Hosokawa Tadaoki
Hosokawa Fujitaka's eldest son,
Hosokawa Tadaoki 細川忠興(
1563-
1645) fought his first battle at the age of thirteen (fifteen by the Japanese count) in the service of
Oda Nobunaga. Along with his father he was given the
province of Tango in 1580. In 1578 he had married the daughter of
Akechi Mitsuhide, called Tamako (1563-1600) and by her Christian name Gracia, whose father was noted Oda general and a friend of Fujitaka. In 1582 Akechi rebelled and after Nobunaga was killed, he turned to the Hosokawa for help. Tadaoki replied by hiding his wife in the mountains, and both he and Fujitaka refused to provide their erstwhile comrade with any assistance. After
Hashiba Hideyoshi defeated Mitsuhide, he convinced Tadaoki to take his wife back.
Tadaoki was present on Hideyoshi's side in the
Komaki Campaign (1583) and the
Odawara Campaign (1590), where he took part in the siege of
Nirayama (
Izu province) and later joined the main army outside
Odawara. During the
1590s he became friends with
Tokugawa Ieyasu (who had lent him money to assist in some debts owed
Toyotomi Hidetsugu) and in 1600 sided with him against
Ishida Mitsunari. In July Ishida had attempted to gain some leverage over those leaning towards Ieyasu by taking as hostages all those whose families were in
"saka Castle. This happened to include Tadaoki's wife - who was by now a Christian, baptized '
Gracia'. To avoid capture, Gracia ordered a servant to kill her and set fire to their quarters. While there is little reason to believe that Hosokawa was emotionally scarred by the incident, it was considered an appalling act of trickery, and served to drive Tadaoki - among others - into Ieyasu's camp.
At the
Battle of Sekigahara (
21 October 1600) Tadaoki commanded 5,000 men in the Tokugawa vanguard and clashed with the forces of
Shima Sakon. He was awarded a fief in
Buzen (
Kokura, 370,000 koku) and went on to serve at the
"saka Campaigns (1614, 1615). He retired and was succeeded by his son
Tadatoshi (
1586-
1641), who fought at the
Siege of Shimabara (1632). In 1632 Tadatoshi received a huge fief in
Higo (
Kumamoto, 540,000 koku). The family ruled the province until the
Meiji Restoration. A decendent,
Morihiro Hosokawa became governor of
Kumamoto Prefecture and then prime minister (1993-4).
A noted warrior and something of a scholar (though far less so then his father), Tadaoki also seems to have been rather ill-tempered - clashing with his father on more then one occasion and, according to his wife, killing more than one servant girl.
*Sansom, George
"A History of Japan", 1334-1615 Stanford 1961
*Berry,Mary Elizabeth
"Hideyoshi" 1982
