Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow Oda subordinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The son of a minor daimyo, Ieyasu once lived as a hostage under daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto on behalf of his father. He later succeeded as daimyo after his father's death, serving as ally, vassal, and general of the Oda clan, and building up his strength under Oda Nobunaga.

After Oda Nobunaga's death, Ieyasu was briefly a rival of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, before declaring his allegiance to Toyotomi and fighting on his behalf. Under Toyotomi, Ieyasu was relocated to the Kanto plains in eastern Japan, away from the Toyotomi power base in Osaka. He built his castle in the fishing village of Edo (now Tokyo). He became the most powerful daimyo and the most senior officer under the Toyotomi regime. Ieyasu preserved his strength during Toyotomi's failed attempts to conquer Korea. After Hideyoshi's death and the Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu seized power in 1600.

He received appointment as ''shōgun'' in 1603, and voluntarily resigned from his position in 1605, although he still held the de facto control of government until his death in 1616. He implemented a set of careful rules known as the '' bakuhan'' system. This system used precisely graded rewards and punishments to encourage (or compel) the daimyo and samurai to live in peace with each other under the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Early life (1543–1562)

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in Okazaki Castle on the 26th day of the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Tenbun, according to the Japanese calendar, January 31, 1543 according to the Western calendar. Originally named , he was the son of , the daimyo of Mikawa of the Matsudaira clan, and , the daughter of a neighbouring samurai lord, . His mother and father were step-siblings. They were 17 and 15 years old, respectively, when Takechiyo was born.

During the Muromachi period, the Matsudaira clan controlled a portion of Mikawa Province (the eastern half of modern Aichi Prefecture). Ieyasu's father, Matsudaira Hirotada, was a minor local warlord based at Okazaki Castle who controlled a portion of the Tōkaidō highway linking Kyoto with the eastern provinces. His territory was surrounded by stronger and predatory neighbors, including the Imagawa clan based in Suruga Province to the east and the Oda clan to the west. Hirotada's main enemy was Oda Nobuhide, the father of Oda Nobunaga.

In the year of Takechiyo's birth, the Matsudaira clan split. Hirotada's uncle, Matsudaira Nobutaka defected to the Oda clan. This gave Oda Nobuhide the confidence to attack Okazaki. Soon afterwards, Hirotada's father-in-law died, and his heir, Mizuno Nobumoto, revived the clan's traditional enmity against the Matsudaira and declared allegiance to Oda Nobuhide as well. As a result, Hirotada divorced Odai-no-kata and sent her back to her family. Hirotada later remarried to different wives, and Takechiyo eventually had 11 half-brothers and sisters.

Hostage life

As Oda Nobuhide continued to attack Okazaki, Hirotada turned to his powerful eastern neighbor, Imagawa Yoshimoto, for assistance. Yoshimoto agreed to an alliance under the condition that Hirotada send his young heir to Sunpu Domain as a hostage. Oda Nobuhide learned of this arrangement and had Takechiyo abducted. Takechiyo was five years old at the time. Screech, Timon (2006). ''Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822''. London: RoutledgeCurzon. , pp. 85, 234; n.b., Screech explains

Minamoto-no-Ieyasu was born in ''Tenbun'' 11, on the 26th day of the 12th month (1542) and he died in ''Genna'' 2, on the 17th day of the 4th month (1616); and thus, his contemporaries would have said that he lived 75 years. In this period, children were considered one year old at birth and became two the following New Year's Day; and all people advanced a year that day, not on their actual birthday.

Nobuhide threatened to execute Takechiyo unless his father severed all ties with the Imagawa clan. However, Hirotada refused, stating that sacrificing his own son would show his seriousness in his pact with the Imagawa. Despite this refusal, Nobuhide chose not to kill Takechiyo, but instead held him hostage for the next three years at the Honshōji Temple in Nagoya. It was rumored that Oda Nobunaga met Takechiyo at the temple, when Takechiyo was six years old, and Nobunaga was 14. However, Katsuhiro Taniguchi reported there is no concrete historical records about this story of first meeting between Takechiyo with Nobunaga.

In 1549, when Takechiyo was six, his father Hirotada died of unknown causes. There was a popular theory that he was murdered by his vassals, who had been bribed by the Oda clan. However, a scholarly article published by Muraoka Mikio in 2015 states that the assassination theory is unreliable and Hirotada's death may have been caused by a natural illness.

Around the same time, Oda Nobuhide died during an epidemic. Nobuhide's death dealt a heavy blow to the Oda clan.

In 1551, an army under the command of Imagawa Sessai laid siege to the castle where Oda Nobuhiro, Nobuhide's illegitimate eldest son, was living. Nobuhiro was trapped by the Imagawa clan but was saved through negotiation by Oda Nobunaga, Nobuhide's second son and heir. Sessai made an agreement with Nobunaga to take Takechiyo back to Imagawa, and he agreed. Takechiyo, now nine years old, was taken as a hostage to Sunpu.

At Sunpu, he was treated fairly well as a potentially useful ally of the Imagawa clan until 1556 when he was 14 years old. Yoshimoto decided that the Matsudaira clan's territory would be inherited by Takechiyo in the future, with the aim that the Imagawa clan could rule the area by extensions of their Matsudaira clan as their vassal, including Zuien-in (the daughter of Matsudaira Nobutada and Takechiyo's great-aunt), who was the only member of the Anjo Matsudaira clan left in Okazaki Castle.

Service under Imagawa clan

In 1556, Takechiyo officially came of age, with Imagawa Yoshimoto presiding over his ''genpuku'' ceremony. Following tradition, he changed his name from Matsudaira Takechiyo to . He was also briefly allowed to visit Okazaki to pay his respects to the tomb of his father, and receive the homage of his nominal retainers, led by the ''karō'' Torii Tadayoshi.

One year later, at the age of 15 (according to East Asian age reckoning), he married his first wife, Lady Tsukiyama, a relative of Imagawa Yoshimoto, and changed his name again to . A year later, their son, Matsudaira Nobuyasu, was born. He was then allowed to return to Mikawa Province. There, the Imagawa ordered him to fight against the Oda clan in a series of battles.

Motoyasu fought his first battle in 1558 at the siege of Terabe. The lord of Terabe, Suzuki Shigeteru (or ), betrayed the Imagawa by defecting to Oda Nobunaga. This was nominally within Matsudaira territory, so Imagawa Yoshimoto entrusted the campaign to Motoyasu and his retainers from Okazaki. Motoyasu led the attack in person, but after taking the outer defences, he burned the main castle and withdrew. As anticipated, the Oda forces attacked his rear lines, but Motoyasu was prepared and drove off the Oda army.

He then succeeded in delivering supplies during the siege of Odaka Castle a year later. Odaka was one of five disputed frontier forts under attack by the Oda clan, and the only one that still remained under Imagawa control. Motoyasu launched diversionary attacks against the two neighboring forts and, when the garrisons of the other forts came to assist, Motoyasu's supply column was able to reach Odaka.

By 1559, the leadership of the Oda clan had passed to Oda Nobunaga. In 1560, Imagawa Yoshimoto, leading a large army of 25,000 men, invaded Oda territory. Motoyasu was assigned a separate mission to capture the stronghold of Marune in the Siege of Marune operation. As a result, he and his men were not present at the Battle of Okehazama where Yoshimoto was killed in a surprise assault by Nobunaga, In the end, Motoyasu managed to capture Marune castle.

Later, in response to the news of Yoshimoto's death, Motoyasu sent lookouts to check the state of the battle and then retreated from Odaka Castle at midnight. After leaving Odaka Castle, Motoyasu's forces headed for Okazaki with Asai Michitada as their guide. On the way, they were stopped by the Mizuno clan's forces at Chiryu, but because Asai Michitada was with them, they were not attacked. Having escaped from danger, Motoyasu entered Daijuji Temple outside Okazaki Castle the following day.

With Imagawa Yoshimoto dead, and the Imagawa clan in a state of confusion, Motoyasu used the opportunity to assert his independence and marched his men back into the abandoned Okazaki Castle and reclaimed his ancestral seat. Motoyasu then decided to ally with Oda Nobunaga. Motoyasu's wife, Lady Tsukiyama, and infant son, Matsudaira Nobuyasu, were held hostage in Sunpu by Imagawa Ujizane, Yoshimoto's heir, so the deal was secret.

In 1561, Motoyasu openly ended his allegiance to the Imagawa clan and captured Kaminogō castle. Kaminogō was held by Udono Nagamochi. Resorting to stealth, Motoyasu forces under Hattori Hanzō attacked under cover of darkness, setting fire to the castle and capturing two of Udono's sons. He then used them as hostages to exchange for his wife and son.

Ieyasu-Nobunaga Alliance (1562–1582)

Sometime in the aftermath of the Okehazama battle where Imagawa Yoshimoto was slain, Motoyasu formed the with Oda Nobunaga, daimyo lord of Owari Province and the head of the Oda clan.

In 1563, Matsudaira Nobuyasu, the first son of Motoyasu, was married to Oda Nobunaga's daughter Tokuhime. In February, Matsudaira Motoyasu changed his name to Matsudaira Ieyasu. Some historians believe that these actions provoked the pro-Imagawa faction, including the Sakurai and Okusa Matsudaira families, which led to the simultaneous uprising against Ieyasu in the following year.

Unification of Mikawa

During this period, the Matsudaira clan faced a threat from the Ikkō-ikki movement, in which peasants banded together with militant monks under the Jōdo Shinshū sect, and rejected the traditional feudal social order. Ieyasu undertook several battles to suppress this movement in his territories, including the Battle of Azukizaka (1564).

Some of Ieyasu's vassals were in the Ikkō-ikki ranks, notablyHonda Masanobu and Natsume Yoshinobu, who had deserted him for the Ikkō-ikki rebellion out of religious sympathy. However, many of Ieyasu's core vassals who were also followers of the sect, such as Ishikawa Ienari and Honda Tadakatsu, quickly abandoned the Ikkō faith of Jōdo Shinshū and stayed loyal to Ieyasu in order to confront the rebels.

On January 15, 1564, Ieyasu decided to concentrate his forces to attack and eliminate the Ikkō-ikki from Mikawa. In the Battle of Azukizaka, Ieyasu was fighting on the front lines and was nearly killed when he was struck by several bullets, but survived because they did not penetrate his armor. Both sides were using new gunpowder weapons which the Portuguese had introduced to Japan 20 years earlier. At the end of battle, the Ikkō-ikki were defeated. By 1565, Ieyasu had become the master of all of Mikawa Province.

In 1566, as Ieyasu declared his independence from the Imagawa clan, he reformed the order of Mikawa province, starting with the Matsudaira clan, after he pacified Mikawa. This decision was made after he was counseled by his senior vassal Sakai Tadatsugu to abandon the clan's allegiance to the Imagawa clan. He also strengthened his power base by creating a military government system for the Tokugawa clan in Mikawa which was based on his hereditary vassals, the Fudai daimyō. The system which was called "''Sanbi no gunsei''" (三備の軍制) divided governance into three sections:

# Hatamoto-Senshi: Ieyasu's direct vassals and personal unit of the army. Their task was to personally protect Ieyasu. The earliest commanders of this unit included Matsudaira Ietada (Tojo), Torii Mototada, Honda Tadakatsu, Sakakibara Yasumasa, Ōkubo Tadayo, Osuga Yasutaka, Uomura Iezumi, and others
# Higashi Mikawa: The eastern Mikawa province army unit, put under the control of Sakai Tadatsugu as overall commander. The commanders of this unit consisted of many Matsudaira clansmen and other hereditary vassals of Tokugawa such as Matsudaira Ietada (Fukōzu), Matsudaira Tadamasa, Matsudaira Ietada (Katahara), and others
# Nishi-Mikawa: The western Mikawa province army unit, put under the ''de jure'' control of Ishikawa Ienari (''de facto'' control lay with his nephew, Ishikawa Kazumasa) as overall commander. The commanders of this unit consisted of many Matsudaira clansmen and other hereditary vassals which assigned on eastern side of the province, such as Shimada Heizo, Hiraiwa Chikayoshi, Naitō Ienaga, Sakai Tadatoshi, Matsudaira Shinichi, and others.

Tokugawa clan

In 1567, Ieyasu started the family name "Tokugawa", changing his name to the well-known Tokugawa Ieyasu. As a member of the Matsudaira clan, he claimed descent from the Seiwa Genji branch of the Minamoto clan. As there was no proof that the Matsudaira clan were descendants of Emperor Seiwa, the Emperor initially did not approve the appointment, citing the lack of a precedent for the Serada clan of the Seiwa Genji clan to be appointed as ''Mikawa-no-kami'' (Lord of Mikawa).

Ieyasu then consulted with imperial noble Konoe Motohisa through the mediation of a Mikawa native and the abbot of the Kyo Seiganji Temple. Due to Motohisa's efforts, Yoshida Kaneyoshi discovered a genealogical document in the ''Manri-koji'' family that was precedent, saying, "Tokugawa (belongs) to Minamoto clan, as another offshoot of the Fujiwara clan," and a copy was transferred to him and used for the application. Ieyasu then gained the permission of the Imperial Court and he was bestowed the courtesy title ''Mikawa-no-kami'' and the court rank of .

Though the Tokugawa clan could claim some modicum of freedom, they were very much subject to the requests of Oda Nobunaga. Ieyasu remained an ally of Nobunaga and his Mikawa soldiers were part of Nobunaga's army which captured Kyoto in 1568.

In 1568, at the same time, Ieyasu was eager to expand eastward to Tōtōmi Province. Ieyasu and Takeda Shingen, the head of the Takeda clan in Kai Province, made an alliance for the purpose of conquering all the Imagawa territory. It is said that the Tokugawa clan had made an agreement with the Takeda clan when dividing the territory that the eastern Suruga Province would become Takeda territory and the western Tōtōmi province would be Tokugawa territory, with the Ōi River as the border.

On January 8, 1569, the Takeda vassal Akiyama Nobutomo invaded the Tōtōmi province from Shinano Province. The Takeda clan, through Oda Nobunaga, with whom they had a friendly relationship, asked Ieyasu, who was Nobunaga's ally, to reconsider cooperation with the Takeda, but Ieyasu rejected the idea, demonstrating a degree of independence from Nobunaga.

Tōtōmi campaign

In 1568, Ieyasu besieged the Horikawa Castle in Tōtōmi and captured it in 1569. Ieyasu then ordered Ishikawa Hanzaburo to massacre the castle prisoners and residents, including women and children. It was recorded that around 700 people were beheaded on the banks of the Miyakoda River.* Ōkubo Tadachika, who witnessed this massacre testified in his personal journal, ''Mikawa Monogatari'', that "... ...".

Later the same year, Ieyasu's troops penetrated Tōtōmi Province. Meanwhile, Takeda Shingen's troops captured Suruga Province, including the Imagawa capital of Sunpu. Imagawa Ujizane fled to Kakegawa Castle, which led Ieyasu to lay siege to Kakegawa.

Ieyasu then negotiated with Ujizane, promising that if Ujizane surrendered himself and the remainder of Tōtōmi, Ieyasu would assist Ujizane in regaining Suruga. Ujizane had nothing left to lose, and Ieyasu immediately ended his alliance with Takeda