Suwa Domain

The domain was centered at Takashima Castle, located in what is now part of the town of Suwa in Nagano Prefecture.

Following the Siege of Odawara (1590), he was elevated to the status of daimyō with Sōja Domain, a 10,000 koku holding in Kōzuke Province.

In the meanwhile, Toyotomi Hideyoshi assigned the former Suwa territories in Shinano Province to Hineno Takayoshi.

In 1590, his father fought in the retinue of Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Siege of Odawara and when Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered Tokugawa Ieyasu to exchange his domains for new territories in the Kantō region he was forced to abandon his ancestral lands in Shinano Province and accompany his liege to Musashi.

He was subsequently raised to the status of daimyō of Sōja Domain in Kōzuke Province (10,000 koku).

However, later that year Ieyasu permitted him to return to the ancestral Suwa lands in Shinano with an increase in kokudaka to 27,000 koku.

When a criminal took refuge in the Suwa clan temple of Himei-ji, the monks refused to surrender him to secular authorities, citing the special privileges of the clergy.

An enraged Yorimizu ordered that the temple be burned down and cut off the heads of the criminal and the offending monks.

In 1607, the Shōgun Tokugawa Hidetada presided over his genpuku ceremony, giving him a sword and the kanji for "Tada" in his name.

as a reward for his services in combat, he received 5000 koku in Chikuma District, Shinano.

However, his tenure was marred by the destruction of the clan's Edo residence in the 1703 Genroku earthquake, the rebuilding of which plunged they domain into debt.

He married a daughter of Suwa Tadatora shortly before the latter's death and was adopted as heir, as the only son of Takatora had pre-deceased his father.

Although noted for his scholarship and poetry, he was in poor health and left much of the domain's administration to his retainers.

He attempted to reform the domain's finances, but only succeeded in splitting his senior retainers into pro-reform and anti-reform factions.

Tadakata was the eldest son of Suwa Tadaatsu, and became daimyō on his father's forced retirement in 1781.

He continued the domain's time-honored policies of opening new rice lands, accurate surveying, and promoted the production of carpentry tools as a clan monopoly.

He continued his father's policies, but also encouraged sericulture and increasing irrigation canals from Lake Suwa.

However, his tenure was beset by disasters, including crop failures and the loss of the clan's Edo residence due to fire.