Princess Senhime, A Kidnapping Scandal and the Death of Daimyo Sakazaki Naomori

The Strange Story of a Princess, a Daimyo, and a Gross Misunderstanding

Late at night on October 21, 1616, a commotion broke out in the city of Edo. Tokugawa Ieyasu had ordered that the daimyo Sakazaki Naomori, the lord of the Tsuwano domain, commit seppuku, but Sakazaki had refused to obey the order, and together with 1,000 of his vassals, all of whom had their heads shaved, and 50 women, decided to stay in the Tsuwano domain Edo residence and vowed to resist until the end of their lives. At this point, the shogunate surrounded his residence with more than 10,000 samurai troops and told him that if he was to surrender peacefully, the Shogun would allow Sakazaki’s nineteen-year-old eldest son to inherit his territory.  Sakazaki Naomori refused this too and went as far as to kill his own son! However, fearing the troubles would escalate into a totally ruinous incident, Sakazaki’s vassals later killed their lord and handed the head to a Bakufu official outside the residence, and as a condition, they asked for their lives to be spared and the clan’s territory to be passed on to another of Sakazaki’s children. This the Shogun consented to.