Early life (1543–1556)

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in Okazaki Castle in Mikawa on the 26th day of the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Tenbun, according to the Japanese calendar. Originally named Matsudaira Takechiyo (松平竹千代), he was the son of Matsudaira Hirotada (松平広忠), the daimyō of Mikawa of the Matsudaira clan, and Odai-no-kata (於大の方, Lady Odai), the daughter of a neighbouring samurai lord, Mizuno Tadamasa (水野忠政). His mother and father were step-siblings. They were just 17 and 15 years old, respectively, when Ieyasu was born. Two years later, Odai-no-kata was sent back to her family and the couple never lived together again. As both husband and wife remarried and both went on to have further children, Ieyasu in the end had 11 half-brothers and sisters.

The Matsudaira family was split in 1550: one side wanted to be vassals of the Imagawa clan, while the other side preferred the Oda clan. As a result, much of Ieyasu's early years were spent in danger as wars with the Oda and Imagawa were fought. This family feud was the reason behind the murder of Ieyasu's paternal grandfather, Matsudaira Kiyoyasu (松平清康). Unlike his father and the majority of his branch of the family, Ieyasu's father, Hirotada, favored the Imagawa clan.

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In 1548, when the Oda clan invaded Mikawa, Hirotada turned to Imagawa Yoshimoto, the head of the Imagawa clan, for help to repel the invaders. Yoshimoto agreed under the condition that Hirotada send Ieyasu to Sunpu as a hostage. Oda Nobuhide, the leader of the Oda clan, learned of this arrangement and had Ieyasu abducted from his entourage en route to Sunpu. Ieyasu was just five years old at the time.

Nobuhide threatened to execute Ieyasu unless his father severed all ties with the Imagawa clan. Hirotada replied that sacrificing his own son would show his seriousness in his pact with the Imagawa clan. Despite this refusal, Nobuhide chose not to kill Ieyasu, but instead held him for the next three years at the Mansho Temple in Nagoya.

In 1549, when Ieyasu was 6, his father Hirotada was murdered by his own treacherous vassals, who had been bribed by the Oda Clan. At about the same time, Oda Nobuhide died during an epidemic. Nobuhide's death dealt a heavy blow to the Oda clan. An army under the command of Imagawa Sessai laid siege to the castle where Oda Nobuhiro, Nobuhide's eldest son and the new head of the Oda, was living. With the castle about to fall, Sessai offered a deal to Oda Nobunaga, Nobuhide's second son. Sessai offered to give up the siege if Ieyasu was handed over to the Imagawa. Nobunaga agreed, and so Ieyasu (now nine) was taken as a hostage to Sunpu. Here he lived a fairly good life as hostage and potentially useful future ally of the Imagawa clan until 1556 when he was age 13 years old.

HISTORY

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616)

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which effectively ruled Japan from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, and abdicated from office in 1605, but remained in power until his death in 1616. He was one of the three unifiers of Japan, along with his former lord Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.