Sekigahara and the Drums of War
I want to talk about Sekigahara. Few places resonate with me, few so deep in my soul. I will get to discussing my university life in due time, but I believe this warrants priority. Sekigahara is a small town in Gifu Prefecture. For clarity, it took me 4 hours to get there from Tsukuba, 1 hour from Nagoya. It has a population of just under 8000 and is relatively quiet. Its claim to fame, however, is that it was the site of the battle of Sekigahara. often described with the adjective; decisive. That is true as the battle decided the future of Japan. With victory here and at Osaka, Tokugawa Ieyasu consolidated control over Japan and established the eponymous Tokugawa Shogunate. A Shogun is analogous to a Generalissimo and was usually hereditary, held by a family with the greatest military in Japan. The battle of Sekigahara was fought between the Western Army, supporting Toyotomi Hideyori, and the Eastern Army, led by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Within my first two weeks in Japan, before seeing much