Kanamori Nagachika

Kanamori Nagachika (1524-1608) was a warlord and tea-master daimyō. He served Nobunaga for many years as one of his longtime senior retainers, survived Nobunaga's death, and became lord of Echizen Ōno (present-day Ōno City, Fukui Prefecture). Nagachika lived to the age of 84. His life spanned the eras of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu, the three great unifiers, which was a rare experience. He is regarded as a man accomplished in both the martial and the cultural arts, combining military ability with a deep understanding of the tea ceremony.

Nagachika came from the Kanamori clan, a branch of the Toki clan of Mino (he later moved to Ōmi). At age 18 he served Oda Nobuhide of Owari, and he also served Nobunaga, who succeeded Nobuhide. He took part in the series of campaigns that began with Nobunaga's unification of Owari, and he was valued for his loyalty and military ability. He also fought at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575 and in the campaigns to pacify various regions in the 1580s. He was one of the veteran retainers who supported Nobunaga's effort to unify the country.

For suppressing the Echizen Ikkō uprising in 1575, Nagachika was granted Echizen Ōno by Nobunaga and became lord of Ōno Castle. Echizen Ōno was a small basin in the mountains, but the development of its castle town progressed under his rule, and the foundations of the town of Ōno took shape during his governance. The townscape of the castle town, still known today as the town of Ōno, is said to have taken its original form in Nagachika's era. After the Honnō-ji Incident (1582), he sided first with Shibata Katsuie and then followed Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1585, on Hideyoshi's orders, he pacified Hida, and the following year he was granted all of Hida Province, with an assessed yield of 38,700 koku. He built a castle and castle town at Takayama, which became the foundation of today's townscape of Hida Takayama.

As a tea practitioner, Nagachika was invited to tea gatherings as a disciple of Sen no Rikyū, and he was also on close terms with Furuta Oribe. It is said that at his residence in Fushimi he built a shoin and a tea pavilion, and that he often invited Hideyoshi there.

At the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) he sided with the Eastern Army (the Tokugawa side) and took the field even though he was 77 years old. After the battle he set up a retirement residence at Kōzuchi (Mino Province) and handed Hida Takayama over to his adopted son, Kanamori Arishige. Nagachika died at the age of 84. As both a warlord and a tea master, he lived through the turbulent era from the Sengoku period to the Edo period, and he is known as one of the most long-lived warlords of the Sengoku era.