was a ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' in

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

and early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

and the 19th head of the

Satake clan The was a Japanese clan, Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Minamoto clan. Its first power base was in Hitachi Province. The clan was subdued by Minamoto no Yoritomo in the late 12th century, but later entered Yoritomo's serv ...

and 1st ''daimyō'' of Kubota Domain in

Dewa Province was a province of Japan comprising modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka. Dewa bordered on Mutsu and Echigō Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early per ...

. His

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but is rather used by custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some context ...

was '' Sakon-no-e-shōshō'', later '' Ukyō-dayū'' and ''Jijū'' and his Court rank was Junior Fourth Rank, Upper Grade.

Biography

Yoshinobu was the eldest son of Satake Yoshishige, and his mother was the daughter of Date Harumune, which made him the cousin of

Date Masamune was a Japanese ''daimyō'' during the Azuchi–Momoyama period through the early Edo period. Heir to a long line of powerful feudal lords in the Tōhoku region, he went on to found the modern-day city of Sendai. An outstanding tactician, he w ...

. He was born at Ota Castle in

Hitachi Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...

. His early life was that of constant warfare. The Satake clan were fighting the Nasu clan to the north, and as a condition for peace, Yoshinobu was engaged to a daughter of the Nasu clan when he was only three years old. He participated in his first combat at Battle of Hitotoribashi in 1586, just before he turned 15. His father officially retired some time in 1589, turning the portion of clan chieftain over to Yoshinobu. During this period, the clan was threatened from the north by

and from the south by

Hōjō Ujinao was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku period, and the final head of the Later Hōjō clan. An important figure in the history of Azuchi–Momoyama politics, he lost his entire domain following the Siege of Odawara (1590). Despite t ...

; however, because he quickly pledged allegiance to

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

during the

Siege of Odawara (1590) The third occurred in 1590, and was the primary action in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's campaign to eliminate the Hōjō clan as a threat to his power. The months leading up to it saw hasty but major improvements in the defense of the castle, as H ...

, he was able to retain his landholdings. Under Hideyoshi's banner, he was counted among the six greatest generals of the

Toyotomi clan The was a Japanese clan that ruled over the 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 another primary ...

, together with

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

, Maeda Toshiie, Shimazu Yoshihiro, Mōri Terumoto, and

Uesugi Kagekatsu was a Japanese samurai ''daimyō'' during the Sengoku and Edo periods. He was the adopted son of Uesugi Kenshin and Uesugi Kagetora’s brother in law. Early life and rise Kagekatsu was the son of Nagao Masakage, the head of the Ueda Naga ...

. During the siege of Odawara he was also able to extend his control to cover the over the whole of

(with the exception of the territory of the

Yūki clan is a Japanese samurai kin group.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Yūki," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', pp. 71–72 retrieved 2013-5-6. History The Yūki c ...

), by defeating various supporters of the Hōjō, so that by the end of the campaign his '' kokudaka'' was ranked at over 350,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

''. Yoshinobu enjoyed good relations with

Ishida Mitsunari was a Japanese samurai and military commander of the late Sengoku period of Japan. He is probably best remembered as the commander of the Western army in the Battle of Sekigahara following the Azuchi–Momoyama period of the 16th century. He ...

, whom he has assisted at the Siege of Oshi in 1590. He relocated his seat to Mito Castle, and contributed a large number of troops to Hideyoshi's subjugation of the Tohoku region, and a much smaller number of troops to Hideyoshi's Korean invasion, although he remained behind at

Nagoya Castle is a Japanese castle located in Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya Castle was constructed by the Owari Domain in 1612 during the Edo period on the site of an earlier castle of the Oda clan in the Sengoku period. Nagoya Castle was the heart of one of the ...

and later at Fushimi Castle with Hideyoshi and did not cross over to the continent. Under Hideyoshi, his ''kokudaka'' gradually was increased to 545,765 ''koku''. At the time of the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

the Satake clan was ordered by

to participate in the campaign to destroy

in Aizu and to provide a hostage. The Satake clan was divided, with Satake Yoshishige and many of the samurai strongly supporting Ieyasu and the Eastern Army, whereas Yoshinobu was hesitant, based on his long ties with Ishida Mitsunari and a secret treaty with the

Uesugi clan The is a Japanese samurai clan which was at its peak one of the most powerful during the Muromachi period, Muromachi and Sengoku periods (14th to 17th centuries).Georges Appert, Appert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 79./ref> At its heigh ...

. Instead of sending his army, he sent a small number of horsemen as reinforcements to Tokugawa Hidetada's attack on the

Sanada clan The is a Japanese clan.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)("Sanada," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 52 DF 56 of 80/nowiki> retrieved 2013-5-3. The Sana ...

, but for the most part remained in Mito attempting to stay neutral in the conflict. With the victory of the pro-Tokugawa forces at the Battle of Sekigahara and the subsequent establishment of the

, the Satake clan was punished by a reduction in their ''kokudaka'' to 180,000 ''koku'', and by being ordered to surrender their ancestral home territory in Hitachi Province for the new Kubota Domain, in

.Saga, pp. 16–17. The Satake clan also was a direct descendant of the

Minamoto clan was a Aristocracy (class), noble surname bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the Imperial House of Japan, imperial family who were excluded from the List of emperors of Japan, line of succession and demoted into the ranks of Nobili ...

and thus had a more legitimate hereditary claim to the title of ''shōgun'' than the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty which produced the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 during the Edo period. It was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of ...

, which was another reason why Tokugawa Ieyasu viewed the clan with suspicion and as a potential threat. After arriving at their new domain in 1603, the Satake immediately had to face a

rebellion Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

of local ''

rōnin In feudal Japan to early modern Japan (1185–1868), a ''rōnin'' ( ; , , 'drifter' or 'wandering man', ) was a samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. A samurai became a ''rō ...

'' loyal to Onodera Yoshimichi, the former master of the region, which they defeated relatively quickly. Subsequently, Yoshinobu took steps to gain favor with the new Tokugawa government by actively participating in the

Siege of Osaka A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

, fighting Toyotomi commanders such as Kimura Shigenari and Gotō Matabei at the Battle of Imafuku. Yoshinobu was married to Shōdō-in, the daughter of Nasu Suketane, to whom he had been engaged as a child. After her death, he remarried to a daughter of Tagaya Shigetsune of Shimotsuma Domain. He had no children by the first wife and both sons of the second marriage died in infancy. He also had a concubine, the daughter of Ashina Morioki. Yoshinobu adopted two sons as possible heirs. The eldest was the 5th son of Satake Yoshishige, Satake Yoshinao (1612-1656), who at the age of 14, fell asleep during a ''sarugaki'' performance at

Edo Castle is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is therefore also known as . Tokugawa Ieyasu established th ...

, and was thus disinherited. he later became a monk. The younger was Satake Yoshitaka, the son of Iwaki Sadataka of Kameda Domain, who became his successor. Yoshinobu died at the domain's Edo residence in Kanda in 1633.

References

Bibliography

* Saga, Jun'ichi (1987). ''Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan''. New York: Kodansha International. *

Biography

References

Bibliography

Further reading