Background
Hidetada Tokugawa was born on 2 May 1578 at Hamamatsu Castle in the province of Totomi, the third son of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In childhood he went by the name Nagamaro and later Takechiyo, the name his father had held as a child; after his coming-of-age ceremony in 1587, he assumed the name Hidetada.
Career
In 1590 he journeyed to Kyoto and had his first audience with Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
In 1600 he lead a campaign against Uesugi Kagekatsu, a powerful lord of the domain of Aizu, but had advanced no farther than Utsunomiya in Shimotsuke when he learned that Ishida Mitsunari and other powerful opponents of his father had raised an army in the Kansai region and were preparing to defy Ieyasu. At the command of his father, he set off for Kansai to meet the attack, proceeding by way of the Tosando region, but along the way became engaged in hostilities with Sanada Masayuki, lord of the castle of Ueda in Shinano Province. As a result, he did not arrive in time to participate in the decisive battle that took place between his father and his father’s opponents at Sekigahara in Mino, a fact for which he was severely scolded by Ieyasu.
In 1605 the imperial court bestowed on him the rank of shogun in the Nijo Castle in Kyoto, and he thus succeeded his father as the second shogun of the Tokugawa line. In the years that followed, he devoted himself to strengthening the power and authority of the Tokugawa family. He joined his father in the attacks on Osaka Castle in 1614—15 that led to the overthrow of Hideyoshi’s heir Hideyori and the destruction of the Toyotomi family and its supporters.
In 1623 he journeyed to Kyoto and received sanction to turn over the position of shogun to his second son, Iemitsu. The following year he retired to the Nishinomaru section of Edo Castle, where he lived until his death in 1631.
Connections
In 1595 he married the third daughter of Asai Nagamasa, a military leader of the province of Omi.