Tokugawa Ieyasu

Military Leader

January 31, 1543 Okazaki Castle, Mikawa (now Okazaki, Japan)

June 1, 1616 Sunpu, Tokugawa shogunate (now Shizuoka, Japan)

Asahi no kata (m.1586 - 1590), Lady Tsukiyama (m. 1557- 1579)

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled over Japan from 1603 till 1868. He is remembered as one of the three great unifiers of Japan. Born to a minor daimyō, he spent the major part of his childhood and adolescence as a hostage, detained first by Oda Nobuhide and then by Imagawa Yoshimoto, being trained as a future ally by the latter. But after Yoshimoto’s death, Ieyasu decided to align first with Oda Nobuhide’s son, Oda Nobunaga and after his death with Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Concurrently, he started improving his army’s command structure and administrative set up, which include taxation procedure and food and water supply, eventually becoming the undisputed master of Japan.  At the age of sixty, he was appointed shōgun by the imperial court, a position he held for two years before abdicating for his son, thereafter continuing to work until his death, not only consolidating the position of Tokugawa shogunate, but also for the good of his country.