Who was Toyotomi Hideyoshi?

In 1558 Hideyoshi joined the Oda clan as an ashigaru under Oda Nobunaga, the ambitious lord then consolidating control over Owari Province. He started as Nobunaga's sandal-bearer, a post that carried more status than the title suggests, and is credited by biographers with overseeing repairs at Kiyosu Castle and managing kitchen affairs, though some of these details are considered embellished by later storytellers. In 1561 he married One, the adopted daughter of Asano Nagakatsu. He later helped repair Sunomata Castle in hostile territory, and legend credits him with building a fort there overnight and finding a secret route into Mount Inaba that induced the local garrison to surrender.

His value to Nobunaga went beyond construction work. In 1564 he proved himself as a negotiator, persuading several Mino warlords, including the Saito clan's own strategist Takenaka Shigeharu, to defect through generous bribery, which helped secure Nobunaga's victory at the Siege of Inabayama Castle in 1567. By 1568 Hideyoshi had become one of Nobunaga's leading generals and adopted the name Hashiba Hideyoshi, combining characters borrowed from two of Nobunaga's other senior retainers along with two rival commanders. Over the following decade he commanded or took part in a long string of campaigns, including the retreat from Kanegasaki in 1570, the Battle of Anegawa the same year, sieges against the Azai and Asakura clans, the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, and a lengthy effort from 1577 onward to conquer the Chugoku region from the Mori clan, culminating in the Siege of Takamatsu in 1582. Along the way Nobunaga rewarded him with territory in northern Omi Province, where he built up the town of Nagahama and expanded a firearms factory at Kunitomo.

On June 21, 1582, while Hideyoshi was besieging Takamatsu, Nobunaga and his heir Nobutada were killed by the retainer Akechi Mitsuhide in the Honno-ji incident. Hideyoshi quickly made peace with the Mori clan he had been fighting and marched to confront Mitsuhide, defeating him thirteen days later at the Battle of Yamazaki. This victory positioned him as Nobunaga's effective successor. He began building Osaka Castle that same year on the site of a temple Nobunaga had destroyed, a project not completed until 1597, and it would later serve as the Toyotomi clan's last stronghold.

Succession to Nobunaga's authority was not automatic. At a meeting of daimyo at Kiyosu Castle, Hideyoshi backed Nobunaga's infant grandson Hidenobu as heir rather than either of Nobunaga's surviving adult sons, a choice that provoked Shibata Katsuie into open rebellion alongside Oda Nobutaka. Hideyoshi crushed Katsuie's forces at the Battle of Shizugatake in 1583, leaving him in control of roughly thirty provinces. A further challenge came from Nobunaga's son Nobukatsu, who allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu; their forces fought to an inconclusive standstill at Komaki and Nagakute in 1584. Hideyoshi and Ieyasu never met in direct battle, and after both sides lost key commanders they withdrew. Hideyoshi eventually made peace with Nobukatsu, and after the 1586 Tensho earthquake forced him to abandon further plans against Ieyasu, he sent his own sister and mother to Ieyasu's side as hostages, after which Ieyasu agreed to submit to him.

Rather than pursue the title of shogun, Hideyoshi arranged adoption into the noble Konoe family and secured the courtly offices of daijo-daijin, or Chancellor, and in 1585 the position of kampaku, Imperial Regent, becoming the first person of base birth ever to hold it. That same year the imperial court granted him the new clan name Toyotomi. He built the lavish Jurakudai palace in 1587 and hosted Emperor Go-Yozei there the following year.

With court authority secured, Hideyoshi spent the later 1580s extending military control across the whole archipelago. In 1585 his forces subdued Kii Province in the Siege of Negoro-ji, burning the temple complex and its warrior monks, and the same year a Toyotomi army of some 113,000 men overwhelmed Chosokabe Motochika's roughly 40,000 defenders to take Shikoku. In 1586 Hideyoshi and his half-brother Toyotomi Hidenaga led a combined force of 200,000 against the Shimazu clan's 30,000 men in Kyushu, besieging their stronghold at Kagoshima Castle until the Shimazu surrendered.

In 1588 Hideyoshi ordered a sword hunt, banning ordinary peasants from owning weapons and melting confiscated arms down for use in building a great statue of the Buddha in Kyoto. The policy cut off a major source of peasant unrest and locked in a rigid separation between the warrior class and everyone else. In 1590 he turned against the Later Hojo clan at Odawara, deploying an unusually theatrical siege featuring entertainers and musicians alongside troops, and during the campaign he persuaded Ieyasu to trade his five provinces for eight Hojo-held provinces in the Kanto region. The following year, 1591, Hideyoshi's forces put down the Kunohe rebellion in Mutsu Province, a conflict that began as a succession dispute within the Nanbu clan; its suppression in September 1591 marked the final military action needed to complete the unification of Japan under his rule.

In 1591 Hideyoshi's three-year-old son Tsurumatsu died, followed by the death of his half-brother Hidenaga from illness. He responded by adopting his nephew Hidetsugu as heir in January 1592 and stepping down from the kampaku title to become taiko, a retired regent who retained real power. That same year he launched the invasion of Korea, intending eventual conquest of Ming China and openly describing ambitions that extended toward India and the Philippines. Japanese forces under commanders including Ukita Hideie, Konishi Yukinaga, and Kato Kiyomasa took Seoul within weeks and pushed deep into the peninsula, but Ming China intervened on Korea's behalf in 1593, and the destruction of the Japanese navy by Admiral Yi Sun-sin cut off supply lines and stalled the campaign.

The birth of a second son, Hideyori, in 1593 complicated the succession Hideyoshi had just arranged. Suspicion fell on Hidetsugu, who was stripped of his titles in 1595, exiled, and ordered to commit suicide, after which his family members were executed in Kyoto. Hideyoshi then secured blood-signed loyalty oaths from major daimyo, including Ieyasu, to protect Hideyori's position. A second invasion of Korea launched under Kobayakawa Hideaki in the mid-1590s made little headway and left Japanese troops pinned down, even as individual battles such as Sacheon in 1598 went in Japan's favor.

Hideyoshi died at Fushimi Castle on September 18, 1598, reportedly telling his assembled generals that he depended on them for everything and had nothing else to leave behind. His death was concealed at first by the Council of Five Elders so that Japanese forces could be withdrawn from Korea without panic. He had tried to secure Hideyori's future by urging an alliance with Ieyasu, but the council could not restrain Ieyasu's ambitions, and Ieyasu's victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 set the stage for the Tokugawa shogunate. The Toyotomi line was finally destroyed when Ieyasu besieged Osaka Castle in 1614 and 1615, forcing Hideyori and his mother to take their own lives. Historians now regard the loss of Hideyoshi's adult heirs, leaving only the young Hideyori behind, as the central reason the Toyotomi regime could not survive his death.