Inaba Mountain moon, from the series One hundred aspects of the moon

A warrior with a giant water-gourd and a sword strapped on his back climbs over a rocky outcrop. In a surprising compositional mode, the huge moon is placed below the figure, highlighting the difficult terrain. The brave samurai depicted is none other than Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–98), the famed warlord known as the Taikō, or ‘Regent’, who unified Japan in the late 16th century. In this scene, Hideyoshi, still a young lieutenant in the army of Oda Nobunaga (1534–82), leads his unit along a difficult route to launch a successful attack on the besieged castle of the Saitō clan on Inaba Mountain. This episode is described in the Taikōki, Hideyoshi’s biography published posthumously in 1626.