Who Is Imagawa Yoshimoto (Best Archer of the Tōkaidō)?
The great lord of the Tōkai region who fell at Okehazama
Imagawa Yoshimoto (1519–1560) was a Sengoku-period daimyo who ruled the provinces of Suruga, Tōtōmi, and Mikawa (today's Shizuoka Prefecture and eastern Aichi Prefecture). He was called "the Best Archer of the Tōkaidō," meaning the finest warrior along the Tōkaidō road. In 1560, he was killed by Oda Nobunaga's forces at the Battle of Okehazama.
Yoshimoto is the opponent in Episode 2. He leads a huge army, given as 45,000 men in the Shinchō Kōki, into Owari Province. Pleased by news that the border forts have fallen, he rests his soldiers and horses on Okehazama hill and relaxes while his men sing Noh chants. Then, right after a sudden rainstorm, Nobunaga's troops attack. His headquarters collapses, and the horsemen around him shrink from about 300 to about 50. In the end, he is cut down by Hattori Koheita and Mori Shinsuke.
The popular image of Yoshimoto as a careless lord dressed like a court noble comes mostly from stories written in later times. Historians now see him as a powerful daimyo who governed his lands well.
