Tadatika, the son of Okubo Tadayō, entered the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu at the age of eleven, and took his first head in battle when he was sixteen. After the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, he was appointed as a rōjū — a senior bakufu official — and was regarded as one of Ieyasu’s most trusted advisors, alongside Honda Masanobu. He is also known for his military chronicle Mikawa Monogatari, which describes Ieyasu’s rise to power and the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Tadatika was born in 1553 and first appears in historical records in connection with the siege of Horikawa Castle in Tōtōmi Province in 1568. Until 1582, he participated in almost all of Ieyasu’s military campaigns, including the battles of Anegawa, Mikatagahara, and Nagashino.
In 1582, after the death of Oda Nobunaga, Tadatika accompanied Ieyasu during the perilous retreat from the forces of Akechi Mitsuhide back to Mikawa Province.
During the Komaki Campaign of 1584, Tadatika held the position of commander of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s guard. After peace was concluded between Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, he accompanied Ieyasu on a visit to Hideyoshi in 1586, where he received the fifth court rank and permission to use the Toyotomi surname.
After Ieyasu’s relocation to the Kantō region in 1590, Tadatika was granted Hanyū Castle and lands yielding twenty thousand koku of rice. In 1593, upon inheriting from his father, he became the lord of Odawara Castle, increasing his income to seventy thousand koku. That same year, he was appointed elder (karō) to Tokugawa Hidetada.
During the Sekigahara Campaign of 1600, Tadatika served in Tokugawa Hidetada’s army and participated in the unsuccessful siege of Ueda Castle.
Later, he fell out of favor due to suspicions from Ieyasu and Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada regarding possible ties with supporters of Toyotomi Hideyori. His situation worsened because of a feud with Honda Masanobu and a corruption scandal involving Okubo Nagayasu. He was repeatedly stripped of privileges, and in February 1614, while carrying out an anti-Christian mission, he was deprived of all his domains. Tadatika was exiled to Ōmi Province. He later became a Buddhist monk and took the name Keian Dōhaku. In 1687, his grandson regained possession of Odawara.
See also
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Takeda Nobuyoshi
Takeda Nobuyoshi (1128–1186 or later) was a prominent Japanese samurai lord of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods and the founder of the Takeda clan.
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Tokugawa Iemochi
Tokugawa Iemochi (1846–1866) was the fourteenth shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate and ruled from 1858 until his death. His reign came during the turbulent final years of the shogunate, when Japan faced growing Western pressure and serious internal political conflict.
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Tokugawa Ienari
Tokugawa Ienari (1773–1841) was the eleventh shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate and ruled from 1787 to 1837, making him the longest-serving Tokugawa shōgun. He was a great-grandson of the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune.
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Matsudaira Nobuyasu
Matsudaira Nobuyasu was only twenty years old when his father ordered him to commit seppuku. The reason was not a defeat in battle, but a crisis inside the Tokugawa family that had become too dangerous to ignore.
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Yamagata Masakage
Masakage was one of Takeda Shingen’s most loyal and capable commanders. He was included in the famous list of the “Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen” and also belonged to the inner circle of four especially trusted warlords known as the Shitennō.
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Yagyu Munenori
Yagyū Munenori began his service under Tokugawa Ieyasu while his father, Yagyū Muneyoshi, was still at his side. In 1600, Munenori took part in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara. As early as 1601, he was appointed a kenjutsu instructor to Tokugawa Hidetada, Ieyasu’s son, who later became the second shogun of the Tokugawa clan.
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Yagyu Muneyoshi
A samurai from Yamato Province, he was born into a family that had been defeated in its struggle against the Tsutsui clan. Muneyoshi first took part in battle at the age of sixteen. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he was forced to enter the service of the Tsutsui house and later served Miyoshi Tōkei. He subsequently came under the command of Matsunaga Hisahide and in time became a vassal first of Oda and later of Toyotomi.
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Endo Naozune
Naozune served under Azai Nagamasa and was one of the clan’s leading vassals, renowned for his bravery and determination. He accompanied Nagamasa during his first meeting with Oda Nobunaga and at that time asked for permission to kill Nobunaga, fearing him as an extremely dangerous man; however, Nagamasa did not grant this request.
