Answer:
a. The shogunate asserted military control when called to put down a peasant revolt.
Explanation:
With the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, shortly after the Council of the Five Regents was formed, the balance of power between them began to crumble. Among the vassals of Hideyoshi, the first signs of impatience to obtain effective power appeared: Hideyori was barely a child and the power was concentrated in the regency. Ieyasu, during the next two years, would patiently get help from various daimyō who supported his cause or who were unhappy with the Toyotomi clan.
The seizure of power accelerated more in 1599 when the regent Toshiie died. This caused Ieyasu to take Osaka Castle, where Hideyori was located, and proclaim Tenka Dōno (Lord of the Country). That title was nominal, as there was still severe opposition from the three remaining regents and from several clans that did not accept Ieyasu as chief, including Ishida Mitsunari, a powerful daimyō who did not belong to the regency. At the end of 1599 and much of 1600, all samurai and daimyō of Japan were grouped into two rather defined sides: the eastern bloc, made up of clans that supported Ieyasu; and the western one, formed by those who backed Mitsunari and the three regents.
The crisis reached its climax on October 21, 1600 (15th day of the ninth month of year 5 of the Keichō era), when one of the largest battles between clans recorded in Japan occurred: the <u>battle of Sekigahara</u> . Occurred in the province of Mino, 88 888 soldiers from the eastern bloc fought against 81 890 from the west. The battle lasted between 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. of that day. The betrayal of some clans of the western block, such as the Kobayakawa, resulted in the defeat of the latter. This battle, in which about half of the Western forces succumbed, led to the disappearance of 87 clans and a significant reduction of four others (including the Toyotomi clan). It also provided the profit of 7572 million koku (a koku was equivalent to 180 liters of rice, and was used as a monetary reference) to the eastern bloc, the cessation of the aspirations of the regents and, above all, confirmed the legitimacy of Ieyasu as Tenka Dōno.
Shortly after, Ieyasu addressed the redistribution of the power of all Japanese clans, those who had supported the Tokugawa clan since before Sekigahara, called fudai daimyō, gained greater power and rank than the Tozama daimyō, who were the survivors who did so after of the transcendental battle. Finally, Ieyasu consolidated his power in 1603, when he received from the Go-Yōzei emperor the title of Seii Taishōgun, commander in chief of the military forces of Japan, and thus began a period of dominance on the part of the Tokugawa clan for the next two centuries.
