Horio Yoshiharu

Horio Yoshiharu (1543-1611) was a Sengoku warlord who rose to prominence as a veteran retainer of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and was praised as Hotoke no Mosuke ('Mosuke the Buddha') for his gentle and sincere character. He is counted among the Three Middle Elders (Sanchūrō) together with Ikoma Chikamasa and Nakamura Kazuuji, although recent research also holds that the Three Middle Elders was a designation devised in later times. At the Battle of Sekigahara he sided with the Eastern Army, and after the battle his son Horio Tadauji, who had inherited the family headship, was granted 240,000 koku of Izumo and Oki. When Tadauji died suddenly in 1604, Yoshiharu served as guardian of his young grandson Horio Tadaharu and took charge of governance, and in 1607 he began construction of Matsue Castle, completing it in 1611. In the same year Yoshiharu also died, and the Horio family became extinct in Tadaharu's generation without an heir. Matsue Castle survives today as a National Treasure keep, and the legacy of the Horio clan is still inscribed in the San'in region.