Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu was a general in the late Warring States Period, the Yasuto Momoyama Period, and the Edo Period of Japan. Daimyo of the Warring States Period, and the first general of the Edo shogunate. One of the three heroes of the Japanese Warring States Period (the other two are Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi). Outstanding statesman and strategist.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in Okazaki Castle, near Nagoya. His father was Okazaki City Lord Hirotada Matsuhira, and his mother was Hirotada's chief wife, Yurotada, Onofata (Chuanfuin). His original surname was Songping, but his surname was changed to Tokugawa in the tenth year of Yonglu (1567). After the Battle of the Tsukasa War, he formed an alliance with Nobunaga Oda. After the change in the Ingenji Temple, he first became hostile to Hideyoshi (Toyotomi Hideyoshi), and then surrendered to him due to the situation. After the War of Odawara, it was transferred to Kanto by Hideyoshi. Although it lost its long-term base, it gained the largest territory among the foreign daimyo under the Toyotomi regime. Served as the pen of the five elders. After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he led the Eastern Army to defeat the Western Army in the Battle of Seanyuan and established hegemony. Since then, the power of the Fengchen family has been destroyed step by step. From the 19th year of Keichang (1614) to the 20th year of Keichang (1615), the Toyotomi family was destroyed by Osaka's summer and winter formations, and the Edo shogunate governance system became rock-solid. After Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogun, Japan entered a temporary peace.

In the second year of Yuanhe (1616), Tokugawa Ieyasu died in Junfu Castle. He was 74 years old. The body was buried in Kuneng Mountain in Junfu, and was reburied in Nikko, Shimano, a year later. He was granted the title of "Tosho Power Now" by the Japanese court and became the god of the Edo shogunate. He was worshipped in the Tosho Palace in Japan and was later called "Tosho God."

person evaluation

Tokugawa Ieyasu's greatest achievement in his life was that he reorganized and strengthened Japan's feudal order after Nobunaga Oda and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, pushing Japanese feudal society to a new stage. The Tokugawa shogunate he founded maintained a peaceful reunification situation for more than 260 years in Japanese history, which provided a slightly better social environment for the development of Japan's feudal economy than the manorial era. However, the Japanese feudal system reorganized and strengthened by Tokugawa Ieyasu was still based on a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy. The strict status system firmly fixes everyone in a narrow frame, seriously hindering the progress of society. He promoted overseas trade not to develop free private trade and embark on the path of modern mercantilism, but to maintain feudal political rule out of the political and economic needs of the shogunate. Its scope was limited to official trade controlled by a very small number of court officials, daimyo, and privileged businessmen. Once it exceeded the political needs of the shogunate, it was immediately banned or restricted. The ban on religion promulgated in 1612 restricted the trade in Zhu Yin ships from 1615. In addition, Tokugawa Ieyasu promoted the ideological rule of the unity of Confucianism and Buddhism in his later years, and this influence even lasted after the Meiji Restoration.