Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu ended a century and a half of Japanese civil war and founded a shogunate that ruled for 265 years. Born in 1543 in Mikawa province to a minor warlord family, he spent his childhood from the age of about five as a hostage, first of the Oda and then of the Imagawa — a upbringing usually credited with his patience and his caution. He gained independence after Oda Nobunaga destroyed the Imagawa at Okehazama in 1560, and became Nobunaga's ally for two decades. When Nobunaga was killed in 1582, Ieyasu manoeuvred and then submitted to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, accepting in 1590 a transfer to the Kanto plain — nominally a promotion, in fact removal from his home base. He made Edo, then a small fishing settlement, his capital, and the exchange proved enormously to his advantage. He declined to commit his own troops to Hideyoshi's disastrous Korean invasions, preserving his strength while his rivals wasted theirs. Hideyoshi died in 1598 leaving a five-year-old heir and a council of regents. Ieyasu broke it, and at Sekigahara in October 1600 defeated the western coalition in a single day after Kobayakawa Hideaki changed sides mid-battle. He was appointed shogun in 1603, resigned in favour of his son two years later to secure the succession, and continued to rule from retirement. He eliminated the Toyotomi at Osaka in 1614-15. The system he built redistributed domains by loyalty, required lords to alternate residence in Edo, froze the social classes, and closed the country to most foreign contact. He died in 1616 and was enshrined at Nikko.
- Lived: 1543 CE – 1616 CE
- Nationality: Japanese
- Roles: ruler, military_leader
