Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543 – 1616) was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan from 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Japan had been through over a century of warfare called the Warring States Period (Sengoku Jidai, 1467-1600). Toward the end of the 16^th century, three great warlords appeared who unified the country: Oda Nobunaga (1534 – 1582) , Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536 – 1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543 – 1616).

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in Okazaki Castle in Mikawa and named Matsudaira Takechiyo. He was the son of Matsudaira Hirotada, head of the Matsudaira clan and the daimyō of Mikawa. Ieyasu went by several names: Matsudaira Takechiyo, Matsudaira Jirōsaburō Motonobu, and Matsudaira Kurandonosuke Motoyasu. For ease of reading, he will be only referred to as Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Ieyasu spent most of his youth as a hostage. The Oda and Imagawa clans were often at war. The Matsudaira family was divided in loyalty. Ieyasu’s father, Hirotada, favored the Imagawa clan.

In 1548, the Oda clan invaded Mikawa. Hirotada asked the Imagawa clan under Imagawa Yoshimoto for help. Yoshimoto agreed under the condition that Hirotada send Ieyasu as a hostage. Oda Nobuhide, the Oda clan’s leader, learned of this arrangement and abducted Ieyasu. Ieyasu was just five years old at the time. Nobuhide chose not to kill Ieyasu, but instead held him hostage. Later, Oda Nobunaga worked out an arrangement with the Imagawa to gain Ieyasu as a hostage in exchange for a temporary cessation of hostilities. Ieyasu lived a fairly good life as hostage and as a potentially future ally of the Imagawa clan until 1556 when he was 13 years old.

Rise to Power (1556 – 1584)

In 1556 Tokugawa Ieyasu was allowed to return to his native Mikawa. But he was not completely free, the Imagawa ordered him to align with them against the Oda clan.

In 1560 Ieyasu was forced to join forces with the Imagawa army led by Imagawa Yoshimoto that went through Oda territory on its way to Kyoto. Ieyasu’s forces camped a distance from the main force, which was fortunate because Oda Nobunaga led a surprise assault, resulting in Yoshimoto’s death at the Battle of Okehazama.

Alliance with Oda

With Imagawa Yoshimoto dead, Ieyasu aligned with the Oda clan.  In 1563 Ieyasu gave in young son, Nobuyasu, in marriage to Oda Nobunaga’s daughter, Tokuhime. Ieyasu and his soldiers were part of Nobunaga’s army that captured Kyoto.

All the while, Ieyasu was expanding his own territory by conquering the Imagawa holdings. He and Takeda Shingen, the head of the Takeda clan in Kai Province, made an alliance. In 1570, Ieyasu’s troops captured Tōtōmi Province while Shingen’s troops captured Suruga Province (including the Imagawa capital). His goal accomplished, Ieyasu ended his alliance with Takeda.

In 1571, Takeda Shingen allied with the Hōjō clan and attacked Nobunaga and his allies. The Takeda army was large and powerful but Shingen died unexpectedly in 1573. The Takeda forces were taken over by Takeda Katsuyori, who was not the great leader his father was. The forces under Oda Nobunaga, including Ieyasu, won a great victory at the Battle of Nagashino. Katsuyori survived and fled to Kai Province. Later in 1582, Ieyasu helped Oda Nobunaga defeat the Takeda and Katsuyori along with his son committed seppuku.

Ieyasu proved his extreme loyalty to Oda in 1579. Nobunaga’s daughter Tokuhime accused Ieyasu’s wife, Lady Tsukiyama, and their eldest son and Tokuhime’s husband, Nobuyasu, of plotting with Takeda Nobukatsu to assassinate Nobunaga. Nobunaga confronted Ieyasu. To preserve the clan, Ieyasu had Lady Tsukiyama executed. And, despite a lack of evidence of his involvement, ordered Nobuyasu to commit seppuku.

In 1582, when Nobunaga had been killed by Akechi Mitsuhide, Ieyasu gathered an army to defeat Mitsuhide, but he was too late. Hideyoshi defeated Katsuie and became the most powerful daimyō in Japan.

Ieyasu continued to side with the Oda clan, taking up arms for Oda Nobukatsu, the eldest surviving son and heir of Oda Nobunaga, against Hideyoshi. But after an indecisive campaign, the sides made peace. Ieyasu gave his seven year old granddaughter, the eldest daughter of the Tokugawa Hidetada and his wife Oeyo, Senhime or Lady Sen, in marriage to Toyotomi Hideyori, to cement relations with the Toyotomi.

Ieyasu joined with Hideyoshi in the siege of Odawara Castle. During the siege, Hideyoshi offered Ieyasu a very intriguing deal. He offered the eight Kanto provinces, currently being held by the beleaguered Hōjō, in exchange for five provinces Ieyasu currently held, including his home province of Mikawa. This was part of Hideyoshi’s plan to move daimyo around for his political purposes. For Ieyasu it was risky for this would take him from his power base to a new area whose inhabitants were of uncertain loyalty. Ieyasu accepted the offer and the risks. Ieyasu occupied Edo Castle, was able to pacify the Hōjō samurai, improve economic conditions, and amass great wealth while maintaining a safe distance from Hideyoshi.

After Hideyoshi’s death factions began forming around Ishida Mitsunari, a powerful daimyō, and the anti-Mitsunari group led by Ieyasu. On October 21, 1600, the Eastern Army under Ieyasu destroyed the Western Army in the Battle of Sekigahara. Ishida Mitsunari was decapitated and his head was put on display in Kyoto. 

After the battle, Ieyasu seized 90 fiefs, ended many opposing daimyo houses, reduced the size of others, and distributed the booty and spoils of war to his allies and family. Strengthening his hand, Emperor Go-Yōzei made him shogun.

Like Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, Ieyasu instituted reforms to stabilize the country under greater central authority. In 1605, he “retired” in the Japanese manner of bestowing the title to his heir, Hidetada, and keeping the real power. This ensured a stable and orderly succession of power as shogun within his family. He instituted and later Tokugawa shoguns refined a new system of classifying daimyō based upon their relationship to his family and proven loyalty.

In foreign affairs, Ieyasu often relied on William Adams for advice. William Adams (1564-1620) was an English navigator who was leading an expedition when a typhoon shipwrecked him and the crew on the Japanese coast. Adams advised Ieyasu about trade with the Netherlands and England, helped build the first Western-style sea-going ships, and was involved in Japan’s Red Seal Asian trade. Adams was not allowed to leave Japan, was honored for his services, married a Japanese wife, and died in Japan.

Ieyasu did have reservations about the foreign trade, especially Spanish expansionism. The Catholic countries, Portugal and Spain, insisted on bringing along missionaries with their trade; the Netherlands had no such requirement. In 1614, he promulgated a Christian Expulsion Edict banning the practice of Christianity and eventually expelling all missionaries. The Dutch were allowed to conduct limited trading operations in Nagasaki.

He established diplomatic relations with the Korean Joseon dynasty and also received an ambassador from China.

Ieyasu maintained good relations with the court and emperor. He remodeled the imperial court and buildings. However, for court daimyōs, Ieyasu had them strictly supervised such that they became ceremonial figureheads.

Ieyasu had one last threat:  Toyotomi Hideyori, the son and heir to Hideyoshi. By 1614, Hideyori was now grown and a daimyō residing in Osaka Castle. Hideyori’s mother, Yodo-dono was attempting to gather support for Hideyori as the rightful ruler of Japan. 

One of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s most ambitious projects was Hōkō-ji, to erect a greater Daibutsu temple than that of Nara.  Work was halted in 1598 when Hideyoshi died. Toyotomi Hideyori in 1610 sponsored work to rebuild Hōkō-ji and ordered a great bell cast in bronze. The tablet over the new works bore an inscription that had kangi that bore the inscription “kokka ankō” (meaning “the country and the house, peace and tranquility”), but the kangi used also was the same kangi as in Ieyasu’s name, only it was split as in his dismemberment, as if Hideyori prayed for Ieyasu’s death and the ruin of the Tokugawa clan. Tokugawa Ieyasu forbade the dedication ceremonies from taking place and used this as an opportunity to punish Hideyori.

Ieyasu ordered Hideyori to leave Osaka Castle; Hideyori refused. Ieyasu along with his son Hidetada brought a large army and laid siege to Osaka Castle, eventually in 1615, Osaka Castle fell and most of the defenders were killed.

Hideyori and his mother Yodo-dono committed seppuku. Toyotomi Kunimatsu, the seven year old child of Hideyori was captured then decapitated. With the Toyotomi line extinguished, there were no threats to the Tokugawa clan’s continued rule of Japan.

Senhime, Ieyasu’s granddaughter who had been given in marriage to Hideyori, was taken back to the Tokugawa. In 1616, Ieyasu remarried Senhime to Honda Tadatoki, whose father Tadamasa had sided with Ieyasu in the Battle of Sekigahara and in the Siege of Osaka and whose mother, Kumahime, was another granddaughter of Ieyasu. Kumahime’s father was Matsudaira Nobuyasu, the son of Ieyasu and her mother was Tokuhime, the daughter of Nobunaga. Matsudaira Nobuyasu’s mother was Lady Tsukiyama, Ieyasu’s wife. Senhime and Honda Tadatoki moved to Himeji where Tadatoki was the expected heir of the Himeji Domain. Unfortunately, Tadatoki died in 1626 and afterwards Senhime cut her hair and retired to a convent.

In 1616, Ieyasu died at the age of 73. He was posthumously deified as Tōshō Daigongen, the Great Gongen, Light of the East, abiding by his wish to be deified in order to protect his descendants from evil. The Tokugawa ruled Japan during the Edo Period, until 1868.