Kiso Yoshimasa
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Kiso Yoshimasa (木曾義昌? 1540 - April 26, 1595) was a retainer beneath the Takeda clan of Kai Province during the latter Sengoku period of Feudal Japan. Son to Kiso Yoshiyasu--a former warlord over Shinano Province who initially failed in an attempt to prevent Takeda Shingen from expanding into his province--Yoshimasa was allowed control over his father's Fukushima Castle, which was within the Kiso region of Shinano. Serving as a respective retainer under the Takeda clan following the point at which he and his father had submitted to the Shingen, the former gave Yoshimasa one of his daughters, who the latter would thus marry, ensuring that the two families were thus politically connected. However, by the year of 1582, Shingen had already been long dead, and the new heir over Takeda--Katsuyori--was relatively about to fall to complete destruction; so Yoshimasa, knowing that it would be of greater advantage to join the ranks of the influential and power Oda Nobunaga, as opposed to remaining as a vassal beneath a clan that already lost half of its retainers, gave back his wife to the Takeda and abandoned his domain in favor of the Oda clan. Even though Katsuyori initially sent an order to submit Yoshimasa from his intentions, by means of sending a small army, Yoshimasa evaded this attempt, supporting the Oda/Tokugawa alliance as they desolated the Takeda's holdings, following his defection, and thus generously rewarded by Nobunaga for his rational course of action. As Nobunaga passed away in 1582 and Yoshimasa conjectively continued his service beneath the Toyotomi clan, through some justifiable means Toyotomi Hideyoshi deprived Yoshimasa of his domains, possibly by defecting to Ieyasu after seeing that the Tokugawa possessed a greater sum of power and potential. Regardless, Yoshimasa died by the year of 1595, probably by means of old age.
[edit] References
- Kiso Yoshimasa - SamuraiWiki. (Samurai Archives) FWSeal & CEWest, 2005
