Yūki Hideyasu

Yūki Hideyasu (結城 秀康, 1 March 1574 – 2 June 1607) was a Japanese daimyo who lived during the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods. He was the head of the Fukui Domain in Echizen.

Early life

Hideyasu was born Tokugawa Ogimaru in 1574, the second son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, by his concubine, Lady Oman. Oman is said to have given birth to twins, and that Ogimaru's brother succeeded Oman's father as priest of Chiryū Shrine in Mikawa Province. He was born near Hamamatsu Castle, in Ofumi Village.

Oman was a servant to Lady Tsukiyama, Ieyasu's wife. When Oman became pregnant, Ieyasu feared his wife's wrath, so he sheltered the girl in the home of his retainer Honda Shigetsugu, and it was there that Ogimaru and his brother were born.

The young Ogimaru was, for some reason, disliked by his father Ieyasu. It was not until age three that he met Ieyasu, and even that meeting, cold as it was, was not arranged by the father, but instead by Ogimaru's half-brother, Matsudaira Nobuyasu. After Nobuyasu's suicide by order of his father, Ogimaru would have been the next in line to inherit the Tokugawa headship; however, as part of the peace negotiations following the Battle of Komaki-Nagakute, he was given in adoption (in reality as a hostage) to Hashiba Hideyoshi. Coming of age while living with Hideyoshi, Ogimaru then took the name Hashiba Hideyasu, which combined the names of his adoptive father and biological father.