Matsudaira Hirotada

• Birth: 1526
• Death: 1549
• Other name: Matsudaira Jirosaburô
• Sons: Tokugawa Ieyasu, Matsudaira Iemoto
• Distinction: Mikawa warlord

Hirotada was the son of Matsudaira Kiyoyasu. His father had been slain when he was about ten and for a time he was protected by Abe Sadayoshi. With the aid of the Imagawa clan, Abe was able to have Hirotada safely installed at Okazaki castle. He allowed the Matsudaira to come under the influence of the Imagawa and fought with the Oda of Owari, who took Anjo castle in 1540. In 1541 Hirotada married the daughter of Mizuno Tadamasa (she is known as Dai no kata) and she gave birth to the future Tokugawa Ieyasu the next year. Hirotada divorced Dai no kata after the Mizuno betrayed him in 1544 and married the daughter of Toda Yasumitsu, a union that produced a son (Iemoto) and three daughters. He was defeated by the Oda along with the Imagawa at the First Battle of Azukizaka the following year and suffered the defection of his uncle, Matsudaira Nobutaka, to the Oda. Hard-pressed by Oda Nobuhide, Hirotada asked the Imagawa for more assistance and was compelled to send his son as a hostage to the Imagawa's capital of Sumpu in Suruga province. The child (the future Tokugawa Ieyasu) was intercepted en route by the Oda and kept at Nagoya for a number of years. Hirotada was defeated in an attempt to retake Anjo and survived an assassination attempt by Iwamatsu Hachiya. The Imagawa and Matsudaira defeated the Oda at the second Battle of Azukizaka in 1548 but Hirotada died of illness the following year. In 1612 his son Ieyasu, now a retired shôgun, requested that rank of Dainogon be posthumously conferred on Hirotada.

References

• Initial text from Sengoku Biographical Dictionary (Samurai-Archives.com) FWSeal & CEWest, 2005