Tokugawa Yoshisue (得川義季)
Yoshisue TOKUGAWA/Yoshisue SERADA (date of birth and death unknown) was a samurai warrior who was active from the end of the Heian period to around the beginning of the Kamakura period, and he was the founder of the Egawa Clan and the Serada Clan, which were branches of the Nitta Clan from the Seiwa-Genji (Minamoto Clan). Later, Yoshisue TOKUGAWA was regarded by Ieyasu TOKUGAWA as a forefather of the Tokugawa Clan and the Matsudaira Clan.
There are disputes over whether the notation of his family name is 'Egawa (Tokugawa)' or 'Serada.'
Career and personality
Yoshisue was the fourth son of Yoshishige NITTA. His childhood name was Raiogozen and he was commonly known as Jiro or Shiro. It is said that Yoshisue had considerably high status in the entire Nitta family, as can be seen from the fact that Yoshisue was a younger maternal half-brother of Yoshikane NITTA. His father Yoshishige NITTA handed over Serada District, Nitta County (Nitta no sho estate), Kozuke Province (present-day Oaza Serada, Ojima-machi is the name of the place adjacent to the north of Tokugawa) to Yoshisue, who then became the estate steward, Jito, of Serada District. It is said that Yoshisue called himself SERADA for this reason. It is also considered that Yoshisue possessed Tokugawa District, Nitta County (present-day Tokugawa-cho, Ota City, Gunma Prefecture) and called himself Shiro TOKUGAWA ("Gunma Prefecture Encyclopedia").
According to a commonly accepted view, Yoshisue is considered as the same person as a gokenin (immediate vassal of the shogun) called Saburo Yoshihide TOKUGAWA, whose name was found in the history book "Azuma-kagami" of the Kamakura bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun). However, there is an opinion that Saburo Yoshihide TOKUGAWA is not Yoshisue because Yoshihide's class standing precedes that of Yoshisue's elder brother Yoshikane NITTA and the reversal of the class standings of the brothers is unusual.
After Yoshisue, his illegitimate child Yoriari TOKUGAWA (Shiro Taro SHIMOTSUKE) took over Egawa District and his legitimate child Yoriuji SERADA took over Serada District. According to "Tokugawa Jikki" (history of Tokugawa), Yoshisue had yet another child Yorinari TOKUGAWA.
In 1221, Serada Choraku-ji Temple in Serada was founded and built, inviting Eicho, a disciple of Eisai, as its chief priest.
Arisugawa no Miya fraud case
In the trial of the Arisugawa no Miya fraud case, the female suspect who played the role of Princess Arisugawa, the wife of the male suspect who was self-proclaimed Hisahito ARISUGAWA, stated, "The home of my husband's parents running a greengrocery is a descendant of MINAMOTO no Yoshisue (Yoshisue TOKUGAWA)," which was widely publicized, but their story was laughed off as a totally absurd fabrication because there was no connection between their initial claim of being a descendant of the Arisugawa no Miya family founded in the Edo period by an illegitimate child of Takamatsu no Miya and her statement about the descendant of MINAMOTO no Yoshisue.