Family which ruled over Japan from 1600 to 1867. Tokugawa Ieyasu emerged as the victor of the late Warring States period which ravaged Japan from 1467 to 1576. Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi had pacified and unified Japan. When Hideyoshi died in 1598, his infant son was officially to become shogun, but Ieyasu, the most powerful daimyo, seized power and established a hereditary Shogunate based in the newly founded Edo, far from the intrigues of Kyoto.
To ascertain his sucession, Ieyasu retired and let his son become shogun, although he remained the power behind the scenes. His grandson Iemitsu built the magnificient Toshogu mausoleum in Nikko to immortalize Ieyasu.
The Tokugawa family was to rule for over two and a half century over Japan, in what is one of the most peaceful, if repressive, period of its history. The shogunate collapse soon after US Commodore Perry forced Japan to open its port to international trade in 1853. A rebellion of opportunist Imperilaists started in the daimyo domains of Satsuma, in Southern Kyushu, and Choshu in Western Honshu, eventually brought the restoration of imperial power and the demise of the Shogunate in 1867. The period between 1853 and 1867 is known as bakumatsu.
Family which ruled over Japan from 1600 to 1867. Tokugawa Ieyasu emerged as the victor of the late Warring States period which ravaged Japan from 1467 to 1576. Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi had pacified and unified Japan. When Hideyoshi died in 1598, his infant son was officially to become