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Katō Kiyomasa
Katō Kiyomasa
加藤清正
	Portrait of Katō Kiyomasa
Lord of Kumamoto
	In office; 1587–1611
Succeeded by	Katō Tadahiro
Personal details
Born	Toranosuke; July 25, 1562; Owari Province, Japan
Died	August 2, 1611 (aged 49); Kumamoto, Japan
Spouse	Shōjō-in [ja]
Children	Yōrin-in
Religion	Nichiren Buddhism
Military service
Allegiance	Toyotomi clan; Eastern Army; Tokugawa shogunate
Unit	Katō clan
Commands	Kumamoto Castle
Battles/wars	Siege of Tottori; Siege of Takamatsu; Battle of Yamazaki; Battle of Shizugatake; Battle of Komaki and Nagakute; Kyūshū campaign; Korean Campaign; Siege of Udo; Siege of Yanagawa
Japanese name
Kanji	加藤清正
Hiragana	かとうきよまさ
Romanization
Transcriptions
Romanization	Katō Kiyomasa

Katō Kiyomasa (加藤清正, July 25, 1562 – August 2, 1611) was a Japanese daimyō of the Azuchi–Momoyama and Edo periods. His court title was Higo-no-kami. His name as a child was Yashamaru, and first name was Toranosuke. He was one of Hideyoshi's Seven Spears of Shizugatake.

Biography

Katō Kiyomasa's birthplace monument（Nakamura-ku, Nagoya）

Kiyomasa was born in what is now Nakamura-ku, Nagoya (situated in contemporary Aichi District, Owari Province) to Katō Kiyotada. Kiyotada's wife, Ito, was a cousin of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's mother.^[1] Kiyotada died while his son, Kiyomasa (then known as Toranosuke), was still young. Soon after, Toranosuke entered into Hideyoshi's service, and in 1576, at age 15, was granted a stipend of 170 koku.

In 1582, he fought in Hideyoshi's army at the Battle of Yamazaki, and later in 1583 at the Battle of Shizugatake. Owing to his achievement in that battle, he became known as one of the Seven Spears of Shizugatake and was rewarded with 3,000 additional koku.^[2]^[3]

In 1584, Kiyomasa took part in the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute against the Tokugawa clan.

When Hideyoshi became the kampaku in the summer of 1585, Kiyomasa received the court title of Kazue no Kami (主計頭, head of the accounting bureau) and junior 5th court rank, lower grade (ju go-i no ge 従五位下).

In 1587, he fought in the Kyūshū campaign against the Shimazu clan. Later, after Higo Province was confiscated from Sassa Narimasa, he was granted 250,000 koku of land in Higo (roughly half of the province), and given Kumamoto Castle as his provincial residence.

Korean campaign

Kiyomasa hunting a tiger in Korea. Tiger hunting was a common pastime for the samurai during the war.

Kiyomasa was one of the three senior commanders during the Seven-Year (Imjin) War (1592–1598) against the Korean Joseon. Together with Konishi Yukinaga, he captured Seoul, Busan and many other cities. He defeated the last of the Korean regulars at the Battle of Imjin River and pacified Hamgyong.

The Korean king Seonjo abandoned Seoul before Kiyomasa's forces. Kiyomasa held two Korean princes who had deserted as hostages and used them to force lower-ranking Korean officials to surrender.^[4]^{[disputed – discuss]} During the war, he apparently hunted tigers for sport, using a yari (spear), and later presented the pelts to Hideyoshi.^[5] Some versions of the story say he was in fact hunting tigers to catch them alive, in order to bring their meat to Hideyoshi, as he thought it would improve his lord's health, but later, the tigers were killed because of the lack of food for his men.

Kiyomasa was a renowned castle-builder. During the Imjin war he built several strategic Japanese-style castles in the territories he conquered. Ulsan castle was one of such fortresses and the site of Kiyomasa's most famous battle — the Siege of Ulsan on December 22, 1597. Kiyomasa led the defense of the castle, successfully holding at bay Chinese general Yang Hao's army, which numbered 60,000.^{[citation needed]} He defended the castle until November 23, 1598. However, his bravery was not reported to Hideyoshi by his rival and superior Ishida Mitsunari. Hideyoshi recalled him to Kyōto.

As did a number of other daimyōs who participated in the invasion of Korea, he took a group of captive Korean potters back to his fief in Kyūshū.^[6]

Sekigahara campaign

Conflict with Ishida Mitsunari

According to popular theory In 1598 after the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the government of Japan have an accident when seven military generals consisted of Fukushima Masanori, Katō Kiyomasa, Ikeda Terumasa, Hosokawa Tadaoki, Asano Yoshinaga, Katō Yoshiaki, and Kuroda Nagamasa planned a conspiracy to kill Ishida Mitsunari. It was said that the reason of this conspiracy was dissatisfaction of those generals towards Mitsunari as he wrote bad assessments and underreported the achievements of those generals during the Imjin war against Korea & Chinese empire.^[7] At first, these generals gathered at Kiyomasa's mansion in Osaka Castle, and from there they moved into Mitsunari's mansion. However, Mitsunari learned of this through a report from a servant of Toyotomi Hideyori named Jiemon Kuwajima, and fled to Satake Yoshinobu's mansion together with Shima Sakon and others to hide.^[7] When the seven generals found out that Mitsunari was not in the mansion, they searched the mansions of various feudal lords in Osaka Castle, and Kato's army also approached the Satake residence. Therefore, Mitsunari and his party escaped from the Satake residence and barricaded themselves at Fushimi Castle.^[8] The next day, the seven generals surrounded Fushimi Castle with their soldiers as they knew Mitsunari was hiding there. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was in charge of political affairs in Fushimi Castle trying to arbitrate the situation. The seven generals requested Ieyasu to hand over Mitsunari, which refused by Ieyasu. Ieyasu then negotiated the promised to let Mitsunari retire and to review the assessment of the Battle of Ulsan Castle in Korea which became the major source of this incident, and had his second son, Yūki Hideyasu, to escort Mitsunari to Sawayama Castle.^[9]

However, historian Watanabe Daimon stated from the primary and secondary sources text about the accident this was more of legal conflict between those generals with Mitsunari, rather than conspiracy to murder him. The role of Ieyasu here was not to physically protect Mitsunari from any physical harm from them, but to mediate the complaints of those generals.^[10]

Nevertheless, historians viewed this incident not just as simply personal problems between those seven generals and Mitsunari, but rather as an extension of the political rivalries of greater scope between the Tokugawa faction and the anti-Tokugawa faction led by Mitsunari. Since this incident, those military figures who were on bad terms with Mitsunari would later support Ieyasu during the conflict of Sekigahara between the Eastern army led by Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Western army led by Ishida Mitsunari.^[7]^[11] Muramatsu Shunkichi, writer of "The Surprising Colors and Desires of the Heroes of Japanese History and violent womens”, gave his assessment that the reason of Mitsunari failure in his war against Ieyasu was due to his unpopularity among the major political figures of that time.^[12]

Later, Kiyomasa started approaching Tokugawa Ieyasu.^[13] both Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari courted his support. Ishida's so-called Western forces might well have gotten themselves a formidable warrior were it not for two factors that decided Kiyomasa, otherwise a Toyotomi loyalist. First, the Western forces were led by Ishida Mitsunari, whom Katô loathed as a civilian interloper and had quarreled with during the Korean campaign; and second, the Western forces included Konishi Yukinaga. Although Konishi's navy had aided Kiyomasa quite a bit at the Siege of Ulsan, the two men despised each other as much as ever.^{[citation needed]}

Katô joined with Tokugawa and during the Sekigahara campaign (August–October 1600) fought Ishida's allies on Kyushu and took a number of Konishi's castles. He was preparing to invade the Shimazu domain when the campaign ended and Ieyasu ordered him to stand down. For his service, Katô was awarded the other half of Higo (formerly owned by Konishi, who was executed in the wake of Sekigahara), bringing his income to nearly 500,000 koku.^{[citation needed]}

Death

In his later years, Kiyomasa tried to work as a mediator for the increasingly complicated relationship between Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyori. In 1611, en route by sea to Kumamoto after one such meeting, he fell ill, and died shortly after his arrival. He was buried at Honmyō-ji temple in Kumamoto, but also has graves in Yamagata Prefecture and Tokyo. Kiyomasa is also enshrined in many Shinto shrines in Japan, including Katō Shrine in Kumamoto.

His son, Katō Tadahiro, succeeded him as Higo no kami 肥後守 (provincial governor of Higo), but his fief (Kumamoto) was confiscated, and he was exiled (kaieki; attaindered) in 1632 by Tokugawa Iemitsu on suspicion of conspiring against him,^[14] possibly with the likes of Tokugawa Tadanaga, who was ordered to commit seppuku in 1633.^[15]

Personality

A devoted believer of Nichiren Buddhism, Kiyomasa encouraged the building of Nichiren temples across his domains.^[16] He came into conflict with Konishi Yukinaga, who ruled the other half of Higo province, and was a Christian, Kiyomasa being noted for brutally suppressing and persecuting Christianity.^[17] At the battle of Hondo, he ordered his men to cut open the bellies of all pregnant Christian women and cut off their infants' heads.^[18]

William Scott Wilson describes Katō Kiyomasa thus: "He was a military man first and last, outlawing even the recitation of poetry, putting the martial arts above all else. His precepts show the single-mindedness and Spartan attitudes of the man, [they] demonstrate emphatically that the warrior's first duty in the early 17th century was simply to 'grasp the sword and die'.

Family

Kiyomasa married a daughter of Mizuno Tadashige, Shōjō-in, who was adopted by Tokugawa Ieyasu prior to their marriage. Their daughter, Yōrin-in, would go on to marry Tokugawa Ieyasu's 10th son, Tokugawa Yorinobu.

Honour

In 1910, Kiyomasa was posthumously promoted to junior 3rd court rank (jusanmi 従三位).

In popular culture

Katō Kiyomasa is a character in the Koei video games Kessen, Kessen III, Samurai Warriors 3, Samurai Warriors 4, Mōri Motonari: Chikai no Sanshi and Age of Empires III. He is a playable character in Pokémon Conquest (Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition in Japan), with his partner Pokémon being Fraxure and Haxorus.^[19]

References

^ E. Papinot, Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan, Yokohama: Kelly & Walsh, 1910, reprint, Rutland, Vermont: Charles Tuttle, 1972, pp. 262-263
^ Naramoto Tatsuya (1994). Nihon no kassen: monoshiri jiten. (Tokyo: Shufu to Seikatsusha), p. 327
^ Turnbull, Stephen (1998). The Samurai Sourcebook. London: Cassell & Co. p. 34,49,234. ISBN 9781854095237.
^ 北関大捷碑 "其秋清正入北道、兵鋭甚、鐡嶺以北無城守焉、於是鞠敬仁等叛、應賊、敬仁者會寧府吏也、素志不卒、及賊到富寧、隙危扇亂、執兩王子及宰臣、□播者、並傳諸長吏、與賊效欸"
^ NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) "そのとき、歴史が動いた"(第３１５回) "その時歴史が動いた". Archived from the original on 2008-10-07. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
^ M. B. Jensen, The making of modern Japan, (Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 27
^ ^a ^b ^c Mizuno Goki (2013). "前田利家の死と石田三成襲撃事件" [Death of Toshiie Maeda and attack on Mitsunari Ishida]. 政治経済史学 (in Japanese) (557号): 1–27.
^ Kasaya Kazuhiko (2000). "豊臣七将の石田三成襲撃事件―歴史認識形成のメカニズムとその陥穽―" [Seven Toyotomi Generals' Attack on Ishida Mitsunari - Mechanism of formation of historical perception and its downfall]. 日本研究 (in Japanese) (22集).
^ Kasaya Kazuhiko (2000). "徳川家康の人情と決断―三成"隠匿"の顚末とその意義―" [Tokugawa Ieyasu's humanity and decisions - The story of Mitsunari's "concealment" and its significance]. 大日光 (70号).
^ "七将に襲撃された石田三成が徳川家康に助けを求めたというのは誤りだった". yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/ (in Japanese). 渡邊大門無断転載を禁じます。 © LY Corporation. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
^ Mizuno Goki (2016). "石田三成襲撃事件の真相とは". In Watanabe Daimon (ed.). 戦国史の俗説を覆す [What is the truth behind the Ishida Mitsunari attack?] (in Japanese). 柏書房.
^ 歴代文化皇國史大觀 [Overview of history of past cultural empires] (in Japanese). Japan: Oriental Cultural Association. 1934. p. 592. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
^ 森山豊明『語る日本史データベース』(page 141)
^ O-umajirushi: A 17th-Century Compendium of Samurai Heraldry. Xavid Pretzer. 2015-02-02. p. 189.
^ Murdoch, James (1999). A history of Japan ([Reprint of the 1903 ed.]. ed.). London [u.a.]: Routledge. p. 706. ISBN 0415154162.
^ William E. Griffis (1913). The Mikado's Empire. (New York: Harper & Brothers), p. 163
^ Griffis, p. 163
^ Luís Fróis, Furoisu Nihon-shi 12, trans. Matsuda Kiichi and Kawasaki Momota (Tokyo: Chuo-koron-shinsha, 2000), p. 32.
^ "Kiyomasa + Fraxure - Pokemon Conquest characters". Pokemon. Retrieved 2012-06-17.