Which warlord won the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara and became Japan’s dominant military leader?

Tokugawa Ieyasu won the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara and became Japan’s dominant military leader.

Sekigahara was fought on October 21, 1600, during the power struggle that followed Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s death. Ieyasu commanded the Eastern Army, while Ishida Mitsunari led the Western Army on behalf of forces opposed to him. Several battlefield defections, most famously that of Kobayakawa Hideaki, helped decide the result.

The victory did not immediately make Ieyasu emperor; Japan’s emperor was a separate hereditary institution. Instead, Sekigahara gave Ieyasu control over the country’s military and political balance. He was appointed shogun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate.

The Tokugawa regime ruled for more than 260 years. Sekigahara is therefore remembered as a decisive turning point, although historians note that consolidation continued after the battle, including the 1615 destruction of the Toyotomi clan at Osaka.