Titans of History

TOKUGAWA IEYASU

1543–1616

The study of literature and the practice of the military arts must be pursued side by side.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, Rules for the Military Houses (1615)

The tenacity and patience of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s ultimate shogun, laid the foundations for two and a half centuries of stable rule by his dynasty. Tokugawa transformed his family from an undistinguished warrior clan into the undisputed rulers of Japan, ending decades of anarchy and civil war. As capable a governor as he was a soldier, Ieyasu’s flair for both administration and commerce ushered in a long period in which Japan could flourish in peace.

A legend tells how once Ieyasu was asked what he would do to a caged songbird that would not sing. “I’d wait until it does,” the general replied. The story encapsulates Ieyasu’s extraordinary patience, which was doubtless honed during his childhood years spent as the hostage of powerful neighboring clans. He was well cared for, trained to be a soldier and a governor, and encouraged in his love of falconry. But he was powerless. He could only listen helplessly to the news of his father’s murder and impotently look on as his family’s fortunes disintegrated.

When the leader of the clan that held him captive was killed in battle, Ieyasu seized the chance to return home. Deftly exploiting Japan’s precarious political balance, he restored order to his family and persuaded his former captors to release his wife and children. In his family’s small domain, Ieyasu consolidated his rule, demonstrating the administrative and legislative skill that would later secure his grip over the whole of Japan.

Ieyasu’s network of control spread outward. His canny governance, disciplined armies and ability to spot the weaknesses of others made him one of Japan’s most influential daimyos (feudal barons). He never overreached himself, however. Realizing after a few minor skirmishes that he was not yet strong enough to triumph on his own, he vowed fealty to Japan’s dominant warlord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He also avoided involvement in the disastrous military expeditions to Korea that incapacitated so many of his rival daimyos.

Ieyasu’s domain became the most prosperous in Japan. He encouraged artisans, businessmen and traders to come to Edo, the fishing village he chose as his base. Edo flourished, growing into the bustling town and port that was later to be renamed Tokyo.

Ieyasu’s willingness to bide his time secured him an unassailable power base. Finally, in 1600, at the Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu emerged triumphant over his rivals as the undisputed master of Japan. Three years later the imperial court appointed him shogun—the title borne since the 12th century by those warrior-governors who are the real power in Japan, the powerless emperors having only a ceremonial role as figureheads.

Ieyasu consolidated his clan’s claim to the shogunate as diligently as he had consolidated his authority over his territory. After only two years as shogun he passed the title on to his son, thus establishing a hereditary claim that endured for 250 years. He made sure that no daimyo could become as powerful as he had by obliging all daimyos to spend long periods at court, thus undermining their ability to build up a local power base. When they were allowed to return to their own domains, Ieyasu kept their families as virtual hostages in Edo.

The small, stout Ieyasu trusted his maverick judgment to see him through. He appointed a falconer as a diplomat, and made an actor the director of mines. His enthusiasm for trading with the Europeans filled his vast warehouses with rice and gold. Will Adams, a Kentish shipbuilder who was shipwrecked by a typhoon on Japanese shores, became one of Ieyasu’s most valued commercial advisers.

Ieyasu allowed nothing to threaten Japan’s new-found unity and stability, and to this end in 1614 he suppressed Christianity and imprisoned all foreign missionaries. Long tolerant of Christianity, Ieyasu did not initiate the religious killings that his descendants practiced—his motive was purely to prevent sectarian divisions among his countrymen. A stream of new laws established stringent control over every stratum of society, curtailing people’s freedom of movement but ensuring a stability that Japan had not seen for a century. In 1615, in his most ruthless act, Ieyasu secured Tokugawa pre-eminence by destroying his family’s last rivals to the shogunate, the Toyotomi. Among those put to death was his own grandson by marriage.

The shogun died a year later, from wounds sustained in the battle that finally extinguished the threat of the Toyotomi.