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Hyouge Mono
| Alt Names: |  へうげもの Comical fellow Heugemono Hyougemono Tea for Life Tea for Universe |
| Author: | Yoshihiro Yamada |
| Artist: | Yoshihiro Yamada |
| Genres: |  Award Winning Comedy Drama Historical Martial Arts Psychological Seinen Slice of Life Tragedy |
| Type: | Manga (Japanese) |
| Status: | Ongoing |
| Description: | It was the Sengoku Era, a time when warring Daimyō usurped each other constantly. There was a man whose soul was overtaken by the ways of tea and material greed as he worked his way up toward greater power and status. His name was Furuta Sasuke, a vassal of Oda Nobunaga. With his world broadened by the genius Nobunaga and his spiritual insight learned from Senno Sōeki, Master of Tea, Sasuke travels the road of the Hyouge Mono, or comical fellow. To live or not to live. For power or the arts. That is the question! Won the 14th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Award Grand Prize. |
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The following content is intended for mature audiences and may contain sexual themes, gore, violence and/or strong language. Discretion is advised.
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102 Comments
oribe: unleashed
First of all, not only are the revised viewpoints relatively recent and not actually mainstream, you also seem to be spreading misinformation yourself:
1) Negotiators did indeed decieve their rulers, but only for Ming. Hideyoshi did make outrageous demands, but the negotiators feeling that they were unacceptable, offered a much more toned-down offer of submission to the Ming, in which they requested to be granted titles from the Ming as well as be conferred tributuary status. The Ming accepted the former but not the latter as long as the Japanese pulled out from the peninsula. There was no sort of offer to make Hideyoshi suzerain over Joseon or whatever; the fact that tributuary status was rejected is more than clear that the Ming were nowhere near going that far.
As for why Japan would want tributuary status, remembers that tributes were not one-sided and basically was a form of international trade under the Chinese imperial system. To become a tributuary effectively meant opening up the Chinese markets, something similar to a FTA agreement of our times.
2) Hideyoshi having received the counter-offer, also toned down his demands considerably so that they contained three main asepcts: A Korean prince as hostage, That the Japanese were 'forgiving' Joseon instead of a surrender, Demands for trade. Ultimately the most crucial breaking point was the hostage, as that was the most important element in packaging the war as a victory for the Japanese. No hostage ever came, and while an envoy came to offer the Japanese titles, the war soon resumed regardless.
Anyway, do note that this is still relatively new research; they do say that history changes every ten years, but still it would be wise to refrain from considering one side fact over the other until further studies are done.
A lot of that info doesn't match current historical understanding in either Japan, Korea, or China of what happened in 1593-95. Japanese and Chinese researchers going through their national archives of the correspondences now agree on several things:
1. The old "negotiators deceived their rulers" story seems to have been invented in Japan after the fact to explain the chaos that followed negotiations. It shifted the blame from the rulers to their underlings. It is now known that there was official written correspondence between the Ming court and the Japanese, such that misunderstandings of this type would not have been possible. It is also possible that Hideyoshi's supposed misunderstanding of the Ming peace offer was a slander created by the Tokugawa. The Tokugawa succeeded in their usurpation of the Toyotomi by gaining the support of feudal lords who held a grudge towards the Toyotomi for the failed Japanese invasion. Blaming Hideyoshi for screwing up the peace effort was politically useful.
2. There was no confusion in the Ming court about what they offered and there was no confusion about what they received back. Hideyoshi would have been appointed king of Japan and given a HIGHER STATUS than the tributary king of Korea's Joseon dynasty. Hideyoshi would have become Ba Wang of a theoretical East Asian tributary region (comprising Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, and Taiwan) while the Korean king would retain his title of Wang. While the commanders on the field believed that Hideyoshi's demands were outrageous and did try to stop them reaching the court, ultimately Ming inspectors sent to Korea did uncover the demands and sent them to the court anyway. Now, it should be noted that if Hideyoshi had accepted the title offered to him, the Ming would have had no problem handing over a princess (or resort to their usual trick of having the emperor adopt a beautiful court maiden and send her over) because he would have been of sufficient rank to have deserved one. The surrender of Joseon territory and some of its nobles would have been a major problem but within the range of negotiations. In any case, it appears now that the Ming believed that Hideyoshi had simply failed to realize that his title would have given him overlordship of ALL of Joseon Korea to begin with.
3. It appears that the real confusion came from a Ming misunderstanding of where Hideyoshi's loyalties lay. They were not ignorant of Japanese politics and were very much in touch with Nobunaga's diplomats throughout the time that he was in power. They had estimated (perhaps rightly) that Nobunaga sought to usurp his emperor and elevate himself to the throne. They seemed to have thought Hideyoshi sought the same and promptly offered him the legitimacy they thought he wanted. This was, btw, exactly what they did for the founder of the Joseon dynasty. Hey, it worked once, right? Unfortunately for both sides, Hideyoshi was a firm believer of imperial divinity, hence his demand that the princess be married off to his own emperor. This greatly confused the Ming and created problems because, obviously, the Ming could not recognize the existence of a Japanese emperor (nor could they demote him).
4. So was Hideyoshi ignorant or stupid? Not really. When seen from the prism of two rulers negotiating an end to war, Hideyoshi was of course in a weaker position than the Ming emperor because, unlike the emperor, his position and legitimacy relied on the support of his peer feudal lords. He NEEDED to show some form of direct gain to them to stave off rebellion, hence the demand for Joseon lands because he needed to reward the feudal lords with actual land to rule. Demanding Joseon nobles as hostages was par for the course in samurai society, and he was probably thinking of the formal arrangement in Japan where the nobles technically held ownership of the land and the samurai managed those lands for them. It's an arrangement that had been nullified since the fall of the Southern Imperial Court, but in facade it still held. He probably did understand exactly what the Ming was offering and it at least appeared from Japanese court correspondence that he reported the situation to the imperial court with a distinct comprehension of what the Ming offer was. From this perspective, Hideyoshi's demand was not outrageous at all. He actually demanded what he thought was the minimum that he could to appease the Ming AND his peers while showing his devotion to his emperor. What he failed to understand was the Chinese concept of imperial sovereignty that accepted no equal and gave titles near-divine status.
In short, the most probable cause for the failure of negotiations may have been even stupider and more pointless than was originally believed. Or at least it appears that way to us in modern times.
An update? My cup runneth over.
Wikipedia on the last chapter: (Korea sought protection from China in the Korea-Japan war)
Once peace negotiations between China and Japan finally got underway, Chinese negotiators gave the Ming Emperor the mistaken impression that he was about to deal with a minor state that had been subdued by war. Furthermore, they conveyed the idea that the Japanese regent, Hideyoshi, was prepared to become his vassal. Under such conditions, the Chinese sought to resolve the issue in their favor by including Japan in their tributary system of foreign relations. They would establish Hideyoshi as king of Japan and grant him the privilege of formal tribute trade relations with the Ming dynasty.
In Japan, Hideyoshi's negotiators apparently led him to believe that China was suing for peace and was ready to accept him as their emperor. Thus, Hideyoshi issued the demands of a victor; first, a daughter of the Ming emperor must be sent to become the wife of the Japanese emperor; second, the southern provinces of Joseon must be ceded to Japan; third, normal trade relations between China and Japan must be restored; and fourth, a Joseon prince and several high-ranking government officials must be sent to Japan as hostages.
Bargaining from such fundamentally different perspectives, there was no prospect whatsoever for success in the talks. Early in 1597, both sides resumed hostilities.
The war ended inconclusive and severely weakened all three parties. The Ming and Toyotomi dynasties were overthrown shortly after.
This is magnficent.
Yea my speculation he will smugle Hideyori to Philiphine with help of his relative Ukon Takayama and commit sepuku to preserve its secret. Havent read the raws but judging from wiki article this Furuta Oribe guy is verry well connected to other important figures of sengoku era which can lead to intresting historical fiction like this one.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-11-23/hyoge-mono-manga-ends-on-november-30/.124424
god damnit.
god damnit.
He have a long life for man of his time and also, his lineage and tea school still exist to this day.
Page 20: Mulan intensifies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-3_QETuczU
Oh wow. We've finally reached the anime finale and turning point for this series.
RIKYU!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAGGGGHH
70 years is not a short life and he is happy with the life he had led, that makes it enough for any man IMO
Hot damn, way to go Rikyu, wonder what's going through his mind in that last page
Man Furuta has grown so much while still keeping his eccentric side, love the guy, and Rikyu smirking while thinking of his disciples ......... dammit, a shame he doesn't have long to live
Rikyu's ideals as he himself espoused in his writings were much simpler that "simplicity" as understood by today's Japanese aesthetes or what the manga is trying to portray. It turns out he just wanted to practice the dharma of resisting desire by living always BELOW one's means. Be thrifty even if you can afford extreme extravagance and gain others' admiration through that thriftiness. That's it. None of this changing the world stuff. Heh, basically the real Rikyu wanted the lords to learn to emulate Scrooge McDuck.
In my understanding, simplicity only exists as a relative quality, as opposed to wasteful extravagance.
Anyway, I somewhat doubt this portrayal of Riykû is actually true to history. I haven't read a lot about his life, but there's a lot of conspiracy theories in here, and probably some artistic freedom regarding his personality as well.
Well...shit.
Make sure to use the finest charcoal. And make it simple... a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of pepper...
For a series about achieving simplicity, there's way too much 4D and 5D shogi going on.