Background
Sōun Hōjō was born in 1432. He was said to have been born in Ise and at first went by the name Ise Shinkurô Nagauji.
北條早雲
Sōun Hōjō was born in 1432. He was said to have been born in Ise and at first went by the name Ise Shinkurô Nagauji.
He began his career as a retainer to the lord of Suruga, Imagawa Yoshitada, and when a revolt broke out in the region in 1476 and Yoshitada was killed, Sôun assisted the lord’s son, Imagawa Ujichika, to restore order. In reward for his services, he was made lord of the castle of Kôkoku-ji. In 1491 he siezed the province of Izu from Ashikaga Masatomo, and in 1495 he killed Ômori Fujiyori, the lord of Odawara Castle, and took possession of the castle, making it his base of operations.
In 1518 he completed the take-over of the province of Sagami and then proceeded to take advantage of a quarrel within the Uesugi family to extend his power into the province of Musashi as well. From then on until the overthrow of his descendants by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, he and his line held dominion over the entire Kanto region. To distinguish his family from the other family of the same name that served as regents for the Kamakura shogunate, it is often called the Go-Hojoshi, or Later Hojo family.
He became a Buddhist monk and assumed the religious name Sôun. Later, his son changed the family name to Hôjô.