Ch 13 - The Hermit Kingdom

The End Game

Japan reestablished relations with Choson through the daimyo of Tsushima Island. Native threats to the authority of the Shogun Tokugawa led to a major military campaign against the impregnable Osaka Castle to eradicate the Toyotomi family. The outcome of that battle firmly established Tokugawa authority as the complete master of Japan.

As Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu backed up his new shogunate with his personality, his wealth and his army, but he could not completely ensure that others would not challenge his authority. In 1605, just two years after becoming the shogun, Ieyasu passed the title to his twenty-six-year-old son, Hidetada. Ieyasu still held the reigns of power, but devoted much of his energy to the matter of the Toyotomi clan. He granted Toyotomi Hideyori and his family continued residence at their stronghold in Osaka Castle , even though he realized they still had the sentimental support of many Japanese and constituted a potential rallying point for resistance that would later work to his disadvantage. The Toyotomi were still a significant threat, and Ieyasu devoted the next decade carefully planning their eradication.

Shortly after he retired as shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu began making overtures to reestablish relations between Japan and Choson. He designated the So daimyo on Tsushima Island as his agent in the management of Choson affairs. In 1605, he directed the So daimyo to make contact with the Yi government through its agents in Pusan. Choson agreed to reestablish contact with the Japanese in return for the repatriation of several thousand prisoners taken to Japan after the invasions. The following year, the first formal embassy from Choson traveled the long sea route from Pusan to Tsushima to Osaka, then overland to the shogun's residence in Edo. The Yi government insisted that Japan's central government conduct all its business either through Choson's visiting embassy in Edo or through Tsushima.

The most important principle governing Japanese-Choson relations was titular equality. This belief technically put the Yi king below the Japanese emperor in titular precedence, a serious matter in traditional East Asia, where status was all important in the conduct of foreign affairs. The Yi dynasty was not unaware of the disturbing implications of the presence of Japan's emperor, the mikado. Though politically impotent for centuries, the mikado remained the lawful sovereign of the land. The institution of the mikado sustained the widely held Japanese belief that early peninsula kingdoms such as Paekche and Silla were actually tributary states of Yamato Japan. While the shogun was a hereditary ruler with dictatorial powers based on military conquest, he ruled, in theory at least, by right of the authority delegated to him by the emperor. Choson regarded the Tokugawa shogun as Japan's sovereign ruler. Although the bakufu felt uneasy about Choson addressing the shogun as "King of Japan," it reluctantly agreed to use that title in its communications with Choson at the insistence of the Yi court.

At Japan's request, beginning in the early eighteenth century the shogun was addressed as the "Great Prince," - taikun in Japanese, taegun in Korean. Regardless of the title, the Choson king and the Shogun Tokugawa treated each other as equals and their gifts to each other were fixed in amount and considered equal in value. The Yi government regarded its relationship with Japan as purely contractual in nature and origin and insisted the two countries conduct their relationship on the basis of strict agreements that spelled out mutual commitments and obligations.

Choson's deeply ingrained Confucian viewpoint defined its historical relationship with China as a natural familial bond that could be broken under very few circumstances. Choson was free to maintain relations with Japan, but its tributary obligations to China dictated that it could never accord Japan the same status as China. Historical experience had convinced the people of Choson that Japan was treacherous and untrustworthy and the Yi government felt no compelling political reason or cultural need to maintain a similar close tie with the Japanese. Moreover, because Choson traditionally enjoyed favored relations with the Chinese and had in the past acted as the carrier of Chinese culture to Japan, Choson tended to regard itself as culturally superior to the Japanese. It was inconceivable to them that Japan could be anything more than an equal in a world hierarchy centered on China. The Tokugawa shoguns had no ambition for continental conquest or expansion and tacitly acknowledged Chinese supremacy and cultural leadership in the East Asian world. Unlike Hideyoshi, they understood and accepted Choson's position.

The 1609 Trade Agreement between Choson and the daimyo of Tsushima finally normalized relations by permitting twenty merchant ships to call at the port of Pusan each year. Under the terms of the agreement, Choson conducted relations with Japan through both the domain of Tsushima and the bakufu in Edo. Although Choson's relationship with the bakufu took precedence over its relationship with Tsushima, its embassies to Edo were infrequent and usually made only to carry the king's messages and gifts to the shogun and to take home the Japanese replies and gifts. In addition to regular envoys authorized by the agreement, Tsushima used every conceivable pretext and device to send as many special envoys, messengers and trading ships to Choson as possible. More than one thousand officials, merchants and sailors visited Choson annually. Regardless of the nature of their mission however, no Tsushima daimyo could communicate with any Choson official higher than the Vice Minister of Rites. The 1609 Trade Agreement became the sole legal basis for Choson-Japanese relations for the next two hundred sixty-eight years.

Choson sent eleven missions to Edo between 1606 and 1793. These large embassies, each led by "communication envoys," usually numbered close to 500 people. According to Japanese tradition, visitors to Japan had all their transportation, food, lodging and entertainment expenses covered by the government. Hosting these large entourages from Choson became a very expensive proposition. Over the years, the infrequent missions between Choson and Tsushima caused many Japanese holders of Yi titles and seals to terminate their ties with Korea. At the request of Tsushima's daimyo, Choson transferred some of their privileges to him along with an annual allowance of 100 bushels of rice and 100 bushels of beans. By the mid-eighteenth century, the So clan held such a monopoly on diplomacy and trade between Japan and Choson they virtually assumed the role of political intermediary between the two governments. In effect, they conducted what amounted to their own foreign policy, a position they jealously guarded.

Japan restricted Choson embassies to the island of Tsushima after 1763. Japan imposed the travel restriction in part because of the tremendous expense involved, but also because Choson refused to permit any Japanese representative to travel beyond the traditional entry point of Pusan. Japanese envoys were restricted to the Japan House, or Waegwan, a large compound built in 1678 on approximately fifty acres maintained by the Yi government in the Choryang section of Pusan. The large walled enclosure of the official Japanese inn contained business and diplomatic offices, residences, warehouses and marketplaces. Landward, a high stone wall surrounded the grounds. Seaward, the compound opened onto a walled-in anchorage. Choson authorities provided some 3,000 bags of rice per year to help feed the visiting Japanese and took responsibility for physical maintenance and security of the Japan House.

Although Choryang had its own magistrate, trade supervisor and police force, the Tsushima government permanently stationed a Japanese official and staff at Japan House to manage its day-to-day affairs. A large Japanese population lived within this walled community under the jurisdiction of the local government administration at Tongnae a few miles inland. To interdict black market trading and to keep national secrets from reaching Japan, six nearby guard posts kept close watch on the compound, its stone wall and gates. Choson authorities also erected a large stone slab near the Waegwan inscribed with the terms of the agreement between Choson's envoy to Japan, Yun Chi-wan, and the Tsushima daimyo regarding the management of the Japan House and its residents. The engraved text read:

1. Whoever violates the boundary (wall) shall be punished with death.
2. Both the donor and recipient of any commission shall be punished with death.
3. Anyone who sneaks into the community to conduct illegal trade shall be punished with death.
4. The town officials, storehouse keepers and interpreters should not beat the Japanese traders during the trade fair that takes place every five days.
5. Criminals of either side shall be executed outside the gate of the community.

Three times each month Pusan held market fairs that lasted for three days where merchants from Choson and Japan bartered goods at fixed rates of exchange. The fact that Choson merchants traded surplus items from their trade with China provided a major incentive for Japanese merchants to attend the Pusan market fairs. The Japanese brought such items as silver, copper, lead, alum, cinnabar and porcelain to trade for rice, soybeans, ginseng, and other Choson products. Lacquered articles such as folding screens, tables and gold-inlay saddles were traded in these fairs along with such surplus products from Japan's European trade as sandalwood, black pepper and water buffalo horn. The Tongnae market provided such items as cotton cloth, silks, tiger and leopard skins, hunting birds, writing brushes and medicines. A variety of new plants entered Choson through the Pusan marketplace during the seventeenth century, most notably cotton and tobacco.

The merchants who profited from the resumption of foreign trade welcomed the restoration of peaceful relations with Japan, but "peaceful relations" did little to erase the animosity felt by the Choson people toward Japan. Badly scarred by historical experience, the deeply buried hatred lived in their hearts long afterwards. Choson developed a profound distrust of its neighbors during the seventeenth century and drastically reduced its contacts with both China and Japan. As a result, a form of national seclusion took hold in Korea that became tighter and more restrictive than the Japanese movement toward seclusion which began in 1587, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued his first edict prohibiting Christianity.

Tokugawa Ieyasu worried less about foreign threats to his newly-formed government than about native-born threats, many of which had deadly intent. Lord Sanada Yokimura and the few remnants of his family who survived a merciless campaign by Lord Tokugawa some years earlier took refuge at the Buddhist monastery on Mount Kuro in Kyushu. Female monks of the Takeda clan, who had no great love for the new Shogun, developed an extensive network of spies and secret agents and agreed to help Lord Sanada extract his revenge on their common enemy. Together they sought the assistance of a ninja clan led by Hakune Saitozawa. When the shogun's spies brought news of the impending alliance, Ieyasu made an unsuccessful attempt to offer Hakune a position in the newly formed government. When the Ninja master refused, Ieyasu's agents promptly killed him and burned his houses to the ground.

Such assaults against the shogunate prompted Tokugawa Ieyasu to move against Hideyori and his mother. Under the pretext that the two had broken their earlier agreement by keeping samurai retainers within Osaka Castle after the Western Army had been disbanded, Lady Yodo was ordered to the Imperial Court in Edo, where she was made a hostage. Lord Hideyori was retired to Oyuji Temple in Hodiyuji. Throughout this period, the shogunate maintained the myth that with the young Lord in his traditional place at Osaka and the Lady Yoda as a guest of Ieyasu the government was running smoothly. Lady Yodo rejected the plan altogether however, claiming that Lord Tokugawa, a former vassal of the Toyotomi clan, had broken his oath of fealty first. Therefore, the young Lord would fight for his throne.

To Lord Tokugawa, the continued existence of the Toyotomi family in Osaka presented a threat with the greatest potential for damage. He knew that tradition-minded Japanese would never tolerate an open attack against Hideyori. Ieyasu also knew that Hideyori's mother, Lady Yodo, would never let her son take the field against him, for the Shogun would then have to kill him. Beginning in about 1611, Tokugawa Ieyasu employed subterfuge and political intrigue to undercut Hideyori's potential strength. He effectively split the forces in the pro-Toyotomi faction by sowing the seeds of doubt and mistrust among rival daimyo and weakened the young heir's defensive potential even further by offering generous rewards to Hideyoshi's former generals. As tensions between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyori steadily rose, Hideyori issued an appeal for assistance. Many of the daimyo who had served his father, Hideyoshi, or who felt the sting of defeat at Sekigahara pledged their support.

One group with a particularly deep-seeded enmity toward the new shogun began a personal campaign to kill Tokugawa Ieyasu. During one of the shogun's journeys to Osaka, ninja agents of the Black Dragon Fighting Society planted a series of explosive charges beneath the road to Osaka. The explosives were detonated just as the palanquin column carrying the shogun marched over the ambush site. During the ensuing confused fighting, which forced Ieyasu to flee on foot, all but one of the attackers were killed, screaming to the end they had come from Lord Sanada Yokimura to claim the head of Ieyasu in revenge for the murder of his father, Lord Sanada Masayuki.

Lord Sanada Yokimura allied himself with the ninja of the Takeda clan and gathered a team of ronin, outlawed Christians, actors, wanderers, and any other sworn enemies of Ieyasu with a mutual vow they would never rest until the shogun was dead. Acting on intelligence gathered by their own spies, the Black Dragons set in motion plans to assassinate Ieyasu at a camp near Nagura Castle, where he planned to watch the test firing of several cannon smuggled into Japan from Holland. Tokugawa Ieyasu reasoned that such artillery would be necessary to successfully storm the previously impregnable Osaka Castle. The attackers pumped oil from a contaminated well into the river that ran through the camp near the powder magazines, then ignited the surface of the water with torches. The resulting fire spread rapidly into the camp, destroying everything, including the cannon. Tokugawa Ieyasu barely escaped with his life.

By the autumn of 1614, Hideyori had assembled some 90,000 men at his fortress in Osaka. Always ready to grasp an opportunity when it appeared, Tokugawa Ieyasu used the assassination attempt as an excuse to attack the Toyotomi. Tokugawa Ieyasu marched west from Edo at the head of an army some 195,000 strong to lay siege to Osaka Castle.

The campaign began in mid-November with a number of minor engagements in the area around the main castle. By November 29, Tokugawa's warriors captured the fort guarding the approaches to the Kizu River, thereby preventing western reinforcements from relieving Osaka by river. After maneuvering closer to the walls of Osaka Castle, Ieyasu launched a massive attack against the stockade protecting the outer approaches to the moat surrounding the castle grounds. The fighting on December 4 succeeded in broaching the stockade, but the Easterners suffered very high casualties and had to withdraw. Lord Tokugawa had little choice but to starve out the castle defenders with a long siege through the dead of winter.

Despite bringing 300 cannon on to the field to bombard Osaka Castle and setting miners to digging under the castle's defensive walls, there seemed little chance of breaking the stalemate any time soon. Hideyori, now in his early twenties, faced a battle-scarred warrior in his early seventies determined to put an end to the pro-Toyotomi faction. As a gesture to end the siege, Lord Tokugawa offered to conclude an armistice, allowing that Hideyori would remain in possession of Osaka Castle and Tokugawa would withdraw his armies, provided the Toyotomi faction would allow him to destroy some of the Osaka fortifications and that no rebellion would be staged in the future. The Toyotomi relented with the understanding that only the outer ramparts and the outer moat would be destroyed.

The Winter Siege, or Fuyu no Jin, of Osaka Castle ended with the signing of a peace agreement on January 22, 1615. Before leaving Osaka, Ieyasu ordered the great castle's outer moats to be filled with earth. Hideyori protested, since this had not been part of the agreement, but Ieyasu stalled, replying that with their peace agreement now in force, there was no further need for such defenses. By the time Osaka's defenders discovered they had been tricked, the outer moats had practically vanished and Tokugawa's army filled the castle's two inner moats as well.

The peace agreement held until the spring of 1615, when Ieyasu learned that Hideyori had ordered the moats around Osaka excavated. Ieyasu took this action as evidence that Hideyori was violating the treaty agreement and declared open war. Both sides began marshaling armies for another great battle, the end game in a longstanding struggle for supremacy in Japan. Tokugawa Ieyasu, commanding an army 250,000 warriors, intended to destroy the nearly 120,000 Westerners who had flocked to Hideyori's banner. Unlike the campaign the previous winter however, this time the Westerners would be the ones to take the fight to the Tokugawa.

The Summer Siege, or Natsu no Jin, began in late April with a series of ambush attacks against advanced Eastern Army units en route to Osaka. On April 29, 1615, 3,000 Western troops launched an unsuccessful attack against Wakayama Castle southwest of Osaka, held by 5,000 samurai under the command of Asano Nagaakira. The Westerners were forced to withdraw to Osaka, leaving behind a number of casualties. On May 2, Hideyori's war council assessed the battlefield situation and decided the Western Army would go on the offensive against Ieyasu and take the fight to the Easterners. Success would depend on taking control of high terrain commanding the approaches to Osaka.

At 4 o'clock on the morning of May 6, General Goto Mototsugu led a force of 2,800 warriors under cover of heavy fog to positions southeast of Osaka Castle. His plan was to intercept the Eastern Army in the steep mountainous terrain near the Domyo Temple at the junction of the Yamato and Kawachi prefectures and take and hold the high ground south of the Yamato River against the Eastern Army until relieved by Sanada and Mori. Attacking through the dense morning fog, General Goto's men soon found themselves engaged with nearly 23,000 troops under the command of Date Masumune, Mizuno Katsushige, Honda Tadamasa, and Matsudaira Tadaaki. After some initial success in pushing the Easterners back, a strong counterattack forced Goto to withdraw to Mount Komatsu where he held his ground, anxiously awaiting reinforcements from Mori and Sanada. Western reinforcements, still trying to find their way in the heavy fog, never arrived. Vastly outnumbered, the Easterners held their position until around mid-morning, when General Goto was mortally wounded by a bullet in the chest. After ordering his retainers not to give the enemy his head, Goto Mototsugu committed seppuku. His position was quickly overrun.

From Osaka Castle, Mori Katsunaga and Sanada Yukimura arrayed 12,000 warriors in a new battle line along the northern bank of the Yamato River. The morning fog finally lifted by late morning, revealing the presence of the Eastern Army south of the river. Fresh from destroying General Goto's small force, the Easterners crossed the river and began a fierce battle that lasted until about noon, when both sides finally withdrew with heavy losses. Two other battles that day at Hachio and Wakae resulted in Western Army defeats. The Western offensive had failed. The next day, May 7, 1615, Toyotomi Hideyori committed everything at his disposal to an all out attack against the armies of Tokugawa.

The filled moats around Osaka Castle stripped the once formidable stronghold of much of its defensive power. Toyotomi Hideyori knew that if the Eastern Army besieged the castle again, all would be lost. They had to leave the castle grounds and fight Tokugawa in the open. The plan was for Sanada Yukimura to command some 55,000 samurai in a frontal attack against the Eastern lines near the Shitennoji Temple, while Akashi Morishige maneuvered approximately 16,500 soldiers to attack the Tokugawa from behind. Once the battle got underway, Hideyori would lead his 3,000 troops from the castle under his father's "thousand gourd" battle standard.

No longer did Tokugawa Ieyasu have to worry about Toyotomi's supporters being scattered about Japan. This day they were all here - at Osaka. The Western Army, including its main line troops and reserves, was spread across the open landscape south of Osaka Castle, stretching from near the Shitennoji Temple, founded in 593 by Prince Shotoku, north to the castle's outer moat. Facing this massive colorful army were nearly 155,000 men under the command of Tokugawa Hidetada, including a reserve force of approximately 57,000 and a rear guard of 10,000 warriors. Ieyasu told his commanders to have all mounted troops dismount for the battle.

At around noon on May 7, just after the Westerners marched into view of the Easterners, Mori Katsunaga's ronin immediately opened fire on vanguard units of the Eastern Army. Lord Sanada Yukimura desperately tried to call off the attack, but the overeager riflemen only increased their rate of fire, checking the planned flanking attack against the Eastern Army's rear. After quickly consulting with Lord Mori Katsunaga, Sanada decided to go ahead and order the attack. Orders were immediately sent down the lines as Lord Mori led his men in a frontal attack against the Tokugawa vanguard, breaking their ranks and continuing toward the main army units to the rear.

As the pace of fighting quickened, Lord Sanada ordered his son back to Osaka Castle to bring Hideyori into the battle. Sanada, meanwhile, led his samurai in a charge into the Eastern lines. Almost simultaneously and without orders, the Eastern commander Asano Nagakira moved forward to reinforce the battle by engaging Sanada. The unexpected move caused Easterners to fear that Asano had turned traitor and many began to panic and run. Tokugawa commanders quickly brought order to their lines and continued the push northward against the Westerners. As the Easterners continued their push, the exhausted Lord Sanada paused to rest. A samurai named Nishio Nizaemon challenged Sanada, who was too tired to accept. News of Lord Sanada's death spread quickly through the ranks.

As the Easterners pressed the attack, the stubborn Western Army unleashed its reserves against Hidetada. Had General Akashi Morishige's 16,500 samurai attacked Tokugawa's exposed rear flank at that moment, they might have routed the Eastern Army, but they had been intercepted earlier and the attack never materialized. Under mounting pressure all along the battle front, the Westerners finally broke and fled. Tokugawa's army hotly pursued the Westerners north, funneling their catch toward the Sakura Gate at the southern end of Osaka Castle like a giant seine net herding a school of panicked fish. When Hideyori finally decided to leave the castle and fight, it was too late. With his army fleeing toward the castle, Hideyori retired to the castle Keep for protection.

Artillery units moved forward and began a massive bombardment of Osaka Castle on June 3. By 5 o'clock in the afternoon, with the castle engulfed in flames, Tokugawa warriors broke through the Sakura Gate and easily overran the castle. The end came without compassion or mercy. As artillery shells continued to pound the castle well into the night, Toyotomi Hideyori knew beyond all doubt that his time had come to an end. Deep within the castle Keep, Hideyori and his family committed suicide. Hideyori's eight-year-old son, the last of the Toyotomi, was beheaded. Only two small children of the family survived the clan bloodbath that followed when Tokugawa's warriors relentlessly hunted down, executed and publicly displayed the heads of thousands of Toyotomi supporters. Never again would the Toyotomi family rise to challenge Tokugawa authority. The final battle had been won. Tokugawa authority was now the complete master of Japan.