Oda Nobunaga won the battle of Okehazama. What happened in Hakata then?
In 1560, Oda Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto in the battle of Okehazama and conquered the neighboring states. It gave him a big chance to further advance his army to the Kyoto region. During that time, the Kyushu region also saw a big transition during the warring states period.
In Japanese history, A hundred of years after the Onin-Bunmei Wars (1467-1477) is called the warring states period. In the Kyushu region, wars happened intermittently after the Nanbokucho period (1336- 1392) for the governmental power hadn’t reached the area because the capital of the Muromachi government was distantly situated from the area. The government placed a local commissioner called Kyushu Tandai in the Kyushu region. However, it lost its power in the early 15th century due to the battle with a general Shoni. To help Sibukawa, who was in charge of the Tandai office, Ouchi, who was based in the Suou region of Yamaguchi prefecture moved his force to the Kyushu region. He governed both Chikuzen and Buzen states and posed an influence on Hizen state. Due to this incident, the government’s situation in the Northern Kyushu area became unstable due to the two conflicting forces: the joint force of Shibukawa and Ouchi fighting with the joint force of Otomo and Shoni.
This severe situation continued for 10 years in the 1550s and it later changed into a new system. The main factor of the change is the downfall of Ouchi.
In 1550, Ouchi killed himself due to the betrayal of Sue Harutaka, one of his main vassals. Otomo Yoshishige (Sorin)’s brother, Otomo Yoshinaga had succeeded the Ouchi family. However, the Ouchi family was perished both in name and reality after Harutaka died in 1555 in the battle of Itsukushima and Yoshinaga himself was conquered by Mori Motonari two years after (1557). Throughout the years, Otomo family expanded their influence over the region. After the disappearance of Ouchi family, battle among three regions (Chikuzen, Buzen and Hizen) got even fiercer. Shoni and Shibukawa were no longer active and both of them vanished from the center stage of history. In 1559, Hakata was attacked by Tsukui Korekado, a rivaling force of Otomo family, and this battle, caused Hakata region to be caught on fire. Otomo family overpowered their antagonizing forces by the end of the same year and governed six states in Northern Kyushu area in addition to his conventional territory of Buzen, Chikugo and Higo. After the war, Otomo family tried to revitalizing Hakata region. They dug a Boshu moat at the southern part of the Hakata region by changing the tide of Mikasagawa River. It made Hakata a region where was surrounded by water and well secured.
In this exhibition, we will introduce this transition period in the warring state period through unwinding some ancient documents from our museum’s collection.
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