Daemang (Tokugawa Ieyasu) — Filming Locations & Real Places

Reading Daemang does something strange to you.

It takes a while to really register that this isn't fiction — it's about a real person, even though the book runs 26 volumes and you go in bracing yourself for a slog.

Being sent away as a hostage at six sounds like novelistic exaggeration, but it's true — Ieyasu passed from the Oda clan to the Imagawa clan as a hostage, and studied under the priest Sessai in Sunpu. He learned how to endure before he learned almost anything else.

So I looked into it, and it turns out almost everywhere the real Ieyasu walked is still standing today. Start with his birthplace, Okazaki Castle, still there in Aichi Prefecture with a reconstructed keep you can visit.

The early chapters are basically one long lesson in holding on. Nobunaga's win over Imagawa Yoshimoto at the Battle of Okehazama is what gives Ieyasu his shot at independence, and the two form the Kiyosu Alliance, a partnership that holds for nearly twenty years.

니조성, 교토 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.5

It's not a smooth alliance, though. Ieyasu gets crushed by Takeda Shingen at the Battle of Mikatagahara, and only survives the fallout because Shingen suddenly dies. Later, at Nagashino, Ieyasu is on the other side of a decisive blow, using arquebus tactics to help finish off the Takeda clan.

The part that actually hurt to read was the Nobuyasu and Lady Tsukiyama incident — within his own alliance, Ieyasu loses his wife and son. Knowing this wasn't invented for the novel, that it really happened, changes how you read it.

Then comes the Honno-ji Incident. When Nobunaga is suddenly killed, Ieyasu has to make a life-or-death escape from Sakai — the famous 'Iga crossing.' He really could have died there.

After Nobunaga's death, Ieyasu clashes with Hideyoshi next. At Komaki-Nagakute he actually has the military upper hand, but it gets settled politically instead, and he ends up formally submitting to Hideyoshi at Osaka Castle. This part is frustrating to read, but it's exactly the kind of patience this novel keeps circling back to.

He's even forced to relocate — the Kanto transfer uproots him from his home base to what was then swampland: the future Edo. And when Hideyoshi launches the invasions of Korea, Ieyasu holds back, keeping his strength intact and waiting for his moment.

세키가하라 전투도 병풍(1854년 사본, 히코네성 소장) · Wikimedia Commons · Public Domain

That patience finally pays off at the Battle of Sekigahara, where he crushes the Western Army under Ishida Mitsunari and others. He's named Sei-i Taishogun and opens the Edo Shogunate — officially, he's the ruler of the realm.

But it doesn't stop there. He hands the shogunate to his son Hidetada while keeping real power as 'Ogosho,' a kind of dual rulership, and meets the now-adult Toyotomi Hideyori face to face at Nijo Castle. Then comes the Siege of Osaka — winter campaign, then summer campaign — his final showdown with the Toyotomi clan. You already know the ending going in (260 years of peace), and somehow every step toward that final battle still keeps you on edge.

There's also the novel's most famous scene — the parable comparing Ieyasu, Nobunaga, and Hideyoshi to a caged bird that won't sing. Nobunaga says kill it, Hideyoshi says make it sing, Ieyasu says wait until it sings on its own. I assumed the novel invented this, but it's actually a real, still-used Japanese saying.

Even more striking: after he died, Ieyasu was literally deified. He's enshrined at Nikko Toshogu, a UNESCO World Heritage site that still draws a steady stream of visitors.

And Edo Castle, his home base, never disappeared either — it's the site of today's Imperial Palace in the middle of Tokyo. The East Gardens are free to walk through.

So this novel isn't just an old story — it's a map you can actually walk. Next time you're in Japan, skip the usual Osaka-Kyoto route and try tracing this one man's footsteps instead.