The events that brought about the end of the Takeda clan as a military force where described in the biography of Shingen Takeda.  This was the era of the Warring States and of course many clans like the Takeda where subdued, many formed alliances but few held the reins of power.

    After the dust had settled over all the battlefields it would be Oda Nobugana who would be military leader of Japan but he never held the tittle of Shogun.  Save for a few reluctant Daimyos Japan was practically unified in 1582 when he was assassinated at the Honnoji temple by one of his generals, Akechi Mitsuhide.  The latter proclaimed himself Shogun; but his reign would last only 13 days.  Upon hearing of Oda's death Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Oda's most faithful generals, killed Mitsuhide.

Oda Nobunaga

    Hideyoshi succeeded Oda but like him was not Shogun, he was a man of modest origin but a fierce warrior so the other important Daimyos did not oppose him.  He decided that from then on the tittle of Shogun would be transmitted trough lineage to insure stability. He designated his son to be the first of a lineage and thus had is five principal generals (among which was Tokugawa) swear that if anything should happen to him his son Hideyori would be Shogun, they all agreed.  In 1587 Hideyoshi banned the possession of weapons by commoners, another element to insure stability of the land and of course his own.  But his ambitions took him beyond the frontiers of Japan and he decided to invade Korea, it was a fiasco and he died there of disease in 1598.
 
 

    Tokugawa saw the opportunity; he would be Shogun.   Not  respecting the promise he had made to Hideyoshi meant little to him.  He was opposed in this decision by Ishida Mitsunari a faithful Hideyoshi retainer.  They both made alliances and their opposing views were finally settled at the battle of Sekigahara on October 21 1600.  Tokugawa of course was the victor.  In 1615, in order to eliminate the true inheritor of the tittle of Shogun, he traitorously invaded the fortress of Osaka, where Hideyori Toyotomi had taken refuge with a few faithful retainers.  They where subdued and Hideyori committed seppuku.

    Nobody thereafter dared oppose him and to insure the loyalty of his Daimyos he instituted, among other measures, the Sankin Kotai, a law stipulating that the Daimyos had to spend every other year in Edo and when they were not in Edo they had to leave behind a member of their family; a concubine, a child etc..  It was blackmail but it worked the Edo period which lasted for over 250 years was one of peace and prosperity.

     It was also one of isolation for Japan; the policy of sakoku (closed nation policy) having been implemented.  Save for the Dutch who where allowed to reside and trade on the very small Deshima island near the port facilities of Nagasaki, no foreigners or even elements of foreign culture where allowed to permeate japanese society.

    It was however for the warrior class a period of idleness and Tokugawa drew up the Buke Sho Hatto, it gave Samurai 13 guides on how a warrior should live during peace time.  To insure that the skills developed during the past centuries would not be lost many decided to pass them on in an organized fashion.  It was in this period that most of the Koryu were formally developed.
 
 

    Aside from the natural decay that is to be expected of a regime that has been in power for over two hundred years, two series of events triggered the downfall of the Tokugawa regime.  There where internal discords and also the expansionist views of the western world who had wanted Japan open to trade for a long time.

      Among the activities the high ranking but idle samurais did was the study of japanese culture at the School of National Learning.  Scholars from this school were called kokugakushu and they excluded from their studies anything that was not strictly Japanese. One of those samurai, Takayama Hikokuro, was a strong proponent of the idea that the Emperor was not getting the respect he deserved and that he should be head of state.

    Of course that noble idea was very pleasing to the clans that had been on the loosing side at Sekigahara a few centuries before, they had always been kept away from the reins of power and they resented the Tokugawa with a passion.  The Satsuma and Chosu where such clans, they where powerful but isolated politically even though they shared a hatred for the Tokugawa.

     In the first half of the 19th century the British had strongholds in China and this was known to the Tokugawa government.  The japanese leaders where also aware of the military strength of the western countries and that in order to pursue their politic of sakoku Japan was to be stongly united.

    On the other side of the Pacific a high ranking american naval officer, Alfred T. Mahan, convinced President Fillmore that it was essential for the United States to establish,  forcibly if necessary, diplomatic relations with Japan in order to have access to its ports.  President Fillmore dispatched for the mission Commodore Matthew Perry.

    Perry arrived with his four  "black ships"  in the bay of Edo on the 8th of July 1853 with a proposition destined to the Emperor.  It stipulated that Japan was to open its ports to foreign trade.  It that was more an ultimatum than a diplomatic endeavor.  Perry said he would be back in the spring of 1854 for the response.

     Shogun Iesada Tokugawa needed the support of the provincial Daimyos in order to have strong negotiating powers.  He, of course, did not get it.

    When Perry came back in February of 1854 Tokugawa had no choice but to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa which gave foreigners access to the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate; it also stipulated that an american council was to be in residence in Shimoda.  The council, Townsend Harris, arrived in 1856.
 
 
 

    In 1858 Tokugawa Iesada died without an heir.  The Roju (head of the Shogun's council) and theTozama (the Provincial Daimyos) had opposing views on who was to succeed. The Roju appointed Ii Naotsuke as counselor to try and resolve the conflict.  This was futile; on the 24th of March 1860 he was assassinated by a group of samurais who would be the precursors of the SHISHI an organization devoted to the expulsion and if necessary brutal assassination of foreigners and the reinstatement of the Emperor.

    Saigo Takamori (not related to Tanomo Saigo), an important retainer and diplomat of the Satsuma clan of the island of Kyushu, was of course in favor of the SHISHI's actions.  But their brutality infuriated the foreigners and Takamori and the Tozama knew they could not overthrow the Tokugawa regime without foreign help.  So the SHISHI were eliminated.
 
 
 

    By 1866 the Satsuma and the Choshu clans had decided to form an alliance and by 1868 under the military command of Prince Arisugawa, armed with modern weapons and dressed like their occidental allies, they formed with other clans a formidable army.  The clans who opposed them ( the Aizu clan among others) where no match and by the fall of 1868 the Boshin civil war was over and Emperor Meiji was restored to power.
 
 
 

    The treaty putting an end to the civil war the "Tosa Settlement" still left Tokugawa with some influence.  This infuriated the Satsuma and Chosu clans who under Takamori's leadership rebelled against the Emperor they helped reinstate.  In the end Prince Arisugawa besieged the castle in Satsuma in 1877, that put an end to the Satsuma rebellion.  Saigo Takamori received a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen and so he would not be taken prisoner was beheaded (quite probably at his own request) by one of his own retainers on 24 September 1877.  This would be the last battle in which samurai would participate. 

Saigo Takamori