Tokugawa 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.)

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).

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.

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

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.

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