Page 28 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Tokyo

26  INTRODUCING T OK Y O

Ishiyama Hongan-ji, a nearly impregnable
tem ple fortress in today’s Osaka in Western
Honshu. The temple had been the power
base of the Buddhist True-Pure-Land sect.
By 1582, when he was forced to com mit
suicide by a treasonous vassal, Nobunaga
was in control of 30 of Japan’s 68 provinces.
Nobunaga’s deputy, a warrior of humble
birth named Toyotomi Hideyoshi,
continued the work of unification,
launching epic campaigns that brought
Shikoku (1585), Kyushu (1587), the Kanto
region (1590), and Northern Honshu (1591)
under his control. He followed up by
destroying many of the castles and forts
belonging to potential rivals, confiscating
weapons belonging to peasants, and
devising a system in which peasants held
their own small plots and paid a fixed tax
Screen depicting the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, won by Oda directly to the central government.
Nobunaga’s 3,000 musketeers In his later years, Hideyoshi ordered
two unsuccessful invasions of Korea and
Momoyama Period persecuted the Portuguese missionaries
After Japan had been racked by over a and their Japanese converts. Like Oda
century of debilitating, inconclusive warfare, Nobunaga, however, Hideyoshi never
Oda Nobunaga, who rose through military claimed the title of shogun but became
ranks in the provin ces, set out to unify the obsessed with ensuring the
nation under his rule. From 1568–76 perpetua tion of his line
Nobunaga defeated rival warlord after his death. Two years
Azai Nagamasa; burned down after his death in 1598,
Kyoto’s main temple complex, however, dissen sion among
where militant monks had long his re tainers led to the
challenged the court and their Battle of Sekigahara, in
Buddhist rivals; drove Ashikaga Momoyama-period detail which Tokugawa Ieyasu
Yoshiaki into exile; and deployed at Nishi Hongan-ji, Kyoto emerged victorious.
3,000 musketeers to massacre the
Takeda forces at the Battle of Nagashino. The Tokugawa Shogunate
In 1580, in his last great military exploit, Named shogun by the emperor in 1603,
Nobunaga obtained the surrender of Ieyasu split the population into rigidly

1689 Haiku
Osaka Castle 1635 All foreign commerce confined to poet Basho 1707 Last
the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki departs on eruption
Bay. From 1641, only Dutch and Chinese his journey of Mount
1615 Siege of Osaka Castle allowed access to the north Fuji
1600 1625 1650 1675 1700
1590 Hideyoshi
controls all Japan 1614 Christianity banned 1657 Meireki fire Statue of 1703 Suicide
in Edo kills over of the 47 ronin
1597 Violent 1600 Tokugawa Ieyasu wins battle of 100,000 Basho
persecution of Sekigahara, achieves hegemony over Japan
Christians in Nagasaki

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