Details of the first Hime samurai of the Warring States period in Japan

Tachibana Hiruchiyo

Tachibana Hiruchiyo (たちばな ぎんちよ, August 13, 12 years of the Yongroku era (September 23, 1569) - October 17, 7 years of the Keicho era (November 30, 1602)) was a woman of the Warring States period in Japan. She was also known as Gin-chiyo, Katsu-chiyo, Miyanaga-kind, and Akaki-kind. Her legal name was "Koujouin Temple Izumi Yoshitaka Kiyoshi", and her sacred name was "Mizutama-in".

==Warlords===

She was the daughter of Tachibana Michiyuki, an important vassal of the Otomo Clan, and her mother was Hitoshi-hime (Nishi-hime, Hoshuin), who became the governor of the house at the age of only 6-7 years old in the third year of the Tensho era (1575), after being offered the position by Michiyuki. This is an exceptional case of a woman becoming the head of the house based on the wishes of Michiyuki, and is also a rare example in the Warring States period. However, Tachibana Michiyuki herself wanted a man to succeed the Tachibana family, so she once asked her adopted daughter to marry Masashi Nanno, an important member of the family, to succeed the family, but Masashi refused on the grounds that he was neither a blood relative nor an important member of the Otomo family.

==Hakumei, Kannon===

Hakumei Chiyo was a beautiful young woman with fair skin and bright eyes, and was praised as the 'White Plum of Chikuzen', a woman even Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had a passion for beautiful women, rumored to have wanted to get his hands on. Chiyo also has the same solemnity as her father, Michiyuki, who made boys of the same age shy away from her when she was young, and as she grew up, she possessed a very high temperament, so she was praised as 'Kannon of Hakuchi'.

==Daughter of the Thunder God==

In the 6th year of the Tensho era (1578), the Otomo family and the Shimazu family fought in the Battle of Ear River, and after the defeat of the Otomo family, the people of Chikuzen, Kitakyushu, who had originally submitted to the Otomo family, started a revolt one after another, and Tachibana Michiyuki and Takahashi Shoin went out to face the battle. She was only 12 years old when she gathered women and girls from the city and organized a female cannon team to defend the city.

==Chikumaru===

After that, Michiyuki heard that Takahashi Shoyun, the lord of Iwaya Castle, who was also a vassal of the Otomo family, had a son close to the age of Chiyo, and that his son was Chikumaru, who was to be the future Tachibana Soshige. Michiyuki invited Chikumaru to visit his castle, Tachibana Yamashiro, and observing his behavior, he decided to hand him over to the old man, Yubu Utsunobu, to teach him in the hope that he would become a warrior and succeed the Tachibana family. Soon after Chikumaru's birth, he was named Takahashi Yashichirō Tōhaku, and Dōseki told Takahashi Shōyū that he wanted Tōhaku to become the adopted son of the Tachibana family, which he initially refused to do, but after Dōseki begged him, Tōhaku was allowed to succeed.

The words of the plea were as follows: 'I (Michiyuki) have fought for the Otomo family for many decades, from my prime to my seventies, and I have had many victories, but in recent years the Otomo family has been declining, and the thieves have been growing stronger and stronger, so our chances of victory are fading away day by day. After my death, only you (Shao Yun) will be able to support the Otomo family, but there is still a limit to what you can do, isn't there? Now you have two sons in the prime of life, if you can let your eldest son, Toho, succeed me in the Tachibana family, then there will be at least two other famous clans that can hold on to the Otomo family after my death....'

However, there was also the opposition of another Tachibana family elder, Ono Jin-yuki, who only supported the succession of Yin Chiyo, the flesh and blood of the Tachibana family, but in the end he was convinced by Michiyuki and Shao Yun.

==Struggle of the governors===

On August 18th, 1581, Tensho 9, Hiruchiyo married Toho. At first, the two got along well, but after the death of Dosetsu, they began to disagree, mainly because of the similarity in their personalities and temperaments, which made it difficult for them to fight. On September 11, Tensho 13, Michiyuki died of illness during the Chikugo Expedition, at which time Tatsuhiro changed his name to Tachibana Tatsuhiro and succeeded the Tachibana family with Hiromitsu Chiyo.

When Shimazu's army attacked Tachibana Sanjo, Chiyo also led the army in preparation for the battle and accompanied him to kill the enemy.

After the conquest of Kyushu by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tachibana Soshige was granted a territory of 132,000 koku in Yanagawa for his service. When she learned of this, she was happy to hear that her husband had done so well, but then she became unhappy because she had to leave Tachibana Mountain Castle, where she had grown up, and move to Yanagawa Castle, where her father had fought for many years, and where Dosetsu and her grandmother (Yohoin) were buried. Before he left, he built the "Umegakuji Temple" in Tachibana Castle to honor his father's memory, and left the city three days later than Souma...

But the main reason was that Chiyo thought that she was the lord of Tachibana and the governor of the Tachibana family, and she insisted that she was not willing to give up Tachibana Castle, and she quarrelled and quarreled with Soshige before the Tachibana family prepared to leave the city.

==Women Husbands in the Western Country===

During the years of the Bunroku Keicho Campaign initiated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, when Soshige went to Chosun, he formed a women's patrol in Yanagawa, his domain, to prevent fires and burglaries, and patrolled the streets and Yashiki every night. This story has been told by the descendants and some stories have been created.

At this time, Hideyoshi was in the castle of Hizen Nagoya, and invited the wives of the daimyo to attend him. She's a real husband-woman, even in normal times."

Then she moved to Miyanaga Village, south of Yanagawa Castle, between 1594 and 1597. The reason for this is that after his return from Korea (c. 1593~1596), Sōmo was introduced by Hosokawa Tadahide to marry Yajima Yachiko (a.k.a. Yae/Yachiko, Ruimatsuin,

granddaughter of the grandnephew of the grandnephew, Kikutei Harutoshi), the daughter of Yajima Hideyuki (the son of the fifteenth Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiaki), and left Yanagawa Castle for the Miyanaga village, and it was useless to Sōmo to personally try to recruit her to come back...

==Tachibana Hayate==

At the time of the Battle of Sekigahara, she persuaded Soshige to join the Eastern Army because of the Shimazu family's enmity with the Western Army and because she foresaw that the Eastern Army had a better chance of winning, but Soshige joined the Western Army in order to follow through on the favor he had done for Hideyoshi. When Munemo returned to Japan, she ordered dozens of her retainers to go to Tsurugasaki, Toyoho, to welcome him.

Soon after Nabeshima Naomo, Kato Kiyomasa, and Kuroda Kisui attacked Yanagawa Castle, Munemo ordered his family to set up a position at the northern border of Yanagawa, and after Nabeshima won the battle against Ekogami Hachibaen, Munemo retreated back to Yanagawa due to lack of troops. A team of more than 200 men went northward from Miyanaga Village, wearing the "Hayashi" (ammunition + bullets) invented by Michiyuki. They used the "Hayashi" (ammunition + shells) invented by Michiyuki, and all of them wore the "Hayashi" (ammunition + shells) invented by Michiyuki, and used the collective rapid fire of the cannons in the northern suburb of Yanagawa to resist the army of Nabeshima.

Then, in order to delay the attack of Kato's army, she led 800 men to the street of Enoura to intercept Kato's army, so that Kato Kiyomasa took a detour to the street of Shiratori instead of advancing from the original street of Segaka, thus successfully delaying the attack.

Hyun Chiyo's rapid-fire women's cannon team had been known as "Tachibana Hayabusa" for a long time, and later became more famous in Kyushu, with Hyun Chiyo being called "Tachibana of the Flowers" (a name that later became a local tea-picking song, "Flower, Orange, and Tea," and now Tachibana descendants not only run a wedding venue in Yanagawa, but also sell citrus tea).

==White Plums Fade==

After the Tachibana family changed its name, Soshige and Tachibana's Chiyo were protected by Kiyomasa Kato, who had Soshige live in Takase, Tamana County, while Chiyo lived with her birth mother, Hoshuin, in the village of Hogaraki, and neither of them ever saw each other again, even though the two were very close to each other. .....

Somo wandered to Edo, speak of Chiyo living in pain, although the Tachibana family veteran Yonatabi Jinhisa support, but still short of food and clothing, and finally in the Keicho 7 years (1602), October 17, death (said to have jumped into a well to commit suicide), sick.

At the age of 34, she was known as "Koujouin Denzenshuu Ryoikei Daisuke"

Tachibana Hiruchiyo was called "White Plum of Chikuzen," "Husbandwoman of the Western Country," "Kannon of Hakuchi," and "Mrs. Miyanaga/Komachi."

Tachibana Hiruchiyo's Bodhi Temple was located at Ryoikei Temple in Yanagawa, and it was the first time that Tachibana Sogamo asked the temple to welcome him, and it was the only way that Tachibana Sogamo would do so. Inyo, the grandson of Gamochi Kansei, a monk who came to welcome the temple in Segakami Sho, opened the temple. Later, in Nagasu-cho, Tamana-gun, Kumamoto Prefecture, there is a tomb of Hiruchiyo, which is said to be the grave of Hiruchiyo, and the shape of the temple has earned it the name of "Peony Cake-like".