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TOKUGAWA IEYASU
徳川家康
Tokugawa Ieyasu
In 1598, the powerful warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi died a natural death. This was an unusual feat in the violent world of 16th-century feudal Japan. In the 1500s, Japan was ruled by a weak imperial government. Warlords, or daimyos, were the real source military and political power. But none had been able to completely pacify their rivals and unify the country, so a perpetual state of warfare existed.
At the time of his death, Hideyoshi had been the most powerful warlord in Japan. His death therefore created a power vacuum. It was within this power vacuum that Tokugawa Ieyasu would ultimately find an opportunity to seize control of Japan and establish the long-lasting Tokugawa shogunate.
The Road to Sekigahara
In his final days, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had known that his death was imminent. He therefore made arrangements for the succession of his only son, the five-year-old Hideyori. Hideyori was too young to rule, so Hideyoshi decreed that the country’s most powerful daimyos would rule in his place until the boy become old enough to take the reins of power.
It was of course overly optimistic for Hideyoshi to expect that the daimyos would willingly restrain their ambitions for a five-year-old. Once Hideyoshi died, a power struggle erupted between his son’s caretakers. From this conflict Tokugawa Ieyasu emerged victorious.
Ieyasu sealed his victory at the legendary battle of Sekigahara (1600 )—a battle which is as familiar to Japanese schoolchildren as the Battle of Hastings is to young Britons. Ieyasu and his allies fielded 70,000 troops against a rival force of 80,000. Despite being outnumbered, Ieyasu won because of superior positioning, and the last-minute defection of an opposing warlord to his side.
The Shogun Ieyasu Betrays Hideyori
Ieyasu was a member of the Minamoto clan. He was therefore qualified to become shogun. The shogun was the supreme warlord of Japan. The first shogun was Minamoto Yoritomo, who was appointed by the Japanese emperor in 1192. Ieyasu was appointed to the position in 1603.
But Ieyasu still had to contend with the lingering problem of Hideyori, the heir of Hideyoshi. Even as shogun, Ieyasu continued to outwardly support the young Hideyori, but he had no intention of letting the boy actually take power.
When Hideyori neared the age of succession, Ieyasu made his move. He falsely accused Hideyori of insulting him, and he laid siege to Osaka Castle, where the heir and his mother had taken up residence. (Osaka Castle had been built by the boy’s father, Hideyoshi.) It took Ieyasu two attempts to overtake the castle, but he finally succeeded in 1615. He forced Hideyori and his mother to commit suicide; Ieyasu’s men slaughtered the rest of the family.
After eliminating all his rivals, Ieyasu died the next year at age 74. There was no period of civil war following Ieyasu’s death. He had successfully established the Tokugawa shogunate, which ended the pattern of wars among competing daimyos. For the next 250 years, the Tokugawa shoguns would maintain the peace in Japan.