Prince Tokugawa Yoshinobu ( , also known as Keiki; October 28, 1837 November 22, 1913) was the 15th and last shgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful. After resigning in late 1867, he went into retirement, and largely avoided the public eye for the rest of his life.



Shogun (将軍, shōgun, Japanese: [ɕoːɡɯɴ] (listen); English: SHOH-gun), officially Sei-i Taishōgun (征夷大将軍, "Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force Against the Barbarians"), was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakura period, shoguns were themselves figureheads. The office of shogun was in practice hereditary, though over the course of the history of Japan several different clans held the position. The title was originally held by military commanders during Heian period in the 8th and 9th centuries. When Minamoto no Yoritomo gained political ascendency over Japan in 1185, the title was revived to regularize his position, making him the first shogun in the usually understood sense.

The shogun's officials were collectively referred to as the bakufu (幕府, "tent government"); they were the ones who carried out the actual duties of administration, while the Imperial court retained only nominal authority. The tent symbolized the shogun's role as the military's field commander but also denoted that such an office was meant to be temporary. Nevertheless, the institution, known in English as the shogunate (English: ) persisted for nearly 700 years, ending when Tokugawa Yoshinobu relinquished the office to Emperor Meiji in 1867 as part of the Meiji Restoration.