Yoshishige Satake (1/2)Oni Yoshishige

From the end of the Heian period, there was one feudal lord in Hitachi Province (present-day Ibaraki Prefecture): the Satake clan. During the Sengoku period, Satake Yoshishige became the head of the Satake clan. Yoshishige unified Hitachi Province while fighting against Hojo Ujiyasu in the south and Date Masamune in the north. However, after the Battle of Sekigahara, the Satake clan was ordered to move from Hitachi Province to Dewa Province. In this article, we will look at Satake Yoshishige, a feudal lord of both wisdom and bravery who was also known as "Oni Yoshishige."

The Satake family where Yoshishige was born

The Satake clan, which produced Satake Yoshishige.
The Satake clan began in the Heian period when Minamoto no Yoshiharu of the Seiwa Genji clan settled in Satake-go, Kuji County, Hitachi Province (present-day Ibaraki Prefecture).

Masayoshi, the eldest son of Yoshiharu Minamoto, changed his surname from "Minamoto" to "Satake" and became the ancestor of the Satake clan. At the end of the Heian period, he joined the Taira clan in the Genpei War and resisted Minamoto no Yoritomo, losing power.

When the Kamakura period ended and the period of the Northern and Southern Courts began, he sided with the Ashikaga clan on the side of the Northern Court, was appointed as the governor of Hitachi Province, and boasted a certain degree of influence in northern Kanto. Yoshishige was born into this Satake clan.

family inheritance

Satake Yoshishige was born in Tenbun 16 (1547) as the son of Satake Yoshiaki in Hitachi Province. His childhood name was Tokujumaru.

Around the time Yoshishige was born, his father Yoshiaki succeeded him as head of the Satake clan, quelled internal conflicts within the clan, and brought northern Hitachi Province under his control. During the middle of the Sengoku period, Hitachi Province was divided into the Satake clan in the north, the Edo clan in the center, centered around the lord of Mito Castle in Hitachi Province, and the Oda clan in the south, centered around Tsukuba County in Hitachi Province (present-day Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture).

In 1564, Kenshin Uesugi and Yoshiaki Satake of Echigo Province (present-day Niigata Prefecture) defeated the Oda clan in the Battle of Oda Castle, and the Satake clan was in full swing. However, in 1565, Yoshiaki Satake died and Yoshishige inherited the family headship. With the change of leadership, the expansion of the Satake clan's power temporarily halted.

Expansion of power and gold mine development

Yoshishige Satake became head of the family after the death of his father, Yoshiaki Satake.
Yoshishige strengthened his relationship with Uesugi Kenshin, who had been an ally of his father's generation. While maintaining diplomatic stability in this way, he invaded the Oda clan in the southern part of Hitachi Province and seized most of their territory.

They then attacked the neighboring province of Shimotsuke (present-day Tochigi Prefecture), expanding their territory.
By the way, Satake Yoshishige fought battle after battle throughout his life. Such military actions were costly. He covered these expenses by developing gold mines.

In the 16th century, the Satake clan actively developed gold mines, and it is said that they had mines in what are now Hitachi City, Hitachiota City, Hitachiomiya City, Daigo Town, and Mito City, with the Tochihara Gold Mine being particularly famous.

During the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, this gold mine in Hitachi Province came under the direct control of the Toyotomi government and was entrusted to the Satake family for management. In the Toyotomi clan's treasury inventory for 1598, the Satake clan donated 221 pieces of gold worth 7 ryo and 3 shu out of 3,397 pieces of gold that were donated from all over the country, making them the third largest donors after the Uesugi clan and the Date clan.

During the Edo period, the Satake clan was ordered to move from Hitachi Province to Akita-go in Dewa, but fearing that their domain would be taken over by the Tokugawa clan, they blocked off the tunnels and their role ended when the Satake clan moved away.

Satake Yoshishige introduced the latest metallurgy techniques to mine gold, which he used to fund the Kanto region's best musketeers and as funds for diplomacy.

Conflict with Hojo Ujiyasu

Satake Yoshishige steadily conquered Hitachi Province and its surrounding areas.
Meanwhile, Hojo Ujiyasu of Sagami Province expanded his influence in the Kanto region, and the Satake clan and other Kanto forces came into conflict with the Hojo clan.
Satake Yoshishige strengthened his ties with the surrounding powers by intermarrying with them, and further tried to gain an advantage by building a relationship with Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi in the central government.

In opposition to the Satake clan and the other daimyo of northern Kanto, the Hojo clan formed an alliance with daimyo to the north of the Satake clan, such as the Ashina clan of Aizu.

In the 1570s, northern Kanto was a place of repeated conflict between the allied forces centered around the Satake clan and the forces centered around the Hojo clan, including the Hojo and Ashina clans. Satake Yoshishige fought many battles with the Hojo clan, and fought bravely, cutting a Hojo samurai in half with his beloved sword, Hachimonji Chogi, and killing seven of them in an instant, earning him the name "Oni Yoshishige" and "Bandō Taro" (another name for the Tone River, the largest river in Japan located in the eastern part of the country).

However, around 1580, the focus of the conflict changed. That year, Ashina Moriuji, head of the Ashina clan, died. Moriuji's eldest son, Ashina Morioki, had died earlier, leaving no one to succeed him. As a result, an adopted son was appointed head of the clan, Ashina Moritaka. When Moritaka became head of the Ashina clan, the policy changed, and Satake Yoshishige visited Kurokawa Castle, the Ashina clan's castle, and formed an alliance.

Thus, the Satake clan, which had been sandwiched between the Ashina clan in the north and the Hojo clan in the south, no longer faced a threat from the north. However, the Ashina clan's chaos continued, and it involved the daimyo of the surrounding Oshu and northern Kanto regions.

Conflict with Date Masamune

Four years after Moritaka Ashina became head of the family, he was assassinated by his retainers. His eldest son, Kameomaru, who was only one month old, succeeded him. Yoshishige Satake supported Kameomaru.

However, Kameomaru died of smallpox at the age of 3. With the death of the 3-year-old head of the family, the family was once again left without a head.

The vassals were divided into two camps over who should become head of the Ashina family, with Masamune Date's younger brother Kojiro Date, recommended by Masamune Date, and Yoshishige Satake's second son Yoshihiro Satake, recommended by Yoshishige Satake. As a result, the pro-Satake faction won, and Yoshihiro Satake (Ashiname Yoshihiro) became head of the Ashina family. The conflict between Yoshishige Satake and Masamune Date deepened, and they continued to fight each other.

Subjugation to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the unification of Hitachi Province

In 1589, Yoshihiro Ashina, the second son and adopted son of Yoshishige Satake, was defeated by Masamune Date in the Battle of Suriagehara. This battle caused the Aizu Ashina clan, one of the most powerful feudal lords in the Tohoku region, to collapse internally and be virtually wiped out. Seeing this, other powerful forces abandoned the Satake clan and switched sides to the Date clan.

The Satake clan was forced into a corner, caught between Date Masamune to the north and Hojo Ujimasa and his son Ujinao to the south.
In that same year, Satake Yoshishige handed over the family headship to his eldest son, Satake Yoshinobu, while still retaining real power. However, the following year, Satake Yoshishige launched a major offensive.

In 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, with whom Yoshishige had long had ties, attacked the Kanto Hojo clan (the Odawara Campaign). Satake Yoshishige participated in the campaign alongside Yoshinobu, and took part in the siege of Ishida Mitsunari's Oshi Castle. Afterwards, he participated in Hideyoshi's Oshu punishment, and thus gained Hideyoshi's stamp of approval for the unification of Hitachi Province. Starting with Edo Shigemichi, who ruled central Hitachi Province, Yoshishige used force and strategy to eliminate the local lords (small lords) of Hitachi Province one after another, and unified Hitachi's 540,000 koku of land.

The Battle of Sekigahara and Transfer to Dewa Province

The story takes place in October 1597 (Keicho 2).