Kikkawa Motoharu

Who They Were

Kikkawa Motoharu (吉川元春, きっかわ もとはる) was a samurai commander and daimyo of the Sengoku period, the long era of civil war that tore Japan apart from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century. He was born in 1530 in Akitakata, in the mountainous interior of Aki Province, in what is now the western part of Hiroshima Prefecture. He died on 25 December 1586, also in Aki Province.

He was the second son of Mōri Motonari, one of the most formidable warlords of western Japan. Motoharu's mother was Myōkyū. His wife was Shinjō-no-tsubone. His son, Kikkawa Hiroie, carried the family line forward.

Motoharu's career belongs to the closing decades of the Muromachi period, which ran from 1336 to 1573 — a span that ended in the very years he was fighting his most important campaigns. He was born in Kyōroku 享禄, the third year of that era name.

Life and Career

Motoharu was not born to lead the Mōri. As the second son, he was placed with the Kikkawa, a powerful local family, and took their name. This was standard practice among warlords: a son sent to another house became that house's heir and, in return, extended the birth family's reach. Through this arrangement the Mōri absorbed the Kikkawa, and Motoharu became one of his father's most reliable commanders.

He fought in the wars of the Mōri clan across western Japan. His most famous engagement was the Battle of Miyajima, fought on the island of Itsukushima in the Inland Sea. He also appears in connection with the Battle of Fubeyama.

Alongside his brother Kobayakawa Takakage, Motoharu formed the core of the Mōri military machine. The two were known together as the Mōri Ryōsen (毛利両川), "Mōri's Two Rivers" — a name that played on the fact that both brothers had taken the names of other families, Kikkawa and Kobayakawa, each written with a character meaning "river". One river guarded the north and the other the south, and together they carried the Mōri domain outward.

Motoharu held the rank of daimyo, a regional lord who governed territory and commanded armies in his own right. He died on 25 December 1586, in Aki Province, at the age of fifty-six by the count of his birth and death years.

Why They Matter

The Mōri domain in western Honshu was one of the great powers of sixteenth-century Japan, and Motoharu was one of the two men who made it so. While his father Motonari is remembered as the strategist who built the clan, it was Motoharu and Takakage who executed the campaigns that turned a regional family into a major military force.

The "Two Rivers" arrangement is a textbook example of how Sengoku families grew: sons were dispatched to absorb neighbouring houses, and the resulting network of related lords could field armies across a wide territory. Motoharu's own son, Kikkawa Hiroie, inherited that position, which is why the Kikkawa name survived as a major line in its own right.

Motoharu's career also spans the moment when the old order was collapsing. He fought through the last decades of the Muromachi period, and he died only a few years before the unification of Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The wars he fought in were the ones that decided who would rule the west.

The Name in Japanese

The full name is written 吉川元春. In kana it is きっかわ もとはる, and in romaji it is Kikkawa Motoharu. The family name comes first, as is standard in Japanese.

Breaking it down character by character:

吉 — read kitsu here, though the same character is far more commonly read kichi or yoshi. It means "good fortune" or "luck". In the family name it is written with the small っ in kana, giving the clipped kik- sound at the start.

川 — read kawa. It means "river". This is the character that gives the "Two Rivers" nickname its point: both Motoharu's Kikkawa and his brother's Kobayakawa end in this same character.

元 — read moto. It means "origin", "source", or "beginning". It is a common element in male given names of the period, and it appears in the names of several Mōri men.

春 — read haru. It means "spring", the season. Together, 元春 is a given name meaning something like "original spring" or "source of spring" — a poetic construction typical of samurai naming.

A note on the reading: the family name 吉川 is normally read Yoshikawa in ordinary Japanese. The reading Kikkawa is specific to this family and its descendants, which is why the name looks unfamiliar to anyone who knows the characters but not the house.

Legacy

Motoharu's direct legacy ran through his son, Kikkawa Hiroie, who inherited the Kikkawa lordship and kept the family prominent into the Edo period. The Kikkawa line remained a significant house in western Japan long after Motoharu's death.

His partnership with Kobayakawa Takakage gave the Mōri clan its most durable military structure. The phrase Mōri Ryōsen, "Mōri's Two Rivers", outlived both brothers as a way of describing the clan's twin pillars.

Motoharu died on 25 December 1586 in Aki Province. Within a decade, the Mōri would be on the losing side at Sekigahara and would be reduced from their western territories — but the Kikkawa branch, founded on Motoharu's adoption into that house, survived the transition.