Hideyoshi Toyotomi

Born the son of a poor foot soldier under the name Hiyoshimaru, he made a living as a peddler. He came from the Owari province, near Nagoya, and joined at a young age the armies of the great warrior Oda Nobunaga (1534-82). Gradually seizing opportunities as they came, he rose through the ranks and finally came to serve as a general. It is said that on a cold day the soldier Hideyoshi was holding Nobunaga's sandals in his chest to warm. Seeing it, Nobunaga liked that and promoted him. He was the faithful subordinate of Nobunaga thereafter.

However, faithfulness was not his only qualities. Although he was not a handsome person, people said he resembled a monkey, he was a cleaver diplomat, good player in intrigues, so important at the Japanese courts, and a skilful warrior. Furthermore, it turned out that it was a person with an undesirable ambition, which did not stop at being the supreme ruler of Japan. These qualities were what made him rise into Japanese history.

Not having a family name, he took in 1561 the name Kinoshita Tokichiro, which fitted better with his higher ranking in the army. In 1573, he was awarded the large domains seized from the Azai family by Nobunaga and he changed his name to Hashiba Hideyoshi. Other family members profited from his position and used the name Hashiba since that time. He became master of Nagahama Castle in Omi, and encouraged economic development in the region. When Nobunaga took his unification struggles to the west, Hideyoshi too fought fiercely in many places.

After Obu Nobunaga took his own life in 1582, Hideyoshi emerged after a struggle for power, as the new ruler and continued Nobunaga's unification. Immediately after he came into power he conducted a land survey to establish ownership. After many confusing years it restored legality in Japan and gave him great political weight. He disarmed non-warriors by separation commoners from the new samurai class. This effected a division in social structure, which remained until the end of the Edo era. Hideyoshi also encouraged the minting of coin, and he abolished highway barriers, stimulating the movement of goods and instituting free markets to undermine the vested interests of guilds.

After years of wars, Hideyoshi created renewed structure in the Japanese society. These times were excellent for new artistic views to bloom. People outside the Kyoto courts suddenly were able to express their creative need. Wealthy Sakai merchants, as Sen no Rikyu, refined the art of tea and had a profound influence on the newly created Japanese society. The new warrior class had its own ideas about art, different from the old fashioned Kyoto court artists.

But Hideyoshi was to ambitious. His ideas went further that the Japanese archipel. He dreamed to be the ruler over whole east Asia. On two occasions, in 1592 and 1597, he launched ill-fated attacks into Korea in order to prepare a jumping-off point for the conquest of China However, they brought no military advantage, but devastated Korea. They contributed to the final loss of Toyotomi authority.

Hideyoshi's imperial ambitions led him to neglect domestic politics throughout the 1590's. By the end of his life, he had assumed the family name, Toyotomi (Abundant Provider). The peace he had brought to Japan had held together only out of personal loyalties. These loyalties ran deep, for Hideyoshi had amassed tremendous wealth and lavished it on the imperial court and on various lords throughout the country. However, when he died at Fushimi Castle in 1598, the loyalties that people felt for him died as well. He named his young son, Hideyori, as his successor, but he was quickly killed and a new struggle for power emerged, which ended in the Edo Shogunate of Tokugawa Iyasu.

Hideyoshi Toyotomi was enshrined in his own temple, called after his posthumous name Toyokuni (Wealth of the Nation), sitting above the Great Buddha he had built in Kyoto.