Hosokawa Fujitaka

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Hosokawa Fujitaka (細川 藤孝; 1534 - 1610) was a Japanese daimyō and military general who later became a renowned tea master and poet. Initially having served under the Ashikaga shogunate, he became Oda Nobunaga's retainer. After the Honnō-ji incident, he later served Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Battle of Yamazaki, despite his own son Hosokawa Tadaoki's marriage to Akechi Tama, the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide.

After the battle and Mitsuhide's defeat, Fujitaka then relinquished his title and leadership to Tadaoki, took Buddhist vows, and adopted the name Hosokawa Yūsai (細川 幽斎), but still served Hideyoshi as an advisor. After Hideyoshi's death, he defied the western army's advances and inadvertently aided Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory in the Battle of Sekigahara.

Biography

In 1541, Fujitaka was adopted into the Hosokawa family at age seven. Within the next three decades, he was serving under the last of the Ashikaga shoguns, and by 1573, when he became a vassal under Oda Nobunaga. In 1571, Nobunaga entrusted him with Shōryū-ji Castle, where he rebuilt its defenses by installing a double moat. In 1578, his son Tadaoki later married Akechi Mitsuhide's daughter Tama.

In 1582, after Nobunaga's death at Honnō-ji, Fujitaka considered his options on whether to support Mitsuhide or Hideyoshi. Meanwhile, he had trouble dealing with his finances regarding his silver intake and tasked his second-in-command Yoshisada with managing them. However, unbeknownst to Fujitaka, Yoshisada took advantage of his finances and began a silver-smuggling operation. With the help of Akechi clan soldiers and Portuguese traders, Yoshisada stole silver and used it to buy teppō which he then resold to bandits at a higher cost.

However, upon discovering the smuggling operation, Fujitaka had Yoshisade help him investigate, which led Yoshisade to frame Mai and her fellow cohorts as the sole perpetrators. When the Kakushiba ikki members Fujibayashi Naoe and Yasuke arrived at Sukyo-ji Temple and met Fujitaka, he asked them to help him investigate and dismantle the operation altogether. When Naoe and Yasuke assassinated all the members, they learned that Yoshisada was in fact the enterprise's mastermind. When they reported back to Fujitaka with their findings, he demanded proof of Yoshisada's guilt.

Thus, they traveled to Miyazu Castle and confronted Yoshisada, who admitted his part but reprimanded them for exposing his betrayal and attacked them. Yoshisada was ultimately defeated, and Naoe and Yasuke recovered his confession from his personal effects. Returning to Sukyo-ji Temple, they gave Fujitaka the confession, much to his dismay. Fujitaka thanked them for their work, decided not to ally himself with the Akechi clan, and then gave them gold as their reward.

Later life and death

After serving with Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki, Fujitaka later took Buddhist vows and became known as Yūsai. He served under Hideyoshi until his death in 1598. On 19 August 1600, Fujitaka defended his castle from siege by a detachment of Ishida Mitsunari's Western army under Ikoma Chikamasa; his preoccupying of 15,000 soldiers indirectly led to Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern army winning the Battle of Sekigahara. He ultimately retired to a life of mastering the tea ceremony and waka poetry, which played a vital part in establishing the etiquette and rules for the Tokugawa shogunate. He died on 6 October 1610 in Kyoto at the age of 76.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Shadows