Yoshioka Myōrin-ni

Yoshioka Myōrin-ni was the wife of Yoshioka Shigeoki, a retainer of the Bungo daimyo Ōtomo Sōrin who was entrusted with the defense of Tsurusaki Castle (in present-day Ōita City). Her husband Shigeoki was killed in action at the Battle of Mimikawa in 1578 (Tenshō 6), after which their eldest son, Yoshioka Munemasu, formally inherited the family headship. Because Munemasu was still young at the time, tradition holds that Myōrin-ni took effective charge of the castle's defense as regent and castellan in his place. "Myōrin-ni" is her Buddhist name, said to have been taken when she entered religious life after her husband's death; her birth name is uncertain, with some accounts identifying her as the daughter of Niū Kojirō Masatoshi and others as the daughter of Hayashi Sakyō-no-suke, so the matter remains unresolved.

Following the Ōtomo defeat at the Battle of Mimikawa, the clan came under mounting pressure from two great regional powers — the Ryūzōji to the north and the Shimazu to the south — and its strength declined rapidly. At the end of 1586 (Tenshō 14), Shimazu Yoshihiro, Iehisa, and other commanders launched a full-scale invasion of Bungo Province, a campaign later known as the Hōsatsu Campaign. This Shimazu invasion of Bungo was itself one of the developments that eventually prompted Toyotomi Hideyoshi's conquest of Kyushu, and Tsurusaki Castle was one of the strongholds swept up in the fighting as the invading forces pressed on it as well. Munemasu was absent, having been ordered elsewhere by Ōtomo Sōrin, so command of the castle's defense fell to Myōrin-ni. Her garrison amounted to little more than elderly men and farmers, with few regular troops available, yet she is said to have repeatedly repelled the Shimazu assault through a combination of concealed pit traps, noise-making warning devices (naruko), and coordinated use of firearms — reportedly more than a dozen times in all. With provisions eventually exhausted, she is said to have accepted a negotiated surrender on the 29th day of the 12th month of that year that guaranteed the lives of everyone inside the castle, and Tsurusaki Castle was handed over intact. The detailed course of this defense rests chiefly on the Edo-period military chronicle "Hōsatsu Gunki" and later local histories such as the "Bungo Tsurusaki-chō Shi," and it should be noted that details such as the precise number of repelled assaults, the specific tactics described, and the Shimazu side's reported reactions remain subjects of historical debate regarding their factual accuracy.

Myōrin-ni is recorded as having survived the siege and died on the 23rd day of the 7th month of 1591 (Tenshō 19). Remembered as a resourceful commander who turned back, over an extended period, an invading army from the Shimazu — widely regarded as the most formidable military power of the age — using nothing but a meager garrison and improvised fortifications, she stands among the most celebrated women associated with the Ōtomo house, and her story remains one of the representative tales of female military accomplishment in the Sengoku-era history of Kyushu.