Tokugawa Ieyasu Essay, Research Paper

Ieyasu was born in 1542. Ieyasu was born into the family of a local

Warrior. One of many such families struggling to survive in the hostile period .

His childhood was scarcely auspicious. His father was involved in a network of

shifting alliances that repeatedly drew him into battle. When Ieyasu was two, his

mother was permanently separated from his father’s family because of one such

change in alliances, and when he was seven, military adversity compelled his

father to send him away as hostage to the Imagawa family, powerful neighbors

headquartered at Sumpu (modern Shizuoka) to the east.

Conditions at Sumpu were more settled, and Ieyasu was trained in the

military and governmental arts and developed a great love for falconry. In the late

1550s he took a wife, fathered the first of several sons, and began to acquire

military experience by leading forces on behalf of Imagawa. Despite his personal

comfort, however, Ieyasu’s years at Sumpu had been worrisome ones. He had

learned that his father had been murdered by a close friend in 1549.

In 1560 the Imagawa family was slain during a battle with Oda Nobunaga,

and young Ieyasu thought twice about his opportunity to return to his family’s

small castle. Within months he took steps to ally himself with Nobunaga, at the

same time pacifying the new leader of the Imagawa house long enough to recall

his wife and son from Sumpu. Ieyasu directed his military efforts to crushing

rebellious Buddhist sectarian groups within the Tokugawa domain. Ieyasu

devoted much energy to improving his small army’s command structure,

appointing civil administrators, and formulating and enforcing procedures of

taxation, law enforcement, and litigation .

In 1582 Nobunaga was wounded by a rebellious subordinate, by the name

of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi was Ieyasu s most brilliant general. They then

turned into rivals. After a few skirmishes, however, the cautious Ieyasu offered an

oath to a vassal, and Hideyoshi was content to leave Ieyasu’s domain intact.

During the rest of the 1580s, while Hideyoshi busily extended his control over

the daimyo of southwestern Japan, Ieyasu strengthened himself as best he

could. He continued to enlarge his vassal force, increase his domain’s

productivity, and improve the reliability of his administration. And in 1586, for

greater security, he moved his headquarters even farther to the east, away from

Hideyoshi, to Sumpu, the town he had known years before as a hostage.

During the 1590s Ieyasu, avoided involvement in Hideyoshi’s two

disastrous military expeditions to Korea. Instead Ieyasu jumped on the

opportunity afforded by his transfer to his new lands to deploy his forces and to

make his domain as secure as possible. He stationed his most powerful vassals

on the perimeter of his territory and along main access routes, keeping the least

powerful–and least dangerous to himself–nearer Edo.

In 1603 the powerless but prestigious Imperial court, which over the

years had assigned Ieyasu titles that reflected his growing power, appointed him

shogun, thereby acknowledging that this most powerful daimyo in Japan was

the man officially authorized to keep the peace in the emperor’s name. Two

years later Ieyasu formally retired, left Edo for the more pleasant surroundings of

his old home at Sumpu, and had the shogun title assigned to his son Hidetada,

intending to assure that the title was recognized as a Tokugawa family position.

By the time of his death Ieyasu (1616) had built the largest castle in the

world, a huge network of broad moats, towering stone walls, long wooden

parapets, huge gatehouses, and great fireproof warehouses full of rice and coin.

Around it lay mansions in which the daimyos lived as hostages. Edo became a

bustling town and port, full of artisans, traders, clerks, and laborers.