Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu

Sengoku Jida: Nobunaga Hideyoshi and Ieyasu by Danny Chaplin

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3G917B1ZZNDV5?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

I watched a multipart documentary on the three men who re-unified Japan, namely Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. I had been previously somewhat aware of these men but had a fairly vague idea about who they were and what they had done. The documentary helped a lot and sparked my interest in the subject.

To rectify my ignorance, I picked up this book. I discovered that it is absolutely encyclopedic. One of the surprising and nice things about the book was that it provided a background section on the ancient - virtually prehistoric period - of Japan. Again, I had a vague understanding that the Emperor of Japan was more of a figurehead and that the Shogun was the power that ruled Japan.

What I learned was there there was a period when the emperors ruled as well as reigned. There were two prior shogunates before the Tokugawa Shogunate was initiated in 1600. So, Japan already had experience with the division between the symbolic court - think of the English monarchy during the parliamentary period - and the military power of the Shoguns. Ironically, in the period prior to the Tokugawa Shogunate, the power of the shoguns had deteriorated, such that shoguns were puppets of powerful clans in Kyoto.

The period before Oda Nobunaga had seen approximately two hundred years of civil war. Actually, central power had deteriorated as the nobility in Kyoto had been supplanted by their managers in their holdings. These managers became the daimyos with their subordinate samurai.

Oda Nobunaga began his rise in the mid 16th century as the leader of a minor wing of the Oda clan that controlled portions of a province. Battles between clans were endemic in this period. Nobunaga put himself on the map by employing a force of 3,000 men to defeat an army of 15,000. He parlayed his success and his military skills to consolidate his province, take over adjacent provinces, conquer Kyoto, put the old shogunal family out to pasture.

Nobunaga was then killed by a disgruntled underling in one of the epic betrayals that characterize this period of Japanese history. Daimyos and samurais could be fantastically loyal, even to the point of committing suicide on the order of their superiors, but they could also betray if they thought that was necessary for clan survival/advancement.

Nobunaga was replaced by his subordinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who in avenging the death of Nobunaga, positioned himself as the new shogun. Hideyoshi extended the power base put together by Nobunaga to the point where he could order two disastrous invasions of Korea. The invasions resulted in the exorbitant deaths of samurai and daimyo and Japanese defeat, but it did keep restive samurai from plotting against Hideoyoshi. Hideyoshi also established rules that stratified Japanese society in the form that it would retain until it was opened to the world by Commodore Perry in 1865.

Hideyoshi had been born a peasant and rose to the height of power on his own talents. Ironically, his rules resulted in a stratification of society that would not allow that kind of ascent again.

Hideyoshi died with a young son. Five powerful daimyo formed a council to rule Japan until the boy grew up. One of the members was Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had been a close ally of both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, but just as Hideyoshi pushed aside the Oda clan, Ieyasu pushed aside Hideyoshi's son. To be precise, Ieyasu plotted and connived to bring down the council on terms that would allow him to fight a battle that would put total power in his hands.

This is an informative book, but not entirely accessible. I learned a lot about the ups and downs of Christianity in Japan and the Japanese infatuation with tea and tea paraphennelia. On the other hand, Japanese naming conventions are hard for Westerners to follow. For example, virtually every member of the extended Oda clan had a name that was a variant of “Nobu.” The reason for this is that aristocratic Japanese children were given a children's name, but took another name when they became an adult (around 13, of course.) The name was compounded from two syllables taken from the names of respected elders.

Sometimes as a privilege for a job well done, an even higher superior lord might permit the daimyo or samurai to incorporate a syllable of their name - dropping a syllable from their prior name as an honor. Tokugawa Ieyasu's name evolved through the course of the book. It didn't take its final form until well after he had established himself as a power to be reckoned with in Japan.

This is obviously not the author's fault, but it does make for a dense narrative.

Another problem is the unfamiliarity of Japanese geography. I could have used a few more maps scattered throughout the book as an aid. Again, this is my limitation, not the authors.

I felt that I got what I was looking for, which was definitely an introduction to an interesting and different culture and history.