Head of the Naegi Toyama clan of Mino Province. In 1583 he was driven from Naegi Castle by an attack from Mori Nagayoshi and fled to take refuge with Tokugawa Ieyasu. For the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara campaign, backed by Ieyasu with guns and ammunition, he took the field and in August of that year recaptured Naegi Castle after 18 years by ousting its deputy castellan of the Seki family. After the battle he was confirmed in his former domain of 10,521 koku and became the first lord of Naegi Domain.

A commander who combined the sheer tenacity to reclaim his ancestral domain after 18 years in exile with the political instinct to earn Ieyasu's trust and seize the right moment.

The Naegi Castle he recaptured remained under Toyama rule as lords of Naegi Domain until the Meiji Restoration. The ruins, built atop the 432-meter Takaiwa peak, are now a nationally designated historic site renowned for their distinctive stonework incorporating massive boulders.