Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm fair Dowdy and I'm deleted Chuck reboarding and not
Speaker 1: that long ago, listener Brandon sent us a pretty impressive
Speaker 1: list of East Asian history topics. I mean it really
Speaker 1: covered everything from feudal Japan to twentieth century Chinese history.
Speaker 1: But one topic in particular really appealed to me because
Speaker 1: in a way, it picks up where we left off
Speaker 1: on an earlier episode, the one about Admiral Ye of
Speaker 1: Korea and his impressive turtle ships, and if you remember
Speaker 1: in that podcast, Admiral Ye's tactical genius and advanced technology.
Speaker 1: Those iron clad ships, if you'll remember, helped repel not
Speaker 1: one but two Japanese invasions in the fifteen nineties. Not
Speaker 1: long after Ye's victory at the Roaring Channel, the Japanese
Speaker 1: began a slow retreat, one sped up considerably in when
Speaker 1: Toyo told me Hideyoshi, one of Japan's great unifiers and
Speaker 1: the mastermind of that invasion, died suddenly, leaving only a
Speaker 1: very young son and a bunch of regents. So anybody
Speaker 1: who was anybody in Japan wanted to be back home
Speaker 1: at that point. They wanted to be ready and in
Speaker 1: place for whatever power grab was inevitably about to happen.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that moment when they're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who is going to control Japan while
Speaker 1: this little boy is coming of age, it might really
Speaker 1: help to have a refresher on the work that Hideyoshi
Speaker 1: had already done to unify the country before he died
Speaker 1: so suddenly, and sixteenth century Japan, as you might remember
Speaker 1: from the earlier podcast, was just a mess of civil
Speaker 1: wars between these powerful feudal lords called daimios, and Hideyoshi,
Speaker 1: who had been born a peasant in fifteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: eventually rose to the really powerful position of henchman for
Speaker 1: Oda Nobunaga, who was the first of the great Unifiers
Speaker 1: and Japan's de facto ruler. So when Nobunaga died, he
Speaker 1: d O she succeeded him as ruler. He couldn't take
Speaker 1: the title of showgun because of his birth and was
Speaker 1: instead called regent. But once in charge Hee O, she
Speaker 1: set about trying to unify the country, and Korean invasions
Speaker 1: were actually sort of an attempt to do just that.
Speaker 1: I guess the logic being if you're fighting someone else,
Speaker 1: maybe you're not fighting each other, or at least not
Speaker 1: so much. But as we already know, hed O she
Speaker 1: died suddenly in the middle of the second invasions, leaving
Speaker 1: only a five year old son, toyotolmi Hire. So in
Speaker 1: order to keep power in the family until his son
Speaker 1: came of age, he set up a regency or hed
Speaker 1: O she did rather five warriors who would co rule
Speaker 1: and govern the country in the meantime while his son
Speaker 1: was growing up. I mean, as we know from lots
Speaker 1: of podcasts from all sorts of countries, the regent system
Speaker 1: is usually pretty shaky unless the region is somebody's mom
Speaker 1: and um, it seemed unlikely that these five powerful men
Speaker 1: in the country were gonna be okay, just standing by
Speaker 1: while this boy grew up. The lead regent, Toku gala Iyeyasu,
Speaker 1: was another one of these self made warrior types, kind
Speaker 1: of like Hideyoshi, who, surprisingly enough though had once been
Speaker 1: Hideyoshi's enemy. So it's time to get into his story
Speaker 1: because he's going to prove to be the main regent
Speaker 1: coming out of this myth. So just a little bit
Speaker 1: of background on him. Tokagala Ieyasu was born in fifteen
Speaker 1: forty three, really in the middle of all those civil
Speaker 1: wars that we mentioned. It showed too with his early upbringing.
Speaker 1: When he was two years old, his mother permanently separated
Speaker 1: from his father after shifting allegiances changed feelings between their
Speaker 1: two families, and then when he was four, he was
Speaker 1: sent away as hostage to the Immigawa family, and on
Speaker 1: his way they or he was kidnapped by their arrivals,
Speaker 1: the Oda family. He was kept for two years with
Speaker 1: the Oda family before being released to the Imagawa where
Speaker 1: he received military training and took up falconry. So being
Speaker 1: released from your kidnapping family to do the hostage family exactly.
Speaker 1: But he did have a pretty important presence with his
Speaker 1: hostage family, at least because by his late teens he
Speaker 1: had become a military leader for the head of the family.
Speaker 1: But he hadn't completely forgotten his own people either, because
Speaker 1: in fifteen sixty, when the head of the Immagawa family
Speaker 1: was killed in battle, i Yasu took the chance to
Speaker 1: leave them, get out of there, make sure his wife
Speaker 1: and his son could get out too, and returned to
Speaker 1: his own castle and take up the duties as head
Speaker 1: of his clan, because by this point that was his position,
Speaker 1: and he really worked with a lot of He worked
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways to re establish himself with
Speaker 1: his family. He not only fortified his own domains building
Speaker 1: at the army's but he also reformed laws and tax
Speaker 1: codes and expanded his domains too, so that by the
Speaker 1: early fifteen eighties he was one of the country's most
Speaker 1: important daimyo. So it's probably not too surprising then that
Speaker 1: when Hideyoshi took up his old patron Nobunaga's power, i
Speaker 1: Yasu was kind of his main rival, the other most
Speaker 1: powerful guy in the land right. Finally, though, the two
Speaker 1: came to an agreement Ieyasu's fealty in exchange for maintaining
Speaker 1: control of his own lands. Still, though, Eyas who kept
Speaker 1: his distance from Hueyoshi, he shifted his base to the
Speaker 1: fishing village of edo Net which is now Tokyo, which,
Speaker 1: according to Encyclopedia Britannica, was a whole month's trip away
Speaker 1: from Hideyoshi's headquarters in Kyoto, So he didn't want to
Speaker 1: be anywhere near Hideyoshi, but he also kept his nose
Speaker 1: out of all this Korean expedition, saying pretty busy at home,
Speaker 1: so that when Hideyoshi died in I, Yasu was basically
Speaker 1: the most powerful guy in Japan, with these huge armies
Speaker 1: and an excellent infrastructure and excellent organizational system too in
Speaker 1: his land. So he doesn't seem exactly like the type
Speaker 1: who would be cool just hanging out as regent and
Speaker 1: um not trying to get a little more power. So
Speaker 1: Yeyasu began pretty quickly doing things that didn't look that
Speaker 1: appropriate for a regent. He married off like his nine
Speaker 1: sons and daughters to all these other powerful lords in
Speaker 1: the land to create very strong alliances. But he met
Speaker 1: with a challenger to he wasn't the only the only
Speaker 1: person who had his his eye on getting some more
Speaker 1: power out of the situation exactly, And that person who
Speaker 1: challenged him was Lord Ishida Mitsunati, twenty years younger than
Speaker 1: Yasu and more of an official than a warrior. Mitsunati
Speaker 1: had been Dyoshi's inspector general. He was a stiff bureaucrat,
Speaker 1: good with numbers, but he hadn't made a great impression
Speaker 1: on quite a few Damio. Though. Mitsunati wasn't himself on
Speaker 1: the regency council. He quickly started stirring up trouble among
Speaker 1: the lords in an attempt to better his position. His
Speaker 1: interference angered some of the Yasus, and then though angered
Speaker 1: them enough actually that they wanted to have him executed,
Speaker 1: but Yasu spared him. He did, but by the next year,
Speaker 1: Mitsunari was really kind of right back at it, and
Speaker 1: he had teamed up with one of the other regents,
Speaker 1: Usugi Kaka Katsu. And of all of the alliances Mitsunari
Speaker 1: could have made, this was a really, really dangerous one
Speaker 1: for Ieyasu because his lands abutted those of Kaka Katsu,
Speaker 1: and that meant that Ato, his home base where he
Speaker 1: put in so much of his effort, was at serious risk.
Speaker 1: I Yasu, though, of course, was not going to make
Speaker 1: this power grab without allies of his own, and he
Speaker 1: had a pretty good one on his side, dat Massumane,
Speaker 1: who was called the one Eyed Dragon. He had lost
Speaker 1: an eye to smallpox as a child, and Massamane helped
Speaker 1: check Kaka Katsu and seized his castle. During this period
Speaker 1: when both of the armies were just picking off castles
Speaker 1: and fortresses in an attempt to try to control two
Speaker 1: main roads on Japan's main island. So one road that
Speaker 1: was in the east between Kyoto and Ato, and the
Speaker 1: other in the west that went through the mountains. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is compared sometimes to a game of chest this period,
Speaker 1: and you can really get that fence, you know, picking
Speaker 1: off the castles in a game. Some of these battles
Speaker 1: along the way were really big ones. Thousands were killed,
Speaker 1: for instance in the August sixteen hundred siege of Fushimi Castle,
Speaker 1: but that was really nothing compared to the main attraction,
Speaker 1: which was a final showdown between a Yasu and Mitsunati
Speaker 1: at Segakihara, a tiny but strategically located crossroads village. On
Speaker 1: October seventh, six hundred, Eyasi left Edo with thirty thousand men.
Speaker 1: By the twenty his men had taken Ogaki Castle, but
Speaker 1: got word that Mitsunati was moving towards Segakihara, a narrow
Speaker 1: pass and an important crossroads. Then at two am, Yeyasu,
Speaker 1: now with seventy five thousand men, went out to meet Mittunati,
Speaker 1: who had combined who had a combined force, I should say,
Speaker 1: of about eighty thousand men. So according to an article
Speaker 1: on the battle by John Murphy Jr. In Military history.
Speaker 1: The two armies, Ayasu's Eastern Army and mit scenaris Western Army,
Speaker 1: met at about four am, and mit Scenari was ready
Speaker 1: to go then ready for an all out night battle,
Speaker 1: but he had the idea of veto by his strategist,
Speaker 1: who thought that night battles were just for undergodogs. And
Speaker 1: you know, mit Scenari did have more troops and the
Speaker 1: Western army really was thought to have the advantage here,
Speaker 1: So instead mit Scenari withdrew to a mountain outside the
Speaker 1: village and eeyasu Is set up camp on another mountain.
Speaker 1: But Yas's position was really a lot better because he
Speaker 1: could see the whole valley, and as his men started coming,
Speaker 1: he bunched them really closely together. I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: Murphy described the formations as being quote much like a
Speaker 1: modern army um, instead of being spread out across the
Speaker 1: whole valley, which is how Mitsunari's men were. But Mitsunati
Speaker 1: also had some loyalty issues to be concerned with, pretty
Speaker 1: major one. Yeah. I mean, remember how we said that
Speaker 1: he hadn't been popular with the Daimio warriors back in
Speaker 1: his bureaucrat days. We mentioned that a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: of particular concern was kobe Ya Kawahidiaki, a powerful daimiyo
Speaker 1: and mits Nati supposed ally so. Mits and I had
Speaker 1: suspected that Heidiaki might be up to no good. Back
Speaker 1: in the Korean Wars, mits Andati had criticized Heidiaki's leadership,
Speaker 1: and the result was a major drop in land revenues
Speaker 1: for Heidiyaki. He basically got a big pay cut. He
Speaker 1: had a good reason to have a grudge against Mitcenari
Speaker 1: basically right, but Mitsunati couldn't come out and accuse him
Speaker 1: of anything treacherous. Because Hideaki had sixteen thousand men, one
Speaker 1: of the largest forces in the Western Army, his suspicions
Speaker 1: were on target, though mitsinati suspicions were. Hideaki had secretly
Speaker 1: promised Iasu that he desert and changed sides, something that
Speaker 1: was especially meaningful for ea Sus since Heidiaki was the
Speaker 1: guardian of the boy that everybody was pretending to fight
Speaker 1: for in the first place when they were supposed to
Speaker 1: be reagents for exactly, and his name would add legitimacy
Speaker 1: to Ea SU's win. Also, another of Mitsnati's allies was
Speaker 1: planning on ditching him, and that was Kawa hero Ea,
Speaker 1: and he was planning on leaving with his three thousand men,
Speaker 1: something that Mittinati never knew about or suspected he was.
Speaker 1: That he didn't know to be worried about him. Fighting
Speaker 1: started pretty early in the morning and after they had
Speaker 1: delayed the night battle. But there was really heavy fog
Speaker 1: and it produced a tense atmosphere before battle actually began
Speaker 1: because both sides could hear each other getting ready, you know,
Speaker 1: drying out their clothes, getting their armor on, but they
Speaker 1: couldn't actually see them. Eas's ally in Almafa led the
Speaker 1: charge though with his red armored Red Devil cavalry. I
Speaker 1: mean they were you can look look at pictures of
Speaker 1: them and they're pretty scary, but they're sudden. Charge was
Speaker 1: actually not cool with the guys on the same side,
Speaker 1: on the Eastern Army side, because leading the charge was
Speaker 1: considered a very honorable thing to do. Is the other
Speaker 1: daimio in the front just set off too. They started charging,
Speaker 1: and soon enough twenty thousand men were rushing at the
Speaker 1: enemy shouting served the nation for seven lives and um,
Speaker 1: I guess to us it sounds really chaotic, kind of
Speaker 1: like not following instructions, not being an orderly army. But
Speaker 1: according to Murphy, it was quote one of the last
Speaker 1: great cavalry charges in the age of the Samurai, and
Speaker 1: it certainly had an effect. It certainly shook up the
Speaker 1: Western army. Yeah, one of the survivors of the charge
Speaker 1: remembered quote ally and foe pushed against each other. The
Speaker 1: musket fire and the shouts echoed from the heavens and
Speaker 1: shook the earth. The black smoke rose, making the day
Speaker 1: as night. But that dramatic charge plus five cannons on
Speaker 1: Iasu side didn't actually determine the battle. Two hours later,
Speaker 1: at ten a m. It was still anyone's guess as
Speaker 1: to who was gonna win. Yeah, you'd think with Red
Speaker 1: Devils the battle would end quickly, but it just seemed
Speaker 1: to be going on and on, and fighting carried on
Speaker 1: for another hour and a half after that, and finally
Speaker 1: started to shift to the Western Army's favor. But the
Speaker 1: West really needed a strong final push in order to win,
Speaker 1: especially because certain Western leaders were not really obeying mit
Speaker 1: Scenari's orders and and not in the way we were
Speaker 1: talking about with the Red Devils, like starting a charge
Speaker 1: just flat out not going to fight at all. For instance,
Speaker 1: hero Ea, who had of course secretly switched sides, didn't
Speaker 1: give the signal he was supposed to to call another
Speaker 1: clan into battle for the west, and when trying to
Speaker 1: mobilize the armies of some clans that really hadn't seen
Speaker 1: much action yet, mit Scenari got this response from one
Speaker 1: of his leaders, quote, in this battle, each clan must
Speaker 1: look to its own affairs and fight its own battles
Speaker 1: with all its might. There is no time to be
Speaker 1: concer earned with the affairs of others in front, behind,
Speaker 1: or on either flank. That's not really something you want
Speaker 1: to hear from a guy who's supposed to be fighting
Speaker 1: for your cause. So Missonari decided it was time to
Speaker 1: call his supposed ally Hideyaki into battle, and so he
Speaker 1: lit a bonfire to send him the signal. But Hidiaki
Speaker 1: didn't budge with his enormous army. He just sat on
Speaker 1: his mountaintop, not answering Mitsunari's command, but not changing sides either. Finally, Ieyasu,
Speaker 1: who was wondering if Heidiaki had changed his mind about deserting,
Speaker 1: sent one of his guys to have it out with him.
Speaker 1: The chieftain messenger held a short sword to Hideaki's gut
Speaker 1: and told him, quote, the battle has already begun. Now
Speaker 1: is the time for either victory or defeat. There's some
Speaker 1: doubt about your intent to change sides. If you have lied,
Speaker 1: I'll run this through you right here. So that makes
Speaker 1: um Ieyasu's intentions pretty clear. But that threat was made
Speaker 1: even clearer when Eeyasu ordered his troops to open fire
Speaker 1: on Hidiaki. I mean, after all, if they weren't going
Speaker 1: to dessert, they would just be considered enemies again. And
Speaker 1: knowing that this was really his last chance to keep
Speaker 1: his promise to i Yasu, Hidiaki finally, after forty five
Speaker 1: minutes of sitting on this mountain with pretty much everybody
Speaker 1: trying to see what he was going to do waiting
Speaker 1: to see what he was gonna do, rallied his men
Speaker 1: and cried, our target is Otani Yochugu, who was one
Speaker 1: of the major commanders of the Western Army. And that target,
Speaker 1: though Sugu was really sickly and almost blind, he was
Speaker 1: actually directing his troops from a leader during the battle.
Speaker 1: But he must have suspected that Hideaki was going to
Speaker 1: turn tail because half of his men were already facing
Speaker 1: towards their supposed ally, you know, waiting for him to
Speaker 1: come down that hill. They fought off the charge as
Speaker 1: best as they could, but they were pretty tired, you know.
Speaker 1: They've been fighting for hours by this point, and they
Speaker 1: were eventually enveloped by enemies. And when Sugu realized that
Speaker 1: he was done for, he ordered his aid to cut
Speaker 1: off his head and keep it out of e SU's hands.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to be a battle trophy. Essentially, As
Speaker 1: news of Hidiaki's treachery spread through the Western army, morale
Speaker 1: just kind of skydived. Guys started fighting just to get out,
Speaker 1: and soon Mitt Naughty himself led the field. The battle
Speaker 1: was over by two pm, with Ea Su victorious. He
Speaker 1: reviewed the heads that were taken in battle, and a
Speaker 1: party soon hunted down Mit Naughty and he was executed
Speaker 1: along with several other commanders and Mit Scenari really did
Speaker 1: prove to be e SU's last major threat to power,
Speaker 1: because after the battle, Eau banished or seized the lands
Speaker 1: of a lot of the other so called rebellious damio
Speaker 1: and redistributed the land to people who he trusted more.
Speaker 1: You know, really trusted allies and adjusted the administration of
Speaker 1: his government too. He would place his best, most trusted
Speaker 1: ends in central Japan, you know, so he felt particularly secure,
Speaker 1: and he'd create new regulations to to keep daimio and
Speaker 1: nobles and clerics all in check. He even pulled a
Speaker 1: versai and kind of had everyone pitching on building and
Speaker 1: expanding the castle at Edo. Daimio would live in the
Speaker 1: mansions that surrounded that. In sixteen o three, the Imperial
Speaker 1: Court appointed him show gun, and after two years he retired,
Speaker 1: leaving his title to his son, hed Tata. Yasu had
Speaker 1: earned his power and demonstrated it decisively in battle. But
Speaker 1: if his son was going to continue in his position
Speaker 1: and establish a Tokagawa Shogunate, the family needed to be
Speaker 1: one percent free of rival. And there was still one
Speaker 1: hanging around, wasn't there? Yes, there was, but the one
Speaker 1: who started this first, the one who all of this
Speaker 1: fighting was about. So by this point, Toya told me
Speaker 1: Hideyoshi's son, Toyo told me Hidori was all grown up,
Speaker 1: and many of the old lords, even though they were
Speaker 1: outwardly loyal to Yasu and his him, we're still secretly
Speaker 1: loyal to the memory of Hedyoshi and by extension, the
Speaker 1: memory and the future rule of his son and as
Speaker 1: long as they lived. Easu really played it pretty cool.
Speaker 1: He allowed Heidore to stay in his defensive castle to
Speaker 1: govern his own lands, you know, to have some measure
Speaker 1: of freedom and responsibility. Yasu even married his granddaughter off
Speaker 1: to Hedor, hoping that that would smooth things over, you know,
Speaker 1: let everybody know that he was not going to mess
Speaker 1: with this kid. But when the last of Hedoshi's loyal
Speaker 1: daimo died in sixteen eleven, I Yasu started to make
Speaker 1: plans to eliminate his son, and in sixteen fourteen he
Speaker 1: finally made his move, claiming that he Diori had tried
Speaker 1: to jinx him with this inscription on a bronze bell,
Speaker 1: you know, really just an excuse. He raised ninety thousand
Speaker 1: ronan and attacked Osaka Castle to try to kill the
Speaker 1: twenty two year old Diori, just so his family would
Speaker 1: be one in the there, but Asaka Castle was super
Speaker 1: strong and it withheld the siege. Eventually, though, Yasu tricked
Speaker 1: Titiori into a truce where he filled his outer moats
Speaker 1: and tore down the outer fortifications. Only months after this
Speaker 1: had been done, Eeyasu attacked him again. Hitiori ended up
Speaker 1: committing suicide and his young son was killed in the battle.
Speaker 1: Iyasu's own family continued to rule a unified Japan until
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight, so he certainly succeeded in establishing his
Speaker 1: family line. And just kind of a fun fact before
Speaker 1: we leave this story, because I know, I mean, people
Speaker 1: love ninja, right, Ninja's were really important to warfare during
Speaker 1: this period, and I mean you kind of think of
Speaker 1: them now as assassin's clad in black. But according to
Speaker 1: an article in military history by John Bertrand, part of
Speaker 1: Ieyasu's success came from the fact that he controlled most
Speaker 1: of the ninja provinces, so he had a lot of
Speaker 1: potential spies on his hands. And and I didn't even
Speaker 1: know that there were ninja provinces. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: special ninja villages that looked normal to the naked eye,
Speaker 1: but we're really filled with these secret booby traps and
Speaker 1: things like rice patties that could be flooded as moats,
Speaker 1: and lots of young boys and men training to become ninjas.
Speaker 1: It really doesn't surprised me that he went out now
Speaker 1: knowing that he had ninjas on his side, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he had all of this reconnaissance and that
Speaker 1: really supposedly helped him a lot leading up to Sekigahara.
Speaker 1: So now we know a little bit about Eosu's secret
Speaker 1: weapon and how he managed to went out. It was
Speaker 1: because he had some ninja spies on his side, And
Speaker 1: we also had a little bit of secret ninja like
Speaker 1: help with putting together this podcast because of course, as
Speaker 1: you've noticed, we are not the best at Japanese pronunciations,
Speaker 1: so we got some help from our coworker, fellow podcaster
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang and Um he is also a Japanese speaker
Speaker 1: in addition to as many other myriad talents. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really great to have some pronunciation help
Speaker 1: so that we can cover really awesome Japanese history stories.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, any mistakes we made are
Speaker 1: not a reflection upon him. We did our best. So
Speaker 1: if you have any other Japanese history you want to
Speaker 1: suggest anything you want to say about Um, I don't
Speaker 1: know ninja strategy. It was interesting to learn that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of modern sort of spy reconnaissance techniques
Speaker 1: that are maybe partly inspired by Ninja technique, So if
Speaker 1: you have anything you want to say about that, feel
Speaker 1: free to email us that History podcast at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: We're also on Twitter at Misston History, and we're on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about some of the things that we discussed in this podcast,
Speaker 1: Ninja in particular, we do have an article called how
Speaker 1: Ninja's Work and you can look that at by visiting
Speaker 1: our homepage at www dot how Stuff Work dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
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