Makabe Ujimoto

Makabe Ujimoto was a Sengoku-period warrior born in Tenbun 19 (1550) in Makabe District, Hitachi Province (present-day Sakuragawa, Ibaraki Prefecture). As the son of Makabe Hisamoto, lord of Makabe Castle, he inherited the headship of the Makabe clan, a local lord (kokujin) family of Hitachi, and served Satake Yoshishige. His father, Hisamoto, was also a valiant warrior known by the epithet 'Oni Makabe' ('Demon Makabe'). The tale of 'Oni Makabe,' who swung a long oak club and felled armored warriors one after another, as depicted in later war chronicles such as the Kanhasshū Kosenroku, is considered likely to have been the deeds of his father, Hisamoto, rather than Ujimoto's, since it includes battles that took place before Ujimoto was born. The Satake clan, based in northern Hitachi, fought against the Hōjō and Date clans, and Ujimoto took part in numerous battles on the front line, contributing to the survival of his lord's house. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's settlement of the Kantō, when the Satake clan was recognized as a daimyo with 540,000 koku in Hitachi, Ujimoto was also valued as a senior member of its retainer corps.

When the Satake clan was reprimanded for its ambiguous attitude toward the Tokugawa side at the Battle of Sekigahara and received a reduction of its domain and transfer to Akita in Dewa Province, Ujimoto did not accompany them and remained in Hitachi Province. He died on April 17, 1622 (Genna 8/3/7) at the age of 73 and was buried at Jōrinji temple in Shimodate. Not only as a warrior devoted solely to valor, but as one of the Satake retainers who survived the transition from the Sengoku period to an age of peace, his life still conveys the spirit of the warriors of eastern Japan.