Ikeda Terumasa

Ikeda Terumasa

Ikeda Terumasa

Ikeda Terumasa ( Japanese 池田 輝 政 ; * 1564 ; † 1613 ), son and heir of Ikeda Tsuneoki (actually Nobuteru), was the daimyō (regional feudal ruler ) of Himeji at the time of the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa - Shogun .

He was the owner of Ikejiri Castle in Mino Province and, like his father, supported the general and politician Toyotomi Hideyoshi , including during the Komaki campaign of 1584, in which his father was killed. After the exchange of territory between Toyotomi and Tokugawa Ieyasu , the later Shogun of Japan, in 1590 he settled in Yoshida in the province of Mikawa .

In 1594 Terumasa married one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's daughters. After Hideyoshi's death, the Ikedas switched to Ieyasu's side, whom he also supported in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, in which he led over 4,000 soldiers. In September of that year he turned against his rival Fukushima Masanori . After the end of the Battle of Sekigahara, Terumasa received the Himeji Fief of 520,000 Koku in Harima Province with Himeji Castle as its center.

In 1603, the Ikeda dominion was expanded to include Bizen , which he passed on to his eldest son Ikeda Toshitaka . At the time of Ikeda Terumasa's death, the family ruled over Harima , Bizen, Inaba and Awaji , their total income from this reaching about one million koku. For his outstanding skills he was known throughout the empire as the Shogun of Western Japan ( 西 国 将軍 , nishikoku shogun ).

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