Yasumasa was the second son of Sakakibara Nagamasa and was born in Ueno in Mikawa Province. From a young age, he began serving Tokugawa Ieyasu and eventually rose to the position of one of his most trusted generals. His wife was the daughter of Osuga Yasutaka. Ieyasu first noticed the young Yasumasa during the suppression of the Ikkō-ikki uprising in Mikawa in 1564. Thanks to his demonstrated abilities, Yasumasa was granted the privilege of using the character “yasu”—the second character of Ieyasu’s own name—in his own. Although he was the second child in his family, he became his father’s heir, though the exact reasons for this remain unknown.
Yasumasa came of age in 1566, and at that time he and Honda Tadakatsu were admitted into Ieyasu’s personal guard, the hatamoto. Each of them was entrusted with command over a unit of fifty horsemen. In the Battle of Anegawa in 1570, Yasumasa made a significant contribution to the victory: together with Honda Tadakatsu, he struck the flank of the Asai forces. In the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, he helped defeat the troops of Naitō Masatoyo. He also fought in the Battle of Mikatagahara in 1573 and took part in the capture of Takatenjin Castle.
Yasumasa stood by Ieyasu when he decided to confront Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and it was Yasumasa who proposed using Komaki as the campaign headquarters. In 1586, he accompanied Ieyasu to negotiations with Hideyoshi in Osaka and in the same year received the title of Shikibu-tayū. He also took part in the Odawara campaign in 1590.
After Ieyasu relocated to the Kantō region, Yasumasa was granted Tatebayashi Castle and appointed head of the group responsible for the allocation of landholdings. While Ieyasu was in Kyushu during Hideyoshi’s Korean invasions (1592–1593, 1597–1598), Yasumasa served as one of the main administrators of the Kantō region as well as an advisor to Tokugawa Hidetada.
During the Sekigahara campaign of 1600, Yasumasa was attached to Tokugawa Hidetada’s army and took part in the siege of Ueda Castle in Shinano Province. After the Tokugawa victory, he was granted lands in Kōzuke Province with an income of 100,000 koku of rice.
Yasumasa died in the fifth month of 1606, and his third son, Yasukatsu, succeeded him. The Sakakibara clan remained one of the most loyal houses to the Tokugawa government throughout the entire Edo period.
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.
