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Date Masamune Mogami Yoshiaki
Hōjō Ujimasa
Lion of Sagami

Hōjō Ujimasa

Ōshū and Kantō
Hōjō Ujimasa
Life 1538–1590 (aged 53)
Title Lion of Sagami
Faction Ōshū and Kantō
Places associated with this character Sagami (1560–1590)
Voice and speech Young and proud of his authority, he speaks in a Kantō warrior’s manner about his family rank and heritage.
Family Lord of Odawara Castle in Sagami and fourth head of the Hōjō house. He inherited the good governance of Sōun’s line and its network of impregnable fortresses, ruling over the eight provinces of Kantō.
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“Through Hōjō Ujimasa, witness the strategies and military affairs of a Kantō ruler focused on defense. You will see both his fixation on strong castles and his difficulty making a final decision.”

Life

Lord of Odawara Castle

Ambition

Protect the Kantō domain and its people built up by his grandfather and father, and refuse to yield to Hideyoshi’s overreach.

The Hōjō have cared for their people under a fair four-to-six tax. However much the upstart Hideyoshi commands the realm, the impregnable Odawara Castle and its outer defenses can repel him, as they once repelled Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin.

If Odawara falls, five generations and a century of Hōjō prosperity in Kantō since Sōun will collapse at once.

Obstacles of the era
  • Hideyoshi’s unprecedented nationwide mobilization of more than 200,000 troops to surround Odawara
  • Allied powers such as Date Masamune repeatedly defecting or surrendering
  • Food shortages and war-weariness among the retainers during the prolonged siege

Character and convictions

Source of ambition

The impregnable Odawara Castle, with its nine-kilometer outer defenses, and the tradition of caring for the people.

Turning point

His anxiety that, unlike his father Ujiyasu’s great leadership, he misread the state of the realm in his own time.

How he treats others

The life of his heir Ujinao, to whom he passed the house, and the survival of the Hōjō line.

Principle he will not yield

Casting aside a century of Hōjō pride and surrendering unconditionally to Hideyoshi in humiliation.

Historical path

1560 - 1568
The Hōjō lord who inherited the house and repelled Uesugi Kenshin’s great army from his fortress
His Kantō warrior’s voice carries the confidence of a young lord, eager to speak of his house and ancestral legacy.
1569 - 1579
The Hōjō lord who used fortresses and diplomacy to withstand Takeda Shingen and rule Kantō
His Kantō speech gains a ruler’s composure; he prefers to deliberate major decisions with his council.
1580 - 1589
The Hōjō patriarch who yielded the house to his son Ujinao but retained power in retirement
In retirement, he prizes rank and appearances; pride and conservatism shape his view of the realm.
1590
The power behind the house, unable to decide at the Odawara council as 200,000 troops closed in
At council he weighs war against surrender again and again, speaking at length without reaching a decision.

Final chapter

1590 (aged 53)

In August 1590, after a three-month siege of Odawara, the Hōjō surrendered. In exchange for Ujinao’s life, Hideyoshi ordered Ujimasa and his brother Ujiteru to take their own lives. Ujimasa died by seppuku at a doctor’s residence below Odawara Castle, aged fifty-three.

He left a death poem: “When the clouds that cover the moon clear away, the world is filled with light,” then calmly took his own life.
“The tragedy of a great house that trusted too much in Odawara, which even Kenshin and Shingen could not capture, and misread the shifting times. As in the tale of twice pouring broth over his rice and drawing Nobunaga’s doubt, he failed to judge the tide of his age.”