Toyotomi Hideyoshi was born in 1536 in a village called Nakamura in Owari province, Japan as a son of a farmer and foot-soldier Kinoshita Yaemon who served the Oda clan and his wife Naka (Omandokoro). His childhood name was Hiyoshimaru, he changed his name later from Kinoshita Tokichiro to Hashiba Hideyoshi, and then to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It’s said that Hideyoshi was small for his age, skinny, and ugly.
His father Yaemon died when he was seven years old and his sister about ten. Hideyoshi’s mother Naka remarried soon with Chikuami who served Oda Nobuhide, the daimyo of the Owari region. Hideyoshi was in conflict with his father-in-law and was always abused by Chikuami. His parents then sent him to a temple to get an education, but he ran away and went to Suruga country, struggled to survive on his own, and started to look for a position to serve as an officer. His circumstance was completely different from that of Oda Nobunaga or Tokugawa Ieyasu who was born to be a samurai with a promised successful future.
In 1554, Hideyoshi joined the service of Matsushita Yukitsuna (Matsushita Kahei) who was a retainer of the powerful Imagawa family in Totomi province when he was around 17 years old. Matsushita taught young Hideyoshi, Kinoshita Tokichiro at that time, reading and writing, martial arts, learning, military laws, and more.
Around 1557, he left the Matsushita family and returned home to serve the Oda family that reigned Owari. First, he served Nobunaga as a “zoritori (sandal bearer)” who was always carrying his lord’s sandals and providing them when Nobunaga went out of the house. However, he did not just offer the sandals — instead, he put the sandals in his bosom to warm them with his body temperature during the cold winter. Such attention had come to be appreciated, and his leadership skills and authoritative prowess fueled his rising to become one of Nobunaga’s three right-hand men.