was a samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 and military strategist

Military strategy

Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", 'the art of arrangement' of troops...

 of Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. He was born in Fushimi in Yamashiro Province

Yamashiro Province

was a province of Japan, located in Kinai. It overlaps the southern part of modern Kyoto Prefecture on Honshū. Aliases include , the rare , and . It is classified as an upper province in the Engishiki....

 (present-day Fushimi-ku, Kyoto

Fushimi-ku, Kyoto

is one of the eleven wards in the city of Kyoto, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. Famous places in Fushimi include the Fushimi Inari Shrine, with thousands of torii lining the paths up and down a mountain; Fushimi Castle, originally built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, with its rebuilt towers and gold-lined...

). Among the works he wrote in his late years was the widely circulated , an introduction to bushidō

Bushido

, meaning "Way of the Warrior-Knight", is a Japanese word which is used to describe a uniquely Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and...

 that was influential among middle- and lower-class samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

. It is available in an English translation by William Scott Wilson as "Budoshoshinshu: The Warrior's Primer. ISBN 0897500962" (see also "The Code of the Samurai: A modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu of Taira Shigesuke translated by Thomas Cleary. ISBN 0804831904)

Yūzan was the son of Daidōji Shigehisa and the great-grandson of Masashige, an important advisor to the Late Hōjō clan

Late Hojo clan

The ' was one of the most powerful warrior clans in Japan in the Sengoku period and held domains primarily in the Kantō region.The clan is traditionally reckoned to be started by Ise Shinkurō, who came from a branch of the prestigious Ise clan, a family in the direct employment of the Ashikaga...

. Shigehisa had been a samurai in the service of Matsudaira Tadateru

Matsudaira Tadateru

was a daimyo during the Edo period of Japan. He was the sixth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was born in Edo Castle during the year of the dragon , and as a child his name was Tatsuchiyo. His mother was , a concubine of Ieyasu...

, daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

 of the Echigo

Echigo Province

was an old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It was sometimes called , with Echizen and Etchū Provinces. Today the area is part of Niigata Prefecture, which also includes the island which was the old Sado Province. This province was the northernmost part of the...

 Takada fief, but became a ronin

Ronin

A or rounin was a Bushi with no lord or master during the feudal period of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege....

 in 1619 when Tadateru was dismissed from service. Yūzan studied the arts of war in Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

 under Obata Kagenori

Obata Kagenori

Obata Kagenori , also known as Obata Dōgyū, was a Confucian scholar and samurai retainer of the Takeda clan during Japan's Sengoku period...

, Hōjō Ujinaga, Yamaga Sokō

Yamaga Soko

was a Japanese philosopher and strategist during the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a Confucian, and applied Confucius's idea of the "superior man" to the samurai class of Japan...

 and others. He then lectured on the subject as a guest of the Asano

Asano family

The ' was a noble samurai family in feudal Japan which controlled the han of Hiroshima centered around Hiroshima Castle for much of the Edo period....

 at the Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

 fief, the Matsudaira clan

Matsudaira clan

The was a Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Minamoto clan. It first originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province . Over the course of its history, the clan produced many branches, most of which also centered around Mikawa Province...

 at the Aizu

Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima

is a city located in the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.As of May 2011, the city has an estimated population of 125,341. The total area is 383.03 km².-History:...

 fief, the Matsudaira clan at the Fukui

Fukui, Fukui

is the capital of Fukui Prefecture, Japan. The city is located in the north-central part of the prefecture on the coast of the Sea of Japan.-Demographics:...

 fief, and elsewhere in Japan.

Yūzan's son Shigetaka became a retainer of the Fukui fief with a stipend of 300 koku

Koku

The is a Japanese unit of volume, equal to ten cubic shaku. In this definition, 3.5937 koku equal one cubic metre, i.e. 1 koku is approximately 278.3 litres. The koku was originally defined as a quantity of rice, historically defined as enough rice to feed one person for one year...

.