What Happened to the Samurai Clans Who Lost Japan's Greatest Battle?

October 21, 1600. At Sekigahara, the battle that decided who would rule Japan was over in a single day. For the lords on the losing side, what came next could not have been more different. Ishida Mitsunari was beheaded in Kyoto, yet his grandson became a ruling lord in the far north. Ukita Hideie was exiled to Hachijo Island and outlived Tokugawa Ieyasu by 39 years. Chosokabe Morichika lost Tosa, fought one last time at the Siege of Osaka, and died on the same riverbank as Mitsunari. The Mori were cut from about 1.2 million koku to 369,000. The Shimazu smashed through the enemy lines, went home, and kept every acre. And 268 years later, the Mori of Choshu and the Shimazu of Satsuma brought down the Tokugawa shogunate. We follow the clans that vanished, the clans that were cut down, and the clan that held on, with family trees and maps, and we keep what the records say apart from later legend (the dried persimmon, the "empty lunch," the New Year's "Not yet," "Chesto Sekigahara"). ▼ In this video • The aftermath: 88 houses abolished, 5 reduced, about 6.32 million koku redistributed (traditional count) • Mitsunari's children: a monk in Kyoto, the Sugiyama family in Tsugaru, and a grandson who became lord of Hirosaki • Ukita Hideie's fifty years on Hachijo Island, and his descendants' pardon in 1869 • Chosokabe Morichika: from losing Tosa to the Siege of Osaka • Konishi Yukinaga, Otani Yoshitsugu, the Sanada, and the children who survived • The Mori: secret negotiations, Hagi Castle, and where the New Year's revenge story really comes from • The Shimazu Retreat, and two years of talks that saved 600,000 koku • The Uesugi, the Satake, and Tachibana Muneshige • Why their fates split, and what happened 268 years later ▼ Chapters 0:00 Opening 1:38 Chapter 1 The Losers' Ledger 3:14 Chapter 2 Mitsunari's Children 6:28 Chapter 3 Fifty Years on Hachijo Island 9:41 Chapter 4 The Man Who Lost Tosa 11:41 Chapter 5 The Fallen and the Survivors 14:19 Chapter 6 From 1.2 Million to 369,000 Koku 17:14 Chapter 7 Through the Enemy Lines 19:35 Chapter 8 The Clans That Kept Their Men 21:12 Chapter 9 Why Their Fates Split 22:08 Chapter 10 268 Years Later 24:17 Ending ▼ Notes • Dates other than the day of the battle follow the old Japanese lunar calendar. • Koku figures differ between sources (the Mori are given as 1.12 or 1.205 million before the war). 88 / 5 / 6.32 million is the traditional count and changes with how houses and periods are counted. • Some portraits were painted after the subject's death, and some images are later woodblock prints. • Some scenes are illustrative recreations made to convey the atmosphere of the time. • Names are given family name first, as in Japanese. ▼ Main sources • Hayashi Chizu, The War of 1600 and the Postwar Domain System (Kumamoto University, 2009) • Army General Staff (ed.), Nihon Senshi: Sekigahara-eki (1893); Inobe Shigeo, Bakumatsu-shi no Kenkyu (1927) • Prefectural and city archives, libraries and museums of Shiga, Aomori, Okayama, Hachijo, Kochi, Fukui, Ueda, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Hagi, Kagoshima, Yonezawa, Akita and Yanagawa; papers by Hirai Kazusa and Gunji Takeshi • Imperial Household Agency archives, National Archives of Japan, National Diet Library ▼ Image credits • Portraits, folding screens, woodblock prints and early photographs: public domain (Mori Museum, Uesugi Museum, Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo, Shoko Shuseikan, Osaka Castle Museum, Gifu City Museum of History, Sekigahara Town, Tokyo Metropolitan Library, Renkoji, Hata Shrine, Tentokuji, Uesugi Shrine) Photos (Wikimedia Commons): • gundam2345, mariemon (CC BY 3.0) • hirohiro akabane (CC BY-SA 2.0) • baku13 (CC BY-SA 2.1 jp) • Tachibana Sakon, Soramimi, Reggaeman, KENPEI (CC BY-SA 3.0) • Alpsdake, Kikuchya, Nesnad / Wikimedia Commons, Sakaori, Soramimi, Suikotei, DXR, Sakoppi (CC BY-SA 4.0) • Saigen Jiro, Syced, Kamogawa no Tami (CC0 1.0) (Images are zoomed, cropped or blurred in the video) Map: based on Natural Earth (public domain) #Sekigahara #JapaneseHistory #Samurai