Sanada Yukimura

In childhood he accompanied his father around Ueda Castle (built by Masayuki, around 1583). In the First Battle of Ueda Castle (1585) and the Second Battle of Ueda Castle (1600) he held up Tokugawa Hidetada's army so that it could not reach Sekigahara in time — this is a point of established fact. After Sekigahara he was exiled to Mount Kōya with his father (later moved to Kudoyama). In the Winter Campaign of 1614 he defended Osaka Castle for Hideyori, building the Sanada-maru (an earthwork outwork with multiple palisades, wooden turrets, two-tier firing platforms and firearms) and repelling the early Tokugawa assaults. In the Summer Campaign, at the Battle of Tennōji on 3 June 1615, he led his troops from Chausuyama against the Tokugawa main camp and pressed close to Ieyasu's headquarters (the claim that Ieyasu "once prepared to kill himself" is a legendary embellishment and must be marked as legend/later dramatisation). Exhausted, he was recognised and beheaded near Yasui Shrine by Nishio Nizaemon and others (an alternative account says he killed himself and was then beheaded by a second; the mainstream account is given with the variant noted).

• Birthplace: Uncertain. One account says Shinano, another says Kai (where Masayuki was then serving the Takeda). Marked as uncertain; it must not be stated flatly that he was born in Ueda.
• Places of activity: Ueda Castle (present-day Ueda, Nagano Prefecture), Mount Kōya (present-day Kōya, Wakayama Prefecture), Kudoyama (present-day Kudoyama, Wakayama Prefecture), Osaka Castle (the Sanada-maru, around present-day Tennōji Ward, Osaka).
• Place of death (battlefield death): The Tennōji entrance, Osaka (around present-day Yasui Shrine, Tennōji Ward, Osaka, where a death-site stele, a statue of Yukimura and the Yukimura pine stand).
• Burial place: One account gives Zenmyō-ji in Ueda (a weakly sourced account, marked as uncertain). Yasui Shrine itself enshrines Sukunahikona-no-Mikoto and Sugawara no Michizane (with the tradition that Michizane has been enshrined there since 942) and is not Yukimura's grave temple; it must not be described as his grave.
• Further reading places: Sanada Shrine in Ueda, the Ueda City Museum (Sanada exhibitions), Kudoyama (the exile site), the Sanada-maru site area.

Cultural significance

Yukimura is the tragic hero repeatedly recreated since the Edo period through kōdan, kabuki, novels and film. Legend and fact must be kept apart: the Sanada Ten Braves (including Sarutobi Sasuke) are fictional figures from Edo-period kōdan and novels, not real retainers; "Japan's foremost warrior" (Hinomoto ichi no tsuwamono) is a later honour (traditionally attributed to Shimazu Tadatsune); "a hero once in a hundred years", "the crimson war demon" and "the last hero of the Sengoku" are all later titles; and details such as the lone charge into Ieyasu's camp, breaking through seven lines of defence, or wounding Ieyasu's kidney with a spear are all legendary narratives, not confirmed battle records. At the level of fact, Yukimura was a defensive commander skilled in earthworks and firearms in the two Ueda battles and the Siege of Osaka.