When the Taikō realized that his recovery was impossible he tried to arrange the affairs of the empire in such a way as to secure a continuation of the power in his son Hideyori, who was at that time only five years old. For this purpose he appointed a council consisting of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Maeda Toshi-ie, Mōri Terumoto, Ukita Hide-ei and Uesugi Kagekatsu, of which Ieyasu was the president and chief. These were to constitute a regency during his son’s minority. He also appointed a board of associates, who were called middle councillors, and a board of military officers called _bugyo_. He called all these councillors and military officers into his presence before he died, and made them swear allegiance to his successor Hideyori. There seems to have been among them a suspicion of the fidelity of Ieyasu, for the Taikō is represented as saying to two of his friends: “You need not be anxious about Ieyasu. He will not rebel against my house.(188) Cultivate friendship with him.” Thus in his sixty-second year died (September, 1598) the greatest soldier, if not the greatest man, whom Japan has produced. That he rose from obscurity solely by his own talents, is a more conspicuous merit in Japan than in most other countries. Family and heredity have always counted for so much in this land of the gods, that few instances have occurred in which men of humble birth have risen to eminence. That one such in spite of his low birth, in spite of personal infirmities, in spite of the opposition and envy of contemporaries, had risen to so high a position in the empire, has been a source of pride and encouragement to thousands of his countrymen.