THE FOUNDATION OF THE EDO GOVERNMENT. 1603-1651 We have now to speak of the fifth line of shōguns, the Tokugawa at Edo, who held administrative sway for 255 years from 1603 to the time of the imperial restoration in 1868, a period which is not far removed from the present; and during which the feudal organization of Japan attained its most perfect development. The original name of the Tokugawa family was Matsudaira. They were of the same blood as Nitta and Ashikaga and of the clan of Minamoto. From the time of the Southern and Northern dynasties their forefathers, generation after generation, espoused the cause opposed to the Ashikaga, and consequently during the Muromachi shōgunate they were relegated to a position of insignificance. Subsequently, they acquired large territorial possessions and had their seat in Mikawa during eight generations. But being surrounded by powerful enemies, they experienced no little difficulty in maintaining themselves. When Iyeyasu was a mere child, he was confined in various places as a surety for his family's conduct. These experiences probably helped to sharpen his naturally great abilities. At the age of seventeen he succeeded to the headship of the family, and as he grew to manhood he gave proofs of magnanimity and coolness, no less than of strategical skill. Gradually and astutely he encroached upon the neighboring provinces, taking clever advantage of the disordered state of the country, until finally he obtained possession of all the provinces that had belonged to the Takeda and the Imagawa and found himself the strongest chieftain in Tōkai-dō, lord of the five provinces of Mikawa, Tōtōmi, Suruga, Kai, and Shinano. In 1590, when Hideyoshi had overthrown the Hōjō at Odawara, all the eight provinces of Kwantō--Sagami, Musashi, Izu, Kazusa, Shimōsa, Kōzuke, Shimotsuke, and Hitachi--hitherto held by the Hōjō, were given to Iyeyasu, the _taikō_ receiving in their stead the five provinces previously possessed by Iyeyasu in Tōkai-dō; an exchange doubtless suggested to the _taikō_ by the comparative propinquity of the latter five provinces to Kyōto, and the advisability of relegating to a distant part of the empire a chieftain of such commanding gifts as Iyeyasu exhibited. Having come into possession of the eight provinces, Iyeyasu made his headquarters at Edo (now Tōkyō). A castle had been built here more than a century before by Ota Dōkan, a vassal of the Uyesugi, but it was of insignificant dimensions, and the town which it overlooked was touched on three sides by the Musashino plain, its southeastern front being washed by the sea. The streets, where one and a half million citizens now congregate, were then overgrown with reeds. So soon, however, as Iyeyasu moved thither, he inaugurated extensive improvements, leveling hills, filling marshes, digging great moats, and building colossal parapets, until a site was fully prepared for a great capital.