Makabe Ujimoto

Makabe Ujimoto was born in 1550 in Makabe District, Hitachi Province (present-day Sakuragawa, Ibaraki Prefecture), heir to the Makabe clan who served as hereditary retainers of the Satake clan. His father, Makabe Hisamoto, was likewise known by the nickname 'Oni Makabe' (Demon Makabe). The legend recorded in later war chronicles such as the Kanhasshu Kosenroku — of a warrior swinging a roughly 180 cm oak club to cut down armored enemies in battle after battle — is now thought to describe Hisamoto's own exploits rather than Ujimoto's, since some of the episodes it records predate Ujimoto's birth. Serving the Satake clan as it contested northern Hitachi against the Hōjō and Date clans, Ujimoto fought on the front lines and helped secure his lord's survival. After the Satake were confirmed as daimyo of a 540,000-koku domain following Toyotomi Hideyoshi's pacification of the Kantō, Ujimoto rose to prominence within the clan's retainer band.

When the Satake clan was punished for its equivocal stance at the Battle of Sekigahara and transferred to a reduced domain in Akita, Ujimoto did not accompany his lord and instead remained in Hitachi Province. In his later years he is said to have cultivated refinement in poetry and tea ceremony alongside his martial reputation. He died in 1622 at the age of 73 and was buried at Jōrinji Temple in Shimodate. Far from a mere brute of legend, his life traces the transition of the Satake retainer corps from the age of warring states into the peace of the Edo period, preserving the spirit of eastern Japan's warrior culture.