* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Uesugi Tomosada
上杉朝定
Head of the Ōgigayatsu Uesugi
Description
Overview
Uesugi Tomosada was a Sengoku-period warrior and the last head of the Ōgigayatsu branch of the Uesugi clan. He resisted the advance of Hōjō Ujitsuna and Ujiyasu into Musashi Province, but died at the Battle of Kawagoe Castle in 1546, bringing his house to an end.
Succession and the Loss of Kawagoe
Born in 1525 as the son of Uesugi Tomooki, he succeeded to the headship at the age of thirteen when his father died in the fourth month of 1537. That same year Hōjō Ujitsuna captured Kawagoe Castle, the clan's principal stronghold, and Tomosada withdrew to Matsuyama Castle. Inheriting young and immediately losing his main base, he presided over a sharp decline in Ōgigayatsu power.
The Anti-Hōjō Coalition
Determined to retake Kawagoe, Tomosada allied with Uesugi Norimasa of the rival Yamanouchi branch — long his family's enemy — and with Ashikaga Haruuji, the Koga kubō. Between 1545 and the following year their combined forces laid siege to Kawagoe Castle with a large army. On the twentieth day of the fourth month of 1546, however, Hōjō Ujiyasu counterattacked and the coalition collapsed, in the engagement known as the Battle of Kawagoe or the Kawagoe Night Battle.
Death and the End of the House
Tomosada died in this battle at the age of twenty-two. He is conventionally said to have been killed in Ujiyasu's surprise assault, but no contemporary record describes the circumstances of his death, and illness cannot be excluded; the true cause is unknown. He left no heir, and the Ōgigayatsu Uesugi ended with him. A collateral kinsman, Uesugi Norikatsu, later attempted to revive the name but soon submitted to the Later Hōjō. Uesugi power in Musashi was decisively broken, and primacy in the Kantō passed to the Hōjō.