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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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.
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Hosokawa Sumimoto
Sumimoto came from the Hosokawa clan: he was the biological son of Hosokawa Yoshiharu and at the same time the adopted son of Hosokawa Masamoto, the heir of Hosokawa Katsumoto, one of the principal instigators of the Ōnin War. Masamoto was homosexual, never married, and had no children of his own. At first he adopted Sumiyuki, a scion of the aristocratic Kujō family, but this choice provoked dissatisfaction and sharp criticism from the senior vassals of the Hosokawa house. As a result, Masamoto changed his decision and proclaimed Sumimoto as his heir, a representative of a collateral branch of the Hosokawa clan that had long been based in Awa Province on the island of Shikoku. Almost immediately after this, the boy became entangled in a complex and bitter web of political intrigue.
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Honda Masanobu
Masanobu initially belonged to the retinue of Tokugawa Ieyasu, but later entered the service of Sakai Shōgen, a daimyo and priest from Ueno. This shift automatically made him an enemy of Ieyasu, who was engaged in conflict with the Ikkō-ikki movement in Mikawa Province. After the Ikkō-ikki were defeated in 1564, Masanobu was forced to flee, but in time he returned and once again entered Ieyasu’s service. He did not gain fame as a military commander due to a wound sustained in his youth; nevertheless, over the following fifty years he consistently remained loyal to Ieyasu.
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Honda Masazumi
Masazumi was the eldest son of Honda Masanobu. From a young age, he served Tokugawa Ieyasu alongside his father, taking part in the affairs of the Tokugawa house and gradually gaining experience in both military and administrative matters. At the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Masazumi was part of the core Tokugawa forces, a clear sign of the high level of trust Ieyasu placed in him. After the campaign ended, he was given a highly sensitive assignment—serving in the guard of the defeated Ishida Mitsunari, one of Tokugawa’s principal enemies—an obligation that required exceptional reliability and caution.
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Hojo Shigetoki
Hōjō Shigetoki, the third son of Hōjō Yoshitoki, was still very young—only five years old—when his grandfather Tokimasa became the first member of the Hōjō clan to assume the position of shogunal regent.
