Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun Supreme

Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun Supreme

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Tokugawa Ieyasu was Japan's most famous shogun, who presided over a period of unity and who started a dynasty and succession of leaders that lasted more than two centuries.

He was born Matsudaira Takechiyo on Jan. 31, 1543, in Okazaki Castle. His father, Matsudaira Hirotada, owned lands that were sandwiched between two more powerful clans, the Imagawa and the Oda. Hirotada sent his young son, just 4, to stay with the Imagawa, as a means of currying favor. In one of the many conflicts between the two powerful clans, Oda Nobuhide seized a number of Imagawa possessions, including young Takechiyo, whom he kept as his own hostage for a couple of years.

One of the many truces between the Imagawa and Oda freed the young boy, and he went to stay with his grandmother, who was a nun and an educator. She taught young Takechiyo the art of calligraphy and found another teacher to give the boy a further education. He learned quickly the arts of war and of governmental administration and how the two sometimes intersected.

When he was just 13, Takechiyo assumed leadership of his clan, changing his name to Motonobu. Two years later, he fought in his first battle, against the forces of Oda Nobunaga, son of the man who had taken him hostage several years earlier. In that struggle, the Matsudaira forces were victorious; Motonobu himself took part in the destruction of the fort. By his 17th birthday, he had assumed control of his family castle and of surrounding lands formerly owned by the Imagawa.

Seeing an opportunity for advancement and expressing a pragmatism not often found in someone so young, Motonobu sought out an alliance with Nobunaga. In that year, 1561, the young warrior changed his name one final time, to Ieyasu. With Nobunaga's backing, he increased his holdings, gaining control of multiple provinces. He earned an imperial title, in 1567, becoming Tokugawa Ieyasu, the name by which he is most often known.

The alliance between Ieyasu and Nobunaga proved a strong one, and both men achieved great victories for the next several years. Nobunaga met his end in 1582, at the hands of an assassin, and Nobunaga's top general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, took over. Ieyasu didn't get along so well with Nobunaga's successor and, to counter Hideyoshi's rise, made an alliance with the powerful Hojo clan, in the form of Hojo Ujimasa.

Again acting pragmatically, Ieyasu switched sides, accepting Hideyoshi's offer of an alliance in 1586 and then leading a force against Ijimasa. That ended in the defeat of the Hojo leaders and fall of Odawara. Hideyoshi rewarded Ieyasu with a large amount of land and considered the younger man his own top general. Ieyasu made his headquarters at Edo (now Tokyo).

The Hideyoshi-Ieyasu alliance had resulted in the unification of Japan, under Hideyoshi's rule. In 1591, Hideyoshi claimed the title of Taiko.

Seeking further challenges, Hideyoshi led a large army on an invasion of Korea, twice, during a number of years; neither invasion was successful, and the Taiko died during the second one, in 1598. He suffered an illness before death and had time to name the Council of Five Elders, to act as regents until his 5-year-old son, Hideyori, could come of age. Ieyasu was one of those elders, all of whom began to fight among one another after Hideyoshi's death.

A number of powerful individuals flocked to the leadership of another member of Hideyoshi's council, Ishisa Mitsunari, who formed the Western Army. Ieyasu had his own support and manpower and took the field to press his own claim. At the titanic Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu emerged victorious, triumphing with a smaller force, as he had developed a habit of doing, even against such formidable foes as Nobunaga.

Ieyasu consolidated his holdings and supremacy and, in 1603, earned the imperial title of Shogun. It was not a new title; indeed, many had been called that, during both the Kamakura shogunate and the Ashikaga shogunate. But Tokugawa's rule ushered in a period of sustained supremacy that outlasted both previous shogunates. Indeed, the Tokugawa Shogunate became the longest-running series of shogun in Japan's long history, lasting into the 19th Century and ending only at the hands of the Meiji Restoration.

At the time of his ascension to the shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu himself controlled less than one-third of the land. However, the warlord families who controlled the rest had pledged their loyalty to various leaders during the past several decades and did so to Ieyasu, who set about remaking Japanese society along both traditional and new lines. He required strict loyalty and punished those who refused to give it, at the same time handsomely rewarding those who were loyal to him and his vision. He himself lived frugally and urged his supporters to do the same, even as his government was accumulating vast wealth from its ownership of Japan's large silver mines and from trade revenues.

Ieyasu also absorbed the lessons learned by others. He followed the blueprint of the two previous shogunates, employing the strategies that worked for them and ignoring the ones that didn't. He ensured a stable succession by giving way after only two years so that his son Hidetada was appointed shogun and even gathered promises that his grandson Iemitsu would succeed as well.

In the realm of foreign relations, Ieyasu was initially more than happy to entertain visitors from other countries, namely England, the Netherlands, and Spain. He also encouraged trade with Southeast Asia for a time. However, he eventually came to distrust foreign trade and significantly discouraged it; both his son and his grandson carried on this policy of aversion.

With his son Hidetata firmly ruling in his stead, Ieyasu found one last opponent to fight: Hideyori, son of Hideyoshi. Ieyasu, aged 71, led a large force in an assault on Hideyori's position in the recently rebuilt Osaka Castle. Both Hideyori and the castle met their demise.

Tokugawa Ieyasu died, on April 17, 1616. His career and legacy are still remembered long after his time, in the form of the Tokugawa shogunate.

He had two wives, Tsukiyama-dono, who died in 1579, and Asahi no kata, who died in 1590. He had many children.