He was born in the main keep compound of Edo Castle as the eldest son of the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu and named Takechiyo. Iemitsu, long without a son, rejoiced and is said to have decided on him as heir from birth. His own bitter rivalry with his brother Tadanaga over the succession is also said to have been a reason.
A Korean embassy came to Edo to celebrate the birth of the shogun's heir. Such embassies normally came when a new shogun took office, and this was the only time one was sent to celebrate an heir's birth. From birth, the little Takechiyo was a figure watched both at home and abroad.
He came of age and took the name Ietsuna. As a child, it is said, he asked what exiled criminals on remote islands ate, and when no one could answer he said, We spared their lives, so why do we not give them food? Delighted, Iemitsu ordered that this be Takechiyo's first act of government, and exiles reportedly began to receive food.
His father Iemitsu died, and Ietsuna, only ten, received the appointment at Edo Castle and became the fourth shogun. The accession of a child showed the whole country that hereditary succession to the shogunate was secure. Senior retainers from his father's time, such as his uncle Hoshina Masayuki, supported him, and henceforth appointments were held in Edo rather than Kyoto.
In the year he took office, the Keian Incident, a plot by the masterless samurai Yui Shōsetsu and others to overthrow the shogunate, was uncovered. Seeing the growing number of masterless samurai as the cause, the shogunate allowed heirless daimyō to adopt an heir on their deathbed, reducing confiscations of domains. It was a first step away from rule by force.
The Great Meireki Fire burned most of Edo, and even the keep of Edo Castle fell. The shogunate funded the rebuilding of samurai residences, temples and shrines, and built the Ryōgoku Bridge across the Sumida River to give people an escape route. The keep was never rebuilt, its cost reportedly diverted to restoring the city, a turning point in Edo's planning.
Along with issuing the Buke Shohatto, he banned junshi, the custom of retainers taking their own lives to follow their lord in death. When his father Iemitsu had died, many senior retainers had followed him. The reform ended an old custom that wasted lives and spread the idea that retainers served the house rather than the lord as a person.
He issued, all at once, vermilion-seal certificates in the shogun's name confirming the domains of all daimyō of 10,000 koku or more, and the next year gave land registers to court nobles, temples and shrines. Confirming holdings in one sweep, rather than piecemeal under each shogun, reaffirmed the lord-vassal bond between shogun and daimyō nationwide.
As Hoshina Masayuki and other senior retainers from his father's time aged and withdrew, Sakai Tadakiyo became tairō, and policy was made through deliberation with the rōjū. Ietsuna was mild-natured and, it is said, was called Lord So Be It because he answered his ministers' proposals with So be it. Some research, however, stresses the weight of the shogun's own will.
In Ezo, the Ainu chief Shakushain rose up against the unfair trade and other practices of the Matsumae domain. Under shogunate direction, Matsumae suppressed the revolt, and control over the Ainu grew even tighter. While the country was stable in Ietsuna's time, conflicts in such border regions and succession disputes in daimyō houses also occurred.
To ship the shogunate's rice to Edo, he had the merchant Kawamura Zuiken open the eastern sea route from the northeast along the Pacific, and the next year the western sea route from the Sea of Japan through the Inland Sea to Osaka. Goods from every region now flowed easily to Osaka and Edo, greatly boosting nationwide commerce.
The English ship Return came to Nagasaki seeking to resume trade, but the shogunate refused, citing among other things the English royal family's marriage ties with Portugal. It also declined a request for troops from the Zheng regime in China, keeping the closed country (sakoku) policy of his father's day. Cultural projects such as completing the history Honchō Tsugan also advanced.
Still without a son in his mid-thirties, he left the succession a worry. When he fell gravely ill, on Hotta Masatoshi's advice he adopted his youngest brother Matsudaira Tsunayoshi and died shortly afterward. A gentle shogun who loved painting and left pictures of roosters, his death ended direct father-to-son succession to the shogunate.
Tokugawa IemitsuHoshina MasayukiKawamura ZuikenSakai TadakiyoIngenNonaka KenzanOgiwara ShigehideTokugawa Ienobu
Tokugawa MitsukuniKaibara EkikenShibukawa HarumiKeichūIhara SaikakuSeki TakakazuMatsuo BashōTokugawa Tsunayoshi
People of the Edo period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.