Friends familiar with Japanese history know that Toyotomi Hideyoshi set up the so-called "Five Elders, Five Pursuits" in his later years, and the chief elder who was second only to Toyotomi Hideyoshi was Tokugawa Ieyasu, and many samurai at that time believed that Tokugawa Ieyasu was a potential enemy of the Toyotomi family, and Tokugawa Ieyasu did eventually destroy the Toyotomi family. So why did Toyotomi Hideyoshi make Tokugawa Ieyasu the head of the "Five Elders"?
The first thing to explain is that "Five Elders and Five Pursuits" was a name that was widely used only in the Edo period. According to the Maeda toshi family's documents and other historical sources, the historical names of the "Five Elders and Five Pursuits" should be "Imperial Household" and "Imperial Year". Although the historical name differs from traditional accounts, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the head of the "Imperial Households," was certainly the second in the Toyotomi regime.
The samurai courtiers of the Sengoku period of Japan and the Azuchi Momoyama period can be roughly divided into four types: the first is a branch of the family, mainly members of the family; the second is the lineage, which assists the main family for generations and forms a relationship of "one loss and one glory"; the fourth is the flag book, which is a loyal and heavy subject personally promoted and cultivated by the family governor; and the third is a foreign sample, that is, a "foreign household" who surrenders and submits.
However, due to the lowest level of samurai and the small population of his own family, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had no lineage at all, and there were almost no ones available except for his brother, nephew, and brother-in-law, and Kikimoto had to be selected from the outside sample. Because of this, the daimyōs or vassals of the Toyotomi regime are all foreign, and can only be divided into three kinds of daimyō according to their loyalty to the Toyotomi family: Koho, Pro-Toyotomi, and Anti-Toyotomi.
The daimyōs were basically samurai and Oda generals who had been trained by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Hokusei from an early age, such as Ishida Mitsunari, Otani Yoshiji, Kato Kiyomasa, Fukushima Masanobu, Hosokawa Tadao, Kuroda Nagamasa, and so on. The loyalty of the daimyō was fine, but the young age, poor prestige, and small territory of the daimyō made it difficult for the daimyo to be the core boss of the Toyotomi family.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's approach to this was to make the pro-Toyotomi daimyō the core boss of the Toyotomi family, and let the daimyo take charge of the military and political affairs of the Toyotomi family. Toyotomi Hideyoshi wanted to balance the two's common allegiance to the Toyotomi family and guard against the anti-Toyotomi daimyo together, and the final product of this idea was the "five elders and five pursuits". Tokugawa Ieyasu was the strongest pro-Toyotomi daimyō at that time.
Because Tokugawa Ieyasu later usurped the Toyotomi family's Japanese rule and destroyed the Toyotomi family, many later generations believed that Tokugawa Ieyasu was a threat while Toyotomi Hideyoshi was alive, and that the Battle of Sekigahara was the battle of Toyotomi Daimyo who participated in the Eastern Army was "stupid B". However, since he became a vassal to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu has always presented himself as a pro-Toyotomi daimyō.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was once an ally and brother of Oda Nobunaga, and many of the Toyotomi family's daimyōs and pro-Toyotomi daimyōs were Oda's former vassals, and Tokugawa Ieyasu's meritorious prestige as an ally of the Oda family was almost seamlessly connected to the Toyotomi family. Samurai throughout Japan believed that the Toyotomi regime came from the Oda regime, and the Toyotomi family's Oda retainers naturally regarded Tokugawa Ieyasu as a pro-Toyotomi daimyō.
There were also multiple marriages between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa families. Tokugawa Ieyasu was toyotomi Hideyoshi's brother-in-law, Tokugawa Ieyasu's daughter-in-law and Tokugawa Hidetada's main chamber, Ae, was the sister of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's mother, Lady Yodo, and Tokugawa Ieyasu's granddaughter and tokugawa Hidetada's daughter Chihime was the wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi,toyotomi Hideyoshi's son. Tokugawa Ieyasu was arguably the first foreign relative of the Toyotomi family.
Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became a vassal, was "loyal" to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and from the conquest of Edawara to the invasion of Korea, Tokugawa Ieyasu did not contradict Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Because of this, many daimyōs and samurai at that time regarded Tokugawa Ieyasu as a pro-Toyotomi daimyō. Although Toyotomi Hideyoshi had always guarded Against Tokugawa Ieyasu, in his later years he was also misled by Tokugawa Ieyasu's pro-Toyotomi gesture.
Among the pro-Toyotomi daimyōs, Tokugawa Ieyasu's strength, prestige, and talent were first. Since the core leader of the Toyotomi family is the powerful faction of the pro-Toyotomi daimyō, tokugawa Ieyasu, the first powerful faction of the pro-Toyotomi daimyo, is naturally the head of the "Five Elders".