Virtual Old Kamakura 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #18 Jonen-ji Temple

     Taira Tsunenaga (1024-1108) ruled some part of Kazusa and Shimousa Provinces.  His second son, Tsunekane (1045-1126), started calling his family Chiba.  His fourth son, Tsuneyasu (?-?), started calling his family Usui.

     The Usui Family built the Usui Castle by the middle of the 14th century.

     Usui Kagetane (1496-1557) was the last head of the family as the castellan.

     Hara Tanesada (1507-1575) married his daughter to the Usui Family.  Did he have the intension to trap the family into ruin from the start?  I don’t know.

     But Tanesada took away the Usui Castle after he or Hara Chikakimi (?-1589) assassinated his lord, Chiba Chikatane (1541-1557), the then head of the Chiba Clan, on August 7, 1557.  Tanesada kept his daughter's eldest son, Hisatane, in the castle.  Her second son, Tanetomo, escaped and reached Noba, Kamakura County, on August 15, 1557, with 30 of samurais and their family members and 300 of foot soldiers and their family members, that is farmers.  It was an army!  As Hisatane went in exile to the Yuki Castle of Yuki Harutomo (1534-1614) in 1561 at the age of 14, when the Usui Castle fell to Masaki Nobushige (1540-1564), one of the vassals of Satomi Yoshihiro(1530-1578), Tanetomo must have been just 8 or 9 years old at the time.

     7 years later, on March 25, 1564, presumably after Tanetomo came of age, Jonen-ji Temple was founded by him to pray for the repose of Chiba Chikatane and Usui Moritane (?-1557).  Chikatane was assassinated by Hara Tanesada on August 7.  Moritane was also killed on that occasion.

     Tanetomo not only led an evacuation army at the age of 8 or 9, he also built a temple as soon as he came of age.  Above all, he opened up the wilds in Noba to have his army settle there.  How able, competent, efficient, and maybe commanding he was!  Or was he?  There must have been someone else who supported him until he can show his leadership by himself.  As that someone’s name wasn’t recorded, the said person could have been a woman.

     Later, Tanetomo became the subject of the Later Hojo Clan.  But the clan was destroyed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) in 1590.  After that, Tanetomo became a farmer or a village headman at the age of 40 or so.

Generations later, his descendant runs Cafe Koyagi in Noba, Yokohama City today.

Address: 1843 Nobacho, Konan Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 234-0056

Phone: 045-842-7288 

Cafe Koyagi

Address: 1853 Nobacho, Konan Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 234-0056

Phone: 090-4816-1492

http://koyagi1853.blog.fc2.com