Note (return) — Chapter XI · - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY

Yet, as many of the foreign and native Christian teachers hid themselves in the country and as others who had been banished returned secretly and continued the work of propaganda, the crisis had not yet come. Some of the Jesuit priests, even, were still hoping that Hidéyori would mount to power; but in 1615, Iyéyasŭ, finding a pretext for war,19 called out a powerful army and laid siege to the great castle of Osaka, the most imposing fortress in the country. In the brief war which ensued, it is said by the Jesuit fathers, that one hundred thousand men perished. On June 9, 1615, the castle was captured and the citadel burned. After thousands of Hidéyori's followers had committed hara-kiri, and his own body had been burned into ashes, the Christian cause was irretrievably ruined.