1. Tokugawa Ietsuna was the fourth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan who was in office from 1651 to 1680.
15 Facts About Tokugawa Ietsuna
1. 2.
Tokugawa Ietsuna is considered the eldest son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, which makes him the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
3.
Tokugawa Ietsuna was born in 1641, allegedly the eldest son of Tokugawa Iemitsu with his concubine, Oraku no Kata later Houjuin.
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Tokugawa Ietsuna was a frail child, and this carried over into his adult years.
5.
Tokugawa Ietsuna Iemitsu died in early 1651, at the age of forty-seven.
6.
Nonetheless, despite his age, Tokugawa Ietsuna became shogun in Kei'an 4.
7.
Until he came of age, five regents were to rule in his place, but Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna nevertheless assumed a role as formal head of the bakufu bureaucracy.
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Nonetheless, the plan was discovered after the death of Iemitsu, and Tokugawa Ietsuna's regents were brutal in suppressing the rebellion, which came to be known as the Keian Uprising or the "Tosa Conspiracy".
9.
In 1663, the regency for shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna ended, but the regents still held power for him, the first time that the power behind the bakufu was not a former shogun.
10.
In some cases Tokugawa Ietsuna acted upon his own accord, as when he came up with the idea of abolishing junshi, where a samurai follows his lord into death.
11.
Tokugawa Ietsuna's succession began to be discussed, in which Sakai Tadakiyo took an active role.
12.
Tokugawa Ietsuna suggested that a son of Emperor Go-Sai become the next shogun, following the precedent of the later Kamakura shoguns, who in reality were members of the blood royal.
13.
Tadakiyo probably saw himself as becoming powerful like the Hojo regents, and thus many members of the Tokugawa blood preferred Shogun Ietsuna's younger brother Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, a son of Shogun Iemitsu, to become shogun.
14.
Tadakiyo retired, embarrassed, and shortly after, Tokugawa Ietsuna died in 1680.
15.
The years in which Tokugawa Ietsuna was shogun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengo.