25 Facts About Tokugawa Iemitsu

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the third shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada and grandson of the last great unifier of Japan, the first Tokugawa shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the first member of the Tokugawa family born after Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun.

Tokugawa Iemitsu had two sisters, Senhime and Masako, and a brother, who would become a rival, Tadanaga.

However, Ieyasu made it clear that Tokugawa Iemitsu would be next in line as shogun after Hidetada.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was said to have been sickly from birth.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was installed officially as the heir to the Tokugawa shogunate.

In 1623, when Tokugawa Iemitsu was nineteen, Hidetada abdicated the post of shogun in his favor.

Hidetada continued to rule as Ogosho, but Tokugawa Iemitsu nevertheless assumed a role as formal head of the bakufu bureaucracy.

In 1626, shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu and retired shogun Hidetada visited Emperor Go-Mizunoo, Empress Masako, and Imperial Princess Meisho in Kyoto.

Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu made lavish grants of gold and money to the court nobles and the court itself.

In Kan'ei 9, on the 24th day of the 2nd month, Ogosho Hidetada died, and Tokugawa Iemitsu could assume real power.

In 1633, after his brother's death, Tokugawa Iemitsu dismissed these men.

In place of his father's advisors, Tokugawa Iemitsu appointed his childhood friends.

In 1635, Tokugawa Iemitsu issued the second version of the buke shohatto, a collection of edicts dictating the powers and responsibilities of the daimyo.

Tokugawa Iemitsu expanded the edicts to define the relationship between the han, the feudal domains of the daimyo, and the shogunate, increasing the number of edicts from thirteen to twenty-one.

The century-long presence of Catholic traders and missionaries in Japan ended in the 1630s when Tokugawa Iemitsu ordered the expulsion of nearly every European from the country.

However, the measures Tokugawa Iemitsu enacted were so powerful that it was not until the 1850s that Japanese ports opened to a wider range of trading partners, Westerners were free to settle and travel within Japan, and Japanese were once more free to travel overseas.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was succeeded by her younger half-brother Emperor Go-Komyo, who disliked the shogunate for its violent and barbaric ways.

Tokugawa Iemitsu repeatedly made insulting comments about Iemitsu and his eldest son and heir, Tokugawa Ietsuna.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was accorded a posthumous name of Taiyuin, known as Daiyuin and buried in Taiyu-in Temple, Nikko.

Tokugawa Iemitsu had expanded Nikko Tosho-gu prior to his death, but was careful to avoid iconography for his mausoleum that could be seen as surpassing that of his grandfather.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was succeeded by his eldest son and heir, Tokugawa Ietsuna.

The years in which Tokugawa Iemitsu was shogun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengo.