The Reunification Period Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Battle of Okehazama

The Oda of Owari were one of many minor Daimyô clans of obscure origin that arose during the anarchy of the Sengoku Period. By 1560, Nobunaga had won the struggle to succeed his father. Now he was surrounded by clans such as the Imagawa, older and more powerful. Like many others, Imagawa Yoshimoto had spent his life preparing to march on Kyôto and thus make himself ruler of Japan.

Between Yoshimoto and Kyôto lay Owari. Yoshimoto expected an easy victory - a stepping stone on the way to the capital. But Nobunaga, outnumbered ten to one, suddenly launched a surprise attack on the Imagawa camp at Okehazama. Yoshimoto lost his life, the Imagawa were destroyed, and feudal Japan was given notice of a new player on the stage.

Answer: "Rule the country by force"

"Rule the country by force" - long before he was capable of actually doing so, Nobunaga signaled his intentions. In 1567, there were still numerous powerful rivals remaining.

Nobunaga, bloodsoaked though he was, was not just a fighter. He renamed the Saitô territory "Gifu" (modern Gifu Prefecture) and set about applying the econmic theories that he would later introduce to the country at large. With his policies of "rakuichi" and "rakuza", he established free markets in Gifu and tried to break the power of the old guilds - signing each edict with "Rule the country by force!"

"Wind, forest, fire, mountain" is a phrase from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and appeared on the banner of Nobunaga's enemy, Takeda Shingen. "A lifetime of prosperity" is part of the death poem of their mutual rival, Uesugi Kenshin. "Great light of the east" is a title that would later be given to Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Answer: The Takeda

Nobunaga's rise was not uninterrupted. In 1572, he came under attack by one of the older generation, a giant of the Sengoku Period, Takeda Shingen. After a lifetime of preparation, Shingen began his march on Kyôto, beginning by inflicting a series of defeats on Nobunaga and his allies. In the middle of the campaign, however, the old man died of illness.

Shingen's son, Katsuyori, attempted to carry on his father's work. In 1575, he besieged an Oda force at Nagashino Castle. Arriving to lift the siege, Nobunaga prepared his arquebusiers behind a line of wooden stockades. The famous Takeda cavalry charged. Those who made it through the volleys of fire found themselves blocked by the stockades and unable to engage the Oda infantry. This is the first battle in Japan's history in which firearms played a decisive role.

Answer: Akechi Mitsuhide

By 1582, Nobunaga's goal of ruling the country was within his grasp. He had destroyed the major clans of central Japan, such as the Takeda, Asai, Asakura and Uesugi. He had brutally destroyed religious centers of opposition, such as the ancient Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei and the rebel monks of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji. He controlled Kyôto itself. The Môri in the west and the Go-Hôjô in the east now awaited their turn.

But the run of success was near its bloody end. Akechi Mitsuhide had served Nobunaga since the conquest of Mino. In June 1582, for reasons that are still mysterious, he led his troops toward Kyôto, where Nobunaga was staying at the Honnô temple. Without warning, his troops surrounded and attacked their master's master. The great warlord, seeing the odds were hopeless, set fire to the temple and committed seppuku.

Answer: Monkey

Portraits of Hideyoshi hint at his well-attested ugliness, which accounts for his nickname - "Saru", meaning "monkey". Hideyoshi was a peasant from Nobunaga's domain of Owari. He began in Nobunaga's service as a mere serving-boy, but rose higher as his talents became apparent. In the 1560's, he was largely responsible for Nobunaga's victory over the Saitô clan. After this feat, he became one of his master's leading generals.

When Nobunaga was assassinated, his foremost ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu, was holidaying in Sakai (near Ôsaka). Hideyoshi, meanwhile, was besieging the Môri in the far south of Honshû. While Ieyasu was forced to flee back to his own lands Hideyoshi, concealing the news of the assassination from the Môri, negotiated a truce and then led his troops north in a famous forced march. He confronted and killed Mitsuhide, Nobunaga's assassin, and thereby established his claim to succeed his master.

Answer: His niece

Yodo's story is a tragic one. Her mother, O-ichi, was the younger sister of Nobunaga and was married for political reasons to Asai Nagamasa, Yodo's father. In 1570, Nobunaga attacked the Asakura clan, who had been allies of the Asai for generations. Nagamasa stayed true to the old alliance and betrayed Nobunaga. He paid for it with his life when, in 1573, Nobunaga overthrew his domain. O-ichi and her daughters were allowed to return to the Oda.

Yodo now gained a stepfather when Nobunaga married O-ichi to his retainer, Shibata Katsuie. After her uncle's death, however, Katsuie was one of those who tried to contend with Hideyoshi for the succession. He in his turn was overthrown and killed. O-ichi chose to die with her husband. Yodo and her sisters were taken into Hideyoshi's care. Yodo went on to become the concubine of the man who had killed her mother and stepfather.

Yodo's final hope was that Hideyori, her son by Hideyoshi and Nobunaga's grandnephew, would succeed his father and rule Japan - but it was not to be.

Answer: Laws to keep foreign traders out of Japan and prevent Japanese from leaving the country

The "sakoku", or exclusion policy is indeed a famous aspect of Japanese history. However, it was not introduced by Hideyoshi, who supported foreign trade. The policy did not begin to take form until the rise of Ieyasu and was not formalized until the reign of his grandson.

Hideyoshi's reforms had far-reaching effects and it is under him that we begin to see a truly unified Japan. His "kenchi", or land survey, cut through the antiquated customary laws by making the peasant cultivator responsible to the central government rather than his local Daimyô or temple. The edicts forbidding people to settle away from their home areas began the process of controlling the rônin who had plagued the civil war years. Finally, the fixing of class boundaries began the process of turning the samurai into a governing class. All these reforms would be of great use to the rulers who came after Hideyoshi - but none of those rulers would be descended from Hideyoshi himself.

Answer: Castles

Japanese history is retrospectively divided into politically defined periods. They are usually named after a place - the seat of political power during the period in question. For example, the Heian Period ends in 1185 when power passed from the nobility of Heian-Kyô to the samurai, who ruled from Kamakura. The Kamakura Period then begins.

Azuchi was the castle built by Nobunaga on the shore of Lake Biwa. It no longer exists, having met a fiery end at the same time as did Nobunaga himself. Momoyama is the castle built by Hideyoshi in Kyôto, now known as Fushimi Castle. The naming of this short period after these two castles reflects the brief historical moment in which these two men dominated Japan

Answer: Kanpaku

Hideyoshi, in all probability, would have liked to be appointed Shôgun by the Court, but he could not claim descent from the Minamoto clan, a prerequisite for the post. This did not, at a later date, prevent Ieyasu from becoming Shôgun. He simply claimed that he in fact was descended from them. As a genuine samurai it was, of course, easier for him to pull this off than it would have been for the peasant-born Hideyoshi.

In 1565, however, Hideyoshi was appointed Kanpaku, the ancient post of regent to the Emperor. As Kanpaku, he completed Nobunaga's conquest of Japan. His mastery of the country assured, he then passed on the title to his nephew and himself took the title of Taikô. This term is hard to translate, but in Hideyoshi's case it unambiguously gave him authority in all civil and military matters. As Taikô of Japan he prepared for his next step - the invasion of Korea.

Answer: He was a Christian

Konishi was a rarity; a Christian samurai. Along with Katô Kiyomasa, like himself a powerful Kyûshû Daimyô, he was chosen by Hideyoshi to spearhead the invasion of 1592, in which Korea was to be a stepping stone on the way to an invasion of Ming China.

Konishi and Katô were at first very successful, advancing all the way from Pusan to Pyong Yang and winning a decisive victory over the first Ming army sent to oppose them. As more Chinese forces crossed into Korea, however, Konishi was among the first to realize the impossibility of defeating a power as vast as China. But it was not until Hideyoshi's death, in 1598, that Konishi and his allies were able to end the war.

In 1600, Konishi sided against Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara. After his side's defeat, he was hunted down and executed - a terrible fate for a samurai. Unlike the others on the losing side, Konishi had not committed ritual suicide - because his Christian faith did not permit it.

Answer: To ensure the succession of his son

In 1593, Hideyoshi's concubine Yodo gave birth to a son, Hideyori. Hideyoshi, delighted, lavished affection on the baby boy and was determined to ensure that Hideyori succeeded him. In 1598, however, when Hideyoshi realized he was dying, Hideyori was still a child.

Hideyoshi had formed the Go-Tairô, the Council of Five, originally with the purpose of maintaining his reforms. Now, however, he changed his policy, using them instead to ensure Hideyori's future reign. The Go-Tairô were forced to swear oaths not once but twice as the desperate Hideyoshi tried to bind them to their word. Most of them were his loyal followers. The greatest of them, however, was Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had been ally of both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, but never a vassal.

Ieyasu may or may not have intended to break his oath all along. Either way, Hideyoshi had failed. After achieving so much he failed in the last test - to found a dynasty that would inherit the country he had unified.

Answer: Matsudaira Motoyasu

The Matsudaira were a small samurai clan, dominated by their powerful neighbors, the Imagawa. In 1560, when Imagawa Yoshimoto made his march on Kyôto, Motoyasu (as he then was) was ordered to accompany him. On the way to Kyôto, however, Yoshimoto was unexpectedly defeated and killed by Oda Nobunaga.

Motoyasu then entered into an alliance with Nobunaga, at the same time taking the new name of Ieyasu. This alliance was to serve both men well and neither ever betrayed it. As the junior partner in the alliance, Ieyasu aided Nobunaga throughout his career, while strengthening his own domain at the same time. The Court recognized his status in 1566 by awarding him the clan name of Tokugawa.

Ieyasu was aggrieved when Hideyoshi moved swiftly into top position after Nobunaga's death. Both men, however, were too wise to let their rivalry turn into open warfare. Instead, they came to their famous arrangement by which Ieyasu swapped his own domain for a new one in the east that was a) richer than the old one and b) further away from Hideyoshi.

Ieyasu spent the following years strengthening his new domain, wisely refusing to squander money and soldiers in the invasion of Korea. By the time of Hideyoshi's death, he was unquestionably the greatest Daimyô in Japan, and opposition to him had begun to coalesce.

Answer: Pre-arranged treachery by an enemy commander

Sekigahara took place on October 20, 1600. A second Tokugawa force, under Ieyasu's son, Hidetada, was supposed to arrive but missed the battle entirely after being attacked en route. Ishida Mitsunari was indeed killed, but not until the battle had been lost and he was caught while fleeing. No naval forces were involved, as the battlefield is not located by the sea.

Kobayakawa Hideaki, one of Mitsunari's commanders, was positioned on the high ground near Sekigahara. The plan was for him to wait until the two armies engaged, then charge down against Ieyasu's rear. Instead, as per his secret arrangement with Ieyasu, he began to attack and rout divisions belonging to his own side.

At least 160,000 men took part in the battle. When it was over, there was no one left in Japan capable of opposing Ieyasu.

Answer: They had supposedly inscribed an anti-Ieyasu message at a temple

In 1614, Toyotomi Hideyori and his mother Yodo restored the Hôkô-ji, a temple originally built by Hideyoshi. It included a bell with an inscription. Coincidentally, among the characters used in the inscription were the two that are used to write "Ieyasu". Claiming that they were trying to put a curse on him, Ieyasu began his campaign to get rid of the last possible source of resistance to his rule, besieging the Toyotomi in their castle at Ôsaka.

By 1615, their situation was desperate. Hideyori's wife Senhime, Ieyasu's granddaughter, pleaded with him to spare her husband's life, but to no avail. Ôsaka Castle was destroyed and Hideyori and Yodo committed suicide. The Toyotomi had been wiped out and Ieyasu was now master of unified Japan.

Answer: ate

While there is some truth in this saying, it does Ieyasu an injustice. His status as one of the greatest men in Japan's history does not lie in the way he gained supreme power, but in what he did with it. Nobunaga and Hideyoshi ended the civil wars by uniting the country under themselves. But there is no guarantee that the unity they created would have outlasted them. Nobunaga died too early for any judgment to be made on how he might have planned for the future. But Hideyoshi, instead of consolidating his new system, wasted his last years on the pointless invasion of Korea. Within a few years of his death, the great warlords were once again at each others' throats.

Ieyasu, once his rule was assured, never fought another war. He spent the rest of his life establishing his Edo Bakufu - a system of government designed to keep Japan stable and his own family at the head of it. He was nothing if not successful. Generations of Tokugawa Shôguns followed him, many utterly unimpressive, but the administration that served them never faltered. Japan was run by a group of men - the samurai - whose entire culture revolved around war, but who presided over the Edo Period, a period in which Japan experienced no war at all, external or internal, for 265 years. To put this in perspective, recall that it is longer than the United States has existed. Not until the arrival of Admiral Perry's "black ships" in 1853 did civil war return to Ieyasu's unified realm.

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