Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun

1543-1616; born Matsudaira Takechiyo and later taking other names, was the founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow Oda subordinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

He built his castle in the fishing village of Edo (now Tokyo). He became the most powerful daimyo and the most senior officer under the Toyotomi regime.

Ieyasu seized power in 1600, after the Battle of Sekigahara. He received appointment as shōgun in 1603, and voluntarily abdicated from office in 1605, but remained in power until his death in 1616. He implemented a set of careful rules known as the bakuhan system, designed to keep the daimyo and samurai in check under the Tokugawa Shogunate.