Maturity and Career
Yoshitaka succeeded to the family headship in 1567. A few years later, with Toyotomi Hideyoshi spearheading the Oda clan's advance into the Chugoku region, he pledged loyalty to the Oda. Yoshitaka, together with the sickly Takenaka Hanbei, served as Hideyoshi's strategists and assisted in the campaign against the Mōri clan.
Shortly before 1587, Yoshitaka was ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to lead an attack into Kyushu. Along with him was the famous Christian daimyo Takayama Ukon. After seeing the thriving Christian population of Kyushu and under Ukon's influence, Yoshitaka was baptized with the name ドン・シメオン (Dom Simeão = Don Simeon). After a visit to the Jesuit-controlled port of Nagasaki, Toyotomi Hideyoshi became fearful of the powerful influence that Jesuits and the Christian daimyos wielded and in 1587 made his famous edict that expelled foreign missionaries and ordered all the Christian samurai under his rule to abandon their faith. While Takayama Ukon resisted the edict and lost his fief, Yoshitaka gave up his new religion and adopted a monk's habit calling himself (如水) Josui. His most prominent act during his short time as a Christian was his arrangement to save a Jesuit mission from Bungo when the Christian daimyo of that province, Ōtomo Sōrin, was under attack from the Shimazu clan.
Read more about this topic: Kuroda Yoshitaka
Famous quotes containing the words maturity and, maturity and/or career:
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