Toda Katsushige

Who They Were

Toda Katsushige (戸田勝成) was a samurai and daimyō — a regional military lord — who lived from 1557 to 1600. His life spanned the final, most violent decades of Japan's Sengoku period (戦国時代, sengoku jidai, "Warring States era"), the century of near-constant civil war that ended only as a series of warlords fought to unify the country under a single ruler.

He is remembered less as a conqueror than as a fighter: a commander whose death at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 was widely mourned, even by men on the opposing side. He is also known by the alternative name Toda Shigemasa.

Life and Career

Katsushige was born in 1557, in the third year of the Kōji era (弘治, Kōji), during the Muromachi period. He first entered service under Niwa Nagahide, one of the generals who helped Oda Nobunaga rise to dominance over central Japan.

When Niwa Nagahide died in 1585, Katsushige transferred his allegiance to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the man who had completed the unification of Japan after Nobunaga's death. For his service, Hideyoshi granted him a domain of 10,000 koku in Echizen Province. A koku (石) is a unit of rice — roughly the amount one person eats in a year — and a lord's income was measured in it; 10,000 koku was the threshold at which a samurai commander was counted as a daimyō.

Katsushige campaigned widely for Hideyoshi. He joined the expedition to Kyūshū in 1586, the siege of Odawara in 1590, and the Battle of Bunroku in 1592 — the first stage of Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea.

In 1600, Japan's unity collapsed into the decisive confrontation between two coalitions of lords. Katsushige joined the western force assembled by Ishida Mitsunari, and at the Battle of Sekigahara he fought under the command of Ōtani Yoshitsugu. The battle turned when Kobayakawa Hideaki and Wakisaka Yasuharu, among others, defected to the eastern army of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Katsushige died in the fighting on October 21, 1600.

Why They Matter

Sekigahara decided who would rule Japan. Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory there in 1600 led directly to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603, and to more than 250 years of Tokugawa rule. Every commander who chose a side that day was gambling with his life and his house's future, and Katsushige chose the losing side.

His particular importance lies in how he was regarded. By one estimate, many people regretted his death because of his strength as a warrior, and he had been respected by many daimyō — a reputation that extended even to those who fought for Tokugawa Ieyasu. In a battle remembered above all for betrayal, Katsushige stands as a counter-example: a commander whose loyalty and fighting ability were acknowledged by his enemies.

The Name in Japanese

The name is written 戸田勝成.

• Kana reading: とだ かつしげ
• Romaji: Toda Katsushige

Broken down character by character:

戸 (と, to) — "door" or "household." In this name it is a family name element. It is the same character used in 戸籍 (koseki), the Japanese family registry, where it carries the sense of a household unit.

田 (だ, da) — "rice field." This is one of the most common elements in Japanese surnames, a reminder of how thoroughly Japanese society was built on rice agriculture. Note that the reading here is da, not the more familiar ta; the voiced sound comes from its position as the second character in the compound.

Together, 戸田 (Toda) is the family name, or surname. Japanese names are written family name first, so 戸田 comes before the given name.

勝 (かつ, katsu) — "victory," "to win." This is the same character found in 勝利 (shōri, victory) and in the verb 勝つ (katsu, to win). As a name element it was a common choice for warrior families, and it appears in many samurai names of the period.

成 (しげ, shige) — "to become," "to accomplish," "to complete." This character is common in given names, where it often carries the sense of achievement or fulfilment. Its reading here, shige, is a native Japanese reading rather than the Sino-Japanese sei or jō.

Together, 勝成 (Katsushige) is the given name. The two characters combine the ideas of victory and accomplishment.

The alternative name Shigemasa uses the same first character, 成, read as shige, paired with a different second character.

Legacy

Toda Katsushige died on the field at Sekigahara at the age of 43, on the losing side of the battle that shaped the next two and a half centuries of Japanese history. He left no lasting domain and no dynasty.

What survived was his reputation. The regard in which he was held by daimyō on both sides of the conflict made his death one of the battle's noted losses rather than merely one of its many casualties. For a samurai whose career consisted of service to three successive masters — Niwa Nagahide, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finally the Ishida coalition — that reputation for strength and loyalty is the record that outlasted him.