Ichikawa no Tsubone

Ichikawa no Tsubone was the wife of Ichikawa Tsuneyoshi, a senior retainer of the Mōri clan who served as lord of Takamine Castle in Suō Province (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) during the Sengoku period. Her personal name was not recorded; she is remembered by a title tied to her husband's post.

In 1569, during the rebellion of Ōuchi Teruhiro — a former Ōuchi retainer backed by Ōtomo Sōrin — Takamine Castle came under siege while its lord, Tsuneyoshi, was away commanding Mōri forces at Tachibanayama Castle against the Ōtomo. Left in charge of the castle, Ichikawa no Tsubone reportedly put on armor, took up a naginata, and personally commanded a garrison of roughly 300 troops, holding the castle against the besieging army for the ten days until her husband's return.

For this feat, she received a formal commendation letter (kanjō) from her lord, Mōri Terumoto, on the sixth day of the intercalary seventh month of 1577, a fact recorded in Mōri clan documents. Instances of a samurai woman personally commanding a castle in her husband's absence and being formally honored for it by her lord are rare, making Ichikawa no Tsubone one of the better-documented examples of a woman taking up arms during the Sengoku period.

Her story survives in fragments across Mōri clan records, including the Kikkawa Family Documents and the Hagihan Batsuetsuroku (vol. 38, "Ichikawa Shichiuemon"), and continues to be retold in local histories and accounts of sword and armor culture as evidence that women of the warrior class sometimes took up weapons and led men in actual combat, not merely watched over the household from the rear.