Oichi

Who They Were

Oichi (お市の方, Oichi no Kata, 1547 – 14 June 1583) was a woman of the late Sengoku period, the century of civil war that ended only as she died. She was the younger sister of Oda Nobunaga, the warlord who broke the power of the great Buddhist armies and brought most of central Japan under one hand. Through her two marriages she stood at the centre of the two most dangerous alliances of Nobunaga's career: first with the Azai clan of Ōmi, then with the Shibata clan, one of his most powerful generals.

She is remembered above all as a mother. Her three daughters — Yodo-dono, Ohatsu and Oeyo — became three of the most consequential women of the following generation. Yodo-dono bore the heir of Toyotomi Hideyoshi; Oeyo married into the Tokugawa house and became the mother of a shōgun. Through them, Oichi's blood ran into the ruling houses of the Edo period.

She was born in Nagoya, the daughter of Oda Nobuhide, a minor and violent lord of Owari province, and of Dota Gozen. She was also the sister-in-law of Nōhime, the daughter of Saitō Dōsan, who married Nobunaga as part of a truce between Owari and Mino. Her lineage was traced to the Taira and Fujiwara clans, the two great aristocratic houses from which many warrior families claimed descent.

Life and Career

In 1564, Nobunaga married his sister to Azai Nagamasa, the young lord of northern Ōmi, as the seal on an alliance. The marriage held for six years. In 1570, when Nobunaga marched west against the Asakura clan, Nagamasa broke the alliance and attacked his brother-in-law's rear at Kanegasaki, an act that nearly destroyed Nobunaga's army and his career.

The breach turned Oichi into a figure of legend. According to the chronicles, when Nobunaga retreated and the Azai were drawn into open war, Oichi sent her brother a bag of beans tied at both ends — a signal that the enemy would be attacked from two sides at once. Whether or not the story is literally true, it captures how she was remembered: a woman inside an enemy house who nonetheless served her birth family.

Nagamasa was defeated by Nobunaga at the battle of Anegawa in 1570, and finally besieged in Odani Castle in 1573. He killed himself. Oichi and her daughters survived and returned to Nobunaga. Her sons by Nagamasa were executed, ending the Azai line.

In 1582, Nobunaga was betrayed and killed at Honnō-ji in Kyoto by Akechi Mitsuhide. In the scramble that followed, Shibata Katsuie, one of Nobunaga's oldest commanders, emerged as the chief rival to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Oichi was married to Katsuie, an alliance of the Oda family's old retainers against the newcomer. In 1583, Hideyoshi defeated Katsuie at the battle of Shizugatake. Katsuie retreated to Kitanosho Castle in Echizen, and Hideyoshi besieged it.

Oichi died at Kitanosho Castle on 14 June 1583, the same day the castle fell. She did not outlive her husband by more than a few hours. Before the end, she sent her three daughters out of the castle to Hideyoshi, who took them into his protection — a decision that preserved the line and shaped the next fifty years of Japanese politics.

Why They Matter

Oichi is present at two sieges that destroyed two of the most powerful clans of the era: Odani in 1573, which ended the Azai, and Kitanosho in 1583, which ended the Shibata. Very few figures of the period stand at the fall of two great houses, and almost none of them are women.

Her importance is also genealogical. Yodo-dono became the mother of Toyotomi Hideyori, the last Toyotomi heir, and died with him in the siege of Osaka in 1615. Oeyo married Tokugawa Hidetada, the second Tokugawa shōgun, and gave birth to Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third. Ohatsu married into the Kyōgoku family and acted as a channel between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa courts in the years before Osaka. The political history of the early seventeenth century runs directly through Oichi's daughters.

She is remembered for conduct as much as for position. The stories that attached to her — the bag of beans, the refusal to leave Katsuie, the sending away of her daughters — all describe a person who chose her obligations deliberately and paid for them. That reputation, more than any office she held, is why she remains a familiar name in Japan.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is お市の方. It is read in kana as おいちのかた, and in romaji as Oichi no Kata.

The name breaks down as follows.

お — the kana お, read o. This is a polite prefix, written in hiragana rather than kanji. It is commonly attached to women's names in this period, and it carries a sense of respect or familiarity rather than any meaning of its own.

市 — the kanji 市, read ichi here. On its own the character means "market" or "town", and it is the same character used in city names such as Ōsaka-shi. As a personal name it is short and plain, and it was not unusual for a woman of the warrior class to be known by a single common character rather than a formal given name.

の — the kana の, read no. This is the possessive particle, the same one used in ordinary Japanese grammar to link two nouns. In names of this shape it links the personal name to the title that follows.

方 — the kanji 方, read kata. The character means "direction", "side" or "person" depending on context. In this position it is an honorific, roughly "the person of" or "the lady". The whole construction, Oichi no Kata, is therefore something like "the lady Oichi" — a respectful way of naming a woman of rank, not a surname and given name in the modern sense.

It is worth noting what the name does not contain. Oichi is not recorded with a family name in this form. Women of her class in the Sengoku period were typically known by a given name with an honorific, and their identity was carried by their relationships — sister of Nobunaga, wife of Nagamasa, mother of Yodo-dono — rather than by a formal lineage name of their own.

Legacy

Oichi's daughters carried her line into the highest positions in the land. Yodo-dono, Ohatsu and Oeyo are all named in the historical record as the figures through whom she is remembered, and each of them shaped the politics of the Toyotomi–Tokugawa transition.

Her death at Kitanosho on 14 June 1583 is the event most often attached to her name. The castle fell, the Shibata clan was extinguished, and the daughters she sent out beforehand survived to become the mothers and wives of rulers. In popular memory she is the beautiful and resolute sister of Nobunaga, a woman who married into two doomed houses and outmanoeuvred both fates long enough to save her children.