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11th day of the 7th month, Tenshō 13 (1585)
Kyoto Imperial Court (investiture); later the Jurakudai palace
Forces
Toyotomi Administration
Imperial Court
About 10 min read
On the 11th day of the 7th month of Tenshō 13 (1585), Toyotomi Hideyoshi was appointed Kanpaku (Imperial Regent). The Kanpaku is the highest post at court, alongside the Sesshō, and is the position that assists an adult emperor and directs all affairs of state. From the Kamakura period onward, this post had been monopolized by the main line of the Fujiwara clan (the Sekkan houses). For Hideyoshi, born the son of a farmer in Owari Province, to take this seat was an event that fundamentally shook the aristocratic system of the medieval period.
The background to Hideyoshi's attainment of the post of Kanpaku lay in skillful maneuvering at court. Because the position of shogun required descent from the Minamoto line, as the precedent of the Ashikaga shogunate shows, the path of founding a shogunate as head of the warrior class was closed to Hideyoshi. He therefore joined the Sekkan houses by becoming a yūshi (nominal adopted son) of Konoe Sakihisa, a distinguished court noble.
On the 11th day of the 7th month of Tenshō 13 (1585), he formally received the imperial edict appointing him Kanpaku, succeeding Nijō Akizane. In the following year, Tenshō 14 (1586), he was also appointed Daijō-daijin (Grand Chancellor), and the court granted him the surname 'Toyotomi'. That a man born the son of a farmer monopolized the highest offices of the ritsuryō state symbolized the collapse of the medieval order of authority.
At the time of his appointment as Kanpaku in Tenshō 13, Hideyoshi had already subjugated the Kinai, Tōkai, Hokuriku, and Chūgoku regions. However, the Chōsokabe clan in Shikoku, the Shimazu clan in Kyushu, the Later Hōjō clan in Kantō, and the daimyo of Ōshū still remained as independent powers.
In Tenshō 13 (1585), Hideyoshi dispatched an army of 100,000 to Shikoku, and in the 7th month Chōsokabe Motochika surrendered (the Shikoku campaign). In Tenshō 14 to 15 (1586 to 1587), he carried out the Kyushu campaign and forced Shimazu Yoshihisa to surrender. In the Odawara campaign of Tenshō 18 (1590), he destroyed Hōjō Ujimasa and Ujinao, and through the Ōshū Shioki of the same year, he brought the daimyo of Ōshū, including Date Masamune, under his control. With this, the unification of the whole country was completed.
Among the policies Hideyoshi carried out in the process of national unification, the one most deeply connected to the history of the Japanese sword is the 'Katanagari-rei (Sword Hunt Edict)'. In the 7th month of Tenshō 16 (1588), Hideyoshi ordered the confiscation of weapons such as swords, short swords, bows, spears, and muskets from farmers, peasants, and temples and shrines across the country.
The stated reason for the Sword Hunt Edict was that the collected weapons would be used for the nails and clamps needed to build a great Buddha statue. By linking it to the construction of the Hōkō-ji Great Buddha in Kyoto, Hideyoshi sought to soften the resistance of the farmers. However, the real purposes were to suppress uprisings by farmers and peasants and to thoroughly implement the separation of warriors and farmers (heinō bunri).
Before the Sword Hunt Edict, it was common for farmers to carry swords as well, and it was not unusual for shugo daimyo and kokujin to incorporate farmers into their forces as half-farmer, half-soldier units. With the Sword Hunt Edict, the status boundary that those who carry swords are samurai was legally fixed, and the status of warriors and farmers was clearly separated (heinō bunri). This became the prototype of the status system of the later Edo shogunate.
The Sword Hunt Edict fundamentally changed the social meaning of the Japanese sword. It is said that many of the swords confiscated from farmers, peasants, and temples and shrines were of poor quality. On the other hand, the swords held by warriors were given a privileged status as the 'soul of the warrior house', and their value and meaning rose.
It is known that Hideyoshi himself was keen on collecting swords. The tachi known as 'Ichigo Hitofuri', which Hideyoshi is said to have owned, was made by Awataguchi Yoshimitsu and is now part of the Gyobutsu (imperial collection). Also, the sword 'Heshikiri Hasebe' was granted by Oda Nobunaga to Kuroda Yoshitaka (Kanbei), and was thereafter passed down through the Kuroda family. It is now widely known as a holding of the Fukuoka City Museum. Famous swords cherished by the ruler of the realm under Hideyoshi's regime were passed down as treasures of later daimyo houses, greatly developing Japan's culture of sword appreciation.
The political system that Hideyoshi established led, after his death in Keichō 3 (1598), to internal strife within the Toyotomi house and the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Through the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and the Siege of Osaka (1615), the Toyotomi house was destroyed. However, the framework of the separation of warriors and farmers, the sword hunt, and the status system that Hideyoshi put in place was inherited by the Edo shogunate. The system that made wearing a sword a mark of warrior status continued into the Edo period. In that sense, Hideyoshi's accession to Kanpaku and unification of the realm can be called a historical turning point that decided the status of the Japanese sword as the exclusive possession of the warrior class.