Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Enter the One-Eyed Dragon - full transcript
After unifying much of Japan,
fearsome samurai Oda Nobunaga is dead.
His loyal supporter Hideyoshi
has launched a coup
and seized power for himself.
Enraged,
powerful General Katsuie
has launched his own bid
to control the nation.
He has moved to smash the three fortresses
that guard the way into his enemy's lands.
Two have fallen.
The third, Shizugatake, remains.
To seize it,
he sends his nephew, Morimasa.
If he succeeds, Hideyoshi is doomed.
Sakuma Morimasa knew
how important it was
to capture the fortress Shizugatake…
but the fortress held out.
And the longer it held out,
the more chance there was
of Hideyoshi moving to its rescue.
The thing about any siege
is that if you are the besieger,
you are intensely vulnerable
to an attack by a relief force.
Your attention is all on this castle,
as it should be,
which means your back
is pretty much to the rest of the world.
Shibata Katsuie
was so concerned…
that he sent a messenger to Sakuma
saying, "Abandon the siege of Shizugatake.
Occupy one of the other two fortresses
that you've captured."
Morimasa ignores the order.
He believed that he had time
to continue the siege.
"Shizugatake will be mine
by nightfall"
was the message
he sent back to his master.
Shibata was not convinced.
He knew that Sakuma Morimasa
was very vulnerable to a rear attack
by Hideyoshi's army.
Even though he came
from the lowest class of samurai warrior,
Hideyoshi showed himself to be
an incredibly strategic general.
A master tactician.
He's an very talented commander
with a proven reputation
on the battlefield.
And, so, when messages arrive,
telling him what is happening
at Shizugatake…
he seems to have decided
that this is a moment for him to seize.
It is time to go!
Hideyoshi told the messenger that
he would send reinforcements immediately,
so they have to hold on.
Follow me!
Hideyoshi has made his name
because of his ability
to move troops very quickly,
and so he decides,
if he can get a force to Shizugatake,
he may have an opening here
to counter-attack,
to crush the besieging army
and win a decisive advantage for himself.
The first Sakuma Morimasa knew
of what was going on
was when he looked down into the valley…
…to see hundreds of Hideyoshi samurai
marching up
the well-trodden mountain paths.
It was a huge shock to Morimasa.
He tried desperately
to re-order his army,
to put down a firm defensive line
against Hideyoshi's mountain advance…
…but it was already too late.
Morimasa's men
were completely disorganized.
And Hideyoshi's army had
the considerable advantage of surprise.
The Battle of Shizugatake
was a particularly fierce one
in terms of the hand-to-hand combat.
A scene of utter carnage…
…in a very confined space.
I have won.
Katsuie's life is in my hands!
Soon, Sakuma's men
were fleeing down the mountain
for the security of Shibata's castle.
Hideyoshi's army followed in pursuit.
After three days of siege,
Katsuie knew that his cause was hopeless.
Katsuie eventually
had to choose death.
So, he committed seppuku.
Hideyoshi's victory
at Shizugatake was a decisive battle.
Hideyoshi was now
the de facto ruler of Japan,
and the inheritor
of Oda Nobunaga's domain.
Hideyoshi is the rare figure
in political history
who can actually be said
to have had a vision,
to have had a sense of new possibilities
beyond what everybody had experienced.
We have to remember
that civil war had, by this time,
been raging for a century in Japan.
There's no one alive in Japan
who hasn't seen war,
and Hideyoshi is trying to create
a stable political system,
whereby the civil wars
can come to an end.
But even though Hideyoshi has become
the most powerful daimyo in Japan,
he is still in great danger.
There are great daimyos
who want to take power for themselves.
Then there's Tokugawa Ieyasu,
with whom he has to come
to some type of a firm alliance.
So, he's by no means out of the woods.
While both of them fought
together side-by-side with Nobunaga
at many of his battles…
…Ieyasu had not been so much
a subordinate of Nobunaga,
he was an ally.
So, it was a little bit galling for Ieyasu
to have one of Nobunaga's subordinates
suddenly acting as if
he was in charge of all of Japan.
Ieyasu had his own ambitions
to perhaps supplant Hideyoshi
and become the most powerful man in Japan.
He's a very patient strategist.
He knows that he should only strike
and only commit his forces
when he has the preponderance of power.
So, he has to make sure that he allies
with the right daimyo to defeat Hideyoshi.
Ieyasu sees that his best move
is to throw his support
behind Oda Nobunaga's second son,
Oda Nobukatsu.
Oda Nobukatsu's claim
was quite simply
that he was the true heir of Nobunaga,
and Hideyoshi
had performed an illegal coup.
Tokugawa Ieyasu saw
allying himself with Oda Nobukatsu
as an opportunity to potentially overthrow
Hideyoshi before he became too powerful.
And he probably feels
that when the time is ripe,
he will simply discard Nobukatsu
and take power for himself.
It was quite a gamble
for Ieyasu.
He had a reputation for being a patient,
careful thinker,
but sometimes even the most
patient people have to take risks,
and this could have been one of
the greatest gambles of Ieyasu's career.
With Nobukatsu's troops
in support,
Ieyasu leads his army
against Hideyoshi's much larger force.
There are several bloody clashes,
but the fighting ends in stalemate.
Ieyasu's plan has backfired.
Now, hoping to salvage
what he can of his army
and potentially live to fight another day,
the wily Ieyasu gambles once again.
He decides to meet with Hideyoshi
and see if they can make peace.
Now, this is potentially fatal
for Ieyasu.
There's a chance that Hideyoshi
is going to double-cross him.
Meeting with Hideyoshi
provided the potential opportunity
for Hideyoshi to have him killed.
I have no doubt that neither man
truly trusted the other.
From Hideyoshi's perspective,
there were some advantages
to keeping Ieyasu around.
He had a large standing army,
was clearly a proven general.
So, for him, there were benefits
in having Ieyasu as a loyal ally.
Ieyasu would nominally submit
and acknowledge Hideyoshi as his superior,
in return for an end to the hostilities
and a position almost
as Hideyoshi's right-hand man.
They do the traditional thing,
which is to trade hostages.
Ieyasu gives his second son
to Hideyoshi to be adopted.
And Hideyoshi actually gives his mother,
who he loved very dearly, to Ieyasu.
The principle behind the hostage system
was quite simple…
If the other warlord broke the peace,
then the hostages would be executed.
Hideyoshi's gambling he'll be
able to maintain this alliance with Ieyasu
and that Ieyasu won't become too strong
to one day challenge him
for ultimate supremacy.
After decades of civil war in Japan,
none of these daimyo can trust each other.
The change that has to come
is where they accept
that they can begin to live
with each other,
as opposed to destroy each other.
And that's what you're seeing
right at this moment.
This very important alliance
allows Ieyasu to protect
Hideyoshi's eastern flank,
which allowed Hideyoshi to concentrate
on unifying the center of the country.
But in order to unify the country,
Hideyoshi needed legitimacy.
There's no question that
Hideyoshi earned his place at the top,
but obviously in a society
that was still very conscious
of title, of prestige, of bloodlines,
Hideyoshi had what may have seemed
like an insurmountable obstacle.
True legitimacy in Japan comes
ultimately from the figure of the emperor,
but the emperor as a figure is one
who is essentially a symbolic,
rather than a ruling, figure.
As a result, over Japanese history,
authority has been held
more often by prime ministers.
In Hideyoshi's case, he saw
that a way to legitimize his power
would be to become prime minister.
However,
in order to become prime minister,
one had to be of the correct lineage.
You had to be from a specific branch
of the noble Fujiwara family
and Hideyoshi, of course,
as the son of a peasant, was not.
The Fujiwara had literally
dominated the court
for at least 400 years.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's strategy
was to work very closely with the court.
He was asking the court to present him
with possible family lineages
and other things that would
help legitimize him.
In return, he would help the court
and help rebuild palaces
that had been destroyed
and build the court's prestige.
Mysteriously, the court
was able to find documents that proved
that Hideyoshi was actually a descendant
of the aristocratic Fujiwara family.
He fabricated a new lineage for himself
out of whole cloth.
And by being adopted into the Fujiwara,
Hideyoshi was able
to claim the title of Prime Minister.
Hideyoshi's meteoric rise has
made him the most powerful man in Japan.
In just five years, he has managed
to expand his territory
from one-third of the nation
to roughly half,
and he is now keen to grab the rest.
But powerful enemies
still oppose his bid for total control.
To the east, the Hōjō see themselves
as Japan's rightful rulers
and in the north, from within the Date,
a new challenger is rising,
a young, ambitious and fearless leader
who is determined
to stand in Hideyoshi's way:
Date Masamune.
As the eldest son of his clan,
Masamune had
a certain sense of entitlement,
but that was exacerbated
by the fact that, early in life,
he was struck down by smallpox…
which was seen as a commoner's disease.
And not only did it
affect his entire body,
it also caused an infection
in one of the tear ducts in his eyes,
which caused the eye
to protrude from his head.
And almost immediately after he had been…
named successor,
his own mother
attempted to have him assassinated
and replaced by his brother.
His still-damaged right eye
made him, in her sight,
less than a whole man.
And in that moment, Masamune decided
to just rip the eye clean out
to remove that vulnerability.
He has come to be known as Dokuganryu,
the One-Eyed Dragon of Oshu.
He demanded submission.
He wanted power,
and, most importantly, respect.
This became
Masamune's driving force.
Those who were loyal to him,
scarred and pockmarked as he was,
could be counted on.
Anyone else was to be cut down.
Masamune had to trample
these people underfoot.
Very early in Masamune's career,
he faces his first serious challenge.
One of his father's
closest allies, Ouchi Sadatsuna,
was tempted away
from the support of Masamune
by the clan's old enemies, the Ashina.
And I believe that Sadatsuna had seen
in the young lord an unstable personality,
who could not hold the clan together.
Sadatsuna's rebellion
had to be crushed immediately.
And Masamune decides to act decisively
and go to war against Ouchi Sadatsuna.
Masamune commands his forces
to attack Odemori Castle.
It was absolutely necessary that he send
the most brutal statement of intent
in his attack on the Ouchi.
The strength of the blow
would be a mark of the man himself.
After encircling the castle,
Masamune commanded his forces to slaughter
all those within the castle walls.
And Masamune writes that,
"We spared no one,
including women and children.
Killing everyone, down to the dogs."
The fact that Masamune would be
willing to put everyone to the sword
had to have a point behind it,
and I think that point
was the development of fear.
A one-eyed monster descending
on rebellious vassals
to be taught the ultimate lesson.
Hideyoshi hears
of Masamune's rise.
He recognizes that Masamune is
an up-and-coming force in the north.
And he realizes that at some point,
if things continue in the direction
they're headed,
the two men are going to have to
either come to terms or go to war.
Hideyoshi's concerns
about Masamune are confirmed
when the One-Eyed Dragon unleashes
a new wave of attacks against his rivals,
plunging the north into all-out civil war.
Masamune's actions help drive Hideyoshi
to consider a bold new course of action,
one he hopes will finally end
the bloodshed of the last century
and unify all of Japan under his banner.
To make it a reality, this time he plans
to use something other than the sword.
No sooner had Hideyoshi
consolidated his own power
then he started to produce legislation
that was aimed at reshaping
the fabric of Japanese society
in the most profound ways.
One of the first really striking reforms
that Hideyoshi carried out
was to order what has come to be known
as a "sword hunt."
In other words, he sent out his
emissaries throughout the countryside
to requisition all weapons from commoners.
In the late medieval period,
weapons had been very widespread,
and this is one of the factors
that contributes to both instability
and political resistance.
It is much harder to resist
the political rule of the warriors
if you yourself have no weapons.
So what he was doing,
in a sense,
was trying to stabilize
the social structure of the country
by creating a gulf between
a heavily-armed warrior class elite,
which was a tiny minority,
and a vast commoner population,
which was suddenly unable
to resist the warrior class.
There's some irony to this policy.
The man, Hideyoshi, who rose possibly
from being a commoner, a villager,
all the way to the pinnacle of power
was essentially disempowering his peers.
He was essentially
closing the door behind himself.
Besides issuing these laws
that would separate the classes
and disarm the population
against the samurai,
Hideyoshi issues one other edict
with huge consequences,
the so-called "peace edict."
This edict would make it illegal
for any daimyo independently to go to war,
and instead left Hideyoshi
as the only man in Japan
who could decide when a war
would start and how it would be waged.
Hideyoshi's all-encompassing
peace edict
seems to have only held temporarily
in the north.
By the late 1580s, Date Masamune
had rapidly and dramatically
expanded the power of the Date family.
Hideyoshi's followers had conveyed
to Date Masamune
that if Masamune continued to engage
in wars against his neighbors,
Hideyoshi would have to
take action against him.
Hideyoshi simply expects
that Masamune will fold to his command.
And yet he doesn't.
He will not bend.
Masamune wished to armor the north
against the west…
to wall in his domain and his allies
and send a clear message
to anyone, not just Hideyoshi,
that the north was not to be trifled with.
For Masamune, defeating the Ashina clan
was one of his top priorities.
The Ashina family had
a very long pedigree in the north.
They were one of the most well-respected
and highly-ranked families
among the warriors in that region.
And Masamune
always viewed the Ashina clan
as one of his most important rivals
and a serious threat.
If able to conquer the Ashina
and seize their territories,
Masamune would thereafter emerge
as one of the most powerful landholders
in the country,
with control essentially over the entire
northeastern portion of Japan.
At the end of the 1580s,
an interesting opportunity
fell into Masamune's lap.
An Ashina lord by the name of Morikuni
defected to the Date,
revealing that the Ashina themselves were,
as a consequence of political infighting,
greatly reduced.
Even though the ban
on inter-province warfare
by Hideyoshi was now in effect,
I think Masamune saw this
as an opportunity
far too tempting a prize not to pluck.
Masamune knows victory
over the Ashina
will make him the most powerful lord
in Northern Japan.
But victory is far from certain.
The Ashina are ferocious,
and if he loses,
he will face certain death.
But, despite these risks,
he invades with a force
of over 20,000 men.
A slightly smaller number
of Ashina warriors
are dispatched to intercept him,
setting the stage for what will be
one of the most notorious battles
of the age.
When the Date forces invade Izu,
they meet the defenders
at a place known as Suriagehara.
Masamune retreats
with his cavalry guard to the rear,
and the two forces settle down
for the night
and raise their own defenses.
Masamune was certain
that this was going to be a massacre
the likes of which
the Ashina had never known.
As dawn broke,
Ashina forces confront the Date forces
head on.
They were in a press of melee,
fighting in a savage, hand-to-hand brawl.
But just after dawn,
a great dust storm erupts…
and blows straight into the eyes
of these troops.
And things at this point go very badly.
By mid-morning, the Date lines
are beginning to crumble.
Masamune recognized very clearly
that the fate of his clan was in jeopardy.
Masamune himself rode to the front on
the left flank with his cavalry bodyguard.
And they hit the Ashina flank
with the force of a hammer.
All they had to do was
encircle their opponents
and cut them down where they stood.
This was no battle. This was a massacre.
Victory!
According to the records
of the battle,
over 2,500 heads were taken
and formally displayed
for Masamune after the battle.
Here was a man who was willing
to take chances to win what was his.
Having won against the Ashina,
who really were
a major power in the north,
Masamune now takes on that title himself
and becomes the most powerful warlord
of the northern region.
This makes him a very powerful force.
He is somebody to be watched
and to be reckoned with.
For Hideyoshi, Masamune's presence
was something he could no longer ignore.
Less than a year
after the Battle of Suriagehara,
Hideyoshi and his immense army
ride north to Masamune's own doorstep.
Hideyoshi's target is the Hōjō clan,
one of the last warrior families
to oppose his rule.
Hideyoshi's forces lay siege
to the Hōjō stronghold, Odawara Castle.
As a test of loyalty,
Hideyoshi orders all other northern daimyo
to swear allegiance to him
and join him
in the battle against the Hōjō.
Nearly all of them agree immediately.
But one dares to delay his response.
Having ignored all
of Hideyoshi's previous orders
to attend court,
the Date lord now receives
one missive from Hideyoshi.
An order to join him at the siege
of the Hōjō castle of Odawara.
His attendance at the siege
was merely a formality.
Obedience to Hideyoshi.
Here was the final gamble.
Masamune was well aware
that if Hideyoshi defeated the Hōjō,
he would be the next target,
and that was a battle that Masamune
was well aware he could not win.
Masamune would go
to the siege of Odawara.
But it would be on his terms.
He packed up his army and set off
on a slow march
across country to the siege.
He makes many excuses:
"The roads are bad."
"I'm delayed by this or that."
It's very possible that Masamune
felt Hideyoshi might win, he might not.
And before he commits to either side,
he wants to see
who he thinks has an advantage.
Eventually, Hideyoshi
has mobilized so many resources
and so many men,
that Hideyoshi would defeat the Hōjō
and take Odawara.
Eventually,
Masamune and his troops arrive
at Hideyoshi's base camp…
clad in his finest, white, long kimono
and bearing only a short sword.
White represents purity,
and, in this context, it represents death,
reinforced by him
carrying his short sword…
which he would use
to commit ritual suicide,
should Hideyoshi order it.
Perhaps this was an acknowledgment
that he might be put to death
for his unwillingness to join
the Hideyoshi forces prior to this.
Perhaps it was a ploy
to try to win Hideyoshi's sympathy.
But he certainly was not cowardly
in any way in his approach.
Hideyoshi has Masamune
placed before a tribunal
of his greatest generals,
including Tokugawa Ieyasu.
And they question him about why he didn't
acknowledge Hideyoshi's position sooner
or respond to Hideyoshi's missives.
And Masamune tries
to play this off, saying,
"I'm just a bit of a country bumpkin.
I'm not used to the ways
of great leaders like yourselves."
Even in the face of death,
Masamune does not give one inch.
He is here,
and he has given his reasons,
and if the reasons aren't sufficient,
he's ready to die for them.
But he will not bend to anyone.
If you'd been a little later,
your head would have been chopped off.
I understand.
And so Hideyoshi spared his life.
I like you.
Hideyoshi seems to have sensed
that Masamune could be
a far greater asset for him in the future
if left alive.
Thank you.
Bring some sake.
Hideyoshi figured out a way
to neutralize Masamune,
and he does it without the final,
all-consuming, apocalyptic bloodbath
that many assumed would have to happen.
He forces his enemies
to come to the table.
He forces his enemies to agree
to this political equilibrium.
In essence, what he does,
is he forces the great daimyo
to agree it's time to stop.
It's time to stop this civil war.
With Masamune brought to heel
and the Hōjō defeated,
Hideyoshi has finally achieved
what Nobunaga could not.
For the first time in over 120 years,
all of Japan is ruled by one warlord.
Through his daring use of violence,
politics and diplomacy,
a man born a peasant has climbed
to the very peak of power.
Hideyoshi, by around 1590,
is confronting a kind of ironic problem,
which is he has been so successful,
so swiftly,
and he has this now
huge following of daimyo,
and he no doubt
feels the need to keep them busy.
These men were conquerors.
They had grown up in a society in which,
if you didn't conquer, you died,
and your family died,
and your lands were taken from you.
Once there's no more land to conquer
in Japan, what do you do?
That's really a conundrum for Hideyoshi,
who has worked for decades now
to end the war.
What do you do with the samurai?
And so he conceives
of a fantastical and completely
megalomaniacal kind of proposition.
For a warrior who had
never made a mistake in battle,
he's about to commit
one of his greatest strategic blunders
and bring on Japan one of the greatest
catastrophes in its history.
fearsome samurai Oda Nobunaga is dead.
His loyal supporter Hideyoshi
has launched a coup
and seized power for himself.
Enraged,
powerful General Katsuie
has launched his own bid
to control the nation.
He has moved to smash the three fortresses
that guard the way into his enemy's lands.
Two have fallen.
The third, Shizugatake, remains.
To seize it,
he sends his nephew, Morimasa.
If he succeeds, Hideyoshi is doomed.
Sakuma Morimasa knew
how important it was
to capture the fortress Shizugatake…
but the fortress held out.
And the longer it held out,
the more chance there was
of Hideyoshi moving to its rescue.
The thing about any siege
is that if you are the besieger,
you are intensely vulnerable
to an attack by a relief force.
Your attention is all on this castle,
as it should be,
which means your back
is pretty much to the rest of the world.
Shibata Katsuie
was so concerned…
that he sent a messenger to Sakuma
saying, "Abandon the siege of Shizugatake.
Occupy one of the other two fortresses
that you've captured."
Morimasa ignores the order.
He believed that he had time
to continue the siege.
"Shizugatake will be mine
by nightfall"
was the message
he sent back to his master.
Shibata was not convinced.
He knew that Sakuma Morimasa
was very vulnerable to a rear attack
by Hideyoshi's army.
Even though he came
from the lowest class of samurai warrior,
Hideyoshi showed himself to be
an incredibly strategic general.
A master tactician.
He's an very talented commander
with a proven reputation
on the battlefield.
And, so, when messages arrive,
telling him what is happening
at Shizugatake…
he seems to have decided
that this is a moment for him to seize.
It is time to go!
Hideyoshi told the messenger that
he would send reinforcements immediately,
so they have to hold on.
Follow me!
Hideyoshi has made his name
because of his ability
to move troops very quickly,
and so he decides,
if he can get a force to Shizugatake,
he may have an opening here
to counter-attack,
to crush the besieging army
and win a decisive advantage for himself.
The first Sakuma Morimasa knew
of what was going on
was when he looked down into the valley…
…to see hundreds of Hideyoshi samurai
marching up
the well-trodden mountain paths.
It was a huge shock to Morimasa.
He tried desperately
to re-order his army,
to put down a firm defensive line
against Hideyoshi's mountain advance…
…but it was already too late.
Morimasa's men
were completely disorganized.
And Hideyoshi's army had
the considerable advantage of surprise.
The Battle of Shizugatake
was a particularly fierce one
in terms of the hand-to-hand combat.
A scene of utter carnage…
…in a very confined space.
I have won.
Katsuie's life is in my hands!
Soon, Sakuma's men
were fleeing down the mountain
for the security of Shibata's castle.
Hideyoshi's army followed in pursuit.
After three days of siege,
Katsuie knew that his cause was hopeless.
Katsuie eventually
had to choose death.
So, he committed seppuku.
Hideyoshi's victory
at Shizugatake was a decisive battle.
Hideyoshi was now
the de facto ruler of Japan,
and the inheritor
of Oda Nobunaga's domain.
Hideyoshi is the rare figure
in political history
who can actually be said
to have had a vision,
to have had a sense of new possibilities
beyond what everybody had experienced.
We have to remember
that civil war had, by this time,
been raging for a century in Japan.
There's no one alive in Japan
who hasn't seen war,
and Hideyoshi is trying to create
a stable political system,
whereby the civil wars
can come to an end.
But even though Hideyoshi has become
the most powerful daimyo in Japan,
he is still in great danger.
There are great daimyos
who want to take power for themselves.
Then there's Tokugawa Ieyasu,
with whom he has to come
to some type of a firm alliance.
So, he's by no means out of the woods.
While both of them fought
together side-by-side with Nobunaga
at many of his battles…
…Ieyasu had not been so much
a subordinate of Nobunaga,
he was an ally.
So, it was a little bit galling for Ieyasu
to have one of Nobunaga's subordinates
suddenly acting as if
he was in charge of all of Japan.
Ieyasu had his own ambitions
to perhaps supplant Hideyoshi
and become the most powerful man in Japan.
He's a very patient strategist.
He knows that he should only strike
and only commit his forces
when he has the preponderance of power.
So, he has to make sure that he allies
with the right daimyo to defeat Hideyoshi.
Ieyasu sees that his best move
is to throw his support
behind Oda Nobunaga's second son,
Oda Nobukatsu.
Oda Nobukatsu's claim
was quite simply
that he was the true heir of Nobunaga,
and Hideyoshi
had performed an illegal coup.
Tokugawa Ieyasu saw
allying himself with Oda Nobukatsu
as an opportunity to potentially overthrow
Hideyoshi before he became too powerful.
And he probably feels
that when the time is ripe,
he will simply discard Nobukatsu
and take power for himself.
It was quite a gamble
for Ieyasu.
He had a reputation for being a patient,
careful thinker,
but sometimes even the most
patient people have to take risks,
and this could have been one of
the greatest gambles of Ieyasu's career.
With Nobukatsu's troops
in support,
Ieyasu leads his army
against Hideyoshi's much larger force.
There are several bloody clashes,
but the fighting ends in stalemate.
Ieyasu's plan has backfired.
Now, hoping to salvage
what he can of his army
and potentially live to fight another day,
the wily Ieyasu gambles once again.
He decides to meet with Hideyoshi
and see if they can make peace.
Now, this is potentially fatal
for Ieyasu.
There's a chance that Hideyoshi
is going to double-cross him.
Meeting with Hideyoshi
provided the potential opportunity
for Hideyoshi to have him killed.
I have no doubt that neither man
truly trusted the other.
From Hideyoshi's perspective,
there were some advantages
to keeping Ieyasu around.
He had a large standing army,
was clearly a proven general.
So, for him, there were benefits
in having Ieyasu as a loyal ally.
Ieyasu would nominally submit
and acknowledge Hideyoshi as his superior,
in return for an end to the hostilities
and a position almost
as Hideyoshi's right-hand man.
They do the traditional thing,
which is to trade hostages.
Ieyasu gives his second son
to Hideyoshi to be adopted.
And Hideyoshi actually gives his mother,
who he loved very dearly, to Ieyasu.
The principle behind the hostage system
was quite simple…
If the other warlord broke the peace,
then the hostages would be executed.
Hideyoshi's gambling he'll be
able to maintain this alliance with Ieyasu
and that Ieyasu won't become too strong
to one day challenge him
for ultimate supremacy.
After decades of civil war in Japan,
none of these daimyo can trust each other.
The change that has to come
is where they accept
that they can begin to live
with each other,
as opposed to destroy each other.
And that's what you're seeing
right at this moment.
This very important alliance
allows Ieyasu to protect
Hideyoshi's eastern flank,
which allowed Hideyoshi to concentrate
on unifying the center of the country.
But in order to unify the country,
Hideyoshi needed legitimacy.
There's no question that
Hideyoshi earned his place at the top,
but obviously in a society
that was still very conscious
of title, of prestige, of bloodlines,
Hideyoshi had what may have seemed
like an insurmountable obstacle.
True legitimacy in Japan comes
ultimately from the figure of the emperor,
but the emperor as a figure is one
who is essentially a symbolic,
rather than a ruling, figure.
As a result, over Japanese history,
authority has been held
more often by prime ministers.
In Hideyoshi's case, he saw
that a way to legitimize his power
would be to become prime minister.
However,
in order to become prime minister,
one had to be of the correct lineage.
You had to be from a specific branch
of the noble Fujiwara family
and Hideyoshi, of course,
as the son of a peasant, was not.
The Fujiwara had literally
dominated the court
for at least 400 years.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's strategy
was to work very closely with the court.
He was asking the court to present him
with possible family lineages
and other things that would
help legitimize him.
In return, he would help the court
and help rebuild palaces
that had been destroyed
and build the court's prestige.
Mysteriously, the court
was able to find documents that proved
that Hideyoshi was actually a descendant
of the aristocratic Fujiwara family.
He fabricated a new lineage for himself
out of whole cloth.
And by being adopted into the Fujiwara,
Hideyoshi was able
to claim the title of Prime Minister.
Hideyoshi's meteoric rise has
made him the most powerful man in Japan.
In just five years, he has managed
to expand his territory
from one-third of the nation
to roughly half,
and he is now keen to grab the rest.
But powerful enemies
still oppose his bid for total control.
To the east, the Hōjō see themselves
as Japan's rightful rulers
and in the north, from within the Date,
a new challenger is rising,
a young, ambitious and fearless leader
who is determined
to stand in Hideyoshi's way:
Date Masamune.
As the eldest son of his clan,
Masamune had
a certain sense of entitlement,
but that was exacerbated
by the fact that, early in life,
he was struck down by smallpox…
which was seen as a commoner's disease.
And not only did it
affect his entire body,
it also caused an infection
in one of the tear ducts in his eyes,
which caused the eye
to protrude from his head.
And almost immediately after he had been…
named successor,
his own mother
attempted to have him assassinated
and replaced by his brother.
His still-damaged right eye
made him, in her sight,
less than a whole man.
And in that moment, Masamune decided
to just rip the eye clean out
to remove that vulnerability.
He has come to be known as Dokuganryu,
the One-Eyed Dragon of Oshu.
He demanded submission.
He wanted power,
and, most importantly, respect.
This became
Masamune's driving force.
Those who were loyal to him,
scarred and pockmarked as he was,
could be counted on.
Anyone else was to be cut down.
Masamune had to trample
these people underfoot.
Very early in Masamune's career,
he faces his first serious challenge.
One of his father's
closest allies, Ouchi Sadatsuna,
was tempted away
from the support of Masamune
by the clan's old enemies, the Ashina.
And I believe that Sadatsuna had seen
in the young lord an unstable personality,
who could not hold the clan together.
Sadatsuna's rebellion
had to be crushed immediately.
And Masamune decides to act decisively
and go to war against Ouchi Sadatsuna.
Masamune commands his forces
to attack Odemori Castle.
It was absolutely necessary that he send
the most brutal statement of intent
in his attack on the Ouchi.
The strength of the blow
would be a mark of the man himself.
After encircling the castle,
Masamune commanded his forces to slaughter
all those within the castle walls.
And Masamune writes that,
"We spared no one,
including women and children.
Killing everyone, down to the dogs."
The fact that Masamune would be
willing to put everyone to the sword
had to have a point behind it,
and I think that point
was the development of fear.
A one-eyed monster descending
on rebellious vassals
to be taught the ultimate lesson.
Hideyoshi hears
of Masamune's rise.
He recognizes that Masamune is
an up-and-coming force in the north.
And he realizes that at some point,
if things continue in the direction
they're headed,
the two men are going to have to
either come to terms or go to war.
Hideyoshi's concerns
about Masamune are confirmed
when the One-Eyed Dragon unleashes
a new wave of attacks against his rivals,
plunging the north into all-out civil war.
Masamune's actions help drive Hideyoshi
to consider a bold new course of action,
one he hopes will finally end
the bloodshed of the last century
and unify all of Japan under his banner.
To make it a reality, this time he plans
to use something other than the sword.
No sooner had Hideyoshi
consolidated his own power
then he started to produce legislation
that was aimed at reshaping
the fabric of Japanese society
in the most profound ways.
One of the first really striking reforms
that Hideyoshi carried out
was to order what has come to be known
as a "sword hunt."
In other words, he sent out his
emissaries throughout the countryside
to requisition all weapons from commoners.
In the late medieval period,
weapons had been very widespread,
and this is one of the factors
that contributes to both instability
and political resistance.
It is much harder to resist
the political rule of the warriors
if you yourself have no weapons.
So what he was doing,
in a sense,
was trying to stabilize
the social structure of the country
by creating a gulf between
a heavily-armed warrior class elite,
which was a tiny minority,
and a vast commoner population,
which was suddenly unable
to resist the warrior class.
There's some irony to this policy.
The man, Hideyoshi, who rose possibly
from being a commoner, a villager,
all the way to the pinnacle of power
was essentially disempowering his peers.
He was essentially
closing the door behind himself.
Besides issuing these laws
that would separate the classes
and disarm the population
against the samurai,
Hideyoshi issues one other edict
with huge consequences,
the so-called "peace edict."
This edict would make it illegal
for any daimyo independently to go to war,
and instead left Hideyoshi
as the only man in Japan
who could decide when a war
would start and how it would be waged.
Hideyoshi's all-encompassing
peace edict
seems to have only held temporarily
in the north.
By the late 1580s, Date Masamune
had rapidly and dramatically
expanded the power of the Date family.
Hideyoshi's followers had conveyed
to Date Masamune
that if Masamune continued to engage
in wars against his neighbors,
Hideyoshi would have to
take action against him.
Hideyoshi simply expects
that Masamune will fold to his command.
And yet he doesn't.
He will not bend.
Masamune wished to armor the north
against the west…
to wall in his domain and his allies
and send a clear message
to anyone, not just Hideyoshi,
that the north was not to be trifled with.
For Masamune, defeating the Ashina clan
was one of his top priorities.
The Ashina family had
a very long pedigree in the north.
They were one of the most well-respected
and highly-ranked families
among the warriors in that region.
And Masamune
always viewed the Ashina clan
as one of his most important rivals
and a serious threat.
If able to conquer the Ashina
and seize their territories,
Masamune would thereafter emerge
as one of the most powerful landholders
in the country,
with control essentially over the entire
northeastern portion of Japan.
At the end of the 1580s,
an interesting opportunity
fell into Masamune's lap.
An Ashina lord by the name of Morikuni
defected to the Date,
revealing that the Ashina themselves were,
as a consequence of political infighting,
greatly reduced.
Even though the ban
on inter-province warfare
by Hideyoshi was now in effect,
I think Masamune saw this
as an opportunity
far too tempting a prize not to pluck.
Masamune knows victory
over the Ashina
will make him the most powerful lord
in Northern Japan.
But victory is far from certain.
The Ashina are ferocious,
and if he loses,
he will face certain death.
But, despite these risks,
he invades with a force
of over 20,000 men.
A slightly smaller number
of Ashina warriors
are dispatched to intercept him,
setting the stage for what will be
one of the most notorious battles
of the age.
When the Date forces invade Izu,
they meet the defenders
at a place known as Suriagehara.
Masamune retreats
with his cavalry guard to the rear,
and the two forces settle down
for the night
and raise their own defenses.
Masamune was certain
that this was going to be a massacre
the likes of which
the Ashina had never known.
As dawn broke,
Ashina forces confront the Date forces
head on.
They were in a press of melee,
fighting in a savage, hand-to-hand brawl.
But just after dawn,
a great dust storm erupts…
and blows straight into the eyes
of these troops.
And things at this point go very badly.
By mid-morning, the Date lines
are beginning to crumble.
Masamune recognized very clearly
that the fate of his clan was in jeopardy.
Masamune himself rode to the front on
the left flank with his cavalry bodyguard.
And they hit the Ashina flank
with the force of a hammer.
All they had to do was
encircle their opponents
and cut them down where they stood.
This was no battle. This was a massacre.
Victory!
According to the records
of the battle,
over 2,500 heads were taken
and formally displayed
for Masamune after the battle.
Here was a man who was willing
to take chances to win what was his.
Having won against the Ashina,
who really were
a major power in the north,
Masamune now takes on that title himself
and becomes the most powerful warlord
of the northern region.
This makes him a very powerful force.
He is somebody to be watched
and to be reckoned with.
For Hideyoshi, Masamune's presence
was something he could no longer ignore.
Less than a year
after the Battle of Suriagehara,
Hideyoshi and his immense army
ride north to Masamune's own doorstep.
Hideyoshi's target is the Hōjō clan,
one of the last warrior families
to oppose his rule.
Hideyoshi's forces lay siege
to the Hōjō stronghold, Odawara Castle.
As a test of loyalty,
Hideyoshi orders all other northern daimyo
to swear allegiance to him
and join him
in the battle against the Hōjō.
Nearly all of them agree immediately.
But one dares to delay his response.
Having ignored all
of Hideyoshi's previous orders
to attend court,
the Date lord now receives
one missive from Hideyoshi.
An order to join him at the siege
of the Hōjō castle of Odawara.
His attendance at the siege
was merely a formality.
Obedience to Hideyoshi.
Here was the final gamble.
Masamune was well aware
that if Hideyoshi defeated the Hōjō,
he would be the next target,
and that was a battle that Masamune
was well aware he could not win.
Masamune would go
to the siege of Odawara.
But it would be on his terms.
He packed up his army and set off
on a slow march
across country to the siege.
He makes many excuses:
"The roads are bad."
"I'm delayed by this or that."
It's very possible that Masamune
felt Hideyoshi might win, he might not.
And before he commits to either side,
he wants to see
who he thinks has an advantage.
Eventually, Hideyoshi
has mobilized so many resources
and so many men,
that Hideyoshi would defeat the Hōjō
and take Odawara.
Eventually,
Masamune and his troops arrive
at Hideyoshi's base camp…
clad in his finest, white, long kimono
and bearing only a short sword.
White represents purity,
and, in this context, it represents death,
reinforced by him
carrying his short sword…
which he would use
to commit ritual suicide,
should Hideyoshi order it.
Perhaps this was an acknowledgment
that he might be put to death
for his unwillingness to join
the Hideyoshi forces prior to this.
Perhaps it was a ploy
to try to win Hideyoshi's sympathy.
But he certainly was not cowardly
in any way in his approach.
Hideyoshi has Masamune
placed before a tribunal
of his greatest generals,
including Tokugawa Ieyasu.
And they question him about why he didn't
acknowledge Hideyoshi's position sooner
or respond to Hideyoshi's missives.
And Masamune tries
to play this off, saying,
"I'm just a bit of a country bumpkin.
I'm not used to the ways
of great leaders like yourselves."
Even in the face of death,
Masamune does not give one inch.
He is here,
and he has given his reasons,
and if the reasons aren't sufficient,
he's ready to die for them.
But he will not bend to anyone.
If you'd been a little later,
your head would have been chopped off.
I understand.
And so Hideyoshi spared his life.
I like you.
Hideyoshi seems to have sensed
that Masamune could be
a far greater asset for him in the future
if left alive.
Thank you.
Bring some sake.
Hideyoshi figured out a way
to neutralize Masamune,
and he does it without the final,
all-consuming, apocalyptic bloodbath
that many assumed would have to happen.
He forces his enemies
to come to the table.
He forces his enemies to agree
to this political equilibrium.
In essence, what he does,
is he forces the great daimyo
to agree it's time to stop.
It's time to stop this civil war.
With Masamune brought to heel
and the Hōjō defeated,
Hideyoshi has finally achieved
what Nobunaga could not.
For the first time in over 120 years,
all of Japan is ruled by one warlord.
Through his daring use of violence,
politics and diplomacy,
a man born a peasant has climbed
to the very peak of power.
Hideyoshi, by around 1590,
is confronting a kind of ironic problem,
which is he has been so successful,
so swiftly,
and he has this now
huge following of daimyo,
and he no doubt
feels the need to keep them busy.
These men were conquerors.
They had grown up in a society in which,
if you didn't conquer, you died,
and your family died,
and your lands were taken from you.
Once there's no more land to conquer
in Japan, what do you do?
That's really a conundrum for Hideyoshi,
who has worked for decades now
to end the war.
What do you do with the samurai?
And so he conceives
of a fantastical and completely
megalomaniacal kind of proposition.
For a warrior who had
never made a mistake in battle,
he's about to commit
one of his greatest strategic blunders
and bring on Japan one of the greatest
catastrophes in its history.