Sanada Nobutada

Sanada Nobutada (Tenbun 16, c. 1547 – Kan'ei 9, 1632) was a warrior active from the Sengoku period into the early Edo period. He was the fourth son of Sanada Yukitsuna (Yukitaka) and the younger brother of Sanada Masayuki, and he founded a branch line of the Sanada family.

With His Elder Brother Masayuki

Nobutada first served the Takeda clan and succeeded to the name of the Kazuno family. After the fall of the Takeda clan, he came under the Uesugi clan, but he acted in step with his elder brother Masayuki, who shifted his allegiance first to the Hōjō clan and then to the Tokugawa clan. The two brothers were deeply involved in the expansion of Sanada power and its schemes in the Shinano and Kōzuke regions, and their names appear in the covert persuasion efforts surrounding Makinoshima Castle.

Allegiance to the Tokugawa Clan

Nobutada eventually entered the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu. He also served Gamō Ujisato for a time, but during the Keichō era he returned to Ieyasu and was granted fiefs in Kai Province. He was treated as a hatamoto on the Tokugawa side. Although his fief was increased, he is said to have declined stipends beyond what he deserved, and anecdotes illustrating his integrity survive.

The Siege of Osaka and Later Years

At the time of the Siege of Osaka, he is said to have been sent as an envoy to persuade his nephew Sanada Nobushige (Yukimura), who had sided with the Toyotomi forces, to defect to the Tokugawa side. (There is also a dissenting view that the envoy was not Nobutada but his nephew Nobuyuki.) However, it is said that he was unable to change Nobushige's mind. Nobutada lived a long life and died in Kan'ei 9 (1632). Among the Sanada family, he is known as a man who followed a different path from his elder brother Masayuki and from his nephews Nobuyuki and Nobushige, and who survived the upheavals of the Sengoku period.