The Reign of Shogun Ishida Shigenori: (1694 - 1702)
An Heir is Born:
The late Shogun never seemed to have much time for women, indeed he only got married (at the age of 42) because his mother threatened to commit seppuku if he didn't! His bride was to be the 14 year old daughter of Date Munetoshi, yet another vain attempt to secure the loyalty of that most rebellious clan. Shigeru paid little attention to his wife, preferring instead to spend his time with the army. His favourite activity in peacetime was to go on large camping trips in the deer-rich Japanese mountainsides of Izu, where he would partake in hunting or swordplay, or hunting and then swordplay, with his favourite soldiers and what seemed to observers as an endless supply of camp followers. Shigeru took up the yari spear, and spent much of his spare time thrusting with his young soldiers, working up quite a sweat in the summer heat, after which they would retire to Izu's famous onsen bath houses. Naturally the Shogun's wife was nowhere to be seen on such trips.
The poor woman was left to languish in boredom at Osaka castle, alone, sometimes for months on end. She found ways to "amuse" herself however, becoming quite popular with the single castle guards. Shigeru was rather surprised after returning from a nine-month camping trip to find that his wife had given birth to an heir, which looked absolutely nothing like him, such were the mysteries of human procreation. For such a brilliant mathematician, Shigeru was never able to put two and two together.
The young boy was named Shigenori, and from very early on it was obvious that there was something... not quite right about the young boy. He had no aptitude for kenjutsu or kyujutsu, much to the disappointment of his "father". Nor did he find either physical activity enjoyable, instead preferring the strenuous and ever-so-manly sport of sucking one's thumb. Shigenori must have been rather good at it, for he continued to practice his "sport" throughout adolescence and well into adulthood, often in lieu of actually running the country. Fortunately for Japan the Ishida had able civil servants to handle the finer points of governance, like ensuring the Shogun sign his name correctly on official documents. Shigenori had no interest in intellectual matters and paid little attention to his tutors, instead preferring to bury his head in the sand; he nearly suffocated on no less than three occasions.
Now that his trips to the seaside were banned lest the shogun-to-be dig (part of) himself into an early grave, the young Shigenori had to find something else to occupy his free time. He took to rearing rabbits, (probably the only animal he wasn't afraid of), and grew rather fond of them, perhaps a little too fond. In fact his only meaningful act as shogun was to issue an edict providing for the protection of rabbits and hares: "any living thing which injured a rabbit was to be injured, and living thing which killed a rabbit was to be killed, including humans". Shigenori had been born in 1663, the Year of the Rabbit[1] and thus may have felt a special duty to protect them. He was popularly known as Usagi Shogun, or the Rabbit Shogun.
The Seven Year Shogun:
Calamity struck Japan when the great Shogun Shigeru died, and left this rabbit-loving fool to run things in his stead. Fortunately, Japan had many able bureaucrats and civil servants to help Shigenori with the finer points of statecraft, like ensuring the new Shogun signed his name correctly on official documents. Now that he was Shogun, Shigenori was pressured into marriage. As he had shown no previous interest in non-rabbit females an appropriate one was chosen for him: Princess Aikiko. Previous Ishida Shoguns had steered clear of marrying into the royal family, for fear they'd be called usurpers. Times had changed since then and the Shogunate had existed for almost 100 years, so such modesty could be done away with.
Princess Aikiko in a contemporary portrait, circa 1690. Unfortunately for Japan she was more than just a pretty face.
One may be inclined to think that a beautiful woman like Aikiko was wasted on a man such as Shigenori; if so you'd be wrong. Aikiko saw her marriage as a means to an end, that end being the restoration of the monarchy as the sole executive power-holder in the land, and by "monarchy" Aikiko meant "herself". Aikiko was a reactionary in the truest sense of the word: A devout Shintoist, Aikiko believed, as most Japanese still did, that she was a descendant of the Sun Goddess Ameratsu, and thus divine. The Shogun had no such divine right to rule, let alone his court officials and to make matters worse, a majority of these (and by now a sizable portion of Japan's population) were Roman Catholics. Aikiko was fundamentally anti-Christian, she saw Christianity as nothing less than a conspiracy to topple the institution of the monarchy, after all if people renounced Amaterasu they renounced the divinity of the monarch and therefore, according to Aikiko and her supporters, the monarchy itself.
Aikiko had been privy to a classical education, so she was also well versed in Confucian theories on society and economics. She resented the bourgeois and the artisan class, and deeply sympathised with the Nara rebels of a generation ago. The fact that the bourgeois were predominantly Catholic might also have had something to do with it. The merchant middle class and Japanese Christians both owed their existence to the "southern barbarians". If Japan was to once more "Revere the Emperor" the "barbarians must be expelled". the
sonno joi movement was born[2].
After their marriage, Shigenori quickly returned to his own little world of rabbits and thumb-sucking leaving the affairs of state to his Court ministers. This was Aikiko's chance. She quickly built up an alliance of former Nara rebels and anti-Shogunate daimyo in the Kizokuin, old enemies the Date and Mogami foremost amongst them but also too some previously loyal clans in Shinto-Buddhist strongholds like Yamato and Kaga. As any political faction that professed outright opposition to the shogunate would be rightly and promptly outlawed, the alliance branded itself as pro-Imperial, as one couldn't possibly be prosecuted for professing support for the Emperor. The vanguard of Aikiko's reactionary revolutionaries were Date Yoshimura, Mogami Yukitomo and Uesugi Tsunanori, who along with Aikiko were collectively known as the
Shitenno or Four Heavenly Kings. [3]
The Shitenno moved swiftly to eliminate rivals in the Kizokuin, and without a powerful (or at least a competent) Shogun to keep them in check, there was little stopping them. Prominent ministers of Christian faith and/or merchant backgrounds were slowly eased out in favour of Shinto-Buddhist cronies with no objection whatsoever from the Shogun, indeed Shigenori even gave his wife his tacit support on some occasions, most likely having no idea of the repercussions of her actions. This blatant entryism allowed Aikiko to dictate policy, and pushed forth with a reactionary agenda: Christian schools were closed, funding cut to churches and even those great pillars of economic strength, the trading ports, were regulated to the point of stagnation. Tariffs and taxes were levied at punitive levels to discourage foreign trade and make Japan's merchants poorer while Japanese trade missions to other lands were severely restricted. Some of this money was used to create some fancy shrines and temples, but the mast majority of it Aikiko spent on herself. In 1698 she was actually considered the third richest person in the world at the time.
This didn't exactly go unnoticed. Prominent Christian clans like the Otomo and Konishi had to be spared (they were far too prominent and respected to be mistreated), and both used their vast wealth to mitigate the impact of Aikiko's policies as best they could. Japanese Christians rallied behind the Shogun's cousin (Shigeru's brother's son) Ishida Mitsushige, a Roman Catholic with foreign connections. Unlike the current Shogun, Mitsushige was no fool and had no illusions about what Aikiko was really trying to achieve. In order to save the Shogunate, Mitsushige threatened to "commit treason in the name of the Shogun" and rebel, even going so far as to threaten to ally himself with Portugal and Spain. Japan was on the brink of civil war, and its head of government was none the wiser.
Seeking to act as a mediator in this escalating conflict and save the country from the brink of civil war, Uesugi Tsunanori pleaded with Aikiko to give in before tensions boiled over. Aikiko invited him to a banquet in his honour, had his food drugged to paralyze him and then had him boiled alive while he was still semi-conscious. The lady was not for turning.
Fortune however still had a hand to play, and it undoubtedly sided with Mitsushige. Now that Shigenori was Shogun, he was free to resume those trips to the seaside which he so sorely missed. Taking his favourite pet rabbit with him, he stumbled across a rather vicious Mamushi[4] with a taste for fresh usagi. Shigenori threw himself at the snake, thinking perhaps if he used his hand to cover the snake's mouth it would stop it from biting his pet rabbit. True perhaps, but Shigenori failed to take into account that him being bitten might just result in his own death. Ironically this turned out to be the greatest achievement of Shigenori's reign, as his death simultaneously removed Aikiko from her position of power and influence and saved Japan from a potentially long and bloody civil war. As Shigenori had no issue the title passed to none other than Ishida Mitsushige: Aikiko's rival and champion of the Catholic Bourgeoisie. His first act as Shogun was to have her and her surviving cohorts executed in a manner most befitting traitors; they were boiled alive.
Ishida Shigenori, circa 1701. Only two months shy of his 39th birthday when he died, his "reign" was one of the most chaotic in Japan's history. History will always remember Shigenori as man totally unfit for the strain of governance, the Usagi Shogun, and with an intellect to match. Also note the utter lack of resemblance between Shigenori and his "father" Shigeru.
Notes:
[1] 1663 actually was the Year of the Rabbit, I took the time and effort to look that up. Shigenori's rabbit obsession is borrowed from the horse-faced Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who had a similar obsession with dogs, having been born in the Year of the Dog.
[2] Literally "Revere the Emperor, Repel the Barbarians", the sonno joi movement was (ironically) a catalyst for the Meiji Revolution in our timeline.
[3] After the Four Heavenly Kings of Buddhism.
[4] A White-coloured venomous snake.