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When he died in 1598, and left Tokugawa Iyeyasu practically regent of the land, his expectation can be judged to be, either that the loyal members of the council of regency would at least balance the Tokugawa power for their own sakes, or that the majority of his son Hidéyori, then a mere infant, would witness no question of supremacy.

In 1590 a.d. the Hōjō were overthrown at Odawara by the Taikō Hidéyoshi, and the provinces once under their sway were intrusted to his second in command, Tokugawa Iyeyasu.

When Takéda Shingen swept down upon the lower provinces in 1571, fought a rear guard action at Mikatagahara, in which he nearly extinguished Tokugawa Iyeyasu, with a taste of the latter's remarkable powers of recuperation, he went on to his real aim of a trial of strength with the main Oda forces in Mikawa and Ōmi.

"Well, as you know, when my Lord Ikéda followed my Lord Tokugawa Iyéyasu to fight at Nagakudé, my father went in his train; and it was at the battle of Nagakudé that he picked up this sword."

At the end of the sixteenth century Prince Tokugawa Iyéyasu was in the habit of carrying a spear made by Muramasa, with which he often scratched or cut himself by mistake.