Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies ISSN: 0874-8438
[email protected] Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal Costa Oliveira e, João Paulo Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Christian Daimyó during the Crisis Of 1600 Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, núm. 7, december, 2003, pp. 45-71 Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=36100703 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative BPJS, 2003, 7, 45-71 TOKUGAWA IEYASU AND THE CHRISTIAN DAIMYÓ DURING THE CRISIS OF 1600 1 João Paulo Oliveira e Costa Centro de História de Além-Mar, New University of Lisbon The process of the political reunification of the Japanese Empire 2 underwent its last great crisis in the period between the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 (1536-1598),3 in September 1598, and the Battle of Seki- gahara, in October 1600. The entire process was at risk of being aborted, which could have resulted in the country lapsing back into the state of civil war and anarchy in which it had lived for more than a century.4 However, an individual by the name of Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543-1616) 5 shrewdly took advantage of the hesitation shown by many of his rivals and the military weakness or lack of strategic vision on the part of others to take control of the Japanese Empire, which would remain in the hands of his family for more than 250 years.