After the eldest son was the third son ~ Hideyasu Yuki and Okiaki Hosokawa

Securing an heir is an important issue, and the second son is usually kept as a spare for the eldest son, but that position is not necessarily guaranteed. When Ieyasu's eldest son Nobuyasu committed suicide in 1579, his second son Hideyasu was five years old and his third son Hidetada had just been born. Although there are various stories, it took some time for Hideyasu to be recognized as Ieyasu's son, but given the medical standards of the time, I have to say that there are extraordinary circumstances that forced to commit suicide by his 20-year-old eldest son, even though Ieyasu only had two sons aged 5 and 0.

Hideyoshi Toyotomi was not blessed with children for a long time and adopted his own sister's sons or the sons of powerful feudal lords one after another, but he adopted Hideyasu as a condition for peace during the Battle of Komaki-Nagakute (1584), and later Hideyasu inherited the house of Yuki. At this point, it seems that the order of succession was decided, with Hidetada as his successor, followed by his fourth son, Tadayoshi, who was born the previous year from the same mother. The fifth son, Nobuyoshi, who was born after that, tried to inherit the Takeda family, but he died early, and the sixth son, Tadateru, who lived to the fullest age, had problems with his mother's status, and the seventh and eighth sons also died early. Then a ninth son Yoshinao, a tenth son Yorinobu, and an eleventh son Yorifusa were born.

In the process of taking over the country, Ieyasu firmly secured brothers to support Hidetada, and after the establishment of the shogunate, placed them at strategic points, which can only be said to be impressive when compared with Hideyoshi.

On the other hand, the issue of what to do with Hideyasu, who was older than Shogun Hidetada, was a hot topic. Hideyasu died of syphilis in 1607 at the age of 33, and the elderest son, Tadanao, who succeeded him at 12 years old. In the first place, Hideyasu was stationed in Echizen Kitanosho due to a significant increase after Sekigahara, and as a result, he actively recruited powerful military commanders. It was extremely difficult for the young Tadanao to keep his retainers together, and Tadanao was forced into retirement due to an incident in which his senior vassals were divided into two (the Echizen Riot), and his irreverent behavior towards the shogun family due to his dissatisfaction with the treatment he received after the Osaka Campaign. He was exiled to Bungo, and Tadamasa, the younger brother, succeeded him. After that, the Echizen Fukui domain was inherited by the Tadamasa's family, and Tadanao's family continued to exist by building a separate family, but from a general perspective, Hideyasu's descendants had a positive sense of pride (as Hidetada's older brother's family, they firmly supported the Shogun family), mixed with the backward pride (he should have been the shogun himself), he continued to exist, and at the end of the Edo period, Shungaku Matsudaira played an active role as one of the wise lords, even though he was an adopted son. Three other children of Hideyasu (Naomasa, the lord of the Matsue domain in Izumo, Naoki, the lord of the Himeji domain, Harima, and Naoyoshi, the lord of the Ono domain in Echizen) also became daimyo, and the Matsudaira clan of Echizen descent flourished. Looking at it in this way, the territory that Hideyasu received was 750,000 koku, including the Yuki family's share, and if you add the territories of the five Echizen families at the end of the Edo period, it is almost the same, which is larger than any of the three families(Gosanke - Owari, Kii, and Mito Tokugawa family). I think it can be said that they were given preferential treatment (although there are two families whose number was increased by adopting children from Ienari clans with many children).  

Tadaoki Hosokawa and Mitsuhide Akechi's daughter Tama (Garasha) had three sons, but in the end, their third son Tadatoshi succeeded Tadaoki. I wrote about Tadataka's story in a separate article, but on the eve of Sekigahara, Garasha committed suicide at the Osaka mansion, while Tadataka's wife (Toshiie Maeda's daughter) fled to the nearby Maeda mansion, which made Tadaoki furious, and ordered Tadataka for a divorce. He refused and was disinherited, but Tadaoki decided to make his third son Tadatoshi the heir instead of his second son Okiaki. Tadatoshi, who had been sent as a hostage to Edo until then, was recalled and his second son, Okiaki, headed to Edo in his place, but on the way he ran away, became a priest in Kyoto, and lived in seclusion. In this case, even though they were born to the same parents, priority was given to the third son, so there was probably no one else to deal with Koshu's anger. He then entered Osaka Castle during the Osaka Siege and fought hard, but was defeated and committed seppuku.

Tadatoshi was concerned about the fact that he had only been in Edo as a hostage of the Tokugawa family and had become the lord of the domain without any military merit, and he seems to have been concerned about his eldest brother Tadataka and other relatives who had suffered some misfortune. I like the dignity and culture of the Hosokawa family, including their respect for Kiyomasa Kato and their contribution to the art heritage that continues into the present day.

Speaking of the second son, I'm worried about Prince Harry, but whether he considers his spare life a humiliation or an honor, his life will be greatly decided.