The death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, combined with the defeat at the Battle of Bunroku and Keicho, plunged Japan back into turmoil. Although the wind and waves are still calm on the surface, but in the dark, the wind has swelled, and the game between the major names has become more intense. After Hideyoshi's death, his son Toyotomi Hideyoshi was made the heir of the Toyotomi family, and was assisted by the five elders, thus forming a situation in which the lord was weak and the subject was strong. After the death of the Most prestigious Ofehae Maeda Toshiyaya, the most prestigious of the Five Elders, in 1599 AD, no one could suppress Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the head of the Five Elders. Ieyasu seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prepare to overthrow the Toyotomi family's regime and continue to develop his power. Many daimyōs were dissatisfied with Hideyoshi's campaign against him at the Battle of Bunroku and Keincho, so they defected to Ieyasu, and the Tokugawa clique began to grow.
Statue of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
In 1600, Ishida Mitsunari and the other four clans jointly convened an old clan loyal to the Toyotomi family to attack Tokugawa Ieyasu. In order to make more daimyo respond to the call, the five Bongxing jointly elected the highly prestigious Maori Huiyuan as the leader of the alliance. After the Western army was assembled, it immediately launched an attack on Fushimi Castle, which Tokugawa occupied, forcing Tokugawa's confidant Torii Mototada to commit suicide, and the war began. Because the troops gathered by Ishida Sansei were requisitioned from east to west, they were called the Western Army. The Tokugawa Army, on the other hand, fought from west to east, so it was called the Eastern Army. After that, the two sides came and went in the Mino area, attacked each other, and won or lost against each other, and in general, the Eastern Army had the upper hand slightly.
Tokugawa Ieyasu spent days looking for opportunities to fight a decisive battle in order to avoid the western army taking possession of the castle, and Ishida Mitsunari was also anxious to eliminate Tokugawa Ieyasu, so he entered the Sekigahara area to set up a battle front, and the Sekigahara War broke out. However, looking at the situation before the outbreak of the Sekigahara War, it is not difficult to see that the Western Army completely occupied the favorable terrain, and the Eastern Army not only had no danger to rely on, but also faced the problem of insufficient troops, but the final result was that the Eastern Army won a complete victory in this decisive battle. The reason why the Eastern Army was able to break the Western Army in the Battle of Sekigahara was not only due to Tokugawa Ieyasu's proper command, but also to win the war due to the combination of many factors.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Hokusei Shogun Asano Ningning was the head of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's office and followed Hideyoshi when he was a pawn. Because of Hideyoshi's outstanding performance on the battlefield, he was highly regarded as Ada Nobunaga and regarded him as a close confidant. After the change of Honnoji Temple, Hideyoshi inherited Nobunaga's unfinished business and eventually completed unification. It is recorded in the Ming Shi Liechuan Foreign States:
"He said that he was Hira Hideyoshi, a slave of the people of Satsuma, strong and strong, and had a verbal argument. Nobunaga Yuezhi, Ling Muma, known as Kinoshita. Later, he drew a plan for Nobunaga and captured more than twenty prefectures, and became the shogun of Settsu Town. "
After Hideyoshi held a high position, he did not dislike his wife, and he often thought about Ning Ning when he was in foreign wars, and wrote to ask him how his daily life was, and the two had a very good relationship and became a model in the hearts of the samurai of the Toyotomi family. Lady Hokasasho was born in the village of Asahi in Owari, so she took extra care of the samurai from Owari. After Hideyoshi's death, the Owari Samurai clique with The Lady of Hokuseisho as the core was formed, among which the more famous daimyo were Kiyomasa Kato and Masanori Fukushima.
Lady of the Northern Political Office
Because Hokusei has not been able to give birth to a son for Hideyoshi, and Hideyoshi's side room Asai Tea Tea has given birth to Hideyoshi, the status gap between Cha Cha and Ning Ning has gradually shortened. After Hideyoshi's death, the Omi Samurai Group was formed, centered on tea tea from the Omi region, among which the more famous daimyo was Ishida Sansei, and since then it has come to a confrontation with the Owari Samurai Group of the Hokusei Shogunate. It was also from this time that the status of chacha gradually surpassed that of Ning Ning, and the Owari Samurai Group began to be in a weak position.
Most of the Owari warriors around Ning Ning followed Hideyoshi around him before he could fly, fighting for Hideyoshi in all directions. However, after Hideyoshi seized power, he reused the civilian official clique from the Omi region, such as Ishida Sansei and Ohno Osamu. The reason was that there were fewer and fewer wars at that time, and the role of military generals gradually declined, while Ishida Sansei and others were better at governing internal affairs, which was more in line with hideyoshi's needs at that time. Hideyoshi's move had long displeased the Owari samurai, but he dared not speak out. After their deaths, these Owari samurai weakened their centripetal force toward the Toyotomi family, and it was reasonable to turn to Tokugawa Ieyasu. In the battle between the Eastern Army and the Western Army, Hideyoshi's former general Masanori Fukushima took the initiative to serve as the vanguard of the Eastern Army, which shows how resentful he was towards the Omi Samurai Clique of ishida Sansei's faction. In particular, Hideaki Hayakawa, who fell to the East during the Sekigahara War, was also from Owari and was also the nephew of Lady Hokasasho. It was precisely because of his defection that the Eastern Army was revived and defeated the Western Army in one fell swoop and won the victory.
Hideyoshi side room tea tea)
Another factor contributing to the defeat of the Western Army was Ishida Misumi's personal reasons. Although Maori Huiyuan was the head of the Western Army, the actual controller and commander of the Western Army were Ishida Sansei. Due to the Three Tea Offerings Incident in 1574, Hideyoshi took Misei in particular and regarded him as a confidant. Sansei did not disappoint Hideyoshi, and was loyal to the young lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Without Ishida Sansei's efforts, Tokugawa Ieyasu's conquest of the world would have been much easier.
It was precisely because Toyotomi Hideyoshi favored Ishida Sansei too much that many daimyo and warlords of the Toyotomi family were dissatisfied with him. In addition, Ishida Sanren usually flying and flapping, the sharp edge is exposed, so it has attracted the disgust of many people. Tokugawa Ieyasu, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of him, and in order to hide his ambitions, he was cautious in his daily life and treated other daimyōs and shoguns with leniency, so he won the favor of most people.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
After the beginning of the Sekigahara War, many daimyō did not accept Ishida Sansei's dispatches at all, and some of them joined the Western Army simply because they had been vassals of the Toyotomi family and had been insulted for disloyalty to the Eastern Army. Coupled with Ishida Sansei's lack of prestige, it was not enough to mobilize these daimyo. For example, two hours after the start of the Sekigahara Battle, Ishida Yoshinari issued an order to Yoshihiro Shimazu to send reinforcements to the front line quickly, but Shimazu Yoshihiro directly refused. After Kohayakawa Hideaki's rebellion, there was a chain reaction in the Western Army camp, and many Daimyo led their troops to the Eastern Army, either surrendered or directly turned to attack the Western Army, resulting in the disastrous defeat of the Western Army. The Alliance nobunaga submits to Hideyoshi and fights with Takeda to defeat Sekigahara – Tokugawa Ieyasu's Way of Fighting for Supremacy:
"The Anguoji Temple, Nagashu Masakazu, Maori Hidemoto, and Yoshikawa at the eastern foothills of Nangong Mountain fled in defeat. The Eastern Army ended in a complete victory. "
If Ishida had asked Maori Huiyuan to sit in the seat, or given orders in the name of Huiyuan, perhaps it would not have been so badly defeated, at least not too many people would have turned against him.
Mitsunari Ishida
Hideaki Hayakawa's father was Kinoshita and was the older brother of Ning Ning, the wife of the Hokusei Shosho, which means that Hideaki Hayakawa was Ning Ning's nephew, and his relationship with Ning Ning was even closer because he was born in Owari. At the same time, he was once the adopted son of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and it is reasonable to say that he would never betray the Toyotomi family, but in fact, it was because of Hideaki's defection that the Toyotomi family perished.
The reason for Hideaki Hayakawa's defection was mainly due to his disagreement with Ishida Mitsusei. During the Battle of Bunroku and Keicho, Hideaki Kohayakawa and Governor Konishi led reinforcements to Ulsan Castle, which was besieged by the Ming army, to support. Although Hideaki was heroic in the Battle of Ulsan, he was disgusted by Hideyoshi and had his territory confiscated for slaughtering women and children in the city. Hideaki believes that Ishida Sansei is obstructing him, so he resents it. In 1599, Tokugawa Ieyasu interceded for Hideaki before he restored his formerly confiscated territory. After that, Hideaki Hayakawa became grateful to Tokugawa Ieyasu, so he abandoned Ishida during the Battle of Sekigahara and fell to Tokugawa. It is recorded in the "Chronicle of Jingyi Jiaqingchang":
"During the battle, the Fujido team, in order to urge Kinggo Nakanaga to join the side of the Divine King, fired an iron cannon in the direction of Kingo, but there was no response."
Hideaki Kobayakawa
The reason why Ieyasu fired at Xiuqiu's position on the battlefield was that Xiuqiu was in a difficult choice at that time, so as to urge him to quickly send troops to support the inferior Eastern Army. After all, as Hideyoshi's adopted son, he can have the power he has today mostly thanks to Hideyoshi's gifts, and if he turns against him, he may be laughed at by the people of the world. Xiu Qiu still made a decision after thinking about it for a long time, and commanded the samurai of the headquarters to kill yamashita, and destroyed hase Yoshiji's army, and the western army suddenly collapsed.
However, in the historical record "Records of Seonjo Shilu" left by Lee's Joseon, it is recorded that before the Sekigahara Battle, Ishida Sansei had already learned of Kohayakawa Hideaki's surrender to the Eastern Army, but it should be untrue through the map of the deployment of troops in the Sekigahara Joint Battle. On the left side of the picture is the position of the Western Army, and on the right side is the position of the Eastern Army. It can be seen that if Ishida Sansei had known that Hideaki had surrendered to the enemy, he would not have deployed it on the side of the Western Army, and once Hideaki was in trouble, he could condescend to attack from behind the Western Army.
Map of the situation on the battlefield of the Sekigahara Battle
Looking at the situation before the outbreak of the Sekigahara War, it is not difficult to see that the Western Army completely occupied the favorable terrain, and the Eastern Army not only had no danger to rely on, but also faced the problem of insufficient troops due to the delay in the arrival of the main force of the Tokugawa Army led by Tokugawa Hidetada, but the final result was that the Eastern Army won a great victory in this decisive battle. The fundamental reason for the defeat of the Western Army was that Hideyoshi did not properly handle the contradiction between the Owari Samurai Group and the Omi Samurai Clique. After he ascended the throne of Sekibai, he reused the Omi civilian officials to govern internal affairs, but ignored the Owari samurai who had fought with him bloodily. Coupled with the fact that the Battle of Bunroku and Keicho caused many daimyō to be dissatisfied with Hideyoshi, which eventually led to the separation of the Toyotomi family, even his adopted son Hideaki Hayakawa betrayed the Toyotomi family and turned to the Tokugawa side.
Although the Western Army occupied the temporal and geographical advantages of the Sekigahara Battle, Ishida Misei was unpopular, and Tokugawa Ieyasu was supported by many daimyōs, which was another major reason for the defeat of the Western Army. If the real initiator of the conquest of Tokugawa was Maori Keigen, with his prestige, perhaps the war would have produced another outcome.
bibliography:
1. "The Light of Life: The Dying Style of Chinese and Foreign Celebrities"
2. "Ming Shi Liechuan Foreign"
3. "Alliance with Nobunaga to Submit to Hideyoshi and Fight takeda to defeat Sekigahara : Tokugawa Ieyasu's Way of Fighting for Supremacy"
4. "The Chronicles of Jing Yi Jia Qing Chang"