Talk:Matsudaira Motoyasu/@comment-137.205.0.113-20181022112851/@comment-31610767-20181107144951

You have to keep in mind that Tokugawa Ieyasu rose to power years after the Honno-ji incident (1582) and with that the death of the historical person Nobunaga Oda and was, at least at outward appearance, a loyal retainer to Oda until he started to work against Hideyoshi after that incident that, as far as i know, has not occurred yet in the storyline. Tokugawas own campaign, to finally claim the reign over Japan, was set in motion after the death of Hideyoshi Toyotomi and the founding of the Council of the Five Elders (1598) (Tokugawa Ieyasu, Maeda Toshiie, Mori Terumoto, Ukita Hideie, Uesugi Kagekatsu) who should have reigned on behalf of Hideyoshis son, until he grew old enough to reign by himself but that never came to be, because Tokugawa eliminated the other regents one after another (except of Maeda, he died one year after the founding of the council from a natural cause) to finally face and defeat Hideyoshis son Hideyori and his remaining allies at the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), leading to the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate which was made official by recieving the title of the Shogun from the Emperor in 1603.

Shortly, he was, at the time of the Anime/LNs storyline a loyal and smart General, waiting for his chance. In Japan, there is a proverb which likely refers to this event: "Ieyasu won the Empire by retreating." (wikipedia)

(I am not really up to date on the Light Novels storyline, so these facts are from the actual history, which this story is, at least, based on.)