Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Edo shogunate, was a warlord from Mikawa (now eastern Aichi Prefecture) who lived during the Warring States period from 1542 to 1616 and laid the foundation for the more than 260 years of peace that followed the Warring States period. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu are known as the Three Great Masters of the Warring States period.
Did you know that Tokugawa Ieyasu was a collector of fragrant woods?
After establishing the Edo shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu engaged in red seal trade with Southeast Asia, importing fragrant woods along the way. It is said that he exchanged a considerable amount of copper for it, and as a remnant, the unit of money in Vietnam, one of the countries of origin where fragrant wood is still extracted, is now called the dong.
In addition, Ieyasu wrote a book titled “Kou-no-Kakaku” (The Book of Incense), in which he himself described the preparation of incense. Even today, many fragrant woods are carefully preserved in the Tokugawa Art Museum alone, located in Higashi-ku, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture.
Even today, fragrant woods are extremely valuable.
Brief biography of Tokugawa Ieyasu below
Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in 1542 in Okazaki, the eldest son of Matsudaira Hirotada, lord of Mikawa Okazaki Castle (his childhood name was Takechiyo, and he also went by Jirozaburo and Matsudaira Motoyasu).
He spent 12 years from the age of 8 to 19 as a hostage of Imagawa Yoshimoto in Sunpu. (During that time, he married Sena, daughter of Yoshihiro Sekiguchi, a vassal of the Imagawa family, and later Chikuyama-dono, and had his first son Nobuyasu and his first daughter Kamehime.)
Later, he participated in the Battle of Okehazama that occurred in 1560 as a member of the Imagawa army, and ended his long life as a hostage when Yoshimoto Imagawa was killed in battle.
Two years later, in 1562, he visited Kiyosu Castle in Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture, and formed an alliance with Oda Nobunaga.
The following year, in 1563, his four-year-old eldest son Nobuyasu married Nobunaga's daughter, Tokuhime, in a political alliance. The alliance led Motoyasu to change his name to Ieyasu.
Later, in 1566, he conquered the East Mikawa and Okumikawa regions and achieved the unification of the Mikawa provinces.
At that time, he changed his name to Tokugawa. In 1566, he conquered the East Mikawa and Okumikawa regions and unified the Mikawa Province.
In the same year, he was officially appointed by the Imperial Court to the post of Mikawa governor (a position that governed the eastern part of Aichi Prefecture).
In 1570, he defeated the Asai and Asakura forces in the Battle of Anegawa, and moved his headquarters from Okazaki to Hamamatsu, where he built Hamamatsu Castle and made it his main castle.
In 1572, he was invaded by Shingen Takeda of Kai, and was defeated at the Battle of Futamata Castle, and then at the Battle of Mikatagahara, where he suffered a heavy defeat and is said to have lost as many as 800 of his vassals.
When Shingen Takeda died of illness in 1573, he sent Tadakatsu Honda and others to attack Nagashino Castle in Kai.
In 1575, in alliance with Oda Nobunaga, he defeated Shingen's son, Takeda Katsuyori, in the Battle of Nagashino.
In 1579, Hidetada's third son Hidetada, the future second shogun, was born, but his eldest son Nobuyasu was suspected of having been in contact with the Takeda clan, and he and his mother Chikuyamadono, who was also Nobuyasu's wife, were killed and forced to commit seppuku on orders from Nobunaga.
In 1582, the Takeda clan was destroyed and the Suruga province was acquired, but the Honnoji Incident occurred in the same year, when his ally Oda Nobunaga was attacked by his vassal Akechi Mitsuhide at Honnoji Temple and forced to commit suicide. Mitsuhide Akechi was killed by Hideyoshi Hashiba (later Hideyoshi Toyotomi), but Hideyoshi began to emerge as his successor. Later, the battles of Komaki and Nagakute, a struggle for succession, erupted, and Akechi fought Hideyoshi but eventually made peace with him.
In 1586, he moved from Hamamatsu Castle to Sunpu Castle and married Hideyoshi's sister, Princess Asahi.
In 1590, he played an active role as the spearhead of the Odawara invasion, but Hideyoshi ordered him to move to Edo Castle, which was in the countryside at that time.
After Hideyoshi's death, he once again worked hard to become a shogun, and in 1600, he defeated Toyotomi Hideyoshi's vassal, Ishida Mitsunari, in the Battle of Sekigahara and began to walk the path of a shogun in earnest.
In 1603, he was appointed by the Imperial Court as a barbarian general and opened the Edo shogunate.
Later, Hideyoshi's son Hideyori was supposed to be appointed as the barbarian general, but the position was given to his own son Hidetada, who became the grand master of the shogunate.
He fought two battles against the Toyotomi family, the Winter Battle of Osaka in 1614 and the Summer Battle of Osaka in 1615, and finally won the battles, destroying the Toyotomi family and unifying the country.
In 1616, he was appointed Grand Minister of State by the Imperial Court, but died of illness at Sunpu Castle that same year and was buried at Mt. Various theories have been whispered about the cause of his death, and one theory is that he was hit by tempura of sea bream. After his death, he was given the divine title of Tosateru Daigongen and worshipped as a deity.