DID (Dragon in Dreams)
1:6 Scale Series
DID70003
Samurai
"Ii Naomasa"
Very Limited Edition, and made. Reproduced using real artifacts as guides
Armour & Weapons are metal
More Information
Ii Naomasa was a general under the Sengoku period Daimyo, and later
Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. His family, like Tokugawa's, had originally
been retainers of the once-powerful Imagawa clan, and Naomasa, then a
very small child, was personally lucky to escape death in the
confusion and general chaos which followed the death of the clan's
leader, Imagawa Yoshimoto, in the Battle of Okehazama in 1560. Naomasa
joined the ranks of the Tokugawa clan in the mid 1570s, rising swiftly
through the ranks to eventually become the master of a sizable holding
in _mi Province, following the Battle of Sekigahara (1600).
Like Honda Tadakatsu, Ii Naomasa is regarded as one of the Four
Guardians of the Tokugawa under the famous Tokugawa Ieyasu. He
initially gained notice at the Battle of Nagakute (1584), commanding
around three thousand musketeers with distinction. His finest hour was
to come at the Battle of Sekigahara, where his unit outpaced those of
other (arguably more famous) generals such as Fukushima Masanori,
drawing the "first blood" of that battle. However, Naomasa was shot
and wounded by a stray bullet as the fighting was dying down, a wound
from which he would never fully recover. The wound also prevented his
personal involvement in quelling the last vestiges of the
anti-Tokugawa faction in the coming months.
The units Ii commanded on the battlefield were notable for being
outfitted almost completely in blood-red armour for psychological
impact, a tactic copied from Yamagata Masakage, one of Takeda
Shingen's generals. As such, his unit became known as the "Red
Devils", a nickname he shared.
Ii Naomasa's premature death in 1602 has been widely blamed on the
wound he received at Sekigahara. Naomasa was highly regarded by
Tokugawa Ieyasu, so it is no surprise that his sons Naotsugu and
Naotaka succeeded him in his service and title. However, Naotsugu
managed to anger Tokugawa by refusing to take part in his campaign to
reduce the Toyotomi clan stronghold at Osaka. Nonetheless, the Ii
remained influential in Japanese politics throughout the Edo Period.