The Dog Shogun

2. The Inheritance

10 2 The Inheritance Tsunayoshi was born in Shôhô 3 (1646), just over four decades after his greatgrandfather Ieyasu had obliged the emperor to confer upon him and his descendants the title of shogun, thus establishing the Tokugawa hegemony. The First Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) has gone down in history as one of Japan’s great uni¤ers, the third and last of three generals who ended over a century and a half of sporadic local warfare and ushered in some two and a half centuries of unbroken peace. Yet while in hindsight we recognize in Ieyasu the ¤rst of an unbroken line of ¤fteen Tokugawa shoguns, the future of Tokugawa rule looked much less certain to his contemporaries. “His Majesty . . . has reasons to fear for his life, for there is the example of his predecessors. This kind of empire is only acquired by force of arms and is retained by the use of tyranny,” mused the Spaniard Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco (1564–1636) when he visited Ieyasu at his retirement seat at Sunpu.1 The future viceroy of Mexico, who had been shipwrecked in Japan en route to his appointment, marveled at the strength of the forti¤cations of Ieyasu’s castle, only outdone by those of Edo, where Ieyasu’s son, Hidetada, was conducting the government. In Edo some twenty thousand men were, in de Vivero’s estimation , assigned to duty between the outer defenses ringed by the moat and the inner palace of the ruler, but he noted that Ieyasu at Suruga had a larger contingent of troops stationed nearby.2 Life had presented Ieyasu with plenty of opportunity to observe the dangers befalling a ruler. Born as the son of a minor feudal lord in a period known as the “Warring States,” he had spent his youth as hostage to a neighboring clan. Though the emperor was still residing in unbroken lineage at his capital of Kyoto, political authority was split between a large number of military houses, attempting to enlarge their sphere of in¶uence or simply to survive. The bond between lord and retainer was feudal in character, but considerations of loyalty were all too often eclipsed by strategic interests. This lack of loyalty was so prominent that the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606) considered it one The Inheritance 11 of the two greatest defects of the Japanese. He ranked it second only to their sexual promiscuity.3 Hence the period is characterized by the phrase gekokujô, “inferiors overthrowing superiors.” In this turmoil of small-scale wars, Ieyasu eventually managed to establish a power base and joined the most successful of those competing for political authority over the country, Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582). Nobunaga succeeded in unifying the country, but as this brilliant military strategist was beginning to lay the groundwork for long-term hegemony, he was assassinated by a dissatis¤ed retainer at his temporary quarters in a Kyoto temple. One of his most astute generals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598), seized the occasion not only to avenge his lord, but also to usurp the power of the Oda clan. Ieyasu transferred his allegiance to the most successful party, but not without commanding a price of extensive landholdings for his submission. This included the large plain where Tokyo is situated today, then a marshy backwater with a small castle. Hideyoshi continued the work of Oda Nobunaga in overcoming military opposition to a central hegemony, and when this was achieved, he sent his generals to Korea to exercise their swords against a foreign enemy. Simultaneously he laid the social foundations for long-term hegemony. The most important of his measures were his large-scale land surveys that tied the tillers to the soil and his sword hunts that deprived them of their weapons. Pragmatically Ieyasu sacri¤ced his ¤rst two sons to his overlords. His eldest, Nobuyasu (1559–1579), had been betrothed to Oda Nobunaga’s daughter Tokuhime . But when Tokuhime accused her husband of treason, Ieyasu obliged by ordering his son to disembowel himself. After Nobunaga’s fall, Hideyoshi sought to ensure Ieyasu’s loyalty by requesting his second son in adoption. Reluctantly Ieyasu acceded to the request. In recognition of their alliance, the boy was given the name of Hideyasu, combining the names of his real and adopted fathers but placing thelatter ¤rst.4 When eventually a son was born toHideyoshi late in life, Hideyasuwas oncemoresentawayinadoption,thistimetotheYûkifamily ofEchizen. Some eighty years later, Hideyasu’s grandson was to be...