TheWay
03-23-2001, 11:22
I have read an earlier post about how Tokugawa is basically a little land grabber and not worthy of the shogunate. This is not true and there are many reasons.
Lets examine the other two men of the times and how Ieyasu supposedly pales in comparison to them.
Ah, Nobunaga. This was a great man, but basically deeply flawed too. A Japanese friend describes his greatest strength as thus (and which is also found in the *novel* Taiko): he is willing to embrace new concepts without compunction. His mass use of guns barricaded behind barriers against the Takeda calvary is legendary. His greatest skill in battle acknowledged by historians is his ability to gather information sources about his enemies and use tatics differently. But he is also "highly charged", and as a monk puts it to Hideyoshi in the book, he is not fit for running Japan. Unifying it yes, not running. His eyes are already cast against Korea and China, more an Alexander than a great ruler.
Hideyoshi is a fantastic character, one that more closely resembles the concept of a survivor in psychologist textbooks than any other person from that period. Even his concepts of life as climbing a mountain is closely replicated in such texts. He is shrewd, intelligent and a genius at giving battle - for example he was able to destroy the Hojo after nary a fight by setting kin against kin. He is quite an able administrator too, and he too has wild ambitions - Korea and then China.
However if you are willing to establish both characters as great, you might be willing to listen to their opinion of Ieyasu too. They both believed that he is a man of immense talents and a man to watch (behind their backs!)
Ieyasu was a hostage from youth at the hands of the epicurean Yoshimoto Imagawa, a man of limited talents but great ambition. He learnt to keep himself alive by supplication and keeping out of sight, while his weak and poor province Mikawa was run by retainers. Yet even at an age of 17 he kept runners around the country to inform him of events, a sign of his ambition, and patience.
When Yoshimoto was ambushed he moved immediately, returning to Mikawa and organizing his administration and troops. Did you know that eventually Mikawa troops are famed for their fighting powress even though they are few? Immediately this young but canny man realised that he had to hitch his stars to an alliance to stay alive - the fact that he sided with a relative unknown like Nobunaga meant he had the ability of reading the future quite well.
Anyway he was quite content to let Nobunaga run the show and contribute only some troops (still reorganizing the province). He understands people very well, he knows that Nobunaga is not one to stay under the banner of another, and will destroy anybody in his way, but more than that he knows that nobody in the region can withstand the ability of him (not Mino, not the Asai and Asakura).
He is canny enough to strike a deal with Takeda to grab Suruga, and fend off the attentions of this warlord for a while. He is also brave when the two finally met in battle, taking the fight to Takeda and forcing him to postpone his dreams of conquest. In other battles the men of Tokugawa under his leadership have reversed what could have been losing battles for the Oda.
Oh, and have you heard the story of how Ieyasu ordered the death of his own son to satisfy the ever suspicious Nobunaga?
Anyway, on to the battles with Hideyoshi. At that time he prob had 30,000 men while Hideyoshi had over 100,000, but he was grinning. He defeated the forces of Shonyu Ikeda, a general of Hideyoshi, comprehensively and was looking for more when Nobuto defected. Is this brave or what? Now Nobuto is just a pawn of his, but Hideyoshi looks upon him as a pawn too.
There is another aspect to Tokugawa that is immensely satisfying. He is serene, calm, patient and seems in tune with the "Way", an oriental concept I too am grasping with. He is immensely wise and intelligent at the same time. He does not possess great cruelty and does not enjoy wanton destruction. But because of his calmness and scholarly air (he reads confucious when nobunaga would have just used it to wipe his ass), he is seen as a cold fish. Yet after generations of turmoil a cool figure and voice of authority is just what Japan needs.
Other clues of his brilliance: turning a general of Ishida'a army against him and only showing his hand at the last minute, forcing administrative changes on the country etc, and so on.
Oh yeah, Nobunaga supposedly looks a bit like a Caucasian, Hideyoshi is monkey-looking and Tokugawa is fat, short and round-shouldered.
Lets examine the other two men of the times and how Ieyasu supposedly pales in comparison to them.
Ah, Nobunaga. This was a great man, but basically deeply flawed too. A Japanese friend describes his greatest strength as thus (and which is also found in the *novel* Taiko): he is willing to embrace new concepts without compunction. His mass use of guns barricaded behind barriers against the Takeda calvary is legendary. His greatest skill in battle acknowledged by historians is his ability to gather information sources about his enemies and use tatics differently. But he is also "highly charged", and as a monk puts it to Hideyoshi in the book, he is not fit for running Japan. Unifying it yes, not running. His eyes are already cast against Korea and China, more an Alexander than a great ruler.
Hideyoshi is a fantastic character, one that more closely resembles the concept of a survivor in psychologist textbooks than any other person from that period. Even his concepts of life as climbing a mountain is closely replicated in such texts. He is shrewd, intelligent and a genius at giving battle - for example he was able to destroy the Hojo after nary a fight by setting kin against kin. He is quite an able administrator too, and he too has wild ambitions - Korea and then China.
However if you are willing to establish both characters as great, you might be willing to listen to their opinion of Ieyasu too. They both believed that he is a man of immense talents and a man to watch (behind their backs!)
Ieyasu was a hostage from youth at the hands of the epicurean Yoshimoto Imagawa, a man of limited talents but great ambition. He learnt to keep himself alive by supplication and keeping out of sight, while his weak and poor province Mikawa was run by retainers. Yet even at an age of 17 he kept runners around the country to inform him of events, a sign of his ambition, and patience.
When Yoshimoto was ambushed he moved immediately, returning to Mikawa and organizing his administration and troops. Did you know that eventually Mikawa troops are famed for their fighting powress even though they are few? Immediately this young but canny man realised that he had to hitch his stars to an alliance to stay alive - the fact that he sided with a relative unknown like Nobunaga meant he had the ability of reading the future quite well.
Anyway he was quite content to let Nobunaga run the show and contribute only some troops (still reorganizing the province). He understands people very well, he knows that Nobunaga is not one to stay under the banner of another, and will destroy anybody in his way, but more than that he knows that nobody in the region can withstand the ability of him (not Mino, not the Asai and Asakura).
He is canny enough to strike a deal with Takeda to grab Suruga, and fend off the attentions of this warlord for a while. He is also brave when the two finally met in battle, taking the fight to Takeda and forcing him to postpone his dreams of conquest. In other battles the men of Tokugawa under his leadership have reversed what could have been losing battles for the Oda.
Oh, and have you heard the story of how Ieyasu ordered the death of his own son to satisfy the ever suspicious Nobunaga?
Anyway, on to the battles with Hideyoshi. At that time he prob had 30,000 men while Hideyoshi had over 100,000, but he was grinning. He defeated the forces of Shonyu Ikeda, a general of Hideyoshi, comprehensively and was looking for more when Nobuto defected. Is this brave or what? Now Nobuto is just a pawn of his, but Hideyoshi looks upon him as a pawn too.
There is another aspect to Tokugawa that is immensely satisfying. He is serene, calm, patient and seems in tune with the "Way", an oriental concept I too am grasping with. He is immensely wise and intelligent at the same time. He does not possess great cruelty and does not enjoy wanton destruction. But because of his calmness and scholarly air (he reads confucious when nobunaga would have just used it to wipe his ass), he is seen as a cold fish. Yet after generations of turmoil a cool figure and voice of authority is just what Japan needs.
Other clues of his brilliance: turning a general of Ishida'a army against him and only showing his hand at the last minute, forcing administrative changes on the country etc, and so on.
Oh yeah, Nobunaga supposedly looks a bit like a Caucasian, Hideyoshi is monkey-looking and Tokugawa is fat, short and round-shouldered.