Taiko (Yoshikawa)

The novel Taiko ( Japanese 新書 太 閤 記 , Shinsho Taikōki ) by the Japanese writer Yoshikawa Eiji describes the era of the unification of the Japanese Empire, which ends with the Battle of Sekigahara depicted by Musashi at the beginning .

The most important people in this novel based on historical facts are Prince Oda Nobunaga , his general and successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the later Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu . Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed the unification of the empire, but did not meet the requirements to become a shogun because of his bourgeois origin. Therefore he was given the civil title Taikō ( 太 閤 ) by the emperor .

The novel was published by Shinchōsha in 1941. A German translation by Annette Burkhardt ( ISBN 3-8135-0303-8 ) was published by Albrecht Knaus Verlag in 1993 .