Murakami Yoshikiyo

Who They Were

Murakami Yoshikiyo (村上義清) was a samurai and daimyo of the Muromachi period, born on 29 March 1501 and dead by 1573. He headed the Murakami clan, a warrior house whose lands lay in Shinano, the mountainous province that corresponds to modern Nagano Prefecture. For most of his career he fought the Takeda family — first Takeda Nobutora, then Nobutora's son Takeda Shingen — and he lost. Stripped of his territory, he entered the service of Uesugi Kenshin and finished his life as a Uesugi retainer in Echigo.

His reputation rests on the damage he did before he fell. In three separate engagements he killed senior Takeda commanders, and at the Battle of Uedahara in 1548 he handed Shingen one of the few clear battlefield defeats of Shingen's career.

Life and Career

The Murakami were long-established lords of northern Shinano, and Yoshikiyo's early dealings with the Takeda were not hostile. When Oi Sadataka, an enemy of both houses, was captured inside Murakami territory, Yoshikiyo sent him back to the Takeda base at Kōfu as a prisoner for execution — a diplomatic courtesy between neighbours who had not yet become rivals.

That changed as Takeda Shingen expanded into Shinano. In 1542 Yoshikiyo joined a coalition with Ogasawara Nagatoki, Suwa Yorishige and Kiso Yoshiyasu to check Shingen's growing forces. The two sides met at the Battle of Sezawa, and the coalition was defeated.

In 1546 Shingen moved against Toishi Castle. Yoshikiyo came to its relief at the head of 6,000 soldiers, broke Shingen's spearhead and killed commanders including Amari Bizen and Yokota Bitchū. The advantage turned when Takeda's strategists — Yamamoto Kansuke, Sanada Yukitaka and Sanada Masayuki — entered the fighting and engineered a series of Takeda victories. Yoshikiyo reversed the run in 1547, catching Shingen off guard just after Shingen had taken Shiga Castle and routing him with his full force.

The following year brought his greatest success. At the Battle of Uedahara in 1548, Yoshikiyo again counterattacked with everything he had, killed three of Shingen's generals — Itagaki Nobukata, Amari Torayasu and Hajikano Den'emon — and forced Shingen to retreat into Kai having lost 700 men.

The tide did not stay turned. In 1550 Yoshikiyo held Toishi Castle for a year against Sanada Yukitaka; he lost the castle but took the life of the Takeda general Yokota Takatoshi in the process. In 1553 he lost Katsurao Castle, and in the Siege of Kannomine he was defeated and forced to abandon Shinano altogether. He sought aid from Uesugi Kenshin and became Kenshin's retainer. For that service he was granted Nechi Castle in Echigo, and he commanded the centre division of the Uesugi army at the Battles of Kawanakajima.

One account credits him with killing Takeda Nobushige, Shingen's brother and one of his most important generals and strategists, at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima; another account says Kenshin killed Nobushige personally. Yoshikiyo never recovered his old territory. He died in Echigo in 1573. His son Murakami Kunikiyo, also known as Yamaura Kagekuni, became a retainer of the Uesugi.

Why They Matter

Yoshikiyo is the clearest example of what Takeda Shingen's conquest of Shinano actually cost. Shingen is usually remembered as an unstoppable strategist, and Yoshikiyo is the man who beat him in the field — at Uedahara in 1548, with 700 Takeda dead and three named generals among them. The deaths of Itagaki Nobukata, Amari Torayasu and Hajikano Den'emon removed experienced commanders from Shingen's army in a single afternoon.

His career also shows how the smaller Shinano houses were squeezed out. Yoshikiyo had held his own against the Takeda for years, and he still lost Katsurao, then Kannomine, then his province. His migration to Echigo fed men and military experience into the Uesugi war machine at exactly the moment Kenshin and Shingen were locked in their long contest over the same ground. The Kawanakajima campaigns, where Yoshikiyo commanded the Uesugi centre, are the direct continuation of the Shinano wars he had lost.

The Name in Japanese

The name is written 村上義清, read in kana as むらかみ よしきよ, and romanised as Murakami Yoshikiyo. The family name comes first, as is standard in Japanese.

村 — read mura here. It means "village". A very common element in Japanese surnames.

上 — read kami here. It means "above" or "up". Together, 村上 (Murakami) is a surname borne by several unrelated warrior lineages; the characters themselves carry no military meaning, only the sense of "above the village".

義 — read yoshi here. It means "righteousness", "justice" or "morality". It was a favoured element in samurai given names, and it appears in the names of many Muromachi and Sengoku warriors.

清 — read kiyo here. It means "pure" or "clear". Combined with 義, the given name 義清 (Yoshikiyo) reads as something like "righteous and pure".

Note that kanji in Japanese names take nanori readings — special readings used only in names. 上 is normally read ue or jō, and 清 is normally read sei or shō; kami and kiyo are name-specific. This is why a name cannot be sounded out reliably from the characters alone.

Legacy

Yoshikiyo's legacy is bound up with the two men he fought. Takeda Shingen's reputation as a master of strategy is qualified by the fact that Yoshikiyo defeated him outright at Uedahara and killed three of his generals there. Uesugi Kenshin's reputation is partly built on the army Yoshikiyo helped supply: a Shinano lord with a personal grudge against the Takeda, commanding the Uesugi centre at Kawanakajima.

The Murakami name continued through his son Murakami Kunikiyo, also called Yamaura Kagekuni, who served the Uesugi as his father had. The family's independent hold on Shinano did not survive; the province passed to the Takeda, and after the Takeda fell in 1582 it was redistributed again. Yoshikiyo died in Echigo in 1573, a year before the last Takeda hold on Shinano began to loosen, having never regained the territory he lost.