Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan by Danny Chaplin

Author:Danny Chaplin [Chaplin, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781983450204
Google: ChOlswEACAAJ
Goodreads: 37957862
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2018-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

HIDEYOSHI

‘KNEADS THE CAKE’

CHAPTER 25

Ieyasu’s Passage Through Iga and Koka

Good and bad luck, fortune and misfortune are to be left to Heaven and natural law. They are not things that can be got by praying, or worked by some cunning device.

The Legacy of Ieyasu

While events were drawing to their bloody conclusion at Honnoji, Tokugawa Ieyasu had just departed from Kyoto, where he and his entourage had been staying at the home of a wealthy merchant named Chaya Shirojiro Kiyonobu. Chaya was typical of the sort of talented, prosperous individuals whom Ieyasu liked to cultivate. He was the son of a former ronin who had set up shop as a draper in Kyoto, a not uncommon phenomenon since other established merchants like Suminokura Soan and Haiya Shoyu had also come from samurai roots. Over time the family had lost their samurai connections and been assimilated into the lesser class of the merchants, nevertheless they had acquired political influence during the Hokke Temmon Rebellion of 1532–1536, when the residents of Kyoto briefly assumed control of the capital. Chaya Kiyonobu himself had been sent to Mikawa at an early age to be Ieyasu’s page. Returning to Yamashiro after his genpuku, Chaya took over the running of the family business, using his personal connection with Ieyasu to establish a highly lucrative business as suppliers and contractors to the Tokugawa. The relationship between the two men was strong and Chaya was even present alongside Ieyasu at the Battle of Mikatagahara. Active also in shipping, he would later finance ‘red-seal’ trading expeditions to Cochin China. Through such enterprises he had become one of Kyoto’s most prosperous merchants and had adopted an appropriately sumptuous lifestyle to match. Chaya had once even entertained the former shogun with the tea ceremony at his mansion and so it had come to be known as ‘the Tea House’. Unlike either Oda Nobunaga or Hideyoshi, Ieyasu was no great aficionado of ‘the way of tea’, or at the least he was a grudging one, but it is probably true to say that in this instance taking chanoyu at Chaya’s tea house in Kyoto may well have been responsible for saving his life. After sojourning with Chaya Kiyonobu the entire party had proceeded on from Kyoto to Sakai.

Situated some miles down the coast of the great Inland Sea from Osaka and south of the Yamato River, the port of Sakai had, by the fourteenth-century, already become a thriving trade harbour. In its commerce with Ming China, it was the natural rival of another important Japanese seaport, that of Hyogo northwest of Osaka. Sakai had its origins in the salt trade and had served as a fishing harbour when the aristocracy of Kyoto cast their avaricious gaze over the town. Its shrine of Sumiyoshi was revered and peasants of the town had free rein to come and go as they pleased, a fact which served to stimulate trade activities in the area. When the southern emperor Go-Daigo made his headquarters at Yoshino, Sakai became an important link in his chain of communications with western allies and friendly sea pirates.

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