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Updated: June 29, 2025


The dai nagon, Tadanaga, lord of Suruga and younger brother of Iemitsu by the same mother, received in Kai province a fief of 180,000 koku, and, seven years later, this was increased by Suruga and Totomi, bringing the whole estate up to 500,000 koku. He resided in the castle of Sumpu and led an evil life, paying no attention whatever to the remonstrances of his vassals.

Although the third shogun, Iemitsu, had vetoed the building of any vessels exceeding five hundred koku capacity, his object being to prevent oversea enterprise, he caused to be constructed for the use of the Bakufu a great ship called the Ataka Maru, which required a crew several hundred strong and involved a yearly outlay figuring in the official accounts at one hundred thousand koku.

There had been born to Iemitsu five sons, of whom the eldest, Ietsuna, had succeeded to the shogunate, and three others had died, the only one remaining alive being Tsunayoshi, who, having been born in 1646, was now in his thirty-fourth year. On Tsunayoshi's accession the prime minister, Sakai Tadakiyo, was released from office, and Hotta Masatoshi became his successor.

On the occasion of these progresses, Hidetada is said to have distributed a total of 4.217,400 ryo of gold and 182,000 ryo of silver among the barons throughout the empire. The third shogun, Iemitsu, was open handed.

At first there were three machi-bugyo, but when the Tokugawa moved to Yedo, the number was decreased to one, and subsequently increased again to two in the days of Iemitsu. Judicial business occupied the major part of the machi-bugyo's time. The Bakufu court of law was the Hyojo-sho.

In 1632, Iemitsu confiscated his fief and exiled him to Takasaki in Kotsuke, where he was compelled to undergo confinement in the Yashiki of Ando Shigenaga. Fourteen months later, sentence of death was pronounced against him at the early age of twenty-eight. Other instances might be quoted showing how little mercy the Tokugawa shoguns extended to wrongdoers among their own relatives.

Iemitsu, son of Hidetada, was born in 1603; succeeded to the shogunate in 1622, and held that post until his death, in 1651. He devoted himself to consolidating the system founded by his grandfather, Ieyasu, and he achieved remarkable success by the exercise of exceptional sagacity and determination.

The two countries had been on friendly terms for thirty-two years, and during that time a widespread conviction that Christianity was an instrument of Spanish aggression had been engendered. Iemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself remained "the power behind the throne."

At the same time Iemitsu petitioned that the Court should send an envoy to worship at Nikko every year on the anniversary of the death of Ieyasu, and this request having been granted, Nikko thenceforth became to the Tokugawa what Ise was to the Imperial Court.

Hotta Masatoshi was the third son of Masamori, who died by his own hand to follow his master, Iemitsu, to the grave. His high qualities are recorded above, but everything goes to show that he had more than the ordinary reformer's stubbornness, and that tolerance of a subordinate's errors was wholly foreign to his disposition.

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