Oda Tatsuoki's Mischievous Scheme

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edited by Pranjal Goyal!

You are making the choices. Failure in picking the right ones will lead to your demise.

This is Oda Tatsuoki. He is a daimyo from Medieval Japan. He lives in Kiyosu castle, which is located on Honshu Island. Honshu Island is bordered by the East China Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. Kiyosu Castle is a Japanese castle located in Kiyosu, eastern Aichi Prefecture, Japan. It is known for its association with the rise to power of the Shogun, Oda Nobunaga.

As a child, I was always given the least of everything, I was left out and bullied, and now even when I am a daimyo, I still get less than what I deserve!

Tatsuoki gazes out a window and decides that he must take action now or never, to try to gain the prosperity he believes he deserves.

drawing made by Pranjal

It's time to take matters into my own hands...

This is a samurai. Samurai are vassals or servants to the Daimyos. They typically wore heavy metal armour and carried katanas.

Why must these fools earn more land and prosperity, while I am tossed in a corner and given none?

As Tatsuoki walks through Azuchi Castle, a place where his shogun was temporarily staying, he sees Oda Nobunaga, his shogun, generously rewarding Oda Hiratada, Oda Akito, and Oda Ieyasu, his fellow daimyo colleagues.

Oda Nobunaga is a shogun, who is someone that controls the military and foreign policy. In Feudal Japan, he is known as one of the most powerful and intelligent shoguns.

Oda Hiratada is an example of a daimyo. Daimyos are powerful Japanese magnates and feudal lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings.
The daimyos were large landowners and vassals of the shogun. Each daimyo has to hire an army of samurai warriors to protect their family's lives, as well as their property.‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎

Envious of Oda Hiratada's earnings, Oda Tatsuoki decided to devise a plan to try to bring him down. Tatsuoki was desperate for more land and money, even if that meant to threaten, or even kill his associate.

train and hire more samurai as an attempt to kill the others. (page 19)

Choose a path:

Sabotage other daimyos with rumors, poison, and threat, (page 3)

kill the most favored daimyos and start an investigation that would possibly risk your career, (page 12)

To start off his plan, Tatsuoki makes up false information about his fellow daimyo, Oda Akito.

I shall say that Oda Akito is going to do a mass Assassination with his samurai to everyone in kiyosu!

Tatsuoki spreads the rumors and false claims he made about Oda Akito up to the shogun.

However, the Shogun didn't know the rumors were fake.

Oda Akito is planning on doing a mass assassination with his samurai to everyone in kiyosu!

You can't be Serious! My loyal Oda Akito is trying to kill everyone in my homeland?

Believing in Oda Tatsuoki's false claims, it resulted in Oda Nobunaga being disappointed in Oda Akito's actions. Oda Nobunaga, then decided to take away a portion of Akito's land.

After hearing about Oda Akito's land reduction, Oda Tatsuoki was given part of his land that he lost in compensation of the information he provided the shogun. Despite this, he was still extremely unsatisfied with it and decided to try to poison Oda Akito, to gain the rest of his land. Although he wanted to poison him, Oda Tatsuoki remembered that Oda Hiratada was still standing with a large portion of Kiyosu castle. There, Tatsuoki was left with a very difficult decision, either poision Akito or Hiratada since he only had one bottle of poison for one person.

The shogun favors both Oda Hiratada and Oda Akito. I think Akito is more dangerous, but the shogun likes Hiratada slightly better. Which one shall I go after?

Poison Hiratada (page 4)

Poison Akito (page 5)

Hiratada's "cook" --->

posion ----->

Tatsuoki sends his samurai dressed as one of Hirarada's cooks to serve him bangohan, or dinner mixed with poison.

<--- Hiratadas servant

drawing made by Allison

The unsuspecting daimyo eats it all and starts feeling unwell.

The Tempura is delicious today, give the cook a raise!

After poisoning and killing Hiratada, Tatsuoki's samurai noticed an expensive clay pot in the corner off his eye. It was a very expensive and well known pot gifted to Hiratada after he won a calligraphy competition. It was approximately 106,746 won(currency in Medieval Japan), which is approximately 1,000 usd.

Tatsuoki's samurai delivered the pricey clay pot to Tatusoki, in which he sold later on.

drawing made by Allison

Hmm, this is a very expensive pot! I should Trade it for more resources and money!

Tatsuoki wanted to trade the expensive pottery. He traded with a local trader and got spices, silver, and currency in return.

Click Here To Continue With The Story (page 6)

Tatsuoki then sends his samurai to go send Oda Ieyasu a letter he wrote.

Go my samurai, and do not come back unless the threat has been vanquished.

Yes Sir

Letter:

Dear Oda Ieyasu,

I command you to leave Japan and never return. If you do not obey my orders, I will hereby send my samurai to burn down you and your family's home. If you do decide to leave Japan, inform me by writing a letter and placing it under the Sakura tree by Kiyosu Library.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

Oda Ieyasu, someone who was extremely naive and credulous, immediately believed the letter. He then began to quickly panic upon receiving it.

Although Ieyasu was indeed a very gullible person, he also had a great memory! Therefore, as someone that has worked by Tatsuoki for years, when he reread the letter, he noticed that the handwriting was somewhat similar to him.

Oda Ieyasu was interrupted and was given the letter during his prayer to the Buddha. Oda Ieyasu practiced Buddhism, one of the 2 main religions in Medieval Japan. Buddhists believed the three universal truths. Everything is impermanent and changing Impermanence leads to suffering, making life imperfect, and the self is not personal and unchanging. They also believed in 4 noble truths. The truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. Finally they also believed in the eightfold path. The path to nirvana, which is maintaining right views, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

Wait! I recognize this calligraphy! This is the works of oda Tatsuoki!