Siege of Osaka

In two campaigns fought in 1614 and 1615, the new Tokugawa shogunate besieged and finally destroyed Osaka Castle, the last stronghold of the Toyotomi family. The fall of the castle and the deaths of Toyotomi Hideyori and his mother ended the last serious armed challenge to Tokugawa rule, which then lasted for roughly two and a half centuries.

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi died in 1598, power passed to a council of regents, the most powerful of whom was Tokugawa Ieyasu. His victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 made him master of Japan, and in 1603 he founded a shogunate based at Edo. Hideyoshi's son Hideyori was left in possession of Osaka Castle with his mother, Yodo-dono, and married Ieyasu's granddaughter Senhime. As long as the Toyotomi heir survived, however, he remained a possible rallying point for opponents.

In 1614 the Toyotomi sponsored the rebuilding of the Hōkō-ji temple in Kyoto, including a great bronze bell. The shogunate claimed that one inscription, wishing peace on the nation, insulted Ieyasu by splitting the characters of his name. Mediation failed, and when news came that thousands of masterless samurai, the rōnin, were gathering in Osaka, war followed. Hideyori appealed to the great lords for support, but almost all refused him.

In late 1614 Ieyasu marched on Osaka with a force put at about 164,000 men, against perhaps 120,000 defenders. After taking outlying forts, the besiegers met stubborn resistance, notably at the Sanada-maru, an earthwork outwork held by Sanada Yukimura, whose men repeatedly drove back attacks. Ieyasu turned to mining and to artillery, including imported European cannon bought partly through English and Dutch merchants. The stone bases of the castle withstood the guns, but a shot that struck Yodo-dono's quarters frightened her into seeking terms.

Under the settlement of early 1615 Hideyori kept his domain and the rōnin were pardoned, but the shogunate's men then tore down the outer defences and filled in the moats, going further than the Toyotomi side had expected. When reports arrived that Osaka was again stockpiling rice and hiring soldiers, Ieyasu demanded that Hideyori give up the fief.

Fighting resumed in the spring of 1615, with clashes around Osaka at Kashii, Dōmyōji, Yao and Wakae. The decisive encounter came at Tennōji, where a Tokugawa army of around 150,000 to 155,000 under the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada faced a Toyotomi plan to strike from the front and rear. Sanada Yukimura was killed, Toyotomi morale broke, and the castle, now poorly defended, was set ablaze. Senhime escaped, but Hideyori and Yodo-dono took their own lives in the burning fortress. One Dutch account put the dead in the fire at about 10,000.

Hideyori's eight-year-old son, Kunimatsu, was captured and beheaded in Kyoto. The era name was changed to Genna, a sign that the long age of civil war was considered over. The shogunate took Osaka under its direct control and issued rules limiting each province to a single castle and requiring permission for any castle building or repair. With the Toyotomi gone, nobody remained who could challenge Tokugawa authority on the battlefield.

Our 1600 map shows Japan on the eve of Tokugawa supremacy, and our 1650 map shows the country unified under the Tokugawa shogunate.