While Taikosama seemed every day becoming more timid and afraid of what steps might be taken by the Christian party, an embassy arrived from Manila, to whose demand he replied that “he put to death the Franciscans because they preached the Christian religion in his empire contrary to his express command.” But he did not pursue his harsh measures any further. He wished to get rid of such disturbers of the empire; and “hearing that Spain and Portugal were now under one prince, he became jealous to the last degree that the Jesuits of these two nations concerted together, under the color of religion, to bring Japan under the same yoke.” He determined, therefore, while all the Christian princes were in Corea, to send away by ship all the foreign priests. But still he allowed a few to remain in Nagasaki, on condition that they did not stir out of town, nor preach.

He ordered Terasawa, governor of Nagasaki, to assemble all the Jesuits and ship them off by the first convenience to China. This, in truth, seems to have been the only resource left to him if he wished to retain the government of the country, or to preserve it from once more undergoing all the horrors of a civil war. If he had heard of the doings of Philip II. in the Netherlands during the few years since the first arrival of these foreign priests in Japan, he might have learned lessons of more decided measures for refractory subjects, and have carried out his wishes in ridding Japan of them by a more summary method of persecution.

During the summer of 1598 Taikosama was attacked by dysentery, and was so ill that his life was despaired of. His son (real or supposed) was then about six years of age. He saw that, in all probability, the power, after leaving his own hands, would fall into those of Iyeyas, now ruler of the eight provinces around Yedo. He therefore determined to strike up a family alliance between his son and the granddaughter of Iyeyas, thinking he would thereby induce the latter to throw his whole weight into the scale on behalf of his own grandchild and her husband, and that thus the power would descend to his own family. The marriage was immediately celebrated; and Iyeyas swore that he would turn the government over to Taiko’s son so soon as he was able to rule by himself. Still further to strengthen the party of his son, he appointed five governors of the country (as Gotairo), and four others, to be about the boy, with instructions to obey Iyeyas, to acknowledge his son as sovereign so soon as he came of age, to continue all the lords in their places as he had appointed, and to oppose all innovations on the laws now established. To strengthen the position of his son still further, he appointed boards of officers, Tchiuro and Goboonyo, or five rulers.

On his deathbed, such little animosity as he may have had toward the foreign priests seems to have been mitigated, as he sent for, or allowed, Father Rodriguez to visit him, when he thanked the father for the trouble he had taken in visiting him in health as well as in sickness.

A temporary amendment enabled him to rouse himself, when his chief thoughts ran upon strengthening the citadel of Osaka, where 17,000 houses were pulled down to build the wall, which was a league in circuit. He only survived a few days, dying upon September 15, 1598; all his nobility, according to the fathers, “being much better pleased to see him on the list of dead gods than in the land of living men.”

CHAPTER V
GOVERNMENT OF IYEYAS

With the removal of Taikosama, the hopes of the Roman Catholic party revived.

Once more the keystone of the arch was removed, and the ordinary institutions of the country were found unequal to the crisis.

The deceased ruler had foreseen this, and had made such arrangements as he could to strengthen the position of his young son. He foresaw that Iyeyas was the man of the future; the man most fitted by talent, military capacity, and position to take the reins. He therefore tried to bind him by ties of marriage, as well as by oaths, to support the youthful inheritor of power. He had, as one of his methods of governing, induced or compelled the nobles to lavish large sums of money in presents to himself, in keeping up large retinues, in making expensive journeys between their country residences and the capital, and in building palaces in the two cities of Osaka and Fusimi. By these means the nobles were impoverished. They could not afford to keep many armed followers. Mowori of Nagato had been lately compelled to give up some of his territories, and to pay his respects at the court. Satsuma had suffered during the recent wars in Kiusiu. Iyeyas alone had kept aloof from Taikosama. He had kept his court and established himself at Yedo, where he was allowed to remain undisturbed, an object of jealousy as well as of fear. Still he seems to have been occasionally about the court of Taikosama, as he is mentioned in one of the letters as being present at the meeting of Taiko and his nephew. He perhaps kept Taikosama’s mother still as a hostage in Yedo. Each of these potentates, in all probability, knew and read the other’s thoughts—each thinking that the territories and the position of both would fall into the hands of the longest liver. The most dissembling are often the most credulous, and Taikosama was catching at a straw when he summoned Iyeyas to his deathbed. Iyeyas had refused to visit him on a former occasion without a hostage in the person of his mother. On this occasion he came, but, no doubt, with sufficient precautions. He saw that a political crisis was impending, and he knew that the fruit he had long waited for was falling into his hands. There was little reason now why he should not seize it.

The only persons who seem not to have descried the change that was at hand were the Roman Catholic fathers. By their own letters they do not appear to have paid any court to the sun rising in the east. No missions are mentioned to Yedo, or in the Kwanto; no interpreter is sent to the court of Iyeyas; no conversions are spoken of there as in Miako and the west; and no priests were located there, who might have been acceptable if they had been able to speak in the dialect of the eastern provinces. The Jesuit fathers, up to this time, had rarely mentioned any of the provinces east of Mino or Owarri.