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Updated: June 3, 2025
Thus began the great city of Yedo, now Tokio, the eastern capital of Japan. In 1600, Iyeyasu, then at the head of affairs, pushed the work on his new city with energy, employing no less than three hundred thousand men.
Nevertheless the machinery of administration, astutely devised by Iyeyasu, and further perfected by Iyemitsu, worked so well that the enemies of the Shogunate could find no opportunity for a successful attack until foreign aggression unexpectedly came to their aid. The most dangerous enemies of the government were the great clans of Satsuma and Choshu.
The Soga brothers, victims and heroes of a famous twelfth-century tragedy, have become gods to whom people pray for the maintenance of fraternal harmony. Kato Kiyomasa, the determined enemy of Jesuit Christianity, and Hideyoshi's greatest captain, has been apotheosized both by Buddhism and by Shinto. Iyeyasu is worshipped under the appellation of Toshogu.
The army of the league against Iyeyasu had many leaders, including the five governors, most of the generals of the Corean war, and the lords and vassals of Hideyoshi. Strong as it was, one hundred and eighty thousand in all, it was moved by contrary purposes, and unity of counsel was lacking among the chiefs.
To rightly estimate the decision of Iyeyasu one of the shrewdest, and also one of the most humane statesmen that ever lived, it is necessary to consider, from a Japanese point of view, the nature of the evidence upon which he was impelled to act.
Some three hundred of them were put into ships and sent out of the country, together with various Japanese suspected of religious political intrigues, such as Takayama, former daimyo of Akashi, who was called "Justo Ucondono" by the Jesuit writers, and who had been dispossessed and degraded by Hideyoshi for the same reasons. Iyeyasu set no example of unnecessary severity.
A fifth was afterwards added, Tokugawa Iyeyasu, also a famous name in Japan. It was through his dealings with the Buddhists that Nobunaga made himself best known in history. He had lived among them in his early years, and had learned to hate and despise them. Having been educated in the Shinto faith, the ancient religion of Japan, he looked on the priests of Buddhism as enemies to the true faith.
Hidétada, the son and successor of Iyéyasu, together with Iyénobu, Iyétsugu, Iyéshigé, Iyéyoshi, and Iyémochi, the sixth, seventh, ninth, twelfth, and fourteenth Shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty, are buried in three shrines attached to the temple; the remainder, with the exception of Iyémitsu, the third Shogun, who lies with his grandfather at Nikkô, are buried at Uyéno.
The hum of the vast city outside is unheard here: Iyéyasu himself, in the mountains of Nikkô, has no quieter resting-place than his descendants in the heart of the city over which they ruled.
"Fellows who neglect to give notice of their intended revenge are like wolves of pretext, and their punishment or pardon should depend upon the circumstances of the case." Legacy of Iyéyasu, ut supr
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