Myōinni

Myōinni (secular name Akai Teruko; c. 1514-1594) was born the daughter of Akai Shigehide, lord of Tatebayashi Castle in Kōzuke Province, and married Yura Shigeshige, lord of Nitta Kanayama Castle. She bore several children including Yura Kunishige and Nagao Akinaga. After Shigeshige's death in Tenshō 6 (1577), she took the tonsure and adopted the name Myōinni.

Her greatest achievement came in Tenshō 12 (1584), at age 71, when she commanded the defense of Kanayama and Tatebayashi Castles. That year, Hōjō Ujinao, head of the later Hōjō clan, demanded the "loan" of both castles from the Yura family. With her eldest son Kunishige and second son Nagao Akinaga effectively held hostage while attending at Odawara, the two initially appeared inclined to accede to the demand. But retainers within the Yura house who opposed submission to the Hōjō rallied behind Myōinni as their commander, allying with anti-Hōjō forces such as Satake Yoshishige and Sano Sōtsuna, and chose to hold out at Kanayama Castle.

Myōinni is said to have personally addressed her retainers to rally the household and commanded the defense against the assault of Hōjō commanders such as Tomioka Hidenaga. The fighting continued into the following year before a truce was reached, sparing Kanayama and Tatebayashi from immediate surrender to the Hōjō. This resistance was later praised highly by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who is said to have granted Myōinni a red-seal document recognizing her holdings in Ushiku, Hitachi Province. In her later years, Myōinni moved to Ushiku together with her son Kunishige and died there.

Myōinni's record of personally commanding a castle's defense past the age of seventy stands as a rare example demonstrating that women of the Sengoku period could serve not merely in supporting roles but as battlefield commanders on whom the survival of an entire house depended.