Background
Tsunanari Hojo was born in 1515. His family had served the Imagawas, daimyo in Suruga Province (Shizuoka Prefecture) for generations. His father, Masanari Fukushima, killed himself because or nis involvement in a family trouble of the Imagawas.
Career
Tsunanari then went to Odawara, where he served Ujitsuna and married his daughter, assuming the family name of Hojo. He became master of Kawagoe Castle in Musashi Province (Saitama Prefecture). His castle was besieged by armies of Norimasa Uesugi and Haruuji Ashikaga (1545) but his forces defeated the enemy forces with the help of reinforcements from Ujiyasu Hojo in Odawara. Tsunanari subsequently fought Shingen Takeda, lord of Kai (Yamanashi Prefecture), with distinction. Because he always wore a piece of yellow cloth with Chinese ideographs of Hachiman on the battlefield, he was called Kiji (Yellow Cloth) Hachiman.