Mori Tomonobu (Bori Tomonobu)

Mori Tomonobu (read "Bori" within the Kuroda house) was a warrior of the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods who served Kuroda Yoshitaka (Josui) and then his son Kuroda Nagamasa. Born in 1556, he died on the sixth day of the sixth month of Keicho 20 (1 July 1615) at the age of 60. His common name was Tahei (also Tahyoe), his childhood name Mansuke, and his court rank Tajima no kami. Because the reading "Mori" led shogunate documents and others to miswrite his name as "Mori" in the sense of the Mori clan, he for a time used that surname as well.

Life

He entered the service of Kuroda Yoshitaka in 1569 (Eiroku 12). After most of the Mori family died at the battles of Aoyama and Kawarakeyama and the line was extinguished, Yoshitaka is said to have granted him the Mori surname. He made his first appearance in battle at the Battle of Inamino in 1573 (Tensho 1), and thereafter served in the vanguard.

Achievements

In 1578 (Tensho 6) he infiltrated Arioka Castle to learn the fate of Yoshitaka, who had been seized by Araki Murashige. In the Kyushu Campaign of 1587 he was first into Urutsu Castle in Buzen. He served under Nagamasa in the Bunroku-Keicho Korean campaigns. Around the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 he brought about the surrender of Otomo Yoshimune, who had risen in Bungo. In 1606 he became lord of Masutomi Castle, the former domain of Goto Mototsugu, and received the title Tajima no kami from Nagamasa. He was in charge of the stone walls of the keep base in the construction of Edo Castle, and in 1608 he worked with Kiriyama Nobuyuki to improve the Hiyamizu Pass on the Nagasaki Highway. When Nagamasa was transferred to Chikuzen after Sekigahara, he received 18,000 koku at Takatori Castle in Chikuzen (2,000 koku of it going to his son). He is said to have taken 76 heads in his lifetime, the most in the Kuroda house.

The Nihongo anecdote

During a truce in the Korean campaigns, Tomonobu visited Fukushima Masanori, who was staying at Fushimi Castle in Kyoto, as an envoy of Nagamasa. Masanori offered him sake, which Tomonobu first declined because he was on official business. Masanori then taunted him to the effect that Kuroda samurai could not hold their drink. Tomonobu accepted, drained a great cup in one go, and asked as his reward for the famed spear Nihongo, which Masanori had received from Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Masanori, bound by the saying that a samurai does not go back on his word, handed it over.

The spear

Nihongo was given by Hideyoshi to Masanori. One account holds that it later passed through Goto Mototsugu and returned to the Mori family, but this comes from kodan storytelling and is considered fiction. The Mori family kept it as a family treasure until the Taisho era, after which ownership changed hands, including a presentation to the Kuroda family. It has since been donated to the city of Fukuoka; the original is displayed at the Fukuoka City Museum and a replica at Hiroshima Castle.

Legacy

He is known as a powerful, brave commander and master of the spear, and one of the "Eight Tigers of Kuroda", the most trusted among the Twenty-Four Generals of Kuroda. The Nihongo story is the subject of the folk song "Kuroda-bushi" and is widely modeled in Hakata dolls. A bronze statue in front of Hakata Station was erected in 1970. His grave is at Rinno-ji in Okuma, Kama City, Fukuoka. He appears in the NHK taiga dramas Kunitori Monogatari (1973) and Gunshi Kanbei (2014).