Ikeda-Tsuneoki

Ikeda Tsuneoki

Ikeda Tsuneoki (池田 恒興, 1536-18 May 1584) was a daimyo of the Sengoku period.

Ikeda Tsuneoki Biography

Tsuneoki began his career as a soldier in the service of Oda Nobunaga. His mother was the nurse of Oda Nobunaga and his father was already in the service of Oda Nobuhide.

He obtained his first command in 1560 and participated in the decisive battle of Okehazama. In 1566, he obtained the castle of Kinota in the province of Mino, then in 1570 that of Inuyama in the province of Owari after the battle of Anegawa.

After his participation in the battle of Nagashino and then his victory over Araki Murashige, whose domain he personally recovered, the size of his fiefs was equivalent to 100,000 koku and he was among the ten most powerful vassals of Nobunaga.

After the incident at Honnō-ji and the death of Nobunaga, his son and several of his generals, he joined Hashiba Hideyoshi's campaign against Akechi Mitsuhide and participated in the battle of Yamazaki.

He then became one of the four guardians of Kyoto, with three of the other main vassals of the late Nobunaga: Hashiba Hideyoshi, Shibata Katsuie, and Niwa Nagahide, and was present at the meeting at Kiyosu castle, where the succession of the Oda clan was decided.

There he sided with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, against Shibata Katsuie, and as a reward, his estate was further enlarged by the castle of Ōgaki in Mino province. His two eldest sons were also settled. He then participated in the Komaki campaign, against Ieyasu Tokugawa being given command.

After a long period of observation between the two sides, each standing on their strongholds and fearing a mistake as fatal as the battle of Nagashino may have been for the Takeda clan, he proposed a strategy to Hideyoshi,

a strategy that would ultimately prove fatal for him, his eldest son Motosuke, as well as the other commander of his camp, Mori Nagayoshi, and the ensuing political victory for Hideyoshi would be very costly to him.

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