The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan

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THE POWER STRUCTURE 85

The Shimazu defied both "the low fellow with no antecedents" and the

court, which had appointed such a person to the post of imperial

regent. Hideyoshi consequently had to confront such resistance with

military force. He needed to show those around him that even though

he was serving as imperial regent, he still held military power befitting

the leader of the great warrior alliance. For this reason, he continued

to lead armed forces during the course of national unification. Even in

times of peace he made military "progresses"

(godoza)

to each region

of the country, behaving in a way completely different from the style

expected of the imperial regent and grand minister of

state.

Interest-

ingly, Hideyoshi offered a new interpretation of the post of imperial

regent: In his view it was an office "that must conquer the realm."

For Hideyoshi the invasions of the continent, too, were compelled in

part by his need to assert authority.

Although Hideyoshi's difficulties in gaining legitimacy were multi-

plied by the lowness of his birth, his life followed

path that those who

would be men of the realm had to tread. Men of the realm could not

stop with just the unification of the daimyo but had to use their

authority to unite and rule all of Japan's land and people. The chief

difficulty confronting them was to find a way to accomplish both of

these tasks at one stroke. Throughout medieval times the feudal fief

system had developed chiefly under the shogunate, which was an

office in the imperial court system. On the other hand, not only the

shogun but also the emperor, nobles, and other court families formed

relationships with warriors by appointing them to court rank and

office. These two circumstances merged to form Japan's unique feudal

fief system: Fiefs were based on the

kokudaka

system enforced by the

military elite, and court rank played a role in the legitimization of the

warrior status.

No contradictions between the imperial and military-based system

of authority appeared on the surface as long as Hideyoshi held the

posts of imperial regent and grand minister of state and at the same

time stood at the apex of the hierarchy of military proprietary lords.

But in 1591 when he handed over the office of imperial regent to his

nephew and adopted son Hidetsugu and began to rule as the retired

imperial regent, the structural fault lines inherent in this arrangement

28 The term godoza was used to mean an aristocrat's removal of his residential base to another

place, or a general's taking the field.

29 See "Komai nikki," the diary of Hidetsugu's vassal Komai Shigekatsu, entry for 1594/4/13,

in Kondo Keizo, ed., Kaitei

shiseki

shuran,

vol. 25 (Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, reprint, 1967-9),

560. See also Asao, "Toyotomi seiken ron," p. 208.

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86 THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION

gradually broke through to the surface. There was tension between the

powers of the court system, of which Hidetsugu was the center, and

the powers held and symbolized by Hideyoshi as the man of the realm,

the true holder of actual military power. To cite one example, the edict

ordering a census issued in Hidetsugu's name in 1592 was a call for a

national count of households and individuals to provide a statistical

base for requisitioning military laborers for the Korean campaigns.

But at that time, camp laborers

(jimpu)

and sailors

(kako)

already were

being mobilized in each daimyo domain under orders from Hideyoshi.

In general, Hideyoshi's orders to the daimyo drew their legitimacy

from Hideyoshi's private authority, his position as head of the warrior

estate. But edicts such as the national census order were different from

this - they applied to the nation as a whole and thus had to be

grounded in Hidetsugu's public authority as derived from his position

as imperial regent. Similarly, decrees that were national in scope, such

as regulations on post horses

(temma),

and official documents granting

the bearer permission to pass through toll barriers

(kasho)

exceeded

the authority of individual lords and consequently were issued in

Hidetsugu's name. Moreover, in matters relating to the court system,

such as the ceremony for appointing daimyo to court rank or the

punishment of nobles, the required procedure was that Hideyoshi's

wishes be communicated to Hidetsugu, who would carry them out in

his capacity as imperial regent.

It is true that Hideyoshi was the one who had arranged for

Hidetsugu to become imperial regent, but once the appointment was

made, Hidetsugu stood at the apex of the court system and was subject

to the strong influence of the automatic laws of motion that governed

the operation of the court institutions based on that framework.

Hideyoshi did not have the capability to bypass these precedents and

rule on the basis of his own prestige. The resulting situation gave rise

to the formation within the regime of two groups, the "taiko (Hide-

yoshi's) group" and the "kampaku (Hidetsugu's) group," whose poli-

cies might be in opposition.

The friction between these two factions intensified from 1594, the

immediate cause probably being the birth of Hideyoshi's natural son

Hideyori. Hideyoshi had had no children by his wife, Kita-no-

30 Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nikon

komonjo,

Iewaki 9, Kikkawa ke

monjo,

vol. 2,

pp.

137-9 (doc. 975). Miki Seiichiro has shown that 1591, the date usually given for the

census order, is incorrect. "Hitobarai-rei to megutte," in Nagoya daigaku bungakubu

kokushi kenkyushitsu, ed., Nagoya daigaku Nihonshi

ronshu

(Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan,

1975),

vol. 2, pp. 97-136.

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THE POWER STRUCTURE S7

mandokoro (Nei), and his beloved son Tsurumatsu, born to his concu-

bine Yodo-dono (Chacha), died in 1591 at the age of two. Thus he

chose Hidetsugu, his nephew, as his successor. But when Yodo-dono

gave birth to their second child, there then were two persons qualified

to succeed Hideyoshi to the headship of the Toyotomi house. This

second child created another nucleus around which those who differed

over any of a variety of political and military problems might rally.

In 1594 Hideyoshi's magistrates conducted a new cadastral survey

in Owari Province, Hidetsugu's domain, and carried out an on-the-

spot inspection of his civil government, fiscal affairs, and procedures

for collecting taxes from the lands under his direct administrative

control. This type of inspection was also conducted on the lands held

directly by Toyotomi Hideyasu, Hidetsugu's younger brother and lord

of Koriyama Castle in Yamato Province, as well as on the estate of the

recently deceased Gamo Ujisato, a longtime associate of Hideyoshi

who had been placed in the critical location of Aizu in northern Japan.

In each case this constituted interference with the rights of individual

daimyo, prompted by the presumed incompleteness of the cadastral

surveys that had been submitted previously. That such an intervention

could be directed against the imperial regent, Hidetsugu, demon-

strated to all that two reins of authority existed and that Hideyoshi

believed his to be of higher purity.

In the seventh month of

1595,

when the first invasion of Korea had

reached an impasse and peace negotiations were under

way,

Hidetsugu

was interrogated by Hideyoshi's magistrates on suspicion of treason.

Ultimately, he was divested of

his

offices of imperial regent and minis-

ter of the left, and banished to Mt. Koya where he was ordered to take

his own life. The leading retainers of his kampaku group were later

arrested: Some were sentenced to death, and others were banished.

Hidetsugu's wife, concubines, and children, numbering more than

thirty persons, all were beheaded. Several great daimyo were also

implicated, some of whom were ordered into domiciliary confinement

for a time. All the magistrates and daimyo submitted one after another

oaths of loyalty to Hideyoshi, signed in blood. The first to present

theirs were Hideyoshi's magistrates Ishida Mitsunari and Mashita

Nagamori, who had carried out Hidetsugu's punishment. Other influ-

ential daimyo who submitted oaths included Tokugawa Ieyasu, Maeda

Toshiie, Ukita Hideie, Mori Terumoto, and Kobayakawa Takakage.

It was after this incident that a set of regulations and an accompany-

ing supplement were issued on 1595/8/3 over the signatures of Toku-

gawa Ieyasu, Ukita Hideie, Uesugi Kagekatsu, Maeda Toshiie, Mori

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88 THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION

Terumoto, and Kobayakawa Takakage.

The regulations sought

chiefly to control the warrior lords by requiring permission for the

daimyo's marriages, urging peaceful solutions to disputes, requiring

investigations of falsehoods and accusations, and establishing rules to

designate those permitted to use palanquins. The purpose of these

regulations was to bring the warrior lords under the aegis of the

Toyotomi regime and to make the daimyo themselves conscious of

their public role.

Supplementary regulations defined the regime's relationships with

the nobility, temples, and shrines, by ordering that nobles and

monzeki

(temples whose abbots were taken from the imperial family or high

nobility) remain faithful to the traditions of their own houses and serve

the public interest

(kogi).

Moreover, the monks and priests of temples

and shrines were required to obey the laws governing them, to repair

and rebuild their religious establishments, and to be diligent in their

studies and the conduct of religious services. With respect to land-tax

procedures, it was decreed that the "produce of the entire realm" was

to be taxed on the basis of formal "inspections"

(ketni).

Military lords

were instructed to take two-thirds of the harvest and leave the farmers

one-third. The Toyotomi regime had established this two-to-one ratio

as the official tax rate in 1586, but this official recognition that one-

third was to be allotted to the farmers as "a right to hold the realm" is

an extremely important fact when considering the character of the

Toyotomi state. The regulations also limited the number of concubines

that warriors could keep and, in general, established fief size as the

standard for governing warrior behavior. There were new regulations

on clothing and family crests, and of special importance were the

regulations concerning judicial proceedings. A group of ten persons

was established to deal with litigation. Tokugawa Ieyasu and the other

"elders" would deal with direct appeals to the retired imperial regent;

depending on the circumstances, they could bring the matter to his

attention. In this way the regime set up its own internal machinery for

processing litigation, however inadequate it may have been.

Thus Hideyoshi's regime was more successful in asserting its con-

trol over other power contenders, especially on the local level, than

any previous regime in Japan's history. He created fixed rules for the

unique organs of authority and internal organization that carried out

31 On the texts of these regulations, see Miki Seiichiro, "On'okite, on'okite tsuika o megutte,"

in Bito Masahide, sensei kanreki kinenkai, ed., Nihon kinsei shi

ronso

(Tokyo: Yoshikawa

kobunkan, 1984), pp. 81-111. English translations can be found in Berry, Hideyoshi, pp.

144-5.

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THE POWER STRUCTURE 89

his wishes. These in turn were based on obedience to the

"taiko's

laws

and edicts," which he deemed superior to those of the imperial court.

Hideyoshi's system also had its own weaknesses. The relationship

between the two administrative organs, the Five Elders and the Five

Magistrates, had not been defined with respect to the formation and

execution of the intentions of the retired imperial regent's authority.

Among the

Five

Elders were formidable daimyo such

Ieyasu, Hideyo-

shi's leading rival, but they also included Ukita Hideie, who would not

have been able to maintain such a large domain had he not had

Hideyoshi's support. Maeda Toshiie,

former peer of Hideyoshi's, was

member,

were Mori Terumoto, Kobayakawa

Takakage,

and Uesugi

Kagekatsu, who had joined Hideyoshi's alliance at an early stage in the

unification enterprise. All the elders had received their court ranks and

offices by virtue of Hideyoshi's political power. In other words, the

imperial court institution was influencing the very selection and ap-

pointment of the Five Elders. On the other hand, all the Five Magis-

trates,

with the exception of Maeda Gen'i, who was responsible for the

administration of Kyoto, were daimyo of middling

size who

had been in

Hideyoshi's service since their youth and were his direct retainers.

There thus were two routes linking Hideyoshi with the daimyo,

through the Five Elders and through the Five Magistrates, and not

unexpectedly this was a frequent source of conflict. When Hideyoshi

died in 1598, his testament was sent to both groups, entrusting them

with Hideyori's future. It is telling that the one addressed to the elders

used the polite address "Group of

Five"

but that the one to the magis-

trates used the more familiar "five persons," suitable for retainers.

Thus it was no accident that two years later, at the battle of Seki-

gahara, the actual leaders of the two opposing sides were the strongest

of the Five Elders, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the most prominent of the

Five Magistrates, Ishida Mitsunari.

The

structure

o/kogi

authority

The authority of the newly established unified state referred to itself as

the

kogi,

to show that it was a public authority that was subordinate to

neither the imperial court system nor the will of the

daimyo.

Kogi was a

comparatively new term that had gradually gained currency in Japan

from the middle of the medieval period. The origins of the word are

uncertain, but it seems to have two lines of descent. First, it referred to

the rites and ceremom'es of the court, and second, it referred to the

consensus of

meeting of representatives of all the subordinate temples

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90 THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION

and monks in a headquarters Buddhist temple or monastery. The

former gradually came to indicate the constitutional order of

the

impe-

rial court system, and its relationship to the system of titles and ranks.

The latter was used to express the issues common to diverse autono-

mous groups such as villages, towns, and individual proprietary lords.

These two meanings coalesced in the late Muromachi period. In the

capital and its environs, the term was used to signify "the shogun" or

"the shogun's authority"; in the provinces, Sengoku daimyo such

the

Mori or the Hojo frequently used the title in reference

themselves and

also

called others by this

term.

In any

case,

was

used

refer

warrior

authority because that authority had gradually united the various politi-

cally autonomous groups. The use of this term in reference to ruling

authorities implied that they expected the lords to perform the public

function of maintaining the general security of daily life.

Underlying this, as the "Seikyosho" explains, was the widespread

conception that the "samurai's great law

(daiho)

and

kdgi"

consisted of

the formalities and etiquette observed whenever a regional warrior

band received an emperor's personal edict

(rinji),

a retired emperor's

directive (inzen), a letter of instruction (from a high-ranking noble)

(mikyojo),

or a transmittal of an order

(hosho).

That is, a document

from the emperor or shogun approving an appointment to office or a

promotion was received from the messenger in a clean, decorated hall

by the entire household in full formal dress. Those attending the

ceremony were seated in order of rank: lineages and houses, parents

and children, direct and branch lines, clergy and laity, and so on.

Attendance by members of warrior bands when their leader

(toryo)

was

the recipient of an official document meant that their position and

standing as warriors in their particular areas had been recognized

officially. Their union was based on their common interests as the

warrior class that lived in a given region. The main element of their

common interest was control of the people in their domains. By nature

this military proprietary class was highly exclusive because its cohe-

sion was based on a system of individual relationships between lord

and vassal. For them, this was the sole public order through which

their position and standing could be recognized. By attending this

ceremony and taking part in this group activity, they became members

of an official ruling group. In this way, warrior lords were able for the

first time to confront as rulers the people (farmers) on their lands.

32 "Sekyosho," in Zoku

gunsho

ruiju, rev. 3rd ed. (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruijo kanseikai, 1984),

3270 (zatsubu), pp. 249-92.

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THE POWER STRUCTURE 91

Sengoku daimyo such as the Mori and the Hojo established their

own regional authority as the

kogi

of the "provinces" that they ruled,

and they consolidated the warrior bands of those areas as members of

their own "houses" as "housemen" (kachu). In other words, an

enfeoffed warrior who enrolled in the houseband of the most promi-

nent local daimyo became a member of the "kogi family," and he

thereby was recognized as the proprietor of his

fief.

On the other

hand, a warrior who was expelled from a Sengoku daimyo's "house-

band" lost his status as both proprietor and warrior.

Let us now apply the concept of

kogi

to the unification process. Oda

Nobunaga could be called the

kogi

only from 1579, fully six years after

he had driven out Ashikaga Yoshiaki. In that year he set out to unite

the realm as the master of the completed Azuchi Castle, placing Prince

Kotohito in the Nijo Palace in Kyoto. In this way he united the two

senses of

kogi

and established a sense of authority endowed with both

the name and the reality of

kogi.

Until then, the shogun Yoshiaki,

although in exile and shogun in name only, was called the kogi by

himself and others. At the same time Nobunaga, although he did not

become shogun, was called the

kogi as

well. Just how did this happen?

Clearly there had been a change in the substance of

kogi.

The new

conception of

kogi

was formed by preserving the form of the first of its

original two meanings while emphasizing the second as its actual sub-

stance. When Nobunaga established his own authority, he based it on

the claim that he acted on the basis of

public consensus of the realm.

He consistently asserted that he overthrew the old authority and estab-

lished a new one not for his own benefit but for the common good.

The destruction of the Ikko ikki, he claimed, was for the sake of the

nation, as were his rebukes of daimyo who were concerned only with

what would benefit their own domains and who did not cooperate in

the unification enterprise. In his own view, Nobunaga's expulsion of

the shogun from Kyoto was also done for the sake of the nation. These

claims did not end merely with pious platitudes. The desires of the

autonomous popular groups in the countryside could not be ignored;

people were weary of the long years of warfare and were demanding a

tranquil and orderly daily life. Nobunaga used the power of official

recognition and direct intervention against his daimyo vassals, in the

disposition of

lands

within their domains, in their methods of granting

fiefs, and in the way they engaged their vassals to maintain a policy

that favored the common good.

Historically, superior warrior authorities, beginning with the Kama-

kura and the Muromachi shogunates, had been able to intervene in the

92 THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION

problems (suits, disputes) that arose among the military lords under

their command, but they had been unable to intervene in the internal

problems of a vassal lord's domain. This was true also of the relation-

ship between the

shugo

and the local warriors

(kokujin)

in the Muro-

machi period, a weakness that even the Sengoku daimyo were unable

to overcome. For this reason, Nobunaga's intervention may be consid-

ered revolutionary, as it came at a time when the daimyo, by

privatizing their holdings and making them the objects of their per-

sonal rule, had lost all claim to be acting for the sake of the nation.

Here lies the logic behind not placing the daimyo under the authority

of the Kyoto court system but creating a new public authority.

Nobunaga exemplified the way that military lords should behave un-

der the principles of Bushido (the normative code of behavior for

warriors).

Nobunaga exempted the peasants from the corvee labor that they

had been obliged to perform for their proprietary lords and drew them

under his aegis as the one who wielded kogi authority. Instead, the

corvee was levied in "provincial" or domain units. The notion that a

fief holder's use of the workers on his land for his own purposes was "a

private [antisocial] matter," and that coveting people's labor, which

properly belonged to the

kogi,

was evil, gradually gained currency.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi took up where Nobunaga had left off, carrying

out his cadastral survey, severing the bonds that linked the individual

vassals to the land and its workers, and institutionalizing

strict separa-

tion of the warrior and peasant classes. Within the new legal order, the

daimyo became the unit of warrior rule, and the farming village be-

came the unit of peasant control. Hideyoshi denied private possession

(shoyu)

of land by individual vassals and rejected their private control

over the peasantry. The principle was established that only he who

exercised kogi, and thereby took into account the interests of all the

people of

region, could rule legitimately.

This concept of "public" or "official" proprietorship was estab-

lished in several propositions in 1587 and 1588. The 1587 edict on

Christianity asserts that "grants in fief of provinces or districts to

vassals are temporary." That is, the

fief

was viewed not as a permanent

private tenure

(shiryo)

but rather as something that had been merely

entrusted to the vassal.

It further states: "Vassals may be moved

33 On the texts of this edict, see Anno Masayuki, " 'Kirishitan kinrei' no kenkyu," in Bito, ed.,

Nikon kinseishi ronso, vol. I, pp. 39-79. An English translation can be found in George

Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early

Modern

Japan (Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 117-18.

THE POWER STRUCTURE 93

from one place to another, but farmers may not be moved." In other

words, although fiefs could be transferred by reassignment to a differ-

ent samurai holder, the people were bound to the land and could not

be moved. These represented the tenurial principles of the early mod-

ern period. It was also stipulated that warriors could not become

Christians without permission of the one who exercised kogi.

This body of regulations later gradually broadened in scope and

reached its final form in the Tokugawa shogunate's Buke shohatto

(Laws for military households) of the 1620s and 1630s.

By this time

the daimyo had lost many freedoms: They could not marry freely,

rebuild their castles as they liked, or enter into alliances with one

another. As members of

nationally constructed

kogi

order, they had

to bear the responsibility for maintaining public peace and order in the

realm.

In the late 1580s Hideyoshi ordered the daimyo of the nation to

cease

fighting

and to come to Kyoto and formally submit to him. From

his position as the realm's hegemonic authority he sought to unite and

organize the daimyo of all provinces. The imperial visit to the

Jurakutei in 1588 was the finishing touch to unification. He invited

Emperor Go-Y6zei to his residence, and under the emperor's aegis

Hideyoshi as imperial regent seized at one stroke the right to petition

for imperial approval of official ranks for the assembled daimyo. He

made the daimyo pledge their gratitude for their promotions in rank

and swear absolute obedience to the imperial regent. It was in actuality

an investiture ceremony on a national scale, establishing the public

authority

{kogi)

of the realm.

After the hegemonic authority of the realm had been established,

the next step was to use this power to promote the acceptance of the

daimyo's territorial authority. The case of Shimazu Yoshihisa, daimyo

of Satsuma, is illustrative. Yoshihisa was having trouble maintaining

control of his family and vassals, and so in 1592 Hideyoshi set about

reviving Yoshihisa's authority, using his status of

kogi

the

realm. He

seized the fiefs of rebellious retainers and added them to Yoshihisa's

granary lands. He also reclaimed the holdings that Yoshihisa and his

family had sold, and he conducted land surveys on the holdings of

temples and shrines in Satsuma, confiscating undocumented holdings

and placing them under Yoshihisa's direct control. These measures

were designed to strengthen Shimazu Yoshihisa's authority within his

34 English translation is in Tsunoda, de Bary, and Keene, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition, pp.

335-8-

94 THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY UNIFICATION

domain, but they also changed the nature of Yoshihisa's proprietary

authority. Whereas previously, the lands were his to sell in times of

financial distress, now the entire territory had become the

kogi's

hold-

ing and no longer could be disposed of at the whim of

daimyo.

The unification of the daimyo and the establishment of the warriors'

proprietary authority in the early modern period shows that the

daimyo had also come to share public authority, performing a number

of recognized public functions. However, just as the meanings con-

tained in the term kogi are neither simple nor clear, the terms "public

authority" and "public functions" as used here possess meanings and

contents determined historically, which are different from their mod-

ern meanings. I conclude this chapter by enumerating the unique

characteristics of

kogi

authority.

First, kogi authority was absolute. Formed as the authority of the

men of the realm, it extended gradually from the individual men of the

realm to mean authority as

whole;

kogi

may at times be characterized

as transcendent. Thus when Tokugawa Ieyasu set about establishing

his own authority after Hideyoshi's death, he had difficulty in freeing

himself and the other daimyo from the framework of the taiko's laws

and edicts. In the end, he was obliged to destroy the framework itself

by defeating the Toyotomi family by force of arms and then establish-

ing the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Second, kogi was a legal norm. The law by which the shogun con-

trolled the daimyo and the daimyo their retainers had already ap-

peared in Hideyoshi's regulations and supplement (of 1595-8), but

the first article of the Buke shohatto, which states, "The study of

literary texts and the practices of the military arts must be cultivated

diligently," is memorable. It enumerated the qualifications by which

the daimyo could take possession of the state and act as its public

authority. The moral and normative character of Tokugawa law has

been pointed out frequently, but until now it has been explained as

resulting from the influence of Confucian thought. There is some

truth in this, but it is not the full explanation. Emphasis on literary

and military training came from the belief that to be accepted as the

legitimate ruling authority, the warrior bands must control their

self-

ishness and employ their capacities for the good of the realm.

This sentiment in turn gave rise to the third characteristic. That is,

kogi was a mechanism applicable to authority in the context of the

lord-vassal relationship, specifically to the relationship between sho-

gun and daimyo and that between the daimyo and their retainers. But

kogi did not recognize the existence of lord-vassal relationships be-