character/[id]

Born third son of Sanada Yukitaka, who served Takeda Shingen and Katsuyori, in Shinano Province. After the fall of the Takeda clan he acted independently to preserve the Sanada, skilfully employing diplomatic arts to navigate among the great powers of Oda, Hojo, Uesugi and Tokugawa. He built Ueda Castle (1583) and repelled Tokugawa Ieyasu's large forces at Ueda Castle twice, in 1585 and 1600, earning the fearful reputation of a man of "duplicity and cunning." In the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) he sided with the Western Army (Ishida Mitsunari's faction), but made the calculated decision to split the clan — his eldest son Nobuyuki on the Eastern side and his second son Yukimura on the Western — in order to preserve the family name. After the Western Army's defeat he was exiled to Mt. Koya along with Yukimura, and later transferred to Kudoyama. It is said that even during his period of confinement he provided behind-the-scenes support for Yukimura's participation in the Osaka Campaign. He died at Kudoyama in 1611 at age 64. His resourcefulness was praised as "Japan's greatest strategist," and the Ueda Battles in which he twice repulsed Tokugawa forces many times his own strength are passed down as one of the greatest castle-defence actions of the Sengoku period.

Quick to seize opportunity, a flexible and cold-blooded realist who did not hesitate to change masters as circumstances demanded. He placed the survival of the family name and the clan's interests above all else, and possessed the guts to stand up without hesitation against great powers in pursuit of those goals. The assessment "duplicitous and cunning" carries connotations of betrayal, but it can also be seen as the desperate resourcefulness of a minor power struggling to survive. He held deep affection for his sons, yet made the ruthless decision to split the clan when the overall situation demanded it.

As the monument to the Battle of Ueda in which the Tokugawa's great army was repulsed twice, Ueda Castle in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, continues to flourish as a tourist attraction today. The story of the Sanada clan, from Edo-period lectures and puppet theatre to the modern NHK taiga drama "Sanada Maru" (2016), has become one of the most beloved historical tales among the Japanese people. He is passed down to the present as the ideal type of the Sengoku warrior who combined resourcefulness with daring.