Background
Ukon Takayama was born in 1552. The son of Takayama Tomo- tcru, lord of the province of Hida, he was named Nagamasa or Tomonaga and was baptized under the name Justo; Ukon is a popular appellation.
高山右近
Ukon Takayama was born in 1552. The son of Takayama Tomo- tcru, lord of the province of Hida, he was named Nagamasa or Tomonaga and was baptized under the name Justo; Ukon is a popular appellation.
In 1578, when his superior Araki Murashige turned against Oda Nobunaga, Ukon, who was at that time lord of the castle of Takatsuki in Settsu, present-day Osaka Prefecture, found himself surrounded by Nobunaga’s forces, but at the urging of the Portuguese missionary Organtin Gnecchi, he was persuaded to go over to the side of Nobunaga. In 1582, when Nobunaga was killed at the Honno-ji by his vassal Akechi Mitsuhide, Ukon joined the forces of Hideyoshi in attacking Mitsuhide at Yamazaki, helping to defeat the latter and winning merit. As a reward, he was made lord of the domain of Akashi in the province of Harima in 1585.
In 1588 Hideyoshi ordered Yukinaga to move to the province of Higo in present-day Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu and at the same time placed Ukon under the surveillance of Maeda Toshiie, lord of the province of Kaga (Ishikawa Prefecture). When Ukon arrived in Kanazawa, the castle town of Kaga, he was made a retainer of Toshiie and treated with great respect, being called upon to give instruction in the tea ceremony to his lord. In 1590 he accompanied Toshiie in participating in Hideyoshi’s campaign against Odawara Castle, but though he distinguished himself in battle, he was unable to dispel the resentment that Hideyoshi still bore against him.
In 1614, when Tokugawa Ieyasu, then military leader of the nation, issued another command forbidding Christianity, Ukon and the other Christian believers were ordered to be expelled from Japan. In the eleventh month of the same year, Ukon, accompanied by the members of his family and a group of missionaries and Christian believers, departed from Nagasaki and on the twenty-first day of the twelfth month arrived in Manila, where they were enthusiastically greeted by the governor-general, the archbishop, and a crowd of citizens. In the second month of 1614, some forty days after his arrival, how'ever, Ukon fell sick and died, ending his life of hardship at the age of sixty-two.
He was baptized a Christian, along with his father, at an early age.
In 1587 Hideyoshi, at that time on a campaign in Kyushu, suddenly issued a command ordering the suppression of Christianity and the expulsion of the missionaries from Japan, but Ukon, refusing to abandon his faith, gave up his domain and went into retirement in the island of Shodo in the domain of another Christian daimyo, Konishi Yukinaga.