Takeda Nobuyoshi

武田信吉

Ieyasu's fifth son who revived the Takeda name and became young lord of Mito's 150,000-koku domain

Era

Early Edo period

Lifespan

1583-1603

Associated Sword Tradition

Description

Origins and the Revival of the Takeda Name

Takeda Nobuyoshi (1583-1603) was born in 1583 in Hamamatsu, Tōtōmi Province, as the fifth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu. His mother, Otsuma (Shimoyama-dono), was the daughter of Akiyama Toratai, a former retainer of the Kai Takeda clan. Reluctant to let the prestigious Takeda name die out, Ieyasu had Nobuyoshi take the Takeda surname, making him the nominal reviver of a house that had been extinguished with the fall of Takeda Katsuyori in 1582.

Succession of Holdings

In 1590, at the age of eight, he was granted 30,000 koku as lord of Koganei Castle in Shimōsa, later moving to Sakura Castle in the same province with 50,000 koku. In the eleventh month of 1602, at twenty, he was enfeoffed at Mito Castle in Hitachi Province with a domain reported as 150,000 koku (some accounts give 250,000). That he was entrusted, while still young, with the strategically important Mito domain reflects the weight Ieyasu placed on his fifth son.

Early Death and a Second Extinction of the Takeda Line

Nobuyoshi is said to have been sickly from birth. Less than a year after taking up his post at Mito, he died on 11 September 1603 at the age of twenty-one. Having no heir, the Takeda name that Ieyasu had revived through him became extinct once again upon his death.

Legacy

Nobuyoshi's life was brief and left little in the way of political or military achievement, but he is remembered as emblematic of Ieyasu's broader effort to conciliate former Takeda retainers and absorb the old Takeda domains and vassal band into the Tokugawa order. Many of the retainers assigned to serve him are also said to have gone on to form part of the retainer band of the later Mito Tokugawa house.