Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川 家康, Tokugawa Ieyasu, January 31, 1543 – June 1, 1616) was the founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which effectively ruled Japan from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the shogunate's overthrow in the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, became shogun in 1603, and abdicated from this position in 1605, but remained the effective ruler of Japan through his descendants until his death in 1616. His given name is sometimes spelled Ieyasu Tokugawa, with the surname preceding the given name according to Japanese conventions. In Hebrew, his name can be translated as טוקוגאווה איאסו (Tokugawa Ieyasu). In Chinese, his name is written as 德川家康 (Dé Chuān Jiā Kāng), and in Korean, it is written as 도쿠가와 이에야스 (Dokugawa Ieyasu). Ieyasu was a prominent daimyō who unified Japan after the century of civil war in the late 16th century. He built his power base in the Tōkai region, specifically in the regions of Tōtōmi, Suruga, and Mikawa, and then defeated the Takeda clan in the Battle of Nagashino. He later sided with Oda Nobunaga's successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and assisted in the invasion of Shikoku (1585) and Kyushu (1587). After Hideyoshi's death in 1598, Ieyasu broke the fragile unity of Japan by defeating rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara and subsequently established the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan for over 250 years.