It was part of Hideyoshi's plan to impoverish those whom he had reason to fear. He would invite the powerful and wealthy daimyos to come into residence in Kyoto, where they were forced to spend huge sums of money in costly and lavish entertainments. He made one Daimyo bear the expense of building a great castle or palace; others had to entertain envoys from Korea, China, or the Philippines, in a manner worthy of the dignity of a great Empire. For the monks, who still were wealthy, he prepared a heavy burden in the shape of an immense Colossus--a Daibutsu--and many sumptuous temples, in the place of those which Nobunaga had destroyed. The Daimyos and the monks had to bleed their subjects with a sharp lancet of taxation to meet the expenses of these costly undertakings, and the peasants in these districts turned envious eyes towards the happy inhabitants of the provinces under Hideyoshi's direct rule, who were free from the imposts under which they themselves were groaning. There were two religious powers that Hideyoshi dreaded--the Jesuits and the intolerant followers of Nichiren. He placed the Christian Konishi in command of one battalion, composed mainly of Christians, the Nichirenist Kato Kiyomasa in command of another battalion, composed mainly of Buddhists, and sent the two generals to Korea to spy on one another, and, possibly, to get shot.

Hideyoshi was no more a friend of the Buddhists than he was of the Christians. What little religion he had inclined him towards the Kami of the native Shinto. Shinto makes little or no demand on the moral nature of

man. It does not forbid the taking of life, nor yet the breach of what we Christians call the Seventh Commandment. It also holds out to a distinguished man, such as Hideyoshi undoubtedly was, the prospect--an extremely gratifying one--of deification after death. Hideyoshi suffered from megalomania. He dreamed of making himself Ruler of All Japan; he dreamed of conquests on the mainland of Asia; he seems in his dreams to have seen himself sitting in Pekin on the throne of the Mings. He certainly saw himself the object of posthumous worship, for he too, like Nobunaga, spent time and money on the erection of a magnificent temple to be dedicated to Shin Hachiman, the new god of war, and Shin Hachiman was his deified self. The temple of Shin Hachiman was in course of erection when Hideyoshi died. The apotheosis of the Taikosama was celebrated in it, with great pomp, by Iyeyasu, in the days before his final breach with the family of Hideyoshi. After the breach had been accomplished, in 1615, the temple was quietly demolished by the Governor of Kyoto, and no one remonstrated. The new god was not much of a success in his new role.