From Toramatsu to Naomasa: The Ii-House Future That Naotora Protected

In 1561, at Ii-no-ya in Tōtōmi Province, Toramatsu was born as the son of Ii Naochika.

The following year, 1562, his father Naochika was killed by Imagawa Ujizane, and the newborn Toramatsu was left an orphan.

He entered the protection of Jirō-hōshi (Ii Naotora).

The Ii Family Records transmits that Toramatsu was placed at Hōrai-ji (in modern Shinshiro City, Aichi Prefecture) and other temples to escape Imagawa pursuit.

The course transmitted by the Ii Family Records includes elements of tradition, but the fact itself that the young Toramatsu grew up away from Ii-no-ya can be inferred from the course by which he later, as an adult, returned to Ii-no-ya.

In 1568, the Ii house broke from the Imagawa and came under Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1575, the fifteen-year-old Toramatsu took service with Ieyasu.

What made this service possible was that his protector at Ii-no-ya (traditionally Naotora) had built a relationship with Ieyasu.

Toramatsu changed his name to Ii Naomasa, and served Ieyasu for the rest of Ieyasu's life.

The Ii Family Records transmits that Naotora died in 1582 (Tenshō 10). In this year the Takeda house was destroyed, and Ii Naomasa inherited the Takeda elite force known as the 'Red Devils.

' In the year in which Ii Naomasa's position within the Tokugawa was consolidated, Naotora departed this world.

The story of the Ii-house restoration, which had begun at Ii-no-ya, was handed on to the generation of Naomasa.

Whether Naotora was in truth a woman or a man remains in dispute. But that in the thirteen years from 1562, when Ii Toramatsu was orphaned, to 1575, when he took service with the Tokugawa as Naomasa, someone in Ii-no-ya protected and raised Toramatsu is unshakable.

The Ii Family Records records the name of that protector as 'Naotora.