Toyotomi Hideyori
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Toyotomi Hideyori (豊臣 秀頼 Toyotomi Hideyori), 1593-1615, was the son and designated successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the general who first united all of Japan. His mother, Lady Yodo, was the niece of Oda Nobunaga.
When Hideyoshi died in 1598, the regents he had appointed to rule in Hideyori's place began jockeying amongst themselves for power. In 1600, after his victory over the others at the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu seized control. Hideyori married the seven year old granddaughter of Ieyasu, Senhime, to ensure his loyalty towards the Tokugawa clan. However Ieyasu continued to view the young Hideyori as a potential threat, and attacked Hideyori in the Siege of Osaka in winter 1614. The attack failed, but Hideyori was induced to sign a truce and dismantle the defenses of his stronghold Osaka Castle.
In 1615, Ieyasu's son Hidetada renounced the truce and attacked again after Hideyori began to excavate the moats of Osaka Castle thus breaching the truce agreement made the previous winter. On June 5, 1615 Toyotomi Hideyori, having no means of protecting himself from the advancing Tokugawa forces, he, and 30 others who accompanied him within the burning castle, committed suicide. Thus ended the Toyotomi clan, having controlled Japan for 30 years - paving the way for the 250-year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Hideyori's son Kunimatsu was executed; his daughter was sent to Tōkei-ji, a convent in Kamakura, where she later became the abbess Tenshū-ni.
