Ishida Mitsunari was, of course, a samurai during the Sengoku era of Japanese history and a vassal of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who, after Hideyoshi’s death, became part of the regency for Hideyoshi’s son. In Tokugawa Ieyasu’s rebellion, he commanded the Western/Loyalist army, got defeated at the battle of Sekigahara and was executed, and Tokugawa became Shogun, a position his descendants held for about 275 years.
Anyway, was Lord Ishida a Christian? I’m finding conflicting claims, with some sources saying he was, and others saying he wasn’t, so I turn to you dopers. What’s the story?
Who claims he was a Christian? I see several reports that he allied with one or two Christian samurai, protected some Jesuits at one time, and may have drawn up a list of prominent Christians in Japan (for what purpose I don’t know, but Tokugawa Ieyasu is said to have used the list to execute 24 Christians (around 1596, I think)), but he himself was no Christian that I can see. I did find a poster on a gaming site who claimed he was a Christian, but I think they had him confused with somebody else (anyway, that game features Mitsunari winning the battle of Sekigahara, so…).
Well, for instance, in his “Economic Aspects of the History of Japan”, Yosoburi Takekoshi, talking about the impact that the Tokugawa victory had on Catholicism in Japan says,
The list is related to the “26 martyrs of Japan”, and it involved Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi came to believe that Christianity was a backdoor way for the Spanish to take over, and he issued an order to execute every Christian in Osaka and Kyoto, with a list of the Christians to be executed. Ishida managed to get all the names except for 26 off the list.
This particular event has always made me wonder. James Clavell put a sort-of explanation into Shogun, but I don’t think there was ever any real historical reason for it we really understand. There was precisely dick-all chance the Spanish would take over, or even get substantial influence. The only possible way it could have happened would be if Spain somehow decided to strip every soldier they had and fling them at Japan. At best, they could have maybe lent some soldiers somewhere. I suspect it was mostly a confusion between “Christian” and “Spain” in Hideyoshi’s mind.
Well, the generally accepted answer is that it was because of the San Felipe incident. The Spanish merchant ship, the San Felipe, that was sailing from Manila to Acapulco, ran aground off the coast of Japan. Claiming law of salvage, Hideyoshi claimed the ship. At which point, the captain, trying to get his ship back, claimed that Hideyoshi had better be careful, showing him a map of everything Spain owned and that wherever there were Spanish merchants or Franciscans, Spanish troops would follow.
Add to that the pressures by Buddhist monks, (with one Hokke sect monk in particular whose name I can’t remember) who Hideyoshi was trying to keep happy, and who were claiming that Christianity was a dangerous foreign religion that needed to be destroyed, and you get the incident.
But, it was a confusion between Christian and Spain in Hideyoshi’s mind, or more specifically, a conflation of “Franciscan” and “Spain”.
I’ve also seen speculation that it was strictly a practical act. Hideyoshi was worried about the stability of his reign and if his son would be able to hold onto power after his death, saw Christianity as an aggressive proselytizing religion and a potentially destabilizing force, and figured that by killing a few, it would remind the Christians that they were only there because he let them be there, and reminded everyone else that the old man was still someone to be feared.