Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu was a Japanese samurai and daimyo, born on 31 January 1543 at Okazaki Castle, who founded the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 and is counted as the third of Japan's Great Unifiers alongside Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He shifted his allegiance from the Imagawa clan to Oda Nobunaga in 1560 and, fighting as Nobunaga's ally, unified Mikawa Province by 1565 and expanded his holdings into Totomi Province, defeating the powerful Takeda clan in 1582. After Nobunaga's death he briefly contested power with Toyotomi Hideyoshi before becoming his vassal, but following Hideyoshi's own death Ieyasu won the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, a victory that secured his supremacy over rival daimyo. He was appointed shogun in 1603 and, though he formally resigned the title in 1605, retained de facto control of the country, establishing the bakuhan system of political control that brought more than two centuries of lasting peace to Japan under his successors. He died on 1 June 1616.