Tokugawa Iemitsu

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the third shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty and ruled Japan from 1623 until 1651. Born in 1604, he was the son of Tokugawa Hidetada and grandson of the dynasty’s founder Ieyasu. Although Hidetada retained influence after formally transferring the shogunate, Iemitsu gradually asserted full authority and strengthened the institutions created after the wars of unification. His government increased supervision of the daimyō and reinforced the distinction between the shogunal house and potentially rival military lords.

Iemitsu’s reign is particularly associated with the mature form of alternate attendance, which required daimyō to spend regular periods at Edo and placed heavy political and financial constraints on them. His government also intensified persecution of Christianity, suppressed the Shimabara-Amakusa rebellion and issued maritime restrictions that sharply limited most European access while preserving controlled relations with Dutch, Chinese, Korean and other trading partners. These policies did not seal Japan completely, but they created the regulated foreign-relations system that characterised much of the later Tokugawa period.

In Eiji Yoshikawa’s Yagyu Moonshadow Chronicles, During the shogunate of Tokugawa Iemitsu, Yagyū Munenori serves both as a master of the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū and as an official responsible for controlling powerful lords.