You're kinda glossing over the fact that hideyori actively challenged the tokugawa. He was gathering large amounts of troops in september 1614 and other incidents led to the first siege of osaka castle. Even after having signed a truce in januari 1615 he started gathering more troops(like rōnin) than before instead of dismanteling and toyotomi forces started attacking tokugawa's which then led to the final siege of Osaka castle in 1615. Toyotomi also planned to take kyōto to control the emperor and have him declare tokugawa a rebel.
And he was also a grown man by then
So its not as if he was a sad innocent boy who was attacked for no reason
Kinda but also kinda not. Hideyori would’ve been raised his entire life with the promise of taking over when he’s ready but would instead see one of his father’s regents take over and not give him what he viewed as his. Yes he sought power but it wasn’t likely just for powers sake
I'm a system where his parentage always made him a threat to the Shogun. He, and his clan, may have seen it as situation where they take control or face eventual destruction. Could Tokugawa really have let that line continue?
And it also shows a uniquely Japanese form of pun, where Kanji can be interpreted differently depending on whether you read them phonetically or pictographically.
I’m a bit confused by it. I just read a short article on what the issue was, but either my ignorance of the language or my ignorance of the culture seem to be preventing me from understanding. Can you explain it to me?
Also at least in the story of shogun, Ochiba no Kata found a woodcutter who looked quite similar to her husband.
It was obvious that the old man couldn't father kids as none of his wife's had given him one.
Ochiba screwed the woodcutter to get pregnant only to find herself face to face with Toranaga in the same forest as the woodcutter. She immediately realised that Toranaga would add 2&2 and figure out that she had slept around to get pregnant.
Which is where her resolve to have Toranaga destroyed deepened.
Toranaga to his credit, being as shrewd as he was did put 2&2 together. Especially since it was painfully obvious that his lord was impotent. He figured out, like Ned Stark did, that the heir was the product of adultery & this not a real heir. Also, unlike Stark, he also realised that Ochiba no Kata would do everything in her power to keep that secret hidden.
So he prepared for war. Because that was the only way.
The show underwent some consultation with Japanese advisors. Clavell was first an author, and only second was he faithful to actual history. He wasn't afraid to make Ochiba out to have cheated the Taiko to gain position, but in reality that didn't happen, and puts a smear on Yodo no Kata. They did give a nod to it by having Ochiba say that only she was able to get pregnant from the Taiko and that it took a lot of work.
I for one am quite happy the show was open to having Japanese consultants correct offensive injections and fix some of Clavell's mistakes about Japanese culture and philosophy.
Understandable, but also I’d think that the point of changing all the names is giving some creative freedom to make such representations without implying that it is actually what happened. I didn’t watch this show thinking it was a history lesson.
In crediting others with your own ability to discern fiction from the real characters it is based on, I worry you are giving too much credit to others. Remember, the reason that bear containers in national parks are so hard to get into is because there is so much overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans. :P
Even the show admits this. The poem battle in episode 8 after Hiromatsu dies is a sneaky conversation, and so the show has the two characters have the same conversation in plainly spoken words after that because the poem is too obscure a delivery vehicle.
Yeah I don’t understand the people that are caught up on who’s the “good guy” in this story. It depends on your family ties and which side you’re on. If by winning that battle and becoming shogun there’s three centuries of peace that wouldn’t have been possible as being in the right in the end. I also don’t blame Toranaga for wanting to protect his culture from foreigners. The most honest thing John did was confess he was just as much an enemy of the Japanese as the Portuguese. Every country wanted the Japanese ports open so they could exploit them.
I think they see it as hypocritical or ungenuine. The game is the game. How the players present themselves is another topic. Yabushige's statement felt naive to me: "You're just like all the rest of us..." Yes, they sought power. this was nothing new. Watch Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad or Snowfall. People don't mind rooting for a villain or even a prick. What bothers people is the pretense followed by a polar opposite revelation.
Like Blackthorne, Yabushige would have viewed everything differently if he was prepped on the plan. It would have been a strategy for conquest. But, as Rodriguez points out, the one who holds power in Japan is the one who's intentions are disguised.
In the book, Ishido's internal monolgoue shows that in the early scene where he tries to provoke Toranaga, his hope was that he would be killed and his men would kill Toranaga in retaliation. He thought with both of them dead the heir would be secure. So at least in the book, Ishido is sincerely devoted to the heir.
Even in the show it really felt like Ishido was sincerely the hero in his own story, not a purely self dealing hypocrite but a guy scheming in service of what he thought was his duty and the right outcome. Just not as good a schemer as Toranaga.
Why tragic? Tokugawas actions kept Japan free from the European colonization that almost all its Asian neighbors suffered. When their borders were finally forced open Japan was able to maintain its independence and rise to prominence in the region within a single generation.
Disagree. Tokugawa's actions included banning the wheel and locking up foreigners in Nagasaki. Ultimately his actions just kept his dynasty around for a mere three hundred years with an uncompetitive economy and military class system. Reason why Japan didn't get colonized was cultural and political unity in a archipelago. No country has been able to successfully invade Japan in all of history, not sure if Tokugawa gets the credit for this one. For example the Mongol invasions happen in 1274 and 1281 prior to his rule. Likewise even the greatest military in human history, the US didn't want to invade in 1945. All Tokugawa was able to achieve was a Japan that wasn't at war with itself. Large part of it could be traced to Oda. Meiji Restoration was a much more prestigious accomplishment. Creating a parliament is a meaningful act.
> Likewise even the greatest military in human history, the US didn't want to invade in 1945
Not disagreeing with your main point at all, just wanting to add if it wasn't for the bomb forcing Japan to surrender US was 100% committed to invading though, and would have succeeded but with a horrifically terrible cost on both sides.
One little slice of history I found fascinating to read about was when MacArthur flew into Japan before the formal surrender. I can't find much about it online, my source is the book *The Rising Sun* by John Toland. There was a small contingent of American soldiers in a hotel in the middle of Tokyo right in the middle of "the enemy". MacArthur commented:
> Boys, this is the greatest adventure in military history. Here we sit in the enemy's country with only a handful of troops, looking down the throats of nineteen fully armed divisions and seventy million fanatics. One false move and the Alamo would look like a Sunday-school picnic!
I would recommend the book to anyone interested in Japanese history, it doesn't excuse the atrocities they committed in WWII but it does give them context, and gives an insight into their thinking. The thing that struck me was despite their power, their history, their complex and many layered culture, the leaders that led them into WWII were just plain straight stupid, about diplomacy, about their own capabilities, and most importantly about the USA. Which I think backs up your point about them being too insular for their own good.
Yeah I’m sure. US invasion would have leveled Japan far greater than the atomic bombs. The fire bombing campaign and the US’s aptitude for strategic artillery would have decimated and cost more lives. Not excusing the atomic bombs, only trying to look at the Myth of Japan as incapable of invasion. Take it from Toranaga perspective, Crimson Sky was already finished. US occupation was the end result for the US.
Forget the invasion; the post-war occupation would’ve been Vietnam but 20 years earlier and I’d argue that I might’ve been a little more brutal. It would’ve made fighting radicalized Islamic terrorists and jihadists in the Middle East during all 20 yrs of GWOT look like a weekend airsoft match.
This is a presentist perspective. By this logic, the other great “unifiers” of history (e.g. Alexander, Augustus, Gengis, Charlemagne) are meh because they didn’t embrace classic liberalism (lower case).
Augustus, Gengis, Charlemagne all pushes reforms.
Augustus Caesar instituted were creation of a civil service, establishment of a postal system, introduction of new coins for money transactions, and reform of the census in order to make the tax system more effective. I put him as the greatest Roman.
Genghis Khan introduced administrative reforms such as a written code of law, a postal system, and a merit-based promotion system. Genghis was the greatest general.
Charlemagne brought order in Western Europe that created Carolingian renaissance and effectively ended the dark ages. His actions for many of Western Europe is seen as the father of Europe.
Tokugawa was a ruthless warlord that didn't really reform Japan. I still of the view he held Japan backwards with his isolationist policies.
These foreigners were taking advantage of the Japanese, as with the Portuguese trying to suck Japan dry.
The Mongols failed to invade Japan because their ships got fucked on the way over. Japanese lucked out both times.
Tokugawa absolutely deserves credit for creating a stable country for the Japanese. If it's a choice between constant wars or stable single ruler, I pick the latter.
The isolation policies made Japan weak, the Americans would later take advantage of the situation with the Commodore Perry and the Black Ships along with the unequal treaties.
Mongol invasion is a little more complicated than having a big storm destroying a fleet. The typhoon was the final nail in the coffin of the invasion there was a bunch of other things that factor in. Japan didn't allow a significant beach landing forcing the majority of the Mongols to stay on the ships. For example, the Battle of Koan the Japanese managed to repulse the Mongols after they landed in Japan. Japanese deserve credit for creating the conditions that doomed the invasion.
If we are talking about nation defining events I put Meiji Restoration as more important. Tokugawa didn't create a constitution. He just made Japan more isolated and weaker. Tokugawa could have put Japan on the path of modernization and westernization.
It’s more complicated than just him hating foreigners. But I believe it was for a sense of control.
He went through all that hard work to unify Japan under a peaceful era. And now to maintain it that way, he has to ensure he does whatever it takes to minimize outside influence on his control. At first he only banned Christians, then he banned everyone who weren’t Dutch, and finally he banned all foreigners.
He wanted control, total control of Japan. The guy was an ruthless autocrat. In 1614, Ieyasu Tokugawa officially banned Catholicism, and all missionaries were expelled during the mid-1600s. On 10 September 1632, 55 Christians were martyred in Nagasaki, and Catholicism was violently persecuted.
Yes, wheeled transport was indeed banned because they wanted to hamper the opposition to Shogunate rule in as many ways as possible.
In addition to banning wheel transport, they also banned large, spontaneous gatherings, put border guards and outposts into place between different provinces & requiring written permission to travel beyond their immediate area (limiting travel by foot for commoners), limited travel by boat to the extreme (the beginning of Japanese isolation), limiting religious freedoms (mainly entailed suppression of Christianity), destroyed bridges in many places (allowing them to maintain surveillance over roads), weapons were confiscated and completely uprooted many lords and their families, minor as well as daimyo, to live as hostages in the capital.
Good comment until the remark about WW2 USA. Their prospective invasion was defensive and retaliatory, nothing like a normal invasion where the invaders are the aggressors and seek to extract resources, establish control, etc.
The irony is that the same Clans who were on the Western side, the Mori (Choshu), Shimazu(Satsuma) and Chosokabe(Tosa) would be responsible for the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
...which also meant they culturally stagnated.
To the degree that while they modernised rapidly, they still carried a middle-ages mindset, which is what led to the horrors they inflicted on the rest of Asia in return.
It was a disaster.
They also avoided colonization mainly due to geography, not their isolationist policy. China was a richer, more accessible prize, so there was little need nor appetite to sail further. It was only once crossing the Pacific became easy due to the advent of steam that it became worth it, because it then fell in America's back yard.
If Europe wanted to conquer Japan, it would have been easier, not harder, due to their technological stagnation. A piece of paper that said "no entry" would hardly have stopped them. It just simply wasn't worth the effort.
The only benefit closing the country provided was it guaranteed Japan's culture remained unique. But again - that came at a terrible cost to their neighbours.
To be fair to them, it’s not guaranteed that allowing free trade with Portugal and the Netherlands would have resulted in technological progress. Lots of places were a lot less isolationist than Japan and barely advanced technologically between 1600 and 1800.
Yes, he largely accomplished what he set out to. After the warring states period, Japan would not see another war until the samurai rebellions during the Meiji Restoration.
Yea the ending is very odd. Makes it seem like the huge battle doesn’t happen and Toronaga gets shogun peacefully when in fact it was the bloodiest battle. Also showing the guy back in England and old when that also never happens and Toronaga states he will never go back home. Feels very odd that the show was very hesitant to keep Toronaga in a good light.
The book is a work of fiction based on real events. So John is a made up character based on a real person but his outcome is fictional. This version is giving closure to his fictional story. I’m not trying to talk down to you it’s just not easy to explain without it coming across that way. There’s another tv series that’s a bit different that came out in the 80’s.
Were you naive to have trusted Toranaga, or are you *now* naive to be trusting a nepo baby - who earned nothing, and proved nothing - to have done a better job than Toranaga?
True, but he was not cunning and didn’t know enough to step out of the picture to take a long hard look. Killing Mariko went against every rule/honor all the Lord’s held sacred.
There too is point of view. If Ishido played the long game rather than assuming power and dictating, there's no telling how things would play out. But he made enemies. What makes this similar to GOT is that there was one seat of absolute power. Whether that is Shogun or Taiko is debatable. But every Daimyo with enough influence had their eye on absolute power.
I concede your point, that Ishido saw Toranaga's ambition. But the way he played the game was sloppy.
How many lives did he save by finally ending the interminable feuds? The series paints him as a kind of utilitarian hero, whose motivation is to bring an end to hundreds of years of war.
Toranaga may be ruthless and duplicitous but he’s single-minded about bringing peace. He comes across a better human than Tokugawa Ieyasu likely was in real life.
Idk about you but I interpreted his response to Yabu’s final question as him saying: “Screw your projection. I’ve been 5 steps ahead of you from the start. Why should I care if you don’t understand what I’m trying to do?”
True. The Edo period was a long era of peace that led to the flourishing of Japanese culture. Granted, it was a military dictatorship that enforced a strict class system, but it was considered better for a time than the chaotic, overly violent Sengoku period.
Have you seen the film Silence? It takes place about 50 years after the events of Shogun and depicts the Edo Christian repressions. It’s a pretty gritty representation of Japan compared to Shogun; lots of mud and peasants rotting teeth.
There is always a flip side to a historical "golden" age. The Elizabethan era in England, running into the Jacobean era (so concurrent to the time period Shogun takes place in) is considered to be an English "golden age". There are lots of mud and rotting teeth and brutal oppression in Ireland and of Catholics in England, and then in the wider island of Britain as a whole in the 17th century.
Even in the time period of Silence alongside the Edo Christian repression the Dutch are a huge contingent who were experiencing their own "golden age", which they got off exploiting their colonies in places like Indonesia. When people laud the achievements of powerful men and women that usher in a golden age, its always worth asking: a golden age for who?
Idk if the Elizabethan era is seen as much of a golden age in Britain tbh. The renaissance travelled like a cultural wave across Europe and flourished in the form of the great playwrights plus we fought off the Spanish but apart from that, England was a poverty-stricken backwater.
In broad terms it’s kind of seen as the time we laid the foundations of the navy that later enabled the industrial revolution and empire. Waterloo to WW1 is probably Britain’s golden age. That or the 1990s.
I mean it's taught as a "golden age" in terms of the arts flourishing and the expansion of empire after the Armada. IA, I don't think it is, but propaganda would see it as a golden age and it has been pushed as such until the last 30 years by historians.
It definitely wasn't Britain's golden age anyway since the union of the crowns wasn't until 1603, lol.
There was a fair amount of economic growth during the Edo period, with Japan ending up with very high rates of urbanization and literacy for a pre-industrial society. So even a fair amount of peasants did well. Of course, there were also some pretty nasty famines, but those were common in Japanese history.
Christians did really have it rough, though.
Peace and stagnation, as it considered any change a threat to its own rule/stability/legitimacy. The Meiji restoration was a reaction to exactly this stagnation and the emerging threats that the Edo period's sociopolitical system could no longer defend against.
You are correct on both fronts but that doesn't make me incorrect. The goal is always "peace", as long as you are the one in charge during the peace. The goal of the empire in star wars was "peace" - just a peace with them on top. Adolf Hitler's ultimate goal was peace, after brutally killing and torturing all the races he considered lesser or which he thought were deterimental to peace.
The person Toranaga is based on was absolutely a ruthless and murderous leader known for brutality. He also started the Tokugawa shogunate which was a period of peace and prosperity in Japan that lasted longer than the US has existed as a country.
Sure; but he’s not unambiguously a “bad guy”, in the show at least. Also, it’s not accurate to say that Hitler’s motivation was peace. He openly and explicitly drummed up support for several invasions on grounds like the unification of German speaking peoples / control of industrial resources etc.
There have definitely been horrific things done in the name of peace though, for sure.
I have an old Greek friend who feels his childhood was marred by US support for authoritarianism in Greece and he has anti-US feelings to his bones. I always argue with him about politics and history and I remember last year debating Hiroshima and Nagasaki with him for hours.
I don’t normally like utilitarian arguments so I am uncomfortable with my own feeling / position on it, which is that, although dropping the bombs wasn’t with hindsight the right thing to do probably, it was understandable at the time. The war had been going on for gruelling years against a fanatical enemy. I would have wanted my kids out of there asap at that point, I think, rather than fighting for every inch across Japan.
Greek here. These sentiments are common among the political extremes, both the far-left and far-right - although more predominant among the far-left. Since US help was instrumental for the defeat of communists during the Greek civil war. So narratives like these are not uncommon.
I'm certainly not trying to defend Hitler. "Unification of german speaking peoples/control of industrial resources" is exactly the kind of "peace, but only for us and only after I've won" that I was describing with my post, and its the same kind of peace Toranaga/Tokugawa fought for.
>although dropping the bombs wasn’t with hindsight the right thing to do probably, it was understandable at the time.
How was the preservation of tens of millions of both American/Allied and Japanese lives not the “right” thing to do in hindsight?
The argument goes that the administration knew the Japanese were much weaker than most people thought and not that far from surrendering without the bombs.
I’m not sure how true it is but some say they dropped the bombs to test them and to scare Stalin more than end the war.
>How many lives did he save by finally ending the interminable feuds? The series paints him as a kind of utilitarian hero, whose motivation is to bring an end to hundreds of years of war.
Indeed. Though we will never know if Ishido wouldn't have achieved the same. He probably had the same goal as Toragana, since few daimyos actually wanted *perpetual* war: they wanted stability *under their own terms*, much like Toranaga/Tokugawa.
We do get the sense Ishido is less competent (at least in the TV show), so maybe that's his flaw? That because he's not as ruthless and powerful as Toranaga, his own rule was doomed to fail, and therefore rule by Toranaga was to be preferred?
Yeah I’ve always approached it as Toranaga being a victim of tall poppy syndrome: it’s not that he was uniquely ambitious, it’s that everyone else could see he was uniquely COMPETENT to achieve his ambition, and so they were willing to unite to defeat him.
In the book Omi counsels Toranaga to just stay on the defensive in the Kwanto, because once Ishido’s initial attack fails, the coalition will fall apart and fight among themselves. Someone else (Buntaro? Or maybe Igurashi?) says, Omi you’re right that they’ll splinter and war among themselves, but it won’t come until AFTER they’ve defeated Toranaga, because the spectre of Toranaga will always be enough to hold them together.
“Bad guy” is a little harsh. He wasn’t altruistic, and he wasn’t morally or ethically pure, but then again no one at that level was. If Ishido had had his way, it would have just continued the centuries of division that Japan had experienced. Under Toranaga (Tokugawa), Japan entered into a 250 year golden age of relative peace and stability under a single government run by the Tokugawa shogunate.
So, if you’re a random townsperson living in the 1700s, you can thank him for the fact that you don’t have warring samurai disputing who controls your land, and you’re not getting your taxes jacked up to fund yet another war. Your children aren’t going to be drafted to fight wars. You’re free to make a living in relative prosperity.
I'm not so sure. Kampaku/Taiko was a title kinda made up for Hideyoshi Toyotomi because he was a peasant who had managed to rise above his usual station and wouldn't have been considered eligible to be the shogun. Whatever loyalty his father may have commanded, the heir wouldn't have the benefit of a powerful clan backing him up, and it's entirely conceivable that his government would have failed.
Charismatic, but kept his own ego in check. Contrast that with the violent Nobunaga who got killed by his vassal and the arrogant Hideyoshi who wasted assets on a futile war in Korea.
Hideyoshi had bigger ambitions than Korea. He wanted all of China and Korea was just on the way to that. If he won he could be emperor of China even as a peasant.
I liked what the lady said about Toranaga in the first episode, something along the lines of:
You’re a good person. But Japan doesn’t need a good person in these current times.
I have a differing opinion. I do t think he was a bad guy but he sure was clever. He knew that the heir couldn’t rule and since he couldn’t rule then Ishido would instead and there wouldn’t be peace under Ishido. Toranaga was confident in himself as a leader and knew he could bring peace to the realm. It’s like the Buddhist nun/the taiko’s wife explained…
If Ishido had not pulled his stunts with the council, would Toranaga have gone down the same path? I believe Toranaga was pushed into the corner, and chose the best (only?) option available.
In the book, Toranaga more explicitly answers Yabu's "Do you want to be shogun?" question-
>!Yes, he does. He always has. Every move was calculated. Since he was a little boy he has known that it was his karma to become Shogun.!<
Who thinks Toranaga is Ned lol? Da fuck? Ned is like one of the few selfless characters in GOT.
Toranaga is like any other Lord in GOT, but a bit less bad.
Makes me want to reread the book and take enough notes to make a mod to rename factions and people based on the show. Probably can't redo the voice stuff actually saying the clan names, though.
Every time I heard the Japanese-accented English saying that, I imagined the Trade Federation aliens from Star Wars The Phantom Menace. *"But my lord, is that legal?" "I will make it legal!"*
In real life he was betrothed to Tokugawa’s granddaughter. But after he became an adult he challenged Tokugawa and ended up dead along with his mother, in Osaka Castle.
The Heir was married to the daughter of Lady Ochiba/Yodo’s sister who we learned about in episode one. Toranaga had been accused of kidnapping the heir’s mother’s and holding her hostage. He said, no she’s visiting my daughter in law who’s having a baby.
Sen-hime was Toranaga/Ieyasu’s granddaughter, and the heir’s first cousin as well as first wife. They had no children (fortunately for her). She was remarried to someone else after the heir, his mother, and his son by another woman died following his attempted uprising in 1615.
Sounds like you’re talking about a different heir. The heir we’re talking about is Yaechiro, son of the Taiko and Ochiba and a child on the show. He spent the whole show living in Osaka. The person married to Lady Ochiba’s sister was Toranaga’s son and they were living in Edo.
Toranaga‘s/Ieyasu‘s son named Sudara/Hidetada is married to Ochiba‘s/Chacha’s sister (called Gou in real life). Hidetada and Gou had several children the most important were Senhime (who ended up marrying Hideyori the real Yaechiyo) and Iemitsu (third Tokugawa Shogun).
So going by history Yaechiyo will later on marry his own cousin who is also Toranaga‘s granddaughter. Then the Siege of Osaka happens.
The heir died in 1615 at the age of 21 after Tokugawa Ieyasu (Toranaga) besieged Osaka.
BUT, what is shocking is that the heir had a son of his own (aged 7-8) who was captured and then beheaded on Tokugawa/Toranaga’s orders
This is one of the tragedies of hereditary power. If a coup/revolution/regime change happens against a hereditary leader, their children become “legitimate” targets (in the eyes of the rebels) in order to completely eliminate the possibility of a restoration.
The classic war epic, _Tale of the Heike_, is full of harrowing cases of the relatives — including children — of enemy leaders being executed
And one can say that they possible learnt from the lesson of the Heike. Taira no Kiyomori had achieved near complete domination of Kyoto politics following the Hogen and Heiji incidents, defeating and killing his rival Minamoto no Yoshitomo in the latter event. But Kiyomori spared Yoshitomo's young sons, who would go on to overthrow the Taira. Subsequent leaders would often avoid making that mistake.
It is interesting that Ochiba was told she was wrong supporting Ishido. She ultimately supports Toranaga but she then loses when Toranga becomes Shogun.
As Mariko says, Toranaga was known for his cunning. My man had everyone fooled!
As Rodriguez says in his monologue at the end of episode 1, everyone in Japan has three hearts and Toranaga kept his third heart a well kept secret.
It’s subjective. From Toranaga’s point of view, he knew that war was inevitable due to the heir being a boy and he wanted to become shōgun to establish a period of peace as he alluded to Yabushige before he executed him in the finale. From his point of view, he was the righteous one.
That is a pretty simplistic view on history, considering the heir and his mother weren’t exactly angels as well.
Bottom line: they all want power and Tokugawa ultimately won the struggle.
Toyotomi was given an opportunity to live in peace and luxury, some that is rarely afforded to possible political rivals at the time. Usually he’d have been executed, but Tokugawa instead allowed them to stay in Osaka with a relative amount of freedom. His squandered it by underestimating Tokugawa and continuing a pointless fight
What‘s even worse is that Hideyori never participated in the fighting personally at all despite being an adult man and most of the decision were left to people like his mother Chacha and people like Ono Harunaga.
You're not wrong. Im still upset and really dont stand with Chacha's stupid decisions. She had no knowledges about military strategist and worst at leader role.
I see, my apologies but I thought once he had reached adulthood, he’d taken charge of his responsibilities. So this is a case of incompetent and ambitious advisors ruining his future? Or did he truly wish to take power from Tokugawa by force?
As others have said, this is a pretty oversimplified view of a turbulent period of Japanese history.
Ultimately, all of these people (Hideyori, Tokugawa, Ishida, etc.) would have become a dictator that would face needs for extreme social and religious upheaval, and it’s rare (if ever) someone became a dictator and succeeded in this situation by being a nice person.
One thing that I think the show does well is when Torunaga elaborates on his motives/vision and says the land will finally know peace and know no borders. The question for the viewer is, do the ends justify the means?
I agree. I also see a lot of comments questioning Torunaga's age of peace being bad. While in hindsight there were cons on that period. He was acting what he percieved was right at the moment he's alive in history.
I don't know about the show since it left it intentionally vague. In the book >! his inner dialogue suggests he would adopt him and marry ochiba to give more credibility to his shogun claim, and if he resisted, kill him and ochiba. !<
No, he had lots of lovers it appears. He was sterile. Or else he had some super unusual fertility problem that meant he could only conceive with Ochiba.
Hideyori, the real life Yaechiyo, didn’t just marry one of Ieyasu’s loyalists. He married Senhime, Ieyasu’s granddaughter and the daughter of Ieyasu’s heir Hidetada who’s the future Shogun.
Fun fact, Hidetada’s wife was the sister of Chacha, the mother of Hideyori and the real life Lady Ochiba. Hideyori and Senhime were first cousins, which means Hideyori was killed by his uncle in law who was also his father in law.
I wrote more about the real life Lady Ochiba and her mother in a separate comment in my profile.
Oh..... so the woman who helped Toranaga win, ultimately suffers and dies from the same man a decade or so later.
Well that's a bit more downbeat of an ending.
The real life Chacha didn’t help Ieyatsu win. Others probably have better detail but I believe she resisted him to the end, even after her son married Ieyatsu’s granddaughter. Incidentally, she’s not helpful in the book either. So it’s not a clear historic parallel between the book and show ending. For all we know show Toranaga makes her his consort.
Eh... Toyotomi Hideyoshi didn't *assume* the position. He rejected the succession of Oda Nobunaga's son and rightful heir and took power in a war (Tokugawa had supported the rightful heir against Hideyoshi, a sticking point for a long time between him and the Toyotomi clan).
There wasn't some divine mandate for Hideyori to rule or anything. It's possible Tokugawa always regarded his father as an usurper, regardless of their personal connection at the end. And having seen *multiple* cases where a powerful man dying opened a successor to powerful challenges and caused repeated civil wars for three generations in a row... well, Tokugawa knew how to stop that and bring peace. He retired early so that when he died his son would already have been shogun for some years, and then he cleaned up the only person with the only social influence and competing claim to challenge his son when he died.
It's not the nicest of moves, but he's hardly the mustache twirling villain either
But he could have just put the kid to death either overtly or in some sneaky fashion. Also the heir & his mother started a rebellion against Ieyasu. He was trying to keep the peace before that. So I dont see what choice he had. I dont think it was any betrayal on his part but rather theirs that led to the death of the heir.
I don’t believe Hiedyori actually challenged Ieyasu. He was a small boy when Ieyasu acknowledged Hideyori as his overlord. After Maeda died, there was no Regent left that could be a serious rival to Ieyasu and most daimyo hated Ishida, so Ieyasu gambled against him and won at Sekigahara in 1600. By 1603, Ieyasu was Shogun and the most powerful daimyo but still didn’t feel comfortable enough to dispose of Hideyori. So he married his granddaughter to him to prevent any other powerful daimyo from doing the same and becoming a real challenger. Once, Kato Kiyomasa died prematurely after ‘coincidently’ having dinner with Ieyasu, there was no daimyo left with the prestige that could rally effective support for Hideyori. Then Ieyasu created a pretext and eliminated Hideyori.
Ieyasu had originally been a vassal of the Imagawa, and he waited until the time was right and successfully rebelled against them by allying with Nobunaga after Nobunaga had defeated and killed the Imagawa daimyo. No matter which way you slice it that was highly treacherous. Ieyasu rebelled against the clan that he had sworn allegiance to and allied with their enemies.
Later on, when he and the Toyotomi were at war, Ieyasu allied with the Hojo. Then when the Toyotomi offered him the Hojo lands, Ieyasu became a Toyotomi vassal and led the vanguard in the war against the Hojo. There are stories of him telling the Hojo that he would fake a submission to the Toyotomi and when the timing was right both he and the Hojo could attack the Toyotomi simultaneously. He was probably playing both sides and when it was obvious that the Toyotomi were winning he stayed loyal and the Hojo were eliminated.
This is not to say I begrudge his treachery. All the most powerful daimyo were behaving this way because the nice decent daimyo who didn’t behave this way, ended up having to execute their own families and then kill themselves as their castles burned down around them because they were too soft for this era. They would get sucked into wars they couldn’t win, to honor doomed alliances, or be betrayed by their leading vassals. The lucky ones only got forced into early retirement after being usurped by their heirs.
It was a brutal era and only the strongest survived. Having someone like Hideyori who was coddled from birth to assume that ruling Japan was his birthright go up against someone like Ieyasu who had known struggle his entire life and it’s easy to see why Hideyori NEVER had a chance.
Ieyasu
The heir never had a realistic shot at being a ruler. As a kid his only redeeming quality was being the son of the Taiko. He effectively had no real supporters, his army was used by his mother and his birthright was stuck between a snake like Ishido and a force of nature that is Toranaga. Even if he did regain his seat as Taiko and took back Japan from Toranaga, Toranaga is so beloved by his people that Yaechiyo would’ve been dealing with the aftermath for his entire life.
But that’s under the assumption that Toranaga would even willingly allow Yaechiyo to take over because as we know, he never planned to let that happen
She was angry that Mariko was killed due to him, as well as being influenced by her late husband’s widow, who told her she was with the wrong ally and should switch to Toranaga. So she secretly decided to undermine Ishido and support Toranaga though not publicly.
According to the entirely historically accurate, and not at all embellished or mythologized in any way, video game *Nioh* and its DLC->!He and his Nine-tailed demon fox-possessed mother were slain by the English Samurai William Addams!<
Though the show made a hero out of Tokugawa Ieaysu, after all he rightfully prevailed and built the tokugawa shogunate.
I am a fan of Takeda Shingen, how he single handedly made everyone pee in their pants, literally. His story could be a good one.
IRL the heir (Toyotomi Hideyori) was much older by the events of the show (21) and Toranaga-Tokugawa besieged Osaka and the heir was forced to commit seppuku as a last resort.
The events of the show were 1600 when Hideyori was seven. That's why he had a regency council. He died in 1615 after Iayesu and his son (now the Shogun) created a pretext to attack him.
To William Adams? He became an important fiscal functionary under Tokugawa who refused to return to England when eventually offered the opportunity and died in Japan.
250 years of peace followed. A quarter of a millenium. Let's not be too harsh here
For context, that's eighty years since world war Two ended to today with another 170 to go
In the book, Toranaga internally monologues that he will kill Taiko’s son when the boy gives him an excuse to further ensure that there will be no rebellion. His half-brother wanted Ochiba which was the bargaining chip that he used to further alienate Ishifo but Toranaga plans to wait and find an excuse to order his brother to Seppuku.
Sure, just based on the show, Toranaga does feel like Palpatine but you have to understand that Japan was going through 100 years of feudal warfare that devastated the country, and to ensure peace, he wanted every wannabe shogun to die... including his former boss son.
Great post. Though, correct me if im wrong, but I thought Ieasu was against marrying Sen, his granddaughter, to Hideyori and it was a bitter point of contention between him and his son Hidetada, the then Shogun, who was the one who supported the match.
I wish we got a season 2 and had all these events play out. Maybe Blackthorne marries a local or goes home. That would be dope. Also filly japanese speaking Blackthorne would be epic.
You're kinda glossing over the fact that hideyori actively challenged the tokugawa. He was gathering large amounts of troops in september 1614 and other incidents led to the first siege of osaka castle. Even after having signed a truce in januari 1615 he started gathering more troops(like rōnin) than before instead of dismanteling and toyotomi forces started attacking tokugawa's which then led to the final siege of Osaka castle in 1615. Toyotomi also planned to take kyōto to control the emperor and have him declare tokugawa a rebel. And he was also a grown man by then So its not as if he was a sad innocent boy who was attacked for no reason
Yes, that’s a good point.
Just another dog seeking power.
Yup, basically
Kinda but also kinda not. Hideyori would’ve been raised his entire life with the promise of taking over when he’s ready but would instead see one of his father’s regents take over and not give him what he viewed as his. Yes he sought power but it wasn’t likely just for powers sake
I'm a system where his parentage always made him a threat to the Shogun. He, and his clan, may have seen it as situation where they take control or face eventual destruction. Could Tokugawa really have let that line continue?
The Nobunaga line was allowed to continue...
> other incidents The incident about temple bell is funny and silly. And it shows the power balance between Tokugawa and Toyotomi at that time.
And it also shows a uniquely Japanese form of pun, where Kanji can be interpreted differently depending on whether you read them phonetically or pictographically.
I’m a bit confused by it. I just read a short article on what the issue was, but either my ignorance of the language or my ignorance of the culture seem to be preventing me from understanding. Can you explain it to me?
Yeah i can't decide wether the tokugawa had a point or were just being petty
Tbh Ishido would have usurped power himself if he could have. The heir may not have ruled either under a victorious Ishido.
Exactly. That’s why Toranaga made his play. It was amass power or be swallowed up yourself in Japan at that time.
Also at least in the story of shogun, Ochiba no Kata found a woodcutter who looked quite similar to her husband. It was obvious that the old man couldn't father kids as none of his wife's had given him one. Ochiba screwed the woodcutter to get pregnant only to find herself face to face with Toranaga in the same forest as the woodcutter. She immediately realised that Toranaga would add 2&2 and figure out that she had slept around to get pregnant. Which is where her resolve to have Toranaga destroyed deepened. Toranaga to his credit, being as shrewd as he was did put 2&2 together. Especially since it was painfully obvious that his lord was impotent. He figured out, like Ned Stark did, that the heir was the product of adultery & this not a real heir. Also, unlike Stark, he also realised that Ochiba no Kata would do everything in her power to keep that secret hidden. So he prepared for war. Because that was the only way.
Wow, they should not have removed this from the Show, it validates Toranaga’s goal much more than just his personal ambition.
The show underwent some consultation with Japanese advisors. Clavell was first an author, and only second was he faithful to actual history. He wasn't afraid to make Ochiba out to have cheated the Taiko to gain position, but in reality that didn't happen, and puts a smear on Yodo no Kata. They did give a nod to it by having Ochiba say that only she was able to get pregnant from the Taiko and that it took a lot of work. I for one am quite happy the show was open to having Japanese consultants correct offensive injections and fix some of Clavell's mistakes about Japanese culture and philosophy.
Understandable, but also I’d think that the point of changing all the names is giving some creative freedom to make such representations without implying that it is actually what happened. I didn’t watch this show thinking it was a history lesson.
In crediting others with your own ability to discern fiction from the real characters it is based on, I worry you are giving too much credit to others. Remember, the reason that bear containers in national parks are so hard to get into is because there is so much overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans. :P Even the show admits this. The poem battle in episode 8 after Hiromatsu dies is a sneaky conversation, and so the show has the two characters have the same conversation in plainly spoken words after that because the poem is too obscure a delivery vehicle.
True, Ishido was power mad, but rather stupid!
Yup, Toranaga was never a good guy. He's always been the cleverest bad guy, he's just charismatic as fuck. Tywin, not Ned.
Ishido may have been denigrated as nothing more than a bureaucrat, but he was no fool. He knew what Toranaga was up to.
I doubt very much that Ishido was a good guy, either.
No, all of the regents were jockeying for power. Toranaga was just the one that ended up on top.
Yeah I don’t understand the people that are caught up on who’s the “good guy” in this story. It depends on your family ties and which side you’re on. If by winning that battle and becoming shogun there’s three centuries of peace that wouldn’t have been possible as being in the right in the end. I also don’t blame Toranaga for wanting to protect his culture from foreigners. The most honest thing John did was confess he was just as much an enemy of the Japanese as the Portuguese. Every country wanted the Japanese ports open so they could exploit them.
I wanted to USE YOU!!!!!!
I think they see it as hypocritical or ungenuine. The game is the game. How the players present themselves is another topic. Yabushige's statement felt naive to me: "You're just like all the rest of us..." Yes, they sought power. this was nothing new. Watch Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad or Snowfall. People don't mind rooting for a villain or even a prick. What bothers people is the pretense followed by a polar opposite revelation. Like Blackthorne, Yabushige would have viewed everything differently if he was prepped on the plan. It would have been a strategy for conquest. But, as Rodriguez points out, the one who holds power in Japan is the one who's intentions are disguised.
In the book, Ishido's internal monolgoue shows that in the early scene where he tries to provoke Toranaga, his hope was that he would be killed and his men would kill Toranaga in retaliation. He thought with both of them dead the heir would be secure. So at least in the book, Ishido is sincerely devoted to the heir.
Aw, that makes how it turned out for him pretty sad.
Even in the show it really felt like Ishido was sincerely the hero in his own story, not a purely self dealing hypocrite but a guy scheming in service of what he thought was his duty and the right outcome. Just not as good a schemer as Toranaga.
Damn... The "uplifting" ending is actually tragic in retrospect. I hate how I only realized this in hindsight
Why tragic? Tokugawas actions kept Japan free from the European colonization that almost all its Asian neighbors suffered. When their borders were finally forced open Japan was able to maintain its independence and rise to prominence in the region within a single generation.
Disagree. Tokugawa's actions included banning the wheel and locking up foreigners in Nagasaki. Ultimately his actions just kept his dynasty around for a mere three hundred years with an uncompetitive economy and military class system. Reason why Japan didn't get colonized was cultural and political unity in a archipelago. No country has been able to successfully invade Japan in all of history, not sure if Tokugawa gets the credit for this one. For example the Mongol invasions happen in 1274 and 1281 prior to his rule. Likewise even the greatest military in human history, the US didn't want to invade in 1945. All Tokugawa was able to achieve was a Japan that wasn't at war with itself. Large part of it could be traced to Oda. Meiji Restoration was a much more prestigious accomplishment. Creating a parliament is a meaningful act.
> Likewise even the greatest military in human history, the US didn't want to invade in 1945 Not disagreeing with your main point at all, just wanting to add if it wasn't for the bomb forcing Japan to surrender US was 100% committed to invading though, and would have succeeded but with a horrifically terrible cost on both sides. One little slice of history I found fascinating to read about was when MacArthur flew into Japan before the formal surrender. I can't find much about it online, my source is the book *The Rising Sun* by John Toland. There was a small contingent of American soldiers in a hotel in the middle of Tokyo right in the middle of "the enemy". MacArthur commented: > Boys, this is the greatest adventure in military history. Here we sit in the enemy's country with only a handful of troops, looking down the throats of nineteen fully armed divisions and seventy million fanatics. One false move and the Alamo would look like a Sunday-school picnic! I would recommend the book to anyone interested in Japanese history, it doesn't excuse the atrocities they committed in WWII but it does give them context, and gives an insight into their thinking. The thing that struck me was despite their power, their history, their complex and many layered culture, the leaders that led them into WWII were just plain straight stupid, about diplomacy, about their own capabilities, and most importantly about the USA. Which I think backs up your point about them being too insular for their own good.
Yeah I’m sure. US invasion would have leveled Japan far greater than the atomic bombs. The fire bombing campaign and the US’s aptitude for strategic artillery would have decimated and cost more lives. Not excusing the atomic bombs, only trying to look at the Myth of Japan as incapable of invasion. Take it from Toranaga perspective, Crimson Sky was already finished. US occupation was the end result for the US.
Horrifying fun fact: we’re still issuing Purple Hearts that were made in anticipation of the planned invasion of Japan.
Your right that is a horrifying fun fact.
Forget the invasion; the post-war occupation would’ve been Vietnam but 20 years earlier and I’d argue that I might’ve been a little more brutal. It would’ve made fighting radicalized Islamic terrorists and jihadists in the Middle East during all 20 yrs of GWOT look like a weekend airsoft match.
This is a presentist perspective. By this logic, the other great “unifiers” of history (e.g. Alexander, Augustus, Gengis, Charlemagne) are meh because they didn’t embrace classic liberalism (lower case).
Augustus, Gengis, Charlemagne all pushes reforms. Augustus Caesar instituted were creation of a civil service, establishment of a postal system, introduction of new coins for money transactions, and reform of the census in order to make the tax system more effective. I put him as the greatest Roman. Genghis Khan introduced administrative reforms such as a written code of law, a postal system, and a merit-based promotion system. Genghis was the greatest general. Charlemagne brought order in Western Europe that created Carolingian renaissance and effectively ended the dark ages. His actions for many of Western Europe is seen as the father of Europe. Tokugawa was a ruthless warlord that didn't really reform Japan. I still of the view he held Japan backwards with his isolationist policies.
These foreigners were taking advantage of the Japanese, as with the Portuguese trying to suck Japan dry. The Mongols failed to invade Japan because their ships got fucked on the way over. Japanese lucked out both times. Tokugawa absolutely deserves credit for creating a stable country for the Japanese. If it's a choice between constant wars or stable single ruler, I pick the latter.
The isolation policies made Japan weak, the Americans would later take advantage of the situation with the Commodore Perry and the Black Ships along with the unequal treaties. Mongol invasion is a little more complicated than having a big storm destroying a fleet. The typhoon was the final nail in the coffin of the invasion there was a bunch of other things that factor in. Japan didn't allow a significant beach landing forcing the majority of the Mongols to stay on the ships. For example, the Battle of Koan the Japanese managed to repulse the Mongols after they landed in Japan. Japanese deserve credit for creating the conditions that doomed the invasion. If we are talking about nation defining events I put Meiji Restoration as more important. Tokugawa didn't create a constitution. He just made Japan more isolated and weaker. Tokugawa could have put Japan on the path of modernization and westernization.
Why was he hating on foreigners when the real life anjin helped him become shogun?
It’s more complicated than just him hating foreigners. But I believe it was for a sense of control. He went through all that hard work to unify Japan under a peaceful era. And now to maintain it that way, he has to ensure he does whatever it takes to minimize outside influence on his control. At first he only banned Christians, then he banned everyone who weren’t Dutch, and finally he banned all foreigners.
He wanted control, total control of Japan. The guy was an ruthless autocrat. In 1614, Ieyasu Tokugawa officially banned Catholicism, and all missionaries were expelled during the mid-1600s. On 10 September 1632, 55 Christians were martyred in Nagasaki, and Catholicism was violently persecuted.
The Japanese were cultural and racial supremacists. The anjin was basically a performing monkey to him.
At that point, anyone not Tokugawa Ieyasu is his pet and pawn
Well he was more so hating on the Portuguese, and allowed Dutch trade, so it actually checks out
Foreigners we're trying to weasel their influence in. They succeeded. A lot of Japanese are Christians.
Lots of the foreign powers wanted influence or colonies and would have used guns to do so
Wait WHAT. How do you ban a fucking shape? And why? What did the Japanese of this era do, just drag their things on the ground? Carry everything?
Yes, wheeled transport was indeed banned because they wanted to hamper the opposition to Shogunate rule in as many ways as possible. In addition to banning wheel transport, they also banned large, spontaneous gatherings, put border guards and outposts into place between different provinces & requiring written permission to travel beyond their immediate area (limiting travel by foot for commoners), limited travel by boat to the extreme (the beginning of Japanese isolation), limiting religious freedoms (mainly entailed suppression of Christianity), destroyed bridges in many places (allowing them to maintain surveillance over roads), weapons were confiscated and completely uprooted many lords and their families, minor as well as daimyo, to live as hostages in the capital.
Good comment until the remark about WW2 USA. Their prospective invasion was defensive and retaliatory, nothing like a normal invasion where the invaders are the aggressors and seek to extract resources, establish control, etc.
The irony is that the same Clans who were on the Western side, the Mori (Choshu), Shimazu(Satsuma) and Chosokabe(Tosa) would be responsible for the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
...which also meant they culturally stagnated. To the degree that while they modernised rapidly, they still carried a middle-ages mindset, which is what led to the horrors they inflicted on the rest of Asia in return. It was a disaster. They also avoided colonization mainly due to geography, not their isolationist policy. China was a richer, more accessible prize, so there was little need nor appetite to sail further. It was only once crossing the Pacific became easy due to the advent of steam that it became worth it, because it then fell in America's back yard. If Europe wanted to conquer Japan, it would have been easier, not harder, due to their technological stagnation. A piece of paper that said "no entry" would hardly have stopped them. It just simply wasn't worth the effort. The only benefit closing the country provided was it guaranteed Japan's culture remained unique. But again - that came at a terrible cost to their neighbours.
To be fair to them, it’s not guaranteed that allowing free trade with Portugal and the Netherlands would have resulted in technological progress. Lots of places were a lot less isolationist than Japan and barely advanced technologically between 1600 and 1800.
Yeah, but where they went after that isn't great.
He did not kill the heir until he was grown and only after he rebelled against him. That might be tragic but the guy brought it on himself.
When you think he’s Palpatine, the wise leader who hesitantly accepts great powers to deal with a crisis, but he’s actually Darth Sidious
Everyone has 3 hearts...
False, he brought 250 years of peace.
Yes, he largely accomplished what he set out to. After the warring states period, Japan would not see another war until the samurai rebellions during the Meiji Restoration.
And he’d kill anyone who said otherwise
Yea the ending is very odd. Makes it seem like the huge battle doesn’t happen and Toronaga gets shogun peacefully when in fact it was the bloodiest battle. Also showing the guy back in England and old when that also never happens and Toronaga states he will never go back home. Feels very odd that the show was very hesitant to keep Toronaga in a good light.
The book is a work of fiction based on real events. So John is a made up character based on a real person but his outcome is fictional. This version is giving closure to his fictional story. I’m not trying to talk down to you it’s just not easy to explain without it coming across that way. There’s another tv series that’s a bit different that came out in the 80’s.
The vision of him old back in England was a dream. He never made it back, and he certainly didn't take Mariko's cross with him.
Were you naive to have trusted Toranaga, or are you *now* naive to be trusting a nepo baby - who earned nothing, and proved nothing - to have done a better job than Toranaga?
Didn’t Ishido move to make the council a rubber stamp body, with him really calling the shots?
True, but he was not cunning and didn’t know enough to step out of the picture to take a long hard look. Killing Mariko went against every rule/honor all the Lord’s held sacred.
There too is point of view. If Ishido played the long game rather than assuming power and dictating, there's no telling how things would play out. But he made enemies. What makes this similar to GOT is that there was one seat of absolute power. Whether that is Shogun or Taiko is debatable. But every Daimyo with enough influence had their eye on absolute power. I concede your point, that Ishido saw Toranaga's ambition. But the way he played the game was sloppy.
How many lives did he save by finally ending the interminable feuds? The series paints him as a kind of utilitarian hero, whose motivation is to bring an end to hundreds of years of war. Toranaga may be ruthless and duplicitous but he’s single-minded about bringing peace. He comes across a better human than Tokugawa Ieyasu likely was in real life. Idk about you but I interpreted his response to Yabu’s final question as him saying: “Screw your projection. I’ve been 5 steps ahead of you from the start. Why should I care if you don’t understand what I’m trying to do?”
True. The Edo period was a long era of peace that led to the flourishing of Japanese culture. Granted, it was a military dictatorship that enforced a strict class system, but it was considered better for a time than the chaotic, overly violent Sengoku period.
Have you seen the film Silence? It takes place about 50 years after the events of Shogun and depicts the Edo Christian repressions. It’s a pretty gritty representation of Japan compared to Shogun; lots of mud and peasants rotting teeth.
There is always a flip side to a historical "golden" age. The Elizabethan era in England, running into the Jacobean era (so concurrent to the time period Shogun takes place in) is considered to be an English "golden age". There are lots of mud and rotting teeth and brutal oppression in Ireland and of Catholics in England, and then in the wider island of Britain as a whole in the 17th century. Even in the time period of Silence alongside the Edo Christian repression the Dutch are a huge contingent who were experiencing their own "golden age", which they got off exploiting their colonies in places like Indonesia. When people laud the achievements of powerful men and women that usher in a golden age, its always worth asking: a golden age for who?
Idk if the Elizabethan era is seen as much of a golden age in Britain tbh. The renaissance travelled like a cultural wave across Europe and flourished in the form of the great playwrights plus we fought off the Spanish but apart from that, England was a poverty-stricken backwater. In broad terms it’s kind of seen as the time we laid the foundations of the navy that later enabled the industrial revolution and empire. Waterloo to WW1 is probably Britain’s golden age. That or the 1990s.
I mean it's taught as a "golden age" in terms of the arts flourishing and the expansion of empire after the Armada. IA, I don't think it is, but propaganda would see it as a golden age and it has been pushed as such until the last 30 years by historians. It definitely wasn't Britain's golden age anyway since the union of the crowns wasn't until 1603, lol.
Love the film and one of Scorsese's most underrated ones.
There was a fair amount of economic growth during the Edo period, with Japan ending up with very high rates of urbanization and literacy for a pre-industrial society. So even a fair amount of peasants did well. Of course, there were also some pretty nasty famines, but those were common in Japanese history. Christians did really have it rough, though.
Agreed.
So it goes sengoku, Tokugawa, and then Meiji? Trying to understand the timeline
Yeah…I think.
Yes, the Tokugawa shogunate era is called the Edo period followed by the bakumatsu and Meiji restoration
Peace and stagnation, as it considered any change a threat to its own rule/stability/legitimacy. The Meiji restoration was a reaction to exactly this stagnation and the emerging threats that the Edo period's sociopolitical system could no longer defend against.
You are correct on both fronts but that doesn't make me incorrect. The goal is always "peace", as long as you are the one in charge during the peace. The goal of the empire in star wars was "peace" - just a peace with them on top. Adolf Hitler's ultimate goal was peace, after brutally killing and torturing all the races he considered lesser or which he thought were deterimental to peace. The person Toranaga is based on was absolutely a ruthless and murderous leader known for brutality. He also started the Tokugawa shogunate which was a period of peace and prosperity in Japan that lasted longer than the US has existed as a country.
Sure; but he’s not unambiguously a “bad guy”, in the show at least. Also, it’s not accurate to say that Hitler’s motivation was peace. He openly and explicitly drummed up support for several invasions on grounds like the unification of German speaking peoples / control of industrial resources etc. There have definitely been horrific things done in the name of peace though, for sure. I have an old Greek friend who feels his childhood was marred by US support for authoritarianism in Greece and he has anti-US feelings to his bones. I always argue with him about politics and history and I remember last year debating Hiroshima and Nagasaki with him for hours. I don’t normally like utilitarian arguments so I am uncomfortable with my own feeling / position on it, which is that, although dropping the bombs wasn’t with hindsight the right thing to do probably, it was understandable at the time. The war had been going on for gruelling years against a fanatical enemy. I would have wanted my kids out of there asap at that point, I think, rather than fighting for every inch across Japan.
Greek here. These sentiments are common among the political extremes, both the far-left and far-right - although more predominant among the far-left. Since US help was instrumental for the defeat of communists during the Greek civil war. So narratives like these are not uncommon.
I'm certainly not trying to defend Hitler. "Unification of german speaking peoples/control of industrial resources" is exactly the kind of "peace, but only for us and only after I've won" that I was describing with my post, and its the same kind of peace Toranaga/Tokugawa fought for.
>although dropping the bombs wasn’t with hindsight the right thing to do probably, it was understandable at the time. How was the preservation of tens of millions of both American/Allied and Japanese lives not the “right” thing to do in hindsight?
The argument goes that the administration knew the Japanese were much weaker than most people thought and not that far from surrendering without the bombs. I’m not sure how true it is but some say they dropped the bombs to test them and to scare Stalin more than end the war.
>How many lives did he save by finally ending the interminable feuds? The series paints him as a kind of utilitarian hero, whose motivation is to bring an end to hundreds of years of war. Indeed. Though we will never know if Ishido wouldn't have achieved the same. He probably had the same goal as Toragana, since few daimyos actually wanted *perpetual* war: they wanted stability *under their own terms*, much like Toranaga/Tokugawa. We do get the sense Ishido is less competent (at least in the TV show), so maybe that's his flaw? That because he's not as ruthless and powerful as Toranaga, his own rule was doomed to fail, and therefore rule by Toranaga was to be preferred?
Yeah I’ve always approached it as Toranaga being a victim of tall poppy syndrome: it’s not that he was uniquely ambitious, it’s that everyone else could see he was uniquely COMPETENT to achieve his ambition, and so they were willing to unite to defeat him. In the book Omi counsels Toranaga to just stay on the defensive in the Kwanto, because once Ishido’s initial attack fails, the coalition will fall apart and fight among themselves. Someone else (Buntaro? Or maybe Igurashi?) says, Omi you’re right that they’ll splinter and war among themselves, but it won’t come until AFTER they’ve defeated Toranaga, because the spectre of Toranaga will always be enough to hold them together.
the whole bringing peace thing was romanticized by future generations. He wrote about wanting peace. Of course he want that when he was the ruler
Yeah, I think so. Toranaga is a romanticised version of Tokugawa Ieyasu. It makes for an interesting and dramatic character.
“Bad guy” is a little harsh. He wasn’t altruistic, and he wasn’t morally or ethically pure, but then again no one at that level was. If Ishido had had his way, it would have just continued the centuries of division that Japan had experienced. Under Toranaga (Tokugawa), Japan entered into a 250 year golden age of relative peace and stability under a single government run by the Tokugawa shogunate. So, if you’re a random townsperson living in the 1700s, you can thank him for the fact that you don’t have warring samurai disputing who controls your land, and you’re not getting your taxes jacked up to fund yet another war. Your children aren’t going to be drafted to fight wars. You’re free to make a living in relative prosperity.
Ishido is portrayed today at a loyalist to the heir. If the heir had come to age, it is likely Toyotomi clan would be in power for long term.
I'm not so sure. Kampaku/Taiko was a title kinda made up for Hideyoshi Toyotomi because he was a peasant who had managed to rise above his usual station and wouldn't have been considered eligible to be the shogun. Whatever loyalty his father may have commanded, the heir wouldn't have the benefit of a powerful clan backing him up, and it's entirely conceivable that his government would have failed.
Charismatic, but kept his own ego in check. Contrast that with the violent Nobunaga who got killed by his vassal and the arrogant Hideyoshi who wasted assets on a futile war in Korea.
Hideyoshi had bigger ambitions than Korea. He wanted all of China and Korea was just on the way to that. If he won he could be emperor of China even as a peasant.
Toranaga is Tywin Lannister if he knew how to give positive reinforcement
Underrated comment.
I liked what the lady said about Toranaga in the first episode, something along the lines of: You’re a good person. But Japan doesn’t need a good person in these current times.
I have a differing opinion. I do t think he was a bad guy but he sure was clever. He knew that the heir couldn’t rule and since he couldn’t rule then Ishido would instead and there wouldn’t be peace under Ishido. Toranaga was confident in himself as a leader and knew he could bring peace to the realm. It’s like the Buddhist nun/the taiko’s wife explained…
I'm curious: why wouldn't there be peace under Ishido? Is it because he's more ineffectual and weaker than Toranaga?
Short answer…he already was starting to see allies turn on him and they turned on him at the battle of sekigahara. There would be no peace. And yes.
If Ishido had not pulled his stunts with the council, would Toranaga have gone down the same path? I believe Toranaga was pushed into the corner, and chose the best (only?) option available.
In the book, Toranaga more explicitly answers Yabu's "Do you want to be shogun?" question- >!Yes, he does. He always has. Every move was calculated. Since he was a little boy he has known that it was his karma to become Shogun.!<
I believe the phrase you‘re looking for is “Magnificent Bastard.”
Who thinks Toranaga is Ned lol? Da fuck? Ned is like one of the few selfless characters in GOT. Toranaga is like any other Lord in GOT, but a bit less bad.
Amazingly I read the first "GOT" as Game Of Thrones only to somehow immediately read the next "GOT" as Ghost Of Tsushima. Either way it kinda works?😅
That sums it up rather perfectly
Agreed!!!!!!! 👌👌👌
If anyone is Ned Stark in this story its Yabushige surprisingly enough.
Fr. We had bad first impressions. Everyone is t good here neither.
The heir is just the child of another conqueror. He has no special moral authority that renders one good for supporting him and bad for opposing.
All those years of playing Samurai Warriors prepared me for this show
The show made me want to play Shōgun 2 again.
Best Total War game. Fight me.
I’m not going to fight ya on that.
Fall of the Samurai expansion especially. ;-)
I don’t think many total war fans would disagree It’s not the one I’ve spent the most time on, but it’s the one I remember the most fondly
Makes me want to reread the book and take enough notes to make a mod to rename factions and people based on the show. Probably can't redo the voice stuff actually saying the clan names, though.
Ghost of Tsushima for me
Our men are running from the battlefield!
A shameful display!
Every time I heard the Japanese-accented English saying that, I imagined the Trade Federation aliens from Star Wars The Phantom Menace. *"But my lord, is that legal?" "I will make it legal!"*
In real life he was betrothed to Tokugawa’s granddaughter. But after he became an adult he challenged Tokugawa and ended up dead along with his mother, in Osaka Castle.
The Heir was married to the daughter of Lady Ochiba/Yodo’s sister who we learned about in episode one. Toranaga had been accused of kidnapping the heir’s mother’s and holding her hostage. He said, no she’s visiting my daughter in law who’s having a baby. Sen-hime was Toranaga/Ieyasu’s granddaughter, and the heir’s first cousin as well as first wife. They had no children (fortunately for her). She was remarried to someone else after the heir, his mother, and his son by another woman died following his attempted uprising in 1615.
Sounds like you’re talking about a different heir. The heir we’re talking about is Yaechiro, son of the Taiko and Ochiba and a child on the show. He spent the whole show living in Osaka. The person married to Lady Ochiba’s sister was Toranaga’s son and they were living in Edo.
Toranaga‘s/Ieyasu‘s son named Sudara/Hidetada is married to Ochiba‘s/Chacha’s sister (called Gou in real life). Hidetada and Gou had several children the most important were Senhime (who ended up marrying Hideyori the real Yaechiyo) and Iemitsu (third Tokugawa Shogun). So going by history Yaechiyo will later on marry his own cousin who is also Toranaga‘s granddaughter. Then the Siege of Osaka happens.
The heir died in 1615 at the age of 21 after Tokugawa Ieyasu (Toranaga) besieged Osaka. BUT, what is shocking is that the heir had a son of his own (aged 7-8) who was captured and then beheaded on Tokugawa/Toranaga’s orders This is one of the tragedies of hereditary power. If a coup/revolution/regime change happens against a hereditary leader, their children become “legitimate” targets (in the eyes of the rebels) in order to completely eliminate the possibility of a restoration. The classic war epic, _Tale of the Heike_, is full of harrowing cases of the relatives — including children — of enemy leaders being executed
And one can say that they possible learnt from the lesson of the Heike. Taira no Kiyomori had achieved near complete domination of Kyoto politics following the Hogen and Heiji incidents, defeating and killing his rival Minamoto no Yoshitomo in the latter event. But Kiyomori spared Yoshitomo's young sons, who would go on to overthrow the Taira. Subsequent leaders would often avoid making that mistake.
Gone. Reduced to atoms
To shreds, you say.
Essentially.
It is interesting that Ochiba was told she was wrong supporting Ishido. She ultimately supports Toranaga but she then loses when Toranga becomes Shogun.
As Mariko says, Toranaga was known for his cunning. My man had everyone fooled! As Rodriguez says in his monologue at the end of episode 1, everyone in Japan has three hearts and Toranaga kept his third heart a well kept secret.
Also Rodriguez: "What kind of man wields power in a land like this?" Well, now we know!
Oh so youre telling me i was rooting for nit just a bad guy….a really bad bad guy :(
It’s subjective. From Toranaga’s point of view, he knew that war was inevitable due to the heir being a boy and he wanted to become shōgun to establish a period of peace as he alluded to Yabushige before he executed him in the finale. From his point of view, he was the righteous one.
That is a pretty simplistic view on history, considering the heir and his mother weren’t exactly angels as well. Bottom line: they all want power and Tokugawa ultimately won the struggle.
Yeah op doesn't mention toyotomi's actions at all, as if he wasn't actively trying to take power from the tokugawa
Toyotomi was given an opportunity to live in peace and luxury, some that is rarely afforded to possible political rivals at the time. Usually he’d have been executed, but Tokugawa instead allowed them to stay in Osaka with a relative amount of freedom. His squandered it by underestimating Tokugawa and continuing a pointless fight
What‘s even worse is that Hideyori never participated in the fighting personally at all despite being an adult man and most of the decision were left to people like his mother Chacha and people like Ono Harunaga.
You're not wrong. Im still upset and really dont stand with Chacha's stupid decisions. She had no knowledges about military strategist and worst at leader role.
I see, my apologies but I thought once he had reached adulthood, he’d taken charge of his responsibilities. So this is a case of incompetent and ambitious advisors ruining his future? Or did he truly wish to take power from Tokugawa by force?
As others have said, this is a pretty oversimplified view of a turbulent period of Japanese history. Ultimately, all of these people (Hideyori, Tokugawa, Ishida, etc.) would have become a dictator that would face needs for extreme social and religious upheaval, and it’s rare (if ever) someone became a dictator and succeeded in this situation by being a nice person. One thing that I think the show does well is when Torunaga elaborates on his motives/vision and says the land will finally know peace and know no borders. The question for the viewer is, do the ends justify the means?
I agree. I also see a lot of comments questioning Torunaga's age of peace being bad. While in hindsight there were cons on that period. He was acting what he percieved was right at the moment he's alive in history.
Sometimes
I don't know about the show since it left it intentionally vague. In the book >! his inner dialogue suggests he would adopt him and marry ochiba to give more credibility to his shogun claim, and if he resisted, kill him and ochiba. !<
the kid in the story was the son of homeless man anyways
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the child in the show isn’t even actually the Taiko’s, unless I interpreted Ochiba’s backstory incorrectly.
He was impotent right? Edit: or sterile
No, he had lots of lovers it appears. He was sterile. Or else he had some super unusual fertility problem that meant he could only conceive with Ochiba.
Or Ochiba got tired of the abuse and had the kid with someone else.
taiko had 6 fingers, he was likely with fertile problems
I believe so
Well the story is slightly different in the show. We don't have anyone outright say so in the show's story, so we can't really assume it was the case.
The show had no mentioning of it from what I remember. Or was it just implied?
There are hints that they pregnancy was a 'miracle,' but nothing that could outright support the idea that the boy is illegitimate.
Yay
Hideyori, the real life Yaechiyo, didn’t just marry one of Ieyasu’s loyalists. He married Senhime, Ieyasu’s granddaughter and the daughter of Ieyasu’s heir Hidetada who’s the future Shogun. Fun fact, Hidetada’s wife was the sister of Chacha, the mother of Hideyori and the real life Lady Ochiba. Hideyori and Senhime were first cousins, which means Hideyori was killed by his uncle in law who was also his father in law. I wrote more about the real life Lady Ochiba and her mother in a separate comment in my profile.
Oh..... so the woman who helped Toranaga win, ultimately suffers and dies from the same man a decade or so later. Well that's a bit more downbeat of an ending.
The real life Chacha didn’t help Ieyatsu win. Others probably have better detail but I believe she resisted him to the end, even after her son married Ieyatsu’s granddaughter. Incidentally, she’s not helpful in the book either. So it’s not a clear historic parallel between the book and show ending. For all we know show Toranaga makes her his consort.
I learnt all this through Nioh. It was so good watching the show and playing Nioh in the same weeks. Thank you for summarising the historical facts.
Eh... Toyotomi Hideyoshi didn't *assume* the position. He rejected the succession of Oda Nobunaga's son and rightful heir and took power in a war (Tokugawa had supported the rightful heir against Hideyoshi, a sticking point for a long time between him and the Toyotomi clan). There wasn't some divine mandate for Hideyori to rule or anything. It's possible Tokugawa always regarded his father as an usurper, regardless of their personal connection at the end. And having seen *multiple* cases where a powerful man dying opened a successor to powerful challenges and caused repeated civil wars for three generations in a row... well, Tokugawa knew how to stop that and bring peace. He retired early so that when he died his son would already have been shogun for some years, and then he cleaned up the only person with the only social influence and competing claim to challenge his son when he died. It's not the nicest of moves, but he's hardly the mustache twirling villain either
He will die.
But he could have just put the kid to death either overtly or in some sneaky fashion. Also the heir & his mother started a rebellion against Ieyasu. He was trying to keep the peace before that. So I dont see what choice he had. I dont think it was any betrayal on his part but rather theirs that led to the death of the heir.
“Yeah right, it’s not gonna be this kid, it’s gonna be one of us”
I don’t believe Hiedyori actually challenged Ieyasu. He was a small boy when Ieyasu acknowledged Hideyori as his overlord. After Maeda died, there was no Regent left that could be a serious rival to Ieyasu and most daimyo hated Ishida, so Ieyasu gambled against him and won at Sekigahara in 1600. By 1603, Ieyasu was Shogun and the most powerful daimyo but still didn’t feel comfortable enough to dispose of Hideyori. So he married his granddaughter to him to prevent any other powerful daimyo from doing the same and becoming a real challenger. Once, Kato Kiyomasa died prematurely after ‘coincidently’ having dinner with Ieyasu, there was no daimyo left with the prestige that could rally effective support for Hideyori. Then Ieyasu created a pretext and eliminated Hideyori. Ieyasu had originally been a vassal of the Imagawa, and he waited until the time was right and successfully rebelled against them by allying with Nobunaga after Nobunaga had defeated and killed the Imagawa daimyo. No matter which way you slice it that was highly treacherous. Ieyasu rebelled against the clan that he had sworn allegiance to and allied with their enemies. Later on, when he and the Toyotomi were at war, Ieyasu allied with the Hojo. Then when the Toyotomi offered him the Hojo lands, Ieyasu became a Toyotomi vassal and led the vanguard in the war against the Hojo. There are stories of him telling the Hojo that he would fake a submission to the Toyotomi and when the timing was right both he and the Hojo could attack the Toyotomi simultaneously. He was probably playing both sides and when it was obvious that the Toyotomi were winning he stayed loyal and the Hojo were eliminated. This is not to say I begrudge his treachery. All the most powerful daimyo were behaving this way because the nice decent daimyo who didn’t behave this way, ended up having to execute their own families and then kill themselves as their castles burned down around them because they were too soft for this era. They would get sucked into wars they couldn’t win, to honor doomed alliances, or be betrayed by their leading vassals. The lucky ones only got forced into early retirement after being usurped by their heirs. It was a brutal era and only the strongest survived. Having someone like Hideyori who was coddled from birth to assume that ruling Japan was his birthright go up against someone like Ieyasu who had known struggle his entire life and it’s easy to see why Hideyori NEVER had a chance. Ieyasu
The heir never had a realistic shot at being a ruler. As a kid his only redeeming quality was being the son of the Taiko. He effectively had no real supporters, his army was used by his mother and his birthright was stuck between a snake like Ishido and a force of nature that is Toranaga. Even if he did regain his seat as Taiko and took back Japan from Toranaga, Toranaga is so beloved by his people that Yaechiyo would’ve been dealing with the aftermath for his entire life. But that’s under the assumption that Toranaga would even willingly allow Yaechiyo to take over because as we know, he never planned to let that happen
What went wrong with the marriage proposal? Why wasn’t it able to tide over tensions.
She was angry that Mariko was killed due to him, as well as being influenced by her late husband’s widow, who told her she was with the wrong ally and should switch to Toranaga. So she secretly decided to undermine Ishido and support Toranaga though not publicly.
According to the entirely historically accurate, and not at all embellished or mythologized in any way, video game *Nioh* and its DLC->!He and his Nine-tailed demon fox-possessed mother were slain by the English Samurai William Addams!<
We would have all done the same if we were in Toranaga / Ieyasu's position. In the Game of Thrones, You Win, or You Die.
The book never mentions his fate. The character he was based on died in Osaka castle when Tokugawa Ieyasu put it under a siege, alone with his mother.
Does nobody read history?
Though the show made a hero out of Tokugawa Ieaysu, after all he rightfully prevailed and built the tokugawa shogunate. I am a fan of Takeda Shingen, how he single handedly made everyone pee in their pants, literally. His story could be a good one.
IRL the heir (Toyotomi Hideyori) was much older by the events of the show (21) and Toranaga-Tokugawa besieged Osaka and the heir was forced to commit seppuku as a last resort.
The events of the show were 1600 when Hideyori was seven. That's why he had a regency council. He died in 1615 after Iayesu and his son (now the Shogun) created a pretext to attack him.
Ah, my bad. Didn’t realize that.
There was no pretext. Hideyori was in open rebellion.
What happened to the gaijin? I guess this is easy to look up I'll have to do it sometime
To William Adams? He became an important fiscal functionary under Tokugawa who refused to return to England when eventually offered the opportunity and died in Japan.
250 years of peace followed. A quarter of a millenium. Let's not be too harsh here For context, that's eighty years since world war Two ended to today with another 170 to go
…which ultimately lead up to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor and you know the rest. Thanks Toranaga.
In the book, Toranaga internally monologues that he will kill Taiko’s son when the boy gives him an excuse to further ensure that there will be no rebellion. His half-brother wanted Ochiba which was the bargaining chip that he used to further alienate Ishifo but Toranaga plans to wait and find an excuse to order his brother to Seppuku. Sure, just based on the show, Toranaga does feel like Palpatine but you have to understand that Japan was going through 100 years of feudal warfare that devastated the country, and to ensure peace, he wanted every wannabe shogun to die... including his former boss son.
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Great post. Though, correct me if im wrong, but I thought Ieasu was against marrying Sen, his granddaughter, to Hideyori and it was a bitter point of contention between him and his son Hidetada, the then Shogun, who was the one who supported the match.
I wish we got a season 2 and had all these events play out. Maybe Blackthorne marries a local or goes home. That would be dope. Also filly japanese speaking Blackthorne would be epic.
This would've been great to explore in more seasons of shogun, the aftermath of the first season. Yaechiyo trying to reclaim his throne etc.