Toyotomi Hideyoshi went from begging on the street to ruling Japan
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's father was a peasant foot soldier, and a contemporary noted that young Hideyoshi was reduced to begging in the street. Starting as Oda Nobunaga's sandal-bearer, he became the first commoner ever named imperial regent, and completed Japan's unification in 1590.
Tradition dates his birth to 16 February 1537 in Nakamura, Owari Province, now part of Nagoya. He had no surname and no samurai ancestry; his childhood name was Hiyoshimaru, and his father Kinoshita Yaemon died when he was seven. Legends say he rejected temple studies for adventure, first serving a local lord allied to the Imagawa before joining the Oda as a foot soldier in 1558 and soon carrying Nobunaga's sandals.
He proved a gifted fixer. Legend has him raising a fort at Sunomata overnight, and in 1564 he bribed several Mino warlords into abandoning the Saitō clan, paving the way for Nobunaga's easy capture of Inabayama Castle in 1567. He adopted the name Hashiba, built from characters of fellow generals' names. Given three districts of northern Ōmi in 1573, he renamed the town of Kunitomo Nagahama in Nobunaga's honour and sharply raised the output of a nearby firearms works.
In June 1582, while he was besieging Takamatsu, Nobunaga and his heir died in the Honnō-ji Incident. Hideyoshi quickly made peace with the Mōri and, thirteen days later, defeated the assassin Akechi Mitsuhide at Yamazaki, taking over his lord's power. Shikoku fell to him in 1585 and Kyūshū two years later; he then won the siege of Odawara in 1590, and put down the Kunohe rebellion in 1591.
Having reached the posts of kampaku and chancellor, he passed the regency to his nephew and ruled as Taikō, the title for a retired regent. His 1592 invasion of Korea started well but bogged down, denting his prestige before he died on 18 September 1598. His legacy includes Osaka Castle, the sword hunt that restricted weapons to samurai, and restored temples in Kyoto. His young son Hideyori was displaced by Tokugawa Ieyasu after Sekigahara in 1600.
Source: Toyotomi Hideyoshi
