Hideyoshi's preparations By the last decade of the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the most preeminent daimyō, had unified all of Japan in a brief period of peace. Since he came to hold power in the absence of a legitimate successor of the Minamoto lineage necessary for the imperial shōgun commission, he sought military power to legitimize his rule and to decrease his dependence on the imperial family. It is also suggested that Hideyoshi planned an invasion of China to fulfill the dreams of his late lord, Oda Nobunaga, and to mitigate the possible threat of civil disorder or rebellion posed by the large number of now-idle samurai and soldiers in unified Japan. It is also possible that Hideyoshi might have set a more realistic goal of subjugating the smaller neighbouring states (the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, and Korea) and treating the larger or more distant countries as trading partners, because throughout the invasion of Korea, Hideyoshi sought for legal tally trade with China. Hideyoshi's need for military supremacy as a justification for his rule, which lacked shōgunal background, could have, on an international level, been eventually transformed into an order with Japan's neighboring countries below Japan. Hideyoshi did not take the title of Shōgun on the grounds that he lacked the necessary Minamoto descent, but since it was very common in 16th century Japan for genealogists to "discover" that someone had illustrious ancestry for the right price, that suggests that Hideyoshi was planning on creating a new office for himself to replace the bakufu. Hideyoshi was also tempted by an external conflict to prevent internal rebellion within Japan, which would keep his newly formed state united against a common enemy, and prevent the daimyōs from acting on any ambitions against his rule. Fighting a war away from Japanese territory would also prevent territorial destruction, and maintain the infrastructure of the state. Such considerations would be consistent with the fact that Hideyoshi was not shōgun and had no links with the imperial bloodline. Stephen Turnbull also suggests personal ambition and megalomania of Hideyoshi as reasons for the invasion. Hideyoshi had in a series of wars conquered Japan and now wanted to turn to bigger things, noting that he spoke not only of his desire to "slash his way" into Korea to invade China, but also the Philippines, and India. Furthermore, for thousands of years, China had been the intellectual, economic, military, and