Ieyasu was a peaceful and moderate character, and in the settlement of the disturbances which had marked his advent to power, he is notable for having pursued a course of great kindness and consideration. With the exception of the cases already mentioned there were no executions for political offences. It was his desire and ambition to establish a system of government which should be continuous and not liable, like those of Nobunaga and Taikō Sama, to be overturned at the death of him who had founded it. By the gift of Taikō Sama he had already in his possession a large part of the Kwantō. And by the result of the war which had ended at Sekigahara, he had come into possession of a great number of other fiefs, with which he could reward those who had been faithful to him. It was the difficult and delicate part of his work to distribute judiciously among his supporters and retainers the confiscated estates. To realize how completely the feudal system as reformed by Ieyasu was bound to him and constituted to support and perpetuate his family, it is only necessary to examine such a list of the daimyōs(198) as is given in Appert’s _Ancien Japon_.(199) Out of the two hundred and sixty-three daimyōs there enumerated, one hundred and fifty-eight are either vassals or branches of the Tokugawa family. But while he thus carefully provided the supports for his own family, he spared many of the old and well-rooted houses, which had incorporated themselves into the history of the country. He built his structure on the old and tried foundation stones. With far-sighted statesmanship he recognized that every new form of government, to be permanent, must be a development from that which precedes it, and must include within itself whatever is lasting in the nature of its forerunner. The dual form of government had for many centuries existed in Japan, and the customs and habits of thinking, and the modes of administering justice and of controlling the conduct of men had become adapted to this system. It was therefore natural that Ieyasu should turn his attention to reforming and perfecting such a form of government. A scheme of this kind seemed best adapted to a country in which there existed on the one hand an emperor of divine origin, honored of all men, but who by long neglect had become unfit to govern, and in whom was lodged only the source of honor; and on the other hand an executive department on which devolved the practical duty of governing, organizing, maintaining, and defending. Though he was compelled to look back through centuries of misrule, and through long periods of war and usurpation, he could see straight to Yoritomo, the first of the shōguns, and could trace from him a clear descent in the Minamoto family. To this task, therefore, he set himself: to maintain the empire in all its heaven-descended purity and to create a line of hereditary shōguns who should constitute its executive department.