Tokugawa Ieyasu

Founded the Edo shogunate after the Battle of Sekigahara, bringing more than two centuries of stability.

Life

Boy hostage

Tokugawa Ieyasu came from the Matsudaira clan of Mikawa and as a child was passed between the Oda and Imagawa families as a hostage. In the late Warring States period, Oda Nobunaga and then Toyotomi Hideyoshi pushed toward unification; Ieyasu first allied with Nobunaga, then submitted to Hideyoshi, who transferred him to the Kanto, where he made Edo his base and reorganized his domain and retainers.

Sekigahara settles the realm

After Hideyoshi died in 1598, the power struggle around his young heir intensified. In 1600 Ieyasu defeated the Western Army led by Ishida Mitsunari at the Battle of Sekigahara and took effective control of the country; in 1603 he was appointed shogun and established the Edo shogunate. He soon abdicated in favor of his son to establish hereditary succession, and then destroyed the Toyotomi clan in the two Osaka campaigns.

Edo period

The shogunate imposed alternate attendance (sankin-kotai), the Laws for the Military Houses (Buke Shohatto) and a strict status system, and later a maritime ban, ushering Japan into more than 260 years of relative stability in the Edo period, during which cities and commerce grew rapidly while foreign contact was tightly restricted. Later generations saw him as the embodiment of forbearance and strategy.

Legacy

Tokugawa Ieyasu ended the long period of warfare that had lasted since the Warring States era. The Edo shogunate he founded endured for about 260 years, bringing a long peace rare in Japanese history, during which cities, commerce and townsman culture flourished. He is known for his forbearance, caution and skill at seizing the right moment. Critics point out, however, that the shogunate's rigid status hierarchy, tight controls and later maritime restrictions also largely isolated Japan from the outside world until the mid-19th century.

Major works & achievements

• Defeated the Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600
• 1603: established the Edo shogunate
• Destroyed the Toyotomi in the Summer Siege of Osaka in 1615
• Drew up the Laws for the Military Houses

Did you know? The Nikko Toshogu shrine enshrines him as "Tosho Daigongen," and its complex was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1999.

Key dates

• 1560Broke from the Imagawa after the Battle of Okehazama
• 1562Allied with Oda Nobunaga
• 1584Submitted to Hideyoshi after the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute
• 1590Transferred to the Kanto; takes up residence in Edo
• 1600Defeated the Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara
• 1603Appointed shogun; founds the Edo shogunate
• 1605Abdicated in favor of Tokugawa Hidetada
• 1615Destroyed the Toyotomi in the Summer Siege of Osaka
• 1616Died at Sunpu