THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
of civil war, during which the various great barons struggled for supremacy. Out of this state of turmoil arose that Napoleonic genius, Taiko Hideyoshi, who, born a peasant, died, in 1598, the master of unified Japan. His son was, however, unable to retain the authority left him by his father, and the dictatorship of the empire devolved, in 1600, on Lyeyasu, the first of the Tokugawa shoguns.
The Tokugawa shogunate differed from those preceding it in that it was virtually a monarchy, despite its apparent feudalistic form. Even under the great Taiko, the government of the country was conducted by a council composed of five of the most powerful barons, but under the Tokugawa régime it became purely autocratic. Iyeyasu framed for his descendants a
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