Toyotomi Hideyoshi Samurai Warlord
1537-1598


Toyotomi was an unusual thing in Japan - the child of a commoner who managed to gain respect. He deliberately dug up genealogy in order to prove he had SOME ties somewhere to nobility, as that was critical in Japanese society. When his lord Nobunaga was slain, he organized revenge promptly.

Nobunaga's sons all fought over who should gain control next. Toyotomi wisely suggested they all support a grandson, rather than fight amongst themselves. The sons approved of this plan. In the meantime, Ieyasu pouted because he wanted to revenge his Lord - so he went off to focus on culture instead. One of Nobunaga's sons - Nobukatsu - decided he wanted power himself and convinced Ieyasu to help him. Hideyoshi and Ieyasu fought twice before the pair agreed to a peace.

Together, they brought a peace to the land by 1590. Toyotomi decided that it was time to expand the empire. By May 1692 he launched 200,000 fleets at Korea, in Pusan. The Japanese lost only 100 or so men while the Koreans lost thousands. Fortresses began giving up without a fight, and the soldiers ran off without battling. The Japanese made serious progress into Korea before the Chinese Admiral Yi Sun-shin brought in his turtle ships, or kobukson, which were like primitive armored submarines. In 1596 a true was called. Now that the Chinese were involved, Toyotomi launched another attack in 1597 and in 1598, over 40,000 Chinese were slain. The Chinese sued for peace.

Unfortunately, Toyotomi's great victories came with a price - in 1598 he went insane.

All three of the Nobunaga team were asked to fill in the same poem -

"If it won't sing - xxxxx - the nightingale"

The responses were quite different. In Toyotomi's case, his poem was -

If it won't sing,
I'll find a way to make it sing,
the nightingale.

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