هاتاموتو

thumb|right|Enomoto Takeaki, a of the late [[Edo period ]] A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as . However, in the Edo period, were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the were the lower vassals. There was no precise difference between the two in terms of income level, but a had the right to an audience with the , whereas did not. The word literally means "origin/base of the flag", with the sense of 'a