April 24, 1583 — Kitanosho Castle Burns
On the 24th day of the 4th month, the 11th year of Tensho (1583), Kitanosho Castle in Echizen Province was engulfed in flame.
Its lord was Shibata Katsuie.
A man who had once served Nobunaga’s younger brother and fought against Nobunaga himself, before becoming one of Nobunaga’s own senior retainers, entrusted with Echizen and ultimately with the military command of the entire Hokuriku region.
Now that same Katsuie was being driven into a corner by Hashiba Hideyoshi.
Three days earlier, on the 21st of the 4th month, the Battle of Shizugatake in Omi Province had broken the Shibata army. Katsuie fled north along the Hokkoku Road to the very Kitanosho he himself had built, but Hideyoshi’s pursuit was swift.
On the 23rd, the assault on Kitanosho Castle began, and by the end of that same day the outer defenses had been breached, leaving only the honmaru standing.
The following day, the 24th, Katsuie fought to the very end.
According to the Mori Family Documents, as cited in the Fukui Prefectural History, Katsuie opened the gates and sallied out against the enemy seven times. Then, in the evening, he met his end together with his wife, Oichi.
A man who had once taken up arms against Nobunaga fought for him for more than twenty years afterward, only to fall barely ten months after Nobunaga’s own death.
The rise and fall of the Oda house is written directly into the life of Shibata Katsuie.
Birth Year Uncertain — the Young Katsuie Is Barely Visible
Shibata Katsuie’s birth year is not firmly established.
He is commonly said to have been born in the second year of Taiei (1522). This figure is worked backward from the later Shibata Katsuie-ko Shimatsuki, which gives his age at death in 1583 as sixty-two.
In fact, the Fukui Prefectural Library notes that sources describing Katsuie’s origins, family, and early life — the Shincho Ko-ki, the Taikoki, the Shibata Katsuie-ko Shimatsuki, and others — are all fragmentary.
His common name was Gonroku; he later took the title Shurinosuke.
A tradition places his birthplace around present-day Meito Ward, Nagoya City, but no detailed record of his childhood survives.
By the time Katsuie clearly steps into history, he already appears as a full-grown warrior.
And his lord at that time was not Oda Nobunaga.
It was Nobunaga’s own younger brother, Oda Nobuyuki.
When Nobunaga’s Father Died, Katsuie Was Nobuyuki’s Foremost Retainer
Around the 21st year of Tenbun (1552), Oda Nobuhide, Nobunaga’s father, died.
According to the Fukui City Museum of Local History, Katsuie’s name first appears clearly in the Shincho Ko-ki in the entries following Nobuhide’s death.
There, Katsuie appears as the foremost retainer of Nobunaga’s younger brother, Oda Nobuyuki.
Even after Nobunaga inherited the Oda house, it was not a unified body.
The young Nobunaga was known for his eccentric behavior, and there were those within the Oda ranks who supported his brother Nobuyuki instead.
Hayashi Hidesada. Hayashi Mimasaka-no-kami. And Shibata Katsuie.
Katsuie did not begin his career as a loyal retainer of Nobunaga.
If anything, he stood among those trying to pull Nobunaga down from his position as head of the house.
1556 — Shibata Katsuie Marches Out to Defeat Nobunaga
The 24th day of the 8th month, the second year of Koji (1556).
The rivalry within Owari finally erupted into open battle.
This was the Battle of Ino.
The Shincho Ko-ki records that Katsuie, on Nobuyuki’s side, marched out with roughly 1,000 men, and that Hayashi Mimasaka-no-kami’s forces added another 700 or so. Nobunaga’s own army, by contrast, numbered fewer than 700.
In sheer numbers, Nobuyuki’s side had the advantage.
Katsuie himself fought at the front, and the Shincho Ko-ki records that he cut down Nobunaga’s man Yamada Jirozaemon.
Even so, the battle turned against them.
When Nobunaga himself pushed to the front and rallied his men, the enemy troops — men who had, after all, once belonged to the same Oda house — wavered, and Nobuyuki’s forces fell back.
Katsuie, too, was wounded and fled the field.
At this point in his life, Katsuie stood in a place hard to reconcile with his later image as “the fiercest warrior in the Oda house.”
He was a man who had tried to bring down Nobunaga, and had been defeated by Nobunaga himself.
Nobunaga Did Not Kill the Defeated Katsuie
After the Battle of Ino, Nobuyuki’s life was spared, thanks in part to the intercession of their mother, Lady Doda.
Katsuie, too, was pardoned.
Here was a man who had actually led an army against his own lord in a succession dispute among Sengoku warlords. It would not have been strange at all for Katsuie to lose his life over it.
Even so, Nobunaga chose to keep a useful man alive.
And the following year, 1557, Katsuie himself made a momentous decision.
When Nobuyuki moved to challenge Nobunaga once again, it was Katsuie who informed Nobunaga this time.
The Shincho Ko-ki also describes, as background, how Nobuyuki’s favored retainer Tsuzuki Kurando had grown in influence, leaving Katsuie increasingly sidelined. Katsuie passed word of Nobuyuki’s renewed plotting to Nobunaga.
Warned by Katsuie that his brother was scheming against him once more, Nobunaga feigned illness. Nobuyuki, visiting Kiyosu Castle to see his ailing brother, was attacked within the castle by Kawajiri Hidetaka and others, and killed.
Katsuie had abandoned the lord he had once championed.
From here, he would live as a retainer of Nobunaga.
Serving Nobunaga — a Former Enemy Rises Into the Senior Ranks
After Nobuyuki’s death, Katsuie joined Nobunaga’s own retainer band.
From here, Katsuie built up an unbroken record of achievement on the battlefield.
The Fukui City Museum of Local History notes that Katsuie took part in Nobunaga’s major campaigns, including the capture of Inuyama Castle, the attack on the Rokkaku clan of Omi, the campaigns against the Asakura and Azai, and the Battle of Nagashino.
In the 11th year of Eiroku (1568), when Nobunaga marched on Kyoto in support of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Katsuie took part in the campaign to subdue the Kinai region as well.
By this time he had grown beyond the rank of a single field officer into a senior retainer capable of commanding multiple units at once.
Barely a decade or so had passed since 1556, when he had fought against Nobunaga on Nobuyuki’s side.
Katsuie had become a man Nobunaga once again entrusted with major responsibilities.
Chokoji Castle — How True Is “Kame-wari Shibata,” the Water-Jar Story?
Katsuie carries a famous nickname.
“Kame-wari Shibata” — “Jar-Smashing Shibata.”
In the first year of Genki (1570), Katsuie was besieged at Chokoji Castle in Omi by the forces of the Rokkaku clan, and his water supply was cut off.
Katsuie is said to have had his men drink what water remained, and then smashed the water jars.
“There is no more holding this castle. There is nothing left but to break out and fight.”
With that resolve settled in his men, he is said to have led a sortie and broken the Rokkaku army.
This episode is widely known, and appears in the Fukui Prefectural History as an example of Katsuie’s valor.
The sources that describe the smashing of the water jars in detail include later Edo-period military tales such as the Josan Kidan.
When later generations wanted to describe Katsuie as a “fierce general,” this water-jar story made for perfect material.
“Demon Shibata,” “Charging Shibata” — Famous Names That Deserve Some Caution
Katsuie is also known today as “Oni Shibata” — “Demon Shibata.”
And the nickname “Kakare Shibata” — “Charging Shibata” comes up often as well.
It is sometimes explained as coming from his habit of pressing the attack with cries of “Don’t retreat, charge!”
In 1575, Nobunaga entrusted this warrior of many nicknames with the greater part of Echizen and military command of the entire Hokuriku region.
1575 — After Crushing the Echizen Ikko-ikki, Nobunaga Hands Katsuie What Comes Next
In the third year of Tensho (1575), the Ikko-ikki had built a formidable power base in Echizen.
Nobunaga invaded Echizen in the 8th month and mounted a thorough assault on the Ikko-ikki forces.
After the pacification, on the 2nd day of the 9th month, the new administrative structure for Echizen was decided.
Nobunaga entrusted Katsuie with
the eight districts of Sakakita, Sakaminami, Yoshida, Asuwakita, Asuwaminami, Nyubukita, Imakita-nishi, and Imakita-higashi.
Around Fuchu, meanwhile, Maeda Toshiie, Sassa Narimasa, and Fuwa Mitsuharu were placed as the so-called “Three Men of Fuchu,” while Kanamori Nagachika and others were stationed toward Ono.
It is often written that Katsuie was “granted 490,000 koku of Echizen,” but rather than reducing this era’s system of control to a later koku figure, it is more faithful to the sources to say that he was entrusted with eight districts of Echizen and military command over the entire province.
Furthermore, men like Maeda Toshiie were not Katsuie’s own retainers.
They remained warriors directly under Nobunaga, designated as “yoriki” who came under Katsuie’s command specifically for military operations.
Katsuie had become the military commander of the entire Hokuriku front.
Why Did Nobunaga Entrust Echizen to Katsuie?
The Shincho Ko-ki offers one explanation for why Nobunaga entrusted Echizen to Katsuie: that it was a reward for the “loyalty” Katsuie had shown long before, in reporting Nobuyuki’s second plot.
Which would mean Nobunaga still remembered something that had happened nearly twenty years earlier.
Even so, the Katsuie of 1575 was not a man handed a great province purely on the strength of an old debt.
To the north lay the Kaga Ikko-ikki. Beyond them, Uesugi Kenshin.
Echizen itself was still in turmoil, fresh from the suppression of its own uprising.
What Nobunaga needed was not simply a capable fighter, but a man who could hold together warriors on the scale of an entire province and govern a devastated region.
Katsuie was the man chosen for that task.
Abandoning the Asakura’s Ichijodani, Katsuie Chooses Kitanosho
Katsuie did not use Ichijodani, the former stronghold of the Asakura clan, as his base for ruling Echizen.
He chose Kitanosho instead — the heart of present-day Fukui City.
Roughly ten kilometers northwest of Ichijodani.
A key crossroads where the Hokuriku Road met the Asuwa River, and which connected onward toward Mino.
From a mountain-ringed castle town belonging to the Asakura, to a transportation hub on the open plain.
Here we can see Katsuie’s own thinking about how to rule the Hokuriku region.
Build Kitanosho Castle, and draw merchants, artisans, and temples in around it.
From here, Katsuie meant to survey all of Hokuriku.
A Decree Prioritizing “Farmers’ Fieldwork” Over Building Kitanosho Castle
Katsuie is remembered as a fierce general, but the sources that survive from his time in Echizen show the face of an administrator as clearly as that of a warrior.
The 3rd month, the fourth year of Tensho (1576).
Katsuie issued a seven-article “provincial decree” for the governance of Echizen.
Its content is striking.
Building Kitanosho Castle required a great deal of labor.
Even so, Katsuie forbade the arbitrary conscription of laborers.
Any demand for labor required a formal summons bearing Katsuie’s own seal.
He even limited the entertainment offered to messengers to one soup, two side dishes, and about one cup of sake.
A lord building his castle did not simply take as much from the farmers as he pleased.
Rebuilding an Echizen devastated by the uprising meant, first of all, bringing people back to their fields and restarting agriculture.
Katsuie understood that reality.
Land Surveys — Grasping Villages and Land in Numbers
Katsuie also carried out land surveys in Echizen.
Who farmed which land, and how much tax each owed.
He worked to untangle the complicated rights inherited from the medieval period, so that the ruler could grasp both the land and its yield.
A surviving record shows that Katsuie’s survey of the Oda Daimyojin shrine lands confirmed holdings of just over 1,489 koku.
This came before Hideyoshi’s own famous Taiko land survey.
Naturally, the system and precision were not identical to the later Taiko survey.
Even so, this record cannot be explained by the view of Katsuie as “merely a warrior who put down an uprising by force.”
He was, at once, the supreme commander of the Hokuriku front and a lord who surveyed land, organized tax revenue, and governed villages.
1576 — Ordering a “Sword Sweep”
That same year, 1576.
Katsuie ordered a “sword sweep” of the Oda temples and shrines in Nyu District.
This is sometimes introduced as “Katsuie carried out a sword hunt twelve years before Hideyoshi’s own.”
But this, too, deserves a careful look.
According to the Fukui Prefectural History, this “sarae” carried the sense of inspection or exposure, and this particular sword sweep may have been a system for requiring the surrender of swords in proportion to landholding or rank.
What is more, at around the same time, Katsuie’s side was actually demanding that temples and adherents opposed to the Hongan-ji faction arm themselves.
It cannot, then, simply be treated as the same policy as Hideyoshi’s nationwide sword-hunting edict of 1588.
It is easier to understand as Katsuie exercising tight control, in an Echizen freshly emerged from an uprising, over who was allowed to bear arms and whose weapons needed to be managed.
“The Collected Swords Became a Chain for a Pontoon Bridge” Is a Later Story
There is a famous story that Katsuie melted down the swords he collected and turned them into farm tools.
Or that he forged them into the chain for a pontoon bridge across the Kuzuryu River.
This tale, too, is widely known.
But the Fukui Prefectural History attributes it to later Edo-period works such as the Akechi Gunki and the Shibata Katsuie Shimatsuki, and states plainly that there is no confirmation of it.
Drawing Merchants and Artisans to Kitanosho
Katsuie drew people to Kitanosho.
He ordered merchants who had fled to other provinces during the uprising to return.
Merchants and artisans who had lived in Ichijodani and elsewhere were relocated to Kitanosho as well.
Foundry workers were granted residences.
A surviving record from the 8th year of Tensho (1580) shows that foundry workers who had come from Gobuichi were each granted a residence fifteen ken square, exempt from various levies.
In the 9th month of 1576, Katsuie also held a free market (rakuichi) in Kitanosho.
What Katsuie was building was not simply an enormous military base.
It was a city — a place where people lived, traded, produced goods, and paid taxes.
Katsuie’s Kitanosho holds an important place as the starting point of the urban development that would grow into the heart of present-day Fukui City.
The Missionary Frois Sees Shibata Katsuie
The 18th day of the 5th month, the 8th year of Tensho (1580).
The Jesuit missionary Luis Frois visited Katsuie at Kitanosho.
Frois’s own account hints at the scale of Katsuie’s authority there.
According to the Fukui Prefectural History, the people of Kitanosho called Katsuie “Ue-sama” — “my lord above” — and called his own son “Tono-sama,” “my lord.”
This did not mean, of course, that Katsuie had become some daimyo independent of Nobunaga.
But even while remaining under Nobunaga’s rule, he held authority in Echizen on almost that scale.
In 1556, Shibata Gonroku had raised his banner against Nobunaga.
Twenty-four years later, that same man had risen to govern territory on the scale of an entire province.
The Hokuriku Army — Katsuie’s Enemy Was Uesugi Kenshin
The greatest military reason for placing Katsuie in Echizen was defense against the north.
The Kaga Ikko-ikki. And Uesugi Kenshin of Echigo.
Katsuie himself, in a surviving letter, describes his own posting to Echizen in terms of “guarding the northern provinces.”
The fifth year of Tensho (1577).
Kenshin attacked Nanao Castle in Noto.
Nanao Castle fell on the 15th of the 9th month.
Nobunaga, in response, sent an army to Hokuriku with Katsuie as its supreme commander.
Among them: Hashiba Hideyoshi. Takigawa Kazumasu. Niwa Nagahide. Maeda Toshiie. Sassa Narimasa. Kanamori Nagachika.
A formidable roster of commanders.
This lineup alone shows Katsuie’s standing.
On the Hokuriku front, Nobunaga placed Katsuie as the supreme commander over warriors of this caliber.
Hideyoshi Leaves Without Permission — the Two Men Had Already Clashed in 1577
During the Hokuriku campaign, trouble broke out between Katsuie and Hashiba Hideyoshi.
According to the Shincho Ko-ki, while campaigning alongside Katsuie and the others, Hideyoshi withdrew his own troops and returned home without informing Nobunaga.
Nobunaga was furious.
Six years before Shizugatake.
Katsuie and Hideyoshi had already collided within the very same army.
This one incident does not, by itself, prove the two had been sworn enemies for years.
Even so, the fact that Hideyoshi broke away from an army under Katsuie’s supreme command is remarkably suggestive, given what followed between the two men.
Tedorigawa — Read the “Crushing Defeat by Kenshin” Story with Caution
The 23rd day of the 9th month, 1577.
A battle later known as the Battle of Tedorigawa is said to have taken place.
The Fukui Prefectural History summarizes it as a crushing night-battle defeat of Nobunaga’s army, under Katsuie’s supreme command, at the hands of Uesugi Kenshin.
But the surviving sources for this battle are difficult to interpret.
The Shincho Ko-ki records Katsuie’s advance into Hokuriku and Hideyoshi’s unauthorized withdrawal, but does not describe a large-scale “decisive Battle of Tedorigawa” in any detail. Uesugi-side sources confirm a pursuit of the Oda army, but scholars still debate whether it was truly the massive battle later tradition describes.
The safest reading, then, is to establish only that Katsuie’s army was forced to withdraw under pressure from Kenshin’s forces, without too readily adding dramatic troop numbers or catastrophic losses.
There is no doubt that Kenshin was the most formidable enemy Katsuie faced in Hokuriku.
But in the 3rd month of the following year, 1578, Kenshin died suddenly.
After Kenshin’s Death — Katsuie Secures Kaga
When Uesugi Kenshin died, the Uesugi house fell into the Otate Disturbance.
The situation in Hokuriku shifted at once.
Katsuie pushed north again.
By around the 8th year of Tensho (1580), he had brought most of Kaga under control.
The Oda army pushed further, into Etchu.
Sassa Narimasa. Maeda Toshiie. Sakuma Morimasa.
Katsuie was surrounded by commanders who had fought in Hokuriku for years alongside him.
By this point, Katsuie was no longer simply “one of Nobunaga’s veteran retainers.”
He was the regional army commander who single-handedly carried the Oda regime’s control of all Hokuriku.
1582 — Beyond Uozu Castle, Nobunaga Dies
In the 10th year of Tensho (1582), Katsuie was fighting Uesugi Kagekatsu in Etchu.
One target was Uozu Castle.
On the 3rd of the 6th month, Uozu Castle fell to the Oda attack.
But the day before, on the 2nd of the 6th month.
In Kyoto, the Honnoji Incident had already occurred.
Oda Nobunaga was dead.
While Katsuie and the Hokuriku forces learned the news and turned their army back, Hashiba Hideyoshi had already returned from the Chugoku region.
On the 13th of the 6th month, the Battle of Yamazaki.
Hideyoshi defeated Akechi Mitsuhide.
Katsuie made it back as far as Omi and issued a proclamation in Sakata District on the 18th of the 6th month, but he arrived too late to take part in striking down Mitsuhide.
It was not that Katsuie’s military strength had been lacking.
He had simply been fighting too far away.
And in the politics that followed Nobunaga’s death, that gap in timing proved decisive.
Hideyoshi entered Kiyosu as “the man who avenged his lord.”
June 27 — the Kiyosu Conference
Twenty-five days after the Honnoji Incident, on the 27th of the 6th month.
The senior retainers of the Oda house gathered at Kiyosu in Owari.
Shibata Katsuie. Hashiba Hideyoshi. Niwa Nagahide. Ikeda Tsuneoki.
Here they debated who would succeed Nobunaga and how his territory would be divided.
The Fukui Prefectural History, drawing on sources such as the Tamon-in Diary, records that Katsuie backed Nobunaga’s third son, Oda Nobutaka, while Hideyoshi backed Nobutada’s young son, Sanposhi.
In the end, it was decided that the Oda house would be supported around Sanposhi, Nobunaga’s own grandson and heir by blood.
Hideyoshi did not seize total control at this point.
Katsuie, too, secured Nagahama in Omi and installed his adopted son, Shibata Katsutoyo, there.
In the aftermath of Nobunaga’s death, the Oda regime remained one in which several senior retainers still held real power.
That balance would collapse within roughly half a year.
Oichi Comes to Kitanosho
After the Kiyosu Conference, Katsuie married Oichi.
Nobunaga’s own younger sister, and the widow of Azai Nagamasa.
The daughters she had borne with Azai Nagamasa —
Chacha. Ohatsu. Go.
All three moved to Kitanosho as well.
The Fukui Prefectural History records that the marriage between Katsuie and Oichi was decided at the Kiyosu Conference, and that around the 10th month of 1582, Oichi entered Kitanosho with her three daughters.
Katsuie and Oichi had barely half a year together as husband and wife.
By the time Oichi entered Kitanosho, the rift with Hideyoshi had already deepened.
Katsuie Criticizes Hideyoshi
The 10th month, 1582.
In a letter to Hori Hidemasa, Katsuie criticized Hideyoshi’s high-handed unilateral conduct.
Shortly afterward, Hideyoshi held Nobunaga’s funeral at Daitoku-ji.
Katsuie and Nobutaka were shut out of that leadership.
Nobutaka. Katsuie. Takigawa Kazumasu.
The forces opposed to Hideyoshi began drawing together.
In the 11th month of that same year, Katsuie sent troops into Omi, while at the same time dispatching Maeda Toshiie and others to Hideyoshi to attempt a settlement.
Katsuie did not charge headlong into war from the very start.
Once winter came, he would be unable to move a large army out of Echizen.
He was trying to buy time with that in mind as well.
But Hideyoshi used that very winter against him.
Echizen Snowed In — Hideyoshi Moves First
Winter in Echizen is heavy.
Once the snow piled up, moving a large army south along the Hokuriku Road became difficult.
In that window, Hideyoshi acted.
He forced the surrender of Shibata Katsutoyo at Nagahama Castle. He pressed Oda Nobutaka at Gifu.
One by one, he cut the anti-Hideyoshi coalition apart.
Katsuie could only watch from Kitanosho as his allies in the Kinai region fell away.
Then, in the spring of 1583.
The snow melted. Katsuie left Kitanosho.
On the 3rd of the 3rd month, he set up his headquarters around Yanagase in Omi.
The decisive struggle with Hideyoshi had begun.
Shizugatake — Katsuie’s War Began to Collapse With Sakuma Morimasa’s Attack
The two armies faced off around Lake Yogo.
On the Shibata side stood Sakuma Morimasa, Maeda Toshiie, and Shibata Katsumasa, among others.
Hideyoshi’s side built a line of forts centered on Kinomoto.
The front lines shifted dramatically between the 20th and 21st of the 4th month.
Katsuie’s man Sakuma Morimasa launched a sudden attack on the fort at Oiwayama.
He killed its defending commander, Nakagawa Kiyohide.
Up to this point, the Shibata forces were winning.
But Morimasa remained at the front.
In that window, Hideyoshi — who had been moving toward Gifu — raced back to Omi at astonishing speed.
And on the 21st of the 4th month, the Shibata front line broke.
Maeda Toshiie’s own unit then pulled away from the battle as well.
The men left around Katsuie dwindled.
The Fukui Prefectural History records that, in the end, his retainer Menju Katsuteru took up Katsuie’s own battle standard, the golden gohei, and fought on as a decoy while Katsuie himself withdrew to Kitanosho.
Katsuie’s war was over.
All that remained was to make it back to Kitanosho alive.
To Kitanosho — Back to the Town He Himself Had Built
Since 1575, Katsuie had built Kitanosho with his own hands.
He had built the castle. Laid out the town. Called merchants back. Relocated artisans. Carried out land surveys.
He had guaranteed the holdings of temples and shrines. He had sent out the Hokuriku army from here.
Now, in the 4th month of 1583, he returned to that same town as a defeated commander.
Roughly eight years after making Kitanosho his base.
The place he had built to rule Hokuriku would now become his final castle, exactly as it stood.
Hideyoshi’s army closed in from the north as well.
April 23 — the Assault on Kitanosho Castle Begins
The 23rd of the 4th month.
Hideyoshi’s army began its assault on Kitanosho Castle.
The Fukui Prefectural History records that the outer defensive line was broken that same day, leaving only the honmaru standing.
Oichi’s three daughters were sent out of the castle and handed over to Hideyoshi’s side.
Chacha. Ohatsu. Go.
All three survived.
Chacha later became Hideyoshi’s consort and bore Toyotomi Hideyori.
Ohatsu married Kyogoku Takatsugu.
Go became the principal wife of Tokugawa Hidetada, and the mother of Tokugawa Iemitsu.
The three sisters who parted ways at Kitanosho Castle went on to enter the very center of both the Toyotomi and Tokugawa houses.
Oichi, meanwhile, remained at Katsuie’s side.
April 24 — “Watch How I Cut My Belly”
The following day, the 24th, the final assault began.
Katsuie did not sit quietly behind the walls and wait for death.
According to the Mori Family Documents, he opened the gates and sallied out seven times.
Even so, the gap in numbers could not be closed.
In the evening, Katsuie chose death together with Oichi.
According to the record cited in the Fukui Prefectural History, Katsuie climbed to the tenshu at the very end and called out to the enemy pressing in below,
telling them to watch closely, for their own future reference, how he cut open his own belly.
The fine details of this scene carry some of the flavor of later military chronicles.
Even so, it is certain that Katsuie took his own life at Kitanosho Castle, and that Oichi died on the very same day.
The Fukui Prefectural History’s own chronology places the fall of Kitanosho Castle on the 24th of the 4th month, the 11th year of Tensho.
How Old Was Katsuie?
The Shibata Katsuie-ko Shimatsuki gives Katsuie’s age as sixty-two.
From that figure, the widely known birth year of 1522 was worked out.
But no reliable contemporary source directly states his year of birth.
The safest way to put it, then, is this: he died in 1583, and a later record gives his age at death as sixty-two.
Even Hideyoshi, His Enemy, Did Not See Katsuie as a Weak Warrior
The man who defeated him, Hideyoshi, is recorded in the Mori Family Documents as having described Katsuie as
“a warrior long tempered in the ways of arms.”
A man forged over many years through military life.
The phrase fits Katsuie’s life very well.
Fighting Nobunaga as part of Nobuyuki’s army.
Moving into Nobunaga’s own retainer band. Fighting in Omi. Fighting the Azai and Asakura. Fighting the Ikko-ikki.
Standing against Uesugi Kenshin. Governing Echizen. Leading the Hokuriku army.
And finally, fighting Hideyoshi.
For nearly thirty years, war was almost never absent from Katsuie’s life.
Even So, “Fierce General” Alone Does Not Explain Shibata Katsuie
Hear the name Shibata Katsuie, and images of ferocity come first.
Demon Shibata. Jar-Smashing Shibata. Shizugatake. Kitanosho Castle.
That valiant image tends to come first.
But reading the sources that survive from Echizen reveals a different Katsuie.
Restricting the conscription of laborers. Limiting hospitality for messengers to one soup and two side dishes.
Carrying out land surveys. Holding free markets. Calling merchants back. Granting artisans their own homes.
Guaranteeing the holdings of temples and shrines. Building a castle town at Kitanosho.
What Nobunaga entrusted to Katsuie was not military force alone.
It was the task of rebuilding a province devastated by uprising, and building from it a system capable of pacifying the whole of Hokuriku.
Katsuie pursued that task for eight years.
The Man Who Betrayed Nobunaga Fought Hideyoshi, in the End, for the Sake of the Oda House
In 1556, Katsuie championed Oda Nobuyuki and tried to bring down Nobunaga.
In 1557, he warned Nobunaga of Nobuyuki’s renewed plotting.
In 1575, Nobunaga entrusted him with eight districts of Echizen and military command of Hokuriku.
In 1582, that same Nobunaga died at Honnoji.
In 1583, Katsuie allied with Oda Nobutaka and others and fought Hideyoshi, whose power was rapidly expanding after Nobunaga’s death.
And he died at Kitanosho.
Katsuie’s life does not run in a single straight line of loyalty.
There were times he abandoned a lord. Times he was defeated.
He once retreated before Kenshin. Hideyoshi outmaneuvered him completely in the end.
And yet the very man who had fought Nobunaga at Ino rose, in time, to be entrusted by that same Nobunaga with the whole of Hokuriku.
That is what makes Shibata Katsuie such a compelling figure.
On April 24, 1583, when Kitanosho Castle fell.
What vanished was not one fierce general alone.
It was a man who, within Nobunaga’s own retainer band, had fought for years as a senior figure standing alongside men like Sakuma Nobumori and Niwa Nagahide.
And Hashiba Hideyoshi, who defeated Katsuie, would within a few short years move beyond the standing of a mere senior Oda retainer altogether.
The death of Shibata Katsuie marked the great boundary at which the age of Oda Nobunaga ended, and the age of Toyotomi Hideyoshi began.
