He Lost Sekigahara. Who Kept Him Alive for 50 Years in Exile?

In 1600, Ukita Hideie led the largest army on the losing side at Sekigahara. Six years later he was put ashore on Hachijo-jima, a volcanic island far out in the Pacific, with his two eldest sons, a doctor and a few servants. He lived there for almost fifty years. His wife, Go, the adopted daughter of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was not allowed to go with him. She went home to her own family, the Maeda of Kaga, and never saw her husband again. So who kept a fallen samurai lord alive at the edge of the sea, and did what they sent him ever arrive? This documentary follows the records: a letter from Go's mother Matsu (c. 1608), a stone memorial on Mount Koya (1615), the Maeda domain's own records (1681, 1693), and a receipt written on the island in 1701. ▼ Chapters 0:00 Opening 0:51 Chapter 1: The Lord Who Lost 3:22 Chapter 2: The Lady of Bizen 5:38 Chapter 3: Fifty Years on the Island 6:55 Chapter 4: What Arrived 8:31 Ending ▼ Notes • Ages are given by the old Japanese count, in which a child is one year old at birth. • The troop figure for Sekigahara is the traditional count. • Stories of Hideie begging for sake or saving rice for his family come from later anecdote collections, not from anyone who met him. • "Seventy bales every other year for 250 years" is a figure from later accounts; the surviving records show amounts that changed from year to year. • On-screen translations of letters and inscriptions are our own translations or summaries. • Ukiyo-e prints of the sea, ships and a woman reading are used as period atmosphere; they do not depict Go, Matsu or the actual ships. • Portraits are period or later paintings; no images in this video were generated. ▼ Main sources • Kaga-han shiryo (Records of the Kaga Domain), parts 1, 2, 4 and 5 (incl. Maeda-shi keifu, Maeda kafu, Juushu zatsudan, Maeda Sadachika shuki) • Letter of Hoshun-in (Matsu) to Chiyo, c. 1608: Imizu City Shinminato Museum • Letter of Toyotomi Hideyoshi to Go, c. 1582: Osaka Castle Museum • Kinoshita Hiroyoshi, "The stone towers of the Toyotomi family cemetery at Okunoin, Mount Koya" (2022) • Shimazu family documents nos. 1978 and 2011 (University of Tokyo, Historiographical Institute); Kyuki zatsuroku • Muro Kyuso, Sundai zatsuwa, vol. 3 (c. 1732) • Hachijo Town (official history); Okayama Prefecture; Itabashi City; Ishikawa Prefectural Library; Kanazawa City Library • Moriwaki Takafumi (doctoral thesis review) and Kawauchi Masayoshi on the 1595 illness ▼ Art and photo credits • Sekigahara screen, Gifu City Museum of History (public domain) • Osaka screen, Eggenberg Palace / Universalmuseum Joanneum (public domain) • Siege of Osaka screen, Osaka Castle Museum (public domain) • Jurakudai screen, Mitsui Memorial Museum (public domain) • Iwasa Matabei, Rakuchu-rakugai screen (Funaki), Tokyo National Museum (public domain) • Portraits of Ukita Hideie; Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Kodai-ji); Kodai-in / Nene (copy, Historiographical Institute, Univ. of Tokyo); Hoshun-in / Matsu (Sojiji) (public domain) • Ochiai Yoshiiku, Maeda Toshiie (1867), Tokyo Metropolitan Library (public domain) • Hokusai and Hiroshige prints: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rijksmuseum and others (CC0) • Utamaro, Woman Reading a Letter (CC0) • Hachijo jikki ryaku (manuscript), National Diet Library (public domain) • Letter of Maeda Toshinaga, Keio Museum Commons (CC BY 4.0) • Photos: Nesnad (CC BY-SA 4.0); hirohiro akabane (CC BY-SA 2.0); Sakaori (CC BY-SA 4.0); 663highland (CC BY 2.5); Soramimi (CC BY-SA 4.0); Undokai Protein Power (CC BY-SA 4.0); AlexHe34 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Balon Greyjoy, Aspere, Asanagi (CC0) (Cropped, zoomed and graded in the video.) Map: Natural Earth (public domain); elevation: Mapzen Terrain Tiles (SRTM and others) If you enjoyed this, please like the video and subscribe to Old Japan Decoded. #Samurai #JapaneseHistory #Sekigahara