ABSTRACT
When the weary samurai returned home from Korea they found Japan a different country from the one they had remembered. The great dictator had left behind him the foundations of modern Japan, but had died in a manner all dictators dread, leaving an infant son to inherit. Toyotomi Hideyori was five years old when his father died, and although the evidence suggests that Hideyoshi was gradually losing his reason as his end approached, he was sufficiently lucid to safeguard Hideyori's future as best he could. To this end he appointed a board of five regents to administer during Hideyori's minority. His choice is interesting, and each name will be familiar to the reader. They were Ukita Hideie, Maeda Toshiie, Mōri Terumoto, Uesugi Kagakatsu, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
