Daimyo Matsudaira Tadayori, a distinguished vassal of the Tokugawa clan, was born in 1582, the same year Oda Nobunaga was assassinated, and met his demise in a dispute following a tea ceremony in Edo in 1609.
During the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tadayori was entrusted with safeguarding the Tokugawa and Matsudaira ancestral home, Okazaki Castle in Mikawa (Aichi Prefecture). Post-battle, he was granted the command of Inuyama Castle (Aichi Pref.) and Kaneyama Castle in Mino (Gifu Pref.). Subsequently, his uncle, Matsudaira Iehiro, passed away, and Tadayori inherited his uncle's estates and a stipend of 15,000 koku at Musashi-Matsuyama (northern Tokyo, Saitama Pref.) later that year.
At the age of 20, Tokugawa Ieyasu doubled Tadayori's income in 1602, and he was reassigned to the strategically important Hamamatsu Castle with a stipend of 50,000 koku. Tadayori's wife hailed from the Oda clan (Nagamasu Yuraku), a younger sibling of Oda Nobunaga, and the couple had six children.
While fulfilling his duties in Sankin Kotai, the mandatory alternate attendance at the Shogun's court, Tadayori attended a tea ceremony at the residence of Mizuno Tadatane, a cousin of Tokugawa Ieyasu and the head of the Mizuno clan in Mikawa (Aichi Pref.), on October 26, 1609. Other notable attendees included the feudal police chief Hatamoto, Kume Saheiji, and Hattori Hanhachiro.
Following the tea ceremony, the gathering transitioned to sake drinking and a game of Japanese chess known as Go. Amidst a dispute over a winning move between Mizuno and Hattori, tempers escalated, leading to drawn swords. In the attempt to quell the altercation, Matsudaira Tadayori lost his life at the age of 27. His final resting place is at Seigan-ji Temple in Fuchu, western Tokyo.
Subsequently, both Hattori and Mizuno were ordered to commit seppuku over the incident, which occurred a month later.
See also
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Minamoto no Yoshitsune
Minamoto no Yoshitsune was the son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo and his second wife, Tokiwa Gozen, as well as the younger half-brother of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the first shogunate, who had once suffered defeat in the struggle against the Taira clan. Yoshitsune spent his childhood in exile at the Kuramayama Temple. According to legend, he studied not so much Buddhist sutras there as the arts of war. At the age of fifteen, he entered the service of the governor in Mutsu, Fujiwara Hidehira.
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Miyoshi Chokei
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Matsudaira Ietada
Matsudaira Ietada, also known as Tomomo-no Suke, was the eldest son of Matsudaira Koretada, the head of the Fukozu branch of the Matsudaira clan. Ietada was born in 1555 at Fukozu Castle. When he reached adulthood (for samurai children this age range was between 11 and 17), the Fukozu-Matsudaira clan was under the authority of Tokugawa Ieyasu and commanded by Sakai Tadatsugu. In the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, Tadatsugu’s unit, which included both Ietada and his father, took part in the assault on the fort on Mount Tobigasu-yama. During the fighting, Koretada was killed, and twenty-year-old Ietada became the new head of the clan.
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Matsudaira Tadaakira
Tadaakira was the fourth son of Okudaira Nobumasa, a vassal of the Tokugawa clan, and his mother was Kame, the eldest daughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1588, Tadaakira was adopted by Ieyasu and received the Matsudaira family name; at that time, he bore the name Kiyotada.
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Mashita Nagamori
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Magara Jurōzaemon Naotaka
Magara Jurōzaemon Naotaka was a vassal of Asakura Yoshikage from the province of Echizen, and very little is known about his life, including even the exact year of his birth. Magara gained his renown through his heroic death at the Battle of Anegawa in 1570. In this battle, the combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu confronted the armies of Asai and Asakura, with Ieyasu taking command of the left flank and fighting against the Asakura forces. After crossing the shallow Anegawa River, which separated the two armies, Tokugawa’s finest generals — Honda Tadakatsu and Sakakibara Yasumasa — launched an assault on the headquarters of Asakura Kagetake, the commander-in-chief of the Echizen army. The attack by Honda Tadakatsu was so swift that Kagetake found himself almost completely surrounded by enemy troops.
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Kusunoki Masashige
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Kobayakawa Takakage
Kobayakawa Takakage was rightfully considered one of the most intelligent men of his era. Even Kuroda Kanbei, the celebrated strategist famed for his cunning—about whom people said he could outwit even a fox—admitted that Takakage was his equal in intellect, and at times even surpassed him. After the death of his father, Mōri Motonari, Takakage effectively governed the Mōri clan for many years while serving as advisor to his nephew, Mōri Terumoto.
