Yūki Hideyasu

Yūki Hideyasu

Statue at Fukui Castle

Yūki Hideyasu (結城 秀康, 1 March 1574 – 2 June 1607) was a Japanese daimyo who lived during the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods. He was the head of the Fukui Domain in Echizen.^[1]

Early life

Hideyasu was born Tokugawa Ogimaru in 1574, the second son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, by his concubine, Lady Oman (also known as Lady Kogō). Oman is said to have given birth to twins, and that Ogimaru's brother succeeded Oman's father as priest of Chiryū Shrine in Mikawa Province. He was born near Hamamatsu Castle, in Ofumi Village.

Oman was a servant to Lady Tsukiyama, Ieyasu's wife. When Oman became pregnant, Ieyasu feared his wife's wrath, so he sheltered the girl in the home of his retainer Honda Shigetsugu, and it was there that Ogimaru and his brother were born.

The young Ogimaru was, for some reason, disliked by his father Ieyasu. It was not until age three that he met Ieyasu, and even that meeting, cold as it was, was not arranged by the father, but instead by Ogimaru's half-brother, Matsudaira Nobuyasu. After Nobuyasu's suicide by order of his father, Ogimaru would have been the next in line to inherit the Tokugawa headship; however, as part of the peace negotiations following the Battle of Komaki-Nagakute, he was given in adoption (in reality as a hostage) to Hashiba Hideyoshi. Coming of age while living with Hideyoshi, Ogimaru then took the name Hashiba Hideyasu, which combined the names of his adoptive father and biological father.

Mature years

Hideyasu took part in his first campaign during the subjugation of Kyushu in 1587, leading the assault on Buzen-Iwaishi Castle. He also received honors for his distinction in the pacification of Hyūga Province. Hideyasu also took part in the Siege of Odawara (1590) and the Korean Campaign (1592). His successes in these campaigns earned him respect as an able field commander, despite his young age.

In 1589, a son was born to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and so Hideyasu was given in adoption the following year to Yūki Harutomo of Shimōsa Province. Marrying Harutomo's niece, Hideyasu succeeded to the Yūki headship and its 111,000 koku landholding.

Later years

Following the Battle of Sekigahara, he received a transfer from the fief the Yūki family held in Shimōsa Province (assessed at 101,000 koku) to one in Echizen (670,000 koku). In 1604, he took the surname Matsudaira.^[2] When he died in 1607, his first son Matsudaira Tadanao succeeded him.

References

Emblem (mon) of the Matsudaira clan

1. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Matsudaira Hideyasu" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 616.
2. Appert, Georges. (1888). "Matsudaira" in Ancien Japon, pp. 70; compare Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon; Papinot, (2003). Nobiliare du Japon, pp. 29-30; retrieved 2013-3-26.

External links

Media related to Yuki Hideyasu at Wikimedia Commons

• Fukui City Museum (in Japanese)
• "Fukui" at Edo 300 (Japanese)
• 越前松平氏 (Echizen Matsudaira) at ReichsArchiv.jp (Japanese)