Isaac Meyer

Tateyama castle, home base of the Satomi clan, which despite being badly outgunned would never fall to the Hojo.

Hideyoshi orders the attack on Odawara, from the late Edo/early Meiji Era, by Utagawa Toyonobu. Where the main narrative of Japanese history mentions the latter Hojo, it tends to emphasize the moment of their destruction as the completion of Hideyoshi’s ambition to reunify Japan. There are, however, plenty of other valid reasons to study them!

A map of the forces arrayed against the Hojo during the 1590 siege. Useful for seeing just how impressive the forces Hideyoshi had arrayed (the blue markers) were.

The graves of the latter Hojo leadership remain popular tourist destinations. This particular one is Ujimasa’s.

Hojo Soun late in life. Like many samurai, in his later years he would take the vows of a Buddhist monk and retire to a monastic complex, though he would exercise defacto control over his family until his death in 1519.

A statue of Hojo Soun outside the Odawara train station commemorating his conquest of Odawara castle. Note the deer, a reference to the “hunting expedition” that let Soun take control of the castle.

The original Odawara Castle was ripped down after the Meiji Restoration; the rebuilt one does give you some sense of the design, though what you see today is based off the design towards the end of the Hojo era, not when the family first took it.

The traditional 60 provinces of Japan. The upper left of this map has a nice detail of the Kanto provinces, though this particular one is from the Edo period and so the road placement is anachronistic to what we’re talking about.

The Hojo clan kamon, or family crest — the Mitsu-uroko, or three triangles. Sometimes it is shown as being inscribed in a circle.
Hojo Soun (or his son Ujitsuna) would decide to adopt the moniker Hojo after seizing the old Hojo clan’s capital city of Kamakura as a way of legitimating themselves.