Ieyasu Quotes

At the moment of victory, tighten the straps of your helmet.

Find fault with thyself rather than with others.

It's no good to want to win still more when you have already won.

the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu concluded that Europeans and Christianity posed a threat to the stability of the shogunate and Japan. (In retrospect, when one considers how European military intervention followed the arrival of apparently innocent traders and missionaries in China, India, and many other countries, the threat foreseen by Ieyasu was real.)

The three main takeaways you should learn –   1. You should be able to identify Classical and Romantic Play in other people, and their natural motivations. It has immense predictive power.   2. You should be able to identify what situations you are playing Romantically, and what situations you are playing Classically. You should always know which is which.   3. If you’re playing Romantically, you absolutely must learn when to stop and shift gears to Classical. Contrast George Washington, Otto von Bismarck, Mustafa Kemal, Deng Xiaoping, and Tokugawa Ieyasu with Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Alexander of Macedon, etc. Choosing “Romantic Play indefinitely” has, historically, a very predictable outcome.   Please study this thoroughly. This concept is incredibly useful, and potentially life-changing.

In this time, he did not do many “daring” things – this part of Ieyasu’s life tends to get glossed over in the history books – but he was able to use many small skirmishes and administrative missions to test which of his retainers were most competent. He rewarded and treated well the most loyal and diligent of his officers, and – perhaps due to having been estranged from the clan as a hostage for many years – he paid less attention to birth rank and seniority, and more to merit. He developed one of the finest corps of officers and retainers in all of Japan.

The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience.

Since one person differs from another in disposition, when men are appointed to offices this should be tested, and their tendencies observed and their ability estimated, so that the office may be well filled. A saw cannot do the work of a gimlet, and a hammer cannot take the place of a knife, and men are just like this. There is a use for both sharp and blunt at the right time, and if this is not well apprehended the relation of lord and vassal will become disturbed. The Legacy of Ieyasu

Nobunaga said: "Little bird, sing. If you don't sing, I will kill you". Hideyoshi said: "Little bird, sing. If you don't sing, I will make you sing". Ieyasu said: "Little bird, sing. If you don't sing, I will wait for you to sing".

In 1612, Ieyasu had Daihachi arrested for his part in the affair and condemned him to execution.

rather than a shogun, like Tokugawa Ieyasu or Tokugawa Hidetada, holding the power.

What if the bird will not sing? Nobunaga answers, "Kill it!" Hideyoshi answers, "Make it want to sing." Ieyasu answers, "Wait." This book, Taiko, is the story of the man who made the bird want to sing.

Forging Mettle In popular depictions of Musashi’s life, he is portrayed as having played a part in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600, which preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. A more likely hypothesis is that he was in Kyushu fighting as an ally of Tokugawa Ieyasu under Kuroda Yoshitaka Jōsui at the Battle of Ishigakibaru on September 13, 1600. Musashi was linked to the Kuroda clan through his biological birth family who were formerly in the service of the Kodera clan before Harima fell to Hideyoshi.27 In the aftermath of Sekigahara, Japan was teeming with unemployed warriors (rōnin). There are estimates that up to 500,000 masterless samurai roamed the countryside. Peace was tenuous and warlords sought out skilled instructors in the arts of war. The fifteen years between Sekigahara and the first siege of Osaka Castle in 161528 was a golden age for musha-shugyō, the samurai warrior’s ascetic walkabout, but was also a perilous time to trek the country roads. Some rōnin found employment as retainers under new masters, some hung up their swords altogether to become farmers, but many continued roving the provinces looking for opportunities to make a name for themselves, which often meant trouble. It was at this point that Musashi embarked on his “warrior pilgrimage” and made his way to Kyoto. Two years after arriving in Kyoto, Musashi challenged the very same Yoshioka family that Munisai had bettered years before. In 1604, he defeated the head of the family, Yoshioka Seijūrō. In a second encounter, he successfully overpowered Seijūrō’s younger brother, Denshichirō. His third and last duel was against Seijūrō’s son, Matashichirō, who was accompanied by followers of the Yoshioka-ryū school. Again, Musashi was victorious, and this is where his legend really starts to escalate. Such exploits against a celebrated house of martial artists did not go unnoticed. Allies of the Yoshioka clan wrote unflattering accounts of how Musashi used guile and deceit to win with dishonorable ploys. Meanwhile, Musashi declared himself Tenka Ichi (“Champion of the Realm”) and must have felt he no longer needed to dwell in the shadow of his father. On the Kokura Monument, Iori wrote that the Yoshioka disciples conspired to ambush Musashi with “several hundred men.” When confronted, Musashi dealt with them with ruthless resolve, one man against many. Although this representation is thought to be relatively accurate, the idea of hundreds of men lying in wait was obviously an exaggeration. Several men, however, would not be hard to believe. Tested and triumphant, Musashi was now confident enough to start his own school. He called it Enmei-ryū. He also wrote, as confirmed by Uozumi, his first treatise, Heidōkyō (1605), to record the techniques and rationale behind them. He included a section in Heidōkyō on fighting single-handedly against “multiple enemies,” so presumably the third duel was a multi-foe affair.

Fast like the wind, Silent like a forest, Intrusive like the fire, Immobile like a mountain.

The Asai clan’s daimyo since 1560 was Asai Nagamasa, a sensible and level-headed chieftain with a reputation as a capable bushi.

These obligated retainers gathered together by warlords into private armies were the samurai. The evocative term ‘samurai’ derives from the verb samurau or saburau (‘to serve’) and so means quite literally ‘those who serve’.

Much later, Emperors reigned from the kikukamonsho, the Chrysanthemum Throne, a name which referred to the throne itself as well as the imperial chrysanthemum crest (kiku). When the later Japanese thought of their nation as a political unity at all they imagined the god-descended individual who sat upon the kikukamonsho and ruled according to divine mandate.

Nobunaga had originally wished to follow his victory at Okehazama by marching into Mikawa and attacking Motoyasu but his shrewd new rising general, Kinoshita Tokichiro, had advised him as follows: ‘When you have won a victory, tighten the strings of your helmet!’ This phrase, which subsequently became a famous Japanese proverb, meant that having won at Okehazama, Nobunaga should switch from military strength to deception and set his enemies against each other.

Since one person differs from another in disposition, when men are appointed to offices this should be tested, and their tendencies observed and their ability estimated, so that the office may be well filled. A saw cannot do the work of a gimlet, and a hammer cannot take the place of a knife, and men are just like this. There is a use for both sharp and blunt at the right time, and if this is not well apprehended the relation of lord and vassal will become disturbed.

Takechiyo opted to support the smaller group, adducing as his reason for doing so that a smaller group would always be better motivated than a larger one, whose members would be lulled into complacency by their superior numbers.

Yhere is a well-known saying in Japan that if a song-bird would not sing, Nobunaga would kill it, Hideyoshi would persuade it to sing, and Ieyasu would simply wait for it to sing.

Leur apparition remonte à la fin du IXème siècle et au début du Xème siècle. Ces guerriers (bushi) s'emparent du pouvoir politique à la fin du XIIème siècle et créèrent un système monarchique particulier dirigé par un shogun qui tenait sa légitimité de la reconnaissance impériale. Ce gouvernement fut mis en place dès 1180 à Kamakura dans l'est du Japon, avant d'être transféré à Kyoto au XIVème siècke, puis à Edo (future Tokyo) au début du XVIIème siècle. Trois dynasties shogunales (toutes descandant, réellement ou fictivement, du clan Minamoto) se sont succédé entre le XIIème et le XIXème siècle. On distingue un premier bafuku (gouv. de la tente) à Kamakura (1180-1333), celui de la famille Ashikaga, qui se constitua en 1336 et qui fut installé à Kyoto dans le quartier Muromachi en 1378. Ce deuxième bafuku s'éteignit en 1573 avant qu'un nouveau régime militaire n'émergeat à Edo en 1603. Dans l'intervalle 3 seigneurs hégémons, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, et ensuite Tokugawa Ieyasu travaillèrent à réunifier le pays sous leur domination. Les samouraï ont pendant un bon millénaire joué un rôle central dans l'histoire du pays par leur rôle politique, leur poids démographique (environ 5% de la polulation au milieu du XIXème siècle).

intrepid, and he was not lacking even in moral virtues, being