est 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 shoguns, 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 shoguns who should constitute its executive department.

In pursuance of this plan, he sent his son Hidetada to the emperor to make
a full report of everything that had been done in the settlement of the
affairs of the country. The emperor was graciously pleased to approve his
acts and to bestow upon him, A.D. 1603, the hereditary title of
Sei-i-tai-shogun. This was the title borne by Yoritomo when he was the
real ruler of the country. Since that time there had been a long line of
shoguns, the last of whom was Ashikaga Yoshiaki, whom Nobunaga deposed in
1573, and who had died 1597. With this new appointment began a line of
Tokugawa shoguns that ended only with the restoration in 1868.

Ieyasu's most radical change in the system of government consisted in the
establishment of the seat of his executive department at Yedo. Since A.D.
794 Kyoto had been the capital where successive emperors had reigned, and
where Nobunaga and Hideyoshi exercised executive control. Kamakura had
been the seat of Yoritomo and his successors. But Ieyasu saw advantages in
establishing himself in a new field, to which the traditions of idleness
and effeminacy had not attached themselves, and where the associations of
his own warlike career would act as a stimulus to his contemporaries and
successors. He remained at Fushimi until necessary repairs could be made
to the Castle of Yedo(200) and the roads between it and the capital put in
order. The place which henceforth was to be the principal capital of the
country first comes into notice, as we have before mentioned, as a castle
built by Ota Dokwan in A.D. 1456. He had been placed here by the
authorities of Kamakura to watch the movements of the restless princes of
the north. Recognizin