Shimizu Muneharu

Shimizu Muneharu was a warrior of the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and lord of Bitchu-Takamatsu Castle. He served Mori Terumoto and worked under Kobayakawa Takakage. Said to have been born in 1537 in Shimizu village, Kaya District, Bitchu Province (present-day Ide, Soja, Okayama), he died on the fourth day of the sixth month of Tensho 10 (23 June 1582) at the age of 46. His childhood name was Saitaro, an alternative name Chozaemon no jo, and his posthumous Buddhist name Seikyo Soshin. He was posthumously awarded Junior Fourth Rank in 1924.

Life

He came from the Shimizu family of Bitchu. His father was Shimizu Munenori, his elder brother Shimizu Munetomo (the lay priest Gessei) and his younger brother Nanba Munetada (Dembei). His wife was a daughter of Ishikawa Hisatomo, a leading vassal of the Mimura clan (also recorded as a daughter of Ishikawa Hisataka). After serving as a vassal of the Mimura he is said to have served Ishikawa Hisanori and then Mori Terumoto. He was lord of Shimizu Castle in Bitchu and later of Takamatsu Castle. Accounts of how he became lord of Takamatsu vary; the common one is that during the Tensho conflict in Bitchu he sided with the Mori despite being a senior Mimura retainer. As a Mori retainer he fought under Kobayakawa Takakage in the pacification of the Chugoku region and won the trust of the Mori leadership.

The Siege of Bitchu-Takamatsu

In the fourth month of 1582, when Hashiba Hideyoshi, a retainer of Oda Nobunaga, began his Chugoku campaign, Muneharu held Takamatsu Castle and resisted. Hideyoshi offered him the two provinces of Bitchu and Bingo if he surrendered, but Muneharu refused and is said to have delivered Nobunaga's written pledge as it was to his lord Terumoto to show his loyalty. A flooding attack, said to have been devised by Kuroda Kanbei, brought the castle to the brink of falling, but Terumoto marched to its relief with Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, and the front stalled.

His end

On the second day of the sixth month, in the midst of the flooding, the Honnoji Incident took place in Kyoto and Nobunaga died. Hideyoshi concealed this and proposed peace on the condition of Muneharu's life in exchange for the lives of the garrison. The Mori negotiated through the envoy Ankokuji Ekei, but Hideyoshi's side demanded the cession of five provinces and Muneharu's suicide, and talks failed. Muneharu, to save his men and honor his obligation to his lord, is said to have written a petition offering four lives, his own, his brother Munetomo, his brother Munetada and the allied commander Suechika Nobuyoshi, and entrusted it to Ekei. On the fourth day, without knowing of Nobunaga's death, he committed seppuku in a boat on the water together with Munetomo, Munetada and Suechika. His death poem reads: "Now at last I cross this floating world, leaving a warrior's name upon the moss of Takamatsu."

Descendants and legacy

His son Kageharu served Kobayakawa Takakage and then Mori Terumoto, became a Yoriai retainer of the Mori house, and later settled in Suo Province. His descendants lived for many years in Hikari, Yamaguchi; the twelfth head, Chikatomo, who committed seppuku at the end of the Edo period, is enshrined with Muneharu at Seigi Reisha. His head mound is at the Bitchu-Takamatsu Castle site (Kita-ku, Okayama) and his grave is said to be at Seikyo-ji in Hikari. He appears in many novels, television dramas (including NHK taiga dramas), manga and games such as the Nobunaga's Ambition series.