Hideyoshi, One of Japan’s Greatest Leaders?

Hideyoshi started as a man not so important. He lived in Japan, and during the time he lived in were many civil wars. People called daimyos fought each other and each one was fighting to reunite Japan under one banner. The daimyos hired elite soldiers called samurai to fight for them, and the samurai would go with whoever paid them more. One of these daimyos was named Nobunaga and Hideyoshi joined his army. Soon, Nobunaga started to notice him and Hideyoshi climbed up the ranks all the way to being a general that was one of Nobunaga’s best. Nobunaga then took over half of Japan with Hideyoshi’s help. Unfortunately, before Nobunaga could conquer all of Japan, he died in battle, leaving four samurai to help his grandson rule his kingdom. But all of these samurai wanted to be the daimyo instead. So, when Hideyoshi heard about Nobunaga’s death, he went to the capital. However, the rebel samurai prepared for battle against Hideyoshi’s army, but Hideyoshi still won. After the battle, he beheaded the strongest samurai and put his head on Nobunaga’s grave. Then, he supported the grandson of Nobunaga and helped him rule. He then planned to make Japan even bigger by preparing an invasion of Korea into China. He thought that he was the most powerful man in the world and that the Koreans would surrender to him. The Koreans ignored this so Hideyoshi prepared many samurai to go to Korea to battle. When the Chinese saw this threat to their land, they helped Korea fight off the Japanese soldiers. Also, after trying to send supplies to his troops in Korea, the Korean navy destroyed those ships with their turtle boats. Because of this defeat, he prepared another invasion of Korea. And although his soldiers landed on Korea, he became ill and died before he could lead them in Korea. After Hideyoshi died, his guardian, Tokugawa Ieyasu, became the leader of Japan. Back when Nobunaga was still alive, both were his second-in-command generals. When Hideyoshi beat the four rebellious samurai, Ieyasu became one of the five guardians of his son, Hideyori. Once Hideyoshi died, all of the guardians divided themselves into the Eastern and Western armies. The Western armies were the ones that were still loyal to Hideyori; Meanwhile, the Eastern army would be loyal to Iegasu. To help himself win the war, Ieyasu bribed some of the daimyos of the Western army to pretend they were still loyal to Hideyori, but instead were secretly loyal to Ieyasu. Then, during one of the most important battles to decide who will rule Japan, the Daimyos who Ieyasu bribed, attacked the Western armies, letting Ieyasu win the battle. After three more years of war, Ieyasu finally ruled Japan, making his capital Edo, which is now called Tokyo. With Ieyasu now Shogun, he wanted to make his son and his grandsons become the Shogun one day. But because Hideyori was still alive, he prepared to assault the castle he was living in, and kill him, so that way no rival Shogun could kill his bloodline. The siege took 3 months, till he finally breached the defenses, causing Hideyori to kill himself instead of being killed by his enemy. With no more rivals trying to take Japan, he had complete control of Japan.