Tokugawa Yorifusa

• Born: 1603
• Died: 1661
• Sons: Matsudaira Yorishige (1622-1695), Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628-1670)
• Titles: Saemon no kami
• Japanese: 徳川頼房 (Tokugawa Yorifusa)

Yorifusa’s mother was Oman no Kata. He was given a 100,000 koku fief at Shimotzuma in Hitachi province as a child (1603) and in 1621 was given Mito han, worth 350,000 koku. As a young man he was tutored by Nakayama Bizen no kami Nobuyoshi (1576-1642), a member of a former Hôjô retainer family. Yorifusa was considered the most clever of Ieyasu's last three sons, and a number of anecdotes involving the three of them and Ieyasu survive. Yorifusa's Mito domain line became the third of the gosanke and was destined to provide the 15th and final Tokugawa shôgun, Yoshinobu.

References

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