Kano Tōun

Place: Edo

Born: 1625

Death: 1694

Biography:

Kano Tōun, also known as Masunobu, was a Japanese painter born in Edo, Japan in 1625. He was a member of the Kano school of painting, which was the longest lived and most influential school of painting in Japanese history. Tōun was one of the three 'Great Unifiers' of Japan, along with Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Tōun was a minor local warlord based at Okazaki Castle who controlled a portion of the Tōkaidō highway linking Kyoto with the eastern provinces. He was sent as a hostage to the Imagawa clan based in Suruga Province to the east and later became a vassal and general of the Oda clan. After Oda Nobunaga's death, Tōun declared his allegiance to Hashiba Hideyoshi and was relocated to the Kanto plains in eastern Japan, where he built his castle in the fishing village of Edo (now Tokyo). He became the most powerful daimyo and the most senior officer under the Toyotomi regime. Tōun seized power in 1600, after the Battle of Sekigahara, and received appointment as shogun in 1603. He voluntarily abdicated from office in 1605, but remained in power until his death in 1616. He implemented a set of careful rules known as the bakuhan system, designed to keep the daimyo and samurai in check under the Tokugawa Shogunate.