Ueda Sōko

Ueda Sōko (上田宗箇) was a warlord who lived during the Momoyama and early Edo Periods. He is best known for founding the Ueda Sōko-ryū, a warrior class school of Japanese tea ceremony from Hiroshima. Ueda Sōko went by the name Satarō (佐太郎) in his younger days and later Shigeyasu (重安). He received his Zen practitioner's name of Chikuin (竹隠) by the 111th patriarch of Daitoku-ji, Shunoku Sōen. Today his death plaque is enshrined at the Sangen-in sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, beside that of his long time teacher in the Way of Tea, Furuta Oribe. Sōko was held in high esteem by Toyotomi Hideyoshi for military exploits and as a tea master. In the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Sōko sided with Toyotomi's Western Army and was thus defeated. During the Siege of Osaka Summer Campaign (1615), Sōko fought with Asano Yoshinaga on the Tokugawa side, and for this Sōko was given a pardon by Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1619, the Tokogawa shogunate assigned the Geishū Domain to Asano Nagaakira and Sōko relocated to Hiroshima serving Nagaakira. Sōko was given a fief of 17,000 koku of rice in west Hiroshima and the role of Chief Retainer of the Geishū Domain for the Asano.