Kodaji Journal and the Shiokawa Family

      The Shiokawa Family was based in Tada Manor in Settsu Province.  What was the manor like?

     In the southern part of Inagawa-cho Town, the Tamba Belt, which was composed 150-250 million years ago, is exposed.  In the northern half, the Arima Belt, which was formed with volcanic ashes and lava caused by the volcanic activities 70-75 million years ago, covers the Tamba Belt.  When the lava contacted or penetrated the Tamba Belt, they formed hydrothermal deposits which became the veins of the Tada Silver and Copper Mine.  Before humans arrived, both the belts were densely covered with forests.  Accordingly, the main human industries there have been forestry and mining.

     In the mythical times, the god of Sumiyoshi Shrine incarnated as a young man, and sent wood through the Ina River to build the shrine building.  His brilliant figure charmed the goddesses of the Rivers Ina and Muko.  The two fought hard to be his wife.  The Ina Goddess threw stones against the Muko Goddess, defeated her, and extracted all the dropwort along the Muko River.  Hence, the Ina River has dropwort but no big stones, and the Muko River has big stones but no dropwort.  The legend suggests that the Ina River was used to send wood even from the prehistoric times.

     In legendary times, Okinagatarashi, a legendary empress, was said to have made a military expedition to Silla in the Korean Peninsula.  A historical record of the Three Kingdoms of Korea (Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla) recorded 14 organized piracies by Wa, the Japanese kingdom, by the end of the 4th century, and Okinagatarashi’s expedition to Silla might have been one of those piracies.  For her expedition, Okinagatarashi counted on the arts of shipbuilding and those of navigation of the people living along the north coast of today’s Osaka Bay. When she was going to leave Japan, she followed the suggestion of the local people living around today’s Amagasaki City and built warships with Japanese cedars in the upper reaches of today’s Ina River.  It could have been with the ceder trees in the Tada area that Okinagatarashi had built her warships.

     The central part of Inagawa-cho used to be called Yanai-zu, which is called Ki-zu (literally Wood Port) today, and which might have been a point to gather wood and to send them out through the river.  Gyoki (668-749), who helped building Todai-ji Temple, is said to have built Yanaizu-in Temple there, whose successor could be Tentaku-ji Temple today.  When the Tada Silver and Copper mines supplied copper to build the Great Buddha of Todai-ji Temple, they might have provided some wood to the mines.  

     In the 8th century, there lived the Yanaizu-muraji Family, who governed the forestry there.  The wood was sent presumably through the Ina River to Itami, and was processed by the Ina-be Family there.

     Even today, the forests cover 80% of Inagawa-cho.

     In Japan, the local administration system with provinces and counties was organized under the central government in the 7th century.  At first, there only used to be Kawabe County under Settsu Province.  In the 8th century, Nose County got independent from Kawabe County.  It was those days that copper mines were developed in the area.

     In 708, the first copper was mined in Chichibu, Musashi Province.  Only a couple of decades later, before the middle of the century, copper mining started in Tada.  Legend says it that the copper mined in Tada was used for the Great Buddha of Todai-ji Temple.  Legend has it that Minamoto Mitsunaka (?-997) started living in Tada, and also mined copper there.  The oldest written records date back only to 1037, when the mining-copper office was organized at Noma, Nose County, Settsu Province.  They started keeping books there.

     The Tada Manor was owned by the Minamoto Clan at large.  After the Jokyu War in 1221, it belonged to the Kamakura Shogunata.  After the collapse of the shogunate in 1333, its ownership was unstable and the local powerful families became independent samurai.  In the Warring States Period, the Shiokawa Family was the top of the samurai families in the manor.

     Shiokawa Nagamitsu (1538-1586) became the head of the family a couple of years before Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) advanced to Kyoto in 1568 with Ashikaga Yoshiaki (1537-1597) as a puppet shogun.

     In August, 1568, Nagamitsu dispatched his vassal, Shiokawa Magodayu, to Omi Province to find out political and military situations.  Magodayu was reasoned by Tanemura Okura, a vassal of Rokkaku Yoshikata (1521-1598), into going back to Tada.

     In 1569, Magodayu was killed in battle in Awa Province, with his surviving child, Yorikazu, adopted by Nagamitsu.

     Anyway, Nagamitsu became subject to Nobunaga after he advanced to Kyoto.  After Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, Nagamitsu became subject to Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), who set his eyes on the Tada Silver and Copper Mine.  From 1583 to 1586, Hideyoshi took away Nagamitsu's territory step by step.  Finally in 1588, Nagamitsu was dismissed and lost his whole territory.

     Yorikazu's son, Motomitsu, celebrated his coming of age in 1616.  A vassal of Motomitsu's ia supposed to have compiled Kodaiji Journal.