Minagawa Hiroteru

Lord of Minagawa Castle · Lord of Tochigi Castle · Lord of the Iiyama domain · First lord of the Fuchū domain (Hitachi)

Minagawa Hiroteru (皆川広照, 1548-1627) was the last lord to reside at Minagawa Castle, on Mount Shiroyama, west of present-day Tochigi city. Heir to a house of lords from southern Shimotsuke, he manoeuvred during the Sengoku period between the Hōjō, the Uesugi and the Tokugawa. During the siege of Odawara in 1590, he left the Hōjō camp to submit to Tokugawa Ieyasu, which allowed him to keep his lands, while his mountain castle was surrendered without a fight. He then moved his residence to Tochigi Castle, on the plain, leading to the abandonment of Minagawa. At the beginning of the Edo period he became the chief tutor (ōtsuke-karō) of Matsudaira Tadateru and received the domain of Iiyama in Shinano, before being disgraced in 1609 after denouncing his ward's conduct. Pardoned in 1623, he obtained the small domain of Fuchū in Hitachi and died in 1627. A portrait of him is preserved at Kongō-ji, the Minagawa family temple.