed, causing several daimyō & samurai that were either neutral or formerly aligned against Tokugawa to join his faction. Each side gathers their forces for war, with Mitsunari's power-base in the West & Ieyasu's in the East.
1600: The Battle of Sekigahara is a decisively overwhelming victory for the Tokugawa. Mitsunari's Western Army is smashed, and over the next several days the few holdouts are hunted down and destroyed. Mitsunari himself, along with several other prominent anti-Tokugawa nobles are captured & executed, or commit seppuku (切腹) - ritual suicide. Ieyasu immediately begins breaking up his enemies' power base, seizing their lands and titles and putting any remaining family members to the sword. He also rewards his supporters from among these new fiefs, redistributing much of the land in Western Japan among new nobles families.
The Tokugawa Regime
1600-1603: There are, of course, many who are disgruntled by these changes, notably the Chōsokabe clan, who are stripped of all land and titles; former Chōsokabe retainers never quite come to terms with the new ruling family, the Yamauchi clan, which made a distinction between its own retainers and former Chōsokabe retainers, giving them lesser status as well as discriminating treatment. Ieyasu formalizes these divisions, and Japanese nobility is soon rent into two; fudai, or those who had been loyal to the Tokugawa clan, and tozama (lit. 'outsiders'), those that had fought against Tokugawa. Many tozama clans are either rendered destitute or outright exterminated over the following years. However some Western daimyō are left unharmed by Ieyasu's purges; notably the Shimazu, though this is more due to the distance & isolation of their provinces of Satsuma from the political, militaristic, & economic cores around Edo, Okazaki, & Osaka. Even more importantly, the Toyotomi clan, though heavily degraded in power & prestige and stripped of some of their lands, was allowed to survive under Hideyori.
1603: Ieyasu is formally named Shōgun by Emperor Go-Yōzei, legalizing his de-facto position as supreme ruler of Japan.
1605: Tokugawa Ieyasu is is sixty-two years old. Following long-held Japanese tradition, he abdicates, his title passing to his second son-and-heir, Hidetada. This, in theory, will allow for a smoother succession. However, while the latter does take up some of the bureaucratic & ceremonial responsibilities held by the Shōgun, real power remains in the hands of Ieyasu, who as Ōgosho (大御所), exercises complete control over Japan. Central to his control is the reconstruction of Edo Castle, the cost of which is borne exclusively by the daimyō, while it's modernization benefits the Tokugawa alone; this causes much resentment among the Japanese nobility, which is held in check by fear of Tokugawa force of arms. Perhaps even more importantly though, the Tokugawa's vast resources allow Ieyasu to finance the Japanese Imperial family itself, who had been living in abject poverty throughout the Sengoku period.
1609: Under the advise of William Adams, an English/Dutch Protestant sailor that has settled in Japan, Ieyasu gives the Netherlands preferential trading rights with Japan allowing them to freely buy & sell their goods across the entire islands, as opposed to Portuguese & Spanish traders who are limited to Nagasaki, buying & selling goods at fixed prices. Ieyasu also allows the Dutch to establish a trading factory on Hirado Island. Over the next severals years Adams will continue to consul Ieyasu against the Spanish & Portuguese, whose domination of South-East & East Asia trade has strangled Dutch efforts to compete in the region, and whose support of the Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan missionaries, who have already converted between 100,000 & 300,000 Japanese Christians, or Kurisuchan (吉利支丹, 切支丹, クリスチャン), much of them in the already restive Western regions where Tokugawa rule is heavy-handed, at best, is a thorn in Ieyasu's side.
1610: Toyotomi Hideyori travels to Edo to visit with Tokugawa Ieyasu & Emperor Go-Yōzei regarding the continuing agitation in the Western domains. Latter the same day Go-Yōzei announces his intention to renounce the throne.
1611: Emperor Go-Yōzei abdicates the Imperial throne, and is succeeded by his third son, who takes the imperial name of Go-Mizunoo, or lit. Mizunoo the Second, referencing the the 9th century Emperor who was able to exert an unusual level of independence against the imperial bureaucracy. Ieyasu leads a force of 50,000 men to Edo to swear allegiance to the new Emperor. Using his personal army, Ieyasu forces the other daimyō to swear loyalty personally to him in addition to the Emperor. Ieyasu also levies a new tax to further reconstruction of Edo, not only focusing on the Castle but also repairs to the Imperial Palace, which is still in a sad state of disrepair even a decade after the end of open hostilities.
1612: In an effort to quell the rising tide of resentment across the country, and both independently and much to the dismay of Ōgosho Ieyasu, Shōgun Hidetada arranges the marriage of his eldest daughter, and Ieyasu's favorite granddaughter, Senhime, to Toyotomi Hideyori.
1613: Tokugawa Ieyasu issues the Kuge Shohatto (公家諸法度), lit. Laws Governing The Imperial Court, which strictly limits the activities & responsibilities of daimyō in the imperial court, removing from positions of power as administrators and advisers to the Emperor or Shōgun, leaving them in a merely ceremonial role. As many Tokugawa supporters had been rewarded with positions of power in Edo this edict disproportionally affects Ieyasu's allies & vassals.
1614: The Toyotomi finish reconstruction of their own Osaka Castle, fully modernized with Western-style cannon, years ahead of the Tokugawa's own efforts at Edo. At the same time the clan sponsors the rebuilding of Edo's Hōkō-ji temple. The renovations include the casting of a bronze bell to be centrally featured in the temple, with the inscriptions kokka ankō (国家安康), "May the state be peaceful and prosperous" & kunshin hōraku (君臣豊楽) "May noble lord and servants be rich and cheerful." However Shōgun Hidetada interprets the kanji characters used in 国家安康 as shattering (2) Ōgosho Ieyasu's name, 家康. Further Hidetada also interprets 君臣豊楽 to mean "Toyotomi's force (豊臣) will rise again." Soon thereafter a powerful earthquake strikes Edo, further damaging the Imperial Capitol and pushing back restoration of both Edo Castle & the Imperial Palace by years. In response, Ieyasu issues an edict expelling all Christians from Japan, claiming they "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness." The edict is not well received among the daimyō, as some eight-six of them have already converted, and many more are either sympathetic or neutral towards the new religion. The edict is felt especially hard in the restive Western provinces, where the majority of Japan's Christian population resides. Toyotomi Hideyori immediately begins rallying his banners and calling rōnin from across Japan to his cause. Notably Shimazu Tadatsune, the tozama daimyō of Satsuma, refuses to join either side in the coming conflict, and professes his neutrality. Ieyasu and Hidetada summon their own forces, and swiftly march on Osaka. Once again father-and-son strongly disagree, this time over the course of the campaign. Ieyasu urges a cautious, conservative, approach, as while the Tokugawa's have some 160,000 men at their immediate command Toyotomi's forces number at some 120,000, and the superior defenses of Osaka would put them at the advantage. Hidetada however is for a swift & direct confrontation. Importantly, this is the first time Hidetada uses his legal position as his father's nominal superior to force his the issue. The Tokugawa's force marches on Osaka and attempt to surround the city and lay siege; however they are repeatedly thrown back by Toyotomi men commanded by Sanada Yukimura, (3) a famed veteran of the Korean Invasion and later unification of Japan under the Toyotomi regime. Yukimura also lead several sorties against the Tokugawa's lines, breaking through the siege lines on three occasions, enacting horrible loses not only on Tokugawa men & moral, but also perhaps more importantly destroying stocks of gunpowder and other supplies. Finally as the new year dawn Ieyasu ordered the use of massed-cannon, seventeen European-imported artillery pieces as well as some 300 Japanese-made ones, to destroy the Toyotomi camp outside the walls. Within two weeks the war was over, as Toyotomi Hideyori surrendered and sworn never to rise against the Tokugawa's again. Ieyasu used his cannon to destroy the outer wall of the castle, and left a small force behind with orders to fill in the moat surrounding Osaka Castle.
1615: Within months Hideyori begins gathering troops once more, and attempts to stop the efforts to fill the castle moat. Both sides rally their banners anew, and the summer campaign commences. Before leaving the capitol once more, Ieyasu promulgates the Buke Shohatto (武家諸法度), lit. Various Points of Laws for Warrior Houses, a list of thirteen laws designed to prevent further insurrections against Tokugawa power. While many of them are expected and somewhat natural for the period and region, such as demanding that samurai devote their lives to activities "appropriate" to their station, and a reiteration of ancient laws forbidding daimyō from harboring fugitives, and instructing them to expel rebels & traitors to the Emperor both from their services and lands, the Buke Shohatto goes much further; daimyō are forbidden from engaging in any sort of social interaction with people from outside their own domain, marriages among the nobility are strictly forbidden, the daimyō's spending was to be heavily regulated, and Edo-appointed administrators would serve as bureaucrats in every daimyō's domain. As well Ieyasu legalizes the ancient, but far from standard, practice of sankin-kōtai (参勤交代), lit. alternate service, in which daimyō would spend every other year in attendance in Edo in a purely ceremonial role, after making a lengthy, and expensive, ceremonial pilgrimage to Edo. Thus, while the Tokugawa's forces that reached Osaka in the summer of 1615 are almost double the number of men of the Toyotomi, it is far short of the size of the levies Ieyasu & Hidetada commanded during the winter campaign just months prior as many daimyō, even those nominally loyal to the Tokugawa, resent the new edict and withhold their forces, sitting out the coming fight. After nearly three months of skirmishes the matter finally comes to a head at the Battle of Tennōji. Toyotomi forces, once again, are commanded by Sanada Yukimura, who plans a hammer-and-anvil approach whereby his main force of some 50,000 men would attack the Tokugawa center while a second force of nearly 20,000 would attack from the rear. Across the field of battle while the Tokugawa forces were nominally under the command of Shōgun Hidetada, all commands in actuality are relied from Ōgosho Ieyasu, now seventy-two and in poor health. Both sides see major mistakes in commands - the Toyotomi rōnin split off from the main force and soon were in retreat, while Ieyasu's reserve moved without orders in a failed attempt to flank the Toyotomi reserve, leaving the Tokugawa center open to a thrusting attack without protection. Seeing an opportunity Sanada Yukimura committed his main to the fight, however numbers soon told out, and the Toyotomi were facing complete destruction. Believing that defeat was soon, Yukimura declared to his soldiers "The War is Lost - All that is left for us is to fight to our heart's content." Leading a head-long thrust directly into the Tokugawa lines, Yukimura and his now-legendary Ten Braves (4) fought their way directly to the command tent, and with enemies surrounding them Yukimura was able to thrust his spear into Ieyasnu, killing him within hours. (5) Though Yukimura was later killed, the death of the Tokugawa's leader had thrown the Shogunate forces into disarray, allowing the majority of the Toyotomi men under the command of Akashi Morishige to escape back to the relative safety of Osaka. (6) Though equipped with hundreds of cannon and outnumbering their foes by hundreds of thousands of troops, the Tokugawa forces were now bereft of any central leadership, with long-hidden fissures within the Shogunate cracked wide open as Tokugawa Hidetada attempted to rally his armies, to no avail... (7)
(1) Note that in Japanese naming customs, the first name is the surname, and the last name is the given name.
(2) A Japanese naming taboo in which a person's name is "shattered," or broken up so that the kanji characters read something other than their name. Traditional Japanese folklore holds that thusly "shattering" a person's name places a terrible curse not only on them but their entire family.
(3) Also known as Sanada Nobushige, or by his sobriquets, the "Crimson Demon of War," or "Japan's Greatest Warrior," who was also famously called "A Hero who may appear Once in a Hundred Years," Yukimura was a from a minor daimyō family from Central-Eastern Japan, the son of a prominent pro-Toyotomi general, whose exploits both in Korea and in Japan had become semi-legendary even in his own lifetime. Following the initial Toyotomi-Tokugawa clash of 1600 Yukimura was slated for execution, and had to go into hiding, living the next fourteen years in exile both in Korea and in Japan as a rōnin until the resumption of hostiles. It is important to note that the Sanada clan had been retainers of the Takeda clan until the 1575 Battle of Nagashino in which the former switched sides to that of Oda Nobunaga - the Takeda clan was later completely exterminated by Nobunaga.
(4) Also known as the Ten Heroes, these are semi-legendary compatriots of Yukimura who were known throughout Japan for their exploits both on the battlefield individually and alongside Yukimura during his years of exile. All ten of them were believed to be masters in the art of ninjutsu.
(5) IOTL Yukimura missed Ieyasu's kidney by less than a few centimeters - just a bit further down and Ieyasu would have bleed to death.
(6) Just as IOTL, Yukimura is surrounded by enemies, badly wounded, and exhausted. His famous last words were, "I am Sanada Nobushige, no doubt an adversary quite worthy of you, but I am exhausted and can fight no longer. Go on, take my head as your trophy." The man difference is that the the Toyotomi vanguard are able to escape back to the walls of the castle intact, while the reserve under Chōsokabe Morichika is able to slip away from the field.
(7) IOTL after the victory at Tennōji Toyotomi Hideyori committed seppuku as Tokugawa artillery blasted the castle, setting much of Osaka ablaze, and ending the last major resistance to Tokugawa hegemony for over two hundred years until the Boshin War.
1464: Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1) is 28 and has no heir; various Japanese nobles worry over the question of succession. Yoshimasa convinces his brother, Yoshimi, to abandon the life of a monk, and names him his heir. Yoshimasa begins considering retirement to a more ceremonial role passing real power onto his brother.
1465: Yoshimasa's wife unexpectedly gives birth to a son, Yoshihisa. The succession is now even more in question than it was previously.
1465-1466: Old rivalries boil to the surface, while the ambitious vie & jockey for positions of power. Half the realm supports Yoshimi, the other half Yoshihisa.
1467: The Ōnin War breaks out nominally over question of the succession, but in truth much of the fighting is between factions vying over territory, resources, & prestige. Thus begins the Sengoku (戦国時代) or Warring States period. IOTL for the next century and a half Japan is consumed by near-constant civil war.
The Azuchi–Momoyama Years
1543: A Portuguese ship, blown off-course by a strong storm, lands in Japan. Over the following years Europeans continue to visit Japan, introducing Europeans ways, notably Christianity, and gunpowder warfare.
1557-1590: Oda Nobunaga & his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, largely ends the fraternal strife, uniting Japan once again for the first time in generations. Toyotomi, due to his common birth, is unacceptable to his ennobled peers & rivals as Shōgun (将軍); however he is named by Emperor Go-Yōzei as the Kampaku (関白), or regent, giving him complete control over Japan.
1592-1598: Unsatisfied with Japan alone, Hideyoshi launches the Japanese Invasion of Korea, with the aim of conquering Ming China. Although Japanese forces experience several years of tactical success, they are never able to secure the strategic goal of the complete occupation & pacification of Korea, and never march on China proper. Japanese forces are slowly beaten back, finally only exerting fully control over small enclaves along the coast, while a stalemate exists in the interior. The invasion leaves both the Toyotomi clan's & that of their loyal vassal clan's coffers and fighting strength depleted, while the Japanese daimyō (大名) skirmish over responsibility for the failure.
1598: Hideyoshi dies of old age. Power nominally passes to his five-year old son Hideyori, however real power lies in the hands of the Council of Five Elders, or go-tairō (五大老), a joint regency by the five most powerful daimyō; Ukita Hideie, Mōri Terumoto, Ukita Hideie, Maeda Toshiie, & Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Council almost immediately divides into rival camps, each side blaming the other for the failure in the invasion, reigniting old rivalries & memories from the pre-Azuchi–Momoyama period.
1599: Tairō Maeda Toshiie dies of old age. Tokugawa Ieyasu immediately marches on the capitol, seizing young Hideyori. Ishida Mitsunari, a powerful daimyō angered over being excluded from the go-tairō and a leading figure in the growing anti-Tokugawa alliance, plots to send assassins against Ieyasu. However the plot is foiled & revealed, causing several daimyō & samurai that were either neutral or formerly aligned against Tokugawa to join his faction. Each side gathers their forces for war, with Mitsunari's power-base in the West & Ieyasu's in the East.
1600: The Battle of Sekigahara is a decisively overwhelming victory for the Tokugawa. Mitsunari's Western Army is smashed, and over the next several days the few holdouts are hunted down and destroyed. Mitsunari himself, along with several other prominent anti-Tokugawa nobles are captured & executed, or commit seppuku (切腹) - ritual suicide. Ieyasu immediately begins breaking up his enemies' power base, seizing their lands and titles and putting any remaining family members to the sword. He also rewards his supporters from among these new fiefs, redistributing much of the land in Western Japan among new nobles families.
The Tokugawa Regime
1600-1603: There are, of course, many who are disgruntled by these changes, notably the Chōsokabe clan, who are stripped of all land and titles; former Chōsokabe retainers never quite come to terms with the new ruling family, the Yamauchi clan, which made a distinction between its own retainers and former Chōsokabe retainers, giving them lesser status as well as discriminating treatment. Ieyasu formalizes these divisions, and Japanese nobility is soon rent into two; fudai, or those who had been loyal to the Tokugawa clan, and tozama (lit. 'outsiders'), those that had fought against Tokugawa. Many tozama clans are either rendered destitute or outright exterminated over the following years. However some Western daimyō are left unharmed by Ieyasu's purges; notably the Shimazu, though this is more due to the distance & isolation of their provinces of Satsuma from the political, militaristic, & economic cores around Edo, Okazaki, & Osaka. Even more importantly, the Toyotomi clan, though heavily degraded in power & prestige and stripped of some of their lands, was allowed to survive under Hideyori.
1603: Ieyasu is formally named Shōgun by Emperor Go-Yōzei, legalizing his de-facto position as supreme ruler of Japan.
1605: Tokugawa Ieyasu is is sixty-two years old. Following long-held Japanese tradition, he abdicates, his title passing to his second son-and-heir, Hidetada. This, in theory, will allow for a smoother succession. However, while the latter does take up some of the bureaucratic & ceremonial responsibilities held by the Shōgun, real power remains in the hands of Ieyasu, who as Ōgosho (大御所), exercises complete control over Japan. Central to his control is the reconstruction of Edo Castle, the cost of which is borne exclusively by the daimyō, while it's modernization benefits the Tokugawa alone; this causes much resentment among the Japanese nobility, which is held in check by fear of Tokugawa force of arms. Perhaps even more importantly though, the Tokugawa's vast resources allow Ieyasu to finance the Japanese Imperial family itself, who had been living in abject poverty throughout the Sengoku period.
1609: Under the advise of William Adams, an English/Dutch Protestant sailor that has settled in Japan, Ieyasu gives the Netherlands preferential trading rights with Japan allowing them to freely buy & sell their goods across the entire islands, as opposed to Portuguese & Spanish traders who are limited to Nagasaki, buying & selling goods at fixed prices. Ieyasu also allows the Dutch to establish a trading factory on Hirado Island. Over the next severals years Adams will continue to consul Ieyasu against the Spanish & Portuguese, whose domination of South-East & East Asia trade has strangled Dutch efforts to compete in the region, and whose support of the Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan missionaries, who have already converted between 100,000 & 300,000 Japanese Christians, or Kurisuchan (吉利支丹, 切支丹, クリスチャン), much of them in the already restive Western regions where Tokugawa rule is heavy-handed, at best, is a thorn in Ieyasu's side.
1610: Toyotomi Hideyori travels to Edo to visit with Tokugawa Ieyasu & Emperor Go-Yōzei regarding the continuing agitation in the Western domains. Latter the same day Go-Yōzei announces his intention to renounce the throne.
1611: Emperor Go-Yōzei abdicates the Imperial throne, and is succeeded by his third son, who takes the imperial name of Go-Mizunoo, or lit. Mizunoo the Second, referencing the the 9th century Emperor who was able to exert an unusual level of independence against the imperial bureaucracy. Ieyasu leads a force of 50,000 men to Edo to swear allegiance to the new Emperor. Using his personal army, Ieyasu forces the other daimyō to swear loyalty personally to him in addition to the Emperor. Ieyasu also levies a new tax to further reconstruction of Edo, not only focusing on the Castle but also repairs to the Imperial Palace, which is still in a sad state of disrepair even a decade after the end of open hostilities.
1612: In an effort to quell the rising tide of resentment across the country, and both independently and much to the dismay of Ōgosho Ieyasu, Shōgun Hidetada arranges the marriage of his eldest daughter, and Ieyasu's favorite granddaughter, Senhime, to Toyotomi Hideyori.
1613: Tokugawa Ieyasu issues the Kuge Shohatto (公家諸法度), lit. Laws Governing The Imperial Court, which strictly limits the activities & responsibilities of daimyō in the imperial court, removing from positions of power as administrators and advisers to the Emperor or Shōgun, leaving them in a merely ceremonial role. As many Tokugawa supporters had been rewarded with positions of power in Edo this edict disproportionally affects Ieyasu's allies & vassals.
1614: The Toyotomi finish reconstruction of their own Osaka Castle, fully modernized with Western-style cannon, years ahead of the Tokugawa's own efforts at Edo. At the same time the clan sponsors the rebuilding of Edo's Hōkō-ji temple. The renovations include the casting of a bronze bell to be centrally featured in the temple, with the inscriptions kokka ankō (国家安康), "May the state be peaceful and prosperous" & kunshin hōraku (君臣豊楽) "May noble lord and servants be rich and cheerful." However Shōgun Hidetada interprets the kanji characters used in 国家安康 as shattering (2) Ōgosho Ieyasu's name, 家康. Further Hidetada also interprets 君臣豊楽 to mean "Toyotomi's force (豊臣) will rise again." Soon thereafter a powerful earthquake strikes Edo, further damaging the Imperial Capitol and pushing back restoration of both Edo Castle & the Imperial Palace by years. In response, Ieyasu issues an edict expelling all Christians from Japan, claiming they "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness." The edict is not well received among the daimyō, as some eight-six of them have already converted, and many more are either sympathetic or neutral towards the new religion. The edict is felt especially hard in the restive Western provinces, where the majority of Japan's Christian population resides. Toyotomi Hideyori immediately begins rallying his banners and calling rōnin from across Japan to his cause. Notably Shimazu Tadatsune, the tozama daimyō of Satsuma, refuses to join either side in the coming conflict, and professes his neutrality. Ieyasu and Hidetada summon their own forces, and swiftly march on Osaka. Once again father-and-son strongly disagree, this time over the course of the campaign. Ieyasu urges a cautious, conservative, approach, as while the Tokugawa's have some 160,000 men at their immediate command Toyotomi's forces number at some 120,000, and the superior defenses of Osaka would put them at the advantage. Hidetada however is for a swift & direct confrontation. Importantly, this is the first time Hidetada uses his legal position as his father's nominal superior to force his the issue. The Tokugawa's force marches on Osaka and attempt to surround the city and lay siege; however they are repeatedly thrown back by Toyotomi men commanded by Sanada Yukimura, (3) a famed veteran of the Korean Invasion and later unification of Japan under the Toyotomi regime. Yukimura also lead several sorties against the Tokugawa's lines, breaking through the siege lines on three occasions, enacting horrible loses not only on Tokugawa men & moral, but also perhaps more importantly destroying stocks of gunpowder and other supplies. Finally as the new year dawn Ieyasu ordered the use of massed-cannon, seventeen European-imported artillery pieces as well as some 300 Japanese-made ones, to destroy the Toyotomi camp outside the walls. Within two weeks the war was over, as Toyotomi Hideyori surrendered and sworn never to rise against the Tokugawa's again. Ieyasu used his cannon to destroy the outer wall of the castle, and left a small force behind with orders to fill in the moat surrounding Osaka Castle.
1615: Within months Hideyori begins gathering troops once more, and attempts to stop the efforts to fill the castle moat. Both sides rally their banners anew, and the summer campaign commences. Before leaving the capitol once more, Ieyasu promulgates the Buke Shohatto (武家諸法度), lit. Various Points of Laws for Warrior Houses, a list of thirteen laws designed to prevent further insurrections against Tokugawa power. While many of them are expected and somewhat natural for the period and region, such as demanding that samurai devote their lives to activities "appropriate" to their station, and a reiteration of ancient laws forbidding daimyō from harboring fugitives, and instructing them to expel rebels & traitors to the Emperor both from their services and lands, the Buke Shohatto goes much further; daimyō are forbidden from engaging in any sort of social interaction with people from outside their own domain, marriages among the nobility are strictly forbidden, the daimyō's spending was to be heavily regulated, and Edo-appointed administrators would serve as bureaucrats in every daimyō's domain. As well Ieyasu legalizes the ancient, but far from standard, practice of sankin-kōtai (参勤交代), lit. alternate service, in which daimyō would spend every other year in attendance in Edo in a purely ceremonial role, after making a lengthy, and expensive, ceremonial pilgrimage to Edo. Thus, while the Tokugawa's forces that reached Osaka in the summer of 1615 are almost double the number of men of the Toyotomi, it is far short of the size of the levies Ieyasu & Hidetada commanded during the winter campaign just months prior as many daimyō, even those nominally loyal to the Tokugawa, resent the new edict and withhold their forces, sitting out the coming fight. After nearly three months of skirmishes the matter finally comes to a head at the Battle of Tennōji. Toyotomi forces, once again, are commanded by Sanada Yukimura, who plans a hammer-and-anvil approach whereby his main force of some 50,000 men would attack the Tokugawa center while a second force of nearly 20,000 would attack from the rear. Across the field of battle while the Tokugawa forces were nominally under the command of Shōgun Hidetada, all commands in actuality are relied from Ōgosho Ieyasu, now seventy-two and in poor health. Both sides see major mistakes in commands - the Toyotomi rōnin split off from the main force and soon were in retreat, while Ieyasu's reserve moved without orders in a failed attempt to flank the Toyotomi reserve, leaving the Tokugawa center open to a thrusting attack without protection. Seeing an opportunity Sanada Yukimura committed his main to the fight, however numbers soon told out, and the Toyotomi were facing complete destruction. Believing that defeat was soon, Yukimura declared to his soldiers "The War is Lost - All that is left for us is to fight to our heart's content." Leading a head-long thrust directly into the Tokugawa lines, Yukimura and his now-legendary Ten Braves (4) fought their way directly to the command tent, and with enemies surrounding them Yukimura was able to thrust his spear into Ieyasnu, killing him within hours. (5) Though Yukimura was later killed, the death of the Tokugawa's leader had thrown the Shogunate forces into disarray, allowing the majority of the Toyotomi men under the command of Akashi Morishige to escape back to the relative safety of Osaka. (6) Though equipped with hundreds of cannon and outnumbering their foes by hundreds of thousands of troops, the Tokugawa forces were now bereft of any central leadership, with long-hidden fissures within the Shogunate cracked wide open as Tokugawa Hidetada attempted to rally his armies, to no avail... (7)
(1) Note that in Japanese naming customs, the first name is the surname, and the last name is the given name.
(2) A Japanese naming taboo in which a person's name is "shattered," or broken up so that the kanji characters read something other than their name. Traditional Japanese folklore holds that thusly "shattering" a person's name places a terrible curse not only on them but their entire family.
(3) Also known as Sanada Nobushige, or by his sobriquets, the "Crimson Demon of War," or "Japan's Greatest Warrior," who was also famously called "A Hero who may appear Once in a Hundred Years," Yukimura was a from a minor daimyō family from Central-Eastern Japan, the son of a prominent pro-Toyotomi general, whose exploits both in Korea and in Japan had become semi-legendary even in his own lifetime. Following the initial Toyotomi-Tokugawa clash of 1600 Yukimura was slated for execution, and had to go into hiding, living the next fourteen years in exile both in Korea and in Japan as a rōnin until the resumption of hostiles. It is important to note that the Sanada clan had been retainers of the Takeda clan until the 1575 Battle of Nagashino in which the former switched sides to that of Oda Nobunaga - the Takeda clan was later completely exterminated by Nobunaga.
(4) Also known as the Ten Heroes, these are semi-legendary compatriots of Yukimura who were known throughout Japan for their exploits both on the battlefield individually and alongside Yukimura during his years of exile. All ten of them were believed to be masters in the art of ninjutsu.
(5) IOTL Yukimura missed Ieyasu's kidney by less than a few centimeters - just a bit further down and Ieyasu would have bleed to death.
(6) Just as IOTL, Yukimura is surrounded by enemies, badly wounded, and exhausted. His famous last words were, "I am Sanada Nobushige, no doubt an adversary quite worthy of you, but I am exhausted and can fight no longer. Go on, take my head as your trophy." The man difference is that the the Toyotomi vanguard are able to escape back to the walls of the castle intact, while the reserve under Chōsokabe Morichika is able to slip away from the field.
(7) IOTL after the victory at Tennōji Toyotomi Hideyori committed seppuku as Tokugawa artillery blasted the castle, setting much of Osaka ablaze, and ending the last major resistance to Tokugawa hegemony for over two hundred years until the Boshin War.
