HOME | DD

Memories — Description

When most people talk about Feudal Japan, they’re often referring to the Tokugawa Shogunate, so I'll go ahead and discuss it as well. Japan at the time was a violent, divided place, and one man who sought to bring unity to the land was future shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who led his army against his foes. His foes, much to the Assassins’ glee, were often Templars and their associates, and so Tokugawa and the Brotherhood formed an alliance. In 1571, Hattori Hanzō, a Ninja, Samurai, and member of the Assassin Brotherhood, killed Mōri Motonari, a daimyo who threatened Tokugawa’s army. This allowed Tokugawa and Oda Nobunaga, an allied daimyo who also sought to unify Japan, to continue to expand their efforts. However, in 1573, rival clan leader Takeda Shingen defeated Tokugawa’s forces at the Battle of Mikatagahara by using his Sword of Eden. In retaliation, Hattori Hanzō and the Samurai, Honda Tadakatsu killed Takeda and took his Sword of Eden.

The Templars realized the threat Tokugawa’s allies posed to their power, and quickly began to recruit new allies to fight. They sent their agent, an Italian missionary named Alessandro Valignano, to do the job. Alessandro recruited many men to the Templar cause, like the powerful and dictatorial daimyo, Uesugi Kenshin. Kenshin was killed by Hattori Hanzō however in 1578. The Templars also recruited the powerful noblewoman, Mochizuki Chiyome, but she too fell to the Assassin's blade in the 1590s.

Not long after that, Oda Nobunaga came into possession of a Sword of Eden, and became engulfed in its power. This caused the Assassins to sever their alliance with him, and when they caught word that Oda’s general, Akechi Mitsuhide, was planning to betray his old master, they sent their man, a monk named Yamauchi Taka, to assist in the rebellion at Honnō-ji temple and kill Oda in 1582. Yamauchi then took the Sword of Eden and sent it off to be hidden by his brothers in China.

Things took a turn for the worse for the Assassins when Hattori Hanzō was killed in 1596 by his longtime rival, the ninja Fūma Kotarō. Hanzō’s son, Masanari, carried on his legacy in later years. Things looked brighter when in 1598, Yamauchi Taka killed Toyotami Hideyoshi, a powerful ruler who unified Japan buy with an iron fist. The Assassins then later fully established Tokugawa as Japan's shogun after helping him win the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Under Tokugawa’s rule, Japan was free of most Templar tyranny and a golden age was beginning to dawn.

The last threat to Tokugawa’s power was finally stamped out after his forces defeated the Toyotomi clan during the Siege of Osaka in 1615. Hattori Masanari was tragically killed in the battle, but at least he didn't die in vain. Over the next 250 years, the Tokugawa shogunate oversaw the longest period of peace and stability in Japanese history. The Shogunate came to an official end in 1868, when the 15th shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned. I guess not all golden ages can last forever, huh?

Actually, speaking of golden ages, I hear the Netherlands are doing pretty well around this time.