o confrontation, with Toshiie as the only one who could prevent a war as Hideyoshi had foreseen. Hideyoshi died in 1598, after his final aborted attempt at conquering China through Korea had failed, and thus the political succession became highly unstable.
After Toshiie's death in April 1599, his son Toshinaga had enshrined him at Utatsu-Hachimangu Shrine in Kanazawa, and made it a duty of the samurai to pay their respects. When feudalism was abolished and the fiefs disbanded after the Meiji Revolution, former samurai built Oyama Shrine on the site of the Kanaya Palace, once part of the castle. The shrine gate, built in 1875, is a mixture of European and Japanese design, with rare stained-glass windows in the top level, and is now registered as an Important Cultural Property.
Toshinaga and Toshitsune
Toshiie's oldest son, Toshinaga, was born in 1562, when Toshiie was 26. At twenty he married Nobunaga's daughter Ei, and from being lord of Fuchu Castle in Echizen, he went on to successively govern Matto, Moriyama, and Toyama castles before inheriting stewardship of the Maeda Clan in 1598. At the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, he sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu and thus was able to further enlarge the lands left him by his father to a massive 1.2 million koku, by far the largest domain outside Ieyasu's lands in the Kant? region around Edo (present-day Tokyo). He succeeded his father's position as one of the Five Regents that Hideyoshi had appointed to govern while his son was a minor, though Toshinaga kept his ears to the ground and was careful to protect his lands against Tokugawa pressure. He died in 1614 after retiring to Toyama Castle.
His son Toshitsune is generally credited with ensuring the Maeda�s dominance, by his alliances by marriage with the Tokugawa and the care he took to avoid any pretence of military ambition. Instead the vast wealth of the Maedas was channelled into arts and crafts, many of which are still nationally
