Sakai Tadayo

Who was Sakai Tadayo?

Sakai Tadayo was a Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period, and high-ranking government advisor, holding the title of Rōjū, and later Tairō.

The son of Sakai Shigetada, Tadayo was born in Nishio, Mikawa Province; his childhood name was Manchiyo. He became a trusted elder in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's government, alongside Tokugawa Ieyasu. Under Hideyoshi, he was made lord of Kawagoe castle and later of Nagoya castle in Kyūshū's Hizen province. In 1600, in the lead-up to the decisive Sekigahara campaign, he fought against the Tokugawa at Aizu, and submitted to them at the siege of Ueda. Thus, having joined the Tokugawa prior to the battle of Sekigahara itself, Sakai was made a fudai daimyo, and counted among the Tokugawa's more trusted retainers. He served under Ieyasu for a time, and under the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, as a hatamoto.

Sakai's father died in 1617, and so he inherited his father's domain of Maebashi in Harima province, which had been assessed at 33,000 koku, and was now changed to 85,000 koku by the shogunate. In 1632, following a shakeup of positions within the bureaucracy, Sakai became nishi no maru rusui, placing him in charge of the western districts of Edo castle, the seat of the shogunal government. However, two years later, the Western districts were burnt down while the shogun was away in Kyoto. Sakai was stripped of his position, and exiled to Kan'ei-ji.