Background
Hoshina Masayuki was born in Edo, the illegitimate son of the 2nd shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada.
保科 正之
Hoshina Masayuki was born in Edo, the illegitimate son of the 2nd shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada.
As Masayuki"s mother was a servant, Hidetada chose to hide the newborn, then named Yukimatsu.
He was an important figure in the politics and philosophy of the early Tokugawa shogunate. This was to protect him from potential infanticide at the hands of Oeyo, Hidetada"s wife. Yukimatsu was later secretly given in adoption to Hoshina Masamitsu, a former Takeda retainer, and lord of the Takatō Domain.
In 1631, Yukimatsu inherited the Hoshina family headship, as well as the Takatō fief, and changed his name to Masayuki.
Masayuki became lord of the Yamagata Domain and was then moved to the Aizu domain (Mutsu Province, 230,000 koku), and founded the Aizu-Hoshina line (known from his son"s generation onward as the Aizu-Matsudaira) which was to remain enfeoffed there until the Boshin War. However, when offered the use of the Tokugawa crest, and the Matsudaira surname, he declined, out of respect to the Hoshina family and its retainers.
Having taken most of the steps toward self-deification, Masayuki was enshrined after his death as the kami Hanitsu-reishin (土津霊神), at the Hanitsu Shrine near Lake Inawashiro. Tokugawa Iemitsu asked the famed swordsman Miyamoto Musashi to paint a screen portraying wild ducks.
This was to pass into the hands of Masayuki, who took it with him to Aizu, and kept it as one of his family treasures.