ABSTRACT
Although beset with challenges to his rule and social unrest, Tokugawa leyasu completed and solidified the work of unifying and pacifying Japan that toyotomi hldeyoshi had begun in 1580s. In so doing, he established a hereditary central leadership for Japan that endured from 1600 to 1867 and a culture of stability that has endured to the present. In 1558, like many young men of his class, leyasu became a commander in Imagawas army, proving himself an excellent leader. In 1560, with the death of daimyo Imagawa, leyasu was permitted to reclaim his lands at Mikawa and his rights as a minor daimyo. After 1571, leyasu became more cautious for a time, relying more on alliances than direct confrontations to achieve his conquests. In 1584, leyasu skirmished with, and then became an ally of, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had just begun to try to concentrate his control of Japan's shogun.
