ABSTRACT
When Toyotomi Hideyoshi died, in the year 1598, his son Hideyori was by hereditary right the successor to the power and glory which Hideyoshi had acquired by his long, eventful career, but, in fact, the sovereignty over the country was transferred to the hands of Tokugawa Iyeyasu. According to the books and documents compiled and collected during the Tokugawa era, the forefathers of the Tokugawa family are traced back to Nitta Yoshishige, a noble descended from the Minamoto family, but really this is not credible. The truth is that a man named Chikauji, who was a forefather, nine generations back, of Iyeyasu, was a travelling priest called Tokuami, and about the year 1400 this Buddhist priest, while passing through Matsudai In Mikawa Province chanced to appear at the house of Matsudaira Tarozaemon, the local magnate, and marrying his daughter by some means, he took Matsudaira for his family name. Whether this Buddhist Priest Tokuami was a mere adventurer or a bold and virtuous priest, nothing is known; and though hundreds of writers in the Tokugawa Ages attributed to this Buddhist priest a noble descent from the Nitta family, yet to-day opinions among historians are divided. Some believe it; others do not. After all, the lineage of this Tokuami, the forefather of the Tokugawa family, is not worth discussing, and we are satisfied to know that while the great feudal lords Oda, Imagawa Yoshimoto, Uyesugi Kenshin, and Takeda Shingen were struggling hard to master the country, this Matsudaira family descended from Tokuami, changed its family name to Tokugawa, and produced a great man called Tokugawa Iyeyasu, who subdued the local lords and mountain chiefs in his neighbourhood, and finally became a feudal lord ruling over a greater half of Mikawa Province.
