Biography
A native of Mikawa Province in Japan, he lived during the Azuchi-Momoyama and Edo periods. Ieyasu promoted him from daimyo of the Ōtaki han (100 000 koku) to the Kuwana han (150 000 koku) as a reward for his service. In addition, his son Honda Tadatomo became daimyo of Ōtaki. In 1609, he retired, and his other son Tadamasa took over Kuwana. His grandson, Tadatoki, married the granddaughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Senhime. Despite his years of loyal service, Tadakatsu became increasingly estranged from the Tokugawa shogunate (bakufu) as it evolved from a military to a civilian political institution. This was a fate shared by many other warriors of the time, who were not able to make the conversion from the chaotic lifetime of warfare of the Sengoku period to the more stable peace of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Such was Honda's reputation that he attracted notice from the most influential figures in Japan at the time. Oda Nobunaga, who was notoriously disinclined to praise his followers called him a "samurai among samurai". Moreover, Toyotomi Hideyoshi noted that the best samurai were "Honda Tadakatsu in the east and Tachibana Muneshige in the west". Even Takeda Shingen praised Honda, saying that "e is a luxury of Tokugawa Ieyasu". It was widely acknowledged that he was a reputed samurai and a loyal retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Tadakatsu is often referred to as "The Warrior who surpassed Death itself" because he never once suffered a significant wound, despite being the veteran of over 100 battles by the end of his life, and because he was never defeated by another samurai.
Read more about this topic: Honda Tadakatsu
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)