Ii Naomasa

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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. His family, like Tokugawa's, had originally been retainers of the once-powerful Imagawa clan, and Naomasa, then a very small child, was personally lucky to escape death in the confusion and general chaos which followed the death of the clan's leader, Imagawa Yoshimoto, in the Battle of Okehazama in 1560. 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 Ômi Province, following the Battle of Sekigahara (1600).

[edit] Naomasa the General

Like Honda Tadakatsu, Ii Naomasa is regarded as one of the Four Guardians of the Tokugawa under the famous Tokugawa Ieyasu. He initially gained notice at the Battle of Nagakute (1584), commanding around three thousand musketeers with distinction. His finest hour was to come at the Battle of Sekigahara, where his unit outpaced those of other (arguably more famous) generals such as Fukushima Masanori, drawing the "first blood" of that battle. However, Naomasa was shot and wounded by a stray bullet as the fighting was dying down, a wound from which he would never fully recover. The wound also prevented his personal involvement in quelling the last vestiges of the anti-Tokugawa faction in the coming months.

The units Ii commanded on the battlefield were notable for being outfitted almost completely in blood-red armour for psychological impact, a tactic copied from Yamagata Masakage, one of Takeda Shingen's generals. As such, his unit became known as the "Red Devils", a nickname he shared.

[edit] Death and Legacy

Ii Naomasa's premature death in 1602 has been widely blamed on the wound he received at Sekigahara. Naomasa was highly regarded by Tokugawa Ieyasu, so it is no surprise that his sons Naotsugu and Naotaka succeeded him in his service and title. However, Naotsugu managed to anger Tokugawa by refusing to take part in his campaign to reduce the Toyotomi clan stronghold at Osaka. Nonetheless, the Ii remained influential in Japanese politics throughout the Edo period.

[edit] Naomasa in Popular Culture

Ii Naomasa appears as a prominent character in Koei's strategy battle game Kessen, which centres around the Sekigahara campaign and Tokugawa's rise to power. After the Sekigahara campaign, his son Ii Naotaka took over his role, they both share the same statistic.