＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
Some of the characters appearing in this year’s (2023) NHK Taiga drama, “What Will Ieyasu Do?” are relatively unknown to the general public.
I’m very interested to know what kind of person Imagawa Ujizane, who will be played by Mizobata Junpei (pictured at the top of the page), was.
During the Sengoku period, the prestigious Imagawa clan, who were the guardian daimyo of Suruga and Tōtōmi and ruled these three regions, was defeated by Oda Nobunaga in the Battle of Okehazama in 1560 when Imagawa Yoshimoto led an army said to number 25,000 on his way to Kyoto.
Many people probably think that this marked the end of the Imagawa clan and their disappearance from the forefront of history. However, even after his father Yoshimoto’s death in the Battle of Okehazama, his eldest son, Imagawa Ujizane, survived and, with the help of his grandmother, Jukei-ni, continued to rule Suruga.
In the 2017 NHK Taiga drama “Onna Joushu Naotora,” Onoe Matsuya played Imagawa Ujizane and Asaoka Ruriko played his grandmother, Jukei-ni, and I’m sure many people were impressed by them.
Recently, I have become particularly interested in the lives of people who do not appear in the main historical story, such as Imagawa Ujizane and Jyukei-ni.
So today I would like to introduce Imagawa Ujizane in an easy-to-understand manner.
1. Who is Imagawa Ujizane?
Imagawa Ujizane (1538-1615) was the eldest son of Imagawa Yoshimoto (1519-1560). He was a military commander and daimyo from the Sengoku period to the early Edo period, as well as a man of culture. His childhood name was Tatsuomaru, and he was commonly known as Goro.
He is considered synonymous with “idiot” because he destroyed the Imagawa clan, which was at its peak during his father’s time, in one generation.
He is considered one of the “Three Great Fools of the Sengoku Period (Three Great Idiots),” in contrast to the three great heroes of the Sengoku period: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Incidentally, the other three great fools of the Sengoku period are Hosokawa Masamoto, Ouchi Yoshitaka, and Imagawa Ujizane.
After his father, Imagawa Yoshimoto, was killed by Oda Nobunaga in the Battle of Okehazama, he succeeded the Imagawa clan as head of the clan. However, he was defeated in the Suruga invasion by Takeda Shingen and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the Imagawa clan as a Sengoku daimyo was destroyed.
However, he subsequently relied on the Hojo clan, his ally and the family of his wife, Lady Hayakawa, and ultimately made peace with Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had defected to the Imagawa clan after the Battle of Okehazama, becoming his vassal and receiving his protection.
Thus, Imagawa descendants from Ujizane onwards lived in Shinagawa and maintained ties with the Tokugawa clan, becoming “kouke” (high-ranking families) of the Tokugawa shogunate and taking the name Shinagawa, and continuing to serve successive shoguns.
Speaking of “kouke,” just like Kira Kozukenosuke, it refers to a family of officials in charge of ceremonies and rites in the Edo shogunate.
2. Imagawa Ujizane before the Battle of Okehazama
(1) Background
He was the eldest son of Imagawa Yoshimoto, known as “the greatest archer in the Tokaido,” and Takeda Shingen’s daughter, Jokeiin.
At the time, Sunpu was considered a culturally superior province second only to Kyoto (the eastern capital, or “Little Kyoto”), and perhaps influenced by his grandmother, Jukei-ni (?-1568), a member of the Nakamikado family, a noble family descended from the imperial family, he excelled at kemari (Japanese kemari). As a child, he would promise his children, “I’ll give you a reward if you can beat me at kemari.”
Although kemari may at first glance seem like an elegant and feeble aristocratic game, it is a sport that, like juggling a soccer ball, requires precise ball control, reflexes, explosive power, and other athletic abilities.
He also excelled in music, dance, and music, and is said to have composed approximately 1,700 waka poems throughout his life.
In this way, Yoshimoto acquired a cultural education from a young age, and through his interactions with numerous court nobles, he developed a deep knowledge of court etiquette. This later prepared him to become a “nobleman” who taught court etiquette, essential for cooperation with the Imperial Court, when he served the Edo Shogunate.
The Imagawa family was descended from the Seiwa Genji clan and the Ashikaga clan, the Muromachi Shoguns, and held a high position in the line of succession to the Shogunate. The sister of Yoshimoto’s father, Imagawa Ujichika (1471-1526), was married to the court noble Ogimachi Sanjonishi Sanemochi (1463-1530).
Ogimachi Sanjonishi Sanemochi lived in Sunpu for 21 years until his death, and corrected Ujichika’s waka poetry in return for compensation. It is said that many other court nobles were also in Sunpu, staying for months or even years under the protection of the Imagawa clan. Kemari, tea ceremony, and renga (linked poetry) gatherings were also popular.
In 1554, he married Hayakawa-dono, the daughter of Hojo Ujiyasu (1515-1571), and the “Kofu-Sagami-Suruga Triple Alliance” was formed. Incidentally, the “Kofu-Sagami-Suruga Triple Alliance” was a peace agreement between Takeda Shingen, Hojo Ujiyasu, and Imagawa Yoshimoto for the three provinces of Kofu, Sagami, and Suruga.
(2) Inheritance of the family headship
Although Yoshimoto handed over the family headship to Imagawa Ujizane in 1559, just before the Battle of Okehazama, he was not particularly devoted to government affairs.
His grandmother, Jukei-ni, nicknamed the “female daimyo,” effectively took charge of national affairs in his place, due to his political and military incompetence.
However, Ujizane was simply completely unsuited to and uninterested in politics and military affairs; he was not incompetent, untalented, or stupid.
He excelled in renga and waka poetry, excelled in kemari (a traditional Japanese game), and was well-versed in the tea ceremony, making him a “cultured man.”
3. Imagawa Ujizane After the Battle of Okehazama
(1) Successive Defections
Many of the Imagawa clan’s senior vassals and local lords were killed in the Battle of Okehazama.
As a result, after his father Yoshimoto was killed at Okehazama, many of his subordinate vassals and local lords defected to him. This is likely due to their misgivings about his political and military skills.
When Yoshimoto learned that even Tokugawa Ieyasu (known as Matsudaira Motoyasu at the time), whom Yoshimoto had praised as a “skilled warrior” and whom Yoshimoto himself held in high regard, had defected, he became enraged and hated.
Though he was somewhat despairing that he could not stop the decline of the Imagawa clan’s power due to Tokugawa Ieyasu’s defection, he sought to maintain his power by purging unsettling forces with the help of his grandmother, Sukehira.
Sukehira also set a trap to test the Ii clan’s loyalty, and in 1563, she executed Ii Naochika (1536-1563), who had shown intentions of colluding with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Incidentally, Ii Naochika’s father, Naomitsu, was also executed by Imagawa Yoshimoto due to slanderous accusations by Ono Masanao.
Meanwhile, the Imagawa clan began to embrace the tactics of Ono Masatsugu (son of Ono Masanao) (?-1569), who had shown a submissive attitude toward the Imagawa clan following the discovery of Ii Naochika’s defection. Ono Masatsugu, ordered by Imagawa Ujizane, attempted to assassinate Ii Naochika’s surviving son, Toramatsu (later known as Ii Naomasa), but failed. However, he succeeded in seizing Ii Valley from the Ii clan.
In 1569, Tokugawa Ieyasu, enraged by Ono Masatsugu’s tyranny, dispatched the Ii Valley Trio to attack and recapture Ii Valley. Ono Masatsugu was defeated and executed along with his two sons.
(2) The Fall of the Sengoku Period Daimyo, the Imagawa Clan
After the death of Sukehisa, Takeda Shingen and Tokugawa Ieyasu simultaneously invaded Suruga Province and Tōtōmi Province, respectively. A series of betrayals and defections led to the loss of Suruga, Tōtōmi, and Mikawa.
Then, in May 1569, while he was fleeing to Kakegawa Castle and fending off the Tokugawa army, he accepted Ieyasu’s proposed peace agreement and surrendered the castle in exchange for sparing the lives of his retainers, thus marking the end of the Sengoku daimyo Imagawa clan.
There is also a theory that the Imagawa clan’s downfall was due in part to their lack of political or military talent, as well as the lack of a good military strategist.
Suruga Province had a talented man named Yamamoto Kansuke, a one-eyed, one-legged man who later became known as “Takeda Shingen’s famous military strategist,” for nine years, but they did not employ him due to his poor reputation, instead favoring “fools” and “wicked ministers” like Miura Yoshishige and entrusting him with government affairs, which is thought to be the cause of their downfall.
(3) Wandering
He and his wife, Lady Hayakawa (daughter of Hojo Ujiyasu), fled to her family, the Hojo clan.
However, after his father-in-law, Hojo Ujiyasu, died in 1571, his son, Hojo Ujimasa (1538-1590), again allied with the Takeda clan, and the couple sought protection from Ieyasu, whom he had once held hostage, and came under his wing.
In 1575, he traveled to Kyoto to visit his old acquaintance, the court noble Sanjonishi Sanezumi, and held a renga (linked poetry) gathering with the nobles. He also met with Oda Nobunaga, his father’s enemy, at Shokoku-ji Temple, and when he requested a kemari (traditional Japanese game) demonstration, he performed with the nobles.
Also in the same year, he shaved his head, became a monk, and took the name Sogin, but ultimately served Tokugawa Ieyasu.
(4) Later Life
Even after the Imagawa clan’s downfall as a Sengoku daimyo, he continued to devote himself to the tea ceremony, renga (linked poetry), and kemari (Japanese kemari). He lived in Hamamatsu Castle from 1577 and in Kyoto from 1590. Finally, under the protection of Tokugawa Ieyasu, he lived in a mansion in Shinagawa, Edo, where he passed away at the age of 77.
His last words were as follows:
Although I regret it and do not think of it, the world is different from the one I live in.
悔しとも うら山し共 思はねど 我世にかはる 世の姿かな
The meaning is, “The life of a nobleman in Kyoto has given way to the ‘my world’ of the Sengoku daimyo era, but I no longer feel any regret or envy for it.”
There is one more poem, which also expresses a similar state of mind.
It is hard to hate the world or people, and sometimes it is my own fault that things go wrong.
なかなかに 世をも人をも 恨むまじ 時にあはぬを 身の科（とが）にして
The meaning is, “I will not resent the world or its people. My sin is that I was not suited to this era (the Warring States period).”
Both of these phrases seem to represent a state of complete resignation, but they also seem like a bravado, suppressing regret and pretending to be fine.
There are sayings such as “one body, two lives” and “one body, two lives,” and in his case, it seems he lived the first half of his life as a “Warring States daimyo,” and the second half, putting aside past gratitude and grudges and living devotedly to being a “cultured man like a court noble.”
He seems to have been a similar type of person to Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the 8th Shogun of the Muromachi shogunate (1436-1490, in office 1449-1473).
However, he lived to the age of 77, which was long for the time, and he succeeded in preserving his bloodline, so he can also be said to have been a rather shrewd man who “put aside his pride and adapted to the times to get along in the world.”
After the Meiji Restoration, the Imagawa family lost their stipend and fell into decline. During the reign of the 23rd head of the family, Hanjo, the family’s eldest son, Yoshihito, died young, and as they only had daughters, the direct line became extinct, and it is said that their bloodline is no longer passed down today.