Ujiie Yukihiro

氏家行広

Ujiie Clan

Daimyō

Mino Province

Lifespan:  Tenbun 15 (1546) to 5/8 of Keichō 20 (1615)

Other Names:  Naomichi, Ogino Dōki 

Rank:  bushō, daimyō

Title:  Junior Fifth Rank (Lower), Master of the Palace Table

Clan:  Ujiie

Lord:  Oda Nobunaga → Toyotomi Hideyoshi → Hosokawa Tadaoki

Father:  Ujiie Naomoto (Bokuzen)

Siblings:  Naomasa, Yukihiro, Yukitsugu

Wife:  Shōunin (daughter of Kyōgoku Takayoshi)

Children:  Four sons, Kona, daughter (wife of Mizawa Kiyonaga), daughter (adopted by Kyōgoku Takatsugu)

Ujiie Yukihiro served as a bushō and daimyō from the Sengoku to early Edo periods.  He was the fourteenth head of the Ujiie clan.

The Ujiie were an illegitimate branch of the Utsunomiya clan descended from the Fujiwara-Hokke.  Yukitsugu was born as the third son of Ujiie Naomoto (Bokuzen), who, along with Inaba Yoshimichi and Andō Morinari, was one of the Western Mino Group of Three.

In 1571, during the Nagashima Ikkō-ikki (attacks by Oda Nobunaga against followers of the Hongan Temple in Ise-Nagashima that ran from 1570 to 1574), Naomoto was killed in action while serving in the rear guard during the withdrawal of forces commanded by Shibata Katsuie.  Naomoto was succeeded by Yukihiro’s older brother, Ujiie Naomasa, as the thirteenth head of the clan.  He continued to serve Oda Nobunaga.

In the sixth month of 1582, Oda Nobunaga died unexpectedly in a coup d’état led by one of his senior retainers, Akechi Mitsuhide, in an event known as the Honnō Temple Incident.  In the wake of the incident, the Ujiie affiliated with Oda Nobutaka but after Nobutaka came into conflict with Hashiba Hideyoshi, the Ujiie allied with the Hashiba and entered into the service of Hideyoshi.  Around this time, Naomasa died of illness so, in 1583, Yukihiro inherited the headship of the clan.  He was transferred to Mitsuzuka in Mino Province with a fief of 15,000 koku.  In 1588, Yukihiro was invested with the titles of Junior Fifth Rank (Lower) and Master of the Palace Table.  Later, he made contributions during the Conquest of Odawara and other battles.  In 1590, Yukihiro was transferred again to Kuwana in Ise Province and received a larger fief of 22,000 koku.

Hideyoshi died in the eighth month of 1598.  In 1600, at the Conquest of Aizu, Yukihiro headed east to converge with the army of Tokugawa Ieyasu but, while en route, after receiving news of a rebellion by Ishida Mitsunari, he notified Ieyasu of a decision not to join the deployment and returned to Ise.  On the basis that Toyotomi Hideyori was still in his youth, Yukihiro did not act in concert with either the Tokugawa or Ishida camps and, instead, assumed a neutral position.  Nevertheless, forces from the Western Army reached Kuwana so he could not maintain his neutrality and, together with his younger brother, Ujiie Yukitsugu, joined the Western Army, defending the route to Ise.  As a result, after the Battle of Sekigahara, upon orders of Ieyasu, Yukihiro was removed from his position and became a rōnin, or wandering samurai.

During the Winter Campaign of the Siege of Ōsaka in 1614, Yukihiro changed his name to Ogino Dōki, entered Ōsaka Castle, and joined the Toyotomi clan in opposition to the Tokugawa.  Ieyasu sought to leverage Yukihiro’s skills but Yukihiro did not respond to his offer to serve.  In 1615, during the Summer Campaign of the Siege of Ōsaka, upon the fall of Ōsaka Castle, Yukihiro took his own life.  Among his four sons, except for his third son, the others fled to the capital of Kyōto but were apprehended by the Kyōto-shoshidai, or Chief of Security for Kyōto, and, in the seventh month, were compelled to take their own lives at the Myōkaku Temple.  Only his third son became a disciple of a priest named Tenkai from the Tendai sect of Buddhism and was thereby spared.