As mentioned earlier, when Oda Nobunaga persuaded Araki Murage to surrender, Araki Murashige did not dare to go to Azuchi Castle to confess, and the reason was that the brothers Hatano Hideji and Hidesho of the Tanba Kingdom went to Azuchi Castle after surrender and were executed. So, what's going on here?
At the same time as the Battle of Okagi unfolded, it was the Tanba Raiders led by Nobunaga Shigemoshi Mitsuhide. The Tanba Kingdom had surrendered to the Oda family a few years earlier, but the rebellion of the people led by the Hatano clan led to the Tanba Kingdom once again plunged into turmoil.
When Mitsuhide Senshi attacked Hachigami Castle, the base of the Hatano clan, he also used the "military food attack" method that Nobunaga was good at, and after more than a year of siege, Hachigami Castle ran out of ammunition and food before Kaejo surrendered. In the Edo period military novels, in order to induce the surrender of Hachigami Castle, Mitsuhide Senshi sent his mother to Hachigami Castle as a hostage in exchange for the brothers Hatano Hideji and Hideshō going to Azuchi Castle to surrender. However, Nobunaga executed the Hatano brothers, resulting in Mitsuhide's mother also dying in Hachigami Castle.
This is, of course, made up in the novel. In fact, the reason why Hachigami Castle finally opened the castle was that the defenders ran out of food, so the retainers of the Hatano family tied up the brothers and surrendered to Kaesong. After the opening of Hachigami Castle, Mitsuhide Wise successively eliminated the powerful Akai family that had been entrenched in the Tanba Kingdom for many years and pacified the Tanba Kingdom.
Oda Nobunaga was very happy when he learned of Mitsuhide's achievements and gave Tanba Kingdom to Mitsuhide Senshi as his domain. In the process of Mitsuhide's pacification of the Tanba Kingdom, Hosokawa Fujitaka in the Tango Kingdom was also very active, and he was named the head of the Tango Kingdom by Nobunaga.
During this period, the Tokugawa family suddenly sent an emissary to Oda Nobunaga to report a major event to Nobunaga, which is known as the Nobuyasu incident. In the general theory, because Tokugawa Ieyasu's son Nobuyasu was out of ability, Oda Nobunaga was a little jealous of him, and it happened that at this time, his daughter Tokuhime wrote to her father to complain about Nobuyasa's misconduct, so Nobunaga ordered Ieyasu to execute Nobuyasu, and by the way, Nobuyasa's mother, Ieyasu's eldest wife who was also Imagawa Yoshimoto's adopted daughter, Tsukuyamaden, also killed.
Of course, this is impossible, at that time, although Takeda Katsuyori was greatly injured because of the Nagashio battle, the Takeda family still had considerable strength and was still the little overlord of the Eastern Kingdom. If Oda Nobunaga was too tough on Tokugawa Ieyasu at this time, wouldn't it be worth the loss if he forced Ieyasu to rebel? In fact, most of Nobunaga's role in the "Nobuyasu Incident" was caused by the forced drama of Nobunaga in the Edo period.
As mentioned earlier, during the Nagashio War, Okazaki Castle, where Tokugawa Nobuyasu was the lord of the city, broke out the "Ooka Yashiro" incident of the Uchidori Takeda family. At that time, the Tokugawa retainers and Tsukuyama Hall in Okazaki Castle were ready to support Nobuyasu as the governor and exile Ieyasu. Although there is no evidence of Shinkang's role in this matter, it is certainly inseparable. However, due to the imminent war, Tokugawa Ieyasu did not dispose of Tsukuyamaden and Shinyasu.
All this changed with this letter written by Deji to her father. In the letter, Tokuhime not only counted Nobuyasu, but also mentioned the news that Tsukuyama Den, Nobuyasu mother and son colluded with the Takeda family to rebel.
Strictly speaking, Ieyasu had always defined the "Ooka Yashiro Incident" as a rebellion by the retainers and dealt with coldly, and did not involve his wife and children, which means that Nobunaga did not know the inside story. However, Tokuhime's letter stripped Tsukuyamaden and Shinyasu's bottoms, and if Ieyasu did not express his position at this time, it was inevitable that he would be suspected of covering up, and might even arouse Nobunaga's suspicion.
So, Tokugawa Ieyasu personally went to Tokuhime's residence and reported to her that the Tokugawa family was about to arrest her husband. This is ostensibly discussing family affairs with his daughter-in-law, but in fact, Ieyasu wants to tell Nobunaga about this through Tokuhime, and he has already expressed his position.
After that, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent the heavy minister Sakai Tadaji to Azuchi Castle to officially report the incident to Nobunaga. Because Tokugawa Nobuyasu is also the son-in-law of Oda Nobunaga, he must first communicate with Nobunaga.
Oda Nobunaga sighed and said to Sakai Tadaji, "There is no way, let Ieyasu handle it himself." (Contemporary Notes)
After Tokugawa Ieyasu received Nobunaga's approval, he entered Okazaki Castle with his army, evacuated all the defenders of Okazaki Castle, and took over the castle with the army he brought with him. The next day, Tokugawa Nobuyasu and Tsukuyamaden were arrested, and the mother and son were taken away from Mikawa Country, Nobuyasu was sent to Futama Castle in Enoe Province for seclusion, and Tsukuyama Hall was sent to Hamamatsu Castle for seclusion.
From this point of view, Ieyasu did not want to execute the mother and son at first.
After sending away his wife and son, Tokugawa Ieyasu demanded that Nishimikawa Kunizu submit to him a pledge of loyalty to him, while forbidding the Tokugawa family retainers to have private contact with Nobuyasu. Most of the people in the Nishimikawa Kingdom were their grandfather Matsudaira Kiyoyasu, and his father Hirotaka, who had been loyal to the Tokugawa family in his time, and naturally they were also loyal to Nobuyasu, the concubine.
However, Tsukuzanden died in Mikatahara on his way to Hamamatsu Castle.
There are two theories about the death of Tsukuyamaden, suicide and Ieyasu's order. However, we know that the three sides were the place where the three sides fought together, and this place is not far from Hamamatsu Castle. If Tokugawa Ieyasu wanted to execute Tsukuzanden, he could have done it a long time ago, so why did he do it outside Hamamatsu Castle? Moreover, if Ieyasu decides to execute Tsukuyamaden, it must be the mother and son who will kill it together, and there is no reason to kill Tsukuyamaden, but leave the hidden danger of Shinyasu.
Personally, I prefer to think that Tsukuzanden was outside the gate of Hamamatsu Castle, thinking about his future life in seclusion and the future of his son's ruin, and finally committed suicide in fear of sin.
In fact, Shinyasu was executed by Ieyasu precisely after three and a half months of seclusion, and this time it was Ieyasu who ordered the execution.
So why did Ieyasu suddenly want to execute Shinyasu at this time?
This is actually related to the situation in East Japan at that time.
The previous year, Echigo's Uesugi Kenshin was violently killed, and the "Godate Rebellion" broke out between the two adopted sons, Uesugi Keikatsu and Uesugi Keitora. Uesugi Keitora was from the Kantojo family, so the Takeda family, an ally of the Hojo family and the Hojo family, were naturally the party that supported Uesugi Keitora.
However, at that time, the Hojo family was at war with the enemy in the Kanto region, and it was difficult to spare their hands to support Echigo, so they asked Takeda Katsuyori to send troops to support Uesugi Keitora. As a result, after Takeda Katsuyori sent troops to Echigo, he was bribed by Uesugi Keikatsu with land cession and gift money, and finally changed from supporting Uesugi Keitora to neutrality. Not only neutral, but the Takeda family also forced the brothers, who were holding machetes and preparing to cut each other, to sign a peace treaty.
Uesugi Keikatsu was happy, but Uesugi Keihu was not happy. Takeda Katsuyori initially sent troops as his ally, but at this time he had the upper hand and was likely to win. However, Takeda Katsuyori accepted Uesugi Keikatsu's bribe to advocate peace talks, which was tantamount to betrayal for Uesugi Keitor.
At this time, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent troops to attack the Takeda family, and Takeda Katsuyori was forced to withdraw his troops south to deal with the Tokugawa family. As soon as Takeda Katsuyori left, Uesugi Keikatsu and Jinghu, who were relieved, tore up the peace contract again, but this time Jinghu did not kill Jingsheng and was hacked to death.
This time it was Uesugi Keitora's Hojo family to stop working, and Takeda and Hojo were so at odds. In order to deal with Takeda Katsuyori and Uesugi Keikatsu, the Hojo family specially sent emissaries to ally with Tokugawa Ieyasu. As a result, the situation in Tokaido changed from Takeda and Hojo joining forces to beat Tokugawa to a situation where Tokugawa and Hojo joined forces to beat Takeda, and the pressure on the Tokugawa family was greatly reduced.
The reason why Ieyasu had been treating Tsukuyasuden and Nobuyasu mother and son coldly earlier was because he was worried that the action would be too big, and if the Tokugawa family retainers colluded with the Takeda family and the Hojo family to rebel, he would fall into a siege. Now that the Hojo family was an ally, Ieyasu took advantage of Tokuhime's letter to take Tsukuyasuden and Nobuyasu mother and son. At this time, the retainers close to Nobuyasu did not dare to rebel, because with the containment of the Hojo family, they could not get the support of the Takeda family at all.
On the eve of Nobuyasu's execution, Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Hojo family agreed to send troops to Takeda to lead Takeda Katsuyori, and the Tokugawa family launched a general mobilization at Kakegawa Castle and gathered a large number of troops. Worried that when the large army was outside, there would be bad people in the revolutionary ranks who supported Shinkang to rebel, he ordered Xinkang's execution.
In addition to this reason, there is also a reason that when Nobuyasu died, Tokugawa Hidetada was just born. Although Tokugawa Ieyasu had two sons, the identity of the second son Hideyasu's mother and son has never been recognized by Tsukuyamaden, so he has no inheritance rights, which is equivalent to Ieyasu having only one heir to Nobuyasu. Ieyasu was worried that after killing Shinyasu, if he died in battle like Imagawa Yoshimoto or died violently like Uesugi Kenshin, it would be over.
Ieyasu also had a disadvantage over other daimyos, that is, because his father Matsudaira Hirotada died early, Ieyasu had no brothers (only half-brothers), and if Ieyasu and Nobuyasu died, the Tokugawa family would have no heir. Therefore, when Hidetada was born, the heir of the Tokugawa family had one more choice, and the negative effect of executing Nobuyasu was much smaller.
As a result, Shinkang fell into the torrent of the times.