was a member of the Japanese clan of

Toyotomi The was a Japanese clan that ruled over the Japanese people, Japanese before the Edo period. Unity and conflict The most influential figure within the Toyotomi was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the three "unifiers of Japan". Oda Nobunaga was a ...

following the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

of the 17th century. Kunimatsu was famed for being the son of

Toyotomi Hideyori was the son and designated successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the general who first united all of Japan. His mother, Yodo-dono, was the niece of Oda Nobunaga. Early life Born in 1593, he was Hideyoshi's second son. The birth of Hideyori cre ...

, who was the son of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

. His mother was Hideyori's concubine, Icha (伊茶).There is a speculation that Kunimatsu's mother was a daughter of a certain Narita Gohei (成田五兵衛), member of the

Narita clan Narita may refer to: Places * Narita, Chiba, a city in Japan ** Narita International Airport, main international airport serving the Greater Tokyo Area ** Narita-san, temple in the city ** Narita Line *** Narita Station * Narita, Illinois, an ...

of Ise--retainers of the Hōjō clan of Odawara, but she was more likely a daughter of one man named Watanabe Gohei (渡辺五兵衛). His

Dharma name A Dharma name or Dhamma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The nam ...

was Rōseiin Unsan Chisai Daidōji (漏世院雲山智西大童子). In 1615 during the

Siege of Osaka The was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages (winter campaign and summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege ...

, Hideyori was defeated and committed suicide by ''

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

'', while his castle was taken by the forces of

Tokugawa Hidetada was the second ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty, who ruled from 1605 until his abdication in 1623. He was the third son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate. Early life (1579–1593) Tokugawa Hidetada was bo ...

and

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

. Kunimatsu, who was seven years of age at the time, was captured by Tokugawa forces, and was later executed by

decapitation Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...

Survival theories

Theories and rumors in Japan say he could have escaped through some secret tunnel, and Tokugawa then set up an execution of a decoy or body double (known as a ''kagemusha''), to make official the extinction of Toyotomi's bloodline. He continued to live as , the founder of a new branch of the Kinoshita clan (

Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

's birth clan) in

Bungo Province was a province of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Buzen Province. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga, Higo, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces. History At the end of the 7th century, Toyo ...

after the

Shimazu clan The were the ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan. The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in contrast ...

were moved to the

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

.Officially, Nobuyoshi was a great-nephew of Hideyoshi's principal wife,

Kōdai-in (died October 17, 1624), formerly known as , , , was an aristocrat and Buddhist nun, founder of the temple Kōdai-ji in Kyoto, Japan. She was formerly the principal samurai wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi under the name of . Nussbaum, Louis-Fréd� ...

, and the fourth son of , the first lord of the . Despite sharing the same surname, that Kinoshita family shared no known kinship to Hideyoshi, except for a marital bond: Nobutoshi's father, Iesada, was Kōdai-in's brother and his mother, , was her cousin.

Notes

References

*''A History of Japan'' *Perkins, Dorothy (1998). ''Samurai of Japan: A Chronology From Their Origin in the Heian Era (794-1185) to the Modern Era.'' Upland, PA: DIANE Publishing Company. 1608 births 1615 deaths Executed Japanese people People executed by Japan by decapitation Toyotomi clan Edo period Buddhists {{japan-bio-stub