These are portraits of three officials who acted as "hodo" counselors for the young Iemitsu, the third in the line of Tokugawa shogun: Sakai Uta-no-Kami Tadayo (1572 - 1636), Doi Oi-no-Kami Toshikatsu (1573 - 1644), and Aoyama Hoki-no-Kami Tadatoshi (1578 - 1643). Sakai was a central figure in the shogunate administration in the days of Hidetada, the second Tokugawa shogun. He became a lord with a fief of 120,000 "goku" (1 "goku" = about 5 bushels) in Joshu Umayabayashi (present-day Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture ). Doi became a lord with a fief of 160,000 goku in Sakura. In contrast, Aoyama fell out of favor with Iemitsu after lecturing him too harshly, and was demoted to a fief of only 20,000 goku in Otaki in the 9th year of Genna (1623).