Editing Tokugawa Ieyasu (section)

===Hostage life===
[[File:Okazakijo2.JPG|left|thumb|[[Okazaki Castle]], the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu]]

As Oda Nobuhide continued to attack Okazaki, Hirotada turned to his powerful eastern neighbor, [[Imagawa Yoshimoto]], for assistance. Yoshimoto agreed to an alliance under the condition that Hirotada send his young heir to [[Sunpu Domain]] as a hostage.<ref name="Turnbull-I"/> Oda Nobuhide learned of this arrangement and had Takechiyo abducted.<ref name=Turnbull /> Takechiyo was five years old at the time.<ref name="screech85">[[Timon Screech|Screech]], Timon (2006). ''Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822''. London: [[RoutledgeCurzon]]. {{ISBN|0-7007-1720-X}}, pp. 85, 234; n.b., Screech explains
<blockquote>Minamoto-no-Ieyasu was born in ''Tenbun'' 11, on the 26th day of the 12th month (1542) and he died in ''Genna'' 2, on the 17th day of the 4th month (1616); and thus, his contemporaries would have said that he lived 75 years. In this period, children were considered one year old at birth and became two the following New Year's Day; and all people advanced a year that day, not on their actual birthday.</blockquote></ref> Nobuhide threatened to execute Takechiyo unless his father severed all ties with the Imagawa clan. However, Hirotada refused, stating that sacrificing his own son would show his seriousness in his pact with the Imagawa. Despite this refusal, Nobuhide chose not to kill Takechiyo, but instead held him hostage for the next three years at the [[Anjō|Honshōji Temple]] in [[Nagoya]]. It was rumored that Oda Nobunaga met Takechiyo at the temple, when Takechiyo was six years old, and Nobunaga was 14. However, Katsuhiro Taniguchi reported there is no concrete historical records about this story of first meeting between Takechiyo with Nobunaga.<ref>{{Cite book|author = Katsuhiro Taniguchi  |date= 2017 |title = 天下人の父親・織田信秀 信長は何を学び、受け継いだのか |series = 祥伝社新書 |pages = 126–127}}</ref>

In 1549, when Takechiyo was six,<ref name="screech85"/> his father Hirotada died of unknown causes. There was a popular theory that he was murdered by his vassals, who had been bribed by the Oda clan. However, a scholarly article published by Muraoka Mikio in 2015 states that the assassination theory is unreliable and Hirotada's death may have been caused by a natural illness.<ref name="muraoka">{{Cite journal|author=Muraoka Mikio |title=織田信秀岡崎攻落考証|journal=中京大学文学論叢|issue=1|date=2015}}</ref> 

Around the same time, Oda Nobuhide died during an epidemic. Nobuhide's death dealt a heavy blow to the Oda clan.

In 1551, an army under the command of [[Sessai Chōrō|Imagawa Sessai]] laid siege to the castle where Oda Nobuhiro, Nobuhide's illegitimate eldest son, was living. Nobuhiro was trapped by the Imagawa clan but was saved through negotiation by Oda Nobunaga, Nobuhide's second son and heir. Sessai made an agreement with Nobunaga to take Takechiyo back to Imagawa, and he agreed. Takechiyo, now nine years old, was taken as a hostage to Sunpu. 

At Sunpu, he was treated fairly well as a potentially useful ally of the Imagawa clan until 1556 when he was 14 years old.<ref name="screech85"/> Yoshimoto decided that the Matsudaira clan's territory would be inherited by Takechiyo in the future, with the aim that the Imagawa clan could rule the area by extensions of their Matsudaira clan as their vassal, including Zuien-in (the daughter of Matsudaira Nobutada and Takechiyo's great-aunt), who was the only member of the Anjo Matsudaira clan left in Okazaki Castle.<ref>Shinko Kiichi, "Okazaki under the control of the castle lord and Matsudaira Motoyasu, a subordinate of the Imagawa clan," New Edition of the History of Okazaki City, Middle Ages, Chapter 3, Section 4, Items 5 and 6, 1989.... Here, Okazaki quoted ishi in his book Oishi, Yasushi (2019). 今川義元 [Imagawa Yoshimoto]. シリーズ・中世関東武士の研究 第二七巻. 戎光祥出版</ref>{{sfn|Oishi|2019|pp=134–141}}{{efn|In addition, during this time of hostages in Sunpu, Hojo Ujinori of [[Hōjō clan]] was also a hostage in Sunpu castle, so there is a theory that Ieyasu and Ujinori had been friends since that time, and this theory was included in the Dai Nihon Shiryō (''collection of historical documents from the ninth to the seventeenth century'') and other sources.<ref>Suruga Magazine (a geography book of Suruga Province in the early 19th century, written by Abe Masanobu)</ref>}}