In order to achieve the national unification and to effect the modernisation of the country, it was necessary to dispense with all the red tape, the time-honoured superstitions and all other encumbrances lying in the way. It was not, however, an easy task to do away with all these things, for they had been held sacrosanct, so that to set them at defiance was but to brave the public opinion of the time. And none had been courageous enough to raise his hand against them, until Nobunaga decided to rid himself of all these feeble but tenacious shackles.
In the year 1571 Nobunaga attacked Mount Hiyei, for the turbulent shavelings of the mountain had sided with his enemies in the war of the preceding year, and burned down the Temple Yenryakuji to the ground. The emblem of the glory of Buddhism in Japan, which had stood for more than seven centuries, was thus turned to ashes. The next blow was struck at the recalcitrant priests of the temple of Negoro, belonging to the same sect as Kôya and situated near it. As for the Ikkô-sectarians with the Hongwanji as centre, the arms of Nobunaga were not so successful against them as against the other two temples, so that in the end he was compelled to conclude an armistice with them, but he was able in great measure to curtail their overbearing power. Of all these feats of arms, the burning of the temples on Mount Hiyei most dumbfounded Nobunaga's contemporaries, for the hallowed institution, held in the highest esteem rivalling even the prestige of the Imperial family, was thus prostrated in the dust, unable to rise up again to its former grandeur. It is much lamented by later historians that in the conflagration of the temple an immense number of invaluable documents, chronicles and other kinds of historical records was swept away forever, and they calumniated our hero on this account rather severely. It is true that if those materials had existed to this day, the history of our country would have been much more lucid and easy to comprehend than it is now, and if Nobunaga could have saved those papers first, and then burnt the temple, he would have acted far more wisely than he did, and have earned less censure from posterity. But history is not made for the sake of historians, and we need not much lament about losses which there was little possibility of avoiding. A nation ought to feel more grateful to a great man for giving her a promising future, than for preserving merely some souvenirs of the past. The bell announcing the dawn of modern Japan was rung by nobody but Nobunaga himself by this demolition of a decrepit institution.
It was not only those proud priests that defied Nobunaga and thereby suffered a heavy calamity, but the flourishing city of Sakai met the same fate. As the city had been accustomed to despise the military force of the condottieri, who abounded in the provinces neighbouring Kyoto and were easily to be bribed by money to change sides, it misunderstood the new rising power of Nobunaga, and dared to defy him. The insolence of the citizens of this wealthy town irritated Nobunaga and was punished by him severely. The defence works of the city were razed to the ground, and the city was placed under the control of a mayor appointed by him. The only city in Japan which promised to grow an autonomous political body thus succumbed to the new unifying force.
Nobunaga was born, however, not to be a mere insensate destroyer of ancient Japan. He seems also to have been gifted with the ability of reconstruction, an ability which was not meagre in him at all. That his special attention was directed to the improvement of the means of communication shows that he considered the work of organisation and consolidation to be as important as gaining a victory. The countenance which he gave to the Christian missionaries might have been the result of his repugnance at the degradation or intractability of the Buddhists in Japan. Could it not be imagined, however, that he was prone, in religious affairs as well as in other things, to seek the yet untried means thoroughly to renovate Japan? It is much to be regretted that he did not live long enough to see his aims attained. When he died, his destructive task had not reached its end, and his constructive work had barely begun. It was he, however, who indicated that Japan was a country which could be truly unified, and that what had come to be preserved and revered blindly should not all necessarily be so; and the grand task of building up the new Japan, initiated by him, was transferred to his successor, Hideyoshi.
It was in 1582 that Nobunaga died in Kyoto, and in the quarrel which ensued after his death among his Diadochi, Hideyoshi remained as the final successor. The year after, Ôsaka was chosen as the place of his residence. He was of very low origin, so that he had even less footing in the conventional old régime than his master Nobunaga, and therefore was more fitted to become the creator of the new Japan. He continued the course of conquest begun by Nobunaga, and annexed the whole of historic Japan within eight years from his accession to the political power. The most noteworthy item in his internal administration was the land survey which he ordered to be undertaken parallel to the progress of his arms. The great estates of Japan were one after another subjected to a uniform measurement, and thus was fashioned the standard of new taxation. This land-survey began in 1590 and continued till the death of Hideyoshi. The proportion of the tax levied to the area of the taxable land must still have varied in different localities, but the mode of taxation was now simplified thereby to a great extent, for the old systems, each of which was peculiar to an individual estate, were henceforth mostly abrogated. The manorial system of old Japan was entirely swept away.
The unity of the nation under Hideyoshi, that is to say, Japan at the disposal of a single person, an illuminated despot, might have been really the result of the long process of unification gradually accentuated, but it may also be considered as one of the causes which brought about a still stronger national consciousness. The expulsion of the foreign missionaries and the prohibition of the Christian propaganda did not constitute a religious persecution in its strict sense. That Hideyoshi was no enthusiastic Buddhist should be accepted as a negative proof of it. Most probably he had no religious aversion against Christianity, but the intermeddling of those missionaries in the politics of our country infuriated him, for the demand for the solid unification of the nation, embodied in him, was against such an encroachment. The persecution, which crowned many adventurers with the honour of martyrdom, is to be imputed to the lack of prudence on the part of those missionaries.
As to the motive of the Korean invasion undertaken by Hideyoshi, various interpretations have been put forth by various historians. Some explain it as mere love of adventure and fame. Others attribute it to the necessity of keeping malcontent warriors engaged abroad, in order to keep the country pacific. As Hideyoshi himself died while the expedition was still in progress, giving neither explanation nor hint of his real motive, it is very difficult for us to fathom his innermost thought. It would not be altogether a mistaken idea, however, if we consider it as an outcome of his unifying aspiration carried a few steps farther outside the empire.
When we consider his brilliant career from its beginning, the amount of work which he accomplished greatly exceeded what we could expect from a single ordinary mortal. He performed his share of the construction of new Japan admirably. As to the organisation of what Hideyoshi had roughly put together, it was reserved for the prudent intelligence of Iyeyasu to accomplish.