"Mito Yellow Gate" is a classic longevity TV series produced by Japan's TBS Television station from 1969 to the present, and it is extremely well known in Japan. The model of the protagonist of the drama, Mito Huangmen Micro Service Private Visit, Punishment and Elimination of Evil, has also been referenced by many TV dramas in East Asia later.
The historical prototype of Mito Yellow Gate is the second-generation lord of the Mito clan (Mito Domain), one of the three imperial families of the Edo shogunate, the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the famous scholar Tokugawa Mitsuyoshi. But why is tokugawa Mitsuyoshi, the lord of the Mito domain of the Edo shogunate, called the "Mito Yellow Gate"?
The Gosan clan (Owari, Kii, and Mito) were second only to the shoguns in the Edo shogunate and were among the few daimyōs who could use the Tokugawa surname. In order to distinguish the Tokugawa surnames of shoguns, samurai and commoners used domain names in their daily lives to replace the Tokugawa surnames of the lords of the Gosan clan.
For example, the lord of the Owari family is called "OwariDen", the lord of the Kii family is called "Kii Hall", and the lord of the Mito family is naturally called "Mito Hall". After becoming lord of the Mito Domain, Tokugawa Mitsutsuki was known as "Mito Mitsutsuki" for a long time.
In the third year of Motoroku (1690), Tokugawa Mitsuhito ceded the lord of the domain to his adopted son Tokugawa Tsunadei and was given the official position of "Nakanayan". In ancient Japan, imperial court officials often had a Sinicized nickname, and the Sinicized nickname of "Zhongnayan" was "Yellow Gate Supervisor".
Because of this, tokugawa Mitsuyoshi, the lord of the Mito Domain whose official position was Naka nayan, was known as the "Mito Yellow Gate". Due to the influence of TV dramas, most people in Japan today are more familiar with the name "Mito Yellow Gate", and tokugawa Mitsuhito's real name is not known much.