Chikafusa Kitabatake was a statesman and military leader of the period of the Northern and Southern Courts and author of the Jinno shotoki.
Background
Chikafusa Kitabatake was born on 8 March 1293 in Japan. He was the son of Acting Dainagon Kitabatake Moroshige. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father had all been court officials in the service of the Daikaku-ji line of emperors, and as a result Chikafusa himself entered the service of Emperor Godaigo.
Career
In time he came to be numbered, along with Madenokoji Nobufusa and Yoshida Sadafusa, as one of the emperor’s three most trusted ministers. The emperor entrusted him with the upbringing of liis second son, Prince Yonaga, but when the prince died prematurely in 1330, Chikafusa in grief retired from active life and took Buddhist vows. With the Kemmu Restoration a few years later, when Emperor Godaigo began to rule in person, Chikafusa returned to political life and eventually advanced to the court rank of junior first rank and the post of daijin (minister).
In 1333, when Chikafusa’s eldest son, Akiie, was appointed governor of Mutsu and ordered to serve the emperor’s son Prince Munenaga, Chikafusa accompanied him to Mutsu, taking up residence in the government office at Taga. In 1335, when Ashikaga Takauji began his revolt in Kamakura and assumed the title of seii-taishogun, Akiie was given a military title and ordered to launch an attack on Takauji, who had taken up a position in Kyoto. Chikafusa joined his son and Prince Yoshinaga in the attack, which eventually forced Takauji to flee to Kyushu. But Takauji quickly recovered from the blow, returned east, and occupied Kyoto once more. Emperor Godaigo was placed in confinement, and Emperor Komyo of the Jimyo-in line ascended the throne. Chikafusa at this time was in Ise, where he and his second son, Akinobu, were attending Prince Munenaga and working to maintain control of the area. He made arrangements for Emperor Godaigo to retire to the nearby region of Yoshino, where the emperor established the so-called Southern Court and challenged the legitimacy of the Northern
Court in Kyoto. Thereafter, Chikafusa remained a key figure in the activities of the Southern Court.
Chikafusa’s eldest son, Akiie, in 1335 returned to Mutsu in the service of Prince Yoshinaga, but in 1337 he was ordered by Emperor Godaigo to march west and attack the forces loyal to Takauji. He died in battle in 1338 at an engagement at Ishizu in Izumi. The same year, Chikafusa set out from Ise with his second son, Akinobu, who had been appointed to replace Akiie as assistant governor of Mutsu, and Prince Norinaga. At sea the ships en-countered a severe storm, and Prince Norinaga and Akinobu were driven back to Ise. Chikafusa managed to reach the coast of Hitachi, where he established bases of power in the castles of Oda and Seki. With the fall of the castle of Seki in 1343, however, he returned to Yoshino.
Thereafter he joined forces w'itli Kusunoki Masatsura in an attempt to seize control of Kyoto. They were successful for a time, but Masatsura was killed in battle in 1348, and thereafter the military power of the Southern Court declined rapidly. Chikafusa died in 1454 at Ano, where the Southern Court had moved some years before.