Tokugawa+Ieyasu

Matsudaira Takechiyo, more commonly known as Tokugawa Ieyasu, lived from 1542-1616 to the age of 75. His father was the lord to the province Mikawa. He was born in the Aichi Prefecture but grew up in the Shizuoka Prefecture as a hostage to the Imagawa clan. During this time, a civil war was going on and many leaders were fighting, trying to dominate. Power gradually came to him once his father passed. When he became leader of Matsudaira, he joined forces with Oda Nobunaga and accumulated more land. Ieyasu became known as the most powerful feudal lord in the country and fought a major battle, after which he became a shogun.

The alliance he had formed with Nobunaga continued after Oda's assassination with the successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Around the time when Hideyoshi passed, another civil war broke out. An advisor, Ishida Mitsunari, created the Western Army which became Ieyasu's biggest rival. In 1600, a major victory came to him when he defeated this army in the battle of Sekigahara and he achieved dominance. With this new power, he was able to create a central government in Edo, now called Toyko. The title of shogun was given to him in 1603 by Emperor Go-Tozei. He worked hard to stabilize Japan once again and pushed for more foreign trade. Not only did he do this, he also ordered any unnecessary castles to be torn down and encouraged scholarly learning to warriors.

We will be visiting Nikko and there is the mausoleum that holds not only Tokugawa Ieyasu, but also Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Minamoto Yoritomo. This place is at the Toshogu shrine, considered to be one of the most important shrines in all of Japan. They will always be remembered here with over a dozen different buildings, both Buddhist and Shinto, at the shrine. Surrounding the shrine is a forest. Toshogu was emhanced and made into what it is today by Tokugawa Ieyasu's grandson Iemitsu in the early 1600s.