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.