At the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, the power of the daimios, even that of the great princes of the south-west, Choshiu and Satsuma, was already much attenuated, and everything was ready for a change similar to that which took place in France under Louis XI. It led to the quasi-independence of the lords being suppressed in favour of a feudality of a purely domestic character. The principal factor in this change was Tokugawa Ieyas, who had been one of the chief generals of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. Placed by this last at the head of the council of the regency, which had to exercise power during the minority of his son Hideyori, Ieyas was not long before he quarrelled with his co-regents. Assuming the command of an army, recruited in the north and the east of the Empire, he in 1600 defeated at Sekigahara the united forces of the clans of the south and the west, and thus made himself master of Japan. Instead of a purely ephemeral sovereignty, he founded a dynasty and a régime which lasted for 250 years, as the result of his ability and that of his son and grandson. Before proceeding further in detailing the political and social organization of this interesting country, it will be well to pause and consider an event of supreme importance which took place in the sixteenth century, and the effect of which explains much that is now happening. I refer to the period of the great Portuguese colonization, when that now small kingdom had annexed vast possessions in the Indies, and had added new ones in Cochin China and in the south of China to her Empire.