Note (return) — Chapter XI · - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY
Reading edition
This "man on horseback," master of the situation and moulder of the destinies of Japan, Hidéyoshi (1536-1598), was afterward known as the Taikō, or Retired Regent. The rarity of the title makes it applicable in common speech to this one person. Greater than his dead master, Nobunaga, and ingenious in the arts of war and peace, Hidéyoshi compelled the warring daimiōs, even the proud lord of Satsuma,10 to yield to his power, until the civil minister of the emperor, reverently bowing, could say: "All under Heaven, Peace." Now, Japan had once more a central government, intensely jealous and despotic, and with it the new religion must sooner or later reckon. Religion apart from politics was unknown in the Land of the Gods.