China has a long history, and there are many families that still stand with the change of dynasties. It's like Confucius's family, because the sage Confucius and his family are also brilliant. Another family that has to be said is probably the Langya Wang Clan, as a political family, it is really too large. In its heyday, there was also the saying that the king and the horse shared the world. This family flourished for more than 1,700 years, cultivating 92 prime ministers and more than 600 literati represented by Wang Ji, Wang Xizhi and others. Next door to China, Japan's history is not as old as China's, but there are many families that have flourished in it for many years, such as the Tokugawa family, the Tokugawa shogunate ruled Japan for more than 260 years, and what happened to the Tokugawa family?
The shogunate was a central government agency in ancient Japan where power once preceded the emperor, and its original meaning was the general's military tent, but over time, it became a political system with a unique national day. Japan's shogunate period is equivalent to China's Southern Song Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, from the Kamakura shogunate Japan experienced the Kamakura, Muromachi, Tokugawa three shogunate periods, and the Tokugawa shogunate is the most prosperous and last samurai political organization in Japanese history.
Speaking of the Tokugawa shogunate, one person has to be said, and that is Tokugawa Ieyasu, who is known as the Three Masters of the Sengoku period along with Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Tokugawa Ieyasu was born on January 31, 1543, and he was an enemy of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan, but it was Tokugawa Ieyasu who strengthened Japan's feudal order and pushed Japanese feudal society to a new stage. The Tokugawa shogunate was also founded by him, and in 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu established a shogunate in Edo, establishing a unified centralized shogunate.
The Emperor was nominally of great prestige, but in fact it was the shoguns of the 2 shogunates who held real power. At the same time, the shogun was the largest feudal lord at the time, directly administering a quarter of the country and many important cities. The rest of the country was divided into more than two hundred clans, the leaders of which had to obey the general's orders. The general's men also raised their own vassals as samurai, of course, in order to make the samurai loyal to the general, they gave the samurai a lot of fiefdoms and Lumi. At the same time, the Tokugawa shogunate vigorously promoted that samurai should have the spirit of loyalty and courage in Bushido, so that samurai could fight for their lives.
Tokugawa Ieyasu himself was not a complete lock-in, and immediately after establishing the shogunate, he sent emissaries to restore diplomatic relations with Korea in 1608. At the same time, the other side began to introduce trade with the Ming Dynasty, and exchanges with Western European countries were also relatively frequent. The Tokugawa shogunate also imposed a closed country in order to prevent invasion of Japan by external forces. In this way, they ruled Japan for more than 260 years, and by the end of the shogunate, the prestige of the shogunate was often attacked, and riots often occurred in the countryside.
In the first half of the 18th century, capitalism sprouted and the fundamental rule of the shogunate was shaken. In 1853, U.S. General Perry led the fleet into Edo Bay, known as the Black Ship Incident. The Tokugawa shogunate could only succumb to the military pressure of the great powers and was forced to sign many unequal treaties with the Western powers. In December 1865, the vigorous curtain fall movement began. On January 30, 1867, Emperor Takaaki, who was inclined to the shogunate, died, and the ascendant Meiji Emperor was inclined to the shogunate faction. On January 3, 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed completely.
The last shogun was Tokugawa Keiki, who was treated well after he returned to power to the emperor. After his retirement, he no longer paid attention to political affairs, but in the 35th year of Meiji (1902), he was also made a duke, and died at the age of seventy-seven. After more than two hundred and sixty years of glory, the Tokugawa family began to return to normality, but their ancestors still left their lives not bad. Later, Tokugawa Ieyasu's descendants surnamed Tokugawa were nine other families, who did not have particularly great achievements in World War II, but always lived the life of an ordinary person.
Reference: Biography of a Figure in Modern World History