Hatano Hideharu was the eldest son of Hatano Harumichi, the head of the Hatano clan. However, in childhood he was adopted by his uncle, Hatano Motohide, and was therefore formally regarded as Motohide’s heir. From the time of Hideharu’s grandfather, Hatano Tanemichi, the Hatano clan had been a vassal of the powerful Miyoshi house, which exerted considerable influence over the Ashikaga shoguns and effectively shaped the political situation in the region. Early in his career, Hideharu served Miyoshi Nagayoshi and, judging by surviving records, held a fairly high position within his lord’s hierarchy, as he was among the select group invited to the enthronement ceremony of Emperor Ōgimachi in 1557.
In 1564, Miyoshi Nagayoshi was killed during an attack on Yakami Castle in Tanba Province, which led to a sharp weakening of his house’s central authority. Taking advantage of this situation, Hideharu declared independence and made Yakami Castle his residence, especially since the castle had been built in 1508 by his relative Hatano Motokiyo and was traditionally regarded as a stronghold of the clan. The Hatano base was located in close proximity to Kyoto, and its existence therefore posed a serious threat to Oda Nobunaga’s campaign to seize the capital. Recognizing this danger, Nobunaga ordered his general Akechi Mitsuhide to attack Yakami Castle. After a series of armed clashes, Hideharu was forced to surrender to Mitsuhide and swear an oath of vassalage to Oda Nobunaga, formally acknowledging his supreme authority.
However, in 1576 Hideharu once again declared independence and refused to carry out Nobunaga’s orders, thereby openly challenging him. In response, Nobunaga again sent Akechi Mitsuhide against him, but this time Hideharu had carefully prepared for a siege and managed to hold the castle for a year and a half. During this campaign, Mitsuhide’s forces also attacked Kuroi Castle, and during its assault one of the Hatano clan’s most influential vassals, Akai Naomasa, was killed, dealing a serious blow to the clan’s defenses.
There are several versions of how the siege of Yakami Castle ended and what events followed. The only fact beyond dispute is that Hideharu was ultimately taken to Oda Nobunaga at Azuchi Castle and executed in 1579 on the grounds of Jionji Temple. According to one version, Akechi Mitsuhide allegedly agreed to leave his mother as a hostage at Yakami as a guarantee of Hideharu’s life; however, after Hideharu’s execution, his supporters killed Mitsuhide’s mother, which is said to have become one of the reasons for Mitsuhide’s rebellion against Nobunaga in 1582.
Another version attributes the death of Mitsuhide’s mother to the execution of Hideharu’s own mother, who, according to this account, had been sent as a hostage to Nobunaga, prompting retaliatory actions. Most modern scholars tend to regard such stories as fictional, dating their emergence to the Edo period, when attempts were made retroactively to explain the motives behind Akechi Mitsuhide’s betrayal. Today, the more likely version is that Hideharu surrendered under pressure from his own vassals, who were dissatisfied with his decision to continue resisting Oda Nobunaga and threatened to hand their lord over to Mitsuhide if he did not capitulate voluntarily.
After Hideharu’s execution, none of his relatives assumed leadership of the family, and as a result the Hatano clan ultimately ceased to exist.
See also
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Hattori Hanzo
Hattori Hanzō, also known by the name Hattori Masanari, was the third son of Hattori Yasunaga, a samurai who served the Matsudaira clan. In his childhood he was called Tigachi Hanzō. His father held the highest rank in the shinobi hierarchy, that of jōnin, and Hanzō followed in his father’s footsteps, choosing the same path.
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Fukushima Masanori
Fukushima Masanori, a samurai from Owari Province, served Toyotomi Hideyoshi and took part in the Battle of Shizugatake, where he distinguished himself so conspicuously that he was awarded the honorary title of one of the “Seven Spears of Shizugatake,” meaning the warriors who had shown the greatest valor in the battle. As a reward for his courage and martial prowess, he was granted land producing an income of 5,000 koku of rice.
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Uemura Masakatsu
Masakatsu was a member of the Uemura clan and the son of Uemura Masatada; from an early age he served Tokugawa Ieyasu. During the Ikkō-ikki uprising in Mikawa Province in 1563, having converted from the Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist sect to the Jōdoshū sect, he took part in suppressing the rebels. After these events, Masakatsu was appointed a military governor and was granted land holdings. According to a number of sources, he was one of the so-called “Three Governors of Mikawa” (Mikawa sanbugyō), together with Amano Yasukage (1537–1613) and Koriki Kiyonaga (1530–1608).
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Tomoe Gozen
Gozen is regarded as one of the few historically documented examples of true female warriors of feudal Japan, known as onna-musha or onna-bugeisha. Although Japanese history records countless women who at various times were forced to take up arms—for example, in defense of their castles—Tomoe Gozen was, without any doubt, a genuinely skilled and accomplished fighter. She was the wife of Kiso (Minamoto) Yoshinaka, although The Tale of the Heike describes her more as a female vassal. Yoshinaka rose in rebellion against the Taira clan and, in 1184, captured Kyoto after his victory at the Battle of Kurikawa. After the Taira were driven into the western provinces, Yoshinaka began insistently asserting that he alone was worthy of assuming leadership of the Minamoto clan and taking on the mantle of its head.
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Tachibana Muneshige
Tachibana Muneshige was born the eldest son of Takahashi Shigetane, one of the principal retainers of the Ōtomo clan and commander of Iwaya Castle. In childhood, he bore the name Senkumamaru. His early years coincided with a period of intense military confrontation between the Ōtomo clan and other powerful warrior houses of Kyūshū—namely the Shimazu, Akizuki, and Ryūzōji clans.
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Tachibana Dosetsu
Tachibana Dōsetsu is the name by which Hetsugi Akitsura is more widely known; the name of this lineage is also found read as Hekki or Bekki. For a long period, Akitsura served the Ōtomo clan, the daimyō of Bungo Province, and took part in wars against the Ōuchi family, the principal enemies of the Ōtomo in northwestern Kyushu. In the 1560s, Akitsura seized the castle of the Tachibana clan, which had rebelled against the Ōtomo, and thereafter adopted the surname Tachibana. Around the same time, he took Buddhist vows and assumed the name Dōsetsu, which means “Snowy Road.”
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Taira no Masakado
Taira no Masakado embodied the quintessential samurai of his era—self-assured, harsh, and unyielding. In his youth, he served in the palace guard and repeatedly proved his bravery while suppressing unrest. Thanks to these achievements, Masakado sought the post of chief of the capital’s military-police office (the kebiishi-chō), but he was rejected: by that time, nearly all court positions—now little more than privileged sinecures—were controlled by members of the powerful Fujiwara clan.
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Sakakibara Yasumasa
Yasumasa was the second son of Sakakibara Nagamasa and was born in Ueno in Mikawa Province. From a young age, he began serving Tokugawa Ieyasu and eventually rose to the position of one of his most trusted generals. His wife was the daughter of Osuga Yasutaka. Ieyasu first noticed the young Yasumasa during the suppression of the Ikkō-ikki uprising in Mikawa in 1564. Thanks to his demonstrated abilities, Yasumasa was granted the privilege of using the character “yasu”—the second character of Ieyasu’s own name—in his own. Although he was the second child in his family, he became his father’s heir, though the exact reasons for this remain unknown.
