Hōjō Ujiyasu

Portrait of Hōjō Ujiyasu

Hōjō Ujiyasu ( Japanese 北 条 氏 康 ; * 1515 ; † October 21, 1571 in Odawara ) was a daimyo in Sagami province in the Sengoku period .

Ujiyasu was the son and successor of Hōjō Ujitsuna and grandson of Hōjō Sōun (1432-1519).

He took over the leadership of the Hōjō after the death of his father in 1541. In 1545 he and his army won the siege of Kawagoe against the Uesugi clan. The battle is considered one of the most notable examples of night warfare in the samurai era .

This was followed by a long hostility with the Uesugi, which led to the second battle of Kōnodai (1564) , which Ujiyasu won, but then refrained from further attempts to expand his sphere of influence.

Ujiyasu also carried out extensive administrative reforms, for example by revising the Kandaka tax system in 1550. He fought as an ally of the Imagawa , under both Imagawa Yoshimoto and Imagawa Ujizane ; and sometimes as an opponent, sometimes as a supporter with the Takeda under Takeda Shingen . His son was one of the last great opponents of Oda Nobunagas in the unification of Japan.

Source and web link

• Samurai Archives
• Stephen Turnbull: Was in Japan: 1467-1615 . Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2002.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Hōjō is the family name, Ujiyasu the first name.