All right, so we’re gonna be tackling Japanese History.
Don’t even think about it, I put the entire transcript in the comments, all your references
are made already..
[Intro]
By the time Ieyasu arrives on the scene, Japan hasn’t really been one government in a long time
About a hundred years earlier the shogun told his brother to be in charge and then he had
a kid told the kid to be in charge and things got messy.
Japan has kind of a thing with putting kids in charge and then someone else puppeting
them or taking power, it’s kinda weird.
Now when a relatively small area is split into a dozen mini-states each with their own
family hierarchies and backstories and friends and enemies and people they used to be best
friends with in high school but now they don’t really talk that much except Facebook messages
on their birthdays so it’s awkward ‘s, there’s enough characters and plot twists
for a ten-season drama, but far too many for a five-minute YouTube video.
Just know that in fair Mikawa where we lay our scene, two houses, both alike in dignity,
were competing over who would get to keep the Matsudaira clan, which was evidently less
in dignity.
Mister Matsudaira, father of Ieyasu, who was called something else at the time because
he changed his name like a girl changes clothes, really wanted his family to serve the Imagawa
clan, and was going to give them his son when the Oda clan snatches him up and tells Mister
Matsudaira that unless he betrays his friends they’ll kill the boy.
To which Mister Matsudaira says “Hah! I can make a new one, go on show the Imagawa
how much I care about them”.
So now the Oda couldn’t return him but they couldn’t really kill him either so he just
kinda sat there and grew up in captivity.
The Imagawa later took him back and made him the new master chief of the Matsudaira.
But when the tide turned and the Imagawa started getting hammered, he decided he’d take his
wife and kid and jump ship to join his Oda buddies.
Oda Nobunaga gives Ieyasu is given the task of holding the fort in Mikawa while he runs
off to conquer Kyoto, where the shogun and quote-unquote “emperor” are…
I dunno, sipping tea and watching rakugo or something.
Now this may seem like house-sitting, and it was, but it presented Oda with the tremendous
advantage of being able to march around the country wrecking fools without worrying about
his neighbors preying on his backside.
Even after he conquered Kyoto, backstabbing continued to be a thorn in his side.
So he did what any reasonable gentleman would do and burned everything to the ground.
Now this is when Ieyasu is rewarded for his dutiful service and Nobunaga passes him the
torch, right?
Not exactly.
Nobunaga was a little unclear on the matter of heirs and so, even though he had a perfectly
functioning adult son, the shogunate was given to a two-year-old, who was definitely the
most deserving of the title and not at all an easy way for Nobunaga’s right-hand man
to take power for himself.
Oh, yeah, Ieyasu was great and all, but it was Toyotomi Hideyoshi who was his real first mate
When Ieyasu vowed to take revenge upon his senpai’s killers, Hideyoshi beat him
to it, even though that required ending one siege, starting another, and building a fortress
right next to the enemy’s practically overnight.
But Ieyasu is like “Dude, you know his other son isn’t dead yet, right?” and so the
battle begins, between the two greatest generals of the age, like watching a couple superheroes
-- gah!
It’s just too easy!
But while the fight was dramatic, the outcome was basically nill, Ieyasu gave up and only
had to give up a son, no big deal.
And Hideyoshi has a good run.
He took away everyone’s weapons like a total buzzkill, but Japan was a little more put-together.
Except he tried to invade Korea, which did not go well at all, and then he died.
Look I can’t go into detail about everyone, okay?
He died and he left a 5-year-old boy as his heir and ooh, boy, isn’t it a shame when
someone takes advantage of your young heir to take power for themselves?
Ieyasu at this point is pretty much squared up to be the next head hancho in Japan, a
lot of people would take a guy who knows what he’s doing over the son of the guy who got
everyone killed in Korea, but of course he wasn’t the only one who spotted an opportunity
to take power.
This guy, a great leader of bureaucrats,, swoops in and rallies up the armies.
Bureaucrats, however, are seldom known for their military prowess and he loses at Sekigahara,
and dies.
At last, Ieyasu reigns victorious!
He puts Japan together once and for all (mostly) and then he retires before he can do anything
stupid and die with a young heir.
Strangely enough it’s in his retirement that he does most of his most important governing.
He finally gets the chance to settle down and start working on a nice little castle
in a village in the East called Edo, which is still around today, it’s a cute country-town
called Tokyo.
He also put his foot down on the Catholics who’d been running around the country converting
perfectly good Buddhist citizens into Christian sleeper agents.
You know those Iberians, first they bring you Jesus then they capture your people and
take everything you own.
This was around the time he turned Japan into a political time capsule in an effort to not
get totally overrun like certain other East Asian empires,, which worked really well for
a long time, but then, say it with me now… gunboats.
And then he died the end!
You know how the Portuguese couldn’t tell the Indians and the Native Americans apart?
Well apparently the Japanese couldn’t tell the Indians and the Portuguese apart, because
for a while they thought Christianity was some hip new Indian trend.
If you want to see how Ieyasu’s life work falls apart then I refer you to Feature History’s
video on the Boshin War and the fall of the Tokugawa, unless you just came from that video,
in which case, don’t tell anyone but…
I’ve got a video on the Great Northern War.
Ciao!