Intrigue, Treachery and Betrayal at the Japanese Court - by Lesley Downer

The neglected wife - Lady Tsukiyama

In 1578 a scandal ripped through the princedom of Mikawa, domain of Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu was 36 at the time and had recently snapped up the neighbouring domain of Totomi, so his power was growing - but it was as nothing compared to that of his neighbour, the fiery warlord Oda Nobunaga (whom I'll call Oda to keep things clear).

This is the story of the terrible fate of Ieyasu’s first wife.

The great lord - Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto

Wives of the Warlords III
Lady Tsukiyama’s Treachery 
Like all women of high class in those days Lady Tsukiyama had been married to Ieyasu in a political marriage to cement the alliance between the Houses of Imagawa and Tokugawa. She was just 15 and he was 14. At the time Ieyasu was a hostage in the House of Imagawa. She however was the niece of the great Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto himself. Perhaps she thought she’d been demeaned by being married off to a miserable hostage.

After Ieyasu was released they lived in Okazaki Castle, the capital of Mikawa. She bore him a son and heir, Nobuyasu, and a daughter. But after 13 years of marriage, when Ieyasu took over the neighbouring territory of Totomi in 1570 and moved to Hamamatsu Castle, he left her in Okazaki and surrounded himself with concubines (nineteen, to be precise).

Just three years had passed since Ieyasu and his powerful neighbour and ally, Oda, had inflicted a massive defeat on Lord Takeda Katsuyori at the Battle of Nagashino. Katsuyori retreated to his snowbound castle in the northern land of Kai and plotted to wrest back control of Japan.

Using a Chinese doctor as her conduit, so the story goes, Lady Tsukiyama smuggled a letter or letters - some say as many as twelve - to Katsuyori asking for help. She begged him to have her husband and Oda killed, take her son Nobuyasu under his protection, make him lord of the old Tokugawa territory, and find her a new husband from among his generals. In exchange she would betray her husband and Oda - perhaps send a signal to Katsuyori at a time when Ieyasu would be at his most vulnerable, when he was planning to be away from the castle.

The enemy: Takeda Katsuyori

Katsuyori, so the story goes, replied. He promised to give Nobuyasu one of Oda’s provinces (which by then he would have captured) and to marry Lady Tsukiyama to one of his generals who was a widower. Delighted with this answer, Lady Tsukiyama prepared to flee the castle for Katsuyori’s camp.

A case of fake news ...? 
Sharp eyes will have noticed some holes in this story.

For a start, why would Lady Tsukiyama want to take such an extraordinarily foolhardy course which risked punishment by death if it was discovered? Was she jealous of all those concubines, angry at being left behind in Okazaki Castle, or was it just general bad temper? And how precisely did she plan to betray her husband given that they lived in different castles, nearly 70 kilometres apart, a long day’s walk on foot (which was how people travelled in those days)? It’s said that Lady Tsukiyama wrote the letters in order to secure a future for her son. But he was Ieyasu’s recognised heir. He already had a future.

In fact the story only became widely known and accepted as fact in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, long after all the protagonists were dead and the truth could never be discovered.

So how did the story come to light?

The Daughter-in-Law’s Revenge

Lady Tsukiyama's son, Nobuyasu

Lady Tsukiyama doted on her son, Nobuyasu. He had been engaged to Oda’s daughter, Princess Toku, when they were both 4 years old. They were married 4 years later to seal the alliance between their fathers. But even though it was a political marriage they’d grown to love each other. All three - Lady Tsukiyama and her son and daughter-in-law - lived together in Okazaki Castle.

In due course Princess Toku had two daughters but no son. Lady Tsukiyama was clearly not fond of Princess Toku; maybe she thought she’d supplanted her in her son’s affections. She urged Nobuyasu to take a concubine so as to produce a son and ensure the succession. She even found one for him and presented her to him.

Princess Toku was incandescent.

Two Sisters
Oda had secretly installed two young sisters in Okazaki Castle to protect and spy for his daughter, Princess Toku. The older served as one of Lady Tsukiyama’s maids, the younger as one of Princess Toku’s. According to the story, the older maid was rifling through Lady Tsukiyama’s appurtenances when she found the incriminating letters to Katsuyori. It does seem a little odd, however, for her to have found them if they had already been sent.

The older maid told her sister who told Princess Toku. Princess Toku, no doubt bursting with glee, wrote to her father, Oda, revealing everything. According to one version of the story she forwarded the incriminating letters to him. One account says there were twelve, another that she added a list of twelve crimes committed by Nobuyasu and her mother-in-law against her.

The Messenger 

Warlord of warlords:
Oda Nobunaga by Giovanni Nicolao

The messenger who carried the letter to Oda was one of Ieyasu’s most trusted vassals, Sakai Tadatsugu. When Oda read the letter he could hardly believe it. He interrogated the messenger, asking him if he knew anything about these crimes. Sakai said the letters were genuine and confirmed ten out of the twelve crimes listed. Oda, Princess Toku's father, had to conclude that the accusations must be true if Sakai confirmed them. And that meant that Ieyasu’s son Nobuyasu really had been plotting against him.

It seems Nobuyasu had a terrible temper and had fallen out with Sakai over a woman, so Sakai bore him a grudge. Perhaps Sakai didn’t realise what the full implication of confirming Princess Toku’s allegations would be - and perhaps Princess Toku didn’t either.

The Terrible Consequences
On the 4th day of the 8th month of 1578 Oda sent Sakai Tadatsugu with a message for Ieyasu that his son Nobuyasu was not fit to be the governor of any province. If he was not eliminated now, Oda warned, he would do great harm in the future. He ordered Ieyasu to execute his own son forthwith.

Ieyasu was devastated. But he couldn’t afford to go against Oda's orders. Their alliance was all-important. Poor Nobuyasu, who was only 20, vehemently denied all the allegations. But Oda insisted. In the end Ieyasu had to order Nobuyasu to commit seppuku - to kill himself by cutting open his own belly.

Ieyasu said, ‘I have been looking forward to having him succeed me. It is a disgrace and a pity to let him die so young. But having this formidable enemy, Katsuyori, we cannot do without Oda’s help.’

Okazaki Castle

Nobuyasu’s retainers were devastated. Several offered to die in the young man’s place. But Oda  would not be mollified.

The only thing we know for sure, that is preserved in the historical record, is that Oda commanded Nobuyasu’s death and Ieyasu had to obey. It’s said that Ieyasu loved and trusted his son and ordered his death with the greatest of grief and remorse. But at this point ensuring the survival of the Tokugawa clan was more important than saving his son’s life.

Nobuyasu committed suicide on the 15th day of the 10th month of 1579 at the age of twenty. Ieyasu often spoke of his grief over his son’s death.

As for Lady Tsukiyama, in the end she was just collateral damage. Oda did not order her death and neither did Ieyasu. After all, she was just a woman. But Ieyasu’s retainers understood what they had to do. On the 29th day of the 8th month of 1579, a month before her beloved son’s death, she was killed by either one or two retainers, according to one account. Another version is that she drowned herself, yet another that she committed suicide by slashing her own throat.

It seems totally obvious that Lady Tsukiyama didn’t write any letters. Princess Toku made the whole thing up in order to spite her mother-in-law. But the consequence was that she accidentally brought about her own husband’s death and robbed Ieyasu of his first son and heir.

As for Ieyasu, he fathered another heir and went on to found a dynasty of shoguns that was to last for the next 250 years.


Lesley Downer’s latest novel, The Shogun’s Queen, is an epic tale of love, death, plots and subterfuge in nineteenth century Japan and is out now in paperback. For more see www.lesleydowner.com.

All pictures courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Warlord, His Wife and His Concubines - by Lesley Downer

'That bald rat.' Official court portrait of
Toyotomi Hideyoshi by Kano Mitsunobu (1561-1608)

‘Your beauty grows day by day. Tokichiro complains about you constantly and it is outrageous. While that bald rat flusters around trying to find another good woman, you remain lofty and elegant. Do not be jealous. Show Hideyoshi this letter.’

So speaks the unexpectedly kindly voice of Oda Nobunaga in a letter addressed to Nene, Hideyoshi’s wife, around 1575. The imperious Nobunaga was, at the time, lord of half Japan and determined to conquer the rest of it in short order. 

Hideyoshi, ‘that bald rat’, also known as Tokichiro, was Nobunaga’s right hand man. As the adage went, if a nightingale refused to sing, Nobunaga’s response would be to kill it. Hideyoshi’s would be to persuade it to sing - and to sing the song he wanted.

I love the way the letter takes us all the way back to 1575 and gives us a sense of Nobunaga’s, Hideyoshi’s and Nene’s personalities. At the time Hideyoshi was 37 and famously had an eye for the ladies. Nene was 25 and they’d been married for 12 years.

Hideyoshi on his horse with his splendid headdress
(unknown artist)

Meanwhile in England, some 6000 miles away, Elizabeth I - born in 1533 and a near contemporary of both Nobunaga (b 1534) and Hideyoshi (b 1537) - was on the throne. That same year, 1575, Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester organised a magnificent three week party at his lavish palace, Kenilworth, as an extended marriage proposal to his queen. He failed, of course.

Wives of the Warlords, Part II

Monkey
Twelve years earlier, in 1563, Nene was thirteen, strikingly beautiful and vibrant with a wisdom and calm beyond her years. She was the daughter of a mid-ranking samurai and lived in the castle town of Kiyosu where Nobunaga was daimyo. She had plenty of suitors, handsome eligible samurai of high rank. But there was also Tokichiro, a short, scrawny 25-year-old with a face like a monkey. People called him ‘Monkey’, which didn’t seem to bother him.

Hideyoshi with some of his ladies by Sasaki 
Toyokichi - Nihon Hanazue, 1896 (Walters Art 
Museum; gift of Mr and Mrs C.R.Snell Jr.)

Tokichiro was low class, of farming stock, but had miraculously risen through the ranks to enter Nobunaga’s service. He’d been Nobunaga’s sandal bearer, stable boy, gardener and other menial jobs. He certainly didn’t seem to have many prospects. But Nene decided to marry him. One can only assume it was a love match - extraordinary in those days.

By the time Nobunaga sent his letter, Tokichiro had risen in rank to daimyo and was building his first castle. He was now a general with the name Hideyoshi. He was a superb strategist and a brilliant man. But his key quality was his golden tongue. He could talk himself out of the most hopeless of situations and charm people into doing practically anything he wanted. In fact he turned around battles just by his ability to use surprise tactics and his powers of persuasion. 

He was also genuinely likeable. Nobunaga became fiercer with age and was prone to terrifying rages. But whenever he heard Hideyoshi’s voice in the distance, a smile would twitch the corner of his lips. He’d be unable to carry on being angry no matter how hard he tried. Hideyoshi had the unfailing ability to make him relax and laugh.

The Power Behind The Throne

Lady Kodai-in - Nene in old age
(after Hideyoshi's death she took the tonsure)

As Hideyoshi was building his castle, a town sprang up around it. Being a kind-hearted man, Hideyoshi didn’t demand a huge amount of tribute from the townsfolk. But the people in neighbouring towns started to complain because they had to pay so much more tribute than the folk in Hideyoshi’s new town so he decided he’d better increase it. 

At this point Nene stepped in. Throughout their marriage he discussed everything with her and when they were apart they regularly exchanged letters. Very few of hers remain but his have been collected and translated. On the matter of tribute, he writes to her that he has followed her advice and decided not to raise it. ‘Because you refused I froze it. Although I issued a new order, because you refused it I decided to exempt their tributes.’

After Nobunaga’s shocking murder in 1582 Hideyoshi set to work to finish off his project of bringing Japan together under his banner, transforming it from 260 warring princedoms into a single unified peaceful country. While he was away campaigning it was Nene’s job to run the castle. She was in charge of the money and of taking care of his mother and their adopted children and of policing and punishing miscreants.

Hideyoshi cherryblossom viewing
with Lady Chacha

Nene advised him on everything - from how to run his military campaigns to how to run the empire. He in his turn wrote to her describing every political decision and every military action - hostages taken, heads taken, how he overcame this clan and that clan. He also wrote on projects he was just beginning to think about, like subjugating Korea and China. Nene always had wise advice to give.

Some of his letters to her are rather sweet. After describing his latest military campaign he writes that his skin is getting dark and his hair is turning grey and he’s afraid she might not like him any more.

Concubines

Then there were the concubines. Any sensible warlord’s wife knew perfectly well that her husband would have concubines - it went with the job. Hideyoshi did however take it rather to extremes. The Jesuit priest Luis Frois who was around at the time wrote that he had a hundred concubines - though as a Jesuit Frois probably wasn’t clear on exactly who was a concubine and who was a lady attendant. Nevertheless it was pretty good going for a short scrawny bloke with a face like a monkey.

Lady Chacha (Yodo Dono)

Nene put up with it all with good humour - until Lady Chacha came along. It’s impossible to imagine how people felt over four centuries ago. Nevertheless we can guess that Nene wasn’t happy. 

Nene never had any children and neither did all those concubines - until Chacha. When Hideyoshi was 52 Chacha (who was 23) gave him a son and heir, Tsurumatsu. Hideyoshi doted on him and wrote him many letters signed, touchingly, ‘Daddy’. But the ‘little prince’ died when he was two and Hideyoshi was distraught. Then Chacha gave him another son, Hideyori, who survived him and became his heir.

Chacha was a famous beauty and came from the most noble possible lineage. She was the daughter of Nobunaga’s sister, Lady Oichi, another famous beauty who had gone to her death in a blaze of glory, accompanying her husband in death when he fell foul of ... yes, Hideyoshi. While Nene was modest and down to earth, Lady Chacha was a prima donna and when she became the mother of the heir demanded her own castle. Hideyoshi had one built for her - Yodo Castle, half way between Kyoto and Osaka.

Hideyoshi with some of his women
by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806)

Japanese Renaissance

In the end Hideyoshi reigned for twelve years after unifying Japan and ushered in a glorious golden age of the arts. He loved culture, perhaps because he had grown up without anything, in poverty. He studied Noh dancing assiduously and became a great aficionado of the tea ceremony. He once famously invited the entire populace of Kyoto to a ten day tea ceremony (though he got bored and it only lasted a single day) and he filled Kyoto with beautiful buildings and was a great patron of the arts. The Momoyama period has gone down in history as a Golden Age.

He died - not on the battlefield but in his bed - in 1598. Both Nene and Lady Chacha survived him. The question was, who would be his successor? Wisely, Nene backed Tokugawa Ieyasu - who, as the adage went, waited and waited for that stubborn nightingale to sing; and now finally it sang. Lady Chacha and her son Hideyori backed those who opposed him and, like her mother, Chacha ended in a blaze of glory, killing herself as Osaka Castle went up in flames around her.

For, as all students of Japanese history know well, the age that followed did not belong to Hideyoshi’s rather useless heir, Hideyori, but to the stolid, patient Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Lesley Downer’s latest novel, The Shogun’s Queen, is an epic tale set in nineteenth century Japan just as it was coming out of the Tokugawa period and is out now in paperback. For more see www.lesleydowner.com.

All pictures courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Alas, there are no pictures of the young Nene. 

'Monkey.' Portrait of
Toyotomi Hideyoshi