Tokugawa Ietsuna
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Tokugawa Ietsuna (徳川 家綱, September 7, 1641-June 4, 1680) was the fourth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan who was in office from 1651 to 1680. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, thus making him the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
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[edit] Early Life (1641-1651)
Tokugawa Ietsuna was born in 1641, the eldest son of Tokugawa Iemitsu and a concubine. At that time his father was shogun in his own right, and had enacted several anti-Christian measures after the bloody Shimabara Rebellion of 1637. Though the suppression of this rebellion quelled all serious threats to Tokugawa rule, it was nonetheless an unsure era. Ietsuna was a frail child, and this carried over into his adult years. Nothing else is known of his youth.
[edit] The Regency of Shogun Ietsuna (1651-1663)
Tokugawa Iemitsu died in early 1651 before he reached the age of fifty. After his death, the Tokugawa dynasty was at major risk. Ietsuna, the heir, was only ten years old. Nonetheless, despite his age, Tokugawa Ietsuna became shogun in 1651, becoming the fourth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was to be known as Shogun Ietsuna. Until he came of age, five regents were to rule in his place. Before he died, Iemitsu knew what his grandfather had done as a regent to Toyotomi Hideyori, but thought that the dynasty was more important than that.
Ietsuna had five regents to rule in his name. These were Sakai Tadakatsu, Sakai Tadakiyo, Inaba Masanori, Matsudaira Nobutsuna (a distant member of the Tokugawa), and two others. In addition to this regency, Iemitsu handpicked his half-brother, Hoshina Masayuki.
The first thing that Shogun Ietsuna and the regency had to address was the ronin, or, "masterless samurai". During the reign of Shogun Iemitsu, two samurai, Yui Shosetsu and Marubashi Chuya, had been planning an uprising in which the city of Edo would be burned to the ground, and, amidst the confusion, Edo Castle would be raided and the shogun, other members of the Tokugawa, and high officials would be executed. Similar occurrences would happen in Kyoto and Osaka. Shosetsu was himself of humble birth, and he saw Toyotomi Hideyoshi as his idol.
Nonetheless, the plan was discovered after the death of Iemitsu, and Ietsuna's regents were brutal in suppressing the rebellion, which came to be known as the Keian uprising of 1651. Chuya and Shosetsu, as well as their families and supporters, were executed with brutal means. In 1652, about 800 ronin led a small disturbance on Sado Island, and this was also brutally suppressed. But for the most part, the remainder of Ietsuna's rule was not disturbed anymore by the ronin as the government became more civilian oriented.
In 1657, when Shogun Ietsuna was almost 20 years old, a great fire erupted in Edo and burned the city to the ground. It took two years to rebuild the city, and bakufu officials supervised the rebuilding of the city. In 1659, Shogun Ietsuna presided over the opening ceremonies.
[edit] Shogun Ietsuna and the Hold for Power (1663-1671)
In 1663, the regency for Shogun Ietsuna ended, but the regents still held power for him, the first time that the power behind the bakufu was not a former shogun. Ietsuna's chief advisors were now Hoshina Masayuki, Ietsuna's uncle (whom he had deep regard for) Itakura Shigenori, Tsuchiya Kazunao, Kuze Hiroyuki, and Inaba Masanori. Even though Ietsuna was now ruling in his own right, these former regents now became his official advisors, and in some cases, acted for him. In some cases, however, Ietsuna acted upon his own accord, as when he came up with the idea of abolishing junshi, where a samurai follows his lord into death.
Another example of this is in 1671, when the Date family of Sendai was involved in a succession dispute. The bakufu intervened, and prevented another rendition of the Ōnin War. By 1671, however, many of the former regents were either dead or retired, and Ietsuna began to rule in his own right.
[edit] The Later Years of Shogun Ietsuna (1671-1680)
Following the succession dispute of the Date, very few disturbances occurred for the remainder of Ietsuna's reign, except some defiant daimyo.
In 1679, Shogun Ietsuna fell ill. His succession began to be discussed, in which Sakai Tadakiyo took an active role. He suggested that a son of Emperor Go-Sai become the next shogun, following the precedent of the later Kamakura shoguns, who in reality were members of the blood royal. Tadakiyo probably saw himself as becoming powerful like the Hōjō regents, and thus many members of the Tokugawa blood preferred the son of Shogun Iemitsu and Shogun Ietsuna's younger brother, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, to become shogun. Tadakiyo retired, embarrassed, and shortly after, Tokugawa Ietsuna died in 1680. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Tsunayoshi.
Though Ietsuna proved to be an able leader, affairs were largely controlled by the regents his father had appointed, even after Ietsuna was declared old enough to rule in his own right.
| Preceded by Tokugawa Iemitsu |
Tokugawa Shogun 1651-1680 |
Succeeded by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi |
