1056 — Yoritoki would not hand over his son
The fourth year of Tengi (1056).
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi made a single demand of Abe no Yoritoki.
“Hand over Sadato.”
Yoritoki’s eldest son, Abe no Sadato, was suspected of attacking Yoriyoshi’s camp.
Yoritoki refused.
The Mutsu Waki records Yoritoki’s words on the matter as amounting to this: the bond between father and son is fundamental to human nature, and a father cannot abandon his son even if that son has done something foolish.
This decision reignited the war with Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, which had for a time subsided.
It was the great turning point of the war later known as the Former Nine Years War.
Yoritoki was not simply a father swept away by sentiment.
He was the chief who ruled the Six Districts of Oku, the territory spanning what is now inland Iwate Prefecture. If he surrendered the central figure of his own clan on the strength of a mere accusation from the provincial governor, his own authority itself would be shaken.
Protecting his son as a father, and protecting his clan as ruler of the Six Districts of Oku.
For Yoritoki, the two could not be separated.
And barely a year after making this decision —
Yoritoki himself would lose his life on the battlefield.
Originally named “Yoriyoshi” — who was Abe no Yoritoki?
Abe no Yoritoki’s year of birth is unknown.
His father was Abe no Tadayoshi. His grandfather is traditionally said to have been Tadayori.
The Mutsu Waki describes the Abe as “overseers of the fushu” ruling the Six Districts of Oku. Yoritoki himself was originally known as Abe no Yoriyoshi, and called “An-Taifu.”
The origins of the Abe clan have long been debated — ties to the Abe of the capital, connections to the leading families of the ancient Emishi — but no source survives that fixes the genealogy for certain.
What is certain is that by the early eleventh century, the Abe had become the overwhelming power in the Six Districts of Oku.
Records from present-day Oshu City describe the Abe as having gained official standing as “overseers of the six districts” around the start of the eleventh century, growing into a power that in practice ruled the Six Districts of Oku outright.
The Six Districts of Oku were Isawa, Esashi, Waga, Hienuki, Shiwa, and Iwate.
This corresponds to today’s inland Iwate Prefecture, centered on the Kitakami River basin.
Seen from Heian-kyo, it was a distant northern frontier.
But to Yoritoki, this was the foundation his own family had built up over many generations.
A network of stockades, a family spread across the land — Yoritoki’s rule was never a single point
To understand the Abe’s strength, it helps to look at their “saku,” or stockades.
Koromogawa, Toribumi, Kurosawajiri, Kuriyagawa — the Abe held fortified stockades across the Kitakami River basin.
A saku here was never merely a military fort — it was a residence, a defensive installation, and a political base for controlling the surrounding region all at once.
Yoritoki placed members of his own family across the region and used marriage alliances as well to consolidate his sphere of power.
His sons-in-law included Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo and Taira no Nagahira.
Tsunekiyo was a local official of Mutsu with a foothold in the provincial government itself, and his son would become Fujiwara no Kiyohira, the founding lord of the Oshu Fujiwara.
In other words, Yoritoki’s house was never a clan closed off within the fushu world alone. Through marriage, it was tied directly to local officials connected to the provincial government, drawing the powerful figures of Oshu society to its own side.
This was the true source of Yoritoki’s strength.
Not “king of the Six Districts of Oku” — and yet the provincial government could not move against him easily
The provincial capital of Mutsu stood at Taga Castle.
It lay at a distance from Yoritoki’s own sphere of power in the Six Districts of Oku.
Formally, the Six Districts of Oku were part of Mutsu Province. Even so, on the ground it was the Abe who controlled the people and the land, and it was Yoritoki’s word that carried real authority.
The Mutsu Waki states that Yoriyoshi (the Abe chief) failed to pay the land tax owed to the provincial government, and expanded his power south of the Koromo River.
This account carries a strong bias from the side that ultimately defeated the Abe. Even so, it shows that tension over taxation and authority between the Abe and the provincial government had been rising.
Yoritoki was not an independent ruler entirely cut off from the court.
Nor was he a simple provincial official who moved obediently at the provincial government’s word.
He stood as an enormous local power occupying the space between the two.
1051 — Yoritoki defeats the provincial army at Onikiribe
In the sixth year of Eisho (1051), war finally broke out.
The Governor of Mutsu, Fujiwara no Narito, moved to subdue the Abe.
Taira no Shigenari, the Akita Castle Deputy, joined him as well, swelling the provincial army to several thousand men.
The two armies clashed at Onikiribe, identified with the area around Onikobe, Naruko Onsen, in present-day Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture.
Taira no Shigenari led the vanguard, with Narito commanding the rear.
Yoriyoshi, the Abe chief, met them with troops gathered from across the Six Districts of Oku.
And he defeated the provincial army.
The Mutsu Waki records that Narito’s army suffered heavy losses and fled the field.
What matters about this battle is that Yoritoki did not flee into the mountains and resist from hiding — he broke a provincial army several thousand strong in a direct confrontation.
The Governor of Mutsu, the court’s own representative in provincial administration, had sent an army against the local power in his province’s own north — and lost.
The Abe’s military strength could no longer be dismissed as negligible.
Fujiwara no Narito was removed from office.
His successor, sent to Mutsu in his place, was Minamoto no Yoriyoshi.
Despite winning at Onikiribe, Yoritoki submitted to Minamoto no Yoriyoshi
This is where Yoritoki becomes a genuinely fascinating figure.
Defeating the provincial army did not mean he pressed straight on into all-out war with the court.
In the seventh year of Eisho (1052), a general amnesty was declared to mark the recovery of Jotomon-in Shoshi from illness, and the Abe were pardoned as well.
Yoriyoshi, the Abe chief, submitted to the newly appointed Governor of Mutsu, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi.
The Mutsu Waki records an even more striking episode from this moment.
Both “Yoriyoshi” the Abe chief and “Yoriyoshi” the Minamoto governor were read the same way, Yoriyoshi.
Reluctant to share a name with the newly appointed governor, the Abe chief renamed himself Yoritoki.
The man who had just defeated a provincial army at Onikiribe now bowed his head to the new governor, and even changed his own name for it.
Yoritoki was never a man who chose nothing but continued war against the court.
He fought when he could win, and submitted when a relationship could be repaired.
He was a chief who made pragmatic decisions to protect the Six Districts of Oku.
Yoritoki, who “entertained Yoriyoshi lavishly”
For roughly four years afterward, the relationship between Yoritoki and Yoriyoshi held without major breakdown.
In the first year of Tengi (1053), Yoriyoshi also took on the post of Commander of the Chinjufu, becoming the central figure in Oshu’s military affairs.
Yoritoki, meanwhile, held his power across the Six Districts of Oku.
The Mutsu Waki records that when Yoriyoshi traveled into the Six Districts of Oku, Yoritoki prepared food and drink and entertained him lavishly.
From Yoritoki’s perspective, avoiding a direct clash with Yoriyoshi meant he could keep his hold on the Six Districts of Oku.
From Yoriyoshi’s perspective, as long as Yoritoki remained submissive, there was no need to launch a major military campaign.
The relationship between the two held in a tense but real balance.
What broke that balance was the Akutogawa Incident.
The Akutogawa Incident — suspicion falls on his son Sadato
The fourth year of Tengi (1056).
On his way back from the Chinjufu to the provincial capital, Yoriyoshi camped for the night near the Akutogawa River.
That night, the camp of Yoriyoshi’s retainers Fujiwara no Mitsusada and Motosada was attacked by unknown assailants, and men and horses were harmed.
According to the Mutsu Waki, when Yoriyoshi questioned him, Mitsusada named Abe no Sadato as the culprit.
He had his reasons.
Sadato had once asked to marry Mitsusada’s sister, but had been refused on grounds of family standing. Mitsusada claimed this attack was carried out in revenge for that refusal.
No other source confirms that Sadato actually ordered the attack.
What is certain here is only the sequence of events: Mitsusada named Sadato, and Yoriyoshi, accepting the accusation, demanded that Sadato be punished.
Yoriyoshi ordered Yoritoki to hand Sadato over.
It was here that Yoritoki made the decision described at the opening of this article.
“The love between father and son” — Yoritoki’s own words, preserved in the Mutsu Waki
Yoritoki refused to hand Sadato over.
The words the Mutsu Waki attributes to Yoritoki here are the single most famous passage for understanding the man.
Yoritoki is said to have declared, in substance, that the love between a father and his son is something human beings hold naturally, and that even if Sadato had done something foolish, he could not abandon him as a father.
Yoritoki had submitted to Yoriyoshi. He had even changed his own name.
And yet the one demand he would not accept was surrendering his own son.
To dismiss this simply as a doting father’s blind spot misses Yoritoki’s actual position.
Rule over the Six Districts of Oku rested on family, marriage, and ties to the powerful figures around him. If Yoritoki, at the summit of that structure, handed over his own eldest son on a one-sided accusation, the impression that “Yoritoki cannot protect his own clan” would spread.
This was a matter of family, but at the same time, a matter of his own credibility as a ruler.
Yoritoki protected Sadato. And he went to war with Yoriyoshi once again.
Two sons-in-law — how Yoritoki’s marriage strategy complicated the battlefield
Once fighting resumed, Yoritoki’s own family relationships became entangled in the battlefield itself.
Yoritoki’s sons-in-law Taira no Nagahira and Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo had initially stood on Yoriyoshi’s side.
Nagahira, seen wearing a silver-gleaming helmet while on the march, was suspected of secretly signaling to the enemy, and was killed by Yoriyoshi.
Tsunekiyo, present when it happened, realized he could easily be next.
He left Yoriyoshi’s army and fled to the Abe side.
From Yoritoki’s point of view, one son-in-law had been killed by Yoriyoshi, and the other had returned to him.
The Former Nine Years War was never a simple two-sided conflict of “the Minamoto against the Abe.”
It was a civil war in which local officials tied to the provincial government, fushu powers, and families bound together by marriage each chose sides according to the moment.
What Yoriyoshi truly targeted was Yoritoki’s outer circle
Yoriyoshi came to see that the Abe could not easily be broken by continued frontal assault alone.
So he turned his attention to the powerful figures on the northern edge of Yoritoki’s own sphere of influence.
According to the Mutsu Waki, Yoriyoshi sent the district magistrate of Kesen, Kon no Tametoki, and Shimotsukeno no Okishige north to work on these various powers. At their center stood Abe no Tomitada.
Though Tomitada bore the Abe name, his specific blood relationship to Yoritoki is unknown. Some research treats him as belonging to a separate northern lineage from Yoritoki’s own family. What matters is that a powerful figure holding sway even further north than the Six Districts of Oku had begun leaning toward Yoriyoshi’s side.
For Yoritoki, this was more dangerous than any frontal military assault.
Rule over the Six Districts of Oku had never rested on Yoritoki’s own military force alone. It depended on local chiefs across the region recognizing Yoritoki as their overlord, providing troops when needed, and moving people and goods on his behalf. That web of ties was the true source of Yoritoki’s strength.
People were beginning to slip out of that web.
Rather than sending a subordinate, Yoritoki went north himself.
Fewer than thirty men — Yoritoki went north to persuade, not to fight
The seventh month of the fifth year of Tengi (1057).
The party the Mutsu Waki describes Yoritoki traveling with numbered fewer than thirty men.
He had not gone to strike down Tomitada with a great army.
Yoritoki’s goal was to reason with the defecting northern powers over their shared interests, and win them back to his side once more.
This says a great deal about the kind of man Yoritoki was.
The chief who led the Six Districts of Oku went in person to settle matters face to face. He must have been confident that this alone could stop the defection. He likely believed that the relationships his family had built up over so many generations had not yet been fully severed.
But Tomitada’s side had already committed to Yoriyoshi.
What awaited Yoritoki was not a table for negotiation.
It was an ambush.
Ambushed in the mountains — a battle lasting two days
Tomitada had hidden troops in a treacherous stretch of terrain and struck Yoritoki’s party.
The Mutsu Waki describes this as a fierce battle lasting two full days.
Yoritoki’s side numbered fewer than thirty.
The enemy had concealed troops beforehand and lay in wait, using the terrain to their advantage.
Yoritoki, who had come to negotiate, was drawn straight into combat.
On mountain slopes and narrow paths, an ambushing force holds an overwhelming advantage even without great numbers. Yoritoki’s men fought back as they were surrounded.
And in the middle of the fighting, a single arrow struck Yoritoki.
The Mutsu Waki describes it as a stray arrow.
Not an arrow loosed by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi himself, nor the result of single combat against a named enemy commander. A single arrow, its origin unknown, dealt a mortal wound to the lord of the Six Districts of Oku.
The end of the man who had broken a provincial army several thousand strong at Onikiribe began with the most battlefield-ordinary kind of chance imaginable.
Wounded by an arrow, Yoritoki heads for Toribumi Stockade
Yoritoki did not die on the spot.
Grievously wounded, he left the battlefield.
He made for Toribumi Stockade.
The remains of Toribumi Stockade, in present-day Kanegasaki, Isawa District, Iwate Prefecture, mark one of the Abe’s leading eleventh-century strongholds. Excavations there have confirmed large pillar-supported buildings and moats, and the site was designated a National Historic Site on October 17, 2013. Kanegasaki identifies this site with the Toribumi Stockade named in the Mutsu Waki.
The lord of Toribumi Stockade is traditionally said to have been Yoritoki’s third son, Munetō.
Yoritoki made his way back to a stockade defended by his own family.
Recent research has raised the possibility that Yoritoki was making his way back toward his own residence near the Koromo River when he ran out of strength at Toribumi Stockade along the way. In other words, Toribumi Stockade may not have been Yoritoki’s chosen final destination at all, but simply the place where his badly wounded body gave out during the journey south.
Either way, no time remained for Yoritoki to rebuild his rule over the Six Districts of Oku while he still lived.
July 26, 1057 — Abe no Yoritoki dies
On the twenty-sixth day of the seventh month of the fifth year of Tengi (1057), Abe no Yoritoki died.
This date has been established through research cross-referencing the Mutsu provincial report preserved in the Mutsu Waki with an entry in the Hyakuren-sho.
His year of birth is unknown, and so his age at death is unknown as well.
What is known is his final few days.
A powerful northern chief defected, drawn away by Yoriyoshi’s scheming.
Yoritoki went north himself, with fewer than thirty men, to try to win him back.
He was ambushed, and fought for two days.
He was struck by a stray arrow.
And he made it back to Toribumi Stockade, where he died.
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi never cut Yoritoki down in a direct battle. What defeated the man who had broken a provincial army several thousand strong at Onikiribe was the campaign Yoriyoshi waged to erode his coalition from the edges, and Yoritoki’s own decision to go and stop that erosion himself.
This is the most striking part of Yoritoki’s death.
As ruler of the Six Districts of Oku, Yoritoki tried, to the very end, to rebuild his power through human bonds and relationships. That is exactly why he went in person, knowing full well the risk.
And it was in a fight against men who had defected from him that Yoritoki finally fell.
Six years after Onikiribe, in 1051.
The life of the man who broke a provincial army, submitted once to Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and even changed his own name for it, and refused only one thing — handing over his son Sadato — came to its end at Toribumi Stockade.
The son Yoritoki protected — to Sadato
Yoritoki’s death did not end the Abe’s war.
His successor was Abe no Sadato, the very son Yoritoki had refused to surrender to Yoriyoshi.
Munetō, Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo, and the others remained as well.
About four months after Yoritoki’s death, in the eleventh month of 1057, Sadato met Yoriyoshi’s army at Kinomi.
In the principal text of the Mutsu Waki, Yoriyoshi’s 1,800-odd troops faced an Abe army of over 4,000. Yoriyoshi was, in the end, driven down to barely seven riders, including himself.
(Read the full account of the Battle of Kinomi and the rest of the Former Nine Years War in English: Part 1 and Part 2.)
The son Yoritoki had risked everything to protect would, barely four months after his father’s death, inflict on Minamoto no Yoriyoshi the single greatest defeat of the entire Former Nine Years War.
