Bessho Nami

Bessho Nami was the wife of Bessho Yoshichika, uncle of Bessho Nagaharu, lord of Miki Castle in Harima Province. As the wife of Yoshichika — who served as guardian and chief retainer (karō) to the young Nagaharu and bore central responsibility for the castle's defense — she is said to have played a part in the Siege of Miki (1578-1580, Tenshō 6 to 8). She is often confused with the castle lord Nagaharu's own principal wife, but Nagaharu's wife is recorded under a different name, Teruko, and the two women should be clearly distinguished; this confusion likely arose because later popular retellings tended to blend the stories of the various women of the Bessho house into one. Nami's own origins are uncertain: one account describes her as a daughter of the Hatakeyama clan, though this is not firmly established. (Note that a separate tradition — describing Teruko, Nagaharu's own wife, as a daughter of the Hatano clan — pertains to Teruko, not to Nami, and the two lineages should not be conflated.)

The Siege of Miki is remembered as the notorious "Miki no Hikoroshi" (the starving-out of Miki), the roughly two-year blockade by which Hashiba (later Toyotomi) Hideyoshi cut off the castle's supplies from 1578 onward, gradually exhausting the food stores inside. Later, expanded and revised versions of the "Bessho-ki" chronicle preserve vivid episodes of Nami's battlefield conduct. In the fourth month of 1578, she is said to have charged on horseback into the enemy lines wielding a long sword some 82 centimeters in length (nishaku-shichisun) and cut down several enemy soldiers. Another episode describes her disguising herself as a beggar to slip through the enemy blockade and carry word to a relief force outside. During the fighting in the first month of 1580 (Tenshō 8), she reportedly shot down more than twenty attacking soldiers with a bow from atop a turret, then rode out herself to fight further. Because of feats such as these, one account holds that Hideyoshi described her as a woman "like a demon." It must be stressed, however, that none of these specific combat episodes appear in more contemporary sources such as the "Shinchō Kōki" or the "Bessho Nagaharu-ki"; they appear only in the later, embellished lineage of the "Bessho-ki," and should be treated as legend rooted in Edo-period military chronicles rather than as established historical fact.

In the first month of 1580, with provisions exhausted, the Bessho side finally chose to surrender the castle, and Nagaharu and many members of his clan took their own lives. Nami, too, is said to have killed her own children — reportedly two sons and a daughter — with her own hand before taking her own life. Neither the accuracy of her recorded name nor her birth year can be confirmed with certainty, but she is remembered in the Sengoku-era history of Harima as one of the women of the Bessho clan who died with the castle's fall.