Background
Tachibana Muneshige was born on December 18, 1567. He was the eldest biological son of Takahashi Shigetane, a retainer of Ōtomo clan. He was adopted by Tachibana Dōsetsu.
宗茂 立花
Tachibana Muneshige was born on December 18, 1567. He was the eldest biological son of Takahashi Shigetane, a retainer of Ōtomo clan. He was adopted by Tachibana Dōsetsu.
Tachibana distinguished himself as a warrior when routed the army of Yoshihisa Shimazu when it tried to invade Bungo (Oita Prefecture) in 1586. After this he successfully fought against the Satsuma Clan, for which Hideyoshi Toyotomi gave him Yanagawa Castle in Chikugo with a fief of 130000 koku.
During the invasion of Korea he fought under Yukinaga Konishi and after defeating Li Josho occupied Heijo (Pyongyang) together with Nagamasa Kuroda. During the second invasion of Korea together with Nagamasa Kuroda and Naoshige Nabeshima Tachibana rescued Kiyomasa Kato from the besieged Urusan Castle in 1596.
He fought for Toyotomi's army again at the Sekigahara Battle in 1600, but after being defeated Muneshige retreated to his Yanagawa Castle. It is recorded that during the Shimabara-no-Ran (Christians revolt) he advised the Shogunate to maintain a siege strategy, which ended in success.
Tachibana married Tachibana Dōsetsu's daughter Tachibana Ginchiyo, succeeding the Tachibana clan.
Tachibana Ginchiyo (立花 誾千代) was head of the Japanese Tachibana clan during the Sengoku period. She was the daughter of Tachibana Dōsetsu, a powerful retainer of the Ōtomo clan (which were rivals of the Shimazu clan at the time).
