ABSTRACT
Now that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had made himself master of Japan the way was open for him to realize his greatest ambition, the conquest of China. This grandiose scheme was no sudden obsession, but an idea that had been growing in his mind for many years. As early as 1578 he had confided his thoughts to Oda Nobunaga before setting off to chastise the Mōri clan on Nobunaga's behalf. In an extraordinary speech, considering that he was then but one, albeit the ablest, among Nobunaga's generals, he looked beyond his present commission to the reduction of Kyūshū and further conquests overseas, until, with the aid of a pacified and friendly Korea he could finally humble China herself. ‘I shall do it,’ he told Nobunaga, ‘as easily as a man rolls up a piece of matting and carries it under his arm.’
