Tokugawa Ieyasu was a devoted falconer who hunted with falcons over 1,000 times in his life. Falconry served as martial training, food procurement, and field inspection — a political event — and the vast plains from Shimosa into Kazusa were treasured as shogunal hunting grounds. Around 1614 (Keicho 19), on the eve of the Osaka Campaign, Ieyasu had a large palace built at Funabashi as a relay station on his falconry road to Togane (present Togane, Chiba). This was the Funabashi Goten, used by Ieyasu and his son Hidetada. After Hidetada's successors abandoned Togane falconry the palace was abolished, but a small Tosho-gu was built on the site to enshrine Ieyasu, preserving the shogunal falconry culture to this day.