Katagiri Katsumoto

Katagiri Katsumoto

Katagiri Katsumoto (片桐 且元, 1556 – June 24, 1615) was a Japanese warlord Daimyo of the Azuchi–Momoyama period through early Edo period who in his youth was famed as one of the Seven Spears of Shizugatake. (The battle took place in May 1583).

Katsumoto hailed from an ancient samurai clan with a long and distinguished history. In the early Middle Ages, Clan Katagiri served the Minamoto family, traditional head of the samurai that supplied early Shoguns and their government, and ruled the southernmost part of Shinano region for nearly 500 years.

Despite of his linage and the promising start at Shizugatake, Katsumoto's rise under Toyotomi Hideyoshi was relatively slow, compared to his fellow "seven spears" which included Kato Kiyomasa and Fukushima Masanori. More of a court samurai rather than a warrior as Kato and Fukushima certainly were, Katsumoto was kept in Osaka region, the de-fact capital of Japan under the Toyotomi family, and his holdings were in Ibaraki area in the north. (where today stands a small bronze statue).

After the battle of Sekigahara　(1600) which followed Hideyoshi's death, Katsumoto was appointed the chamberlain of the Toyotomi household whose fortune, with infant Hideyori, only son of Hideyoshi, as the head of the dynasty, became increasingly precarious before the over-mighty and ambitious Tokugawa Ieyasu.

The ensuing 15 years, Katsumoto sought to negotiate a compromise between ruthless Ieyasu who had already decided to destroy his former master's dynasty once and for all and was only waiting for the right time to pounce on one hand, and stubborn and haughty Yodo-dono, mother of young Hideyori, who was hopelessly out of touch with the new Tokugawa rule on the other.

Increasingly suspicious of Katsumoto's loyalty, Yodo-dono finally banished Katsumoto from Osaka castle which directly resulted in the siege of Osaka(1614-5) by Ieyasu's 200,000 strong army. The following summer, the Toyotomi family was annihilated with mother and son committed suicide within the burning castle.

Katsumoto's precise role in all of this saga is unclear. However, his understandable anguish was later dramatised in Kabuki theatre where Katsumoto cut a tragic figure in Hamlet's mould. In Tsubouchi Shoyo's play "Kiri-hitoha", which describes the fall of the house of Toyotomi, Katsumoto, the main character, is a faithful servant with good intentions and keen sense of reality but rendered powerless caught in the whirlwind of dynastic struggle. At the climax of the play, Katsumoto famously deplores that the fate finally caught up with the house of Toyotomi. The play, which may well be the best modern Kabuki piece written by arguably the best playwright of modern Japan (published 1894-5, first staged in 1904), made "Katagiri Katsumoto" a household name and remains one of the best and most popular modern Kabuki plays.

Katsumoto died only 20 days after the fall of the Osaka castle for unknown reasons, though the rumour of seppuku was rife. Although his own linage died out later in the seventeenth century, Katsumoto's younger brother and his family maintained Katagiri's name and its standing as a Daimyo. The descendants of which were ennobled in 1884 and retained the title of Viscounts until 1946 when the system was abolished.

As to the history of Katagiri family as Daimyo and their ancestors Clan Katagiri that lasted from around 1100 to 1582 in Shinano region, see the link below (Japanese)

References

• 片桐氏 from 1156 to 1868: Clan Katagiri and its history and as Daimyo family (in Japanese) 片桐氏

External links

• Biographical information (in Japanese)
• Works by or about Katagiri Katsumoto in libraries (WorldCat catalog)