As Hideyoshi's Consort: Kaihime Exchanged for the Preservation of the Narita House

In July 1590, after the end of the Odawara expedition and the opening of Oshi Castle, Toyotomi Hideyoshi stood in the position of deciding the disposition of the Narita house.

Having sided with the Hōjō, the Narita house would ordinarily have been an object of forfeiture and execution.

But at this time Hideyoshi granted Narita Ujinaga his life. As the condition, Ujinaga's eldest daughter Kaihime was taken as Hideyoshi's consort.

The consort entry of a woman of the late Sengoku carried the element of a political transaction for the preservation of the family.

Through Kaihime's consort entry, the Narita house came to survive as the 20,000-koku Karasuyama domain in Shimotsuke Province.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi had multiple consorts; Kaihime was treated as 'the lady of the Kantō.

At the time of 1590, Hideyoshi was fifty-four; Kaihime was around twenty. An age difference of more than thirty years.

It falls within the usual range for consort relations of the warrior class of the time.

Hideyoshi had multiple women — the principal wife Kita-no-mandokoro (Nene), the consort Yodo-dono, and others.

Kaihime was treated as one among them.

Primary sources on Kaihime's days as Hideyoshi's consort are thin. Only fragmentary references appear in Edo-period-compiled sources such as the Taikōki.

After Hideyori was born in 1593, there are also accounts that Kaihime served as his attendant guardian; but this too contains elements of Edo-period narrative-making.

Kaihime's consort entry is a case that symbolizes the political function of women in the late Sengoku.

The story of a young woman exchanging her family's protection and her own life is transmitted, through the Edo-period narrative-making, to the present.

But Kaihime as historical fact remains only in fragmentary records.