Oichi

Japanese noblewoman

• Born: 1548
• Birthplace: Nagoya Castle, Japan
• Died: June 14, 1583
• Place of death: Kitanosho Castle, Japan

The sister of Oda Nobunaga, the powerful Japanese warlord who attempted to unify Japan by conquest, Oichi was thrown into civil wars that were engulfing her country. As a noblewoman, her fate was tied to that of her two husbands, and she is remembered for her tragic loyalty, which led to her suicide at Kitanosho Castle.

Early Life

Oichi (oh-ee-chee) was born to Oda Nobuhide, the lord of Nagoya Castle in the cultural heartland of medieval Japan, near Kyōto. Oichi’s father was a daimyo, a lord over samurai, and she grew up in an aristocratic and ambitious household.

When her father died, Oichi was three, and her much older brother Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) became head of the family. Helped by an uncle, Oda conquered Kiyosu Castle in 1555 and moved into it, taking along seven-year-old Oichi. Two years later, Oda had his younger brother Nobuyuki killed there, accusing him of betrayal.

As a teenager, Oichi became famous for her great beauty. Her skin was extremely fair, and her luscious black hair enchanted even her female friends. Clothed in silk garments, she was considered a dazzling sight. At fifteen, Oda betrothed Oichi to a fellow daimyo, Asai Nagamasa (1545-1573). In 1559, Nagamasa had been married to the daughter of a samurai chosen by his father. Considering that bride his social inferior, he had divorced her. Meeting Oda at Odani Castle, he became allies with him, and Oda sent his sister to marry Nagamasa in 1563.

Life’s Work

Oichi became Odani no Kata, Lady of Odani Castle. Contemporary accounts speak of a happy marriage. As wife of the daimyo, Oichi had high social standing but spent most of her time in the castle. There, she entertained her husband and her guests playing the koto, a Japanese string instrument, and was considered a hostess of radiant beauty.

Oichi had five children with Nagamasa. Her first daughter, Chacha, was born in 1567, and two more daughters and two sons followed. Mother and children were close, and Nagamasa adored his family.

In 1570, conflict erupted between Oichi’s husband and her brother. Oda invaded Echizen Province next to Odani Castle on the grounds that its daimyo had slighted him. As a result, Nagamasa was placed in an awkward position. During his marriage negotiations over Oichi, her brother had guaranteed not to touch Echizen. Now, Oichi’s father-in-law insisted that his son attack Oda.

Disregarding his ties to Oichi’s brother, Nagamasa broke with Oda. He was defeated in the summer of 1570 at the Battle of Anegawa. In September, 1573, Oda was ready to attack Odani Castle. He asked his brother-in-law to surrender, but Nagamasa refused.

Early on September 26, 1573, Nagamasa called together his family. At twenty-five, Oichi had just given birth to the youngest of her five children, a baby boy. Her contemporaries were still startled by her beauty and worried about her fate. Now, Nagamasa asked his wife and his children to burn incense and pray for him.

Oichi initially refused, preferring to die with him. However, Nagamasa ordered her to live and take care of their children. Oichi obeyed. Their two sons were smuggled out on September 28. That night, Oichi shared her last cups of sake with her husband. In the morning, she left with her three daughters. Oda welcomed Oichi and his nieces and resumed his attack. On the morning of September 30, defeated in battle, Nagamasa committed seppuku, ritual suicide.

On October 3, her brother tricked Oichi into revealing the hiding place of her eldest son, Mampukumaru, promising to treat him well. Instead, he ordered the man whom he gave Odani Castle to rule and who would take the name Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) to fetch and kill the boy. Hideyoshi refused, but Oda did not relent. The boy was killed and his head publicly displayed on a spike.

After she learned that he had killed her son, Oichi refused the romantic advances of Hideyoshi. Instead, she withdrew with her three daughters to Kiyosu Castle, where she had been reared. On the way, Oichi stopped at Lake Biwa and prayed where her husband’s tombstone had been dropped into the water. For the next nine years, Oichi lived in isolation at Kiyosu with her daughters, her baby son having been killed as well. At the castle, Oichi preferred to stay in her half-darkened chambers, hidden from the sun by screens and paper walls. For the first three years, Oichi lost much weight, but then she recovered.

On June 19, 1582, Oda Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his generals. Fighting to the end in the burning Honnōji temple, the mortally wounded Oda committed suicide by seppuku. Word of her brother’s death reached Oichi as his followers converged on Kiyosu Castle. Toyotomi Hideyoshi arrived as well. He had killed the traitor and resumed wooing Oichi, who hated him for having killed her son.

Oichi’s nephew Nobutaka, a son of Oda by a concubine, approached her with another marriage request. Shibata Katsuie, now sixty, desired Oichi. He had been an ally of her younger brother (whom Oda had killed in 1557), switching over to Oda just in time. He had been among the attackers at Odani Castle in 1573 and had seen the vermilion-lacquered skull of Oichi’s first husband, which Oda displayed on a tabletop on New Year’s Day 1574.

Oichi wanted to stay loyal to her dead husband, yet she also sought protection for her daughters. While she forgave her brother, her hatred of Hideyoshi remained. His proposal came with the added insult that she would only become his concubine. Katsuie, even though he was twenty-six years older than Oichi, enjoyed the support of Oichi’s nephew. November of 1582, Oichi married Katsuie at Gifu Castle. Afterward, they traveled through the falling snow to Katsuie’s castle at Kitanosho. There Oichi blossomed under her new husband’s love. After nine years of loneliness and seclusion, she embraced social life.

Within one month of their marriage, Katsuie found himself at war with Hideyoshi, ready to start fighting after winter. In February, 1583, fugitive lord Kyōgoku Takatsugu appeared and begged Oichi to protect him. He was one of Oda’s samurai who had betrayed his lord. Oichi persuaded Katsuie to forgive her nephew by her first marriage. As a teenager, Takatsugu had visited Oichi and her daughters at Kiyosu Castle. Now, he romanced Chacha, who rejected him as an outcast. He turned his affection to Oichi’s second daughter, Ohatsu, and they were married.

With spring, warfare began. Oichi said farewell to her husband, who was decisively defeated at the Battle of Shizugatake on June 11, 1583. When he fled to his castle, Hideyoshi quickly encircled it. Takatsugu slipped out, leaving his wife with Oichi. Hideyoshi offered Katsuie life for surrender, but everybody suspected this was a trick to catch Oichi. The old samurai angrily refused. At thirty-five, Oichi had been married to Katsuie for only seven months, and he was still full of vigor. However, the prospect of a second widowhood and her hatred of Hideyoshi influenced her decision to end her life together with Katsuie.

In the evening of June 13, 1583 raised on a dais and dressed in her most precious clothes, surrounded by her daughters and her husband Oichi helped preside over a final banquet in the castle hall. The aristocrats drank sake, sang, danced, and remembered their lives together. On the morning of June 14, 1583, Oichi wrote her farewell poem, answered by one from Katsuie, before both retired to die. Hideyoshi had made plans to save Oichi, but his men managed only to abduct her daughters. Setting fire to their castle tower, Oichi and Katsuie ritually killed themselves, and the flames consumed their bodies.

Shortly afterward, Hideyoshi won the heart of Oichi’s surviving daughter Chacha. She became his concubine and mother of his only two sons. Made lady of Yodo Castle, she took the name of Yodogimi. She saved her sister Ohatsu’s husband when she made Hideyoshi forgive the fugitive Takatsugu.

After Hideyoshi died in 1598, Takatsugu would turn against his heir, Toyotomi Hideyori (1593-1615), son of Yodogimi and Hideyoshi, and therefore a grandson of Oichi. On June 4, 1615, Yodogimi and her son found themselves defeated at Ōsaka Castle. Like their mother and grandmother Oichi, they committed seppuku together as their castle burned to the ground.

Oichi’s youngest daughter, Sūgen In, became the wife of the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada. Thus Oichi’s daughters achieved considerable success in their noble society.

Significance

Oichi lived for only thirty-five years, but she had a profound influence on the way Japanese noblewomen were perceived. The extremes of her innocent suffering, her obedience to her husband, and her final suicide provided a moral and philosophical model for her society. Her decisions were considered extremely brave and worthy of respect and imitation. Her intelligence, beauty, and noble birth linked her to the most powerful warlords of her time and made her especially fascinating. Her fate was held up as an illustration of the Japanese Buddhist belief that earthly life was apt to heap undeserved pain on even the kindest and best people.

In Japan, the fascination with Oichi continues. Her life became the subject of poetry, drama, and fiction. She is widely recognized in Japan as a woman who perfectly rose to the standards of her time. Although role models for women are being critically reexamined, especially in the light of feminist and antifeudal thinking, Oichi’s significance remains: She was a Japanese Renaissance woman struggling to survive in an extremely hostile and vicious world, and she ultimately remained true to her society’s high code of honor.

Bibliography

Jansen, Marius. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. Discusses the role of the Oda family in Japan’s transition to modern times. Bibliography, index.

Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro. “A Blind Man’s Tale.” In Seven Japanese Tales, translated by Howard Hibbett. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. Fictional account of Oichi’s life that is based on historical facts and brings her to life as a tragic person.

Tocco, Martha C. “Norms and Texts for Women’s Education in Tokugawa Japan.” In Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan, edited by Dorothy Ko. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. An in-depth account of the education of noblewomen such as Oichi. Illustrations, glossary, index.

Weston, Mark. Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan’s Greatest Men and Women. New York: Kodansha International, 1999. Chapters 17 and 18 deal with Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi and include a discussion of Oichi’s life. Bibliography, index.