ay were intrusted to his
second in command, Tokugawa Iyeyasu. This latter, on removing to the
castle of Chiyoda near Edo, at first paid main attention to
strengthening his position in the military sense. From his fief in
To[u]to[u]mi and Suruga he had brought with him a band of noted
captains, devoted to his service through years of hardest warfare. He
placed them around his castle ward, from East to South in a great
sweeping arc of detached fortresses, extending from Shimo[u]sa province
to that of Sagami. Koga was the chief stronghold on the North, against
what was left of the Uesugi power. The most devoted of his captains,
Honda Tadakatsu, was established at Kawagoe. Odawara, under an O[u]kubo,
as always, blocked the way from the Hakone and Ashigara passes. In the
hands of Iyeyasu and his captains, the formidable garrison here
established was not likely to offer opportunity of a second "Odawara
conference," during which dalliance with compromise and surrender would
bring sudden attack and disaster. At this period there is no sign that
in his personal service Prince Iyeyasu made changes from the system
common to the great military Houses of the time. The castle ward and
attendance always were divided up among the immediate vassals of the
lord. The basis was strictly military, not domestic. Even the beautiful
_kami-shimo_ (X), or butterfly hempen cloth garb of ceremonial
attendance was an obvious reminder of the armour worn in the field.

Great statesman and warrior that he was, the Taiko[u] Hideyoshi must
have realised the difficulties confronting his House. The formidable
power he had created in the North was no small part of them. On several
occasions he sought a quarrel with Iyeyasu; sought to humiliate him in
small ways, to lower his prestige and provoke an outbreak. Such was the
trifling incident of the lavish donation required of Iyeyasu to the
Hachiman shrine at Kamakura. But Hideyoshi, as with Elizabeth of
England, looked rather to the balance of cost against result, always
with possibility of failure in view. When he died in 1598, and left
Tokugawa Iyeyasu practically regent of the land, his expectation can be
judged to be, either that the loyal members of the council of regency
would at least balance the Tokugawa power for their own sakes, or that
the majority of his son Hideyori, then a mere infant, would witness no
question of supremacy. In the one event the glory and prestige of his
House would stand. In t