Paper short abstract:

In 1587 Toyotomi Hideyoshi wanted to test the loyalty of the Christian daimyō on the island of Kyūshū, ordering one of them to abandon his faith. But, quite surprisingly, he chose Takayama Ukon, from Takatsuki, near Osaka. Perhaps, because Hideyoshi knew he would get the answer he was looking for.

Paper long abstract:

In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi conquered Kyūshū, within the process of unification of Japan started by Oda Nobunaga. This island was the Japanese territory that had received the most influence from Portuguese trade, arrived in 1543, and from the Jesuit mission, in 1549. There, several daimyō had converted to Catholicism, and had even converted their subjects by decree, to have good relations with the missionaries and, thus, attract Portuguese trade to their fiefdom. One of them even handed over the property of the city of Nagasaki to them. For all these reasons, in Japan there were many critical voices with this growing influence of European missionaries and the problems it could entail.

Hideyoshi was no stranger to this potential problem and, once he arrived in Kyūshū, he wanted to see how far the influence of the Jesuits extended. So he called one of these Christian daimyō and ordered him to abandon his faith, otherwise, he would lose his family name and his land. He had to choose, ultimately, between his duty as a samurai and his faith as a Catholic. If he did not obey his order, Hideyoshi would have shown how harmful this foreign religion could be, since Christian samurai lords could obey the Europeans and help them, for example, to conquer Japan. The Japanese knew about the evangelization and conquest of America, and this would fit with that same scheme.

But curiously, Hideyoshi did not choose a Christian daimyō from Kyūshū, but Takayama Ukon, christened Justo Takayama, from Takatsuki, near Osaka, who had traveled there accompanying Hideyoshi himself on his campaign of conquest. Takayama decided to remain a Christian, and this led to the famous anti-Christian edict of that same 1587. Why didn't Hideyoshi choose a Christian daimyō from Kyūshū, if the test was supposed to demonstrate the influence of the Jesuits especially there? Perhaps because he expected his test to have the result it had and, having met Takayama in the past, at times when his Christian faith had also been put to the test, he knew perfectly well what Takayama would choose also this time.