Ii Naomasa

Ii Naomasa (井伊 直政, March 4, 1561 – March 24, 1602) was a general under the Sengoku period Daimyo, and later Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. He is regarded as one of the Four Guardians of the Tokugawa along with Honda Tadakatsu, Sakakibara Yasumasa and Sakai Tadatsugu.

Early life

Ii Naomasa was born in Hōda Village of Tōtōmi Province. His family, like the Tokugawa, had originally been retainers of the Imagawa clan, but following the death of the clan's leader, Imagawa Yoshimoto, in the Battle of Okehazama (1560), confusion and general chaos ensued. Naomasa's father, Naochika, was falsely convicted of treason by Yoshimoto's paranoid successor, Imagawa Ujizane, and was subsequently killed. Naomasa, then a very small child, was personally lucky to escape his father's fate and was later taken in by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who discovered Naomasa while hunting in Hamamatsu.

Naomasa the General

Ii Naomasa joined the ranks of the Tokugawa clan in the mid-1570s, rising swiftly through the ranks to eventually become the master of a sizable holding in Ōmi Province, following the Battle of Sekigahara (1600). His court title was Hyōbu-dayū.