Kill the Shogun by Dale Furutani Page A

that this hoarding of money represented, he adopted a maxim that waste was an affront to heaven.
    His frugality did not extend to things military, however. Ieyasu’s men were always well equipped, and although their commissary was not lavish, when they were on a campaign they were always supplied with adequate food.
    This willingness to spend money on military matters did not always guarantee victory. In fact, there were military defeats and at least one occasion when Ieyasu was preparing to kill himself rather than be captured. But circumstances, bold action on his part, and the hesitancy of his enemies kept Ieyasu alive. And as his long life progressed, he expanded his influence, power, and authority until he was able to seize control of all of Japan. To do this, he bided his time, first allying himself with Oda Nobunaga in his rise to power, then shifting his loyalties to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s successor.
    Hideyoshi was a peasant, and started his military career as an
ashigaru
, a common foot soldier, before advancing to the rulership of Japan. Ieyasu was amused that the people were already making up legends about Hideyoshi, even though he had been dead only a few years. He laughed out loud when someone told him of the talk of lightning flashes and divine signs when Hideyoshi wasborn. He knew that The Monkey, the derogatory nickname given to Hideyoshi by Nobunaga, had had a totally unremarkable birth in a peasant village.
    That was what had made him so unusual and frightening.
    In an age when birth was often destiny, Hideyoshi was a man who made his own destiny. Hideyoshi once told Ieyasu that it was important for Ieyasu to become his vassal, because Hideyoshi’s common birth meant a lack of respect from other daimyo. If Ieyasu acknowledged a commoner like Hideyoshi as his Lord, then the other daimyo would fall into line, following Ieyasu’s example. As with most things Hideyoshi planned, the results of Ieyasu acknowledging Hideyoshi were exactly as he foresaw. Ieyasu was determined to create a Japan where the elite would not be threatened by a freakish political and military prodigy like Hideyoshi.
    When Hideyoshi died, Ieyasu gathered his forces and gambled everything on one climactic battle at Sekigahara. He had prevailed, and now was in a struggle to gather the reins of power into his hands. Hideyoshi’s son and widow still lived in the formidable fortress at Osaka, and the loyalty of numerous daimyo was still in question. Ieyasu saw the danger and irony of dying at this moment, when he had achieved the pinnacle of personal power for himself with the title of Shogun but had not yet ensured that his clan and family would remain in power long after he had departed to the void.
    That’s what made a man like Nakamura so valuable, and Ieyasu would miss him. Nakamura had had a genius for bureaucracy. Although his manner had been as irritating as that of one of those pedantic scholars of Dutch or Chinese learning, his ideas for structuring the new government had been inspired. He had proposed an idea for controlling the daimyo that was both brilliant and simple.
    The standard way to ensure the loyalty of a shaky ally was to take hostages, just as Ieyasu had been a hostage for his entireyouth. If the ally did something to displease you, you simply killed the hostages. If the ally was ruthless enough or under pressure in other ways, the hostages could be sacrificed and the supposed ally could turn treacherous. Nakamura had suggested a variation on this scheme that would make treachery much harder.
    Every other year, half the daimyo would have to live in Edo to “advise” and serve the Shogun. After the year’s residence in Edo, the daimyo would return to his home fief, but his family would remain in Edo as hostages. After a year’s residence in their fief, the pattern would be repeated. This made it much harder for the daimyo to consolidate power in their fiefs, and with only half the daimyo in Edo at any one