Chōsokabe Kunichika

Who They Were

Chōsokabe Kunichika (長宗我部国親, ちょうそかべ くにちか) was a samurai warlord of Tosa Province, on the island of Shikoku, during the Muromachi period. He held the position of daimyo (大名, だいみょう — a territorial lord who governed a province or domain in his own right) and was the head of the Chōsokabe clan (長宗我部氏). Born in 1504, he died on 8 July 1560, the same year he won the battle that secured his family's foothold in Tosa.

His life was spent rebuilding a clan that had been shattered before he reached adulthood. His father, Chōsokabe Kanetsugu, was attacked by local lords and took his own life at Okō Castle in 1508, when Kunichika was a small child. Kunichika was then raised in Tosa by the aristocrat Ichijō Fusaie. From that vulnerable position he grew into the warlord who defeated the Motoyama clan and passed a strengthened domain to his son, Chōsokabe Motochika.

Life and Career

Kunichika was born in 1504 at Okō Castle, in the first year of the Eishō era (永正, えいしょう). His childhood name was Senyumaru (千熊丸). The destruction of his father's household in 1508 left him dependent on the protection of Ichijō Fusaie, a member of the aristocratic Ichijō family that held sway in Tosa. Being raised under that roof gave the young Kunichika both shelter and a vantage point on the province's fractious politics.

He spent his adult years gathering strength among the small lords of Tosa. He reconciled with the Motoya clan, converting a local rival into an ally, and built a following from the families around him. He also used adoption to bind other houses to his own: in 1558 he gave his third son, Kōsokabe Chikayasu, for adoption to the Kōsokabe clan.

Kunichika's decisive year was 1560. At the Battle of Tonomoto he captured Nagahama castle from the Motoyama clan. Motoyama Shigetoki responded by marching out of Asakura castle with 2,500 men to retake it. Kunichika intercepted him near Nagahama castle with 1,000 troops — well under half the opposing force — and defeated him. He died soon afterwards, on 8 July 1560, and was succeeded as head of the clan by his son Chōsokabe Motochika.

Why They Matter

Kunichika is the hinge on which the Chōsokabe clan's rise turns. His father's death in 1508 had reduced the family to something close to a client of the Ichijō; by the time Kunichika died in 1560, the Chōsokabe were the power that had broken the Motoyama at Tonomoto. The difference between those two positions was made in a single generation.

That inheritance is what his son used. Motochika took the domain Kunichika had assembled and, over the following decades, extended Chōsokabe authority across Shikoku until the clan controlled the island. None of that was possible without the base Kunichika built in Tosa — the reconciled allies, the adopted sons placed in neighbouring houses, and the defeat of the Motoyama.

The Battle of Tonomoto also shows the scale on which he was operating. A force of 1,000 intercepting 2,500 and winning is the kind of result that changes which families in a province decide to back. Kunichika's death within months of the victory meant he never governed the domain that victory made possible; his son did.

The Name in Japanese

The full name is 長宗我部国親, read in kana as ちょうそかべ くにちか, and romanised as Chōsokabe Kunichika. The family name comes first, as is standard in Japanese; the given name follows.

The surname 長宗我部 breaks into four characters:

• 長 — read here as ちょう (chō). It means "long" or "chief". In this surname it is the first element of a name the clan bore for centuries.
• 宗 — read here as そ (so). It means "lineage", "sect" or "ancestor". It commonly appears in names tied to family descent.
• 我 — read here as か (ka). It means "I" or "self". In this compound it carries no everyday meaning of its own; it is part of the fixed surname.
• 部 — read here as べ (be). It originally denoted a hereditary occupational group attached to the early Yamato court. Surnames ending in 部 often preserve that old organisational sense.

The given name 国親 is two characters:

• 国 — read here as くに (kuni). It means "country", "province" or "domain". For a warlord whose career was spent fighting over a province, the choice is apt.
• 親 — read here as ちか (chika). It means "parent", "intimate" or "close". This is a common ending for male given names of the period, and its reading here is chika, not the more familiar oya or shin.

Note that the surname's 長 is read chō, not the naga found in many other names, and that 親 takes the nanori (名乗り, なのり — a reading used only in personal names) chika. A reader who knows only the common readings of these characters will mispronounce the name.

Legacy

Kunichika's legacy is his son. Chōsokabe Motochika succeeded him in 1560 and turned the Tosa base into control of Shikoku, making the Chōsokabe name one of the great military houses of the late Muromachi and Azuchi–Momoyama years. Motochika is also recorded as the person who referenced his father — the relationship runs from the son back to Kunichika, and it is through Motochika's career that the father's work is remembered.

His other children carried the clan's alliances forward. His third son, Kōsokabe Chikayasu, had been placed with the Kōsokabe clan by adoption in 1558, extending the family's reach into another house. Daughters were married into the Ikeda and Motoyama families, tying former rivals and neighbours to the Chōsokabe by marriage.

Kunichika himself is remembered as the man who restored a ruined house. He was born in 1504 into a clan whose head had died by his own hand at Okō Castle, and he died in 1560 having defeated the Motoyama at Tonomoto and left his son a province worth inheriting.